Dungeons and Dragons Online - Fair Codexia Dead - DDO NEWs Thread!

[Reinhardt]

Finished my exploration of epic Barovia. ~2000 kills, all journals, 9/15 rare encounters. Leveled from 20 to 22. Didn't get enough vistani items for second weapon...
Did some quests. It's doable, but not worth the trouble. Too damn long to kill anyone, especially bosses.

Why would you want a vistani weapon? They suck and you get them for free. Though you do want weapons from barovia, just not the vistani ones.

Because why not? You getting talismans in every chest anyway.

 

[Lhynn]

Saving them for more sentient jewels seems like a better investment.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Saving them for more sentient jewels seems like a better investment.

wrong currency, those are vistani totems

 

[Reinhardt]

Saving them for more sentient jewels seems like a better investment.

wrong currency, those are vistani totems

Well, i was talking about them.

 

[Helton]

Borderlands quests are a lot of fun and very fast, also all clumped together so efficient use of time. I laughed out loud at a couple points too. If I introduce a new person to the game probably will do those instead of Korthos. If only I'd played them a few days earlier, just finished Korthos with my wife.

 

[Reinhardt]

I laughed out loud at a couple points too

I liked dem CULT OF EVUL KHAOS!!1 larpers.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Borderlands quests are a lot of fun and very fast, also all clumped together so efficient use of time. I laughed out loud at a couple points too. If I introduce a new person to the game probably will do those instead of Korthos. If only I'd played them a few days earlier, just finished Korthos with my wife.

For new players, definitely.
If you're doing a TR, I'd suggest doing Korthos instead because you're going to do Borderlands at epic levels anyways.

In other news, I'm nearing the 5k favor reward.

 

[Reinhardt]

I'm not even at 3k. Having to do each quest 3 times as first life character is really annoying.

 

[Zurat-Yarkuch]

New DDO Chronicle released.

Apparently they are starting to preview the new shifter race coming out with the next expansion.

Spoiler

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Hit 5k favor, last ~1000 was a complete pain.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

New DDO Chronicle released.

Apparently they are starting to preview the new shifter race coming out with the next expansion.

Spoiler

Video reminded me of how awful the default UI layout is. They need to update it for larger screens, having important information near the sides was fine with 17" 1024x768 monitors, not so at higher resolutions/bigger monitors.

 

[Reinhardt]

Maxed my first epic destiny, went from 1150 to 650 hp after changing from it.

 

[infidel]

Video reminded me of how awful the default UI layout is. They need to update it for larger screens, having important information near the sides was fine with 17" 1024x768 monitors, not so at higher resolutions/bigger monitors.

Won't be the first old-school MMO that has this problem. I bet they've hardcoded all the UI coordinates and background images back in 2005 or something and now each window and UI element have to be painstakingly converted to a system using scaling. For the longest time EVE had the same problem - the text was pretty much unreadable in 1920x1200. But in 2015 or so it finally dawned on them to pre-scale everything before rendering - and they didn't have intricate background artwork to begin with. Hopefully, SSG will do that too at some point.

So, I finally got to Eveningstar and I'm wondering. I'm 17 and the story and Elminster all point to the Menace of the Underdark expansion. But it's for level 19 and I've got a Wheloon navigation quest for Shadowfell expansion. Shadowfell is 2013 and MotD is 2012... So if Web of Chaos arc is 16, and it opens Eveningstar up but the MotD adventures are all 19+, what would the players do when they got into it at 16 without SF content?

Demonweb is looking gorgeous:

Spoiler

 

[Reinhardt]

I'm just doing quests for tokens and commendations to reincarnate. Loss of half of my hp after destiny change dropped me from epic elite to epic hard. I can still kill things just fine in elite but 600>0 hp is just a matter of seconds. Not worth it.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Helton]

I reincarnated as a warlock, going to run warlocks for a while to grind some racial lives.

Man what a breath of fresh air. So many issues with melee completely sidestepped. I don't grimace everytime I see slimes now, for instance. Or incorporeals.

Been playing most quests at reaper 1skull which I've never done before, and they're getting easier overall. At low levels I would panic when I saw a carnage reaper, but now its no big deal (about to take level 8). Having a good time though I still get blindsided by quests sometimes. Some old content is just so bad and so little reward, it really should be given another pass. This has to turn new players away from the game, while veterans either know to avoid the quests or have the resources to cope.

For instance, "A Small Problem" comes off as a cutesy little quest about a play. I spent an hour in there running around that convoluted map (want to go a few meters to the north? Need to run to the far south of the map and back to do that... etc.), and then at the very end of this long, convoluted, painful quest, there is an npc death failure condition. Well ended up I died and then wasn't allowed to re-enter but still, that's just mean, and the reward is so small compared to much more fun, much easier newer content.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Lhynn]

Maxed my first epic destiny, went from 1150 to 650 hp after changing from it.

Going to ETR?

 

[Reinhardt]

Yes, but it's slow process. I'm just doing devil assault for tokens + few epic quests for commendations + few heroic quests for favor.

 

[Lhynn]

Epic reincarnation bro. Just get 42 seeds, which are like, super easy to get, then etr, it only takes you back to 20 and resets the experience on your destiny, without taking away its level or points. Its the quickest reincarnation and the benefits are great, especially on a martial live.

 

[Reinhardt]

Just get 42 seeds, which are like, super easy to get

Not for first life when you juggling destinies. Most of the time you just have your epic levels and some low level shit from next destiny.

 

[Helton]

Just get 42 seeds, which are like, super easy to get

Not for first life when you juggling destinies. Most of the time you just have your epic levels and some low level shit from next destiny.

When you get to level 30, every quest which would have awarded commendations will also offer 2 heart seeds as a reward. Including lvl 20 epic normal quests. Including super fast ones like Unreasonable Demands.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

off the top of my head, these are some fast epic quests to do(and get to) for seeds:

tavern brawl, grim and barrett, Memoirs of an Illusory Larcener, outbreak, full lost gatekeepers chain(most can be done in 2-3 minutes once you familiarize yourself with them), druid's deep chain are all pretty fast, all of the borderlands quests(these should give seeds, I never bothered to check) -- bonus in that these give very good gear for epic reincarnations

Anywhere you see a gatekeeper NPC they typically can teleport you to/from their position and their glade, btw. So you can start at the gatekeeper's glade, teleport to grim and barrett, do illusory larcener right next to it, talk to grim and barrett NPC to teleport back after doing that, do tavern brawl, then the lost gatekeepers chain. Probably about half an hour for a bunch of seeds.

There's some other fast quests I can think of but they require a good deal of running or are a pain to get to compared to these.

 

[Reinhardt]

Dat feeling when you running through king's forest delivering dryad sap to healer and then SUDDENLY "vial of dryad tree sap was destroyed!" because of the random fag's attack...

 

[infidel]

huh, this thread is still going? infi is breaking my notifications again



on 1st life its easy to reach 20. Back in my day you could get to vale of twilight? cant remember pack/quests... the one with green steel weapons. On 1st life it was enough to milk lvl cap(which was 20 at a time). Also you would buy vale from turbo points rewards.
In general thats the pack that allows massive xp farming for heroic cap push. 3+ lifers would enter it at lvl 18 or so.

Might be outdated but you shouldnt be leaving eberron before getting epic.

anyway if need advise on anything, ping me. Build advise might be outdated but questing i can cover. Even which rocks to hide behind etc

I've been doing the Eveningstar content in the order it is suggested to me by the game and it's noticeable how they've realized their mistake with subsequent updates and were filling in the level holes in this zone the whole year between Aug 2012 - Aug 2013:
MotU exp - Update 14 - L19
Druid's Deep - Update 15 - L17
High Road of Shadows - Update 16 - L18
(Update 17 was Gianthold Epic)
Disciples of Shadow - Update 18 - L15 - the intro arc
Shadowfell Exp - Shadow over Wheloon - Update 19 - L16

There are also recognizable characters migrating between the story arcs introducing the Harpers which results in a good overall structure in the end. From the Wheloon arc the quest that stands out for me is Through a Mirror Darkly, it's where you use the mirror to travel between the two realities. I bet they modeled the two levels on top of each other and teleported the player with scripting by adjusting the z coordinate, since you stay in the same place on the map but it's obvious how the geometry changes around you, the doors don't stay open between the levels, the breakables are different, etc. And I bet it was still a pain in the ass to do it. If you stand in the door frame, it's smart enough to recognize that you can't teleport into a wall plus Auralace can port between the levels plus the whole final boss fight, where there are probably at least two separate bosses for shadow/normal, which have to be modified by scripting.

Spoiler

Build-wise I still somewhat stick to the halfling rogue assassin with a level of cleric. Took me ages to try it out but I've finally used the dragonmark feat and got my 2 heals that heal twice as much as the hp I have.

So do you guys have something like this or am I doing it wrong? I've a big wardrobe for the various resists and the occasional skill buffs.