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f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  The Gaming Graveyard  |  Dungeons & Dragon Online  |  Topic: Giving this a try, have a couple of questions 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
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Author Topic: Giving this a try, have a couple of questions  (Read 12011 times)
Kageru
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on: September 13, 2011, 08:34:59 PM


Tried this when it came out and thought it was nothing special. But now it's F2P thought it might be a good game to duo with the wife. She plays rarely and in short blocks so a subscription is poor value (and also triggering her "wasting money on games" alert). The game seems relatively good for this given the dungeons appear to scale relatively well to a duo, the graphics are reasonably clean and the missions moderately entertaining.

I've played D&D before but want to look for class suggestions. Visiting the official forums reminded me that D&D players can get even more obsessive and obscure than any other community (including Eve). Eventually settled on Cleric (Light tank + heals) plus a bard with 2 levels of rogue (Traps, CC, DPS). It seems to work alright but I've no idea how it will scale at higher levels. And of course we're both Con challenged elves because they're "pretty". It looks like you can pay to re-roll if it becomes too much of an issue but should this work out okay or are we going to hit a brick wall at some point?

The other question was in regards to paid content. I don't mind putting some money in but adding up all the adventure packs starts to add up even before considering temptations like 32 point builds. I'm wondering which purchases make enough of an improvement to game-play they easily justify their purchase. For example do casual gamers buy all those adventure packs, some of them, use guest passes or just go with the free content?

Is a man not entitled to the hurf of his durf?
- Simond
Ingmar
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Reply #1 on: September 13, 2011, 09:38:22 PM

Cleric + rogue is the money duo. The bard stuff probably isn't adding much to a duo beyond what you'd get from just a straight up rogue though, bards are at their best in bigger groups. I suspect you will find your ability to keep up with the traps may fall off later on without having disable device as a class skill all the way along, but I don't know for sure.

(Variations on the theme with the pay classes work too, favored soul + artificer, for example.)

There are guides out there like this one: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?p=2396345 that will help you decide what to spend points/money on to get the most bang for your buck. You can earn a certain number of things via favor (rep, basically) like the drow race and 32 point builds, and doing favor stuff also gets you some points to spend, which the guides will help you figure out which adventure packs to buy with the points to get the best favor to unlock the stuff you want, etc.

Subscribing gets you all the adventures for as long as you're subscribed, too, so there's that option as well.
« Last Edit: September 13, 2011, 09:39:55 PM by Ingmar »

The Transcendent One: AH... THE ROGUE CONSTRUCT.
Nordom: Sense of closure: imminent.
Kageru
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Reply #2 on: September 13, 2011, 10:01:34 PM


The official forums were very keen on having the bard for crowd control. Though I couldn't tell if that was on the expectation of duoing elite or end-game content. Certainly that free guide which suggests completing all the content * all the servers * all the character slots in order to get free turbine points is unlikely to happen. That's the sort of point at which paying or not playing is definitely the right answer.

Guess I'll buy some of the initial adventure content and see what sort of value it represents.

Is a man not entitled to the hurf of his durf?
- Simond
Ingmar
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Reply #3 on: September 13, 2011, 10:11:17 PM

Yeah it does go down a bit of a rabbit hole of crazy, but the favor unlocks (as opposed to the TP ones) are per-server and I think only count the character with the highest total, so that part should still be useful I think. (Been a while since I looked at one, I may not have linked the best one.)

The Transcendent One: AH... THE ROGUE CONSTRUCT.
Nordom: Sense of closure: imminent.
Kageru
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Reply #4 on: September 13, 2011, 10:20:34 PM


Some of the comments in that thread are quite good. Most of them seem to be suggesting that when F2P content starts getting thing it's a good time to consider buying some and there's some suggestions as to which packs are more valued. Didn't realise you had to buy an item to unlock the levelling process over 4.

Is a man not entitled to the hurf of his durf?
- Simond
Rokal
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Reply #5 on: September 14, 2011, 01:36:25 AM

Didn't realise you had to buy an item to unlock the levelling process over 4.

That was removed from the game shortly after they switched to F2P, so the thread you're looking at is a bit out-dated. You no longer need to buy anything to get to the level cap.

The new artificer class is pretty fun, and I'd think it would be a great combo with a cleric (ranged dps, trap disable/lock picking, some CC mixed in). If you don't want to shell out $10 to unlock it on your account, rogue/wiz is also a really great multi-class combo. You've got great class synergy since both classes rely on INT for many abilities, and you can dish out damage, cc, and buffs while still being about to disable traps and unlock doors.

One random D&D quirk worth noting is that if you're going to take any levels in rogue, you should make sure you take your first level in rogue. Rogues get a huge amount of skill points to spend at level 1. Taking any other class at level 1 means you miss out on those skill points.

If you add up all the adventure packs, you're looking at quite a lot of money, but the amount you spend will be based on how fast you consume content. I play DDO at a very very slow pace, so spending $4-5 on an adventure pack isn't a big deal when you consider that the pack will probably last me a few weeks, and it'll always be available to redo on alts or on higher difficulties. Looking at the total costs for all adventure packs is also somewhat misleading, as there are a lot of low-level adventure packs and you'd outlevel them before you finished them if you did buy them all.

I used this thread to figure out what adventure packs to buy:

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=287854

My only hesitation recommending that thread is that the OP places a large priority on XP/loot. For example he rates "Tangleroot Gorge" very high, but I thought that adventure pack was awful. The loot is great and you can run it fast for a large amount of exp, but you probably won't actually have fun with the quests themselves. Phirlian Carnival gets a pretty low rating, partially because the loot is bad for the epic versions of the quest at level 20, but it's probably the most fun quest pack I've played in DDO (up to level 14 on my monk). It's really unique and it's everything I love about DDO.

If you only plan on running quests once, you can save some money by buying the adventure pack on one account and then buying a 'guest pass' for the other. They're usually significantly cheaper, but if you plan on running the quests multiple times it'd probably just be simpler to buy them on both accounts.

Note that having a VIP subscription counts as 'owning the quest packs' for the purpose of buying guest passes, plus you get 500 points a month. If you're moving through the content at a fast pace, it might be cheapest for you to buy VIP time on one sub and guest passes on the other. This limits how much you are spending to $10-15 a month total, since the 500 points should be enough to buy a month's worth of guest passes for account #2 unless you're burning through content.

It would also be smart to figure out a few Adventure Packs that you might want 'down the road' so you can take advantage of sales that might pop up.

My personal recommendations would be:

Catacombs - lvls 2-4 - 250 points
Seal of Shan-to-kor - lvls 2-4 - 250 points
Phirlian Carnival - lvls 3-6 - 350 points

The total cost to buy these three would be 850 points or ~$8.50. A three-hour guest pass for each would be ~150 points (40, 40, 70), so the total to do these on two accounts would be $10. It's well over 10 hours of gaming (which means you might find yourself buying a smaller guest pass to finish a quest chain), so it's actually a pretty good value. If you manage to snag them on sale you could grab them all for less than $5.

I'm also a big fan of Red Fens, which is for levels 8-10, if you make it that high.

This post is already too long, so the last thing I'll say is that ddowiki.com is an awesome resource for the game. If you're stuck on a quest, or looking for stuff to do in your level range, it's where I always check first.

They also have a new player guide which I'd imagine would be pretty useful: http://ddowiki.com/page/Newbie_guide

« Last Edit: September 14, 2011, 02:04:29 AM by Rokal »
Ard
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Reply #6 on: September 14, 2011, 10:51:58 AM

Regarding thief, from what I remember from character builds a while back, all you need are 2 levels of thief plus a bunch of specialized gear to get to the max level needed for disable device.  What matters is when you take those two levels, so take a look in the forums at the builds for this, and look at when they do it, and where the points go for the skills.  Things might also have changed in the last however many months since the last time I poked my head into this game.
Kageru
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Reply #7 on: September 14, 2011, 04:47:07 PM


Thanks for the detailed responses, very useful. Certainly the official forum builds are keen to "splash thief" but D&D attracts obsessive mini-maxers. Though trap removal is one of those things you generally don't know you need until late game.

Did the first level of bard for early access to a heal, oh well. Can always re-roll into a 32 point build if we stay with it long enough.


Is a man not entitled to the hurf of his durf?
- Simond
Ingmar
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Reply #8 on: September 14, 2011, 04:52:28 PM

Traps start to show up pretty frequently from level 2 on I would say. There's very little of it on Korthos Island, and what there is, is generally avoidable.

The Transcendent One: AH... THE ROGUE CONSTRUCT.
Nordom: Sense of closure: imminent.
Sand
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Reply #9 on: November 04, 2011, 10:04:41 AM

Ive been playing again. Waiting for SWTOR to come out. Got to get back into an MMO frame of mind.
Cheddar
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Reply #10 on: November 04, 2011, 05:29:44 PM

Ive been playing again. Waiting for SWTOR to come out. Got to get back into an MMO frame of mind.

OK.  Thanks for the update.

No Nerf, but I put a link to this very thread and I said that you all can guarantee for my purity. I even mentioned your case, and see if they can take a look at your lawn from a Michigan perspective.
Rokal
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Reply #11 on: November 15, 2011, 05:31:14 PM

A few months ago I shelved my monk who was level 13. He had been pretty great for soloing, but come level 12/13 he started getting murdered by normal quests. I determined this was because I only had a light fortification item (25% chance to re-roll crits and sneak attacks as normal attacks), and high-str enemies like giants and orcs were punishing me for it. So I looked around and everyone said the best heavy fortification (100% chance to re-roll crits/sneak attacks) to shoot for was Minos Legens. You collect 20 tattered tapestries from rare spawns in the Orchard of the Macabre and hand them in for the helm. After re-running the Orchard area ~10 times over the course of ~4-5 hours, I had only gotten 5 tapestries and I lost interest in playing.

I've been working on my artificer lately and checked out a little bit of the crafting system. Overall, I'm not a huge fan of the system, but it did give me a way to make a heavy fortification item for myself. I deconstructed boatloads of items over the past 2 months, and I had only gotten my crafting high enough to make moderate fortification items (75% chance to re-roll crits). Whatever, good enough right? I create a belt of moderate fortification and prepare to send it over to my monk.

"Bound to character". Facepalm

Of course I needed to make an unbound moderate fortification shard, and use it in the unbound crafting station in order to make an item that isn't bound to that character. Did I mention I'm not a fan of the crafting system? The problem was, the unbound recipes require a much higher crafting level.

I checked the AH a few days earlier and saw that the heavy fortification items on my server are going for 13-130k plat. My monk lucked into a collapsed portable hole months ago, so I did have some plat, but I didn't want to spend ~1/2 of my money on a mediocre heavy fortification item. After my crafting didn't pan out, I decide to buy from the AH anyway. I was in luck: someone listed a heavy fortification robe for 1k plat! I throw it on and am finally able to try quests I had given up on so many months ago.

The first quest I run drops these robes. swamp poop Even if I already had a heavy fort item in another slot, these still would have been the best robes my character could have gotten in the game outside of raiding.

tl;dr = I'm finally playing my monk again and seeing lvl 13+ content.

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