|
LotRO also lost a fair few people but since they just launched an expansion not too long ago and and because I don't follow it I have no idea how substantial it is. Similar story with their new MOBA game. The devs have eluded to upgrading old packs for epic and tweaking them as they go, maybe that's still viable with a skeleton crew.
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2014 02:53
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 17, 2024 16:38 |
|
|
Yeah, U22 is getting us Epic Three Barrel Cove. Which they said, in the past, they'd want to restructure some of the quest maps in there and such too. Who knows if that'll happen now or if it'll just be a numbers bump. I don't mind epicing lower level content in particular since then you can see it and benefit from it as an ITR/ETR, but I hope these latest layoffs are more restructuring and less death knell =-(
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2014 02:54
|
|
|
DemonMage posted:[Edit] Basically gently caress Atari. Turbine's made their share of mistakes over the years in handling and updating DDO, but Atari hurt them so bad at the original launch and the giant lull before F2P. They came back strong as one of the first F2P games, and it seemed to be sustaining pretty well, but I can only imagine how the game would have turned out if they didn't have to limp along thanks largely in part to Atari for so many years. So yeah I dont anything about the game before it went F2P. What happened?
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2014 03:27
|
|
|
Keeping in mind this is to some degree speculation and what not, since the companies are bound by NDAs. Atari had the publishing rights for DDO, as it does for all electronic D&D games for the past 20 years or whatever. Part of being a publisher is that they get the burden of doing advertising and pushing to get people buying/playing the game. Atari failed miserably on this. They did some advertising prior to the launch, and then after it launched they basically dead stopped but expected to continue being paid for their "services". This continued for years with Turbine being unable to do a whole lot about it since they didn't own the publishing rights. Speculation was they were trying to kill the game off since they were working hard on the original version of Neverwinter before it got turned into the mess it is today and they didn't think there was room for two D&D MMOs. And then after Mod 8 shipped (and level cap was 16 since Mod 6), there was no content updates for a year with no word for 6 months or so. Then we were told something "Vast and Mysterious" was coming, and they kept saying that for 4~ months. Then they were finally able to say they were suing Atari for the publishing rights to the game, and part of that process meant they were not allowed to update DDO nor say they were in legal proceedings with Atari. Atari of course counter-sued saying that Turbine had failed to pay them for services rendered and all that jazz, which given the lack of service there, seemed pretty bullshit. In the end Turbine got the publishing rights at least, and were able to launch Mod 9 aka Eberron Unlimited with the Shavarath pack, FvS, level 20 cap, and F2P and the game got a huge resurgence. Since then (August 31st, 2009) Turbine has done a good job of staying on schedule of providing 4 content updates a year (every 3 months) generally, and we've got some really cool stuff from it. Lately though it's been trending downhill with smaller updates (sans the Enhancement Pass) and questionable system decisions (CoV drop rate, or even needing something annoying to get to TR etc). Shadowfell was a significantly weaker expansion pack in most every way than MotU, and I'm hoping that they learned from that and we'll see them going back to awesome decent sized updates, but the layoffs are worrying.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2014 06:18
|
|
|
There was also the Codemasters thing. Turbine picked them as the European publishers, I don't know any of the details but apparently they were pretty bad from what ex players have told me. Codemasters also delayed moving to the FTP model for a year or so, after that year they just let Turbine take over the accounts. Probably something Turbine wish they did from the start.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2014 06:38
|
|
|
Update 21 is out, with Haunted Halls of Eveningstar, two level 30 raids in Thunderholme, and epic moments finally work even with intra-quest zoning. The new divine destiny is coming in 21.1 since they're basically doing a minor rework of the Divine Sphere when it comes out, including moving Renewal to Unyielding Sentinel and giving Angel Mass CLW as a core ability. You can also buy an extra bag slot in the store, with more slots coming later on as long as this doesn't cause any funky problems.
|
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2014 20:07
|
|
|
Goddamnit, I'm only level 25 at the moment (curse you commendation of valor grind!). At least we should get a lot more activity so that will be good. I was really hankering for some new content.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2014 01:04
|
|
|
Two-manned Haunted halls at 26 on normal with a buddy and it was pretty fun. We each died a handful of times (given the quest was level 28 and some of the poo poo in there -hurt-), but we completed every possible optional on a first time run-through(more stuff unlocks a second time. Saving that for another day since this one took multiple hours). There was a decent bit of variety, some of the boss stuff was cool. The music, atmosphere and layout was pretty good and the "story" was well-done. I've never run this campaign on pen and paper so I don't know how faithful it is to that, but all the dev dairies said they've tried to get it to be as close as possible given their assets and resources, which definitely becomes apparent in the playthrough. All of the encounters and the set-up has a very old-school feel to it that I can't quite describe. There are all these little flourishes like bloodstains and whatnot near traps, amusing little set-pieces and an over-all sense of most things being hand-built. Unfortunately there are a few bugs and possibly unintended stuff. One of the optional bosses you can jump on a bedframe and avoid most of the damage, another optional allows you to basically let the adds fight the boss for you (might be intended since it thematically makes sense) and the primary story boss is pretty easy to kite around if you have a good enough reflex save and a ranged weapon so you can avoid the (very) slow moving adds. Mostly you really, really need some form of viable ranged options since a full melee party would have a brutal time of it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2014 06:50
|
|
|
I played through it on EN solo, except my summonable panther to use his STR to open certain doors and levers, because there are some devious trap rooms with STR-required levers. Explored as much as I could and it took me about an hour, at the end there were two jewel-locked chests and two jewel-locked doors, I guess they are part of the alternate paths that unlock afterwards.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2014 10:28
|
|
|
If I came back, what would I be looking to drop in terms of cash for expansions? The last thing I paid for the was the crack in the wall that led to FR, has there been significant expansion content since then, or is the plan still 'go VIP and you'll get most packs'?
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2014 10:35
|
|
|
VIP gets you all non-expansion packs, but you'd still want Menace of the Underdark and likely Shadowfell Conspiracy, you could probably get away with not having the latter. Shadowfell is $30 for the standard and gives you 1k TP along with it. Menace is $20 for the Base edition which doesn't include Druids or Eveningstar challenges, but those are included as part of VIP. The best value VIP sub right now is $30/3 months, you don't commit for super long but it brings you down to only $10/month. If you're not VIP, you'd also be missing: The Druid's Deep (550 TP, 17/23, 4 quests), High Roads of Shadow (750 TP, 18/24, 5 quests), Haunted Halls of Eveningstar (?? cost, 1 quest, extra long multiple paths), Thunderholme (?? cost, 1 explorer area, 2 level 30 raids). Plus any old content you didn't have. Without Menace you don't have access to three good packs, plus the big one being Epic Destinies, which is where 95% of your power growth comes from 20+. Shadowfell also gives you access to the Purple Dragon Knight Fighter Iconic Hero race with Standard, CE gives you access to all of them (Shadar-Kai Rogue, Sun Elf Cleric, Bladeforged Paladin) for $50 or you can also buy them for 1295 TP each. I'd say grab Menace and run around for awhile, if you're having fun, pick up a VIP sub or buy packs. If you want to use an Iconic race to Reincarnate into, then pick up the races or the CE of Shadowfell. The content in Shadowfell is fun, but you can probably get by without it, and most of the gear there isn't super important (though some of it is rather nice). [Edit] You can also buy destinies for 995 TP. Menace packs for 2495 TP. Packs + Destinies + Challenges for 3995 TP. + Druids for 4995 TP. Doesn't really seem worth it over the $20/35 editions you can buy on the web store, but useful if you have points laying around maybe. Shadowfell standard (2 packs + PDK) is 2495, Complete (includes the extra 3 races) is 4495. DemonMage fucked around with this message at 13:15 on Mar 11, 2014 |
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2014 13:08
|
|
|
I think he already has MOTU since Lords of Dust chain was free, not something you could pay for. Shadowfall seems to have tons of excellent, if boring, loot and people seemed to have been mostly annoyed by the fact that it didn't have a raid (which is pretty weird). I've managed without it now for a month or so that I've been playing after returning, but I'm thinking of buying it for some more quest variety.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2014 13:44
|
|
|
srb posted:I played through it on EN solo, except my summonable panther to use his STR to open certain doors and levers, because there are some devious trap rooms with STR-required levers. Explored as much as I could and it took me about an hour, at the end there were two jewel-locked chests and two jewel-locked doors, I guess they are part of the alternate paths that unlock afterwards. If you explore everything, you'll have three jewel keys at the end. We opened the left-most chest and the two doors. No idea what the other chests do.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2014 18:00
|
|
|
Yeah I played through it again and found more keys, like in the hearth. There's also a secret door behind the throne that leads to a pretty ridiculous encounter, the one you mentioned with the bed frame, which did not seem to work for me for staying safe.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2014 18:03
|
|
|
We need to get some goon runs of this going asap. I want to see this content and not be either a) triggering traps everyone else knows about or b) wondering aimlessly after the guy who memorised the quest.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2014 23:21
|
|
|
srb posted:Yeah I played through it again and found more keys, like in the hearth. There's also a secret door behind the throne that leads to a pretty ridiculous encounter, the one you mentioned with the bed frame, which did not seem to work for me for staying safe. They can get to you unless you position it just so. Also the shock damage can still hurt you. You just have to take it slow and watch for the debuff. I intagibbed my buddy 'cause he didn't have enough reflex and I was manying. 
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2014 01:53
|
|
|
Alright so I finally finished both the raid and maaaaan. poo poo got real. The two dragons at the top of the mountain isn't too bad if the group can just maintain their focus and are appropriately equipped but geeez the shadow raid is tough. I think I'm going to need optimal turbo build caisha/valista to be involved to do that consistently.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2014 11:05
|
|
|
Valisti and I don't even run super optimized builds usually! We aim for a baseline survivability, healing, and sustainability in all of our builds so that they're solid solo/duo, but beyond that they're as often gimmicky as optimized. I mean we don't go out of our way to make poor choices and we have access to solid end game gear, though not BIS usually, so that helps a lot. We haven't really had a chance to run the new stuff yet, though maybe soon, it looks to be pretty cool stuff. And it's rare to see as much praise heaped on the raids as I've seen so far, which is nice.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2014 12:59
|
|
|
I always end up buying every expansion, coming back for a week or two, and then losing interest for... Some reason. I buy it because I love the game, but I guess I end up wanting to play with people and never being able to catch them on at good times. My gimmicky stick ftr/rog/drd, whom I want to TR the moment it hits 20 (unless it gets better), is 15. Are any of you doing 1-20 jaunts still? If so, could you drop me a PM when you hit 15ish so I could come along for the ride? This current life keeps getting me demoralized and I want to get to like, a Cleric or FVS life. To think I used to want to Completionist my main. I should've stayed Monk.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2014 18:28
|
|
|
Tsurupettan posted:I always end up buying every expansion, coming back for a week or two, and then losing interest for... Some reason. I buy it because I love the game, but I guess I end up wanting to play with people and never being able to catch them on at good times. My gimmicky stick ftr/rog/drd, whom I want to TR the moment it hits 20 (unless it gets better), is 15. Are any of you doing 1-20 jaunts still? If so, could you drop me a PM when you hit 15ish so I could come along for the ride? This current life keeps getting me demoralized and I want to get to like, a Cleric or FVS life. The lack of people is what kills me too. I really love this game, especially the combat and adventuring system but because I live in New Zealand, anything in my primetime is an absolute dead zone. I've seen 12-15 LFGs open at any one time during US evenings, but when I go to play, I'm lucky if there's 3, and even then they're specialty runs. In the end I buy a hireling, try to run a quest or two, then get bored and stop playing until I get the itch again. It's really unfortunate.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2014 01:48
|
|
|
Brain In A Jar posted:The lack of people is what kills me too. I really love this game, especially the combat and adventuring system but because I live in New Zealand, anything in my primetime is an absolute dead zone. I've seen 12-15 LFGs open at any one time during US evenings, but when I go to play, I'm lucky if there's 3, and even then they're specialty runs. Yeah its definitely painful, I'm in australia so i'm slightly better off but its super difficult sometimes to find the group. Thankfully everyone is spamming the end game content so its not horrendously bad.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2014 02:05
|
|
|
U21.1 is up on Lammania now. Has a bunch of bug fixes and includes the new divine destiny and the changes there. Overall looks pretty positive, really looking forward to being able to twist in a Tier 1 ability to give +35 all resists. Better than shrines and don't have to deal with going back for it, shrines are still worthwhile but less of a big deal if you can free up a slot for that. Makes Epic Completionist a lot more valuable, as that's a super solid Tier 1 choice for any character type.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2014 22:50
|
|
|
21.1 is now out on the live servers. Main changes are adding Divine Crusader and messing with the Divine sphere in general.
So nothing super awesome, but a few nice changes in there. The Divine rework and new destiny is always nice too. Funny that they bothered to give Ruin a spell graphic, but haven't done anything to make it actually worth taking. Also Divine Energy Resistance is 300/150/75 spellpoints, is effected by Metamagic like Quicken and Extend, and buffs all resists simultaneously. One quick, relatively cheap (at rank 3) cast gets your whole group buffed with +35 to all resists. Very nice. DemonMage fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Apr 7, 2014 |
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2014 21:43
|
|
|
DemonMage posted:
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31g0YE61PLQ
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2014 00:08
|
|
|
Yeah that was pretty much Valisti's response to that patch note =-p
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2014 00:55
|
|
|
DemonMage posted:
This is the single greatest DDO update in the history of the game.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2014 02:46
|
|
|
I liked it better when you could actively dodge giant swings, the attack physically landing determining at the start of the swing, rather than the end, was one of the worst changes they made =-( This'll at least lower the annoyance factor of giants by a fair amount.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2014 11:10
|
|
|
So if I'm just starting out again in this game after having been gone for a couple of years and not having spent any money on it, what would be a good way to build a Wizard? I like the idea of casting every spell ever.
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2014 00:54
|
|
|
Crono S. Magnum posted:So if I'm just starting out again in this game after having been gone for a couple of years and not having spent any money on it, what would be a good way to build a Wizard? I like the idea of casting every spell ever. If your going with no money and nothing unlocked then I would say be a Human Wizard (Drow is better if you have it though), max out Int, dump strength and charisma and put everything left over into Con. Feats are a little personal but grabbing toughness, Maximize Spell and Insightful Reflexes. On to spells: grab mage armour, shield and master touch (plus niacs cold ray and burning hands for damage). Then just grab a great-axe and melee your way through tutorial island. That should get you to level 4-5 without much difficulty adding some spells on top. Long term pale masters a safe bet, gives you some stat bonuses and self healing which is really handy for new players. Heres a good long term guide: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/405017-Pale-Master-Guide
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2014 03:07
|
|
|
DemonMage posted:I liked it better when you could actively dodge giant swings, the attack physically landing determining at the start of the swing, rather than the end, was one of the worst changes they made =-( This'll at least lower the annoyance factor of giants by a fair amount. I got lucky when I started playing and ran a lot with some very knowledgeable founders/old school players, learnt some incredibly arcane tricks. Like if you jump when a giant stomps with the right timing you take no damage and have zero risk of a knockdown, using the audio to run through traps instead of the visuals as they sync better even with high latency and cool AI exploits that weren't needed until epic came about. Edit: haven't been able to play in a while, so how ridiculous is Divine Crusader? On paper it looks incredible. Woden fucked around with this message at 09:54 on Apr 11, 2014 |
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2014 09:41
|
|
|
Woden posted:When did that change? I do remember it used to be much easier to avoid their melee attacks at some point in the past. It's been quite awhile. I don't know specifically when since I didn't care overly much about it, but it sure is irritating in Breaking the Ranks (and sometimes in Tor). It turns it from being a nice change of pace into super irritating. At least with displacement it'll be a minimum of 50% chance of not being flung around constantly. [Edit] Also jumping doesn't seem to work as well either, possibly not at all. It might just be a tighter timing window these days. DemonMage fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Apr 12, 2014 |
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2014 00:07
|
|
|
Anyone got a level 10ish character to run some dungeons with my arcane archer? Thinking about starting up again where I left off a few months back but soloing is getting harder and I hate pubbing because I always get teamed up with some superstar monk/fighter/sorcerer/barbarian on his 51st reincarnation, speedrunning through content with me popping haste potions just trying to keep up.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2014 12:46
|
|
|
Swashbuckler early tree info is up. Including that they'll be creating a new Single Wielding style and line of feats (which makes sense for Swashbuckler at least) with Dodge/Armor Piercing. Also I've seen a few people around on 10s lately Krowley, but Valisti and I probably won't be around that level anytime soon, even once we hit 28 again, likely to ITR which takes us back down to 15 =-( So Swashbuckling a Balizarde makes it 2.5[1D8] 15-20/x4, Celestia should be 2.5[1D10] 18-20/x3 (so 15-20/x3 with IC). Sword dance giving 1d20 sonic damage that scales with spellpower when stuff misses you (including Displacement and Dodge) sounds pretty fun. The fact that they included options to let you Swashbuckler with an Orb or Runearm in your offhand is pretty nice. Oh man, 6d6 extra damage on crits with your Swashbuckling weapon that scales with spellpower. And passive runspeed, if it stacks with Expeditious Retreat or far exceeds it, it could be fun. I'm not sure how great it'll be in practice, but I like the flavor they're going for here and I hope the numbers are solid in the end. Bard is one of the classes we both still have left and it's kind of on the short list, especially with U22 being the Pirate update. [Edit] Krowley posted:speedrunning through content with me popping haste potions just trying to keep up. Also while your overall point still very much stands, you should go grab some Anger's Step from Sacrifices on Korthos. It'll give you 10 minutes of +25% run speed per pair, only slightly slower than Haste. Far less irritating just for keeping up with people if you can't selfcast it. DemonMage fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Apr 24, 2014 |
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2014 22:35
|
|
|
I'm tempted to do some combo of Swashbuckler and Arcane archer with throwing weapons. Might be some nifty flavour. Maybe make use of some of the characters I have kicking around with all those free respecs and make some Monk/Bard/Elven archer hybrid thing.
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2014 01:57
|
|
|
RosaParksOfDip posted:and make some Monk/Bard thing. Also Swashbuckler looks neat and all, something to do as a bard I supose, but it is still so hard to imagine playing a melee and not being a 2h blitzer.
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2014 03:36
|
|
|
I finally got Twofast to 20. I really like the xp changes, it makes knocking out 100k xp a day a breeze. I'm thinking of TRing again but sticking with the Acrobat Staff build. Does anyone know of an updated Big F'ing Stick build? The variants I have are from the pre-enhancement change.
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2014 15:23
|
|
|
Are you looking for a primarily rogue based build (so you can get the past life), or monk, or don't really care as long as it's quarterstaff focused? Sir-Stick-a-Lot similarly Zeus Sam also looks interesting
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2014 23:02
|
|
|
Thanks for the builds. I was looking at a primarily rogue based build, but monk past lives are awesome as well. The Sam build looks really nice with self healing abilities, but the required +5 str tome is a little too pricey.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2014 12:40
|
|
|
To be fair, you can just drop Charisma to bump up your Strength. At least to 17 strength, which drops you down to needing a +4 tome. You could also then trade another level up into strength if you want to drop it to a +3 needed. You're not really losing or gaining much swapping those around by a point or two, except that qualifying for Overwhelming Critical is pretty nice. Zeus and Sir-Stick-A-Lot should give you a place to at least start from for Rogue or Monk past lives respectively. They both look like there's room to play around with. I guess the biggest "problem" is that they're both Bladeforged for the lovely reconstruct, which doesn't translate straight over to Warforged if you'd rather do a regular TR instead of an ITR. DemonMage fucked around with this message at 13:02 on Apr 29, 2014 |
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2014 12:59
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 17, 2024 16:38 |
|
|
I was thinking of making a human Zeus build, or buying an ITR heart. I'll have 2 rogue past lives for it when I TR. I'm only planning right now, I still want to get a Lit2 Q-staff before I do end up TRing. The only endgame staff I can use right now is my dreamspitter. I was considering upgrading it with +8 and supreme good, but I don't know how that will effect the ml.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2014 13:46
|
|