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

[Zurat-Yarkuch]

So I haven't logged on since this Wednesday. I start the launcher and then see this.

Spoiler

The virgin hunter.

 

[Catacombs]

I'm off work for the next week and have set aside some time to play some new games and revisit some on my to-play list. DDO is one of them. What am I in for? Worth playing? Or, should I skip?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I'm off work for the next week and have set aside some time to play some new games and revisit some on my to-play list. DDO is one of them. What am I in for? Worth playing? Or, should I skip?

It's worth playing if you like the dungeon delving and character building aspects of D&D.
It's a decent real-time adaptation of 3.5 rules mixed with homebrew rules. The content can actually be pretty challenging if you play it on higher difficulties. Only a handful of quests were something I'd rate below 'good', which is a really low ratio because the game has something like 600 quests. Not to be confused with typical MMO 'quests', they're basically all like WoW dungeons if you're familiar with that except they scale to your party size so people can hop in with you during play.
Basically, don't approach it like a typical MMO. It's fairly truthful to its name in being D&D online. A lot of the quests are even direct pnp adaptations.

Also, there's a few quests narrated by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.
Speaking of which, nearly every quest has a DM narrator that works a lot like how a real DM would. They're typically well done and IMO added a lot to the overall experience.

It's really a unique experience not offered by anything else on the market.

 

[Catacombs]

I'm off work for the next week and have set aside some time to play some new games and revisit some on my to-play list. DDO is one of them. What am I in for? Worth playing? Or, should I skip?

It's worth playing if you like the dungeon delving and character building aspects of D&D.
It's a decent real-time adaptation of 3.5 rules mixed with homebrew rules. The content can actually be pretty challenging if you play it on higher difficulties. Only a handful of quests were something I'd rate below 'good', which is a really low ratio because the game has something like 600 quests. Not to be confused with typical MMO 'quests', they're basically all like WoW dungeons if you're familiar with that except they scale to your party size so people can hop in with you during play.
Basically, don't approach it like a typical MMO. It's fairly truthful to its name in being D&D online. A lot of the quests are even direct pnp adaptations.

Also, there's a few quests narrated by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.
Speaking of which, nearly every quest has a DM narrator that works a lot like how a real DM would. They're typically well done and IMO added a lot to the overall experience.

It's really a unique experience not offered by anything else on the market.

Sounds promising! Is there a group of Codexers that play together?

 

[Lhynn]

Codexers dont play together. Thatd be gay.

 

[GreyViper]

I have to say I did rather enjoy Barovia content, it was quite different from the other modules and the free +5 weapon wasn't bad either. But yeah this game needs to be played with friends otherwise you are going to lose interest.

 

[Zurat-Yarkuch]

Just started doing Night Revels. I forgot just how random the key drops are. According to the DDOwiki it is not effected by the level you run the challenge at and that seems to be the case from my own tests. So it is best to run that challenge at your current level for max speed.

With the actual challenges in the Crypt you want to try running them above your level since you get a 10% ingredient boost per level above your character up to 50%. The highest I can do is three levels higher without dying. Overall having a lot of fun. Going to keep doing this until the event ends on November 3 so I can get all the stuff I want.

 

[infidel]

Cryptic's other MMO, Star Trek Online, is pretty fun though.

That is, if you ignore the atrocious land missions aaaand ignore the group content that you just can't get a group for (most of it), it's fun, yeah.

Also, there's a few quests narrated by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.

TBH, Arneson is the worst DM voiceover I've heard in this game. He sounds like your stereotypical lispy nerd, not even trying to enunciate much. The rest are top-notch, though.

But yeah this game needs to be played with friends otherwise you are going to lose interest.

In a couple of hundred hours, for sure. But here's my argument for solo play - you just can't enjoy the fluff, the story and the challenge in a party. Everyone zergs, nobody reads anything and you can't even screenshot dialogues unless you've started them yourself. And they know where the goddamn traps are by heart. So I usually balance it out - solo normal for content I haven't seen yet (did not renew my VIP for ), elite/reaper/w/e with live people. Guys, I've even heard women there with me own ears. In the voice chat. Twice. What old-school MMO can boast that, huh? And don't you dare to say anything about voice changers

 

[Zurat-Yarkuch]

Man, Night Revels has just exhausted me. I've been pretty much doing nothing but same quests over and over again to get the gear I wanted. I got great stuff though. Crystallized Eternity and Spectral Daggers at all the different levels (4, 8, 12, etc).

The big problem with this event is the rarity of Night Revels keys. There are four different ingredients and eight different quests, meaning two quests for each ingredient. However, because keys are rare your going to want to use your key on the quest that gives you the most ingredients per run. So instead of running 8 quests over and over again, you run the four which give you the max ingredients per key. This makes means half of the content they have is not run, because you want to get the most ingredients for your key.

If keys were more plentiful and easier to get, or just not needed for running these quests it would make things a lot better in my opinion as it would reduce a ton of the mindnumbingness of the grind.

 

[Zurat-Yarkuch]

So, Fables of the Feywild released. How is it? No idea, as I am waiting for the Sharn Expansion to go on sale Black Friday. When I reach Level 30 and start running legendary quests I might consider purchasing it.

On the plus side, they reworked augments to match the current power creep of the game. So augments are more useful now, which is the biggest thing to come out of this update in my opinion.

 

[Zurat-Yarkuch]

Well apparently there were some bugs with the augment system update that they just fixed. On the plus side, they have given a coupon code 5JEWELKIT for five free jeweler's kits until November 27, so that's good.

Still haven't seen any announcements for black friday sales yet. I'm expecting they will have the old expansions 50% like they did last year. Going to pick up Sharn when that happens, as this game has been warming me up to the Eberron campaign setting a lot.

 

[Zurat-Yarkuch]

Unfortunetly, it looks like the Masterminds of Sharn expansions aren't on sale. According to the DDOwiki it was released in May 2019, so I guess the expansion probably won't be on sale until Black Friday 2021.

Get Double Bonus Points and a bonus item per points purchase*

Otto’s and Tenser's Boxes now available in the store!

35% Off Universal Action Point Tome +1
50% Off +8 Ability Tomes and the +7 to +8 Upgrade Tome
75% Off Wish for Memories- All Races

*see in game store for more details
Issue 404 of the DDO Chronicle is now available!

Now until January 9, 2021, get 50% off:

Ravenloft Ultimate, Collector’s, and Standard Edition
Shadowfell Conspiracy Collectors, Standard, and Legendary Upgrade
Menace of the Underdark Standard and Base editions

These items will no longer be available after January 9th. New packages for the older expansions will be available at a future date, but may not include the exact same bonus items, so this is the final opportunity to get these specific packages with their listed bonus items.

They still have a bunch of other stuff on sale, including the other expansions and Double DDO Points. Maybe I'll just use the DDO points I've stored up to buy the Masterminds of Sharn expansion when I need to. Or buy more DDO points for future expansions and content.

 

[Zurat-Yarkuch]

Hell yeah. Patience is a virtue.

Masterminds of Sharn is now 35% off in the DDO Market. I bought double points during the black friday event so I have more than enough to buy it now. Own majority of the content now. Sweet.

 

[Zurat-Yarkuch]

Just found this Developer Q&A they did

Spoiler

Bullet Point summery

Spoiler

• They are aware of problems with customer service. Planning on giving customer service the ability to help customers when they are offline. Also, working from home has presented challenges which is why there have been bad bugs this year.
• Going to do Isle of Dread, but it is going to be a big update (expansion?) Not the next classic module adventure pack. That will be something else they aren't announcing yet.
• Mounts that aren't horses are coming.
• Going to be revamping Epic Destinies. Want to have it so you can progress without having to switch to destiny you don't want to play in and more build flexibility. Also will play off the level cap increase they are planning on eventually doing.
• They would love to do what they call a leadership system where a leader can pass their reaper point power to other players in the group so new players won't get one shot and aren't afraid to join a group. Presents a lot of technical challenges but something they want to implement. Would also help encourage a teaching system by mixing veterans and new players.
• Bow universal enchantment tree. Make bows great again.
• Would love to do a megaserver, problems is technical challenges transferring things over like Guilds and characters sharing same name on different servers. It would have to be part of their engineering and infrastructure budget, and do to the fact they are a small company they don't really have the resources right now.
• Guy would love to do a pass on older content to bring it up to their modern standards.
• Need to fix Half-elf and then they will go to other races.
• Lots of stuff about races and racial trees mentioned. Not in the pipeline yet cause they are focusing on fixing Epic Destinies.
• Level cap increase will come with next big thing (expansion)
• Hardcore coming back but more time between seasons
• Alchemist took a ridiculous amount of work to do. Classes with spells are really hard.
• Lag spikes caused by their effect system. Need to revamp and optimize it so it stops happening so much
• Would love to do more adventure packs for Ravenloft and Feywild, but question becomes do they require expansion for these packs. Why they have shied away from it
  
• Wants to do 4k support and UI scaling really, really bad. Trying to get more resources for that. Problem is all icons are bitmaps, so they would have to redo every icon in the game at double size. So many hours of art for 4k. All want more support for UI scaling and 4k.
• Developer confirms play normal on first life to learn the content and game. Then ramp up difficulty as you get better. Reason why game has so many difficulty levels.
  
• He would love to make more content free, but would discourage people from getting VIP and developers need to eat. Game is doing well financially.

I recommend watching the whole thing. Very informative and devs seem like nice people.

 

[infidel]

• Wants to do 4k support and UI scaling really, really bad. Trying to get more resources for that. Problem is all icons are bitmaps, so they would have to redo every icon in the game at double size. So many hours of art for 4k. All want more support for UI scaling and 4k.

They could just programmatically x2 them, removing that problem. Sure, they might be somewhat pixellated but probably not that noticeable and who cares anyway. Was there any info about their actual team size?

• Developer confirms play normal on first life to learn the content and game. Then ramp up difficulty as you get better. Reason why game has so many difficulty levels.

Playing on normal on first life would mean you're playing solo, which I did on my rogue, for 100 hours or so. Probably that's why he's talking about reaper leadership - because that's pretty much the only place in the game where you can reliably find groups but you have to overcome that initial psychological hurdle of being carried by other people. Thanks for the link.

 

[Zurat-Yarkuch]

Playing on normal on first life would mean you're playing solo, which I did on my rogue, for 100 hours or so. Probably that's why he's talking about reaper leadership - because that's pretty much the only place in the game where you can reliably find groups but you have to overcome that initial psychological hurdle of being carried by other people. Thanks for the link.

No problem.

So right now I'm at level 11 with my Paladin/Rogue build (link below). Doing the level 11 quests on normal and hard and level 8 quests on Reaper 1. I farmed certain Ravenloft quests on Elite to get Ravenloft gear for my character and was extremely lucky. That gear makes you ridiculously powerful.

Ravenloft is also really impressive, the quests are really brilliantly designed. There is a lot packed into them that you can spend time exploring and enjoying the first time around. But most of it is optional, so when you are farming for gear you can zip past a lot of it on subsequent runs.

One thing I noticed with a lot of the older quests is that they tend to be more linear and somewhat longer. I think that they have improved quite a lot in their quest design over time.

Though I am enjoying the older content too. The Demon Sands quests at Level 11 are a lot of fun. Gnolls are fantastic in this game.

 

[infidel]

Ravenloft is also really impressive

Well, let's be honest, Ravenloft is the highlight of the entire game and nothing else comes close to it in terms of atmosphere, mood, and visuals (I haven't seen anything of Feywild, though, who knows what's in there). Even the music is very much different like it was composed by a different composer and it sounds like they've even shelled some money for solid string samples. Sharn is close at times, but you can't really do much with those chunky rectangular buildings of theirs and repeating stone wall textures. I would even argue that it would be better to make Ravenloft their intro for noobs instead of hiding it behind a paywall for the veterans. Show the best you've got to hook the noobs in, I say.

Demon Sands is the part where I was lucky (?) to get carried because I've left the group open. So on one hand it was quick, on the other hand, I've mostly ran behind people that knew what they were doing without any challenge with the puzzles or combat. Impressively, they've all also used ingame voice comms, I was shocked to find the game has them.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Ravenloft is also really impressive

Well, let's be honest, Ravenloft is the highlight of the entire game and nothing else comes close to it in terms of atmosphere, mood, and visuals (I haven't seen anything of Feywild, though, who knows what's in there). Even the music is very much different like it was composed by a different composer and it sounds like they've even shelled some money for solid string samples. Sharn is close at times, but you can't really do much with those chunky rectangular buildings of theirs and repeating stone wall textures. I would even argue that it would be better to make Ravenloft their intro for noobs instead of hiding it behind a paywall for the veterans. Show the best you've got to hook the noobs in, I say.

Demon Sands is the part where I was lucky (?) to get carried because I've left the group open. So on one hand it was quick, on the other hand, I've mostly ran behind people that knew what they were doing without any challenge with the puzzles or combat. Impressively, they've all also used ingame voice comms, I was shocked to find the game has them.

Said it before, but the people behind monetizing this game and LOTRO are retarded and should be fired.
And yes, Raveloft content is really damn good. Good enough to put DDO into any "top D&D video game adaptations" list.

 

[Cryomancer]

Started DDO again as Pale Master. Loving the class. So far, my unique critique is the single skeleton warrior but he is great.

I an trying to complete the spellbook but the scroll + inscribe tools are just too expensive. Din't even learned a third of tier 4 spells and an almost bankrupted...

 

[Lhynn]

Started DDO again as Pale Master. Loving the class. So far, my unique critique is the single skeleton warrior but he is great.

I an trying to complete the spellbook but the scroll + inscribe tools are just too expensive. Din't even learned a third of tier 4 spells and an almost bankrupted...

Its fucking amazing.... Until you fight undead and realize you are dead weight. And undeads make about 35% of the enemies you will face in ddo.

 

[Cryomancer]

Its fucking amazing.... Until you fight undead and realize you are dead weight. And undeads make about 35% of the enemies you will face in ddo.

Acid rain and my skeleton knight disagrees with you...

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Palemaster is the only viable wizard build unless they patched wizards since I stopped playing, but it's insanely good against almost everything except golems. It has extremely high survivability thanks to the death aura SLA you get + various damage reductions in the PM tree.
IIRC, I rarely ever used the actual palemaster DD SLAs. You're going to want to use various elemental DD spells like meteor swarm, iceberg, niac's biting cold, etc.,

Only issue is that you run out of mana pretty easy.

 

[Zurat-Yarkuch]

I'm taking a little break from DDO to catch up on my other games that have been piling up. Right now I'm doing Elex and Diablo 1. The D2 Remaster news got me interested in bringing up my GOG copy of Diablo which now has the Hellfire expansion.

I just checked the latest DDO update notes and they nerfed Two Handed Fighting damage, which I honestly expected. It was insanely powerful compared to the other fighting styles. They didn't nerf it too much though if I'm reading the update notes right.

 

[Reinhardt]

Of course. Nerfing fighters in a game with full retard wizards.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Of course. Nerfing fighters in a game with full retard wizards.

The balance of power between them in DDO is way closer than in regular 3.5e.