Make some changes to thunderholme raids

[legendkilleroll]

I'm sure this gets brought up every so often but anyway

During the duping times many made alot of the ingredients and will never need to run them again but for others it can be a pain for how much you need and how often the raids are ran

With MoD being so short and the amount of bypasses about I see alot of the groups doing multiple run, deathwyrm being longer and now almost a year old just don't think will happen

Id like to see some changes, maybe not all but some that could help

* Make the phlogs bta, people may have short numbers spread around different chars and its a long grind for them to hit that 30 number

* Tier3 down to 20 phlogs, even running the raids 20 times and selecting the 10 from reward list your most likely still going to be short, unless your with ppl who pass you, also think the ingot numbers are too high for the later tiers

* I made 1 t3 item and as I'm a class that has no need for it atm it just sits in cache, maybe have the yellow dopants break them down to get ings back

[Linvak]

On a side topic, another way to get comms. of heroiam would be nice for how little those raids are run. Maybe another reward from comms. of valor?

Anyway, I agree with you, it's quite the grind and rather discouraging at times.

[JOTMON]

I'm sure this gets brought up every so often but anyway

During the duping times many made alot of the ingredients and will never need to run them again but for others it can be a pain for how much you need and how often the raids are ran

With MoD being so short and the amount of bypasses about I see alot of the groups doing multiple run, deathwyrm being longer and now almost a year old just don't think will happen

Id like to see some changes, maybe not all but some that could help

* Make the phlogs bta, people may have short numbers spread around different chars and its a long grind for them to hit that 30 number

* Tier3 down to 20 phlogs, even running the raids 20 times and selecting the 10 from reward list your most likely still going to be short, unless your with ppl who pass you, also think the ingot numbers are too high for the later tiers

* I made 1 t3 item and as I'm a class that has no need for it atm it just sits in cache, maybe have the yellow dopants break them down to get ings back

Deathwyrm is still being run fairly regularly.
I don't care about others who took advantage, people are still running raids and actually playing the game to get stuff.

MOD is newer and has great stuff, so I would expect to see more people there.

BTA phlogistons would be fine by me.
This would actually make it more likely for me to run multiple toons through there that don't have a current need for the items.
(some are in alternate lives/doing TR's, ETR's and future plans for TR's)

Ingredients are high, but I wouldn't change this part, instead I would like to see guaranteed drop on norm, 2x drop on hard and 4x drop on elite.
The game needs better motivation to run harder difficulties. instead of farming norms for 20th reward lists.

Deconstruction.. perhaps... don't have much to add here, after years of messed up greensteel shards thrown away, you eventually learn to be cautious in crafting items with expensive resources.

[axel15810]

Get rid of the mirror puzzles! Or at least all but the first one. I'd actually be OK with the 30 phlog requirement if they did that.

Not one person I've met in game enjoys those mirror puzzles. They're overly tedious and repetitive - they're a big roadblock to the rest of the raid. And worst of all, they can only be done by 1 or 2 players at a time, leaving the other 10 players in the raid with little to do but pike.

If we're going to keep them, yes 30 phlogs feel too high. 20 seems right. Because of the risk of a lag wipe at the end fight I don't feel comfortable running anything but epic normal. Tell me if I'm wrong, but to get 30 phlogs running only epic normals you'll need at least one set of 10 phlogs from a 20th reward list. The drop rate of phlogs seems to be about 50% to me on EN, so you'll probably need a full 40 runs to get those 30 phlogs unless you get really lucky on your phlog chest drops.

I love the raid other than the mirror puzzles. All the various rooms - red light green light, gravity, trap room, portal puzzle, ect. are great fun and well designed and require party coordination as they should in a raid. The endfight is one of my favorites in DDO.

But the mirror puzzles are just not good raid design, everyone should always have something to do in a raid at all times. This is why the puzzles in shroud were so awesome, everyone had one to do. Deathwyrm should have followed that formula - a little puzzle for everyone to do, not one big puzzle that only lets 1 or 2 players participate in the raid.

[Enoach]

Get rid of the mirror puzzles! Or at least all but the first one. I'd actually be OK with the 30 phlog requirement if they did that.

Not one person I've met in game enjoys those mirror puzzles. They're overly tedious and repetitive - they're a big roadblock to the rest of the raid. And worst of all, they can only be done by 1 or 2 players at a time, leaving the other 10 players in the raid with little to do but pike.

If we're going to keep them, yes 30 phlogs feel too high. 20 seems right. Because of the risk of a lag wipe at the end fight I don't feel comfortable running anything but epic normal. Tell me if I'm wrong, but to get 30 phlogs running only epic normals you'll need at least one set of 10 phlogs from a 20th reward list. The drop rate of phlogs seems to be about 50% to me on EN, so you'll probably need a full 40 runs to get those 30 phlogs unless you get really lucky on your phlog chest drops.

I love the raid other than the mirror puzzles. All the various rooms - red light green light, gravity, trap room, portal puzzle, ect. are great fun and well designed and require party coordination as they should in a raid. The endfight is one of my favorites in DDO.

But the mirror puzzles are just not good raid design, everyone should always have something to do in a raid at all times. This is why the puzzles in shroud were so awesome, everyone had one to do. Deathwyrm should have followed that formula - a little puzzle for everyone to do, not one big puzzle that only lets 1 or 2 players participate in the raid.

I'm actually ok with the phlogs being BTC. But I totally agree that the Mirror Levels was overdone. One set of Light/Dark side is fine, but I just feels like a forced filler like they were trying to add time to slow down the progression. Mind you they are not difficult once you understand the concept it is just that it feels tedious and like busy work to have as many as they do.

I agree all of the different rooms/puzzles are fun especially when you get to change it up and not always do the same ones to progress.

I would not be sad to see some of the puzzles pulled out to better fine tune what is otherwise a good raid.

[JOTMON]

Not one person I've met in game enjoys those mirror puzzles. They're overly tedious and repetitive - they're a big roadblock to the rest of the raid. And worst of all, they can only be done by 1 or 2 players at a time, leaving the other 10 players in the raid with little to do but pike.

.

Every player is capable of helping with puzzles or killing the trash mobs, they don't have to stand at the portal spawn waiting for 1 or 2 people to do all the work.
All they have to do is learn the puzzle pattern.
If 1 person is doing it from 1 side, the other can work from the end backwards.
If you have no clue... the outside corners have only 1 useful direction.. diagonal in towards the center.. anyone can run around the outside turning these inwards.
Realistically once people have become comfortable with the patterns.. all 12 people could be turning mirrors at the same time.

an easy way to play puzzles is to jump down after the raid is done and follow the patterns, play with the mirrors, just to see how straight forward it is.


Back in the day before the wiki had info on shroud only a few of us were puzzle keeners., many people would just run randomly on their puzzles until someone came and did it for them or they randomly solved.
Now a larger portion of players can solve their own puzzles or lookup solutions.
Now it is pretty uncommon to see more than 1 person have trouble with their puzzle.. still happens but uncommon.

[janave]

The BTA phlogs is a good idea, less passing around in chests but totally worth it if they become immune to cloning. 20-25 for t3 is also a good 1, this would help casters and dual-wielders a lot.

My plan is to make t3 from each raid, im about halfway, and probably thats my time with these raids. I may run MoD from time to time as changing my build might require a different item layout.

Once i reach the next 20 in FoT, MoD, Peaks and Wyrm, it is highly unlikely i join any of the groups, altho i kinda like how a competent group speedrun them (except wyrm, its too long for me), plus i dont like how xyz builds currently can solo handle group objectives... total lameness that cheat builds are supported.

[Oxarhamar]

Every player is capable of helping with puzzles or killing the trash mobs, they don't have to stand at the portal spawn waiting for 1 or 2 people to do all the work.
All they have to do is learn the puzzle pattern.
If 1 person is doing it from 1 side, the other can work from the end backwards.
If you have no clue... the outside corners have only 1 useful direction.. diagonal in towards the center.. anyone can run around the outside turning these inwards.
Realistically once people have become comfortable with the patterns.. all 12 people could be turning mirrors at the same time.

an easy way to play puzzles is to jump down after the raid is done and follow the patterns, play with the mirrors, just to see how straight forward it is.


Back in the day before the wiki had info on shroud only a few of us were puzzle keeners., many people would just run randomly on their puzzles until someone came and did it for them or they randomly solved.
Now a larger portion of players can solve their own puzzles or lookup solutions.
Now it is pretty uncommon to see more than 1 person have trouble with their puzzle.. still happens but uncommon.

Shroud puzzles are a bit different as making a mistake on them doesn't kill anyone outside of time constraint with the wall. And there is not coordination needed it's just soloing a puzzle not trying to get an entire raid group to set all the mirrors and be out of the way when the light is turned with no mistakes.


I'd much rather see half the party go to shadow puzzle side and half the party go to light puzzle side solving both sides as they go basically half the puzzles for each team.

[axel15810]

Every player is capable of helping with puzzles or killing the trash mobs, they don't have to stand at the portal spawn waiting for 1 or 2 people to do all the work.
All they have to do is learn the puzzle pattern.
If 1 person is doing it from 1 side, the other can work from the end backwards.
If you have no clue... the outside corners have only 1 useful direction.. diagonal in towards the center.. anyone can run around the outside turning these inwards.
Realistically once people have become comfortable with the patterns.. all 12 people could be turning mirrors at the same time.

an easy way to play puzzles is to jump down after the raid is done and follow the patterns, play with the mirrors, just to see how straight forward it is.

Still doesn't solve the problem of the puzzles being overly repetitive and tedious. That's the main issue.

What you're saying here would work in a well organized raid party full of people experienced with solving the puzzles. But in a PUG that's usually not the case, so 1 or 2 people end of doing it themselves. Besides, in most circumstances the leader would have a harder time organizing people to do the puzzle than if they just did the puzzle themselves.

And even in a perfect raid party, it doesn't solve the main problem here. It just lets the party get the puzzles over with faster. The puzzles are still tedious and repetitive.

[kmoustakas]

Shadowurm raid is more or less now what lob was a few years back. Until you see 'wilderness clear' or 'at battle room' you don't really join

Thankfully you can do that so it's only a real bother for the person setting up the lfm.

[legendkilleroll]

Not everyone is in a guild who raids regulary, or part of a channel, some people may even be in time zones whith less lfms

most of raids i do are pugs, plus im not a leader so wont put one up when i want to do one, will have to wait til i see one

Ofc lag can be a factor but also in pugs the communication can cause it to take longer than the raids in guild/channels

[slarden]

I'm sure this gets brought up every so often but anyway

During the duping times many made alot of the ingredients and will never need to run them again but for others it can be a pain for how much you need and how often the raids are ran

With MoD being so short and the amount of bypasses about I see alot of the groups doing multiple run, deathwyrm being longer and now almost a year old just don't think will happen

Id like to see some changes, maybe not all but some that could help

* Make the phlogs bta, people may have short numbers spread around different chars and its a long grind for them to hit that 30 number

* Tier3 down to 20 phlogs, even running the raids 20 times and selecting the 10 from reward list your most likely still going to be short, unless your with ppl who pass you, also think the ingot numbers are too high for the later tiers

* I made 1 t3 item and as I'm a class that has no need for it atm it just sits in cache, maybe have the yellow dopants break them down to get ings back

You are spot on. 20 phlogs and bta are both outstanding ways to increase the run rate of these raids. And they should provide a way to break down items for a partial return. It sounds like the divine grace nerf won't happen now, but I didn't play for almost 2 months after I found out about the nerf because I wasn't excited about respec'ing, but I was even less excited about running 40 deathwyrm raids when I see at most 1-2 per week.

/signed

[Wipey]

It's an old raid by now. When people actually help turning few mirrors instead of picking their nose on the stairs, it doesn't take that long.
Do the mirrors while they are fighting beholder or living armour, do the corners or few "last" ones.

Everybody can help.
It's like Shroud fountain where people would stand doing nothing because reasons.

Phlogs should have been bta from the start.

[Tesrali]

It's an old raid by now. When people actually help turning few mirrors instead of picking their nose on the stairs, it doesn't take that long.
Do the mirrors while they are fighting beholder or living armour, do the corners or few "last" ones.

Everybody can help.
It's like Shroud fountain where people would stand doing nothing because reasons.

+1, and wipey come help me do them =p

Some people don't like puzzles so never learned them, but at least 3-4 know em in the groups I'm in. That's all you need to make each puzzle room take 1-2min.

In other news. We could still take 1/2 of them out and make that an improvement to the raid.
An easy way to do this would be to make the first one already solved, and the last one dependent on the kill of 5 helmed horrors and a beholder.

Besides red-light-green-light I think all the puzzle choices at the first and second junctions have stood the test of time. All of em can be done at about equal speed depending on your group.

[SirValentine]

In other news. We could still take 1/2 of them out and make that an improvement to the raid.

How I feel about the mirror puzzles? Having 1 would be very cool. 2, pretty cool. 3, OK I guess, but a bit tedious. 4 is clearly too many. 6 is way too many.

Or...if there was a way for the party so split up and work on multiple puzzles simultaneously, the number would be fine. (Nobody says there's too many puzzles in Shroud Part 3, because they're all being worked on at the same time.)

[Merlin-ator]

/signed

Also, please reduce the number of mirror puzzles. One is fine. Two is less fine. 3 is overkill.

[FlaviusMaximus]

Get rid of the mirror puzzles! Or at least all but the first one.

Good point. The mirror puzzles are a fairly uninteresting time suck.