Request for interview with DDO reps

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This is the list as it was submitted. This page will be replaced with the final version when I receive answers.

WHO

1. Do you play PnP a lot? if so, Pathfinder and DnD 4E - which do you prefer? how much of high hope (or low hope) do you have for 5th Edition?

WHAT

1. What is the difference between a DM and a Senior DM?
   • Some forum folks says if your DM can't spawn mobs or solve stuck puzzles, you can ask for a senior DM that have those tools. How much of this is true?
2. Arcane Oozes have no race listed, only type. Why, and what race are they? Arcane Ooze race?
3. Producer Ferdinando once stated basically Update 3-13 epic items were the fail (though ^{[Citation needed]} on this one lol).
   • Is it general consensus among the dev team?
   • Is that why we saw such a big change on end game character itemization in U14/Menace and no update on previous epic items?
4. There's a rumor that U14 originally had 2 raids planned and the another one was planned to have green dragon.
   • It makes sense since green dragon was featured on the game splash screen.
   • Is it true / whats the state of that particular raid / or is that what ended up with Don't Drink the Water?
5. When reward item/ crafting ingredient etc is newly added, it seems Unbound/BtC/BtA thingy is randomly decided each update.
   • Is there any logic / general standard in this regard?
     • This is causing major gripe among the player base since we cant freely switch to our cleric/whatever class needed to do Epic LoB or Eveningstar Challenges for example.
6. How about less ingredients in general?
   • Could you delete some of these ingredients and make em replaced, to reduce the total number of types etc?
   • Some of our characters carry 4-5 ingredient bags and still things gets overflown. it is getting ridiculous.
7. Greater Dragon Mark of Finding/Treasure Finding. once we get the Success symbol, the chest starts glowing, then it stops glowing after a while. is the +X loot effect only active while its glowing? Does it only take effect after the glowing completes?
8. Is the +Mod from Bane weapons added into critical hit calculations?
9. Is the Damage Mod (usually Str) rounded down (floor function) when multiplied by 1.5 for two-handed weapons?
10. What are you guys most excited for in DDO right now?

WHERE

WHY

1. Why epic warded mobs reduce the duration of any charm/dominate effect to mere seconds?
   • Before, we had the limitation on instakills, but since they are allowed now, why can't my bard throw mass suggestion around without the spell expiring in 3 seconds?
2. Why are the Vigor line of Druid spells not compatible with Extend Spell? This would make them much more useful.
3. Why was the German word of "Schenker" used for the rare encounter scorpion in Ataraxia's Haven?
4. Why did so many English words like "Giant" and "Dragon" or names like "Free Agents", "Harpers" or "Capshaw The Crier" remain untranslated?
   • This is a bit confusing, especially considering that a few Marketplace Collectors' names were indeed translated, like "Xovun Chalk", who became "Xovun Kreidner" in German DDO (which is imho a good translation, by the way).
5. Why is Turbine so reluctant to do hotfixes?
   • Why do they choose to wait for months to fix bugs that are SO easy to fix instead of fixing them here and now?
     • Things like seals and shards only dropping on epic normal in Lords of Dust, the tier 3 for Stay Good from Shirady ED, the +1[W] bonus from the Combat Archery feat.
6. Why don't we have '3d6 dmg on hit' enchantments for acid and cold dmg like we have for electric/light/fire/force/sonic dmg (electrifying/auroral/conflagrating/cosmic/wailing)?
7. Why cant we search for items with Guild Slots in AH? Are you guys aware of its importance?
8. U16 changed the way built-in chat system works for us Japanese players.
   • Basically our Input Method Editor gets in the way everytime so we must turn it down.
   • Does Turbine have a 2-byte character code (such as JP/Korean/Chinese... these languages pretty much all use this) specialist hired? any plan to adopt these languages other than German? do you have Japanese translation .dat file etc Sakura internet (distributor of Japanese version DDO) once had?
9. When it comes to class/PrE/ED/item/quest/etc balance, do you have a particular philosophy or mindset that everyone follows, or is it different depending on the area?
   • For example, with class balance it seems like you (the developers) take an approach of "there will always be one or two classes more powerful than others, but let's work to rotate that so that it's not always the same classes feeling left out", but with weapon design for two-handers it's more of "There's a clear *best* weapon, but there will always be other options with unique niches". I guess my question is, what kind of thought process do you use when it comes to balancing the game, and are there any areas you feel you did particularly well in?
10. A while ago, the release notes said something about finding out by ourselves "new crafting recipes" well I found out one but I'm not sure if it is intended or a bug.. I can craft 3 total powers on items .(not all powers and not all items) so far i was able to give a ring the following powers: mobility, +3 natural armor and 10% melee alacrity' (all the powers at once in one ring). Is this a bug or a known new thing you guys added?
11. Why do clerics get Improved. Empowered Heal and FvS do not or, at least, let FvS have Improved Maximize, as well as Improved Empower since they're pushed toward evocation builds.
12. Why not just let all caster classes have access to the metamagic, and spell power, improvement enhancements? This way, we have more personalization of our toons.
13. Can you please increase Healing Word (FvS, Sovereign Host, Capstone) to Cure Moderate Wounds? Clerics have free Positive Healing Bursts, for comparison, so at least we could have a single target spell which can heal for as much as 1 Burst does for the whole party.
14. Will DDoor scrolls ever hit the shelves, again? I can't imagine that there are so many quests which are exploitable by this spell as to not sell them. Plus, with a bard/sorc/wiz the quests are equally exploitable. As such, not selling these scrolls does not prevent these exploitations. If, in fact, that's why these scrolls were removed in the first place.
15. I love crafting, but it's annoying to change toons each time to craft stuff. Can DDO - and I really hate to say this - follow Diablo III and have the crafting hall become a "Master Craftsman" that we "earn" upper tier recipes as we "donate" magical equipment to the melting pot. This way, we could craft will any toon we are on. Artificer bonuses will effectively "persuade" the craftsman to allow higher recipes. These bonuses could still require the Arti toon to craft with the benefit. What I'm really going for is the ability to melt down my loot without having to go to the shared bank, swap toons, melt loot, swap toons, return to gaming. It's not fun, at all, and parties will not wait. It feels like an unintentional penalty to the crafting system.
16. Warforged do not receive their proper PRR based on body composition feats, has this fix been put on the back-burner, possibly with a revamp to the Warforged body feats granted on class proficiency?
17. Mithril armors provide PRR based on their new armor category (heavy->medium->light), is this intended, or an oversight?

HOW

1. How do the epic destinies effect artificer caster levels?
   • Am I correct in noticing epic levels increase the total level for dogs and other pets?

WHEN

1. When U17 ships will it include the new enhancement system? Y/N
2. Do they have any plans to add epic augment slots to U14+ gear to allow for more flexibility? If not for weapons (maybe they don't want them to break DR) then at least for the other items?
   • Update 16 Patch 1 video briefly explains the intent here.
3. Currently Nimbus of Light does not increase the counter for Endless Ardor in Exalted Angel but it should since it is light damage.
   • Un-meta'd this spell would be an excellent way for clerics to cheaply increase the counter, bringing them more up to par with favored souls (who have the archon and light SLA).
   • This is not in the known issues list, so is this WAI? If not, will it be fixed?
4. Is there any plan to update Cannith Crafting to make it useful for level 20-25 range characters?
5. Is there a plan for an epic destiny specifically for Artificers and if so, when is it expected to be put into motion?
6. Are there any plans to include teleportation to House Cannith and Eveningstar?
   • All of the other "houses" have one and it seems odd that our airships can pick us up in the eveningstar cavern, but not drop us back off there.
7. Are there any plans to introduce new quests/favor changes to Purple Dragon Nights?
8. With so many Spell Level increases, will DDO ever allow more rays than 3 for ray spells? I know it reads Max 3 rays, but spells also read Max Caster Level 10, but we go above that limit. A ray spell with its Max Caster Level raised by 4 levels should have an additional ray.
9. The idea for teleport to have a "Mark Teleport Location" option so we can select our own teleport spots rather than force the devs to create each appropriate location? With the Portable Hole being the only fixed location.
10. Will the "fail on a 1" ever go away from scrolls-casting UMD checks? It's absurd that we have a 125%+ chance and still fail. It's not like the 5% has any real meaning, anyway. It's annoying and wastes only a few plat and time.
    • There is no "fail on a 1" for skills. What is there is a bug for the UMD % chance when you have one of those artificer feats that lower the DC for some specific items (like the -2 DC for scrolls they get at level 1). Open the skill tab and make the math yourself, and you'll see the % chance on the tooltip is usually wrong.
11. With the addition of epic levels and all the new gear/prefixes/suffixes; crafting is not a useful. Can we see a reduction of crafting costs, crafting XP, or an increase in mats from melting loot?
12. When will the Stone of Change get the makeover the GS alters were given? It takes ages to crunch Fragments into useful components.
13. Will Concentration ever see a revisit to make it possible to resist damage from Epic Level Mobs? Perhaps a revision like AC.
14. Will Turbine consider allowing us to take other class levels instead of only epic levels? For example, 20 Cleric/2 Epic/3 Sorc.
15. Can we get some AoE, DoT spells for electricity/sonic? Air Savants have nothing for this combat tactic without going outside of their element (Ha!) At least allow Call Lightning. Electric Storm, Lightning Storm, Storm Cloud, Electric Field; any number of names come to mind. Air Savants are considered gimp by the other savants (including Fire Savants due to the high amount of pre-U14+ end game content) because they lack AoE, DoT spells.
16. Are there any plans to go back and simplify/fix re-flagging for DQ/SoS/Necro 1-3? What about cleaning up irregularities in touchy old chains like Threnal?
17. Is Dragontouched Armor going to get fixed up to be useful once again?
18. The Public LFM system was supposed to come along with an option to teleport directly to the quest. Is this coming along, or did it get completely scrapped?
19. Can the ingame voicechat get a major increase in decibels so we don't have to almost turn down every other sound ingame to hear it clearly, or auto-dampen it to allow us to hear it and enjoy the game?
20. And for some basic needed features: don't forget to add Guild Augment slots as a searchable option in the Auction House or whatever it will be called in the new system when you merge it with epic augment slots
21. Will the requirement to have a guildmember on the airship to invite someone on the airship be rolled back, since it was introduced as a cheap fix for guildchests being emptied by non-guildmembers and later properly fixed by the requirement of being in the same guild to access it
22. Will clickies (Shield, Burning Hands, Grease) ever be added to Cannith Crafting? Possibly with recipes to increase uses and caster level.
23. Will the new enhancement system introduce new feats alongside it? Maybe something like ricochet to add glancing blows to thrown weapons.
24. In order to balance power between those with epic destinies and those without, there was a brief interest in making the auto-grants F2P, but spending points remained a paid feature. Is there still any interest for this feature?
25. Are there any plans to update MyDDO and or the api to be more current and accurate?
    • Guild rooster keeps residual members that have left the guild
    • Classes mis-represented
      • Artificer[v] = Artificer
      • UnidentifiedClass1 = Druid
      • Druid = Epic Levels
    • Character rank/xp information incorrect
      • rank
      • total_xp
      • xp_to_rank
      • xp_to_level
    • Qeust log for most quests since MotU release only show as "Quest Completed" which makes it hard to parse out raid timer informortaion for such quests.