Downtime Notice: Thursday, May 25th 9:00 AM - 1:00 PM Eastern (-4 GMT)

[Buddha5440]

I have to agree with the other guy on this one.

Unless a player is a complete jerk who is trying to get people killed, it makes complete sense.

ANY thief who is working for the good of the party would immediately tell all of the group of a trap. This just keeps you from having to physically type or say something.

The icon makes MORE sense than an area trap being set off because I type slowly. How does my slow typing play into the idea of immersion. "DM: You run into the trap and set it off killing everyone in your party. If only the thief had taken a typing class."

You could always do something like <Enter> <W> 'Wait' or <H> 'Hold' or just stop and search, that in and of itself is notification and requires no more than .5 seconds to do.

 

[SteelStar]

"The boss fight in the quest "Friends in Low Places" has been rebuilt."

What does this even mean?

We took the boss fight apart, and built it different!

As others noted above, this quest's end fight was a frequent perpetrator of Instant Red Alert, especially if you rushed down the boss. In many cases, you could end up with 25-30 mobs in the room.

This was awful for server performance, made it difficult to avoid the Red Alert, and just wasn't good gameplay in any form. We shouldn't (and generally don't) build boss fights like this anymore. It'd be a slightly different story if the game smoothly handled that many monsters, but even then it just wasn't an interesting fight to just rushdown the boss and move on.

The new version has significantly fewer monsters, but you need to deal with them to deal with the boss. I'd encourage people to actually give it a spin before passing judgement. I'll be the first to say the new version isn't a perfect fight either, if I were making it from full scratch and with plenty of time I'd do things differently. It's ultimately a small mid-arc boss fight in a small mid-arc quest. But! This version should be a smoother gameplay experience and should not incur instant Red Alert, which is most of the goal here.

 

[Phoenicis]

We took the boss fight apart, and built it different!

As others noted above, this quest's end fight was a frequent perpetrator of Instant Red Alert, especially if you rushed down the boss. In many cases, you could end up with 25-30 mobs in the room.

This was awful for server performance, made it difficult to avoid the Red Alert, and just wasn't good gameplay in any form. We shouldn't (and generally don't) build boss fights like this anymore. It'd be a slightly different story if the game smoothly handled that many monsters, but even then it just wasn't an interesting fight to just rushdown the boss and move on.

The new version has significantly fewer monsters, but you need to deal with them to deal with the boss. I'd encourage people to actually give it a spin before passing judgement. I'll be the first to say the new version isn't a perfect fight either, if I were making it from full scratch and with plenty of time I'd do things differently. It's ultimately a small mid-arc boss fight in a small mid-arc quest. But! This version should be a smoother gameplay experience and should not incur instant Red Alert, which is most of the goal here.

So, Thrill of the Hunt.

Gonna do something about THAT end fight, where (what seems like) a gazillion hounds all get released at once and almost immediately stun everyone with that sonic howling thing they do?

Not to concerned about A Lesson in Deception, that one already has a mechanic (knock the ladders down) to avoid red alert.

 

[SteelStar]

So, Thrill of the Hunt.

Gonna do something about THAT end fight, where (what seems like) a gazillion hounds all get released at once and almost immediately stun everyone with that sonic howling thing they do?

Not to concerned about A Lesson in Deception, that one already has a mechanic (knock the ladders down) to avoid red alert.

I can add it to the running list of quests to investigate. Our hit-list right now largely consists of unavoidable, instant red alert situations. Many of those are bad for server performance, and the 'unavoidable' bit means you can't avoid the situation with more cautious play patterns, so they need to be corrected as time allows.

 

[Buddha5440]

So, Thrill of the Hunt.

Gonna do something about THAT end fight, where (what seems like) a gazillion hounds all get released at once and almost immediately stun everyone with that sonic howling thing they do?

Not to concerned about A Lesson in Deception, that one already has a mechanic (knock the ladders down) to avoid red alert.

Improvise, Adapt, Overcome.

With some good CC (which is not even needed with small groups and easily accomplished with larger groups), this quest is easily done "at level" with any good build/player. I have done it many times with a Rng/Rog/X (6/1/13), (depending on what past life I'm going for) and had no issues with it.

If everything is EASY; what's the point. Games are supposed to present challenge. If you don't want it at an Elite level...try running it at Hard/Normal/ or even Casual.

 

[Dendrix Deathblade]

If my skills are high enough to detect traps and hidden doors why should you be able to use my skills to see that door or trap... I have worked hard and spent my time and money to be able to do so why should anyone be able to see anything because of my skills, they are my skills after all.

Do you move away from shrines when people are shrining?
The game automatically uses the greatest heal/repair skill nearby to determine how many HP's are restored and if you are nearby it uses your skill

Can you let me know your characters names and servers, I find your attitude distasteful and I don't want to group with you.

 

[HoopleHead]

So, Thrill of the Hunt.

Gonna do something about THAT end fight, where (what seems like) a gazillion hounds all get released at once and almost immediately stun everyone with that sonic howling thing they do?

I've started the end-fight, backs WAY off to the door to give myself to breathing room, had ALL those doggos rush me in a huge pile...
.
I'll cast GCS and everything just STOPS for a good 20-25 seconds.. just freezes rock hard... then every single doggo will get a 'save' over the head @ the same time, despite my having the DCs to no-fail.... and then I get hit with 25 stacks of Howler Madness (-2 WIS each)... no save
.
Mind you, this was only on R6 @ level 15... everything leading up to is was a cake-walk :mad: