https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/493698-Letter-from-Executive-Producer-...

Greetings!

Our first year as Standing Stone Games is behind us, and we want to thank our fans for being part of a wonderful year. We feel truly fortunate to have wonderful players, and we are excited for the upcoming year. I wanted to take some time to talk about our plans for the upcoming months. The reason we are here is because YOU are here, and we look forward to hearing from you.

Update 38 will arrive this Spring, and will return adventurers to Eberron. The magic that has long protected Stormreach is failing, and a strange plague is sweeping through the city. You'll join forces with the healers of House Jorasco to find a cure and save your adopted home. This new adventure pack will be level 14 on Heroic difficulty, and level 31 on Legendary difficulty. Part of this work will allow us to tweak House Jorasco as well, to help players get around the space.

We will also be doing a bit of work on the Anniversary Event, including some new event rewards, as we celebrate DDO's 12th year! We will have a special gift for players as well, but do not want to spoil the surprise.

One of the things we have long heard from you about is the desire to have a third Artificer Enhancement tree, and we're pleased to be able to say that the Renegade Mastermaker will be coming in the near future. This tree will focus on improving your Repair spells, Curative Admixtures, personal Defense, and building things to buff both yourself and your allies. We also intend to add a third Favored Soul tree, update the Cleric Warpriest, and do extensive work on the Druid class. For Druid, we will be working on the core of the class, its animal forms, and both of its existing enhancement trees in addition to a brand new enhancement tree.

Another thing we have long wanted to do is update our Treasure of Crystal Cove event, and we intend to start doing that work in the coming months by updating the reward list. Speaking of events, we have plans for Night Revels to update the public space to work similar to the Challenge system its dungeons use, and add a new dungeon for our favorite Halloween event. October is historically one of our biggest months, and we think you'll love what we have in store.

Next, we are pleased to announce our next classic adventure! An eccentric wizard has hidden three famous Sentient weapons inside of a volcano, and challenged all comers to try to retrieve them. Can you make it through fiendish obstacles and deadly traps? Have you guessed the pack yet? It's White Plume Mountain, a classic 1979 dungeon that was also recently brought to 5th Edition in the Tales from the Yawning Portal book. We'll be giving this intense test of skill the DDO treatment later this summer in an adventure pack that will also feature several other stand-alone dungeons themed around wizards and their arcane environments.

We are happy with the feedback we received about Sentient Weapons with the release of Mists of Ravenloft, and plan to continue to support that system in 2018. In addition to the Sentient Weapons available in White Plume Mountain, we intend to add a Kobold-themed Sentient Jewel for our 12th Anniversary, and create a Dragon-themed jewel for an as-yet unannounced release date.

We have another big announcement to make later this year, but we're not ready to hint about that news yet, sorry. Stay tuned soon for an announcement about an adventure that has been on many of our players' wish lists for years. We can't wait to tell you about it!

On behalf of everyone on the Dungeons & Dragons Online team, we thank you for your support. We've been humbled by the response to the Mists of Ravenloft, and we look forward to continuing our amazing tabletop-to-screen journey with you in 2018 and beyond!

Sev~

Carpone wrote on Jan 30^th, 2018 at 6:49pm:


domains added a ton for clerics, little for fvs. Arti was updated in 2016, just need a 3rd tree really.

Druid needs some rework, and is the only one I agree with you on being skeptical about.

I may come back to play through white plume once.
I dug that module

Bigjunk wrote on Jan 31^st, 2018 at 10:52am:

This.

Snu Snu wrote on Jan 30^th, 2018 at 6:03pm:

I will consider this a win if they include body armour feats for the goddamed dog.

That Dreadcursed Defender docent is just a slap in the face right now.

Snu Snu wrote on Jan 30^th, 2018 at 6:03pm:

This however, does not fill me with confidence that the above will happen.

Snu Snu wrote on Jan 30^th, 2018 at 6:03pm:

Good.

Snu Snu wrote on Jan 30^th, 2018 at 6:03pm:

Not good. Animal forms are the reason Druid is perpetually borked. Druid does need its 3rd tree, but I shudder to think what they'll come up with (Master Summoner would be ideal, but that's a pipe dream).

Snu Snu wrote on Jan 30^th, 2018 at 6:03pm:

All good.

Snu Snu wrote on Jan 30^th, 2018 at 6:03pm:

Still good. If this is more like Ravenloft and less like ToEE, it's a win. Basically I want a non-ugly Slavers with less boredom.

Now we play the waiting game and see how they do. They're riding high on a wave of goodwill since Ravenloft beat the Vegas Odds and was great content.

Hopefully they can keep that ball rolling.

The 18-20 crawl still needs work, I nearly died of bordem completing it this life. Could def use some more content over there.

Skrilla wrote on Jan 31^st, 2018 at 6:17pm:


I'm not exactly sure why this matters. The XP sucks on all the new quests anyway so the most you could possibly get is slightly better gear for a level or two.

Snu Snu wrote on Jan 30^th, 2018 at 6:03pm:


This is new. When have the Devs planned to support any new system beyond an update or two?

Skrilla wrote on Jan 31^st, 2018 at 9:50pm:


I'm not sure what "we" you're referring to, but I run lord of stone every life and monastery/etk most lives. LoS and etk can be soloed on 4 fairly quickly and easily, mon is fast and easy if you have two decent players for the end.

While they (obviously) aren't in the same rxp/minute bracket as iq, they're acceptable when you take into consideration their excellent regular xp/min.

I completely agree that there's plenty to do at 14 and we could use more decent rxp quests at 17, but there's no reason to assume that whatever they added would be worth running for rxp. I highly doubt that's a design goal of theirs.

Pseudonym wrote on Feb 1^st, 2018 at 1:36am:


I see monastery ran very frequently.  Not sure why, I fucking hate that quest (the whole chain really) and there's way, way better, quicker XP to be had in Estar.

Pseudonym wrote on Feb 1^st, 2018 at 1:36am:


Also run frequently.  First two aren't bad xp per minute and number one choices around that level if you have a 1st or 2nd life toon with no Estar key.  4th has decent xp but...fucking hate those last two quests.  If I have a key to Estar, I never run them. 

Personally I wish they'd bump the xp up for the devil's battlefield quests.  The quests are decent (except maybe that piece of shit throw the switches one) and fairly quick, it's the XP that keeps them from being worth the effort.

Per the Wiki, the weakest content level in heroics  is 13.  With only 14 quests at that level.  Followed by 12, 14, 16, and 17 with only 15 each.  So that 12-17 stretch is low on content, for sure. 

So setting it at 14 is right in the middle of that weak stretch.   I agree, though, that the presence of the GH Saga mitigates that content area's weakness, to some degree.  As does the run times and high XP of the GH walk ups and the presence of two of the better XP grinds in the game in Wiz King at 12 and Litany at 15. 

Level 18 and 19 are actually very well populated.  Level 19 has 21 quests.  All of Stormhorns (5), all of LoB/MA flaggers (3), all of Shavarath (original) (6), all of IQ2 flaggers(3),  The Riddle, and Murder By Night.  There just aren't many low run time/high XP quests or XP grind quests in 18 and 19.  Which makes it feel like a slog.

Skoodge wrote on Feb 1^st, 2018 at 6:37am:


Monastery and etk are both excellent xp/min if you're playing a proper character and know them, but they're also the sort of quests that a clueless pug with bad builds can do painfully slowly and/or wipe attempting.

You might want to revisit them, they're very much worth doing.

My level 17 xp typically looks something like
rainbow, rwtd (since the only vale quest I had room for before capping was dust), sane asylum, lord of stone, etk, monastery a couple times (if I'm not alone. If I'm alone, I add thorn and paw and don't do monastery on more than r1 since I usually have to kill the guy and I don't want to be there all day).

Skoodge wrote on Feb 1^st, 2018 at 6:37am:


The only one that I run (unless I'm out of yugo pots) is sins, which is good xp and rxp/min if you can zerg it.

Raising the xp wouldn't make me run more than one additional quest out there because at that level rxp is my priority and I'm already nearly capped with the stuff I run. That having been said, they should still raise the xp of most of them because I don't think making quests worth running should be contingent on whether or not I personally would run them.

Barkabout wrote on Feb 1^st, 2018 at 12:25am:

No, they always plan to. Their plans are utter shit, however, and their "support" is worse.