Cannith Crystal Makeover - THANK YOU

[BonnieBew]

Frankly, this change makes little sense. Korthos is a forgotten village on a small island in the middle of nowhere. How could they have preserved such technology ? It made perfect sense that they would have retained the crystal, an artifact of bygone times, but it was just a standalone thing, without the machines the islanders couldn't build themselves.

DDO is set in 998 YK of Eberron; the Treaty of Thronehold ceased House Cannith production of Warforged in 996 YK. While the island hosts artifacts of giantish civilizations long past, it hasn’t been that long since House Cannith had operations on Korthos. They may have repurposed old structures, but their crystals are current technology.

Why on Korthos, agreeably a small island seemingly in the middle of nowhere? Korthos would have been strategic during The Last War for that very reason. It’s equal distance between Sharn and Stormreach, accessible by that trade lane (when dragons aren’t involved) which could have been useful for routing weapons and Warforged. The Heyton family also has ties to House Cannith, as seen by the reanimated body of Kyleanne Heyton d’Cannith in the quest Heyton’s Rest and Lars’s reappearance in the House Cannith Enclave concerned about his niece Kylea d’ Cannith for the quest Power Play. So the founding family of Korthos contains artificers who can maintain the crystal’s associated machinery. Anyway, I love the lore of Korthos Island.

The changes to The Cannith Crystal are great visually if you are FACING the Crystal. The change isn’t, however, great from a gameplay perspective. The added animations can easily obscure the view of approaching foes when your character’s back is to the crystal, you know, kind of a normal stance for defending it. If you can’t see cultists approaching because of shiny blue environmental graphics, well, that’s suboptimal. If you’ve done the quest a hundred times, sure, you can do it blind. If you’re a new player in a starter area, though, this graphics change makes it harder to see what you’re supposed to do.

 

[Solarpower]

Why on Korthos, agreeably a small island seemingly in the middle of nowhere? Korthos would have been strategic during The Last War for that very reason. It’s equal distance between Sharn and Stormreach, accessible by that trade lane (when dragons aren’t involved) which could have been useful for routing weapons and Warforged.

Tell it to that House K representative stuck on Korthos who refuse to open bank there.

So the founding family of Korthos contains artificers who can maintain the crystal’s associated machinery. Anyway, I love the lore of Korthos Island.

Yep. "maintain". So everything must look old and built from scraps like everything else in the island.
Just look how the old House Cannith facility looks in the Redemption quest ! Old, abandoned and ruined.

 

[ilya187]

Don't know if it is related, but The Sunken Sewer also got an upgrade. Not just cosmetic either -- it now has more kobolds. In particular, the optional corridor in the north, which used to have only spiders, now has kobolds too.

 

[Volramnus]

Don't know if it is related, but The Sunken Sewer also got an upgrade. Not just cosmetic either -- it now has more kobolds. In particular, the optional corridor in the north, which used to have only spiders, now has kobolds too.

Sunken Sewer and Missing in Action were changed to level 3 quests. That is when they changed the mob placement.

 

[BonnieBew]

Yep. "maintain". So everything must look old and built from scraps like everything else in the island.
Just look how the old House Cannith facility looks in the Redemption quest ! Old, abandoned and ruined.

I took it as Lars set up the crystal first as a heating source, like it had priority with the available resources when the dragon blockade began so it should look better than anything else Cannith-related on Korthos. When Lars flees the Sahuagin to the manufactury, I can accept he’s only powering up the cooling jets for his forcefields and not necessarily restoring the place. I have more of an issue with how we turn around and destroy 3 Cannith crystals powering the old facility in Redemption right after we went to so much effort to protect one in The Cannith Crystal. That’s seems really wasteful given the scenario.

 

[azrael4h]

Frankly, this change makes little sense. Korthos is a forgotten village on a small island in the middle of nowhere. How could they have preserved such technology ? It made perfect sense that they would have retained the crystal, an artifact of bygone times, but it was just a standalone thing, without the machines the islanders couldn't build themselves.

It's a forgotten village with an equally forgotten House Cannith manufactory, where power crystals and Cannith magitech still works and is seen.

Not a far fetched theory that the village itself was built for said manufactory, and the villagers either worked there themselves or aren't too far removed from people who did.

 

[Solarpower]

I have more of an issue with how we turn around and destroy 3 Cannith crystals powering the old facility in Redemption right after we went to so much effort to protect one in The Cannith Crystal. That’s seems really wasteful given the scenario.

Those might be of the lowest quality, thus Lars needed 3 of them. While just 1 crystal could heat the whole village. Well, the village is quite small yet bigger than that forcefield.

 

[Grim]

more starter areas - how about Phandelver - make it happen.

 

[ShanachieWolf]

I saw the change on a youtube video and was honestly a bit surprised by how much such a little thing mattered in regards to my impression of the quest. Sometimes the small details matter, it changes the vibe and narratively, the stakes of the quest to having a more immediate impact, like "people actually need this thing intact for survival, it's not just a random crystal that vaguely has a purpose". I like to see that.

The changes to The Cannith Crystal are great visually if you are FACING the Crystal. The change isn’t, however, great from a gameplay perspective. The added animations can easily obscure the view of approaching foes when your character’s back is to the crystal, you know, kind of a normal stance for defending it. If you can’t see cultists approaching because of shiny blue environmental graphics, well, that’s suboptimal. If you’ve done the quest a hundred times, sure, you can do it blind. If you’re a new player in a starter area, though, this graphics change makes it harder to see what you’re supposed to do.

I hope they take your feedback into account when doing similar upgrades, that's something easy to miss, but also very impactful on players first time experiences. Perhaps they can add metal bars or a forcefield that cultists try to unlock or disable to make the quest easier or help counteract blindspots from lighting, so you don't have to stand so close to it that the lighting interferes with vision.

 

[Hireling]

It worked for the first five Wizardry games...

Looks like your crew is from Mystery Science Theater 3k

 

[Igognito]

I saw the change on a youtube video and was honestly a bit surprised by how much such a little thing mattered in regards to my impression of the quest. Sometimes the small details matter, it changes the vibe and narratively, the stakes of the quest to having a more immediate impact, like "people actually need this thing intact for survival, it's not just a random crystal that vaguely has a purpose". I like to see that.



I hope they take your feedback into account when doing similar upgrades, that's something easy to miss, but also very impactful on players first time experiences. Perhaps they can add metal bars or a forcefield that cultists try to unlock or disable to make the quest easier or help counteract blindspots from lighting, so you don't have to stand so close to it that the lighting interferes with vision.

The quest is not hard, for a ranged toon you most probably are going to climb on a crate from the other side. Melee will stand by the crate and only sneaking mobs will pass(which airways do).

I noticed the difference on my last run and really enjoyed it. Small details are important but I will agree that some bugs are more urgent and are not addressed. Bravo to SSG team for improving the quest, but we should actively request them to address bugs.

 

[kmoustakas]

more starter areas - how about Phandelver - make it happen.

Heh that's not a half-bad idea.

Although I'd prefer homlet myself! Add a wilderness area around ToEE

edit: Actually phandelver 1-2 and the updated version with the far realm stuff might be awesome.

 

[paddymaxson]

How does this improve the quest? It doesn't change the mechanics or make the crystal less prone to getting one-shotted by some guy in a robe. I'd rather the devs spend their time fixing things than adding cosmetic patches that do nothing for gameplay.

It's cute, it makes the game feel/look more immersive and cogent and it takes very little dev time to do and CAN be done by an intern without worrying about it breaking. Additionally, this can be bolted onto the side of projects that involve other reworks of the quest.

It's a net positive.

 

[Solarpower]

It's a net positive.

If they have spare time to beautify some quests that don't require it, they should spend it for fixing that humongous pile of bugs DDO has.

When a game is full of bugs that are already 10+ years old, such changes are not perceived "positively", but only irritating.

 

[vryxnr]

Not every dev is qualified or capable of fix bugs, and may well make things worse. While it is a small team, it is not a single dev indie game with one person doing everything. Multiple people with different specialties work on different things according to their skillsets. A dev who is great at aethsetics/art/quest layouts and poor at troubleshooting the minutia of buggy code, should not be fixing bugs, they'll just make things worse more often than naught.

 

[paddymaxson]

If they have spare time to beautify some quests that don't require it, they should spend it for fixing that humongous pile of bugs DDO has.

When a game is full of bugs that are already 10+ years old, such changes are not perceived "positively", but only irritating.

I agree, but again, an intern can be placing placeables and adjusting the visual effects in a quest, it doesn't require an experienced developer. I assume there's more than 1 job role at SSG, like just about every company.

 

[Solarpower]

A dev who is great at aethsetics/art/quest layouts and poor at troubleshooting the minutia of buggy code, should not be fixing bugs

Thank you, O Great Discoverer of America ! We wouldn't have known this without you !

You know, the game has plenty of bugs like "the barrel is half-buried in the wall and can't be broken, which is why you can't get the bonus for breakables" and such. Just the job for your "great at aethsetics/art/quest layouts" developer.

I agree, but again, an intern can be placing placeables and adjusting the visual effects in a quest, it doesn't require an experienced developer. I assume there's more than 1 job role at SSG, like just about every company.

Not every type of "bug" means "code".

 

[vryxnr]

Thank you, O Great Discoverer of America !

You're most welcome.

We wouldn't have known this without you !

It sure does seem that way sometimes. You're welcome again.

You know, the game has plenty of bugs like "the barrel is half-buried in the wall and can't be broken, which is why you can't get the bonus for breakables" and such. Just the job for your "great at aethsetics/art/quest layouts" developer.

I wonder if they even know, because while I don't recall seeing something half in a wall, I do know of some breakables that are very difficult to break (specific spells at specific angles might get them). But to me, those are such a non-issue that I don't bother reporting them. I wonder if anyone has ever reported those, and given proper documentation with /loc data so the devs able to fix it actually get the info they need to find and fix it. Most forum posters seem allergic to reporting bugs, and some who do sometimes seem allergic to giving enough details to make it useful. And if they ever do get fixed, people will complain about "devs wasting time on inconsequential bugs when MY personal bug/issue is still unresolved!"

I have those too, things I actually bug reported but are not yet fixed. But I have also reported bugs that later did get fixed. Almost like the are working on them and have their own priority of what is worth fixing or not at any given time... a game this large and a dev team their size who have not been there since it's inception cannot know every single nuance of every pixel and how it interacts with everything at all times, and thus rely on us reporting those bugs with enough info that they can actually look at it.

I personally would LOVE more updates that were pure bug fixes and for all bugs, old and new, be eventually be squashed, but too many people would freak out about lack of new content while they fix bugs, and the dev's overlords probably will not tolerate that either. Instead it seems that they've chosen to work on multiple things at once: new content, fixing bugs, updating graphics, etc. Getting all pissy over progress made in other areas is, to me, rather silly.

One may ask "Why are most bug fixes from newer content?" I can only make guesses: The devs who made he new content are still there so they have a better understanding of how it interacts with different systems. It's also the new shiney so it gets priority, after all, the old bugs have been around and haven't crashed the game, so it can survive them still being there longer still. There is also the difficulty of even what seems simple to laymen for older code that does not have the original devs around. Remember Lynnabel/Tonquin? There were several old issues that they tried to tackle, and failed at, communicating that while tinkering to figure it out, ended up breaking several other things to the point that parts of the game became unplayable, so they had to undo all their tinkering and leave it alone while they worked on and fixed dozens of other things coming at them at the same time.

tldr: even with long lasting bugs, I'm still happy to see parts of the game get facelifts, and I find raging at the devs for trying to make the game better in a variety of different ways (including purely aesthetically) to be silly.

 

[AlimonyJFMSU]

I just wish there was an Epic Korthos Island. It's a nice little quest zone, and a lot of people have memories of that place. But really, you go there once, and that's it.

 

[paddymaxson]

Thank you, O Great Discoverer of America ! We wouldn't have known this without you !

You know, the game has plenty of bugs like "the barrel is half-buried in the wall and can't be broken, which is why you can't get the bonus for breakables" and such. Just the job for your "great at aethsetics/art/quest layouts" developer.


Not every type of "bug" means "code".

Sure but I'd be surprised if the bugs that donm't involve writing any code are the ones that have been around years