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What the hell happened between MoTU and DD?
Jul 31st, 2017 at 3:52am
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Asheras wrote on Jul 26th, 2017 at 8:18pm:
If you are talking about shade (aka Axer on Khyber) he was a player from 2006 to around 2012 or so.  I think he stopped playing around MoTU or so. 



That would be about the best time to quit because, in retrospect, that really was when the game went to shit.

I'm back in Eveningstar for the first time in years and I'd completely forgotten how fucking horrible most of the quests are.  At best, they're short and boring but with good XP.  At worst (all too frequently), they're long and boring and just tedious as hell.

At the time they were released, I was more irritated by Turbine increasingly releasing rushed and bugged content.  I was so distracted by the string table errors that I didn't realize just how fucking shitty most of the quests are.

Some how they went from a golden age with some of the best quest packs in the game leading up to MoTU to the boring shitfest that is druid's deep.  Eveningstar is where they really hit that repetitive "long hallway full of traps* followed by large, OP mobs with a gazillion hitpoints."  Even the environment and graphics are uninspired.  Damn near everything released between MoTU and Shadowfail are just horrible snoozefests.  Hell, the werewolves were some of the coolest new monsters in the game and even the quests they're in are still boring as hell.

Sad thing is, Shadowfail could have been a return to form, if they hadn't rushed it out with so many bugs and that shitty purple funk covering everything.  It's being run more now than 3 years ago, but it still has a bad reputation because so many people were burned by it on release.

So what happened there?  I was concentrating more on the game than the development at that point but I know it wasn't Sev's fault (all the shit that got fucked up since is his fault).  Did they fire their good design team?  Or is it just because everyone on the team really has no interest in real D&D and were clueless how to design quests when they had to start creating more traditional D&D content instead of the steam-punk they had been working on?

*fuck those bear traps and the Eveningstar traps in general.  They're not challenging, they're just big, fucking pains in the ass and I'd like to fucking kick whoever created them in the nuts.
  

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Re: What the hell happened between MoTU and DD?
Reply #1 - Jul 31st, 2017 at 4:09am
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Eveningstar quests are mostly trash. I like some of the druid deep quests that take place inside the village houses, citw flag part 2 was also something I enjoyed because it was a hostile drow city and plays into my favorite raid(citw). I like wheloon and storm horns, too. Huge cavernous sewers and complexes, an icy mountain cave leading up to a flying glacier. Rest of those quests are hot garbage tho.

Most of the new quests post new Amrath are also flaming ass. I like slavers because of the size, same with toee, but only because they are huge quests and because after living in slavers grind for months I learned to like it. The new Mines packs quests are also settings I enjoy due to their scale. But all the quests from new Amrath to now are lacking in originality, despite their huge settings, all the quests are rehashes of various other quests. Blatantly obvious copy and paste jobs.
« Last Edit: Jul 31st, 2017 at 4:10am by Rubbinns »  

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Re: What the hell happened between MoTU and DD?
Reply #2 - Jul 31st, 2017 at 7:45am
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Rubbinns wrote on Jul 31st, 2017 at 4:09am:
Eveningstar quests are mostly trash. I like some of the druid deep quests that take place inside the village houses, citw flag part 2 was also something I enjoyed because it was a hostile drow city and plays into my favorite raid(citw). I like wheloon and storm horns, too. Huge cavernous sewers and complexes, an icy mountain cave leading up to a flying glacier. Rest of those quests are hot garbage tho.

Most of the new quests post new Amrath are also flaming ass. I like slavers because of the size, same with toee, but only because they are huge quests and because after living in slavers grind for months I learned to like it. The new Mines packs quests are also settings I enjoy due to their scale. But all the quests from new Amrath to now are lacking in originality, despite their huge settings, all the quests are rehashes of various other quests. Blatantly obvious copy and paste jobs.



Well, you are basically saying all post new amrath sux, but then go on to say you like slavers, mines... Ok so which post new amrath pack sux? Ah the dragon one, ok. What else came after new amrath besides these?  Cheesy
  

Vaultaccount wrote on Aug 29th, 2016 at 7:06pm:
The most broken epic PL in the game is the ridiculous AC buff from martial PLs. But when you include all the inherent benefits from reincarnation, the thing is above the roof. The benefit from TR was supposed to be minimal, but now it is game breaking. start a new character and you will feel, you will get raped in heroics.

Personally I think lower heroics on new characters are harder than Legendary Elite content on a character with good gear and has all destinies farmed.


Arkat wrote on Apr 2nd, 2014 at 4:14pm:
And someone in another thread called ME delusional recently!

Wow.

Have you EVER gone to Law School Feyn? Have you EVER been asked by a United States Senator who is now the Vice President of the United States to write a paper just for him on a particular topic of Constitutional Law for his use as a Senator? Have you ever been asked to help a very notable Harvard PhD turned Constitutional scholar with his very-well received book on Legal Philosophy and Constitutional Revolutions? Have you ever been offered a job as a Deputy Attorney General BEFORE you even graduated Law School?

No? Then STFU you fucking amateur.


Meat-Head wrote on Jul 29th, 2015 at 12:03am:
Thx. I was semi-waiting because windows 10 will be here soon. but, the crashing is making me want to punch old people.


IMARANGER wrote on Sep 8th, 2014 at 5:40pm:
Pretty sure that the fact that a service can be hacked doesn't make it the "community chest".
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Re: What the hell happened between MoTU and DD?
Reply #3 - Jul 31st, 2017 at 8:34am
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m4lacka wrote on Jul 31st, 2017 at 7:45am:
Well, you are basically saying all post new amrath sux, but then go on to say you like slavers, mines... Ok so which post new amrath pack sux? Ah the dragon one, ok. What else came after new amrath besides these?  Cheesy


Post new amrath you have:

Devil's Gambit - Subversion, Tavern Brawl, Multitude of Menace, and Grim and Barrett - Mostly meh content, honestly. 

L Shroud flaggers - Creeping Death, Curse the Sky - Nobody is mistaking this for fun.

Gnomework - Memiors, Good Intentions, Search and Rescue - Good loot, bad quests, except Search and Rescue.  I like that one.

Slavers - Mentioned.  Strong loot system.  Decent content. 

Tower of Frost - Unique, but just OK, really. 

Dragonborn Propehcy - Black and Blue, Newcomers  - Hot garbage.   

Mines - Best content in the last 2-3 years.  Easily.
  
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Re: What the hell happened between MoTU and DD?
Reply #4 - Jul 31st, 2017 at 9:22am
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As for the gap, you have several problems:

1)  Two level cap raises.  Which always breaks end game. 

2)  The WORST loot management period in the entire game.  Just AWFUL.  This cannot be understated.  Especially given the above.  When you raise the level cap, you invalidate the old cap loot.  This was handled well from 16-20.   Greensteel was still valuable.  There was still stuff from HoX, VoD, and even Reavers Fate that was worth getting.  Epic versions of DQ and VoN kept those relevant.  Loot had a life cycle of 2-3 years.  Suddenly, it had a life cycle of 6-9 months.  MoU was summer, 2012.  eGH (8 months after MoTU, Feb, 2013) invalidated most all the MoTU loot (except the raid weapons).  Update 19, shadowfell (August, 2013, 6 months after eGH) invalidated almost all of the eGH loot.  Thunderholme (Feb, 2014, 7-8 months later) invalidated any weapons before hand, along with armor, and with HH quite a few gear slots.  Then, eOrchard comes along 6 months later and wipes the floor with everything except the thunderforged weapons completely. 

Add to that the complete lack of consistency with loot systems.  You have:

1)  Cannith Crafted loot stopping at 20 and never getting updated.  Just becoming less and less useful as time went on.
2)  Augment slots go from Guild slots, to colored augments, which NEVER scale correctly into epics.  Becoming less and less useful as time went on.
3)  The MoTU (U14)system of randomized effects on named gear and BtCoE.
4)  The NEXT update (U15) that randomization is gone and the EN/EH/EE versioning of loot appears. 
5)  The NEXT update (U16) the randomization is on some items with the EN/EH/EE versioning system.  Feather's loot starts appearing - Meteoric, Phlembotizing,
6)  The NEXT update (U17) is eGH.  The Shard Exchange appears.  Making the selling of BtCoE loot crazy easy.  No more trading points codes for gear, which was risky and flawed.  Everything is crazy high drop rates.  People are gear farming like mad.
7)  U19 - Ghostbaning of random loot.  All old prefixes disappear.  Deadly becomes a "thing".  Stats are crazy high inflated.  Completely screws up all random and named loot, except the dragon armors.
8)  U20 - Realizing that only 12 prefixes and suffixes is "Bad", A bunch of prefixes and suffixes return.  You can, you know, break DR again. 
9)  U21 - You know that EN/EH/EE thing we started 6 updates ago (about 18 months ago)?  Screw it.  Not doing that anymore. 
10) U22 - You know that BtCoE thing we started 8 updates (about 2 years ago)?  Screw it.  BtA, bitches.  No Shard AH.  No farming economy for you.
11) U23 - You know how you get +7 at level 20-23 and +8 at 24-25?  And we gave you +9 at 26?  What if we started giving out +11 at 27?  Does that sound like proper progression? Sure!

Add to that what I said above about the major updates and shifts in loot and you just have a situation where cap is a complete mess.  And you also threw in Iconic TR's and Epic Past Lives into this mess.  All of which makes things a bit strange. 

Add to that the change to Spell power (U15 or 16), Armor up and the addition of MP/RP/MRR/PRR and the change in To-Hit and AC off the D20 system and the general move away from D&D core rule set.

All happened in the span of about 2-3 years.  I could go on.  It's crazy how many times they monkeyed with the loot, which is the core at-cap progression system.  They also had a lot of relatively limited grinds in there.  eGH dragon armors (something people would have worked for months to earn) were obtained the first weekend the content was out.  By the time TF came out, players were accustomed to a "get it now" attitude and resist loot grind of any duration.  That continues to this day.  Nothing is still as intense as old shroud, ToD, Dragontouched armor, or LoB Alchem weapons.

3)  Raid bypass timers.  A terrible idea.  If they hadn't been duped to high hell, it might not be so bad.  But when people can grind the hell out of the raid it took you months to make in one week and be bored again?  Not a good thing.  This killed end game raiding and raid trains that would be a stable of a lot of guilds and channels.
« Last Edit: Jul 31st, 2017 at 9:24am by Asheras »  
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Re: What the hell happened between MoTU and DD?
Reply #5 - Jul 31st, 2017 at 9:24am
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Asheras wrote on Jul 31st, 2017 at 8:34am:
Post new amrath you have:

Devil's Gambit - Subversion, Tavern Brawl, Multitude of Menace, and Grim and Barrett - Mostly meh content, honestly. 

L Shroud flaggers - Creeping Death, Curse the Sky - Nobody is mistaking this for fun.

Gnomework - Memiors, Good Intentions, Search and Rescue - Good loot, bad quests, except Search and Rescue.  I like that one.

Slavers - Mentioned.  Strong loot system.  Decent content. 

Tower of Frost - Unique, but just OK, really. 

Dragonborn Propehcy - Black and Blue, Newcomers  - Hot garbage.   

Mines - Best content in the last 2-3 years.  Easily. 


True, but to be fair, the f2ps does not count toward the "allowed fuckup limit", that only applies to p2p content, right?  Grin

And I thought the reason only p2ps were being mentioned was that rubbiedubbie and Smoochie implied that only p2ps suck in regard to "effort/paying for it".
  

Vaultaccount wrote on Aug 29th, 2016 at 7:06pm:
The most broken epic PL in the game is the ridiculous AC buff from martial PLs. But when you include all the inherent benefits from reincarnation, the thing is above the roof. The benefit from TR was supposed to be minimal, but now it is game breaking. start a new character and you will feel, you will get raped in heroics.

Personally I think lower heroics on new characters are harder than Legendary Elite content on a character with good gear and has all destinies farmed.


Arkat wrote on Apr 2nd, 2014 at 4:14pm:
And someone in another thread called ME delusional recently!

Wow.

Have you EVER gone to Law School Feyn? Have you EVER been asked by a United States Senator who is now the Vice President of the United States to write a paper just for him on a particular topic of Constitutional Law for his use as a Senator? Have you ever been asked to help a very notable Harvard PhD turned Constitutional scholar with his very-well received book on Legal Philosophy and Constitutional Revolutions? Have you ever been offered a job as a Deputy Attorney General BEFORE you even graduated Law School?

No? Then STFU you fucking amateur.


Meat-Head wrote on Jul 29th, 2015 at 12:03am:
Thx. I was semi-waiting because windows 10 will be here soon. but, the crashing is making me want to punch old people.


IMARANGER wrote on Sep 8th, 2014 at 5:40pm:
Pretty sure that the fact that a service can be hacked doesn't make it the "community chest".
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Re: What the hell happened between MoTU and DD?
Reply #6 - Jul 31st, 2017 at 9:26am
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Asheras wrote on Jul 31st, 2017 at 9:22am:
As for the gap, you have several problems:

1)  Two level cap raises.  Which always breaks end game. 

2)  The WORST loot management period in the entire game.  Just AWFUL.  This cannot be understated.  Especially given the above.  When you raise the level cap, you invalidate the old cap loot.  This was handled well from 16-20.   Greensteel was still valuable.  There was still stuff from HoX, VoD, and even Reavers Fate that was worth getting.  Epic versions of DQ and VoN kept those relevant.  Loot had a life cycle of 2-3 years.  Suddenly, it had a life cycle of 6-9 months.  MoU was summer, 2012.  eGH (8 months after MoTU, Feb, 2013) invalidated most all the MoTU loot (except the raid weapons).  Update 19, shadowfell (August, 2013, 6 months after eGH) invalidated almost all of the eGH loot.  Thunderholme (Feb, 2014, 7-8 months later) invalidated any weapons before hand, along with armor, and with HH quite a few gear slots.  Then, eOrchard comes along 6 months later and wipes the floor with everything except the thunderforged weapons completely. 

Add to that the complete lack of consistency with loot systems.  You have:

1)  Cannith Crafted loot stopping at 20 and never getting updated.  Just becoming less and less useful as time went on.
2)  Augment slots go from Guild slots, to colored augments, which NEVER scale correctly into epics.  Becoming less and less useful as time went on.
3)  The MoTU (U14)system of randomized effects on named gear and BtCoE.
4)  The NEXT update (U15) that randomization is gone and the EN/EH/EE versioning of loot appears. 
5)  The NEXT update (U16) the randomization is on some items with the EN/EH/EE versioning system.  Feather's loot starts appearing - Meteoric, Phlembotizing,
6)  The NEXT update (U17) is eGH.  The Shard Exchange appears.  Making the selling of BtCoE loot crazy easy.  No more trading points codes for gear, which was risky and flawed.  Everything is crazy high drop rates.  People are gear farming like mad.
7)  U19 - Ghostbaning of random loot.  All old prefixes disappear.  Deadly becomes a "thing".  Stats are crazy high inflated.  Completely screws up all random and named loot, except the dragon armors.
8)  U20 - Realizing that only 12 prefixes and suffixes is "Bad", A bunch of prefixes and suffixes return.  You can, you know, break DR again. 
9)  U21 - You know that EN/EH/EE thing we started 6 updates ago (about 18 months ago)?  Screw it.  Not doing that anymore. 
10) U22 - You know that BtCoE thing we started 8 updates (about 2 years ago)?  Screw it.  BtA, bitches.  No Shard AH.  No farming economy for you.
11) U23 - You know how you get +7 at level 20-23 and +8 at 24-25?  And we gave you +9 at 26?  What if we started giving out +11 at 27?  Does that sound like proper progression? Sure!

Add to that what I said above about the major updates and shifts in loot and you just have a situation where cap is a complete mess.  And you also threw in Iconic TR's and Epic Past Lives into this mess.  All of which makes things a bit strange. 

Add to that the change to Spell power (U15 or 16), Armor up and the addition of MP/RP/MRR/PRR and the change in To-Hit and AC off the D20 system and the general move away from D&D core rule set.

All happened in the span of about 2-3 years.  I could go on.  It's crazy how many times they monkeyed with the loot, which is the core at-cap progression system.  They also had a lot of relatively limited grinds in there.  eGH dragon armors (something people would have worked for months to earn) were obtained the first weekend the content was out.  By the time TF came out, players were accustomed to a "get it now" attitude and resist loot grind of any duration.  That continues to this day.  Nothing is still as intense as old shroud, ToD, Dragontouched armor, or LoB Alchem weapons.

3)  Raid bypass timers.  A terrible idea.  If they hadn't been duped to high hell, it might not be so bad.  But when people can grind the hell out of the raid it took you months to make in one week and be bored again?  Not a good thing.  This killed end game raiding and raid trains that would be a stable of a lot of guilds and channels. 


Hmm, well summed up.
  

Vaultaccount wrote on Aug 29th, 2016 at 7:06pm:
The most broken epic PL in the game is the ridiculous AC buff from martial PLs. But when you include all the inherent benefits from reincarnation, the thing is above the roof. The benefit from TR was supposed to be minimal, but now it is game breaking. start a new character and you will feel, you will get raped in heroics.

Personally I think lower heroics on new characters are harder than Legendary Elite content on a character with good gear and has all destinies farmed.


Arkat wrote on Apr 2nd, 2014 at 4:14pm:
And someone in another thread called ME delusional recently!

Wow.

Have you EVER gone to Law School Feyn? Have you EVER been asked by a United States Senator who is now the Vice President of the United States to write a paper just for him on a particular topic of Constitutional Law for his use as a Senator? Have you ever been asked to help a very notable Harvard PhD turned Constitutional scholar with his very-well received book on Legal Philosophy and Constitutional Revolutions? Have you ever been offered a job as a Deputy Attorney General BEFORE you even graduated Law School?

No? Then STFU you fucking amateur.


Meat-Head wrote on Jul 29th, 2015 at 12:03am:
Thx. I was semi-waiting because windows 10 will be here soon. but, the crashing is making me want to punch old people.


IMARANGER wrote on Sep 8th, 2014 at 5:40pm:
Pretty sure that the fact that a service can be hacked doesn't make it the "community chest".
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Re: What the hell happened between MoTU and DD?
Reply #7 - Jul 31st, 2017 at 9:27am
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So, basically turning ddo unlimited into a grind & farm endlessly did not do much good to the game, I think everyone agrees on that.
  

Vaultaccount wrote on Aug 29th, 2016 at 7:06pm:
The most broken epic PL in the game is the ridiculous AC buff from martial PLs. But when you include all the inherent benefits from reincarnation, the thing is above the roof. The benefit from TR was supposed to be minimal, but now it is game breaking. start a new character and you will feel, you will get raped in heroics.

Personally I think lower heroics on new characters are harder than Legendary Elite content on a character with good gear and has all destinies farmed.


Arkat wrote on Apr 2nd, 2014 at 4:14pm:
And someone in another thread called ME delusional recently!

Wow.

Have you EVER gone to Law School Feyn? Have you EVER been asked by a United States Senator who is now the Vice President of the United States to write a paper just for him on a particular topic of Constitutional Law for his use as a Senator? Have you ever been asked to help a very notable Harvard PhD turned Constitutional scholar with his very-well received book on Legal Philosophy and Constitutional Revolutions? Have you ever been offered a job as a Deputy Attorney General BEFORE you even graduated Law School?

No? Then STFU you fucking amateur.


Meat-Head wrote on Jul 29th, 2015 at 12:03am:
Thx. I was semi-waiting because windows 10 will be here soon. but, the crashing is making me want to punch old people.


IMARANGER wrote on Sep 8th, 2014 at 5:40pm:
Pretty sure that the fact that a service can be hacked doesn't make it the "community chest".
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Re: What the hell happened between MoTU and DD?
Reply #8 - Jul 31st, 2017 at 9:40am
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It's also important to note that old Epics at level 20 were vastly different than the"epic quests" of MotU. Add in the power (not even creep, just flat power) of EDs, and it's an entirely different game.  They also took away the blanket immunity of Epic mobs (which upset folks like Axer that wanted a Wizard for a buff/CC bot.) If memory serves, BB streak came out around this same time as well, which lowers viable build choices. 

Eveningstar just sucks.  I don't look forward to running ANY of those quests, including Beyond the Rift.  The LoD chain is alright.
  
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Re: What the hell happened between MoTU and DD?
Reply #9 - Jul 31st, 2017 at 9:54am
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Now that i think of it...the name of Creeping Death and Curse the Sky surely imply something about those quests' nature...

Maybe "Crawling in shit", or "Fuck the players" would not be noticed by players as an awkward hidden message from SSG. So they named them in a pretty dickish way.
  

Vaultaccount wrote on Aug 29th, 2016 at 7:06pm:
The most broken epic PL in the game is the ridiculous AC buff from martial PLs. But when you include all the inherent benefits from reincarnation, the thing is above the roof. The benefit from TR was supposed to be minimal, but now it is game breaking. start a new character and you will feel, you will get raped in heroics.

Personally I think lower heroics on new characters are harder than Legendary Elite content on a character with good gear and has all destinies farmed.


Arkat wrote on Apr 2nd, 2014 at 4:14pm:
And someone in another thread called ME delusional recently!

Wow.

Have you EVER gone to Law School Feyn? Have you EVER been asked by a United States Senator who is now the Vice President of the United States to write a paper just for him on a particular topic of Constitutional Law for his use as a Senator? Have you ever been asked to help a very notable Harvard PhD turned Constitutional scholar with his very-well received book on Legal Philosophy and Constitutional Revolutions? Have you ever been offered a job as a Deputy Attorney General BEFORE you even graduated Law School?

No? Then STFU you fucking amateur.


Meat-Head wrote on Jul 29th, 2015 at 12:03am:
Thx. I was semi-waiting because windows 10 will be here soon. but, the crashing is making me want to punch old people.


IMARANGER wrote on Sep 8th, 2014 at 5:40pm:
Pretty sure that the fact that a service can be hacked doesn't make it the "community chest".
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Re: What the hell happened between MoTU and DD?
Reply #10 - Jul 31st, 2017 at 9:55am
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For me, it wasn't as much about quest quality as the lack of long term planning with systems. 

The Druid's Deep stuff is fine, as is High Road.  You do see the start of the formulaic "group of mobs staggered down hallways" and "artificial barriers to prevent bypassing killing mobs/zerg, group up, and mass slaughter" tactics management approaches.  Which are lazy ways to address the problems of the players being too overpowered and focusing too heavily on completion times.
  
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Re: What the hell happened between MoTU and DD?
Reply #11 - Jul 31st, 2017 at 9:56am
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for once agree with Ash.... his summary is spot on.

Rollback to 20 Cep ( with seal/sard/scroll/item epic system ) and restart from there would be nice... but sadly it's only going to be a dream. ( wet or not ).
  

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Re: What the hell happened between MoTU and DD?
Reply #12 - Jul 31st, 2017 at 10:48am
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no. wrote on Jul 31st, 2017 at 9:40am:
I don't look forward to running ANY of those quests, including Beyond the Rift.


Beyond the rift is better than most of the eveningstar quests, but even that was a sign of their losing direction.  I mean, the first half (after the pointless exposition, that you have to fucking listen to every damn time) gives you a peak of something great, the rift.  Then the quest just becomes "deal with pain in the ass traps and kill earth elementals and spiders in a really boring cave." 

Most of eveningstar is really...just so fucking bland.  "Outdoors quests" that aren't supposed to resemble a dungeon crammed full of trees to make it look like outdoors, but completely fails, straight as an arrow house/inn quests in the most boring buildings ever.  All the while basically just killing OP animals...and trees.  Got to kill you some trees when you get to eveningstar.

I think they really missed out not introducing goblins with forgotten relms and creating more actual dungeons instead of "forest" areas and taverns.

There are a handful of non underdark decent quests (and even packs), but overall I'd say eveningstar has some of the worst content since some of the original, low-leveled quest packs.
  

Turbine policy - glitches and poor coding resulting in interference of your game play or enjoyment will be ignored.  Glitches or poor coding on the developers side that at all benefit your game play or enjoyment will result in your character being banned and/or items from your inventory deleted.  Please report all bugs via our bug report...when it works.
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Re: What the hell happened between MoTU and DD?
Reply #13 - Jul 31st, 2017 at 11:39am
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well the whole eveningstar thing is a lost direction.

I know that they alienated a good part of the DDO fans by being Eberron only... and that if they wanted to survive Neverwinter they had to have some kind of Faerun setting... but e* is just the backyard of nowhere if you look closely at things in Faerun... Most of the things happens on the Sword Coast where they are not allowed to go, so in the end they should have stuck to Eberron and developed the world ( there's so many things to explore, and there's still several Eberron missing races ) instead of forking to Faerun...

Or they coulc have gone the whole way and went Sigil... with portals to everywhere... (but obviously they didn't, they just went bits and pieces of Faerun to please the drooling mass )
  

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Re: What the hell happened between MoTU and DD?
Reply #14 - Jul 31st, 2017 at 11:48am
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Asheras wrote on Jul 31st, 2017 at 9:22am:
As for the gap, you have several problems:
<snip>


This is the single most accurate post I've seen in a long time.  If only the devs would take notice of it
  
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Re: What the hell happened between MoTU and DD?
Reply #15 - Jul 31st, 2017 at 11:52am
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Skoodge wrote on Jul 31st, 2017 at 10:48am:
Beyond the rift is better than most of the eveningstar quests, but even that was a sign of their losing direction.  I mean, the first half (after the pointless exposition, that you have to fucking listen to every damn time) gives you a peak of something great, the rift.  Then the quest just becomes "deal with pain in the ass traps and kill earth elementals and spiders in a really boring cave." 

Most of eveningstar is really...just so fucking bland.  "Outdoors quests" that aren't supposed to resemble a dungeon crammed full of trees to make it look like outdoors, but completely fails, straight as an arrow house/inn quests in the most boring buildings ever.  All the while basically just killing OP animals...and trees.  Got to kill you some trees when you get to eveningstar.

I think they really missed out not introducing goblins with forgotten relms and creating more actual dungeons instead of "forest" areas and taverns.

There are a handful of non underdark decent quests (and even packs), but overall I'd say eveningstar has some of the worst content since some of the original, low-leveled quest packs.


The farmhouse quest is fun.  Nobody runs it, though, really.  They just kill the priestess in the main room and be done in 3 min.  But the original quest design was kinda cool.  Wish they made saving the people upstairs less optional. 

The necromancer one is fine, too.  Fast paced.  kinda different.  It's really quick.

The lost thread one has a different visual perspective as an abandoned temple and has some traps, unique mechanics and a decent end fight.  But, it does have an "NPC escort" component that is not a popular mechanic.

I like Chain 1.  Chain 2 is one of my favorite chains in the whole game.  And Schind is one of my favorite wilderness explorer areas.

Chain 3 is the mostly difficult for newbs because of the adventure area map changing, but the Trial by Fury, Deal and the demon, and Reclaiming the Rift are all unique content with different mechanics.  And generally quick.

MoTU is solid content.  By most numbers I've seen F2P in 2009 and MoTU in 2012 were the high water mark for the game in terms of concurrent players.  The revenue from MoTU had to be the high water mark there.  And you can see the pace of content delivery is solid thereafer.  They just didn't have a plan for where to go from 25-30 with regard to systems (ED's, E-PL's, Loot, Epic Feats, etc) and the resulting series of course corrections created over powered characters that led to poor quest mechanics you see in Wheloon and a few of the storm horns that became awful in ToEE, Trials of the Archons, and Devil's Gambit and L shroud flaggers.  Where groups of mobs just standing around in hallways every few feet with a locked lever behind them was the main quest mechanic repeated over and over and over.  Gnomework and Slave Lords repeat this mechanic.  Black and Blue and Newcomers are THE WORST with it, though.  Ugh.  Nearly unplayable. 

They really need to go back and look at content like Tear of Dakahaan and Stormcleave and Deleras 2 and 4 and Gwylan's Stand and look at content where mob placement is more discrete and makes sense.  They feel like challenges with a purpose, not speed bumps.  Same thing in Vale or giant hold. 
« Last Edit: Jul 31st, 2017 at 11:53am by Asheras »  
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Re: What the hell happened between MoTU and DD?
Reply #16 - Jul 31st, 2017 at 12:09pm
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Flav wrote on Jul 31st, 2017 at 11:39am:
well the whole eveningstar thing is a lost direction.

I know that they alienated a good part of the DDO fans by being Eberron only... and that if they wanted to survive Neverwinter they had to have some kind of Faerun setting... but e* is just the backyard of nowhere if you look closely at things in Faerun... Most of the things happens on the Sword Coast where they are not allowed to go, so in the end they should have stuck to Eberron and developed the world ( there's so many things to explore, and there's still several Eberron missing races ) instead of forking to Faerun...

Or they coulc have gone the whole way and went Sigil... with portals to everywhere... (but obviously they didn't, they just went bits and pieces of Faerun to please the drooling mass )


Personally, I could care less about setting.  I started playing in red box basic land (Mystara?).  Then Greyhawk.  Spent most of the first half of the 80's in Greyhawk.  Got into FR in late 80's.  But also did a lot of GM created campaign worlds.  FR was fine, though.  When I first tried DDO, I was like "What's Eberron?"  I didn't have any PnP exposure to it.  I'm not a huge fan of steampunk/tech mixed with fantasy/medieval settings.  But it was fine.  I mostly ignored warforged and had a great time. 

I get why they did it and it made sense for an "expansion" I guess.  But they could have done a Sarlona or Agro or planar expansion too.   Where they go to a completely different continent on Eberron or go to different planes. 

To me, the content and the systems consistency are the more important screw ups than the setting in terms of long term game success.  But the setting was huge for marketing and new customer eyes.
  
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Re: What the hell happened between MoTU and DD?
Reply #17 - Jul 31st, 2017 at 12:19pm
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Flav wrote on Jul 31st, 2017 at 9:56am:
for once agree with Ash.... his summary is spot on.

Rollback to 20 Cep ( with seal/sard/scroll/item epic system ) and restart from there would be nice... but sadly it's only going to be a dream. ( wet or not ).


To be clear, none of the systems they temporarily used:

BtCoE
EN/EH/EE loot
Upgradable loot with stuff from other packs
randomization
New effects that combine old effects with cool names "A Thousand Suns", "Heavenly Wrath" "Obscenity"

Were bad choices, in and of themselves.  All had pros and cons. 

The problem is: they didn't stick with anything.  They kept changing it.  And, as a result, the players were largely having to completely re-adapt to a new system every update or two.  Any of these, carried through 3-4 years and 10-12 updates would have been fine, with a proper stat/effect progression that made sense. 

The new cannith crafting and random loot progression is fine.  That it has a smooth power curve is fine.  That plan should have been in place since 2009.  It should not have been done in 2015.  If they had mapped that out when they went from 16-20 (and fixed the small issue of +6 stopping at level 13 with no stat/effect progression at level 15) then, they have a road map for the next 5-7 years.  And content can be scaled correctly and loot can be designed correctly. 

  
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Re: What the hell happened between MoTU and DD?
Reply #18 - Jul 31st, 2017 at 1:48pm
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Asheras wrote on Jul 31st, 2017 at 9:22am:
2)  Augment slots go from Guild slots, to colored augments, which NEVER scale correctly into epics.  Becoming less and less useful as time went on.


Colored augments are only worth 3/5 of a guild augment. 

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Re: What the hell happened between MoTU and DD?
Reply #19 - Jul 31st, 2017 at 2:42pm
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m4lacka wrote on Jul 31st, 2017 at 7:45am:
What else came after new amrath besides these? 


faster to name what is good.

Dragonblood Prophecy is decent. I like black and Blue, despite it being an unabashed amalgamation of tor+drink water ;p

Tower of Frost also decent.

Search and Rescue isn't too shabby.

basically what Ash said.

  

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Re: What the hell happened between MoTU and DD?
Reply #20 - Jul 31st, 2017 at 3:47pm
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Skoodge wrote on Jul 31st, 2017 at 3:52am:
I'd completely forgotten how fucking horrible most of the quests are.


As far as quest design goes, Shadowfell expansion was pretty good. We didn't need yet another sewer quest, but I like the non-linearness of Friends in Low Places (as in there are multiple ways to get to the end and it is not readily obvious which way is better.) Same thing with Army of Shadow. A Lesson in Deception is interesting in that it "punishes" you for taking time to do the optionals and/or resting. Thrill of the Hunt is mostly lame, but the end fight is a challenge for most characters. Through a Mirror Darkly is probably the best of the bunch, bouncing back and forth between worlds feels so LoZ Link to the Past.

Tracker's Trap is mostly boring too, but the end fight is kind of unique. Lines of Supply is kind of like a tower defense minigame, I think that one is generally underrated. And of course What Goes Up is just impressive, especially if the surprise wasn't spoiled for you the first time, but it really should've been a raid and once the purple haze was fixed that would have been good enough for of the people that complained about the expansion.

Asheras wrote on Jul 31st, 2017 at 9:22am:
5)  The NEXT update (U16) the randomization is on some items with the EN/EH/EE versioning system.  Feather's loot starts appearing - Meteoric, Phlembotizing,


I'm pretty sure that the "good stuff" came out with MotU at U14. (Phlebotimizing, Obscenity, etc.)
  

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Re: What the hell happened between MoTU and DD?
Reply #21 - Jul 31st, 2017 at 4:09pm
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Asheras wrote on Jul 31st, 2017 at 9:22am:
Add to that what I said above about the major updates and shifts in loot and you just have a situation where cap is a complete mess.  And you also threw in Iconic TR's and Epic Past Lives into this mess.  All of which makes things a bit strange. 


While all very, very good points, you missed a couple.

Missed opportunities of improvements followed by failed attempts of actual improvement due to the devs having zero idea what's going on in the game.

"We're finally giving you something decent to trade your collectables in for." 
"We love the new pots, but no one can afford them, can you lower the cost or raise the drop rates of the rares?" 
"We hear you, we're adding augments that would be extremely useful...if the min levels were shifted down by two." 
"Wow, those are stupid expensive.  Really.  Could you please lower the costs or raise the drop rates of rares?"
"Once again we hear you.  We're adding a third change to the game that will completely rely on collectables."
"Dude...wtf.  Seriously, wft?"

But there are two factors that I think killed off the player base more than anything.

An increase in glitches they refused to address and ignored just how much they were upsetting people.  Part of why I hate the forum paladins so much, you get two idiots arguing against the 20 angry people on the forums, it does actually start to look like more people are ok with the glitches or rushed content than not (when the 2 idiots post as much as the 20 angry people combined).

"I don't care what these 90 other people say, I personally haven't experienced or noticed this glitch or problem with the game, so it must be these other 90 people's imagination."

Back when there was a player base and these things were discussed, the mass majority were willing to wait longer for content if it meant less bugs and a better product, but the paladin douches won that one.

And I think people really overlook how damaging the enhancement pass was.  Yes, it was a good idea, yes, it was needed, yes, it could have made the game better...if they'd worked on it for at least 2 or 3 more months like damn near everyone on Lamannia told them. 

It was great for a few classes, but it absolutely fucked a number of other classes.  The initial trees were absolute shit designed by...well...people who didn't play the game.  I mean, there's a reason they've had to go back and completely re-work damn near half the classes, because the trees the rolled out sucked ass.

Right before the enhancement pass there had been a slight decline in activity - instead of seeing two of the same raids running at the same time, you might have to wait an hour or even two before catching the next group.  But there were still people in Korthos, instances still existed (remember instances?), and still a lot of people playing the game.

I took a break (rage quit, whatever) after the crappy release of Shadowfail and the enhancement pass, and when I came back a year later, there was a world of difference in the game I left.  The populations and activity of players plummeted in that year.  Within a two year period population of all the worlds was more than cut in half and you don't get to explain that away just because "the game is getting older."

If you're losing 25% of your customer base a year, it's because your service sucks and you've made bad decisions, not because of the product.
  

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Re: What the hell happened between MoTU and DD?
Reply #22 - Jul 31st, 2017 at 4:20pm
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5 Foot Step wrote on Jul 31st, 2017 at 3:47pm:
As far as quest design goes, Shadowfell expansion was pretty good. ... Through a Mirror Darkly is probably the best of the bunch, bouncing back and forth between worlds feels so LoZ Link to the Past.


I think you missed where I said Shadowfell was almost a return to form, it just gets overlooked because of all the hate from when it was first released.

While there are a few *meh* quests, it's a better pack than most of the early eveningstar packs.  Through a Mirror Darkly is kind of a pain, but still challenging in a good way and a pretty well designed quest.  It's way closer to the golden age quests than most of what you find in eveningstar.
  

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Re: What the hell happened between MoTU and DD?
Reply #23 - Jul 31st, 2017 at 5:13pm
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Strongly agree with Ash.

To add my own complaint, from a flower-sniffing perspective: In a game that didn't double your lag every time you log out and back in, traveling to Estar wouldn't be such a giant bitch. As it is, WotC rotating razor-blade dildo fucked all Forgotten Realms content before release, when they stipulated no direct contact except through the Rift. The log-out was a Turbine kludge solution. No teleport access, no guild ship access; Hall of Worlds Heroes has this giant extra wing that, nonsensically, can't connect you to Estar either. But the real kill is lack of guild ship access. You have all these great enormous wilderness areas, but way out at the end of the guild buff tether. They turn content (big +) into a punishment. (Holy fuck, how insane is that?)
  

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Re: What the hell happened between MoTU and DD?
Reply #24 - Jul 31st, 2017 at 8:18pm
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popejubal wrote on Jul 31st, 2017 at 1:48pm:
(Hi, everybody!)


Welcome back!
  

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