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Complicated game
Quizzical
Member LegendaryPosts: 25,348
At Ungood's suggestion, I decided to have a look at DDO. Yes, it's more than 14 years old, but I had never played it before today.
One of the first things I noticed is that the interface is tiny. That is a relic of the game's age to some degree, but the engine wasn't built to scale nicely to higher resolutions. That said, it does at least work properly at 4320x2560 and without needing to do some messy debugging, which is more than can be said for some games (e.g., Trove, Elsword, Aion, Pagan Online).
The graphics are pretty dated. The art style reminds me more of EverQuest II than anything else. Thankfully, the game does not suffer from EQ2's awful animations. Graphics that are rather bad by today's standards is not a deal-breaker for me.
From digging around, it became clear that the game is incredibly complicated. Some MMORPGs want to offer a streamlined, on-rails experience. DDO is having none of that. They give you enough rope to hang yourself, though they do offer a decent initial tutorial and advise new players to go with some default builds until they're familiar with the game.
It looks like the game has an enormous amount of content, which is what you'd hope for from a game that released 14 years ago. Also importantly, the game has added to its content and not deprecated the old. That's the key point that Ungood made on another thread that led me to have a look at DDO, and I'm pleased to see that it's accurate.
As a lot more content has been added at all levels since launch, if you do all content for a given level, you'll earn vastly more experience than it takes to level up. And that's to say nothing of doing the same content at multiple difficulty levels. Fortunately, you don't automatically level up just because you have enough experience. You don't level up until you choose to do so. That allows you to do as much content as you want without the game forcing you to level past it the way a lot of other MMORPGs would.
The game is "free to play", with vast swaths of things stuck behind a paywall. You can buy things piecemeal, or buy a VIP subscription that gives you most but not all of the stuff in the store. I'm generally in favor of the subscription approach, though I'd like for it to be more all-inclusive.
The game does let you have an ample number of character slots. A subscriber gets 11, and you can buy up to 30 more. That's a big deal for someone like me who likes to play alts.
Playing with a controller is somewhat awkward but not terrible. It's not yet clear whether a larger number of available skills will become troublesome to use as you get higher level.
The game's content is very heavily instanced. As best as I can tell, the only areas shared with other players are non-combat areas. Still, instancing has its advantages, as it allows nearly all content to be done either solo or group, and scale to the group size. In addition to group size scaling, it also has adjustable difficulty. That doesn't make grouping completely redundant, however, as the max group size is six, while instances won't scale difficulty to more than four players. Thus, a full group of six is effectively playing on 4-man difficulty, which should make it easier than soloing or smaller groups. That seems like it should make grouping more important as a way to take on the higher difficulty levels.
The combat is advertised as action combat, and it more or less is. It's not the fast action combat of Spiral Knights or Kritika, but it is a quicker pace than just about anything that isn't advertised as action combat.
On net, it looks like an interesting game. I'm glad Ungood brought it up in another thread as an example of an older MMO that would readily let new players pick up the game today.
One of the first things I noticed is that the interface is tiny. That is a relic of the game's age to some degree, but the engine wasn't built to scale nicely to higher resolutions. That said, it does at least work properly at 4320x2560 and without needing to do some messy debugging, which is more than can be said for some games (e.g., Trove, Elsword, Aion, Pagan Online).
The graphics are pretty dated. The art style reminds me more of EverQuest II than anything else. Thankfully, the game does not suffer from EQ2's awful animations. Graphics that are rather bad by today's standards is not a deal-breaker for me.
From digging around, it became clear that the game is incredibly complicated. Some MMORPGs want to offer a streamlined, on-rails experience. DDO is having none of that. They give you enough rope to hang yourself, though they do offer a decent initial tutorial and advise new players to go with some default builds until they're familiar with the game.
It looks like the game has an enormous amount of content, which is what you'd hope for from a game that released 14 years ago. Also importantly, the game has added to its content and not deprecated the old. That's the key point that Ungood made on another thread that led me to have a look at DDO, and I'm pleased to see that it's accurate.
As a lot more content has been added at all levels since launch, if you do all content for a given level, you'll earn vastly more experience than it takes to level up. And that's to say nothing of doing the same content at multiple difficulty levels. Fortunately, you don't automatically level up just because you have enough experience. You don't level up until you choose to do so. That allows you to do as much content as you want without the game forcing you to level past it the way a lot of other MMORPGs would.
The game is "free to play", with vast swaths of things stuck behind a paywall. You can buy things piecemeal, or buy a VIP subscription that gives you most but not all of the stuff in the store. I'm generally in favor of the subscription approach, though I'd like for it to be more all-inclusive.
The game does let you have an ample number of character slots. A subscriber gets 11, and you can buy up to 30 more. That's a big deal for someone like me who likes to play alts.
Playing with a controller is somewhat awkward but not terrible. It's not yet clear whether a larger number of available skills will become troublesome to use as you get higher level.
The game's content is very heavily instanced. As best as I can tell, the only areas shared with other players are non-combat areas. Still, instancing has its advantages, as it allows nearly all content to be done either solo or group, and scale to the group size. In addition to group size scaling, it also has adjustable difficulty. That doesn't make grouping completely redundant, however, as the max group size is six, while instances won't scale difficulty to more than four players. Thus, a full group of six is effectively playing on 4-man difficulty, which should make it easier than soloing or smaller groups. That seems like it should make grouping more important as a way to take on the higher difficulty levels.
The combat is advertised as action combat, and it more or less is. It's not the fast action combat of Spiral Knights or Kritika, but it is a quicker pace than just about anything that isn't advertised as action combat.
On net, it looks like an interesting game. I'm glad Ungood brought it up in another thread as an example of an older MMO that would readily let new players pick up the game today.
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Comments
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
I want to mention something, that a Sub, not only gives access to the content, but also gives you a substantial amount of Turbine Points every month, so you can use that to buy whatever extra you want, or save them up, to buy the content later if/when you plan to cancel your sub.
But so far what the OP said was very spot on.
I am so envious that you're getting to experience this game as a new player. So many things still left to discover. Happy Hunting.
https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/485551/the-running-back-and-forth-to-talk-to-npcs-game
https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/485704/what-a-buggy-mess
https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/485932/rough-around-the-edges-in-a-lot-of-ways
https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/485522/the-game-is-rather-pathetic
https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/455605/nope-the-crafting-system-isnt-good
https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/475718/bad-first-impressions/p1
Most of those threads got mostly ignored. The ESO thread blew up with fanboys coming in to claim that the game's false advertising is fine because if I had been playing the game for years, I would have known that when Zenimax changed their business model, they told people that what they really meant is something very different from what they claimed on their web site.
Trying a number of older games is largely what led to my recent thread in the pub.
DDO is one of those games that you can jump down the rabbit hole of complexity, and it just keeps going.
Just something to keep in mind as you play, there is a lot going on around you.
So now I'm not really sure what to do about a guild. Maybe start a solo guild for a while, then join an established one if I ever get higher level?
Now, DDO given its age, is also going to feel kinda odd as you play, because the game was expanded upon without direct expansions, they would add adventure packs updates that would function like an expansion without being one, so the world looks and feels very continuous from a player view starting now, which is the way things should be ideally, and what you asked for when you asked about a game that was open to new players late in it's development.
But, don't let that fool you, DDO has been expanded upon a lot, and all its level spreads were done in parts.
To get this, Originally the game only had 10 levels, then they went to 12, then 14, then 16, then 20th, then they split it into Heroic and Epic, so they raised the cap to 25, then 28, and finally 30th.. which is where it is now. But all of this was not done with notable expansions, it was one in pieces with adventure packs.
To grasp that, they would raise the level, say from 10 to 12. Put out a new pack with the level increase, often involving a raid. Then they would put out other packs that added to the level 12 playground, as well as packs that boosted the content for lower levels.
So you will notice while all the content feels coherent, there are direct power jumps at those level splits, because every time they jumped up the levels they added in raids and along with that new gear, which gave a direct power boost to players, so all the new content was added with the idea of the previous power creep known.
So, when it comes to doing Free Content, you will notice that there is a jump in difficulty at those levels, you will also notice that if you play the game, and do the raids at those levels, you can get the gear that responds well to that content, and all future content.
Yes, it is a very raid/gear heavy game, but you will feel those jump in power the free content, moreso on settings like Elite then Normal as it were, so there is that. If you are mainly running Normal/Hard, it won't be as in your face as Elite/Reaper.
With all that said, that does not mean you are going to up upgrading your gear every 2 levels, quite the opposite really, and because of that, pay attention to anything you get that has a name on it no matter what you are doing or what's it's difficulty is, some of that stuff becomes a staple going forward from that point on, and you can get that stuff REALLY early.
To use an well known example. Muckbane, dropped in the Quest "Durks got a Secret" totally free to play dungeon, and those glass clubs are standby for ooze killing, for a lot of levels going up.
In fact, I use my Muckbanes from level 2 to roughly 16, when I pull out my crystal Alchemical weapons from my TR vault. That is 14 levels, from a item dropped in a free quest that you commonly do between 3rd to 5th level your first time, and for a first lice character, you might be using them all the way to 20th, depending on your build.
That is a huge split of levels, given that the whole of Heroic is only 20 levels total.
I play a predominantly melee builds, and yes.. I ran a wizard life where I was dual wielding martial weapons, as a Undead Eldritch Knight.
There's a total of 74 free lvl 1 to 10 dungeons and 24 more free one's for lvl's 11 to 20. Plus with the ability / requirement for F2p players to run dungeons more than just once leveling isn't held up by not paying.
In addition just last year for the Anniversary they gave everyone one of the Adventure Packs for free.
Also SSG was one of the first companies to make all the games quests, raids and expansions totally free to play last month. So until April 30th there is NO paywall.
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter
But to say that it is not a complex game only means that you either didn't get very far, or that you didn't do very much.
It is by far one of the more complex MMO's out there.
i agree with Ungood. if you think DDO isn't complex AF, you never got very far into it.
it is, in essence, simple...i suppose... if you approach it from the mentality that it is Dungeons & Dragons... online.
because then you realize you need to be careful with your build or you could gimp yourself.... multiclassing adds a huge new dimension to your characters... you need to take AC and DR and elemental resistances and armor penalties into account. you need to take into account special weapon properties to hit certain types of mobs... fire, ice, blunts, blades, the works... , and keep on hand a bagful of potions, wands, scrolls, and items with clickable effects, not to even mention thieve's tools for lockpicking and disarming, and spell materials for your casters... you know you need to take into account your position in relation to the mob so you can hit with melee, bow, or even spell, even IF you have it tab-targeted...and be missed by the return blows... you know you need to keep realistic stealth mechanics in mind. you realize that the absolutely deadly trapped hall can either be disarmed, or with good timing, stepped through with little to no injury.
i mean, lets face it, even if you know it, D&D IS a pretty complex game.
but if you walk into DDO with the mentality that it's just another MMO... well... you can be screwed mighty quickly.
the graphics may be dated, and at 14 years old, the spaghetti code is also showing it's age in places, but despite that, the core mechanics and play style of the game is still amazing... and amazingly complex, and holds up even against modern games
I recall this one time in Taming the Flames, which while was only a level 7 quest, it was well known for being a hard dungeon for its level due to all the fire mobs and AoE they would spam, as well as the endless respawns. So we put up an LFM for more as we were not 100 sure in our ability to duo the quest, being as new as we were, and we were trying this on elite, because as a newly TR, I needed the EXP. Well we had a Dwarven Fighter join out group, and they rushed in, and started to swing their flaming greataxe at the mobs, without a care in the world for where they were standing, or what was going on around them.
I have to admit I watched in slack jawed bewilderment as they were standing in the lava spawn point of a summoned fire elemental (the type of mob that keeps respawning no matter how many times you defeat it, and one of the reasons why this quest is as hard as it is) screaming at my friend to heal them.
Well my friend did try to keep them alive, used all their mana in the process, and lo and behold the fighter died shortly thereafter. To make matters worse, we were not even past room 1. The fighter (now dead) went on a rant that the cleric sucked and rage quit the group.
Now, I imagine for that kind of player a game like DDO might seem simple and easy, because not only did they believe that it was the burden of other players to enable them and carry them through the content, they also never took the time to really learn the game.
What you have to do is go to the airship (guild hall) and you can either click on an item on deck which will bestow all the buffs the guild has to offer OR you can go below decks and click on them individually. So Yes you can pick and choose which one's you want.
The buff's are on a timer (4hrs?) and I don't think you can cancel one out once it starts (at least I've never tried).
There are also some NPC's that will will grant a buff on you if you pay them. Those kind would be the only one's you'd have to buy on your own, but one of the larger / higher ranked guilds will probably have those buff's so those are more for those not in a guild or a smaller guild that hasn't gotten a bunch of buff's for their airship.
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter
You get your Guild Buffs from the Guild Airship, there is a central podium on the top deck that you just click and they will apply the Guild Buffs for a time that dependent on the guild level, that will survive through death (They didn't use to)
If you go to the Lower Deck, this is the Buff Bay, you will see what looks like a bunch of rooms, each having their own theme, each of those rooms represents a single Guild Buff that you can get individually. Some of them will even have vendors that can do things like repair armor, sell you scrolls and spell components, bind your soul, etc, etc, and many other things. These Buff Bays are set by the officers of the guild.
Now, the level of a guild affects how big their ship is, this is simple, higher level guilds can buy bigger ships (They don't have to, but if they have funds there is no reason not to) bigger ships can have more Buff Bays, ergo, higher level guilds often provide more buffs that last longer.
There is also a Cargo Hold.
This is a throwback to how guild buffs used to be originally, they changed these now, so the old buffs no longer work, (Finally, and I sure much tears were shed), but I am sure you can still find a few things like a Tavern and a Navigator down there still.
So yes, you can have complete control of what buffs you get, if you want or not, and you really do have a say in what you do and do not do with it, I mean ideally, most people just click the podium because it is fast, easy, and less time, and that works for a lot of players.
IFIK, you do not get anything inherent from the guild itself, other than a Guild tag over your head, and a chat channel to talk with them on.
I also wanted to talk with you about leveling.
You can only hold 1 level and enough exp -1 exp point to the 2nd level, before you stop earning exp. What this means in simple terms if you are 6th level, you can earn enough EXP to be 1 exp point away from 8th, before you just stop earning EXP.
This is often called "Holding a Level" and what people do is when they get close to that cut off, they level up, this makes it easier to finish quest lines and the like, so you don't just overlevel them as you are running them, but also allows you to level up with them if they span several levels.
a common byproduct of this, is almost no one is 19th for any real length of time.. they all jump from 18th to 20th.. LOL.
The main reason why you do not Auto-level is because you have to pick what class you want to be each level, you can have up to 3 seperate classes combined into your build, and you get to pick when and what classes you take for time you level up, you also have a selection of feats, stat points, and skill points. There is no such thing in DDO where you are "Just a Wizard" straight up, even if you took the premade you still need to tell them you are staying with the premade path, you can leave it at any time you want.
Once you leave the remade tho you cannot go back to it, so that is something you need to consider, and truth be told, the premades are pretty mediocre, I mean they are not like, bad, but they are not going to be the builds that will shine when you make it past 10th. I would only suggest using one till you get a feel for what skills shine for you, and how you want to play, then look into making something that fits your playstyle.
Now, to be fair, that can be a little hard at the start, as you are running a Heroic 28 point build, you can earn in game vis favor (or buy the unlock from the store) for a Champion 32 Point build, which makes designing a build a lot easier.
If you decide later to TR, your 2nd Life is 34 Points, (no matter what you started with) and your 3rd+ lives are all 36 Point.
So yah.. it's a complex game, and they do give you plenty enough rope to hang yourself with.. but they also allow you to shine in a way that you find fun to play. Like when I played DDO I was a huge fan of their Dual Wield Mechanic, so all my characters used 2 weapons and beat stuff up, regardless if they were a Healer, Caster, Support, DPS, Tank, you name.. and I was gonna beat things up with two weapons.
But that was me.. when you find what you enjoy, you can make a build that makes it shine.
Like a common build is Wizard/Rogue, that allows you to Buff, Blast, Control, with spells, as well as disarm traps, open locks, etc.. giving your character a huge amount of utility.
Then you have hardcore farming builds that run 15/1/6, Sorc/Rouge/ X-Carry-X and then use a +5 Heart to get a fast past life. But that might not be where you are or even where you want to be.
You have other people that believe in running pure class builds, others, like a friend of mine that was on a 6+ year mission to build the perfect Arcane Archer.. and really.. it's very open door where you want to go.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.