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Post by desocupado on Oct 12, 2016 0:56:49 GMT
-----Small SR debuffs---- Actually if everything stacks it would be a nightmare for balancing - because a party can have just 2 SR classes or 5. i.e. how can an area be balanced to both the SR-6 and the SR-15 group of the same supposed power?
This issue already happens when you consider the simple stack of both bard curse song (between -3 and -5 to saves), cleric's prayer + battletide (7-8) and fear aura (-1 to -3) If the party has all three spells always land (-16 to will saves!!!! or a more realistic -12 on fortitude) having just bard or fear aura is problematic. I can exemplify this with a recent case - my full dc bur subrace shifter of level 60 with wisdom artifact had a success rate of 15% (1-3) without debuffs - in this example it would jump to 75% (and 90% if a cleric cast greater restoration)
Truth be told the whole SR scaling in LL is just a difficulty cliff (same goes for AC and melee attacks). It just adds an impassable barrier while your level isn't brought up.
----Elemental damage usage---- This changes a lot on higher level areas: In most LL there is usually one right damage type against 80% of the mobs In hells and beyond 60+ it gets complicated - most individual monster are only vulnerable to 3 elements (a % around 0-30-50) and 1 non-elemental. So it's worth to change weapons often. There's also the elite paragon mobs (stronger version of regular mobs) which also gain temp HP (over their max health) if hit by one wrong elemental type.
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Post by fundrun on Oct 12, 2016 1:31:40 GMT
I have a hard time taking you seriously given the way you responded to my post, and you are responding to a topic I am not even talking about. I don't understand why you are even bringing up Paragon levels in your response to me. My issue is that there is no way for a new player to learn game mechanics. The populace does not exist to experience content as intended in the 40+ range. Even run I get dragged through, I bring up the same complaints every time. I'm assumed to just "have element immunity rings". I've gone through 1-40 on multiple times, and I've found a whole 1 90% acid immune ring. I havn't even needed Acid in the LL runs I've been on. I try to contribute to Groups. All I can do is cast Gate and spam EQ until I am out of spell slots (Which takes 1-2 pulls typically) and then I'm screwed until I am able to rest again, and then rebuff again. None of my others spells land because of Spell Resistance, and if they do they hardly do anything. I did the same when I made a Wizard. I would throw Mord out there, and even with a Mord I have to use 3-4 instant death spells to see any results, or use my Nukes to deal a whole 100-150~ damage in an area when trash mobs have 1500~ HP.. This is with Epic Spell Foci and Penetration. Then the veterans go "Oh, it's because you are an open sub race. Yea, your spells won't hit for awhile". Ok, so I'm worthless until I get some kind of racial upgrade, most of which are random (but not all). So I decide to try boxing a druid, and suddenly I feel like my spells are worth a damn again. I still need to rest way too often, but I can make progress at least. I don't care if tanks or casters or cores are more effective. The issue is I can't pick a class at random and contribute. Even with Cores, I just end up sitting there and getting dragged through because there is never enough people online to build a group and experience content as intended, without the help of veterans. So people don't learn mechanics, and new players are left feeling frustrated. I could bring up other problems, like Elemental Resists for kickback and dragon breaths for tanks (The very first dungeon requires magical resist, which I still have yet to find on a piece of gear that is above like 6%). I was told by veterans to not even attempt Maze until I was 50-60, and even then you need to abuse game mechanics (like resting during a boss fight by distancing yourself) to beat the thing because he is immune to so many elements and has a ludicrous SR. I was totally on board with this server until I hit immo and experienced LL runs. It feels like there is an entire section of game missing between immo and beyond. It has nothing to do with difficulty and everything to do with the fact that I feel like my only option is to get dragged through runs until that magical day my character becomes relevant. That removes all enjoyment of progression and learning. And this leads into my biggest concern about this server, is that there is no right answer. It's an old game and it is without a doubt a labor of love, but the Devs cannot win here. They either need to deal with people complaining about the population and focus on retaining their current user base by continuing to develop content that a fraction of a fraction of it's loyal users play, or they focus on modifying content the main user base has played millions of times in a desperate attempt to get more players and likely lose their core userbase in the process. I love the depth of this server, and it has a lot of potential to offer that is still unexplored. But even as niche products go, the experience after Immortality is incredibly unfriendly to new players due to the current state of the server and it's really unfortunate because I have had an absolute blast in the month or so I have been playing here.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 12, 2016 1:38:59 GMT
I was totally on board with this server until I hit immo and experienced LL runs. It feels like there is an entire section of game missing between immo and beyond. It has nothing to do with difficulty and everything to do with the fact that I feel like my only option is to get dragged through runs until that magical day my character becomes relevant. That removes all enjoyment of progression and learning. Like I said in my response to Dante, it's just a sad reality for the 41-60 region in today's server-state; a natural consequence of having uncapped level restrictions in parties... but re-capping them would be a disaster due to low server population. For many players at the moment, the progression goes: 1-40: Tags/Quests - low/moderate challenge, moderate fun 41-60: Drag-fest - zero challenge, zero fun 60+: Proper endgame runs - high challenge, high fun Unfortunately, all I can really advise is to stick it out. The LL-dragging process is relatively short (much faster than 1-40) and the endgame is worth it. A true 'solution' requires large amounts of dev-work, which is already in extremely short supply. Band-aid ideas such as giving large XP boosts to in-range parties would probably go a decent way to help, and has been suggested before, but ultimately still needs to be approved and coded.
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Post by fundrun on Oct 12, 2016 1:43:58 GMT
-----Small SR debuffs---- Actually if everything stacks it would be a nightmare for balancing - because a party can have just 2 SR classes or 5. i.e. how can an area be balanced to both the SR-6 and the SR-15 group of the same supposed power? This issue already happens when you consider the simple stack of both bard curse song (between -3 and -5 to saves), cleric's prayer + battletide (7-8) and fear aura (-1 to -3) If the party has all three spells always land (-16 to will saves!!!! or a more realistic -12 on fortitude) having just bard or fear aura is problematic. I can exemplify this with a recent case - my full dc bur subrace shifter of level 60 with wisdom artifact had a success rate of 15% (1-3) without debuffs - in this example it would jump to 75% (and 90% if a cleric cast greater restoration) Truth be told the whole SR scaling in LL is just a difficulty cliff (same goes for AC and melee attacks). It just adds an impassable barrier while your level isn't brought up. This was why I said those stacking effects would have a cap. The intent is to spread out the effects and as a group, compose some grouping of classes to reach that cap as opposed to a single class holding the magical key to instantly reach full potential. This allows you to empower classes that need and inject more class variety into the game as opposed to ABCD. This also adds more meta gaming into the mix, as some groups might be more concerned about certain caps. A melee heavy party would be more interested in AC, Phys Immune, Blud/Slash/Pier Immune, vs a Caster partys that cares about Elemental Immu or SR. As for your second point, I have 0 issue with that part of the game. I think it's a great way to utilize the DnD spell system.
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Post by sabregirl on Oct 12, 2016 3:20:06 GMT
I'd like to chime in here a bit. I did a from scratch playthrough on a new alt account not long ago. The biggest issue I had in the transition from immortality to legendary runs. The big problem was gear. I was able to use my knowledge to help this a bit but the average new player, is I'm betting, pretty lost. If you don't want to be dragged, there are plenty of areas out there that are level appropriate. Part of the problem is the newer LL areas are actually a lot tougher than the old ones. So the stated level ranges are more for people who've played LL a bunch of times and have a lot of gear. So I can give you specific advice - one being stick to the old areas at first. Which are those? 1. Deepbats - Ultra rares can spawn here and the mobs are easy. Especially if you're playing a tank, farm as much gear as you can. 2. The Maze - Ultra rares can also spawn here. Dachy (the dragon) is rough unless you have a good weapon or buffs with exotic damage. It's certainly doable by a lowish level tank with decent HP and negative potions. Best classes are paladin and blackguard. Easier thing can be to just wander the maze and beat up guardians. Ladders go up, holes go down and if you hit enough glowing yellow portals you'll end up back at start. 3. The desert - It's a bit mean in parts but it is no fugue. Unfortunately very hard for a tank to solo unless you're an assassin or super high damage. There are some almost decentish set drops you can use when just starting off. 4. Ssith is old but super nasty. You'll really want specific types of gear - elec/cold rings and implosion immune to make it easy enough to farm. Places that are really rough are the newer LL areas - Uroboros, PoM, Locathah, Hive, Myco, Dulvuroth - these are pretty much dragville for a new player imo. Myconids less than the others but still pretty nasty. I joined one on my test playthrough and it was pretty rough as I was with another new player. We eventually pulled it off but it took a lot of work. #1 and #2 are small scale ways to make progress even if you're soloing with few people around. You certainly do not need a druid on every LL run. You don't even have to have one on every hell run. There are alternative ways of doing lots of runs but they are tricky. LL runs don't even take a lot of people if you're careful. Among my favorite HG experiences was doing Illithids with 3 people at level appropriate - lvl 50ish. Scary but if done right, just beautiful. Keeping level ranges close in LL already gives you a bonus to xp. Dragging can still be pretty efficient simply because of speed. But you don't have to go that way if you don't want to. Back when I was a newbie it wasn't really an option as there were even fewer players than now and people were super cliquish. So we played with a very small group - sometimes just Ty and I and figured out LL runs as best we could. I highly recommend that experience it was a blast. -S
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Post by chirality on Oct 12, 2016 3:24:12 GMT
I have a hard time taking you seriously given the way you responded to my post, and you are responding to a topic I am not even talking about. The topic was problems the module has...? I don't understand why you are even bringing up Paragon levels in your response to me. Probably because of the way you gave a sweeping analysis of "the module"? You even specified 35 "and up", so I thought it was relevant to share my differing opinion. I guess you're pretty set on the whole thing though, so np. My issue is that there is no way for a new player to learn game mechanics. The populace does not exist to experience content as intended in the 40+ range. I never had much problem enjoying low LLs solo, but I guess different strokes for different folks. Even run I get dragged through, I bring up the same complaints every time. I'm assumed to just "have element immunity rings". I can't speak on how other players choose to treat newbies. I can speak on your helplessness and frustration: sorry to hear you got such a negative experience in LLs. Maybe some people aren't so great at making new players feel useful? You might have found yourself on a bit more even footing if you had stepped outside 1-40 a bit earlier into your career instead of repeating it so many times before finally branching out to progress. Then the veterans go "Oh, it's because you are an open sub race. Yea, your spells won't hit for awhile". Ok, so I'm worthless until I get some kind of racial upgrade, most of which are random (but not all). Yeah, again it sounds like you're just getting told a bunch of BS, which is what I said in my last post but I guess that went unnoticed because you can't take me seriously (luckily you take people who tell you you're useless and the game is made that way seriously) I was told by veterans to not even attempt Maze until I was 50-60 Lame advice, tbh, but lamer to not take advantage of the information resources the game offers. It would take you literally 2 clicks from the wiki home page to see that in fact Maze is intended for L40-45, and probably about 2 minutes of asking ingame or on forums to discover that Maze is one of the oldest areas in the entire mod and was literally the traditional "first run" after immo. Like I said above, you shouldn't just accept what people tell you without question and feel no need to challenge your own horizons without deciding for yourself. I was totally on board with this server until I hit immo and experienced LL runs. It feels like there is an entire section of game missing between immo and beyond. It has nothing to do with difficulty and everything to do with the fact that I feel like my only option is to get dragged through runs until that magical day my character becomes relevant. That removes all enjoyment of progression and learning. Does that mean you're not on board anymore? Maybe you should change those feelings and those problems would magically vanish and you could start having fun? And this leads into my biggest concern about this server, is that there is no right answer. It's an old game and it is without a doubt a labor of love, but the Devs cannot win here. They either need to deal with people complaining about the population and focus on retaining their current user base by continuing to develop content that a fraction of a fraction of it's loyal users play, or they focus on modifying content the main user base has played millions of times in a desperate attempt to get more players and likely lose their core userbase in the process. I love the depth of this server, and it has a lot of potential to offer that is still unexplored. But even as niche products go, the experience after Immortality is incredibly unfriendly to new players due to the current state of the server and it's really unfortunate because I have had an absolute blast in the month or so I have been playing here. I think your experience definitely sounds incredibly unfriendly, but I don't think it's "the" experience. Well, it's cool you enjoyed your month...
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Post by desocupado on Oct 12, 2016 3:32:44 GMT
For many players at the moment, the progression goes: 1-40: Tags/Quests - low/moderate challenge, moderate fun 41-60: Drag-fest - zero challenge, zero fun 60+: Proper endgame runs - high challenge, high fun Actually there's a good dosage of drag from level 30 on - problematic tags 30-35 and mantakaloss being the biggest offender (level 40 dragons too). You are too optimistic on the last part - getting to hells without immunity rings and decent URs is a pain in a bigger way it is during 41-59. This was why I said those stacking effects would have a cap. The intent is to spread out the effects and as a group, compose some grouping of classes to reach that cap as opposed to a single class holding the magical key to instantly reach full potential. This allows you to empower classes that need and inject more class variety into the game as opposed to ABCD. This also adds more meta gaming into the mix, as some groups might be more concerned about certain caps. A melee heavy party would be more interested in AC, Phys Immune, Blud/Slash/Pier Immune, vs a Caster partys that cares about Elemental Immu or SR. As for your second point, I have 0 issue with that part of the game. I think it's a great way to utilize the DnD spell system. I didn't get the cap part, only the diversified SR debuff ones. Do you mean the second point being the AC/SR mountain where people just get dragged from like poli just said?
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Post by fundrun on Oct 12, 2016 3:57:15 GMT
Do you mean the second point being the AC/SR mountain where people just get dragged from like poli just said? Sorry for not being more specific, I mean about having to use certain elements on specific creatures during a run. I am actually looking forward to that provided the people in the group are understanding of the fact that a new player needs to learn that kind of information.
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Post by desocupado on Oct 12, 2016 4:02:11 GMT
On LL it is less appealing than it seems - basically you have an objective - Either you have get weapon X with adequate damage types or is nearly useless on the specific run.
The common way around it involves having the famous DB weapons, which cover 3 elements and 3 exotic but they have one issue - they need weapon buffs to function (+0 no keen and 2d12 damage form each type, which get denied by regular elemental resistances) - still each one can cover several runs (let's say fire covers lizardfolk, sonic cover pharlans and eletric cover mechanical machines). There are also the random weapons (level 50 UR drop) with high damage of one exotic type and one elemental type (5d12 each, +13) - if you are lucky (or trade) they can cover a good niche even in hells.
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Post by fundrun on Oct 12, 2016 4:03:39 GMT
I'd like to chime in here a bit. I did a from scratch playthrough on a new alt account not long ago. The biggest issue I had in the transition from immortality to legendary runs. The big problem was gear. I was able to use my knowledge to help this a bit but the average new player, is I'm betting, pretty lost. If you don't want to be dragged, there are plenty of areas out there that are level appropriate. Part of the problem is the newer LL areas are actually a lot tougher than the old ones. So the stated level ranges are more for people who've played LL a bunch of times and have a lot of gear. So I can give you specific advice - one being stick to the old areas at first. Which are those? 1. Deepbats - Ultra rares can spawn here and the mobs are easy. Especially if you're playing a tank, farm as much gear as you can. 2. The Maze - Ultra rares can also spawn here. Dachy (the dragon) is rough unless you have a good weapon or buffs with exotic damage. It's certainly doable by a lowish level tank with decent HP and negative potions. Best classes are paladin and blackguard. Easier thing can be to just wander the maze and beat up guardians. Ladders go up, holes go down and if you hit enough glowing yellow portals you'll end up back at start. 3. The desert - It's a bit mean in parts but it is no fugue. Unfortunately very hard for a tank to solo unless you're an assassin or super high damage. There are some almost decentish set drops you can use when just starting off. 4. Ssith is old but super nasty. You'll really want specific types of gear - elec/cold rings and implosion immune to make it easy enough to farm. Places that are really rough are the newer LL areas - Uroboros, PoM, Locathah, Hive, Myco, Dulvuroth - these are pretty much dragville for a new player imo. Myconids less than the others but still pretty nasty. I joined one on my test playthrough and it was pretty rough as I was with another new player. We eventually pulled it off but it took a lot of work. #1 and #2 are small scale ways to make progress even if you're soloing with few people around. You certainly do not need a druid on every LL run. You don't even have to have one on every hell run. There are alternative ways of doing lots of runs but they are tricky. LL runs don't even take a lot of people if you're careful. Among my favorite HG experiences was doing Illithids with 3 people at level appropriate - lvl 50ish. Scary but if done right, just beautiful. Keeping level ranges close in LL already gives you a bonus to xp. Dragging can still be pretty efficient simply because of speed. But you don't have to go that way if you don't want to. Back when I was a newbie it wasn't really an option as there were even fewer players than now and people were super cliquish. So we played with a very small group - sometimes just Ty and I and figured out LL runs as best we could. I highly recommend that experience it was a blast. -S This was why I made a small party of bots actually, so I could go through the content proper once I got more of an understanding of the game. I've been making heavy use of the desert, so I'm happy to see our experiences line up there. Once I get a few more levels I'm going to give Dachy a try, and a lot of my frustration comes from Ssith. I love the run but it is very nasty, even for level appropriate characters as you have stated. I also had no idea Deepbats was considered an LL location. I'll keep that in mind as well. Thank you for this information, something like this on a wiki about "Preparing for LL" would have saved a lot of headache although I'm personally not a fan of having to rely on wiki for direction, as I like figuring things out myself as well, but at a certain point I give in for the sake of progress.
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Post by fundrun on Oct 12, 2016 4:04:54 GMT
On LL it is less appealing than it seems - basically you have an objective - Either you have get weapon X or is nearly useless on the run. The common way around it involves having the famous DB weapons, which have one issue - they need weapon buffs to function (GMW Keen and elemental buffs) - they have 3 elementals, so each one can cover several runs. There are some random weapons (levle 50 UR drop) with high damage of one exotic type and one elemental type - if you are lucky (or trade) they can cover a good niche even in hells. I've been avoiding melee for the most part so that might explain the difference in opinion. Approaching from a caster perspective I think it sounds neat. I can see it being frustrating from a melee perspective. Thanks for the insight!
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Post by desocupado on Oct 12, 2016 4:10:22 GMT
My second or third character was a lifethreader - they are great on several LL runs (and tags when they get to level 34 and can continuous magic damage) due causing aoe physical or exotic damage and healing themselves in the process. They are also a great class to "bot" (multibox) since they can do that in improved expertise mode for a massive ac boost.
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Post by sabregirl on Oct 12, 2016 4:37:36 GMT
This was why I made a small party of bots actually, so I could go through the content proper once I got more of an understanding of the game. I've been making heavy use of the desert, so I'm happy to see our experiences line up there. Once I get a few more levels I'm going to give Dachy a try, and a lot of my frustration comes from Ssith. I love the run but it is very nasty, even for level appropriate characters as you have stated. I also had no idea Deepbats was considered an LL location. I'll keep that in mind as well. Thank you for this information, something like this on a wiki about "Preparing for LL" would have saved a lot of headache although I'm personally not a fan of having to rely on wiki for direction, as I like figuring things out myself as well, but at a certain point I give in for the sake of progress. I'm starting to build up a list of things to add to the wiki. Ssith is tough with a small party and that one is a bit tougher than it used to be due to some server changes. The zhedi didn't have devcrit back in the day. You may want to phone a friend for that one, at least to get the tag. One item that's really useful is an implosion shield that drops at lvl 35. Best place to look for that is the submerged crypts. One of the rarer items in the game but very helpful. Once you get ssith tag you can go for illithids which is great xp and not too hard to do in a small party with the right class combo. Reasonably leveled casters are better for desert and the maze is relatively harder if you're a caster due to SR. The maze is a great place to go if you can cast undeath to death with decent DC though. -S
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Post by condude on Oct 12, 2016 4:42:13 GMT
Maybe it would be a good idea to mark some runs on the Wiki with an asterisk or something, meaning "Specific gear required, new player beware!" Some that come to mind off the top of my head are Dusty, Ssith, Uro, and Thids. If you're missing an immunity (fire/cold/magic for dusty, cold/elec for ssith, mind blank/sonic for thids) on these runs, you're dead meat. It might give newer players an idea of areas that they should be partied/wait to go through.
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Post by desocupado on Oct 12, 2016 4:47:58 GMT
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