Traps doing redonkulous damage on elite.

[Chai]

Traps on elite: working as intended.

Elite is not balanced for solo play. If you're out in elite all by yourself, then you have something to prove. Don't expect us to keep the kid gloves on.

This is sig worthy right here folks. Grab it while its hot off the presses.

I agree with this 100%.

[Phemt81]

It IS ridiculous, but only cause they do less damage on epic...

[Dandonk]

Traps on elite: working as intended.

Elite is not balanced for solo play. If you're out in elite all by yourself, then you have something to prove. Don't expect us to keep the kid gloves on.

Thank you

[honkuimushi]

Traps on elite: working as intended.

Elite is not balanced for solo play. If you're out in elite all by yourself, then you have something to prove. Don't expect us to keep the kid gloves on.

Though I think the larger point still stands-- why are traps constantly the most dangerous part of Elite dungeons? Shouldn't there be some relationship between the strength of the monsters and the strength of the traps? And this applies to parties as well. As it is now, especially in lower level quests, even parties that can easily handle all of the other parts of the dungeon will have multiple deaths trying to get through the traps.

This also extends to some of the Search and Spot targets. Running a new Rogue and some other low level characters on a new server, I constantly feel that if running on Elite, my Rogue has to be about 2 levels higher than my other melees just because of the traps. I can handle the combat just fine. Other lower level members of the party do just fine, but if I can't find the box and the party wipes on the trap, I'm the one who gets blamed. I ran an Elite Rest for the Restless with levels 4-6. I was level 6. I had full ranks in Search, 12 Int, Fox's, Heroism, Inspire Competence, Focusing Chant (Bard levels) and +3 Skill boost. And I could not find the box for the fire trap. Now I did only have a +3 search item, but I figured that those buffs would make up for it. In the end, after multiple deaths, 3 people of the 6 made it through the trap and finished the quest. So the last fight was easy enough for half the party to defeat easily, but that trap killed all but one and only half the party made it through after several tries. The level 4 melee and the level 5 Cleric could handle the fighting and healing on Elite, but the level 6 Rogue couldn't get the trap so the party almost failed. That seems off to me.

On another lowbie I did Tangleroot on Elite. Our Rogue went LD on part 5 so the party leader picked up a gold seal hireling for the last 2 parts. Who couldn't find the boxes for the traps in the last hallway. Luckily a couple of people survived the gauntlet and got the shrine door open. The only deaths we had on that run was in those traps.

Once Clerics get Raise Dead it changes a few things, but before that, I would suggest that the danger of traps and enemies should be fairly close. If a level 4 Barbarian can handle the monsters, a level 4 rogue should be able to handle the traps. It seems that traps scale so much faster than anything else in the quests. For extra chests, optionals, and the like, I can see increasing the difficulty(though I think that should apply to the combat too), but for the main parts of the quest, even Elite traps shouldn't one shot decently built and equipped characters. Right now it isn't that hard to compensate for a weak member of the party, unless that member is the Rogue. Should Elite require a Rogue? It doesn't require any other class. And what if your rogue drops, or can't do the traps, should you just forget doing the quest on Elite?

There has been a repeated argument about what Elite should mean and who should be running it. But it seems like what some people keep advocating for is that elite means that traps should do tons of damage, be really hard to save against, and have really high DCs to Search and Disable. That real "elite" players will time and dodge traps without being hit and those who can't should just stick with the lower difficulties. DDO is now a global game. Not every player is in the US and dodging traps are one of the more challenging activities when you're playing halfway around the world. My point of view has been that Elite is just another difficulty that requires a little more knowledge of the quest, a little more skill, and maybe being a couple of levels above the quest, but that most people will do most dungeons on Elite eventually. The favor system and the Tubine Rewards program certainly players them in that direction.

One quest line where Elite really seemed to be done well was the Phiarlan Carnival line. All of the parts of the quests got harder. There were extra fights and more spawns on Elite. Enemies were substituted. Elite was more than just making traps hurt.

It seemed that the original Epic was just what the usual "Elite is for the elite" crowd wanted. And from my recollections, they were about the only group that really cared about it. From what I've seen, all the changes since then seem to be aimed at making Epic more accessable and moving away form the "playground of the elite" strategy. So why should Elite suffer from those preconceptions.

Now I've gone on way longer than I intended, but this has been gnawing at me for a while. Traps are the new vermin-- the parts of the quest that are fine on Normal and Hard, but scale exponentially on Elite. The Brown Spider Princes that wipe the entire party at the beginning of Tangleroot. The named spider in Sunken Sewer that had parties recalling breaking and reforming if he showed up. Eventually it was decided that it didn't make sense that the spiders and scorpions in a quest should be 3x as hard as anything else and they were toned down. So I'm asking, why are traps 3x harder than anything else in Elite quests?

[Zenako]

Traps on elite: working as intended.

Elite is not balanced for solo play. If you're out in elite all by yourself, then you have something to prove. Don't expect us to keep the kid gloves on.

Bingo...FF must be rep farming here...since this is what a lot of long time players have always been saying. Elite should not just be cranking the dial another notch on the level meter.

The magnitude of the bump is about the same at all levels, but the percentage increase is most notable at low to mid levels. At the high levels, the DC's move from anyone can do it to someone needs to have the right gear and build to do it, which is as it should be on elite. At low levels, vets can simply overpower the traps with gear and not realize how much they are bumped in threat, it is only at the higher levels of threat that vets start to really see how much it hurts to fail that save.

[Solmage]

Traps on elite: working as intended.

Elite is not balanced for solo play. If you're out in elite all by yourself, then you have something to prove. Don't expect us to keep the kid gloves on.

++;

[Solmage]

Now, I'm sure there will be people who throw up the argument "DDO is a team game!", which I have no problem with. But sometimes teams don't include rogues, and contriving a reason to take them just doesn't seem like good game design.

One of the greatest parts of DDO, from what I've seen, is the ability to take nearly any combination of classes and builds into a run and come out victorious. And the only exception I've seen to this so far are the traps on elite, which force you to take a rogue or wipe, since there is no other option to bypass them other than disarm.

This is false. There are NO traps, on elite or anywhere else, that can't be avoided with skill, and this is by design. If you're on elite, without a rogue, on those quests, you're trying to prove something, well, go prove it, or else meekly ask for help from the friendly neighbourhood rogue who incidentally can't solo as well as you can, he'll be happy for the company.

"We need a rogue for STK elite!!" - no you don't, let my level 5 wizard handle it
"We need a rogue/evasion for Crucible Elite!" - no you don't, let my lvl 11 whatever handle it. etc etc.

What this game REALLY doesn't need is for elite to be nerfed more than it already was. In fact if dungeon scaling were removed from it completely I'd be happy.

[FlimsyFirewood]

Though I think the larger point still stands-- why are traps constantly the most dangerous part of Elite dungeons?

<snip>

So I'm asking, why are traps 3x harder than anything else in Elite quests?

Because we need to tune the rest of the experience up to be on par with traps, there are just more important things right now.

Now granted, this my own oh-so-humble opinion, but I find myself having the most fun playing a game - any game, be it table top RPG, computer, board, whatever - by how hard it makes me work to win.

If I only died twice during the dungeon run... I'm not dying hard enough.

Some people don't like to play hard. That's why we have 'normal'.

[Chai]

The mobs seemed alot tougher when we had perminent debuffs and perminent curses. When not buying pots beforehand means your min maxed barbarian who had 22 str entering a low level dungeon now has 14 str after 2 failed saves (initial and 1 min later) on elite and the stat damage didnt go away, and then on top of that you got a perminent curse for another -4 to hit. Nowdays alot of that stuff goes away at a point per minute and can be shrined off.

Traps on the other hand havent really changed much in their level of danger. Elite traps are killers.

[suszterpatt]

Because we need to tune the rest of the experience up to be on par with traps, there are just more important things right now.

Now granted, this my own oh-so-humble opinion, but I find myself having the most fun playing a game - any game, be it table top RPG, computer, board, whatever - by how hard it makes me work to win.

If I only died twice during the dungeon run... I'm not dying hard enough.

Some people don't like to play hard. That's why we have 'normal'.

Have a look here.

Apparently Elite difficulty isn't supposed to be actually difficult, otherwise grinding XP on multiple TR's would take even longer!

[Aashrym]

If I only died twice during the dungeon run... I'm not dying hard enough.

This is quote worthy.

[Requiro]

Because we need to tune the rest of the experience up to be on par with traps, there are just more important things right now.

Now granted, this my own oh-so-humble opinion, but I find myself having the most fun playing a game - any game, be it table top RPG, computer, board, whatever - by how hard it makes me work to win.

If I only died twice during the dungeon run... I'm not dying hard enough.

Some people don't like to play hard. That's why we have 'normal'.

Well said again, especially sentence in red color

This should be rule no.1 for all players.

[bobbryan2]

I, for one, agree with the OP.

I've thought it's dumb that the hardest part of running elite quests at level is the traps. When thinking about the Co6 chain... I don't even seriously wonder about the overpowered mephits... it's all about getting through the blade trap on the right side.

Partycrashers... the same thing.

I don't mind traps being a difficult obstacle... but in many cases.. they're the only obstacle. I don't know where traps became the quintessential thing to plan for in quests.

[Cyr]

Because we need to tune the rest of the experience up to be on par with traps, there are just more important things right now.

Now granted, this my own oh-so-humble opinion, but I find myself having the most fun playing a game - any game, be it table top RPG, computer, board, whatever - by how hard it makes me work to win.

If I only died twice during the dungeon run... I'm not dying hard enough.

Some people don't like to play hard. That's why we have 'normal'.

That is nice and all, but what actually happens because of this is that we end up with is people following the incentives. Unless there are very strong incentives to run the harder content then people do not generally do it.

If you make elite silly hard and normal silly easy you end up with too wide of a difficulty gap to bridge with the rather unremarkable scaling of xp and loot that you assign these different settings.

Honestly I read posts like this from developers and then see another five about how you can't ignore casual players and you end up with exactly the wrong design strategy...one that rewards taking the easy path.

Having the same loot available in n/h/e settings is a big part of this incentive gap at end game (whatever that happened to be), until epic became a setting that did not allow for a pass for easy mode gaming. Hopefully you didn't repeat this classic mistake with the new U11 raids.

In summary, I agree harder IS fun. However, what is more important is that the harder stuff grants much better rewards so that the only people who do the lesser settings are those who can not yet handle the harder settings or if their group can not handle them.

[Magil]

Because we need to tune the rest of the experience up to be on par with traps, there are just more important things right now.

Now granted, this my own oh-so-humble opinion, but I find myself having the most fun playing a game - any game, be it table top RPG, computer, board, whatever - by how hard it makes me work to win.

If I only died twice during the dungeon run... I'm not dying hard enough.

Some people don't like to play hard. That's why we have 'normal'.

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to FlimsyFirewood again."

You're just doing this on purpose, aren't you!?

But I agree whole-heartedly.

Your breaking into your enemies home / someplace they've stolen / etc... Traps are like their deadbolt locks, they don't want you there.

They WANT you DEAD. Killed. They want your head in a corner popping up out of the spiraling spinning blades to make other people go, "Maybe I should just go home now." This game is as much about you breaking and entering as it is them trying to protect themselves.

After all, I'm sure Mr. Bugbear wants to go home to his wife and kids alive, in one piece.

[gloopygloop]

Some people don't like to play hard. That's why we have 'normal'.

I love this perspective. People complain about DDO being too hard. Other people complain about DDO being too easy. But we have Normal/Hard/Elite as options while leveling up. I would love to see Elite get a bit harder and actually offer something worthwhile in return.

[Shade]

If I only died twice during the dungeon run... I'm not dying hard enough.

QFT.

Time for a new difficulty setting:
Epic - Nightmare: Die Harder!

[moorewr]

Traps on elite: working as intended.

Elite is not balanced for solo play. If you're out in elite all by yourself, then you have something to prove. Don't expect us to keep the kid gloves on.

Never change, FF.

[sirgog]

Because we need to tune the rest of the experience up to be on par with traps, there are just more important things right now.

Now granted, this my own oh-so-humble opinion, but I find myself having the most fun playing a game - any game, be it table top RPG, computer, board, whatever - by how hard it makes me work to win.

If I only died twice during the dungeon run... I'm not dying hard enough.

Some people don't like to play hard. That's why we have 'normal'.

I'm like this too.

Problem is, the harder Elite becomes, the further it falls behind Normal in loot/minute and XP/minute.

I think the right level of scaling up from Normal to Elite can be seen in the Red Fens and newer packs, as well as in VOD, the Reaver's Refuge and the Gianthold Tor dragon fights. But the XP and loot rewards just aren't appropriate for the extra challenge.

Try to get a group together on the live servers for the elite Gianthold Tor dragon fights, for instance. Guildies will usually be too focused on getting back to 20 ASAP. Or they'll run it twice on Normal in the same time. And as for PUGgers - usually PUGging the hardest content in the game ends poorly.

[shores11]

So I've been doing a lot of Soloing lately. Got my FvS up to level 12 and am still going strong. But I noticed when I went back to fill out some of my favor on elite runs of low level quest(level 5/6) I ran into an issue where I was actually getting killed for the first time since the Red-named Beholder in "The Jungle of Khyber"(and he only got me twice before I took him down).

Traps on elite difficulty just seem massively over-tuned. My FvS fully buffed has a base of 198 HP at lvl 12, with an additional +21 from Aid, and 5/adam DR. Physical traps often one-shot me if I happen to fail a single save, with traps often hitting 3-5 times. Elemental based traps also do horrendous damage, even through res30 and 120 points of protection. I've been dropped to less than 20 HP by some elemental traps even through all that.

To me this seems a little ridiculous. Even though the quest is on elite difficulty, it doesn't seem quite right for traps to be able to take down a player 5 levels above the quest with that many HP and resistances. What it seems like to me is a gimmick to force players to either take evasion, or more likely, to bring a trapmonkey along for the ride.

Now, I'm sure there will be people who throw up the argument "DDO is a team game!", which I have no problem with. But sometimes teams don't include rogues, and contriving a reason to take them just doesn't seem like good game design.

One of the greatest parts of DDO, from what I've seen, is the ability to take nearly any combination of classes and builds into a run and come out victorious. And the only exception I've seen to this so far are the traps on elite, which force you to take a rogue or wipe, since there is no other option to bypass them other than disarm.

Now, granted these situations are few and far between, and really only amount to an annoyance in the long run since doing every single quest on elite isn't a mandatory part of the game. Its just something that I noticed that really bothered me, since in almost every other situation I was able to figure out a way to work around an obstacle.

NOTE: I understand that there were rogue hirelings available at one point, but they were disabled due problems with them or something? Any word on when they're returning? Also, I guess you can buy a rogue hireling for TP, but that seems like a terrible terrible waste of hard-earned TP for only a few runs. Are there any other options available for overcoming these redonkulous traps on elite runs?

/not signed

I not signed this post just in case your serious. But I hope that you are not serious as traps have been nerfed so many times in the life of DDO that it is almost completely not needed to even accept a rogue in almost all quests.

Your solo'ing on elite and want the traps nerfed? Thats why solo/casual was created in the first place. If you can't handle elite then get out of the kitchen.