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How is D&D online for new players?
Fairhaven
Member Posts: 1
Hello everyone,
I'm curious how the gameplay is for newer players. Is it similar to world of warcraft where you pretty much have to grind to level 70 before you can enjoy steady group content (am a release day wow vet)?
Also, I'm trying to find a game that is not a world of warcraft clone, there are so many games on the market that use most of their gameplay/UI ideas that its kind of sickening (that there is very little innovation)
Ill try anything once, and am probably going to download the trial tonight just for giggles 
Thanks for your time in advance.
Comments
P.S... That redmarked phrase gave me a cold and painful shiver hehe
I'd like to point out WoW copies everyone and not the other way around. They even say when you're quitting the game for another one in the question thing "We belive wow has everything other games have to offer". Doesn't that sound like they actually copied everyone.
-Would you like cheddar or swiss cheese?
-Yes.
-...
DDO is largely aimed at groups...While they've made it more solo friendly pretty much everything you do after the start quest is group oriented. (NOT group required, just group oriented)
Can't personally vouch for this as I haven't played WoW, but those I know who have say DDO is a completely different flavor. Lots of twitch skill, very close to an FPS.
Hope you enjoy, it's my been my home MMO for the last year +
Unless you actually WANT to play a game where the DEVs are so petty that they will nerf your characters into utter and complete uselessness EVERY OTHER MOD, then don't even bother with this game.
You will have the same horrible experience that I had. You will build an awesome character using the character generation rules presented to you. You will then equip this awesome character gear that you find along the way. For a short time, things will be good...
...but woe unto you when the next mod comes. Every MOD, the wonderful [sarcasm] folks at Turbine have a conference in which they decide what changes they will implement which will cause the largest number of players to reroll their characters.
Take it from me, don't bother with this game.
I made a tripping specialist fighter that could use his improved trip ability to excel and succeed. Then the wonderful[sarcasm] folks at Turbine decided that my character and many others like him were too powerful to be allowed to use their tripping ways on the poor defensless raid bosses, so they made all bosses immune to trip. That's right, you read it right: IMMUNE TO TRIP.
In DDO, you can experience the wonderful joys[sarcasm] of fighting a lich that cannot be knocked to the ground, even though in PnP D&D knocking the lich down would be a really good strategy.
What this person is saying, besides "wahhh!", is that the developers attempt to stay true to a system while making game-play a priority. He/she is upset because they were exploiting an otherwise relatively weak rule mechanic which was changed to facilitate a more structured game play experiance. Instead of him running up to every single uber_mega_elite_rare_boss_that_spawns_best_loot and screaming "I trip him!" he now has to depend on group tactics and a uniformed strategy to defeat these end game bosses.
DDO is not like any other game other then you will still see the basic GUI that's relatively similar to everything post EQ1. The mechanics of gameplay are vastly superior to more of the mainstream child stylized "fetch me 10 rat tails" mechanics of WoW and Everquest.
DDO is group centric while solo game play will be potentially boring and dull. It's deffntely one of the most strategically rewarding online games availble besides EVE Online or ols school Star Wars Galaxies pre-cu.
Try to put yourself in my shoes.
Imagine that you build a fighter spec'd for tripping. You sacrifice ability score points in order to get the 13 INT required to get Combat Expertise, which is the prerequisite for Improved Trip. Then you get Improved Trip. Then, you get dodge, mobility, and spring attack so that you can trip the bad guys that are running around while you chase them. Everything is sweet, When the Wiz King runs towards the caster that just hit him with disintegrate, you can chase the wiz king down and trip him from behind. Now that you have him on the ground, the party closes in for the kill. Nothing was wrong with this way of fighting.
Then the petty DEVS start mucking about with the game because they don't like your type of character. First, they make ALL bosses immune to trip, thereby making trip useless in ALL boss fights. Then, they remove your ability to hit moving monsters. If you are chasing a monster, then you might as well forget about hitting him, whether you have spring attack or not. You don't even get a roll any more.
So lets see, I built a character whose primary tactic was to trip enemies and hit them while they're down. In order to have this awesome tripping ability, I sacrificed many things. Other fighters that didn't have to meet the prerequisites for being tripping specialists do more DPS, have more hitpoints, have many more feats to choose from, have higher AC's (they can spend their action points on the max dex enhancements and they can have a higher starting DEX), and are generally better at everything BUT tripping.
Now that bosses are immune to trip, what role does the tripping specialist have in a boss fight?
Answer: None
The tripping specialist has fewer hitpoints, does less damage, and has a lower armor class than all of the other tanks. The only thing that the tripping specialist has over the other tanks is that his trip attempts are much better. This does the tripping specialist NO GOOD against any boss, though, since all bosses are immune to trip now. So is there any reason at all to invest in trip any more? Sure, you can use your tripping abilities against the NON-boss baddies, but people tend to look at the end fights of quests as the culmination of the adventure. The average person has a short attention span and will only remember the last battle of an adventure. Guess who you fight in the last battle of an adventure? Yep, that's right, a boss that is now immune to trip.
So even if a tripping specialist is the most valuable player in the group during a quest, the moment the tripping specialist enters the boss fight he becomes a USELESS GIMP who might as well not even participate in the boss fight in any MEANINGFUL way.
What Turbine did to Spring Attack added insult to injury. Spring attack is now even more useless than improved trip, since it doesn't work ON ANY BAD GUYS ANYMORE. If a monster is moving, then you cannot hit him unless you swing at the square in front of the monster. Even with spring attack, if I am chasing a monster and swinging my Khopesh THROUGH the monster's back, I don't even get a roll. The only way to get a roll any more is to somehow get in front of the monster or to get the monster to stop moving. This nullifies ALL of the benefits of spring attack.
So let's cover some feats that have been made useless:
Improved Trip: useless because it cannot be used on any end fights.
Mobility: If you only took this feat so that you could get spring attack and you don't even tumble very often...useless.
Spring Attack: Horribly BORKED and useless now. It provides no benefits since you no longer get rolls against moving enemies (the whole point of spring attack was so that you could use it on moving enemies without the -4 penalty to attack).
At the very least, character creation should include notes like: WARNING-Improved Trip and Spring Attack serve no purpose in this game and are a complete waste of feats.
Perhaps the next time someone tries to make a tactical fighter, the game should just automatically delete the character upon creation and tell the player, "please try again".
If you think about it, then we could take what Turbine did to Improved Trip and expand that out to ALL feats.
If Improved Trip doesn't work on a boss, then Improved Critical should not work on a boss...
...neither should
1. weapon focus
2. greater weapon focus
3. spell focus: evocation/conjuration/necromancy/abjuration/transmutation/illusion etc etc.
4. greater spell focus [same stuff as above]
5. maximize spell
6. empower spell
7. extend spell
8. quicken spell
9. enlarge spell
10. improved shield bash
11. pretty much all feats
The last time I played DDO was last summer, so my opinion may not be accurate today, however I doubt things have changed.
The game itself is good, but the community as usually with any MMORPG is the problem. DDO's community isn't immature or bad per se, they just have lost focus of the purpose of the game and have forgotten that new players till come in and want to see everything.
These are problems a new player will encounter:
* Twinked group members that make the dungeon too easy to be any fun.
* Group members who rush through the dungeon or give away all of the surprises, which were a selling point for DDO when they were marketing it in development and release.
* A community who has figured out which dungeons give you the best rewards and xp and who will not do any other dungeons, which means the new player will not experience the majority of the games quests unless they join with other new people who just so happen to find each other and want to play with one another.
* A community who has become bored of adventure and instead focuses on the loot.
As you can see, none of the above is the devs fault or the games fault. The game is actually good, but the community has figured out how to get to max level the fastest and get the best gear, therefore making the experience feel rushed and unfun for new players. You can tell groups that you are new and don't want to rush, and that may work for some groups, but it still doesn't provide you with a group for those dungeons that aren't worth the time for the veteran players.
Yes, I understand everygame has this, but in a game that requires grouping, there is no way to experience some of these quests, which makes it worse in this game over other games. As far as twinking, all games suffer from this, but usually twinks in PvE take on harder creatures to get more xp, whereas the dungeons in DDO only scale to level, not to the gear the person is wearing.
MMORPG's w/ Max level characters: DAoC, SWG, & WoW
Currently Playing: WAR
Preferred Playstyle: Roleplay/adventurous, in a sandbox game.
With regards to some earlier post:
Yes, certain mechanics of the game have changed since it was created. It's fairly normal to find that the flavor of today isn't the flavor of tomorrow. However, if you ended up gimped by the Red named immunities it's more likely a problem with player adaptability than the game. A well built character isn't going to be crippled by the loss/alteration of a single facet.
Trip/improved trip still work great on pretty much everything except the Red names and spiders. If that's a route someone wants to follow it's very viable. It cost a feat. One. Not a string of them, Can be modified with items and enhancements to improve, and will save your neck against a variety of nasty evilness (like mind flayers). No, you can't go up the big bad Raid boss, and keep it tripped the entire fight. But it wouldn't be much of a fight if you could. (Which is why they make Red names immune to so much)
Hitting mobs on the move can be a pain in the bum. Mobs hit zones (while they're moving) seem to project slightly in front of them instead of occupying their visual space. Is that how it should be? No. Can it be worked around? Yes. It requires Some twitch skill; running with mouse look on so you know where you're aiming, running next to instead of behind, and aiming slightly in front. (The devs are aware of the issue, no official work on a fix yet) If you keep these ideas in mind Spring attack certainly helps against moving mobs. **NOTE** Mobs don't seem to have the same problem hitting moving players **/NOTE**
I stated that game fixes (or nerfs if you prefer) aren't so much a problem with the game as with players adaptability. Turbine has two systems in place that greatly help correct problems with characters.
Hope this information helps.
It's definitely a group oriented game. However, they've put in a fair amount of work at increasing solo-ability. More quest with a Solo difficulty. Increased XP on Solo difficulty from 50% to 80%. Added explorer zones with; non-doubling incremental kill count exp (I.E. 10 kills gets 100 xp. Next hit is 25 Kills for 200 xp...So lumps sums at specific points instead of 100 for every 10). Rare kills worth XXX xp each with a bonus for killing all. Explorer points worth XXX xp each with a bonus for finding all.
It isn't quite solo friendly, but they're working on it.
OP
If you do want to give this game a try, then be forwarned:
Unless you want to play a barbarian or a sorcerer, you will be nothing more than a "support" character whose job is to make it easier for the barbarian or sorcerer to kill the end boss.
So if you want to be a powerhouse, you better get yourself a barbrian or sorc, because those are really the only two choices left these days.
Wizards: Nice for buffs but a sorc can kill SO much better.
Rogue: LOL forget about it.
Bards: Their buffs are great, but they're rally meant to help the barbarian.
Ranger: Yep, those melee rangers provide a nice +2 flanking bonus for the barbarian. Ranged rangers?...ugh they're really just there to annoy the monster that the barbarian is killing.
Cleric: In ddo, the dispensers of heal scrolls for the barbarian.
Paladin: He used to be hot stuff, but even the fighters kind of feel sorry for him now.
Fighters: Almost as good as a barbarian, but will always have to live with the stigma of NOT being a barbarian.
Give it a try, is chalk and cheese to WoW.
The only recommendation I would make is avoid groups unless they are willing to accept you want to go slow on your first time, even better find 3 other friends to try it fresh with you at the same time, it will blow you away.
{ Mod Edit }
To the OP: try the trial. Will tell you everything, it's not WoW, it's very unlike it in fact.
Please stick to the topic.
This is not a trip does not work anymore discussion. If you feel you would like to talk about that subject please feel free to make your own thread.
As a fairly new player (2 months) I can tell you that it's very good to us. The people that play are usually really nice, and helpful and for the most part will explain whats going on in each quest and even go slow for you on your first run.
Also, there is never any trouble getting groups regardless of what class you are.
Oh, and pick whatever class excites you, they all have a use in groups don't listen to the detractors who are just mad about the "Nerf" to trip. Anyone can be good as long as you figure out the way you want to play, and just have fun. =D
The sleeper awakes...and rides his dirtbike to the mall.
I don't think anyone is expecting to be able to keep a raid boss tripped all of the time. There is a distinct difference between something working 5%-10% of the time and having no chance to work at all.
Most of the problem is due to Turbine's divergance from PnP rules. No really, it is. The biggest and most overreaching change Turbine made to the game by far was to reduce the length of a round from 6 seconds to 2 seconds.
Now I'm not saying that change was a bad one... it made sense to quicken the pace or melee would have been pretty painful.
But in doing so they tripled the power of the melee character in every way including special attacks, including Trip, Vorpal, Disruption, etc. etc.
All of these things are "firing" three times faster than PnP intended. So now a tank gets aggro on the boss mob, and another character can freely attack with say a vorpal weapon three times faster than normal, getting a dozen attacks in 5 seconds, and the fight is over in 10 seconds instead of 30 or more. Or he can trip three times faster and keep the boss down all the time.
So rather than really "fix" the problem they toss in boss immunities to make everything a 3 minute beat down instead. I think it would have been better to mitigate in other ways... +8 on trip resistance, proof against poison items, deathward items, having vorpal only fire on the first swing in a round instead of every swing.
After all you've already modified the PnP rules by making round 2 seconds instead of 6. Why should vorpal attempts be rolled 15 times in 6 seconds due to this?
This should just be fixed. It has been a bug for far too long now.The game is very different than WoW in gameplay and character development.
The forced grouping and prevalence of alts means you can find groups pretty easy over all levels. However the forced grouping also makes soloing very demanding, with poor rewards, and poorly supported. However with a good min/max powergmaing build soloing can be very fun, unlike many other MMORPGs where its pretty generic and can be quite grindy.
Same for Wizards, I have a Warforged wiz, if you think Wizards suck reroll now, you have a horrible Wizard.
Nuff said.
New players don't include Drow or 32 point builds - someone experienced has unlocked them, so if they try to join your party, there is some deceit right there. Characters below 3rd with weapons with a visible magic effect - [except possibly the Sword of Pain - acid/green dripping] - are most likely twinks or bought their weapons from the AH, so you may want to ask them if they are actually "new" players or just alts. New players often don't know where a given dungeon is - especially if they haven't talked with the quest giver for that dungeon - so questions about "where do I get that quest?/where is that dungeon?" will be common [Alts looking to show their uberness wouldn't ask such a noob question]
This is a great game, but is really most fun the FIRST time with other first timers!
<p align=center><a target=_blank href=http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm><img border=0 src=http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/20.jpg></a></p>;
Like the OP, I've been playing WoW for a fair amount of time now. Prior to that, I played SWG and EQ2 for some fairly lengthy periods. So far, I think DDO has it's +'s and -'s, like every other game out there.
This game doesn't spoon feed you like WoW does. WoW was made to be 'vanilla' and cater to the masses. DDO has it's own flavor. As others said, get the 10-day... get in... and give it a go.
Me, I don't believe in 10-day trials. It gives me the mindset that I will quit this game and go back to WoW in 10 days. So, I buy a game if I want to try it. Why? Because if I'm spending money on it, it will typically 'force me' to give it a solid chance and not just judge it prematurely or go off of everyone else's 'posted opinion'.
DDO, however, is the first game that I didn't take the time to read-up on. I didn't want to. Sure, I've read some articles and posts here and there on MMORPG.COM and some other sites, but I didn't really do much research. I wanted to go into the game and experience it on my own.
So, that's where I am... this is week one in DDO for me. So far, I can't really see where it's anything like 'WoW'... and for that, I'm thankful.
And let me say this, it's not that I hate or really dislike WoW at all. I have just played the game into the ground at this point. I've OD'D on WoW, so I hope DDO will WOW me in a different way.
I hope you enjoy it. Yes it is very different from WOW, and many changing over have a hard time accepting things. One problem I see many having problems accepting is the "Roles" in a party. Many don;t realize that just because there is a Cleric icon next to their name it does not necissarily mean they are built primarily for healing. I know many early parties panicked when their Cleric showed up and he was Warforged and weilding a Greatsword
. (Luckily for them I do heal, but also fight)
I would have loved this game. Simply because D&D invented Fantasy Role Playing. However it is shamful that they went with instanced dungeons. I do hope they correct this, it makes the game feel really cheap. Heck, just because of that EQ 2 and WoW give me more of a D&D feel than DDO.
Dan H
um....really?
So you were playing D&D around a table at your buddies house and you walked into a dungeon...you'd bump into a group of guys playing D&D around a table 2 blocks over?
um....really?
So you were playing D&D around a table at your buddies house and you walked into a dungeon...you'd bump into a group of guys playing D&D around a table 2 blocks over?
That actually happened once. But it was due to some weird issue with a time/space rift or a speeding Delorian of some type.
But in all fairness, I've been playing DDO for a week now and if everything is instanced for you or your group.. it's good and it's bad. Good because you don't have to worry about someone else stealing the kills you need for quests. Bad because the game can stop seeming like an MMO after a while and start feeling like a stand-alone game.
For people who start playing DDO with their pnp D&D group, this might rule. And for someone who wants to solo 1-cap, same. You can keep your core group together and run through the gaming environment.. a lot like what you would do in your pnp sessions.
um....really?
So you were playing D&D around a table at your buddies house and you walked into a dungeon...you'd bump into a group of guys playing D&D around a table 2 blocks over?
That actually happened once. But it was due to some weird issue with a time/space rift or a speeding Delorian of some type.
But in all fairness, I've been playing DDO for a few weeks and if everything is instanced for you or your group.. it's good and it's bad. Good because you don't have to worry about someone else stealing the kills you need for quests. Bad because the game can stop seeming like an MMO after a while and start feeling like a stand-alone game.
For people who start playing DDO with their pnp D&D group, this might rule. And for someone who wants to solo 1-cap, same. You can keep your core group together and run through the gaming environment.. a lot like what you would do in your pnp sessions.
I suppose your right about that. However, It has been a couple years since I played DDO and it seemed to me all the quests were in randomly generated dungeons and not outside or any other setting; rather boring
Correct me if im wrong because it has been a while.
Dan H