The Totally NEW Team Corwin Thread

Update dropping tomorrow. Doesn't look like it should be too large.

Friday's agenda-
new Searing Heights quest
first quest of Delera
take lvl9
finish Deleras chain
 
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Well, I don't remember that many runs that were that unfun !

First, we needed about an hour (it felt as if it had been 2) in the Promise Of Fire, the new quest of the Searing Heights.
Perhaps you know this saying : "UIn a country of blind ones, the one-eyeed one is king !" I was the one-eyed one in our group, the only one who had played it before. And I didn't know everything at all !

No-one noticed that the DM was already giving away clues ! The DM was in general totally ignored. My guess is that most players do that, believing that the DM's text is merely a cosmetic thing.

Now, the more I understand that quest, the more i like it. it is currently on its way to become one of my favourite quests !

Everything in it is very logical - IF you heed the DM#s words, that is !

We noticed that during the solving of the floor-tiles-blades puzzle. The Wiki told us - rather in a side notice - everything we needed to know - but we found that out only after several deaths.

Apropos deaths . I had something around 10 or even more. At one point it didn't even matter much to me anymore. My character just tried and died.

My assumption now is, that this is a very good group quest ! With the group split, of course ! The DM already says that immediately after entering the quest : It is a quest for lots of different skills !

The crests, for example, can imho be reached by a rogue with extremely good Reflex and extremely good timing. Plus, fire resistance, because of Sulatar, of course !

This is a refugium of the Sulatar ! Knowing their culture and their beliefs helps a lot !

And this is just like in the Indiana Jones movies : Belloc got something Indy wanted because he knew the locals' culture, and Indy did not !

Even my several hints, that this isc an "Indiana Jones! quest, were mostly ignored by the group. Resulting in like "I just fell into a trap and didn't see any warning !". Well, the guy helping Indiana Jones in his first movie did so as well !

I must apologise, though, that I didn't know that there was no possibility to disable the traps. That stood in the Wiki, and I failed to check it before starting the quest.
I had done this quest only once before that.


Delera's Tomb was like a long long long long long long chore. Did I write "long" already ? Oh, I did. ;)
There was no fun i8n it from my side, because I already had "the quest of many deaths" aka "Promise Of Fire" behind me and was kinda burned out.

The far worst thing was to me that - as a caster - all mobs were suddenly going after me, and my character dying within seconds. And neither Peter nor Corwin realizing that - or only after it was too late.
I REALLY need to build up my defenses ! And my "diversion", too !

Sometimes, they were so far ahead I was just trailing behind. Okay, sometimes it was Corwin who was trailing behind, but never Peter ! ;)

Peper managed to cleahn whole rooms before we arrived there. He is very competent in doing that. He is fast, he works well - but he is imho very bad at explaining or at having patience ( keyword being "trailing behind" ;) ).

Into a speedrun/zerg group, Peter would fit very well. He is good at what is knows.
He is just bad at explaining that during the run. ;)

But … Peter was also the one who answered me when I had typed something into the party chat. and i typed A LOT !
Corwin, on the other hand didn't read much of the party chat, it seemed to me. Maybe everything was simply too fast.

When I saw the Epic Voice Of The Master, I really got angry. I felt like being mocked by both the devs and the Epic / End Game players : The heroic item was SO MUCH INFERIOR IN EVERY ASPECT !!!

I wonder why it's even still there ? It isn't even BTA like the Epic one ! This is pure mockery to me as a pure Heroic quests player !

(Okay, apart from the few Epic quests I did so far. But I didn't find much fun in them. Means that I won't do them much.)

So, the whole session was totally unfun to me. I was glad when I could go to bed, which was after 4 in the morning.

The only positive thing I got from all of this is that Indiana Jones hat.
I'll try to post a picture of it here.
The outfit is the Wildwood Outfit, and the hat is called Explorer's Hat.
 

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Personally I don't like Promise of Fire at all. Corwin was the trapper and felt useless there since nothing could be disabled. Getting the crests was a chore because none of us had a good reflex save and evasion. So I had to sacrifice myself picking them up. So even I died a few times there.

We had lots of mobs to fight and I tried to save some mana on my sorc using wall of fire, but the mobs moved after hirelings and dogs and thus didn't move through the wall.

This is a quest made where you need certain character types and we didn't have that.

I don't mind some of the game mechanisms in there like the puzzles and Indy trap, but the quest is made for a party of strong builds. Too many mobs there for shortmanning. At least on reaper. Still, we were able to complete the quest. The quest is new so we might see some balance changes to it.

In Delera Corwin and I usually stuck together and I waited A LOT there compared to what I usually do. I didn't mind that. We completed much later than the other group. Usually my group finishes way ahead.

I think the main problem was that Corwin and I were chatting on Teamspeak and could thus respond to one another about things going on in the quests while Alrik didn't hear or read that when we type in party chat. So he often went in a different direction than what Corwin and I wanted to do. We typed a bit what to do next in party chat, but it didn't help much. E. g. people died and kept moving towards the shrine (not being close enough) forgetting that I could raise with scrolls. Typing to come to me didn't help. Going back in the dungeon to shrines with respawning mobs is not a good idea. Then it's better to raise where we are to avoid battles enroute.

Some times Corwin and I were moving ahead to the next encounter while Alrik moving back to the shrine for getting mana without telling us. Then taking a wrong turn and waking up lots of mobs and being killed. Another thing is that the Delera quests have constant respawns so you have to move fast out of the rooms to not get stuck there forever. I as a sorcerer become useless when the mana is out and thus we have to be efficient about it. Breaking sarcophagi is also not a good idea because often mobs will spawn from that. In some rooms we just get the levers or buttons and not kill all because as a 3 man group we can't kill all mobs there. So staying behind to kill every skeleton in the room that won't pursue us is not a good idea.

We actually did all optionals in the quests we did and that is NOT normal when I run with Azraelck and Dte. I spent a lot of time waiting in the quests. So I definitely don't agree with the idea that we zerged around there. It was actually quite the opposite. Corwin is usually good at telling when we're skipping optionals or moving too fast for him and I heard no complaints from him.

On the other hand I expect that we group up and move on to the next encounter. I often waited for Corwin and Alrik before the start of the next encounter. If oral and written messages about what to do next are ignored by some then the rest of us just have to move on. We have to finish the quests at one time.

I agree that we increased the speed a bit after being told that Alrik was tired and probably had to go to bed soon. So we made sure we caught up with the other group by completing the plan for the session. This is the same we do when Azraelck says he's fading. We then prioritize what we need to do to complete the quests before he becomes a zombie. Thus not having to skip too many quests from the schedule. This is part of playing with players from different time zones. We have to adapt to people getting tired and thus decide how to finish early. Either completing the schedule by skipping optionals or finishing fewer quests and continuing next session.

Not all quests are well suited for groups with lack of communications. Typical ones are those with respawns where we have to be efficient. Typing can be a good alternative to teamspeak. I use that a lot in PUG groups and that works fine in groups I lead. However, that means we have to actually use party chat. It's also possible to type in party chat… wait for me. I need to rest first to get rid of a death penalty etc. just like we do in Teamspeak. I've yet to see anyone ignoring such requests.

So my suggestion to Alrik to make his playing experience more of a fun is to communicate better with us. Tell us what you want to do instead of just moving there hoping that we notice it. It was also very hard to keep Alrik alive in fights because we had no healers in the group who could quickly heal. We all know that hirelings are quite slow at healing and usually respond late. Alrik's toon often went from full health to dead in 2-3 seconds. You can't do anything about that.

Then a different playing style is needed. E. g. letting someone else get aggro. That means letting another player initiate the battles and get aggro. This is one reason I start the encounters because I can more easily survive the damage until the hireling can heal.

Another issue for Alrik is that my sorcerer now has access to enlarge to my wall of fire, fireball etc. That means I can initiate battles from so far away that the mobs won't be able to reach us and harm us before they're dead. Enlarge is also an excellent feat for wizards and can help out with survivability by staying at a safer distance. When shortmanning using enlarge is a necessity to stay alive because you need to clear groups of mobs without any retaliation. The downside is that Alrik can't contribute in killing anything because mobs were dead from my enlarged spells and Corwin's long range crossbow. Wizards have many feats and can pick enlarge and get aoe spells. Usually it's the wizard who kills stuff before others can contribute.

Delera quests are notorious for closing gates, mobs spawning behind you when hitting levers and so on. It's intended to separate the playing group so you have to fight alone and that happened quite a few times. That can, of course, be frustrating for a first lifer ending up alone in a room and no chance getting help since the others are behind closed gates.
 
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The heroic voice of the master has been there for many years and is one of the most sought after items in the game. It's much more valuable than the epic voice of the master.

The reason people want the voice is NOT the +1 luck bonus to abilities, but the +5% XP in all quests. The Epic version has the same +5% XP bonus. In addition it has +3 luck and striding 30%.

I think the epic voice of the master is much inferior than the heroic one. At level 20 most toons have 30% striding from other sources so it's not very useful. +3 luck instead of +1 luck is definitely not bad, but not good enough by itself to warrant using a trinket slot for such an item. At the level most use a +2 luck blue augment. 3 augment slots is definitely not bad, but you can only use level 20 or less augments to keep the item level at 20. Worse is that the item is considered an artifact so you can't use any of the level 29 artifacts from Sharn and Fey together with the epic voice of the master.

Having said that the best thing with the heroic version is that it becomes available as early as level 5. So you can get a 5% XP increase for most of your heroic levels. That helps a lot with TR's when you're doing racial or heroic TR's. The epic version can't be used until you do epic quests. At that level you often have very good trinkets you want to use (crafted or from other sources) so the voice becomes an item you put on just before you finish the quest. Then it doesn't matter whether you have the heroic or epic version.

The heroic voice of the master can be crafted with the Mantle of the Fleshshaper (from Threnal) and 5 greater tokens to get the Gift of the Master augment which will give 5% XP and can be put in any augment slot.

I have quite a few heroic and epic voice of the master trinkets. The heroic one I use on ALL my toons, but I rarely use the epic one. So it's actually the epic one that feels inferior on my opinion. I would have loved it to be usable for trinket crafting or giving more XP bonus than the heroic one. Then it might have been used more.

It's not right to say the devs are mocking us with the epic voice of the master all the time it has only been available for a few years while the heroic one has been available for most years. The heroic version is considered one of the most valuable items in the game and I have described why. The epic version is just an OK item which will have to compete with lots of other great trinkets you want to wear.
 
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Unfortunately, I almost never think to even look at Party chat when running around in a quest. I'm totally used to just using TS. I also never listen to the DM. First I have all game sound turned off so that I can hear people talking on TS and second, I'm so used to subtitles being merely 'flavour' rather than essential info, I simple ignore them. I didn't enjoy that new quest either, but perhaps part of that was the fact none of us knew it so we died and died. I spent ages trying to find non-existent trap boxes for example. It was a totally frustrating experience.
 
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I also never listen to the DM. First I have all game sound turned off so that I can hear people talking on TS and second, I'm so used to subtitles being merely 'flavour' rather than essential info, I simple ignore them. I didn't enjoy that new quest either, but perhaps part of that was the fact none of us knew it so we died and died. I spent ages trying to find non-existent trap boxes for example. It was a totally frustrating experience.

I'm the same as you with DDO. I'm so used to DDO games just having conversations not meaning anything so you just click past them asap. I've turned in game sound down to very low so I rarely hear it.

The quest as a quest wasn't so bad in hindsight. The puzzle traps is ok to deal with once you learn their mechanisms. Corwin and I cooperated very well on that with him being at the light puzzle telling me which tiles were safe so I could move to the 4 levers in the next room. Having mechanisms where players are rewarded for cooperation is always good.

What I think was silly was that you had to move past a lot of traps in the crest room with no way of disabling any of them. Since they were lethal it meant that players with no evasion or high reflex saves would die in them. Since playing level was 8 or below it means you have to scroll raise people to avoid wiping. I think gaming mechanisms where you punish groups for not having the right classes is bad. Every quest should be possible to finish with any class combination. Similarly I don't like quests where you have to split up and hit levers at the same time to proceed.

I also think that this quest had a bit too many monsters for the level we were. So it's definitely not a quest you would want to solo or shortman unless the group is very strong.

The actual things you had to do in the quest was pretty fun. Wheels, puzzles, levers etc. The indiana Jones trap wasn't dangerous and it's been used in quite a few other quests before. The difference here was that it appeared again and again. I don't have a problem with it. Soon you learn how to avoid it.

New quests are always a bit frustrating so that's nothing new. However, after a few playthroughs we see whether the quest is actually fun or not. This quest is definitely fun in a balanced group, but not so fun to solo or shortman with no reflex based toons in the group.
 
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That quest isn't too bad once you learn it, which could be said about pretty much every quest in DDO. Even the hallway with all the traps that can't be disabled has a few safe spots to stand. If you know the spots, you can pretty much time everything. Of course, if you've got an evasion toon in the party, it largely becomes trivial as long as you don't waste time getting thru. For the puzzles, the best strategy is to light up every tile in the first puzzle room, making the second room completely safe. We got about 90% lit and the second room was trivial although Az still got one-shotted when he cut across a tile little too tightly.

Alrik, it's nearly impossible for a typer to lead a quest. You just can't type quickly enough, nobody can. At some point if you do get a working headset, it might make more sense to let you run the show on some quests. Keep in mind, though, that the six of us have been running these same quests for up to 10 years, so leading for this group generally is limited to "left side or right side first?" and "pull levers in 3..2..1". Finally, you've got to remember that, for now, your strongest toons are weaker than our weakest. I don't think you've TR'd a single toon yet, while my weakest is on her 4th life right now and my stable is probably 5th out of 6 for overall "power". Additionally, we've got a 10 year head start on you when it comes to gear, which is why we pass so much stuff your way. Finally, while most of your toon builds seem to center around "interesting concepts", most of us are using 10 years of experience with character builds to put together toons that are fairly optimized and it shows in the performance.

This is not to say you're doing it wrong by any stretch, but you need to temper your expectations. You're not going to get a lot of kills because you're almost always going to be the weakest toon in the party. No shame in that at all- it's not a competition. You're not going to lead many quests because the stuff we're running doesn't really require ANY of us to lead. Not really a problem- everybody contributes as they can and we don't hand out grade cards at the end. As for the speed that quests are run, I don't think you understand how much the group slows down to accommodate you. Again, that's not a problem and we don't play against a stopwatch, but it does sting a little bit when you make it sound like we're not even trying to work with you.
 
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Less tightly and more I got cocky and wasn't paying attention. :p I own that death.

I turned off my DM chat entirely years ago (around the time Menace of the Underdark came out), and these days my volume for DDO is kept almost nil so I can hear the group. I'm partially deaf in one ear, so I pretty much have to.

Kill count usually goes to the one with the most AOE damage. Not even the most damage (though Sorcs are pretty much top in both these days). I used to lead kill counts with my weird druid barbarian wolf build, because it was built around having a half-dozen cleaves and the speed to outrun pretty much everyone including god. Charge in, spam cleaves, run some more while tossing heals at myself to cover any damage taken. Point being that it's something no one should even worry about. We're a group, every kill is a kill for the group.

That quest was new for all of us (except CM), and it was definitely a bit more challenging mechanically than what we're used to. Often we're running older content, that newer characters are grossly overpowered in relation to. My Paladin hits harder now at 7 than my first one did at level 20, and that wasn't a bad character. The game's changed, and player character power has increased exponentially.

Unfortunately, there's a huge gap between a first life character, even well built, and one with multiple lives. You can have an extra 120sp, 30hp, 15% healing amp, 30% striding, bunches of PRR and MRR and on and on and on as the past lives build up. For wizards, you almost are required to have three Wizard past lives (+3 spell penetration, active feat is +1 spell DCs to every school), Sorcerer (+3 Evocation DC, +60 spell points), Favored Soul (+60 spell points, +3 Spell Penetration), and Cleric (+3 Conjuration DC) just to run in newer elite/reaper content. Then you want racial lives, iconic lives...

I think we do tend to get into a rhythm and start pushing harder than we should. Especially Peter, whose up at 3-4am for our sessions, and me, who has to get out of bed at 3am the next day so am time constrained most weeks. We can stand to slow down some on Friday though; it is a game, not a job, and we're not paid by the hour. If it means we don't get as far some weeks, oh well.

Paving season starts tomorrow, and I expect I'll be getting every Saturday from here until December again. So it can be assumed that I'll be on time constraints (session has to end around 8 or so my time) from here on out. If not, I'll simply hang on until I run out of coffee.
 
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Delera quests are notorious for closing gates, mobs spawning behind you when hitting levers and so on. It's intended to separate the playing group so you have to fight alone and that happened quite a few times. That can, of course, be frustrating for a first lifer ending up alone in a room and no chance getting help since the others are behind closed gates.

I noticed that a few times, yes, with one particuular moment being there when you pulled levers behind a gate, meanwhile I was late, and got to face all the spawned Skeletons. Needless to say that my character died.

The communication was hindered as well by the fact that meanwhile I type, there is movement going on - fast movement - by anyone else within the group. These are precious seconds kind of "wasted".

I have noticed that during the last months as well : I'm *always* slow, even with guild buffs ! That also happens when I do quests & chains together with everyone else. It was merely much more visible within out 3-man-group.

And, when people are running up ahead (partly because they already know everything), these are precious seconds I need to type,m actually. And I can type FAST ! (At least everyone says so at work. I have heard lots of people saying about me : "I have never seen someone type so fast with just 1 finger !")

Apart from the fact that I still need to get my headst working (this week I have vacatin time, so I might FINALLY be able to do that !), there is also in my opinion a change of culture from slower questime - before the possibility of voice chat, years ago), and fast running, because voice chat simply allows it.
Regarding that, I belong to a dying out species or age, insofar, as I still LOVE typing ! I prefer typing every everything spoken, even at work (where I'm required to use the phone for in-house calls).

Another problem, of course, is, that you all know everything already, and I don't. What I'm doing there is letting my "inner child" play, and that just wants to see everything !

I'm not saying that I'm not guilty. I'm just saying that I'm too much different.

The heroic voice of the master has been there for many years and is one of the most sought after items in the game. It's much more valuable than the epic voice of the master.

The reason people want the voice is NOT the +1 luck bonus to abilities, but the +5% XP in all quests. The Epic version has the same +5% XP bonus. In addition it has +3 luck and striding 30%.

I think the epic voice of the master is much inferior than the heroic one. At level 20 most toons have 30% striding from other sources so it's not very useful. +3 luck instead of +1 luck is definitely not bad, but not good enough by itself to warrant using a trinket slot for such an item. At the level most use a +2 luck blue augment. 3 augment slots is definitely not bad, but you can only use level 20 or less augments to keep the item level at 20. Worse is that the item is considered an artifact so you can't use any of the level 29 artifacts from Sharn and Fey together with the epic voice of the master.

Having said that the best thing with the heroic version is that it becomes available as early as level 5. So you can get a 5% XP increase for most of your heroic levels. That helps a lot with TR's when you're doing racial or heroic TR's. The epic version can't be used until you do epic quests. At that level you often have very good trinkets you want to use (crafted or from other sources) so the voice becomes an item you put on just before you finish the quest. Then it doesn't matter whether you have the heroic or epic version.

The heroic voice of the master can be crafted with the Mantle of the Fleshshaper (from Threnal) and 5 greater tokens to get the Gift of the Master augment which will give 5% XP and can be put in any augment slot.

I have quite a few heroic and epic voice of the master trinkets. The heroic one I use on ALL my toons, but I rarely use the epic one. So it's actually the epic one that feels inferior on my opinion. I would have loved it to be usable for trinket crafting or giving more XP bonus than the heroic one. Then it might have been used more.

It's not right to say the devs are mocking us with the epic voice of the master all the time it has only been available for a few years while the heroic one has been available for most years. The heroic version is considered one of the most valuable items in the game and I have described why. The epic version is just an OK item which will have to compete with lots of other great trinkets you want to wear.

Well, I'm still angry about the fact that the Epic one is a trinket which has THREE augment slots !

In heroic, one is rare, two are prized items, but THREE ??? And the Epic one HAS three ! Imagine the possibilities !


Unfortunately, I almost never think to even look at Party chat when running around in a quest. I'm totally used to just using TS. I also never listen to the DM. First I have all game sound turned off so that I can hear people talking on TS and second, I'm so used to subtitles being merely 'flavour' rather than essential info, I simple ignore them. I didn't enjoy that new quest either, but perhaps part of that was the fact none of us knew it so we died and died. I spent ages trying to find non-existent trap boxes for example. It was a totally frustrating experience.

This is another point showing why I'm so much different . I'm very much focused on letters. I'm a lot of focused on details. Which Is why I already knew the sign for the yellow wheel in Promise because I had done it once before meanwhile you were still searching for it. I had already applied it to the yellow wheel when you came to it.

I assume that I'm so much focused on the written word because of my almost- deafness of my left ear. I need to have things written down in order to understand them. When talking in RL, I must also look a lot at the facial expressions and at the lips to see what people are talking about.
Now I have new earphones, which is making things a little bit easier for me, but habits are not likely to die out so soon.

I'm also much focused at details. Yesterday, Sunday, I did a walk. I usually look down, not up, and that's why I noticed that rainworm. No-one else did I helped that worm get from the stony walk on the meadow next to it, because in the sun it would have droied out and died.

This focus on details is typical for HSPs. I know it this way only from this group of people.

As for the speed that quests are run, I don't think you understand how much the group slows down to accommodate you. Again, that's not a problem and we don't play against a stopwatch, but it does sting a little bit when you make it sound like we're not even trying to work with you.

I do notice that you are trying to slow down. Because any time I type "I've lost you", someone comes and fetches me.

It's just so that I'm in general someone who is slow. I'm used to a much slower pace.
Slow playing is much more comfortable for me. Remember that I once did "An invitation for dinner" and needed 4 hours to complete it !

It's okay that you are always so fast, because that's your style.
Me, I'm used to a different style, as I'm naturally so much slower.

Which is why I like solo play so much : I can see every detail there, and advance at my own pace.

I think we do tend to get into a rhythm and start pushing harder than we should. Especially Peter, whose up at 3-4am for our sessions, and me, who has to get out of bed at 3am the next day so am time constrained most weeks. We can stand to slow down some on Friday though; it is a game, not a job, and we're not paid by the hour. If it means we don't get as far some weeks, oh well.

My feeling tells me that there is something with that "rythm".


Unfortunately, there's a huge gap between a first life character, even well built, and one with multiple lives. You can have an extra 120sp, 30hp, 15% healing amp, 30% striding, bunches of PRR and MRR and on and on and on as the past lives build up. For wizards, you almost are required to have three Wizard past lives (+3 spell penetration, active feat is +1 spell DCs to every school), Sorcerer (+3 Evocation DC, +60 spell points), Favored Soul (+60 spell points, +3 Spell Penetration), and Cleric (+3 Conjuration DC) just to run in newer elite/reaper content. Then you want racial lives, iconic lives…

I fear that this is the exact reason why my characters

- die so often
- are much slower
- don't have the power to kill fast
- etc. etc.

Perhaps we should do a group entirely consisting of first-lifers one day. So that everyone would be at the same level.
 
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Perhaps we should do a group entirely consisting of first-lifers one day. So that everyone would be at the same level.

I don't think that would help much unless we play like a hardcore group where we are not allowed to get gear from shared banks or auction houses.

I can easily get a first lifer toon who will be a lot stronger than any toon you can create just because I have access to better gear, crafting ability, more platinum etc. Knowledge about the quests and how to build strong toons will also make an impact.

Maybe at level 1-4 there won't be much difference, but the higher we get in levels the more you will be rewarded for knowing which feats, enhancements etc. to take.

You like to make experimental builds who might be fun on normal solo play, but in reaper runs you will feel like a gimp because it's not suited to reaper difficulty. So if we want to run first lifers we would also have to drop the difficulty to normal or hard.

We're getting you tokens in the Devil Assault runs. So you should be able to do some TR's. Have you considered TR'ing one of your current level 20 toons and use that one for the next group?

I think you will have more fun focusing on maybe 4 toons and TR'ing them when hitting 20 rather than spreading your playing power on 10+ toons all being 1st lifers.

Quite a few of us know which past lives to take to become more useful. E. g. if you run Tiefling scoundrel then every past life will grant you 10% striding. So 3 past lives means you will get 30% striding available at level 1. That is huge when it comes to speed everywhere.

You can also pick a toon to get the 15 year anniversary reward called Quiver of Alacrity. It's good by itself, but if you fill the necro 4 tome (8 pieces) you can get an upgrade giving you 30% striding. The quiver can be used from level 1. So it's another source of speed at low level.

If I were you I would dedicate one toon for being your main in our groups and having another for alt runs. That means you TR your main when we get to 20 and place bound to character gear like the quiver of Alacrity on him or her. That means you build up strength and will catch up on some of us. Remember that most in our guild have several TR'ed toons they alternate between so they might have as few as 3 or 4 lives.

So if you concentrate on 1 toon you will catch them. We forward a lot of gear in quests to you and those are bound to account. That will over some team help your playing power a lot.

It will certainly help a lot if you get a working head set so you can hear what we're saying. That means you know what we will do next. You can then still type when you want some attention and tell us that you're lost or need to get to the shrine and so on. Not being able to know what we're doing must be frustrating and we're so used to using Teamspeak we rarely type the others what we might do next.

If you get tired in your head listening to the sound then you can just type that in party chat so we know you're not listening anymore and we have to adapt and type more our plans.
 
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We're getting you tokens in the Devil Assault runs. So you should be able to do some TR's. Have you considered TR'ing one of your current level 20 toons and use that one for the next group?

Well, Alrih is still sitting there at level 20 with nothing to do at the moment.

I'm currently playing rather with Ahiania, the Scourge (level 23 at this time), in the higher levels, and I plan to try it out how for I can get with her into the 30s. I have no idea, though, how much feasible this is.
This is also the character with which I'm trying out quests between 15-20.

These are currently my only level 20-ish characters I have.

Of course you have established your own way of playing as a group. Like a course.
It's not that easy for me to fit into that, because you all know each other for longer than I do (remember, I had been playing another MMO for several years).

I just try to fit into that, but I don't find it easy, but that's not your fault.

I have problems with fitting into groups, that's one of my very personal problems. In my past I have rather learned to work alone, because this way I could have control over everything I do.
Giving that up is something I'm still not that much used to. Trying to find a niche into which i fit is sometimes kind of a challenge for me, because through my past I have learned that I'm too often too different for people to neatly fit into any group. I've had bad experiences regarding that, and there is always a little bit of fear in me that, so to say, history might repeat itself.



Regarding the headset, I just found out that I had bouht one for which my PC doesn't have the right plugs. I was so stupid that I didn't notice that.
The headset has only 1 cable, which should plug into a slot … and, as far as I can understand it, it does both phones and microphone through that single cable + single plug at the end. I should have noticed that my mainboard doesn't have that. I need two separate plugs, one for phones, one for micro. It's a true facepalm case for me !
 
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A headset with a single plug? You mean USB, right? My USB-only headset works fairly well. Well it did before one of the speakers blew. I still sound like Clem Kadiddlehopper, but I sound like that anyway. :p No need for multiple plugs. Windows may be too defective to work with just USB though. I don't know, I don't use windows.

As one who once spread my playtime among about 10 characters, I feel your pain, Alrik. Most of my characters are now mules, and I cycle through four for the various guild groups, and Mirys is my main/solo character.

I have a bunch of shield pieces, which can also be used to get the token for upgrading a Quiver. Not a full shield, but maybe between the rest of us, we can make it work.
 
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I maintain 6 toons, and it's really too many. If I combined the past lives into a single toon, I'd probably be about a double completionist (rather disappointing, when you think about it) but as it stands my most used toon is only on his 8th life because the activity is so spread out. I've got too much time invested in all 6 to turn any into mules at this point, unfortunately, but I've been trying to focus down on 3-4 if I can manage it.
 
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I would have triple completionist save for Alchemist and 1 Barbarian life if all my characters' past lives were merged into one character. To be honest, if they sold something that let you cannibalize your characters like that, I'd probably cull down most of mine to just Mirys, and two others for Friday.

Reminder that Sunday, March 14, is when daylight savings time, aka idiot time starts. Whichever. I think that means that our European and ANZAC contingent will be coming in an hour earlier.
 
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A headset with a single plug? You mean USB, right? My USB-only headset works fairly well. Well it did before one of the speakers blew. I still sound like Clem Kadiddlehopper, but I sound like that anyway. :p No need for multiple plugs. Windows may be too defective to work with just USB though. I don't know, I don't use windows..

No, it's not USB, that's the curious thing.

It looks like this one : https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klinkenstecker#Stereostecker_mit_Zusatzfunktion_(vierpolig)

3 black rings.

The ones I know / knew are like this . https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klinkenstecker#Stereostecker_(dreipolig)

2 black rings.

I don't know how this is called in English, but I found the term TRRS on the English-language Wikipedia page, which might be it :

Some newer computers, such as Lenovo laptops, have 3.5 mm TRRS headset sockets, which are compatible with phone headsets and may be distinguished by a headset icon instead of the usual headphones or microphone icons. These are particularly used for voice over IP.

I simply did not know that these differences exist.

I still have my old headset here, but its ear bolsters ( is that a term ? :lol: ) have literally crumbled to dust.

Now that some markets are open here again, I might be able to find to find me something for that dilemma.
 
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You're describing a 3.5" phone jack.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phone_connector_(audio)

That plug is an older generation audio connector. The first generation of cell phones used this plug to connect headsets. Usually you find this connector on audio devices like amplifiers, radios, DVD players etc. It's not that usual on PCs.

On PCs it's more normal to connect headsets using the USB port or the former pink and green connector.

https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001423.htm

It's possible to get a 3.5" jack to USB adapter if you have a decent headset you still want to use on your PC.

https://www.amazon.com/usb-audio-jack/s?k=usb+to+audio+jack
 
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