Update 63 Preview 2: New Quests

[Cordovan]

This Lamannia contains previews of four new quests - "Pilgrims' Peril," "Stolen Power," "Horde of the Illithid Controller," and "Astral Ambush." To access them, speak to The Questgiver in the Test Dojo.

These quests have received additional polish and general statting adjustment. The challenge level of these quests is expected to be significantly more difficult than seen in preview 1.

 

[Yamani]

New champions!!! Greater Psionic Pressure needs some work still or make it more clear how to remove it. Even with them being last alive they still had full stacks.

 

[Ying]

The quantity of how many cards can drop from an end chest varies a bit too much.

R1 endchest:

R3 endchest:

 

[Lorrgar]

I did the Pilgrim quest on a lvl 32 FVS nuker. I like the dynamic of Monsters who give the "monster group" specific heals and/ or buffs. If these are going to be extreme challenges they will likely be mana intensive. Will we get lost souls or something of the sort on live outside of Reaper? Additionally, you may want to add another shrine during the end fight that appears for a short period of time "while the enemy is gathering additional forces." You could do it by the same mechanic as in the Sharn Quest, Same Old Song. I don't have time to run the other quests but I like the theme and mechanic of this one.

I got spammed with hamstring effects over and over. I think the DEVS should consider some kind of timer on Hamstring effects. If a hamstring effect is active another one cannot proc within XX number of seconds. I think most players would appreciate that.

 

[axel15810]

Me and 2 friends ran all 4 quests last night. All level 32s. We ran these on R1, except the last one we did on Elite. Just for context the 3 of us together would be able to comfortably handle R4 for any other Legendary endgame quests. We're on very good well geared characters but not super meta builds. Atleast 2 of us have good DPS on our builds btw.

Loved the mechanics in the first quest with the various healers, raisers, shield givers, etc. with the enemy mobs. That was wonderful, made you think about kill order. More of this in DDO please. Awesome job.

The main thing I didn't like was the mobs with giant numbers of hitpoints. I know the devs want monsters to stay alive long enough to be threatening but it still felt much more tedious than challenge. That's why we dropped to elite for the last one. Not because we couldn't handle the damage we were taking in R1, we were just hoping it'd be less tedious on Elite. Especially the quest with the 3 giants, it took forever to beat them down. If the goal is to increase challenge, I recommend you decrease the hitpoint totals and increase mob damage further instead, as well as incentivize higher difficulties with the card drops in a significant way past R1. Maybe that's the way you're doing the drops now, I can't tell as of now with just 1 run through them.

Also, one thing I don't understand is what kind of DR are some of these mobs intended to have? I was doing very little damage at times on hits and I don't know if/how I can bypass or if there is some kind of mechanic here to get past that. Friend I was playing with can bypass almost any DR on his weapon and was experiencing the same thing. And I'm not talking about mobs that had shield bubbles up around them or grazing hits. I noticed the high AC, I have a decent to hit at 165 and it seemed I was getting quite a bit more grazes than normal. I imagine that part of it is intended.

I also really want some brand new puzzle types in new content instead of the same mirror and/or tile puzzles put in every new content pack that comes out with just very minor alterations.

 

[CBDunk]

In Pilgrim's Peril the shielder doesn't protect the healer or the rezzer. That may be intentional, but obviously the quest would be more difficult if you had to take down the shielder and then get the rezzer before the shielder could be raised and re-establish the shield. Lever for final boss moved to an easier to spot location.

In Stolen Power if you fall in to the 'water' in the first room there doesn't seem to be any way to get back out. However, tougher characters on lower difficulties have time to recall out and re-enter. Unclear if that is intentional. The titan now stops attacking if you kill the illithid - which is a nice change.

In Horde, I made a stealth character this time, but wasn't able to sneak past the giants. Is definitely going to take some practice, especially if attempting to get the optional side chest. That dropped a single card for me... not sure if that was spectacularly bad luck or the optional chests just have a lower drop rate for cards than the end chests.

In Astral Ambush the levers have been changed to gravity switches, but the messages haven't all caught up;
"The lever activates, and one of the signal crystals by the barrier flares alight."
"With both levers pulled, the fortress's barrier collapses in upon itself, revealing the passage beyond."

It is possible to overlook the green and/or blue switches and still get past the barrier they control. This results in being able to 'finish' the quest with the 'enter the fortress' objective incomplete and thus not receiving XP.

I don't remember the protective bubbles on the illithids and death slaadi in the last preview, but I had a melee build so I might have missed them. From what I can tell they are strictly a range shield... like a smaller version of the Balor's fire circle in Fire Over Morgrave. So you can still take them down with ranged or spell damage... you just have to be in melee RANGE to do it. Very nice. Could have some good synergies with group tactics like in Pilgrim's Peril (e.g. melee range shield on a healer that you have to jump across several pillars or get past a wall of melee troops to reach). Also pairs well with mobs that do aura / close AoE damage.

From what I've seen so far it seems like 0, 1, or 4 of each type of card drop on Casual difficulty and 0, 1, 4, 8, or 12 on all other difficulties. Not enough data to be sure, but it also seems like those skew towards the lower end (i.e. 0 and 1 are more common than 8 or 12).

 

[convallaria]

In Pilgrim's Peril the shielder doesn't protect the healer or the rezzer. That may be intentional, but obviously the quest would be more difficult if you had to take down the shielder and then get the rezzer before the shielder could be raised and re-establish the shield. Lever for final boss moved to an easier to spot location.

The special monsters are working exactly as intended But thank you for the feedback!

 

[Zvdegor]

I got spammed with hamstring effects over and over. I think the DEVS should consider some kind of timer on Hamstring effects. If a hamstring effect is active another one cannot proc within XX number of seconds. I think most players would appreciate that.

I think the different armor types should give some kind of defese against ranged attacks. The heavier the armor is the greater the defense should be. I dont think that a player in heavy armor can be as easily hamtringed like another player in cloth or light armor.

 

[seph1roth5]

Oof yeah that sounds like it would be very annoying. You always want to kill the reviver first in any game, I'd hate for them to not be able to be first lol.

 

[Epitome]

I know that these dungeons will be unlocked via some sort of timed event. I'm curious if the dungeons stick around permanently in the world after the event, or are they a seasonal thing (akin to Night Revels and such)?

 

[PurpleSerpent]

I know that these dungeons will be unlocked via some sort of timed event. I'm curious if the dungeons stick around permanently in the world after the event, or are they a seasonal thing (akin to Night Revels and such)?

The event unlocking this dungeons is temporary, but the dungeons themselves are permanent additions. (We know this because the event is a one-time thing with Update 63, so when it's finished it won't be coming back.)

 

[Swimstahl4]

Me and 2 friends ran all 4 quests last night. All level 32s. We ran these on R1, except the last one we did on Elite. Just for context the 3 of us together would be able to comfortably handle R4 for any other Legendary endgame quests. We're on very good well geared characters but not super meta builds. Atleast 2 of us have good DPS on our builds btw.

Loved the mechanics in the first quest with the various healers, raisers, shield givers, etc. with the enemy mobs. That was wonderful, made you think about kill order. More of this in DDO please. Awesome job.

The main thing I didn't like was the mobs with giant numbers of hitpoints. I know the devs want monsters to stay alive long enough to be threatening but it still felt much more tedious than challenge. That's why we dropped to elite for the last one. Not because we couldn't handle the damage we were taking in R1, we were just hoping it'd be less tedious on Elite. Especially the quest with the 3 giants, it took forever to beat them down. If the goal is to increase challenge, I recommend you decrease the hitpoint totals and increase mob damage further instead, as well as incentivize higher difficulties with the card drops in a significant way past R1. Maybe that's the way you're doing the drops now, I can't tell as of now with just 1 run through them.

Also, one thing I don't understand is what kind of DR are some of these mobs intended to have? I was doing very little damage at times on hits and I don't know if/how I can bypass or if there is some kind of mechanic here to get past that. Friend I was playing with can bypass almost any DR on his weapon and was experiencing the same thing. And I'm not talking about mobs that had shield bubbles up around them or grazing hits. I noticed the high AC, I have a decent to hit at 165 and it seemed I was getting quite a bit more grazes than normal. I imagine that part of it is intended.

I also really want some brand new puzzle types in new content instead of the same mirror and/or tile puzzles put in every new content pack that comes out with just very minor alterations.

i kind of like the idea of the mobs having more health and doing a little more damage. Makes the idea of having a full well balanced party more of a necessity, a lot of times Spellcasters can one or two shot mobs and then it just makes the quest boring for everyone else involved. with more hitpoints and damage, tanks have a more meaningful impact on the lower difficulties instead of only being useful on the R8-10. Also, it means that more melee characters can actually do something besides be a boss beater at the end

 

[Uppsy]

I was so happy to see Cellimas return! It’s been forever since we’ve seen her and our other Korthos friends have been given more love than her.
very excited to run on live and hear whose voicing the quests

 

[Fhrek]

The main thing I didn't like was the mobs with giant numbers of hitpoints.

They don't learn... tsc

Mobs with bloated HP aren't challenging, they are boring waste of time. Wasn't good game design back when first Epics where released, why thahell they think it will be any good now?

IMO a good blueprint of challenging mob is Orthons - sturdy, hits fairly hard, not too fast, will try to engage in melee, but will adjust to ranged if necessary and comeback to melee via telegraphed teleport.

 

[Striga]

The quantity of how many cards can drop from an end chest varies a bit too much.

R1 endchest:

R3 endchest:

Normal endchest: 2 cards

 

[Br4d]

I think the different armor types should give some kind of defese against ranged attacks. The heavier the armor is the greater the defense should be. I dont think that a player in heavy armor can be as easily hamtringed like another player in cloth or light armor.

It's complicated. As an example, strong mobs should be able to knock a character in plate over and then they should have a very hard time getting back up again. So having the hamstring be equally applicable to its effect on lighter armor probably just makes up the difference for the general unwieldyness of using heavy armor in active combat.

 

[Zvdegor]

It's complicated. As an example, strong mobs should be able to knock a character in plate over and then they should have a very hard time getting back up again. So having the hamstring be equally applicable to its effect on lighter armor probably just makes up the difference for the general unwieldyness of using heavy armor in active combat.

 

[Br4d]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3248716/#:~:text=In%20Medieval%20Europe%2C%20soldiers%20wore,distributed%20over%20the%20entire%20body.

And no this is not an Onion reprint.

 

[Zvdegor]

I dont think any of the soldiers would wear any armor which could put him on a disadvntage on the battlefield and risk death. Losing the capabilitiy of moving and mobility on the battlefield = death
Sure heavy plates definetely exhausting to wear and fight in it in the real word. But DDO is not the real world.

 

[Br4d]

I dont think any of the soldiers would wear any armor which could put him on a disadvntage on the battlefield and risk death. Losing the capabilitiy of moving and mobility on the battlefield = death
Sure heavy plates definetely exhausting to wear and fight in it in the real word. But DDO is not the real world.

There were a bunch of considerations that went into armor choices from antiquity to the modern ages when gun powder finally made most armor obsolete.

The amount of padding that was required under any kind of heavy armor was formidable and when soaked in sweat significantly increased the overall encumbrance of the armor. Also the sun could turn metallic and laminate armor into an overheated oven very quickly.

Most heavy armor was worn by mounted soldiers who also had barding on their mounts and for the same reason, which was once the charge began they had little control over what they were exposed too in the fray that followed. Unlike foot soldiers they didn't have the moments to try to react to each attack but just had to bear them somehow. Foot soldiers didn't try to cut the legs out from under their mounts because dying under a ton of falling rolling armored horse wasn't a sound survival tactic.

The downsides of heavy armor were many but avoiding randomly dying in the fray was a powerful incentive. Until the pikes became a thing...