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.

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.

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 .

Originally posted by AgtSmith

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 .

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.

Originally posted by BesCirga

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

 

Nice work.

Originally posted by Hexxeity

 

"I cannot logically or factually refute anything in your post, so I will instead resort to an ad hominem attack."

 

 

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.

Originally posted by AgtSmith

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 .

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.

Originally posted by Vincenz

 

 

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.

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.