I dont understand what the devs consider fun

[Vormaerin]

bats in coal chamber. jumping around in bastion. this is not new. why are we talking about this now?

grab a caster to come along with you next run and have them finger those hags pronto.

Well, he didn't say what character he was playing. But at least two of the hags are not red named, IIRC. Sap, Stunning Blow, Trip, Assassinate, something... Every class can put some kind of disable or kill to put on them and whittle them down if it wants to.

[Kinerd]

I see someone who is generically whining about a quest that he or she doesn't like without any other useful feedback of what sort of quest is desired.

And if you look at statistics, chances are someone out there DOES think Caught in the Web is well made. I have no opinion of Caught pro or against.

Statistics get pretty interesting when you get out to a 0% or 100% chance. For instance, remember that time Turbine was going to require permanently consuming a Chattering Ring to make Greater Halfling Bane? Literally every one of the 250 or so people who responded to that thread were against that idea. Statistically this makes sense if you suppose that there is a 0% chance a rational human being would be for the idea. I would suggest Caught in the Web falls near enough to that category to lend credence to eonfreon's point.

Sometimes quests are just poorly made, and pretending that someone somewhere might like them is just insulting to 1) the designers 2) the player base and 3) yourself. This isn't a case of "damned if they do, damned if they don't" or "not every player agrees about everything". It's just a poorly made quest. We should make our feedback as honest as possible so that when it is absolutely ignored by Turbine we will get bonus points on the scoreboard of life.

[GermanicusMaximus]

I dont understand what the devs consider fun.

I think its unlikely that the devs play the game for fun. Instead, the servers probably cache every quest that is run, and if it results in a wipe, the entire run is then written to permanent storage. It is then reviewed, and the best ones are passed on to the devs for their viewing pleasure. Bonus points are probably awarded if there is audio of you screaming in pain as you suffer.

Admittedly, all of this would be very memory and hard drive intensive. Ever wonder why lag is never fixed?

There could be a video of your run playing right now in Turbine HQ. Congrats!

[Missing_Minds]

I would suggest Caught in the Web falls near enough to that category to lend credence to eonfreon's point.

*shrug* you are welcome to your opinion, as that is all it is.

Sometimes quests are just poorly made, and pretending that someone somewhere might like them is just insulting to 1) the designers 2) the player base and 3) yourself. This isn't a case of "damned if they do, damned if they don't" or "not every player agrees about everything". It's just a poorly made quest. We should make our feedback as honest as possible so that when it is absolutely ignored by Turbine we will get bonus points on the scoreboard of life.

There is a difference between bugs making quest be not enjoyable vs. design making the quest not enjoyable.
The first is empirical. The second is opinion.
We know for a fact that the quest is buggy as all get out, which is going to do nothing to help the later.

I stand by my statement that Ranncore did not give much in the way of usable feedback.

[Sonofmoradin]

If they make the game any easier, then the 10% of old veterans who play this game will leave. Also this 10% is most likely players who endured the black days of ddo when a server barely had 300 players online. and yet they stayed in the game and with their feedback they helped to create todays ddo which is a succesful game.

For the moment the top of the elite finds 2-3 quests and raids that are a challenge in the whole game. (MA EE, CitW EE and probably 2 -3 more)

Also, I have said that several times, there is no win without loosing. If we had a game were one can breeze all the content without ever loosing, then the game would have become boring.

Lastly, it is a team game. Do not expect to do elite quests/raids without a good team that can work well together, set aside gear and builds, the most efficiency comes from tactics and micromanagement.

[Raithe]

the most efficiency comes from tactics and micromanagement.

When you put those two words together, tactics AND micromanagement, all the fun of the first word seems to immediately get drained away.

People need to understand that there are different kinds of tactical fun. There is tactics as a group, tactics as an individual player, and then there are lame AI-thwarting or computerized-environment-thwarting tactics that to many, many people just ruin the entire point of playing.

For instance, it's probably possible to pull every mob in every quest, one at a time by going to the edge of its detection zone and firing at just the right spot near it, so only it hears the shot. Do the developers think that's fun? I hope not...

Epic elite is the epitome of bad game design in this fashion. It's simply not fun, no matter how challenging or not-so-challenging it is. Everything in epic elite is generally handled by computerized nonsense and overpowered gimmicks. Having level 25 characters play against CR 42 mobs just shows a complete lack of understanding how the D&D CR system was supposed to work.

Give me a CR 42 mob to play against the playerbase, and I'll wipe entire groups just about everytime, all by myself.

[Vint]

I bet they consider it fun to run a raid 74 times without getting them item that they wanted (in the raid or on a 20th).

[djl]

I see someone who is generically whining about a quest that he or she doesn't like without any other useful feedback of what sort of quest is desired.

And if you look at statistics, chances are someone out there DOES think Caught in the Web is well made. I have no opinion of Caught pro or against.

I think Caught in the Web is well-made. With a decent group, it's enjoyable and I like it because it is different. It's a nice deviation from the tank-and-spank formula that every other raid follows.

Does that mean I think it's perfect? No-- there are definitely things that could be better about it.

-- Having only weapons drop greatly detracts from the perceived value of the raid because it means only one of the items is of any use to any specific build but moreover, several builds that were completely ignored with the raid loot. In particular, greatsword and kopesh builds (two of the most popular melee builds) didn't get anything.

--I think the drop rates should improve with difficulty, particularly in terms of Heroic Coms. It's ****ing stupid to run an Epic Hard or heaven forbid an Epic Elite Web and get one item out of six chests for the entire party.

--For me, the most annoying part of the raid is that Lolth is too large and her hitbox is too small. Make her fight through an avatar and make it roughly the size of the Lord of Blades; i.e. an NPC that is noticeably larger than your characters but not so humongous that you can't even see the head of it when you're fighting it. This would also be a way to break up the perceived tedium of the raid-- if you had to actually fight a mobile boss with its own set of unique special attacks, instead of a training dummy whose only attack is laser beams.

Other than these things, I think the raid is well-made. I enjoy the visuals, and I like the overall concept of it.

[Sonofmoradin]

When you put those two words together, tactics AND micromanagement, all the fun of the first word seems to immediately get drained away.

People need to understand that there are different kinds of tactical fun. There is tactics as a group, tactics as an individual player, and then there are lame AI-thwarting or computerized-environment-thwarting tactics that to many, many people just ruin the entire point of playing.

For instance, it's probably possible to pull every mob in every quest, one at a time by going to the edge of its detection zone and firing at just the right spot near it, so only it hears the shot. Do the developers think that's fun? I hope not...

Epic elite is the epitome of bad game design in this fashion. It's simply not fun, no matter how challenging or not-so-challenging it is. Everything in epic elite is generally handled by computerized nonsense and overpowered gimmicks. Having level 25 characters play against CR 42 mobs just shows a complete lack of understanding how the D&D CR system was supposed to work.

Give me a CR 42 mob to play against the playerbase, and I'll wipe entire groups just about everytime, all by myself.

You got me wrong, but it is ok. Using AI mechanics to your advantage is close to exploiting, and thats not what I meant. On the other hand, playing a slow game with bards/rogues is one way, but that doesnt mean that brute force is not considered a tactic, too. If the Spell Points pools of a party are enough and effective to brute force, since we are talking of doing quests properly, then why not. The game is supposed to be fun, and inv running miles within the quest, or heal-scrolling a cart of scrolls in a raid, etc, do indeed spoil the fun, somehow for some. Many think ddo is business, but thats not the case, at least not for me.

[JOTMON]

I would rate Dungeon Alert as DDO's biggest programming failure.

It is a terrible paintbrush solution to resolve some zerg past quest mobs to the endboss/quick complete, or gathering mass mobs for aoe destruction.
Primarially done by casters, it punishes everyone else more.

It was the worst mechanic ever introduced into any game I have ever played.

Soon to be joined near the top annoyances list is the UMD lag that occurs in the midst of combat when anything that impacts umd changes like swapping any gear that impacts umd, equipping umd required items, equipping a scroll that requires umd to cast...etc....

[Thrudh]

DA in scripted encounter is bad. You can bug-report that. If you didn't have some DA built up from leaving other mobs behind, you should never walk into a room, and immediately go to yellow-alert or higher.

Disco balls... well, they are casters... two of them are not red-named so stun or trip them. Fight from range. Use Cyclonic Blast from the Windhowlers Bracers to blow away the dancing balls. Bring some friends.

Not every quest needs to be soloable by every single character class...

[bartharok]

I would rate Dungeon Alert as DDO's biggest programming failure.

It is a terrible paintbrush solution to resolve some zerg past quest mobs to the endboss/quick complete, or gathering mass mobs for aoe destruction.
Primarially done by casters, it punishes everyone else more.

It was the worst mechanic ever introduced into any game I have ever played.

Soon to be joined near the top annoyances list is the UMD lag that occurs in the midst of combat when anything that impacts umd changes like swapping any gear that impacts umd, equipping umd required items, equipping a scroll that requires umd to cast...etc....

Even a melee can avoid dungeon aelrt by not zerging, usually that is. And when ones does activate it, its usually pretty easy to kill enough mobs to end it. Of course, if you drag enough mobs along you before getting slowed youre in trouble, but then the question is, why did you do it.

And if you think DA is the worst game mechanic introduced, you havent played many games, methinks

[Satiera]

I think Caught in the Web is well-made....

For the most part I agree with your post and I'm glad you've made this point. I like the raid. I like the design, the sense of needing to escape, how its different from the same old raid we always run. Sure there are some things that could have been done differently but I still run it because I think its fun. Call me Crazy.

I wouldn't suggest every raid be made this way but I think its nice to have a different approach once in a while. I also have to wonder how many players are starting to enjoy it more now that some bugs have been worked out.

[Thrudh]

Even a melee can avoid dungeon aelrt by not zerging, usually that is. And when ones does activate it, its usually pretty easy to kill enough mobs to end it. Of course, if you drag enough mobs along you before getting slowed youre in trouble, but then the question is, why did you do it.

Exactly. Dungeon Alert is trivial to avoid in 99% of the dungeons in this game.

If you hate it as a melee, don't let go past green. Not really rocket science.

[Postumus]

Statistically this makes sense if you suppose that there is a 0% chance a rational human being would be for the idea. I would suggest Caught in the Web falls near enough to that category to lend credence to eonfreon's point.

I've seen at least two posts where people said they ENJOYED Caught in the Web. Four now if you count the two posts in this thread. I've seen about half a dozen others who have rated Caught in the Web as 'OK but I don't see running it much.'

So eonfreon is incorrect.

[Postumus]

Catching up on some favor so I start The Riddle on elite. Going great until I hit the three hags. They summon a ton of skeletons and it immediately goes into yellow dungeon alert and I get slowed. I manage to move around a bit until one of the many spammed disco balls get me. I am surrounded by about 20 skeletons and eventually killed. Am I missing something here? Is it really WAI that a scripted encounter puts you in DA? If constantly being slowed and danced is so fun for the devs, why not just make them permanent? I would log in and my toon would be slowed and dancing. That would be the entire game. Sounds really fun.

I ran this with a full party of L17s & 18s on elite two weeks ago and we didn't have a problem with DA.

I ran it last week with a four man party of L18s on elite and did not have the problems with DA you are describing.

You just need to kill faster. Which is probably difficult for some builds if they solo. But for groups, in my experience, this quest seems just fine.

[Archangel666]

Exactly. Dungeon Alert is trivial to avoid in 99% of the dungeons in this game.

If you hate it as a melee, don't let go past green. Not really rocket science.

I have to disagree with you here.

I ran The Riddle the other week on elite, there was just my Druid and a friend on her Cleric (Should point out that there were three of us originally but he DC'd after entering and never came back).

We got to the part the OP is talking about and what happened?

Hags instantly spawned so many Animated Armours that we hit Red Alert.

In seconds.

There wasn't a single mob left alive in the quest up to that point, we'd been meticulous and killed everything.

So many mobs made it impossible to not get hit at least once.

Getting hit meant getting Harried.

So now, Harried and getting swarmed by mobs which due to the Harried effect I couldn't jump over they then proceeded to pummel my poor lil Druid into the ground.

Couldn't cast spells very well because I was getting hammered constantly.

Couldn't melee really because I was moving so slowly and completely surrounded.


Should a single encounter really be like this?

Zerging past everything and then getting Harried, sure I can agree with that.

But for a single encounter to instantly spawn enough mobs to take you to Red Alert?

I'm calling that complete BS.

[bartharok]

I know the part, and the first time i went there solo i got harried and started dancing. The second time i knew what to expect and didnt. You got to adapt your strategy to the quest, and not the other way around.

[Missing_Minds]

I have to disagree with you here.

Arch, he didn't say 100%, he said 99%.

And that would be a scripted encounter he was talking about, such that his previous post is accurate.

DA in scripted encounter is bad. You can bug-report that. If you didn't have some DA built up from leaving other mobs behind, you should never walk into a room, and immediately go to yellow-alert or higher.

But we know how fast Turbine gets a handle on these things to actually fix them so they aren't a hindrance to the player base.

[Talam]

I agree that working through a whole quest only to find the final boss fight is impossible isn't any fun. I play most of the time in a static three player group. We did every quest in the game (with a couple exceptions) on elite, at level to get bb, no trapmonkey, until we were level 17. Yes, a few deaths in real tough challenges, but not too many. From that point on, very few quests were able to complete. We would get all the way to the end fight and wipe. Basically, have to go to full group at that point and really use good tactics to finish most of them. You can argue that is the way the game should be. I would argue that dungeon scaling should take care of it. Why make a mob with a gazillion HP that spams level reduction, feblemind, etc... at you until you're helpless all while summoning mass amounts of trash mobs to deal with at the end to wipe you. Not fun.