I'm really going to enjoy running Pilgrim's Peril....

[droid327]

...just as soon as the event is over...

I really like the idea of fighting synergistic parties of mobs. What I dont like is having 3 or 4 of them spawn as Psionics, buffing each other while also being invincible and/or rezzing, and instantly stacking their buffs until they're hitting me for huge damage while I have to kill the totems in the right order first.

This was really not thought out

 

[droid327]

Also, note for future quest design: if there's a quest that's clearly meant to be run over and over quickly (Medium length, and you need a lot of repeats to get Cards), please dont put in a giant complex Mirror puzzle that requires like 50 clicks to solve

Or can we get mirrors to turn backwards when right-clicked or something? The ones you need to turn 6 or 7 times are so painful...let alone if you accidentally click once too many...

 

[rabidfox]

I wonder if they'll keep the event champs in the new quests even after the event ends to keep the challenge up there.

 

[droid327]

Oh here's a fun one

I just ran Amber Temple...and Kasimir was a Thrall. Plus two of the Exes were Thralls as well. So that was really fun - my NPC buddy was buffing the enemy...

 

[Cildar]

It's super fun and challenging. Not everything in DDO has to be easy. I just ran it a bunch on Reaper 4 with a group and people died. It was fun as hell and yeah a couple of times we got piles of buffy the champions but man it made you actually call the kill order and where the spawns that had to die first were in the room. In my opinion, this is the best end game dungeon in ages.

 

[droid327]

I do like the challenge aspect of the new dungeon, absolutely. And I dont mind champs being hard either

What I do mind is champs that are badly designed, so they scale geometrically with how many there are, and then also they have a crazy high spawn rate so they can often reach silly numbers. I think 1 is no biggie, 2-3 is a fun challenge...4, 5, 6 at a time, the toughness becomes arbitrary.

If players discovered a system like that to buff ourselves, you know they'd turn the servers off till they could patch it out

 

[Strimtom]

...just as soon as the event is over...

On lamannia, all the champs in the extreme challenge dungeons we're psionic champs, so I think that the champions will stay inside the dungeons since they are themed to them even after the event is over.

For transparency, I like the champions in the extreme challenge dungeons. It is an element that ramps up the challenge and it feels earned vs having them everywhere which feels less so.

 

[Vorph]

On lamannia, all the champs in the extreme challenge dungeons we're psionic champs, so I think that the champions will stay inside the dungeons since they are themed to them even after the event is over.

For transparency, I like the champions in the extreme challenge dungeons. It is an element that ramps up the challenge and it feels earned vs having them everywhere which feels less so.

It would be cool if in those dungeons any champ could be a psi champ and in turn make others in the encounter have a decreasing chance to be replaced by a psi champ as well, again, only in those dungeons. But it will get old real fast if they're always all psionic champs. As much as people love hating on RNG, when it comes to rares npcs and encounters its what keeps things fresh.

 

[Raithe]

What I dont like is having 3 or 4 of them spawn as Psionics, buffing each other while also being invincible and/or rezzing, and instantly stacking their buffs until they're hitting me for huge damage while I have to kill the totems in the right order first.

This was really not thought out

I think it was thought out, just in a way that the gaming industry has pretty much decided is completely antithetical to quality standards of game design. I logged on the forums to point most of what you said out.

Things that the gaming industry as a whole has pretty much figured out that players do not like:
1) Opponents spawning on top of them.
2) Kill order puzzles that are extreme in nature (as in nothing really hurts anything until the shields and healers are down).
3) Being locked in a room and having teleport options removed (notably while opponents are somehow porting in).
4) Extremely easy puzzles that have ridiculously lengthy sequences of mechanics.

If anyone is taking classes on game design, I would suggest studying SSG for all the things you don't want to end up doing.

 

[tsotate]

Extremely easy puzzles that have ridiculously lengthy sequences of mechanics.

Oh gods, this. There's nothing challenging about the mirror puzzle, but it takes forever.

 

[DilemmaEnder]

Let me just say that for all the annoyance you may have with the Psionic champs, the overall design of the dungeon is awesome.

From my first play-through on Lam I knew that I was gonna love that dungeon. I really like the synergies and live action puzzle that is the combat in that quest. I hope SSG makes more tactical combat puzzles like that. I love it and the possibilities it represents for what they might do in the future.

Making quests harder through tactics and strategy instead of inflated numbers of game mechanics (like PRR/MRR or Damage Reduction) is just what the doctor ordered!

I'd love to see them go further in this direction.

 

[voenixa121]

I don't know, that's pretty much the definition of "extreme challenge" isn't it? Seems to me this was designed to counter the nuke everything with AoE and kill big enemies with dino bone weapons strategies.

 

[Driaza]

I like the new quest.

Would be in favour for the new champs to have a "chance to spawn" or even just all be new champs in these

But make it Stop for the other quests - sooner the better

 

[Driaza]

I don't know, that's pretty much the definition of "extreme challenge" isn't it? Seems to me this was designed to counter the nuke everything with AoE and kill big enemies with dino bone weapons strategies.

Dino bone weopon strategies eh?

Stack Ash and what else good sir?

 

[voenixa121]

Dino bone weopon strategies eh?

Stack Ash and what else good sir?

Yeah strategy is the wrong word for it.

 

[Driaza]

No worries - was just wondering if there was anything else i am missing

Been on the TR train so long i dont do much end game stuff until recently

 

[droid327]

Let me just say that for all the annoyance you may have with the Psionic champs, the overall design of the dungeon is awesome.

From my first play-through on Lam I knew that I was gonna love that dungeon. I really like the synergies and live action puzzle that is the combat in that quest. I hope SSG makes more tactical combat puzzles like that. I love it and the possibilities it represents for what they might do in the future.

Making quests harder through tactics and strategy instead of inflated numbers of game mechanics (like PRR/MRR or Damage Reduction) is just what the doctor ordered!

I'd love to see them go further in this direction.

I agree with everything - I just think that Psionic Champs in their current incarnation are just inflated numbers. They buff each other's TTK and TTL, that's just pure numerical inflation. And that inflation scales up even faster with more of them. And they're coded to spawn lots more than normal champs. I think 2-3 at a time is enough to make the dungeon "extreme challenge"....4-5-6+ is just like adding skulls involuntarily, since thats what those mobs basically do, turn each other into higher-skull Reaper mobs.

Also there's no real strategy to fighting them (other than IKs) besides "just kill them quickly". Which would be fine, except that becomes an impossible counterstrategy when there's too many of them to kill at once, and especially in a quest that has a mechanic that makes it impossible to kill them first.