The Unofficial Hard Core Summer League 2024!

[Sheikra]

Also, just so you know, not everyone who plays DDO plays pen and paper. You are making a lot of referencing to "like if you sit down for pen and paper" that don't land because, at least I personally haven't played pen and paper.

 

[TroggyTrog]

You are tempting me and i was racing to get the new past lives done....but this sounds super fun.

However I would plan to group at times but if I don't see a group i'd solo. I think most soloists would do the honorable thing and start a new toon if they died alone. What's the fun of cheating? There are no rewards or proofs anyway. I often solo my own HC rules and restart the toon if I die on Thelanis. In any event great idea and hopefully will show DDO to make a new HC in the 2nd half of 2024 by the interest generated.

Question on rules: What about farming items in wilderness areas -- like horse or gear? What are the rules on that? You still have to do every quest on level but if you die in wilderness farming -- well you still die -- so is it worth the risk? I think it is fair game if following all the other rules.

Regarding P and J buffs....well since you have to finish every quest at level you would not have enough P favor until you are level 6 anyway to get the P buffs. It seems reasonable at that time to have earned them -- plus you have to get through the 5 early levels without them. They won't be quite as big a buff at level 6 as other toons can cast 20 resists on you by the --- its a reasonable favor reward by that point and equally available to all since all toons have to do the level 6s before advancing. Equal favor buff basically.

First off, nothing is set in stone yet. Every rule, guideline and restriction to playing in the event will have room for changes and some we might just kick out completely, some new rules we might add into the mix. This is very organic at this moment. The organizers still need to have some discussions and sit around the table and hash out a few more things before we submit our final rules for the event. This is quite literally just a few days old in the making.

I agree with you, 'what's the fun of cheating?' but I've DM'd and played in groups and even video games/MMOs where that's been a thing (thus why there are ban hammers for MMOs). So, it's something I want to avoid as much as possible. I hate it when people promote things like fudging dice rolls in PnP. That is literally cheating to me. Basically, with any game, you have a social contract, and there's a philosophy that comes with it. As someone that has worked in law enforcement before, I've seen the most unlikely people do the most horrendous things. So, I know anyone is capable of anything, when it really comes down to it.

The cheating thing though, is the secondary reason I wanted a rule against soloing. Since there's no leaderboard or prizes at this point, it probably wouldn't matter. What does matter is the main reason for this event: community. It is a player-driven, community event, not sanctioned or sponsored by SSG really. This is all on our shoulders, and is an event that promotes getting together with old friends for across all servers, just like HC does, as well as having a chance to game with streamers and streaming viewing communities, and ultimately strengthen friendships and forge new ones by coming together and playing TOGETHER. Solo play isn't really part of that, as you won't be playing with others, just yourself. Like I've said many times before in this thread, nothing is set in stone. We might allow soloing, perhaps only for catching up to other friends/players/groups to join the bubble you were questing in when your toon died, or what not. And, of course, running the SOLO quests in game that are truly SOLO only, are fine.

The Wilderness farming question: Yeah, wilderness farming is fine, as there's still a risk of dying, and it's not a quest. A quest has a completion status and favor when completed. Wildernesses don't have that, they just have maximums on slayers/rares/explorers. And since everyone will be holding levels from level 1 and onward to play this as a campaign style permadeath HC league (one and done, one life to live), any xp gained will be wasted most of the time. And, I do realize some players don't own xpacks that come with mounts, and therefore won't have mounts to start with, and will have to farm them in Borderlands Wilderness. I'm not making any prohibitions on mounts, as they are just a means of travel from A to B and can't be used in most quests, so to me they aren't breaking anything, nor providing too much other than speeding up time players travel from quest to quest. Being that quests will generally take longer to complete anyway, being more dangerous to run due to the level requirement rule, having a mount helps speed up time between quests. So, to me, it's a win win. Collectibles for turn ins are also fine, as it's not crafting niche/twink equipment, but often just using very rare RNG drops for trading in to an in-game collector NPC for something quite rare and unique like an augment or trinket of mnemonic enhancement for example. Cannith crafting to me, is something I want to avoid, mainly because some powerful effects can be added quickly to a character at very low level, if somehow that player was to get enough crafting mats to do so. I want to encourage more RNG finds, more chance and luck, rather than purposeful crafting of niche/twink items. Finding things and sharing/trading items to me is part of the comradery and social aspect I want to promote with this event.

The House P and J buffs are still something we have to make a final decision on, and after I talk with the other organizers and folks involved, we'll come to a consensus on that one. They are definitely earned via favor, so seem like something that can be permitted, but they do offer a very strong advantage and something very similar to guild buffs that can be renewed constantly (if the characters have enough wealth to do so). I'll let you know that answer I guess, when we post our final rules, but I'm taking all feedback on this thread into consideration. Thank you!

 

[Owlbear]

Maybe SSG can do a little collab and turn on the Mimic event or something

 

[TroggyTrog]

I hope I've addressed any/all questions thus far. I'm trying to get caught up on the various posts on the thread this morning before I get lunch and head out. I really hope that we can all enjoy this event as a great opportunity to socialize and group together in friendship with so many players from all across the combined DDO server population. I'm taking every post and every bit of feedback into consideration into the final form of our League rules. So, if you come up with other ideas or questions, please feel free to post. Like I've said many times, nothing is set in stone at this point. I want to have an event that will cater to as many players as possible but still have that very strict permadeath guild/hardcore league style of play, with it's own unique feel and theme. At the end of the day it's a community event and the goal is to have fun with friends!

 

[TroggyTrog]

Maybe SSG can do a little collab and turn on the Mimic event or something

Yeah! I was thinking about this last night. There's nothing we can do to prevent festivals from running, other than to avoid entering them if they are like Crystal Cove. But a Mimic event or something like it would certainly make it very, VERY interesting, as we wouldn't be able to avoid it! I'd love to see that kind of chaos. Shoot, I even considered promoting the new Eladrin/Chaosmancer/Wild Mage stuff by having a rule where players would have to be one of those three if they owned them via prepurchase orders. We might still do that one. It'd make it SOOOO chaotic, and just think if you had Mimic hunts along with it?! Crazy times! One can only hope! Mwahahaha!

I want this event to be fun! And challenging is fun!

 

[Positive thinking]

I hope I've addressed any/all questions thus far. I'm trying to get caught up on the various posts on the thread this morning before I get lunch and head out. I really hope that we can all enjoy this event as a great opportunity to socialize and group together in friendship with so many players from all across the combined DDO server population. I'm taking every post and every bit of feedback into consideration into the final form of our League rules. So, if you come up with other ideas or questions, please feel free to post. Like I've said many times, nothing is set in stone at this point. I want to have an event that will cater to as many players as possible but still have that very strict permadeath guild/hardcore league style of play, with it's own unique feel and theme. At the end of the day it's a community event and the goal is to have fun with friends!

All sounds good, as mentioned i like to use hirelings so wondering the rules there.

Our guildies have discussed and are excited to meet more players that like this type of playstyle, we look forward to making more long term friends.

 

[TroggyTrog]

Also, just so you know, not everyone who plays DDO plays pen and paper. You are making a lot of referencing to "like if you sit down for pen and paper" that don't land because, at least I personally haven't played pen and paper.

Well, the basic idea is that you are sitting around a table with maybe 5 or 6 friends all playing a game together with theater of the mind (kind of like playing out roles in a story or book or play, but mainly through discourse, dice rolls for RNG, and sticking to the social contract of the rule book to govern things). So, in DDO, we can simulate that via playing in groups/parties of up to 6 players (12 in raids), and do the same thing. The restrictions and rules being set in place promote the idea of leaning on each other to get through a dungeon. For example, making a rule where you have to run level 1 quests when you are level 1, no matter the difficulty, and only run them once, in a campaign adventure type style (imagine you are that character via roleplay, and this is you in that quest facing those monsters, and you do this once, not rinse/repeat 8 times for that rare drop in the end chest). By playing in this style, you step out of your normal DDO playstyle and comfort zone, most likely no longer zerg, but rather dungeon crawl and really make sure that trap box is disabled before heading further. It's an emphasis on danger, one life to live, and roleplaying as if you were that character, thus really helping you get into that frame of mind and socializing with the group. We'll obviously be promoting DISCORD chat channels to utilize this socializing, since in-game party voice chat isn't working well or at all for many in DDO.

 

[TroggyTrog]

All sounds good, as mentioned i like to use hirelings so wondering the rules there.

Our guildies have discussed and are excited to meet more players that like this type of playstyle, we look forward to making more long term friends.

That's good news! Glad there is excitement with your friends and guildies! So great to hear! Hirelings are currently something we want to avoid, perhaps maybe only allowing the non-gold seal, standard ones, and only allowing them to be summoned in the first 1 minute of the quest (basically soon after you enter the quest itself). I know some permadeath guilds don't allow them at all, some do in certain quests. It's really going to depend on the discussions I have with the others helping organize this, but I'll pass your concerns along.

An idea I just thought of is maybe, just maybe, if we do allow them, and if they die in a quest, then that hireling can no longer be summoned by that player (put a note in character BIO saying "Byron Scoutsword died in the Decrepit Catacombs of Necromancer's Doom, RIP"). It'd be like he died in Eberron, no longer to adventure again, just like your character if it dies during the event. Hmmm. This might work.

 

[TroggyTrog]

I think that catches me up on the posts at this point. I'll check in later this evening if/when I have time.

 

[h46av8r]

Looks interesting - and I've never even played hardcore before. But I only solo for various reasons so my vote is to include soloing on the honor system.

With respect to requiring quests be run on elite, I am fine with that because I am VIP so can I open on Elite - but what about others? I am fine with running Elite quests at level, also. But I am not going to run every quest in the game (I think that is the current suggestion?) - don't really have time for that - instead would be interested in just seeing how high level I can get before getting myself killed.

What about Daily Dice including Gold Rolls? Again, VIPs like myself would have a bit of an advantage here.

I just created my first toon on Thelanis to see what I'd get in inventory. Ignoring pets and cosmetics, here is the list of things that could provide advantages:

Elieri Thistledown
Frogo (Saltmarsh claim ticket)
Feywild Muse
Shield Guardian (Sharn claim ticket)

Lesser Epic Tome of Learning (Shadowfell claim ticket)
+1 Skill Tome (Shadowfell claim ticket)
+1 Universal Enhancement Tome (Sharn)
Tomes of Destiny +1 (Historic) x3

5 Excellent Experience Elixers
5,000 Sentient XP

Boarding Pass / Feywild Tuning Fork Teleport
Fast Unicorn Mounts (Feywild Claim Ticket)

 

[TroggyTrog]

There's still discussions and talks with those organizing the event on the final rules and guidelines. That includes the solo aspect. Elite is ideally what players/groups should try to run, as I want this to be a campaign style permadeath guild/HC league event. What that means to me, is One and Done completions of quests (no rerunning of quests from say, normal, then hard, then elite). One life to live, if you die, you roll up a new toon. To be more clear on the One and Done: you are a band of adventurers, you do the quest, get the job done, and get your reward and then move on, as if it's real life, as in roleplay. It's like a bunch of stories we move through in the game of DDO, where the players are the adventurers living out those stories. Since it's One Life to Live, you do each story once, not relive that story over and over. Plus, it really helps push the groups/players forward and not encourage farming items. You move through the game, and strategize your moves, possibly avoiding certain quests altogether for survivability. Also, 30 days isn't a long time, as you've pointed out, so we won't have many players that will get to say, 5,000+ favor, if at all, especially considering how much more deadly this event will be for the characters attempting it (doing the quests at the level you are, i.e. level 1 characters doing only level 1 quests, level 2 characters only doing level 2 quests, not level 3 characters doing level 1 quests on Elite), and other permadeath style restrictions.

No pre-order items, other than cosmetics and mounts will be allowed. So no XP pots (not that you'd need them), no racial, universal, destiny tomes, no sentient xp. As far as fast travel items, I don't see a problem with them, they just port you to a public zone, so no real issues there. Hirelings are still up for debate and discussion with the organizers, and Kozybean (on twitch) and I, and perhaps some others will be bringing up a lot of these questions later this evening on her livestream, if anyone wants to chime in via the chat. That's at least the plan this evening, anyway. Mainly, what we want to do here is keep the playing field as level and fair as possible. A lot of people don't have pre-purchase action point tomes, for example, so that's an unfair advantage to them when going against players that do. If you find a tome in a quest of as a reward, like the +2 tomes from 1750 favor, then by all means, use them, as they are your loot and your reward for questing.

Ultimately the vision for this event is Fun, Friendly and Fair. And the glue that holds it altogether is Challenge! I want this event to feel and be harder, much more difficult than the typical HC season, to encourage safety in numbers and grouping, and capture the idea of a party of adventurers that met in the tavern and decided to go out and save the world.

 

[TroggyTrog]

The plan is to have live, organic planning discussion about this tonight on Kozy's twitch stream. So, stop on by and chat and we'll try and address your points, input, and answer your questions. Things like Veteran Status I and II might even come up. We've not even discussed if that would be an option, and some permadeath guilds allow for it in their rules, so that players can quickly catch back up to their adventuring party after their character dies. The possibility of a Mimic hunt might be mentioned...could you imagine the chaos?! What if we have a Chaos themed event as well, with the launch of Myth Drannor looming in the distance? Those that own the pre-order content (that is, own any/all of the Eladrin/Chaosmancer/Wild Mage content) HAVE to build one of those instead of their normal go-to favorite class. Just an idea, but imagine a bunch of adventuring parties having to deal with chaos magic with very little, to no experience dealing with it. Could be quite interesting and quite deadly. Again, a lot of the rules and guidelines will be nailed down with this livestream Q & A tonight. And in the next day or so that follows, we plan to have a finalized event sheet with those rules and guidelines and start up the next phase of the planning: sign-up for the event guild(s). Also, anyone that wishes to help with the event, helping run the guild, helping promote the event, and any behind the scenes sort of help, please feel free to contact me or say so in this thread. I may open up a new thread after we are done with the planning/rules/guidelines stuff.

Looking at 7:30 PM US MT for the evening livestream Q & A chat session.

 

[Mary]

Cool! I posted the link to your event in my Death Smile discord and on my youtube channel and talked about it during my live stream! Players interested in the event should check it out! Its a Player run perma-death event, rules are based on an honor system. Would be nice too to see Wayfinder get some love.

 

[TroggyTrog]

Cool! I posted the link to your event in my Death Smile discord and on my youtube channel and talked about it during my live stream! Players interested in the event should check it out! Its a Player run perma-death event, rules are based on an honor system. Would be nice too to see Wayfinder get some love.

Cool Cool Cool, Mary! Thank you so much! You are more than welcome to join the event in any compacity you wish. I really want this event to have enough structure/rules/guidelines to have a true theme and uniqueness, but also be open to as many and all players as possible. So if you look through the thread, you'll see that I keep mentioning that nothing is set in stone as far as rules. But we have a lot of great ideas and will be ironing out most of that tonight on Kozy's live stream coming up in about 1 1/2 hours from the time I post this. (Stream starts at 7:30 PM MT). Join the chat and feel free to add to the dialogue and ideas/questions.

 

[Weaponalpha]

Thanks for taking this on. I am sure there will be ample pressure to allow "x, y, and z" requests but your K.I.S.S. principle should always apply. Hirelings? No. Lesser reincarnate? No. Solo? No. Tomes from buying previous pack? No. Auction House? No. DDO Store? LMFAOno. This? No. That? No. When you create your character you throw away everything that pops up in your inventory. Everything. Yes, even that thing... You start as a complete scrub and try and make your way in a violent world. You know? Hardcore...

 

[TroggyTrog]

Thanks for taking this on. I am sure there will be ample pressure to allow "x, y, and z" requests but your K.I.S.S. principle should always apply. Hirelings? No. Lesser reincarnate? No. Solo? No. Tomes from buying previous pack? No. Auction House? No. DDO Store? LMFAOno. This? No. That? No. When you create your character you throw away everything that pops up in your inventory. Everything. Yes, even that thing... You start as a complete scrub and try and make your way in a violent world. You know? Hardcore...

I know, right?! It's supposed to be HARD CORE, and not that HC we get with SSG every season, but something really HARD CORE. But, sadly, I will probably have to make concessions to make this event work for the masses. So, we'll see, I guess. Thanks for the post!

 

[TroggyTrog]

Brainstorming livestream is about to go live in just a minute. Tune in, ask questions in the chat. Give feedback and all that good stuffs!

Here:

 

[Discount Gandalf]

There is nothing more hardcore than playing PD solo, just saying.

 

[TroggyTrog]

There is nothing more hardcore than playing PD solo, just saying.

But there's no way for us to track that, no accountability. That's why PD is played in group. But I doubt we'll be able to get that going, and will have some kind of compromise between PD and HC (or what I call Soft Core). I solo nearly all the time in DDO, have for years. But this event isn't about proving to yourself or others that you can do everything solo. It's a community event that was inspired by what I was seeing and hearing in various streamer chats about people missing the comradery of running with players from all over DDO on the HC server. It was about getting everyone together to group up and hang out and play together, not alone. And, I got inspired by hearing that, and wanted to offer a place and event that could get everyone that wanted this, together to group, play, socialize and have fun, together. And I say this as someone that solo's every HC league alone and only have alts to help others group when they struggle or have to reroll and need assistance.

 

[Vansdeaith]

I have a set of rules I use for ironman runs. Most of which would probably be applicable for a hardcore season as well.

*No dying. If you die, you're dead. Not even the delicious cake can save you!
*Cannot use pre existing items, or any items that are generated on character creation. ie... racial tomes, mask, ect... (cosmetic items and mounts are an exception because they don't impact gameplay at all.)
*No daily dice rolls.
*Quests must be ran on at least Elite difficulty. (non VIP's of course this wouldn't apply to)
*Quests must be ran at, or below, listed quest level. (the only only only exception I have to this is Devil Assault. I run this at most at level 10 on Elite.)
*No Auction House/Shard Exchange.
*No guild buffs.
*And finally, No Gold Seal Hirelings.

Anyway. Let me know what you think. This is just the list of rules I use for myself when doing this sort of thing.