Underdark... Missing the Mark?

aimeesellers

We are now less than two weeks away from the release of Module 8. While I am looking forward to it... I do so with a certain amount of trepidation... as I am sure many of my fellow players are as well.

The Tradebar Store rework is a godsend... and has been needed for ages... so I cant wait for that. I am also sure the quests that have been written by RA Salvatore are going to be FAR better than the nonsensical and incomplete rubbish we were delivered with Elemental Evil. But that is where the excitement ends for me.

I have been on the preview server several times since the "module"... or rather what there is of it... went live there. I do have to say that the design of Mantol-Derith... and the whole look of the Underdark around it is amazing. Very nice work there. It is a shame however, that it is so... barren. I am really hoping much more gets added. However... I am disappointed there is no new adventure area. I am also extremely disappointed there is no new dungeon... and no.. the Demogorgon fight is NOT... a dungeon. We have 2 new skirmishes... but... non epic.... and this is what leads me to my point.

More and more of the player base are reaching what I would call "Legendary" status. Multiple legendary artifact weapons and gear... Mythic artifacts... High ranking enchantments... and top end armor. There is nothing that I have seen that addresses the needs of these players. Mind you... many of these players have been here for a long time. We have worked long and hard to get where we are... and yet again, our requests are being ignored.

Underdark promises to bring even more Heroic Encounters... simply inserted into existing adventure areas. With the release of Strongholds, the amount of HE's we have to do has already reached insane proportions. In addition... we have to revisit areas far beneath our abilities and gear, just to advance our guilds. It is tedious, mind-numbing, and an insult to all the time we have put into this game.

There still has been no promised announcement on the status of the dungeons that were removed to be reworked... and it has been over 7 months. The return of these dungeons which were taken from us allows the perfect opportunity to make some of them "Legendary"... and really challenge the top end player base. It also would allow for a much greater choice of dungeons for everyone to run. I have complained time and time again about this... so have many others... with no response from the development team.

The fact that the two new skirmishes are non epic... or not even being released in normal AND epic versions... is insane. Players with item levels of 3K and higher are already steamrolling Kessel's and Shores. What are we expected to do with skirmishes that have a difficulty level of Dread Legion? Farm them for the junk we are going to need for THIS campaign? That is about all I can think they are going to do for us.... as if we dont do enough of that as it is.

Add this to all the problems that are still festering from the release of Mod 6... Paladins that can outheal DC's, out DPS CW's, and out tank a GF... all at the same time... PVP more broken and unbalanced than it ever has been... Broken powers and feats galore... Warlocks that are nearly unusable... the list goes on and on... And I am just having a hard time getting excited about what is only 2 weeks away.

Two weeks away... with almost NO playtesting mind you.

Now... all that said... I am going to do the same thing I have done with every Module release since Mod 3... which is take the following day off of work to spend the entire day playing a game which... despite all the problems... I still do truly love to play.

I do however think... that Cryptic is ignoring a very dedicated... and growing portion of its player base by not giving us more Epic and Legendary content. Give us what we want.

crizpynutz

Excellent post A'Mie and I agree with everything you said. 'Tis a shame. I find it fairly amazing that another entire mod and campaign will be released but the dungeons that were already in the game have not found their way back into the game. With SH, WoD, IWD, etc. there are plenty of HE's in the game to grind out for HAMSTER you just have to dump into a toothless coffer. More of that isn't what the game needs.

urabask

OP said:

The fact that the two new skirmishes are non epic... or not even being released in normal AND epic versions... is insane. Players with item levels of 3K and higher are already steamrolling Kessel's and Shores. What are we expected to do with skirmishes that have a difficulty level of Dread Legion? Farm them for the junk we are going to need for THIS campaign? That is about all I can think they are going to do for us.... as if we dont do enough of that as it is.

Or farm them for the new BIS rings.

aimeesellers

urabask said:

OP said:

The fact that the two new skirmishes are non epic... or not even being released in normal AND epic versions... is insane. Players with item levels of 3K and higher are already steamrolling Kessel's and Shores. What are we expected to do with skirmishes that have a difficulty level of Dread Legion? Farm them for the junk we are going to need for THIS campaign? That is about all I can think they are going to do for us.... as if we dont do enough of that as it is.

Or farm them for the new BIS rings.

Ok... and then? *smirks*

My point is we are still seriously lacking content... rings dont cut it.

zukn75

Well said, and while we can't hold Mod 6 against the current dev team, mod 7 we can, .Strongholds was/is an obvious port from the Starbases the same team made for STO. It reeks of being a stopgap measure and still feels like filler, rather than content.
New team,new content? Don't understand dungeon building? No prob here's a simple HE. While I appreciate this isn't the game/genre the current devs started out in, understanding the D&D culture will build more long term payers, than a short term cash in will.

Oh btw this might be old school and out of date, but D&D was done on a dice role 1-20 was the most common, stats like +4000 ArPen, make me feel ill. D&D used to be a good way to enjoy yourself tell stories and occasionally teach basic numeracy and literacy skills.

kreatyve

According to the dev stream tonight, they are purposely leaving a lot of the content off of preview until launch because they don't want spoilers. I do hope they are doing a thorough job of bug testing it themselves, since we won't get to.

urabask

aimeesellers said:

urabask said:

OP said:

The fact that the two new skirmishes are non epic... or not even being released in normal AND epic versions... is insane. Players with item levels of 3K and higher are already steamrolling Kessel's and Shores. What are we expected to do with skirmishes that have a difficulty level of Dread Legion? Farm them for the junk we are going to need for THIS campaign? That is about all I can think they are going to do for us.... as if we dont do enough of that as it is.

Or farm them for the new BIS rings.

Ok... and then? *smirks*

My point is we are still seriously lacking content... rings dont cut it.

Eh. Given the drop rates and the fact you'll need the ichor from the skirmishes by the time you've actually got all the new rings, gear and finished the campaign the next mod will be here.

d4rthd00fus

Myself and others explained back when the severe staff cuts happened that content and bug fixing would be the major victims. This small team just can't keep up with realizing the world that WoTC has contracted with them to create on the timetable that the P&P side can move. I'm sure there was an adventure area started and scrapped at 15% completion when they had to reign in features to complete the product on time based on their much diminished creative numbers.

It's a shame that mistakes made a year and more ago have had this impact on the team, made worse by continuing in unproductive directions and shedding of most of their paying player base. Things are just gonna get worse I'm afraid, as they are showing no signs of changing course to becoming a more casual friendly, but pay through the nose to be elite type of game with no content to back up that investment requirement. So many developers eying that mobile money and trying to emulate that here without understanding what makes it work.

d4rthd00fus

I have a horrible feeling that Mod 9 will be limited to a guy that appears in PE who will give you a funny hat to wear if you complete a set of tasks such as running 500HEs, 100 skirmishes and 200 PVPs. Just based on how little gets added with each successive mod. Hoped Mod 8 would be enough to bring me back, but what I've seen and heard doesn't sound like fun, it sounds like work.

kiraskytower

Underdark comes with some really nice features that we have been demanding for ages ... plus some new content (Namely 2 skirmishes and 1 raid). Unfortunately what we, the player base are really expecting for a "module" is a new adventure zone and a new dungeons. What we do NOT want are more Heroic Encounters. Especially ones we are expected to grind for months and months. Haven't we already got enough of that grinding influence for our Strongholds from Heroic Encounters?

suicidalgodot

kreatyve said:

According to the dev stream tonight, they are purposely leaving a lot of the content off of preview until launch because they don't want spoilers. I do hope they are doing a thorough job of bug testing it themselves, since we won't get to.

...erm. Yeah...

...when they had put stuff up there it's been buggy on the verge of playability when released. I fear this won't be the case this time. Not sure I'm enthused...

...but let's give them the benefit of doubt.

urabask

kreatyve said:

According to the dev stream tonight, they are purposely leaving a lot of the content off of preview until launch because they don't want spoilers. I do hope they are doing a thorough job of bug testing it themselves, since we won't get to.

They also said that the salvatore quest line consists of 9 quests each lasting about fifteen minutes. So the stuff that isn't on preview is pretty much two hours worth of quests. Although I guess the upside is that there are no vigilance tasks.

theycallmetomu

Thank goodness for that part at least.

aimeesellers

I see this has been moved to the "Preview" section of the forums. This is not feedback on the content of Underdark as much as it is a statement that there is not enough end game content... and Underdark is not bringing it to us. But whatever.

suicidalgodot

aimeesellers said:

I see this has been moved to the "Preview" section of the forums. This is not feedback on the content of Underdark as much as it is a statement that there is not enough end game content... and Underdark is not bringing it to us. But whatever.

...oh well, "How could a Druid work" went to PvE-Discussion, too. So, apparently it's already decided Druids will be PvE-only banned from PvP, huh? Wish they'd had that concept introduced pre-Pala-launch...

/sarcasm /off-topic

I don't expect the Salvatore questline to be the saviour of endgame. How could it? It'll be a nice entertaining evening, a zone to sniff out, and a weekend full of new fun. After that it'll be the same ole same ole either as part of the daily/weekly regrind, or with each char...

The stitch-onto-established-zone concept in Underdark is hopefully not executed as it's been in ToD, where it had been made extra-annoying by forcing everyone to ride through the maps for minutes on end to get where one needs to go... ...then it would at least include less extra-helping boredom. If I want to play a racing game, I load one, dodging tree roots and rocks isn't a thing I need in the dosage ToD pt.1 had it in for us...

End game content value is, apart from Dungeons, but let's not open that can of worms here, IMHO best in IwD - best mob variety, nice, large, variegated zones, and even the HEs there are still more diverse than anywhere else. Sad thing nobody bothers with the better ones any more, time efficient RP grinding is the only thing it seems - understandably, the rewards from the HE's are completely uninteresting now, after all...

...let's see, maybe I'm wrong, and we're in for a pleasant surprise. Maybe it'll be fun, and the bugs rare and non-gamebreaking. But I won't hold my breath...

rayrdan

what underdark is missing you ask? the underdark itself.
i could live with 2-3 brand new dungeons of 30 minutes each one with good rewards IN THE UNDERDARK but definitely not with what we get.
i m sure those 3 skirmishes could have been done in 2 weeks by some random foundry guy.
and yes you have right, those salvatore's quests will probably be awesome but its no more than a weekend of gameplay.

oh btw i removed the "we want dungeons now" gif... it was only slow down your loading of the forum with no additional effects.

kitkathd

I'm sorry but Underdark release without the re-release of Spell Plagued Caverns or Dread vault is just plain stupid. The other new RPG included in WOTC's new setup is much better run than this one is.

kemi1984

In one of the previous posts regarding Underdark, I've wrote that it doesn't look even half good as it was both described and expected.

I hold my breath and told myself I will NOT judge until the thing goes live. So now we're just over a week short of the launch and preview stuff doesn't look much better than few weeks ago. I'm still cautious pessimist though...mostly for the reasons mentioned by the OP.

Having no higher level dungeons (heck ANY dungeons!!!) is a bad bad thing.

During the last double RP I was so focused on moving around my stuff and refining whatever I could and wanted, I completely forgot to do any dungs/daily SH stuff. Than after it ended I looked up at the char admiring my hard work lol after few days you do realize this is not necessary.

You don't need R10 enchants, perfect armor/weapon ones not to mention legendary MH/OH. But getting to BIS is all we have left. We have to grind to make our gear better even if we're already steamrolling through mere content we have now.

Having a way to stress this gear would be a nice change from what's available from quite some time now.

To wrap it up, I do not see any new satisfying content, I will be happy when I see things that can be done with a bit of skill and coordination, party synergy, not another ZERG type skirms or raids.
And all this must be linked with quality rewards, not yet another stuff we will run just to click "salvage" for 3k RAD.

vinceent1

well, i wanna say, we know for a long time how cryptic is understaffed and times with unique new content are mainly gone. Now even the most naive players understand it. But i am not sure Cryptic understand whats the place of their game.

I can live with content like this, that we already have and what is announced, but then i expect Cryptic give us at least reasonable character progression. Give us Druid and reasonable way to progress multiple classess (characters) and i am sure many players dont need unique content so desperately. But we are at situation, where we have no content and we have no resources progress our characters. We have nothing. Content is already lost cause, so Cryptic give us new class from time to time and let us get enough resources to play multiple characters at competitive way. Why they dont understand it?