From Lynn post today:

Hey, all! We've been reading your feedback pretty avidly, I've got a small update for you to keep you guys in the loop. Next patch (currently targeting next week, but things can always change!), you can expect the following changes:

Each end chest in Sharn will have a small chance to drop one of the Minor Artifacts available in the Masterminds of Sharn Expansion Pack. This is an independent chance than your chance to find Named Loot, but will still be affected by Ransack penalties. The Saga will continue to have a chance to drop 3 Artifacts, but it will randomly determine which three are available (this is done via 3 independent rolls, so it may show you more than one of the same Artifact, but it will always show three total).

Hope you guys have a wonderful Thursday, and thanks for your feedback


https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/505627-Minor-Artifacts-Query?p=6212832...

Technomage wrote on May 16^th, 2019 at 11:55am:


A Sharn Welcome

Rubbinns wrote on May 15^th, 2019 at 2:49pm:


Gunga wrote on May 14^th, 2019 at 11:42pm:

BIS.

Rubbinns wrote on May 16^th, 2019 at 3:03pm:

You could be correct about it being intentional. 

If so, Occam's and Hanlon's still apply because what she fails to realize in her ignorance is, the *harder* she makes the choices for the new crap, the more appealing it makes the option of staying with the RL sets. 

Essentially, she's devaluing her own work by making the compromises on slots and effects too costly.

I'm still not convinced though.   I've seen her gameplay videos and she's only a half step above Cordoboob.  It has to be challenging to design useful gear when that's the level of understanding you have of the gameplay.  Then when you factor in the feedback from the dipshits on the mobos, she's at a significant disadvantage before she ever starts.

Looks like the Masterminds saga quests drop six items each, which means there's a handful of items left that are still missing.  If we assume Cogs quests drop three items each, then all the items from the Cogs have been identified.

Its been a few days now and I can safely say Sharn isn't/wasn't worth $40

Justanotherlurker wrote on May 20^th, 2019 at 5:40am:

I disagree.  It may not be as good as Ravenloft, but it isn't on the level of Shadowfail.

Aside from Just Business, the quests are short.  The first time reaper XP is about on par with Ravenloft, and two 276k/+3 tome sagas for 17 quests is way better than other sagas.  The first raid is also short: You're done or you're dead in about 12 minutes and is a welcomed change from Strahd or Baba in that regard.  I wiped a bunch on the raid. Assuming the upcoming patch addresses how overtuned it is (pugs will fail on LN as is), it's something else to add to the raid rotations.

Itemization for ranged and DC casters is great, and I'd rather ransack Sharn than farm another Slavers ingredient.  As a melee, I'll continue to bitch and gnash my teeth about being held hostage to the DStrike on the Mantle of the Fury though.

Asheras wrote on May 20^th, 2019 at 10:36am:


That was funny!!!  What happened with KNN? 

This gear puzzle is giving me a tumor.

Rubbinns wrote on May 20^th, 2019 at 12:56pm:

Yeah the idiocy of the loot tetris with multiple effect redundancies and gaps is making it really hard for me to give any fucks about 90% of the loot in Sharn.  At this point, I'm leaning towards just swapping in an artifact on a non-essential slot for the extra three filigree and calling it done rather than have to completely rework my entire gear set of mythic+reaper bonus RL gear for an extra 5% or something stupid.

Oddly, one thing they got correct with itemization is that it seems to be mostly minimal power creep, at least for melee.  Seems like casters and ranged might have gotten slightly more power creep or at least more convenient gearing options than melee but given the gravy train melee have had with RL gear, even that's not bad.

The problem is, minimal powercreep in the new gear means that a full set of RL gear is still good enough.  Since RL gear isn't completely obsoleted by raw power creep on the Sharn gear, Sharn itemization needs to add value in other ways, which it seems to do only marginally.

At this point, I think SSG/Lynn are victims of their own intentional, but needless complexity.  They've completely lost sight of the KISS principle when designing stuff.

They've made which effects go on which slots and which possible combination of effects can be had with a gear set so random and inconsistent, they can't even design full gearsets for various build archetypes that give a comprehensive set of the essential effects.

Carpone wrote on May 20^th, 2019 at 10:48am:


+.8

Carpone wrote on May 20^th, 2019 at 10:48am:


Well I thought ravenloft was terrible value too so no arguments that it’s nearly as good as ravenloft. You guys can continue to be happy at being overcharged for mediocre content but I like to think they could do better.

Cripey wrote on May 21^st, 2019 at 4:26pm:

Absolutely.