Am I the only one who thinks DDO would be a better game if everything inside a dungeon was at 50% speed?
I think they have a great combat system, one that is both a little action hack-n-slash and also has some nice depth and utility to it. The problem is that everything moves so fast, things are either dead before you blink or you have wiped. All those great utility spells and abilities get ignored because you just don’t have enough time to use then effectively. How many times have you been inside a dungeon, the front of the party spots the enemy boss, and by the time the trailing member rounds the corner, the mob is dead or stepping over the bodies of your party?
Hardcore Casual 
Depends on the difficulty level and party makeup, in my experience. My brother and I can run a pair of raging barbarians to 100 favor on hard in 2 hours. My archer ranger can take over 10 minutes to clear some solo dungeons. Personally, I don’t want things to be made slower. I think it’s up to the group to form up and face the challenge ahead or else wipe out because they weren’t prepared.
Sarcasm on: And besides, it’s just like 3.5 D&D this way, where attacks are always better than utility or combat healing spells.
Sarcasm off.
Are you playing on Elite? (the other settings are easy mode…)
It’s not about hard or easy, it’s about utilizing the actual system. It’s not much fun to beat a dungeon if all that was required was left-click mashing and the occasional heal.
I find it to be generally a fairly decent speed when soloing on normal or hard. “Solo” is more like “1-shot all the mobs” though, and Elite … sometimes I can solo it at level appropriate on my cleric, but sometimes not. Elite does tend to take a while when solo. In groups so long as you focus on the same mobs it goes quick, but if there’s no “focused fire” then it can still take a while.
I’m still monkeying around with it and trying to find groups and my own personal optimum, etc, but …. yeah, it does seem a bit fast if you aren’t at least on the “hard” level.
I’m glad you said this, given your position as an advocate of relatively challenging gameplay. Action moving at a blinding speed is not de facto “challenging”, whereas actually being required to think tactically can be, even if you have plenty of time to thnk about it.
I haven’t played DDO since beta, when I loathed it. There were many things I disliked, but one was the wham-bam, blink and you’ll miss it speed of combat. When I played tabletop AD@D, just one of those five-second fights could have taken 20-30 minutes and that would have often have been 20-30 minutes of nail-biting tension and excitement. I realise we can’t go that slowly, but there has to be a better pace than the hectic rush that DDO offers.
The only D&D game I’ve ever played that really replicated the feel of tabletop combat play was Baldur’s Gate, because it was turn-based and pausable. Even Neverwinter Nights didn’t quite get the feel, although it was (and probably still is) a lot closer than DDO.
DDO is basically NWN without the pause option. Anyone who has played both can very quickly understand why that’s not a good thing.
I like it. It feels Diablo 2-paced with occasional intervals of genuine challenge.
I’m new to DDO, just playing it now and then now doing the permadeath thing… but so far, I kind of have to agree. Mind you, I’m just learning how to play yet and am just doing stuff on easy mode while I get used to the interface, but I have to agree with Syncaine.
It’s not that instances are over fast; not a factor of difficulty. I have more and more abilities, and none of them are particularly worth using over just mashing attack as much as I can.
It’s fun to run and dodge and hack and slash, but there’s no real tactical element to the combat at all. Lots of abilities that are not particularly useful to begin with, and which I’m rarely provided with time to use may as well be no abilities at all.
Diablo 2 pacing is not, IMHO, a good thing for an MMO. Well, maybe it is, but not for Dungeons and Dragons, a game which should be inherently more RPGish and somewhat tactical instead of more arcade-like. But they need to decide, because they are two very different setups. Currently, the game’s messages are very mixed on it.
I agree Syncaine, it does go too fast for most people. I can handle it usually but when we run into something new I don’t have time to think.
Well I think alot of the speed or lack there of depends on your character / party and level. Levels 1-6 if you are playing (or grouped with) a melee character with around a 25-30 STR combat is going to over pretty fast due to the fact that your to hit is better than the mobs AC and the extra dmg from the STR modifier chews through the mobs hitpoints. Lvls 7-12 sort of slow down, and 12-16 if you are grouping with a caster combat speeds up again due to casters rolling through mobs. (firewall, banishment, finger of death, and haste for wiz/sor and bladebarrier and destruction for cleric)
As someone who’s been playing since beta, I can tell you that I still get frustrated from time to time with the speed of combat, but that as always it depends on who you are grouped with and how fast or slow they want to take the dungeon.
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im sorry to say this guys but most of you guys clearly seems like you’ve only played DDO til’ you were like level 5 maybe 8 at the most just keep playing and you’ll see how it really is (:
add me on DDO though (dreamrat,silvac,kivac,aiding) those are my names add me and ill explain because ive noticed people are comparing games that they have played for like a week to games they have beat and everything.