More Dungeons and Dragons Online over the weekend, and I'm now, if anything, even more confused than a week ago, rather than getting the hang of it all, as one would expect. Two very different kind of session, showing me two quite different sorts of game really.
Last time saw me grumbling about being in a group that didn't really need me, and so to avoid similar kinds of frustration, I took the initiative a bit, and did something I almost never do in my usual online wanderings, and that's start a group of my own. The party window is a very powerful tool, allowing you to put up an extremely tailored 'classified ad', with level restrictions, class requirements, and even the specific adventure you're looking for help dealing with. No need for generic 'LFG' spam here - its all integrated into the game in a very efficient manner, and after loitering on the docks for only a few minutes, soon had a decently balanced party, all of my own level, raring to go. A Rogue (me) for the traps, check! A Fighter for the front line, check! A Cleric for healing...two of those turned up - bonus! I'd have liked a Wizard or similar, for the back row fire-support, but it looked solid, and so we set about a range of level one solo/party quests, in Normal Mode, mostly as a warm up.
They went well, but then given the vast jump in difficulty between levels one and two in DDO, something spectacular would have had to have gone wrong for this group to fail. Well, they went well from an Objectives point of view at least - we ticked off the tasks, found treasure aplenty, and no-one died. Once again though, I'd found myself in a group made up mostly of people who had done these quests before.
Random Other Non-Rogue Party Member: 'trap here'
Me: 'gee, thanks'
Not that they were bad people, as such, but it's a difficult situation. Consider:
You are a member of a traditional dungeon crawling party. You've been here before, and the Rogue hasn't. Ahead, is an archway that you know to contain a trap powerful enough to kill all of you instantly, if triggered. Do you warn the group, to stop a potential catastrophe ruining it for all of you, or do you keep silent and allow the Rogue to maybe discover it for themselves for the first time, and not spoil the wonder and surprise of their chosen craft?
Tough call, and not necessarily something done out of spite. One of the Clerics did this most of the way through, not to ruin my fun I guess, but out of concern for all of us. I didn't have the heart to tell them to stop doing it, and anyway, even one level up with Action Point enhancements, my Spot skill isn't guaranteed. Perhaps sometimes, we're meant to get hit by the odd trap or two. It's part of the challenge.
They were nice enough people, although somehow I'd managed to assemble a group in which I was the only native English-speaker, which caused some fun and games in itself. Lots of umlauts going on, and many more 'o's with strokes through them than I normally like. A difficulty somewhat unique to EU servers, I find. Europe is a melting pot of cultures, most of whom are very proud of their mother tongues, rightly so and I accept that, but I know very little Scandinavian, which made life a bit more difficult than it would have otherwise been.
Things proceeded somewhat faster than I liked again, and I still don't know if was me, them, or the game itself, or what. For much of the romp, they all seemed to be playing a particularly spirited game of "Half Life with Swords", while I was trying to play a very methodical version "Thief: Deadly Shadows", and the two styles simply didn't work together. Maybe I should have started getting harsh with Orders, "Sit!", "Stay!", "Come!", that kind of thing. I'm not sure that would have helped matters though, so once more found myself mostly a kind of Ranger, rather than Rogue, and the whole sneaking ahead to scout out the enemy thing fell by the wayside very early on, as I just legged it along behind, trying to keep up, and maybe land an arrow or two before the three melee types mashed the poor Kobold into the flagstones.
Perhaps that is the best way - charge on through and brute-force the way to the end. At any rate, we did well, and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, which is the main thing. Emboldened by our success with had a crack at a Level 2 adventure, marked on the journal as 'long' in duration. I'm not quite sure how long Turbine think 'long' is, but we barreled through that particular sewer, and eliminated the target pair of Kobold bosses in about fifteen to twenty minutes of concentrated mayhem. The healing power of two Clerics did make up for a lot of sloppy coordination though, particularly since in DDO, and unlike pretty much everywhere else, the Cleric is actually a fairly respectable plate-wearing melee juggernaut, as well as being the main healing class. No robe and wands here!
Mind you, the Rogue on the other hand, is a far flimsier creature in DDO than found elsewhere, and I still managed to get myself beaten to death in one of the end boss fights, mostly due to an overcompensatory urge to be seen to be 'pulling my weight' in combat. I didn't mind that much...we did win after all, and they even brought me back from the dead to have my turn at the big treasure chest at the end, which was nice of them.
Later on we lost a Cleric, but gained a Wizard, and tried another suitably leveled adventure - library under a lighthouse this time, where we had to steal a book from a scholar. Things went bad and we then had to fight our way out through a variety of traps ('trap here'), undead ('turn them!' 'what?'), and assorted other difficulties. Wizards seem quite fun, and I must have a go at one before my time is up.
The breakneck pace did all get a bit much in the end though, and I found myself having to give up for the night, long before I usually turn in.
The next day, refreshed, I spent a much more relaxed afternoon, soloing instead. This went much better, seeing me basically picking off any 'solo/party' level 2 adventures, listed in a handy 'Adventure Compendium' window, in Solo mode. There certainly does seem to be plenty of them with these two different modes in there, allaying fears of a lack of any real solo content. You get less out of the treasure chests, and the monsters are fewer, and not as difficult, but most importantly for me, you get to set your own pace. They're the same dungeon as the group version would see, only toned down a bit.
The next few dungeons went a lot more like Thief. I could skulk, creep, assassinate and do all my own discovery of traps, secrets and interesting and surprisingly diverse underground architecture, without any of the constant anxieties that accompanied any pick-up-party I seemed to join. These dungeons took much longer, but I was enjoying myself, and I do wonder if the whole party ought to be traveling at the speed of the sneakiest thief anyway, rather than the more customary rampaging I'd seen to date. Trap here? No problem, just blast on through it and chug a Potion of Light Heal on the other side! gogogo!!! I prefer a more elegant approach, personally.
I still found problems to grumble about though, proving it's not just Other People that are the problem. The very speed of the game is a very confusing thing too. One moment, you'll be creeping along, keeping to the shadows, sensing for danger and seeing what's ahead. Then you'll spot a monster, line up the bow, let fly and if you're lucky, you'll kill him stone dead there and then. If you're unlucky, it'll survive, and come at you, and all hell breaks loose. The melee combat in DDO is a bit of a nightmare for me. It's essentially FPS action, of a sort. You need to aim the swings, or arrow or spells. Having the mob targeted helps, but doesn't then guarantee a hit, and you still need to be facing it, and in range. The mobs leap about all over the place, on purpose, and are shooting off all sorts of spells, throwing spears and generally being a very difficult to hit. There is no auto-attack, you don't automatically turn to face the target, and you don't automatically run to the right range for the weapon.
It makes for an almost Planetside-like experience in some ways, and mouse-look mode is a must. Trouble is, in Planetside, you aren't also trying to keep three banks of hotkeys going with various traditional MMO special attacks, an inventory and a chat window as well, let alone keeping an eye on the other party members health, etc. Well, okay...bad example - in PS you often are, but that's the point! It's Planetside!
I spent most of those moments frantically tumbling about the place, hoping to get far enough away to get a few arrows shots in before they mash me to a paste. Either that or desperately running backwards, backpedalling while I fire arrows madly. Maybe I'm getting old and slow, but it's a lot more hectic that any other MMO combat I've played, including Guild Wars.
And then suddenly, and assuming you survive, it's back to the painstaking stealth and creeping along tunnels, and I just wish I could get a handle on the pace of the game - wish it would make it's mind up. I'm just about starting to get the hang of the somewhat bizarre and unique default keymappings it has, but the combat looks like it's going to take me a long time to get competent at - longer than ten days, certainly. This whole slow, fast, slow, fast, slow gameplay does become a bit wearying after a while, and I found that I honestly can't play the thing for more than an hour or two at a time, much as I'd like to play it more.
Trouble is, it looks and even feels just like any other traditional Fantasy Based MMO, and it's a very difficult thing to get out of the accompanying mindset - the conventions, the expectations and the false familiarity of it all.
Still a few more days to go, before the end of the trial and the big review roundup thing, so hopefully there's time for an 'ahhhhh!' moment or an epiphany. At present though, it's all just making me very confused. Still, on the plus side, it did all remind me what an excellent game Thief: Deadly Shadows was, and afterward, I promptly reinstalled that for another go!
Oh, just noticed! 400TH POST!!11 w00t! +1 lolz