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Why this game is still an abysmal failure...
AgtSmith
Member Posts: 1,498
I recently fired up DDO again after having played the first month and a half or so. I was looking form something to occupy me until AoC came out and DDO was cheap (good thing with the sub price change) and available and nothing else really was interesting enough to bother with. After a few weeks, and a couple characters to 10+, I am left with a couple observation.
- The game is much improved in many small ways although still desperately broken in the big ways.
- The server merges make population just healthy enough to find groups although at higher levels it becomes a game of 'who has a cleric'.
- This is still nowhere near close to an MMO and ultimately its greatest failure is that it is sold as one.
More than anything the game is worse now about being random than it was way back when. MOBs are insanely inflated because players are insanely geared. The MOBs regularly 'cheat' casting spells through walls and floors with no line of site or even proximity, MOBs that are KD'd attack and move, MOBs that are paralyzed attack and move - in short the MOBs and players play by different sets of rules and it is a pitiful excuse for a game in this regard. Most outcomes (particularly at higher levels) are the result of random circumstances, or not so random in favor of MOBs if you get what I mean, rather than player skill. With all action being exactly the same everytime you do it the only real skill is in preparing beforehand no so much in the actual doing. To me, more than any other failing, this is what makes DDO such a bad game.
I just left a dungeon where a MOB was randomly casting hold spells on players 4 and 5 rooms away with, of course, no line of site and well outside any reasonable proximity - he even was casting on players on different levels of the dungeon (i.e. downstairs). Then he would run on over and beat them down 'till dead. Call me a baby but I don't see how a game is even a game when things you cannot see, cannot react to, cannot attack or defend against can freeze you and then come kill you. And it happens allot - the AI simply gets so many built in cheats trying to desperately create some difficulty to what is otherwise and incredibly easy game it is laughable. Unlimited mana, chain casting with little to know cooldowns, nearly impossible to interup, ridiculous saves that even as high as they are are obvious not randomly decided at that, etc, etc. The game reminds me of playing counter strike in the early days when cheats where so common except this time it is the game itself that cheats. Even rules they are clearly not supposed to be 'breaking' they reguarly break.
On top of that the servers run so poorly it is hard to believe this is a pay to play game. Constant and persistent lag is a widespread problem affecting entire parties. How can a game where no more than 6 people, excepting raids, play together lag so badly that it regularly becomes a stuttering slideshow and is often impossible to accurately tell your position in relation to MOBs during melee. Given that everything in the game and everywhere is instanced this is absolutely inexcusable.
So while I acknowledge some nice additions to the game - the new sub pricing, the slayer/rare/explorer areas (really good), and other user friendly type improvements what has not changed is that the game is still painfully broken, easy, and rigged by the DEVs to 'fake' challenges. It is sad that such a milestone IP as D&D has DDO to carry its name in video games - I think it ranks right up there with SWG in terms of gaming tragedies.
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Comments
That was a big wall of text with very little substance...much whine though. To be honest, I dont even know how to respond to a thread like this, are we supposed to?
Reading a 40 year old person bragging about a computer game being incredibly easy, gave me a chuckle though. The five minutes were not intirely wasted
Is the mob you are referring to an earth elemental by chance? Yes... earth elementals have the ability to cast earthgrab pretty much anywhere in the dungeon... I'm pretty certain that is actually by design. I don't know of any other mobs that can do that.
I hear you about DDO not being a "real" MMO. After playing WoW for the past six months (faults and all) it's plainly obvious that DDO is just a large collection of really good multiplayer dungeons bandaged together with a really good grouping system with nothing much outside of that.
And yes, the server performance is pathetic. I think a lot of it has to do with the real time combat system... it's just not able to scale well because there is so much more movement and clicking going on compared to other games. But I think it's also that DDO just doesn't have the polish that WoW has. I'm able to load up WoW, login and be moving in game within 15 seconds.... while DDO is still trying to load to the login screen.
Of course it probably helps a lot that WoW is bringing in over $100M a month while DDO is probably lucky to see much more than a tenth of that in a whole year. I would be really interested in what DDO could become with that much capital behind it... but alas we have what we have.
It was not an earth elemental it was a mummy, but many MOBs do it (elementals, beholders, etc). Just to give no DDO players perspective on what I am describing - a MOB out of targeting range and so far away that on auto run it would take 10 seconds or so to run to it was attacking people - happens all the time. Call it a whine if you want but I think a game shoud be playable and getting held or otherwise attacked by things you cannot see, cannot attack, or otherwise cannot respond to in any way is pretty much stupid.
Many MOBs attack when KD'd and when paralyzed - with no line of site - when so far out of range as to not even be close to reasonable. In short - once you get above level 9 or 10 the MOBs cheat - they regularly break the rules the game is supposed to be governed by - not just D&D rules but basic game rules. The game becomes a crush or be crushed with little in the middle. Everyone knows exactly is around every corner and they are either prepared to crush it with ease or they are about to wipe - what people do in the midst of things bears little result on the outcome. If DDO's DEvs have to resort to giving MOBs cheats like that to make the game falsely appear challenging (givin how the game was so miserably beaten in the first two weeks of live way back when) then they are seriously lacking talent and imagination.
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Honestly I have not had a Beholder attack me out of range since prior to mod 1, you sure you've played recently? If so I am guessing that your draw distance is set really short.
And exactly what mummy was hitting you out of line of sight with what? If it's despair that is an aura not an attack & effects anyone in range, go check out the description in P&P it effects a certain radius. As for other spells only certain named mummies will normally cast on you and most of those situations don;t allow you to get out of line of sight either, so I am really wondering when/where you have run into these effects.
The only creature that still has the capability to effect you all the way across a dungeon that I am aware of is an elementals earth grab. I've been playing straight since headstart and have not run into anything like that in a loooong time. Sounds like you are either incredibly unlucky or bringing up things that have been fixed many mods ago.....
However, I will add that yes some mobs still do attack when paralyzed, and yea they really need to fix that, but considering someone had to have hit it to paralyze it I would say you are overreacting to say that you wouldn;t be able to hit them. If a trash mob can one shot you before you can get to it sounds like someone needs a reroll......
Apart from some paralysed mobs, don't recognise any of that at all, sure you are playing the same game? As for server lag must be a US thing, apart from the odd second or two entering a new area, I don't have any lag.
Actually I would say DDO is probably the only MMO that has proper projectiles and doesn't rely purely on LOS checks, so you don't get homing missiles and hit through walls/mobs/other players. One of the reasons I play it, is because it does such things correctly, not the noddy LOS and forget method in other MMOs.
Apologists and deniers - you cannot play this game past mid level and not recognize the severe frequency with which MOBs 'break' rules as I have described. Heck, if I had a dollar for everytime I died for no apparent reason in game only to find the combat log saying 'you where killed by something' with no other information, even with no MOBs present .
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DDO has the best stat based twitch combat in any MMO I have tried by a long shot. The hearing + visual, group AI triggers are probably the best I have seen as well. So that puts more stress on the servers and has the odd corner cut, hardly worth getting so worked up over.
Best of luck finding a MMO with perfect AI.
Nice work.
Nice work.
Actually no, it's just that the majority of his "complaints" aren't even close to reality.
"he MOBs regularly 'cheat' casting spells through walls and floors with no line of site or even proximity"
Nope, doesn't happen other than earth grab, as stated. Unless of course it's an "aura" attack, in which case line of sight doesn't matter (like a mummy's fear).
"Most outcomes (particularly at higher levels) are the result of random circumstances, or not so random in favor of MOBs if you get what I mean, rather than player skill. "
As someone else said, this is just a ridiculous gripe. The AI combined with DDO's combat system put it WAY ahead of almost any MMO out today in this area.
" On top of that the servers run so poorly it is hard to believe this is a pay to play game. Constant and persistent lag is a widespread problem affecting entire parties."
Had about a week of lag a few weeks ago because of a patch problem, otherwise no problems at all...probably a user issue, not a server issue.
And yeah, the rest of the "post" was a "mobs are too hard and they cheat and it's not fair" whine, IMO as well.
Actually if you are literally saying you got a message that "you were killed by something" I think that is a known bug where you somehow (through jump, beholder telekenesis, or knockdown/up/back) manage to break out of some part of the landscape geometry and end up "falling" to your death.
The game is laggy in general... while we don't have the crippling lag like we had when they had all the server problems I still get a general feeling in the game that I am being resisted a little bit for lack of a better term. Like I have to press the keys or mouse button a little harder to make it work.
I don't get that feeling in WoW... that game always responds immediately to what I am trying to do and you can have dozens of players in the area and it doesn't seem to affect it very much. When you get dozens of players and mobs in DDO it grinds to a crawl.
I've also noticed of late that too many times I will click on a power in DDO and then have to click it again. Or sometimes it clicks and starts the cooldown timer but doesn't actually fire the power. I don't know if it's lag related or not, but it's very annoying.
I don't know how long it's been since you've played WoW, but I suggest you try it again for a month and ignoring the gameplay that you have said you are not fond of to just try out the interface (movement and powers) and see if you see the difference.
Actually if you are literally saying you got a message that "you were killed by something" I think that is a known bug where you somehow (through jump, beholder telekenesis, or knockdown/up/back) manage to break out of some part of the landscape geometry and end up "falling" to your death.
It has been happening since the firs weeks of play, even standing still in a dungeon and then suddenly you are dead and the combat log simply says "you where killed by something'. Certainly a bug, certainly not a daily thing - but it all adds up to a game where outcomes are decided by random game decisions more than player action or inaction and to the extent that players do determine outcomes they do so before the encounter starts by the gear, stats, etc they bring more than what they do in the encounter.
DDO has the best stat based twitch combat in any MMO I have tried by a long shot. The hearing + visual, group AI triggers are probably the best I have seen as well. So that puts more stress on the servers and has the odd corner cut, hardly worth getting so worked up over.
Best of luck finding a MMO with perfect AI.
If Turbine cannot handle the game code for what amounts to a 6 player MP game instance then they should be barred from ever touching computers again. EVERYTHING in the game is instanced - public areas, ALL quests, everything. There is ZERO excuse for a now 2 year old game that never has combat of more than 6 players (with exception for raids which allow a few more) at a time. It is a 2+ year old game for crying out loud and nothing happening is earth shattering technology breaking to justify a month+ of near game breaking lag in a pay to play game.
That aside, the AI is not the problem - the rules they play by is the issue. There is no justification for the commonness of MOBs that cast/attack through walls and floors and from so far away. No justification for MOBs with unlimited spell points and unbreakable concentration and saves so high that they defy belief that actual random rolls are taking place. Oh wait, there is a justification - building 'cheats' in to the game is the only way the game can 'pretend' to offer a challenge. But false challenges such as I have described are just that, false and do not make a good game.
I like many aspects of the game - that is why I gave it another look. But undermining all the good aspects of the game and the many nice little improvements they have made is the lack of a real game challenge. Substituting is a false challenge where you simply have to overpower things by what you know before hand or what you bring before things unfold. There is no real time challenge that player skill overcomes once you get past the lower levels.
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DDO *is* a sadly overlooked and poorly developed IP by Turbine - mostly due to the fact that they gained LOTRO contract and shifted all focus on it instead and DDO got ignored overall.
DDO has its share of bugs - and it has its plus points too. Simply THE best (and I mean THE BEST) petition response times by the Cust Service staff. I mean, you press SEND, and there is a response immediately! Out of 5 star rating - it gets a 6!
Dungeons! Traps! Stealthers! Puzzles! One of the most creative ones out there.
It is a niche game - and maybe thats why its rather refreshing to play from time to time. Rigid char development and chars do get gimped VERY frequently (poor respec system).
Wish it had a lifetime subscription though.
DDO is a niche game, it's for players that love group based PvE instances and to break it to a lot of people that is what most MMO players in N.A. are. But somehow they have been mislead about this game and haven't tried. Now I will say the UI is a bit tricky upfront and was a hurdle for me to come to grips with, but once understood very manageable. The DnD ruleset also alienates as well, it's a good system but more complex then people would like imo.
IMO there is no better PvE Group based mmo out there, the quest are by far the most varied and interactive. I'd go GW's 2nd.
One wish for DDO, random trap generation for all quests... so we can slow the game down more to a DnD level and not a Diablo level. This is a fast action game as it stands now.
How about random anything? Every MOB in EXACTLY the same place in every instance and dungeon and quest all the time for ever and ever with no change ever. No wonder the MOBs have to be coded to cheat - everyone knows where everything is in every combat circumstance.
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How about random anything? Every MOB in EXACTLY the same place in every instance and dungeon and quest all the time for ever and ever with no change ever. No wonder the MOBs have to be coded to cheat - everyone knows where everything is in every combat circumstance.
Well definately not against random mobs. It's just that if I had one thing it would still be the traps. It would slow down the whole group no matter if it's the 10th time through said quest. Also these traps would be able to be discovered by any class, they would be simpler traps then what is in-game, like a spike or pit. But it's ironic that the fastest paced mmo is a game that started PnP, go figure.
Nice work.
Yeah, you are right. I reread my post and I dont like what I wrote...my apologies, OP. That being said, I still stand by my main point, as Vincenz called it, a "mobs are too hard and they cheat and it's not fair" whine, was a good discription.
If it is 'whining' to point out that MOBs regularly do things they are not supposed to be able to do, that most all of the 'difficulty' comes from this obviously 'built in' rule breaking - then what is a legitimate complaint? if you got madden 2009 home and found all games started with the AI team having a 28 point lead would it be whining to complain about it? What if the AI reguarly tackled you before teh ball was even snapped? Would that constitute a quality game challenge? It would certainly make the game 'hard'?
The things I pointed out are regular violations of the D&D rules, and the DDO rules. Moreover, getting a hold spell cast on you from 4 or 5 rooms away well out of aggro/site/targetting range through walls and floors is a challenge than explain how? What is the challenge in being held before you are even halfway to the distance you could even see the MOB let alone react to it in any way? Are we playing a game or just watching random DDO server events unfold without being involved in them?
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I think people are finding it hard to take you seriously because you are just making things up, people don't get held several rooms away, you don't just die when standing around. Sorry you just have zero credibility with anyone who has actually played the game.
Which leaves me with the feeling you are just trying some creative trolling.
As to his other points I am not seeing it, the only instances of Beholders killing people beyond L.O.S. was Beta & shortly after launch which has been cleared up for a long time, and on a related note Beholders could kill you then even if you were outside the quest. Doesn't seem to be what he is complaining about.
I keep hearing from the OP how these are common occurances & my own experience (and judging from the fact that I haven't heard anyone else complain about this either here or in the official forums) seems to point to this not being a common occurance. Considering I dabble from time to time in PD play I am pretty sure that this would effect me strongly enough that I would recal something like this happening.
Doesn;t you were killed by something also come up in the "Death from above/falling mob bug"? I heard that had made a comeback but it's been so long since it happened to me I don;t recall what my combat log read.
If you are going to critique a game for it's bugs fine, I have no problem discussing actual bugs, however when you claim things to be common bugs & then when no one else has experienced this you attack them and call them apologists then yea you loose pretty much any credibility. There are plenty of bugs you could atack that exist.
The game is laggy in general... while we don't have the crippling lag like we had when they had all the server problems I still get a general feeling in the game that I am being resisted a little bit for lack of a better term. Like I have to press the keys or mouse button a little harder to make it work.
I don't get that feeling in WoW... that game always responds immediately to what I am trying to do and you can have dozens of players in the area and it doesn't seem to affect it very much. When you get dozens of players and mobs in DDO it grinds to a crawl.
I've also noticed of late that too many times I will click on a power in DDO and then have to click it again. Or sometimes it clicks and starts the cooldown timer but doesn't actually fire the power. I don't know if it's lag related or not, but it's very annoying.
I don't know how long it's been since you've played WoW, but I suggest you try it again for a month and ignoring the gameplay that you have said you are not fond of to just try out the interface (movement and powers) and see if you see the difference.
I have had the odd clicky not respond immediately, but it is very rare and only in the middle of a totally mad battle, but I honestly don't see this lag apart from entering new areas or when I have pushed my frame rate too low. Even during the world event it was playable with dozens and dozens of people all fighting at once. Bit of a slideshow when everyone turned up in the single instance, but that would be 100s of players.
I know they are rather basic questions, but you aren't expecting changing of weapons to respond quickly (unless you took the feat), and you don't have auto-attack on?
WoWs tech is different, it is click and forget, targetted with very basic LOS, that is very server light and just animation in the client. DDO actually tracks objects in space, which requires a lot more interaction between client and server (even with a bit of illusion is pretty amazing they can do it at all).
So is really chalk and cheese, tech wise.
What exactly is "cheating" then? I don't get where you are going with most of your posts.
It's already been explained that these hold spells and such that you are so upset about are real aspects of the game. Earth elementals can mimic the earth, and yes, from great distances away. Try running against Velah and having earth elementals grab (or "hold") you from halfway across the map. That's part of the rule set.
Mummies don't hold you from another room, they paralyze you with fear because of the aura surrounding them. That can happen anywhere you come near them, regardless of whether you are separated by a wall or not.
I would love to know what quest you are in where you are being hit from four or five rooms away. This sounds like an obvious over exaggeration.
The only real gripe is that some paralyzed enemies can still use missle attacks and cast some spells. It's a bug every regular in the game is aware of.
I don't see much cheating in anything you described. My guess is though that from the way you are attacking the game without much real proof, you'd probably be the same person complaining about cheating to a GM shortly after you just used a glitch to kill a named enemy you were having trouble taking out.
How about random anything? Every MOB in EXACTLY the same place in every instance and dungeon and quest all the time for ever and ever with no change ever. No wonder the MOBs have to be coded to cheat - everyone knows where everything is in every combat circumstance.
Now I'm questioning how much time you actually put into teh game. Since mod 4, the devs have continually added more and more randomized aspects of dungeons including traps and mobs.
It does happen quite often. More so with the MOBs casting on you from many rooms away than the 'you were killed by something' thing which is more occasional. Fact of the matter that coupled with the absolute common occurance of KD'd and paralyzed MOBs still attacking and moving it is clear the AI is coded, for lack of a better word, to cheat.
It was not the aura and as I said, I was so far away the mummy was not even targetable - same for others in the party. The quest was one of the three you do in the Desert to unlock the raid there. As for beholders with massive range and no line of site casting - go to Threnal and stand at the end of the long (20 seconds run with a sprint) tunnel up to the room where the Beholder is with the key and from the very bottom of that tunnel he chain casts on everyone. No line of site, no range within anything reasonable, and even through the walls if you back away from the tunnel opening. Same thing happens all over the game, if you are going to deny it then you are just blindly apologizing for the game and incapable of a fair commentary on the circumstance.
So the attacks while paralyzed is a bug and therefore dismissable? Please, since I have been back (3 1.2 weeks) there have been two updates pushed out - such a bug would have been fixed if in fact it was unintentional. And it is not just missile attacks even melee MOBs like trolls and such attack and move while paralyzed and while knocked down.
Now I'm questioning how much time you actually put into teh game. Since mod 4, the devs have continually added more and more randomized aspects of dungeons including traps and mobs.
Oh come on - now we are going to argue the static nature of all content in DDO? Please, will fans deny and obfuscate anything just to defer criticism?
One character (cleric with a bit of pally) to 10 and one character (TWF fighter/ranger) to 12 in 3 to 3 1/2 weeks. Enough favor to unlock Drow on both toons and on the TWF toon 75 favor for all the main houses and the coin lords and 150 for House D, K, P and I cannot recall if more. That enough play time to comment on the obvious?
Yes, the occasional chest spawns in location A or B and the occasional named may or may not spawn but that is hardly dynamic or random. Every quest is the same way everytime you do it - same MOBs in same place in same numbers and with the same same same every single time. It is like watching a movie for the 4th time, you can recite the lines as they are spoken. It is so static and predictable that in LFG people make groups and advertise for guides so they can zerg through knowing full well what is around every corner.
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You're just a tad bit off your rocker.Several characters above 10 after a few weeks? Well now, then that's a case of power leveling and not having a life more then it is a problem with the game mechanics of DDO.
There are only 2 mobs that I am aware of which have occasional line of site issues. One would be the Earth Elemental's grab effect which can occasionally bug out and hit you anywhere on the map, but this mob DOES NOT attack you in any other way when this occures. The other potential issue is Beholders going wacky with all their effects.
Creatures are not actually attacking after they get Hold/FleshToStone/KnockedDown, it's simply going through the action queue that was instigated just prior to the state was applied to them. The "sliding" is obviously annoying but does not hamper game play in any way, and they really don't move more then a couple scale feet anyways.
Lag is nebulous. There are times when the server causes hitching. There is also the plethora of issues a user is responsible for in regards to their PC. There had been a nasty lag issue a few weeks ago which was resolved and other then that the occasional lag spike, that's experianced in EVERY online game, isn't prelevant.
Stuttering slide show? You must be speaking of that lag week when Turbine tried fixing the summon-bug-exploit. I have never seen lag as bad, not before and not since.
Fake challenges? Not a one. Are you upset about something else 'cs you're not making a case? I suspsect you're mad. You have several character leveled "10+" after a "few weeks" and all I get from this is you don't have a life.
Sorry, but that's how it reads.
AoC isn't going to be any different in the manner you profess. Good luck, go outside and get some fresh air. It's much better then sitting at your keyboard and leveling as many characters as possible in a few weeks.