Dungeon Maker: Avatar Feedback Thread

[Bunji]

<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Hello Testers!</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Changes to the Dungeon Maker Avatars are headed to test and we definitely want your feedback!</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Please feel free to post bug reports and feedback in this thread, though remember that you can also /feedback and /bug.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">As for the changes, our goal has been to improve the pace of play, remove reliance on auto-attack, add some strategic decision making, and, overall, make the avatar play experience a lot more fun. To that end, we've introduced a power-management mechanic to the avatars. In short, power will rapidly drain while out of combat. While in combat, each avatar has a quick-use, low-damage attack that also builds power. This will allow the use of various high-power, high-affect abilities once power has been built up. It's a pretty significant change and will almost certainly require some tweaks before going live so please be as detailed as possible in your feedback.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">We'll try to keep this thread up to date with a list of known issues as they come to our attention.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Thanks for your help!</span></span></span></p><p>[2/17/2012 Update] Avatars are back to using the original power management system on the Test servers.</p>

[screenid]

<p>It is very very odd ... <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e78feac27fa924c4d0ad6cf5819f3554.gif" border="0" /></p><p>I was STUCK watching the Hotbar for avail attacks ...vs..watching the actual fight.   </p><p>Not sure I like having to Spam an attack for power....</p><p>Mobs were very diffcult to kill -vs- live ((did you buff up the mobs?))</p>

[Cyliena]

<p>Wow. Avatars are completely unplayable like this. I agree with the sentiment that all you're doing is watching the hotbar instead of paying attention to the actual fight. This is <strong>not fun</strong> and really I don't even understand why it's being done--avatars were fine as they were. The pace of play is MUCH slower, there is almost no solo survivability and you still rely on auto-attack... prehaps more heavily.</p><p>The Sister Thog one has NO WAY of gaining power. The Drolvarg Scourge-Knight fighter has at least one attack that gives power but this change appears to have degraded the avatars so much that you're lucky to live through a standard 2 mob fight. I kept dying on fights that were no issue before in my dungeon on Test and finally gave up. After my original pull I didn't even attempt a 2 ^ mob fight that was difficult on some avatars before, but always had been doable, because I knew there was no chance I'd survive. That's a far cry from what avatars were before.</p><p>Other avatars:</p><ul><li>Sister Katey can't even cast her buff.. or heals... in fact, she can't use anything without power. Not even going to bother trying to fight knowing she'll just die over and over and not kill a single thing.</li><li>The Tidesilph Defouler's buff only lasts 20 seconds? Why is it not until cancelled?</li><li>None of Sister Leela's abilities are usable without power.</li><li>None of Sister Aalarya's abiltiies are usable without power.</li></ul><p>I took a couple of videos of each of the ones I did try (Sister Thog and Drolvarg Scourge-Knight), will post links to them once I upload them.</p>

[Aethn]

<p>Have to agree with everyone else, not a fan of this change.  The fact that the hotbar has become the number one focal point of every fight, taking my attention from the game and captivating it on a button to push, makes me not want to play DM again.  If this is the way its going to be, I guess its one more feature I wont be using.</p><p>The best part of EQ1 was being able to actually WATCH the combat and the game I was paying for, not stare at hotbars like every other game out there.  Isnt there a happy medium you guys can find here?</p>

[Hirofortis]

<p>This is a change for the worse.  I have 0 desire to even play dungeon maker now.  If you want to do something like this then do it like beastlords where you have a secondary power bar for stronger attacks.  They way you have it now is nothing but an excercise in futility.  If this goes though I for one will not play Dungeon maker anymore.  </p><p>TO recap:</p><p><ul><li>Don't do it this way</li><li>Make a secondary bar like on beastlords to build up for more powerful attacks</li><li>Stop copying lousy mechanics from WoW</li></ul><div>Nuff said.</div></p>

[Gravy]

<p>The entire idea of adventures in the DM dungeons was wrong from the start. You can tweak all you want. It aint going to help.</p><p>Here's the solution.</p><p>1. When players enter the DM dungeon they enter as their avatar (class and race.)</p><p>2. All players scale to 50.</p><p>3. Players are allowed to choose 5 of their regular spells (including buffs if they choose) to put on their hotbar.</p>

[Cyliena]

<p><cite>Cyliena wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I took a couple of videos of each of the ones I did try (Sister Thog and Drolvarg Scourge-Knight), will post links to them once I upload them.</p></blockquote><p>Here are the videos:</p><p><a href="http://youtu.be/9JSK3Car7iY" target="_blank">Sister Thog</a> - It seems that all of the Erollisi avatars are bugged under this change, and this was a very frustrating fight due to it.</p><p><a href="http://youtu.be/N0WO0gipOjs" target="_blank">Drolvarg Scourge-Knight</a> - This one I actually finished the fight but it was painfully slower than normal. Also I died shortly after to the two adds that swooped in <em>(had stopped recording right as they joined in)</em>, but previously those adds would not have killed me without me downing at least one, if not both, of them.</p><p>My suggestions:1. Revert these changes and stop making certain abilities cost a vast amount of power. It wasn't broken as it is on Live currently. Or..2. Akin to Hirofortis' idea above, add a power-up bar ui piece and a fifth ability to each avatar. When the power-up bar is filled we can use that new fifth ability, which should be a potent one.</p>

[screenid]

<p><cite>Gravy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The entire idea of adventures in the DM dungeons was wrong from the start. You can tweak all you want. It aint going to help.</p><p>Here's the solution.</p><p>1. When players enter the DM dungeon they enter as their avatar (class and race.)</p><p>2. All players scale to 50.</p><p>3. Players are allowed to choose 5 of their regular spells (including buffs if they choose) to put on their hotbar.</p></blockquote><p>I like this Idea...</p><p>-----------------------</p><p>And would agree the Way Avatars are on test = NO FUN = unplayable</p>

[msgnomer]

<p>The avatars were one thing that, in my opinion, worked just fine in dungeons.  It was simple fun where you could focus on what was happening visually in combat.  You could play a variety of avatars and switch between the limited skills and strategies easily.</p><p>Rather than complicating up a clean combat idea, I'd say better to make combat more interesting by working on giving the dungeon designers more tools to make their dungeons interesting, such as linked encounters, non-aggro mobs (unless attacked), and even noncombat npcs for conversation, provisions, or even player quests.</p><p>I'll be very disappointed to see these changes that don't really change anything other than more twiddling buttons and watching more bars and icons.  The intent sounds well-meaning, but my opinion is there are far better ways to improve and expand the dungeon maker system.</p>

[Cyliena]

<p><cite>msgnomer wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Rather than complicating up a clean combat idea, I'd say better to make combat more interesting by working on giving the dungeon designers more tools to make their dungeons interesting, such as linked encounters, non-aggro mobs (unless attacked), and even noncombat npcs for conversation, provisions, or even player quests.</p></blockquote><p>These are all terrific suggestions that would actually make DM more fun and interesting.</p>

[Jasarina]

<p>Wow deftinaly need some tweaking. </p><p>I will do some more I depth testing later today but my initial impressions are not favorable. I do like the idea of extra attacks based on power however I agree that a system like the one beastlords use will be much better then this. Give some new attacks that you have to build up to using. </p><p>I enjoy the avatar system and do not like playing as myself in dungeons so please do not go that route!!</p>

[screenid]

<p><cite>Cyliena wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>msgnomer wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Rather than complicating up a clean combat idea, I'd say better to make combat more interesting by working on giving the dungeon designers more tools to make their dungeons interesting, such as linked encounters, non-aggro mobs (unless attacked), and even noncombat npcs for conversation, provisions, or even player quests.</p></blockquote><p>These are all terrific suggestions that would actually make DM more fun and interesting.</p></blockquote><p>=-)   Agree!! 100000%</p>

[Corydonn]

<p><cite>Arduous@The Bazaar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Cyliena wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>msgnomer wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Rather than complicating up a clean combat idea, I'd say better to make combat more interesting by working on giving the dungeon designers more tools to make their dungeons interesting, such as linked encounters, non-aggro mobs (unless attacked), and even noncombat npcs for conversation, provisions, or even player quests.</p></blockquote><p>These are all terrific suggestions that would actually make DM more fun and interesting.</p></blockquote><p>=-)   Agree!! 100000%</p></blockquote><p>This. This. This. This. This. One of the problems I had with dungeon building was getting actual story or purpose out, But these could go a long way in nearly infinite ways.</p><p>If you want to make the avatars more interesting, Give each archetype different playstyles. If you want some to use the new power thats fine, Have some use the current power, Have some use the beastlord. Heck get creative with a Monk type that uses blitzes the player has to discover in the word by opening a special heroic op and inputing 6 buttons in a certain order and then closing the op!</p>

[Finora]

<p>After trying this out, if it is put on live like this you might as well dump Dungeon maker altogether.</p><p>It does pretty much the opposite of what you want it to do. It drastically slows down the pace of play (not fun), it is not decreasing your reliance on auto attack, and does not provide any strategic decision making at all. You have to hit whichever button you happen to have power for or just straight auto attack. No thought to it at all. All in all it just generally makes it really unfun to run dungeons.</p><p>What this change does is completely gut a system that wasn't broken to begin with. The system in place on live could be more lively, mostly that is due to the limited ability the dungeon makers have designing their dungeons (that got a little better since the maker was introduced, I hope it will continue to do so) and the lack of variety of abilities.</p><p>There definately needs to be more added to the maker side of the Dungeon maker. Give people more ability to control what happens in their dungeons.</p><p>Everyone who plays EQ2 is used to having at least 2 hotbars worth of abilities at their disposal, being limited to 4-5 + auto attack feels wrong. I'm not saying all the avatars need full spell books, that would be far too complicated, but a couple more powerful abilities would no go amiss at all.</p><p>If you really must have more 'involved' play, give the avatars something equivalent to Herioc Opportunities. Hit a couple of abilities in a certain timeframe and you get a special more powerful effect you can use if you wish.</p><p>The mechanic you have introduced on test currently will never be fun on anything that has only a very few abilities to begin with. All it will do is drive the people who do actually use the dungeon maker away and will not bring in anyone else.</p>

[Domino]

<p><cite>Cyliena wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Other avatars:</p><ul><li>Sister Katey can't even cast her buff.. or heals... in fact, she can't use anything without power. Not even going to bother trying to fight knowing she'll just die over and over and not kill a single thing.</li><li>The Tidesilph Defouler's buff only lasts 20 seconds? Why is it not until cancelled?</li><li>None of Sister Leela's abilities are usable without power.</li><li>None of Sister Aalarya's abiltiies are usable without power.</li></ul><p>I took a couple of videos of each of the ones I did try (Sister Thog and Drolvarg Scourge-Knight), will post links to them once I upload them.</p></blockquote><p>Apologies, we should have called out that the Sisters adventurers were NOT changed to this new system yet, so that we had some "original style" adventurers that people could use to compare to the new version.  The changes Bunji described should apply to all the adventurers EXCEPT the Erollisi Sisters at this time.</p>

[Felshades]

<p>Sounds like they're trying to make them work like two classes in WoW... warrior and death knight.</p><p>And personally.. I think those two are annoying at lower levels when they have few abilities to generate resources with.</p><p>Sounds like i'm gonna hate how they changed these... and I liked mucking with the dungeon maker before <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Lyndro-EQ2]

<p>Hi folks!</p><p>Thanks for your feedback, this is exactly why we put stuff like this on test before putting it out live. Based on your feedback, instead of changing the gameplay of existing adventurers, we're going to introduce a few new avatars based around this style of mana management. This way if you want to experiment with something different the option is there, but you can continue playing with DM in the manner that you're used to.</p><p>Thanks again for the feedback!</p>

[Cyliena]

<p><cite>DominoDev wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Apologies, we should have called out that the Sisters adventurers were NOT changed to this new system yet, so that we had some "original style" adventurers that people could use to compare to the new version.  The changes Bunji described should apply to all the adventurers EXCEPT the Erollisi Sisters at this time.</p></blockquote><p>That's fine, but in that case they shouldn't start with 0 power, right?</p><p><cite>Lyndro-EQ2 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Hi folks!</p><p>Thanks for your feedback, this is exactly why we put stuff like this on test before putting it out live. Based on your feedback, instead of changing the gameplay of existing adventurers, we're going to introduce a few new avatars based around this style of mana management. This way if you want to experiment with something different the option is there, but you can continue playing with DM in the manner that you're used to.</p><p>Thanks again for the feedback!</p></blockquote> <p>Thank you, and I hope like I just said for the Erollisi ones, please ensure that the ones staying normal will not start at 0 power please and behave as they used to. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /> My video of Sister Thog above shows how useless that avatar currently is because she starts with no power.</p><p>I wouldn't mind some new avatars using this system, as long as the system sees some tweaks to make it so we're not constantly staring at our hotbar drooling on ourselves and that we can survive fights. Will we have a way to test these out?</p>

[Talathion]

<p>I got an idea to make it really fun,</p><p>Let me use my OWN character inside!</p>

[Maergoth]

<p>The problem isn't necessarily the concept, but the application.</p><p>The reason it works for beastlords is because everything they do generates savagery. Some generates more, but they don't have to glue themselves to the bar to play.</p><p>Also, the beastlord abilities are very powerful when they can be used, and frankly.. none of the dungeon maker avatars have ANY powerful abilities. They're all terrible.</p><p>People weren't just solely using auto attack because it was easy. They were doing that because the abilities are poorly concieved and underwhelming.</p><p>Solution: Crank everything up. Give things more damage, more hp, and make the abilities do more. Make heals actually heal and power regen actually regen. If you want to tie some savagery-type mana generation mechanic into it, fine, but the abilities have to be beefed up.</p>

[Armawk]

<p>I dont understand looking at changes that make it LESS like playing EQ2.. people responded with delight to the idea of playing their own characters because that makes it MORE like playing EQ2. People want to play EQ2 not a game with a different gameplay mechanism.</p>

[Littlelove]

<p><cite>Armawk@Everfrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I dont understand looking at changes that make it LESS like playing EQ2.. people responded with delight to the idea of playing their own characters because that makes it MORE like playing EQ2. People want to play EQ2 not a game with a different gameplay mechanism.</p></blockquote><p>^^This</p><p>Yes, this is the ONLY way I am stepping foot in another dungeon maker.  I don't care about your little avatars, they do nothing for my main character.    </p>

[Hirofortis]

<p><cite>Littlelove@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Armawk@Everfrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I dont understand looking at changes that make it LESS like playing EQ2.. people responded with delight to the idea of playing their own characters because that makes it MORE like playing EQ2. People want to play EQ2 not a game with a different gameplay mechanism.</p></blockquote><p>^^This</p><p>Yes, this is the ONLY way I am stepping foot in another dungeon maker.  I don't care about your little avatars, they do nothing for my main character.    </p></blockquote><p>Actually you get xp and aa for your mains by doing these plus you get tokens that an be used for items for your mains.  This being said, It has been my experience that the vitality drain you get on your main is completly out of proportion with what you would get just going out and normal grinding.  All in all, the xp you get back for your mains is out of proportion with doing normal dungfeons on your main.  </p><p>My take right now is unless you want something from the marketplace that requires dungeon marks, they are not really worth it.  Now with some tweaks, DUngeon Maker stuff can actually be fun.  But right now all I have seen them be is a grind fest for tokens.</p>

[TwistedFaith]

<p>Amazingly you have somehow managed to make the dungeon creator even less entertaining, something which I thought was impossible. </p><p>I have to come to the conclusion that this "feature" really must be someone's pet project at SOE, either that or something SOE want to force down our throats as much as possible to enable them to get away without actually making proper content. The dungeon maker is always going to be awful, it's way to limited to be anything more than a decorating tool. Unless players have the ability to create unique dungeons themselves with custom graphics/mobs/scripts/quests etc then you are wasting your time.</p>

[Andemon]

<p>I didn't get a chance to test this much yet, but it did seem make things even slower than before. Which isn't my idea of fun.</p><p><cite>msgnomer wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Rather than complicating up a clean combat idea, I'd say better to make combat more interesting by working on giving the dungeon designers more tools to make their dungeons interesting, such as linked encounters, non-aggro mobs (unless attacked), and even noncombat npcs for conversation, provisions, or even player quests.</p></blockquote><p>This.</p><p>Dungeon maker isn't boring because of the combat...it's boring because there's not enough variation. Add linked encounters, more patrol points, more animations and such. Non-aggro mobs defaulting to cower animation, so we can try to guilt players into not attacking prisoners and such. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>More scripts in general.</p><p>Boss spawner drop rate needs to be cranked up too - or made tradeable instead of heirlooms. It's so boring to see the same bosses in every dungeon.</p>

[Jasarina]

<p><cite>Lyndro-EQ2 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Hi folks!</p><p>Thanks for your feedback, this is exactly why we put stuff like this on test before putting it out live. Based on your feedback, instead of changing the gameplay of existing adventurers, we're going to introduce a few new avatars based around this style of mana management. This way if you want to experiment with something different the option is there, but you can continue playing with DM in the manner that you're used to.</p><p>Thanks again for the feedback!</p></blockquote><p>Thank you!!! I know some people do not like the avatars but I really like playing them. I like the idea of keeping the existing avatars as they are and adding news ones too..</p><p>Slightly off topic but the comments about dungeon mark grinds got me thinking. Can we have some other rewards for doing dungeons? Level based coin reward, status, city tokens etc.. Or even a way to exchange the dungeon marks for other currency may encourage more people to have fun in the DM. Allowing the mobs to drop random sellable loot and maybe event items, like candy & notes for E-day?</p>

[Onorem]

<p>If I'm not playing one of my own characters, I have no interest in DM. I have little interest even if I can play my own characters.</p>

[Aethn]

<p><cite>Lyndro-EQ2 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Hi folks!</p><p>Thanks for your feedback, this is exactly why we put stuff like this on test before putting it out live. Based on your feedback, instead of changing the gameplay of existing adventurers, we're going to introduce a few new avatars based around this style of mana management. This way if you want to experiment with something different the option is there, but you can continue playing with DM in the manner that you're used to.</p><p>Thanks again for the feedback!</p></blockquote><p>Why would you continue to throw money, time and resources to a mechanic that is, so far, universally disliked by everyone who has tried it?  It seems like these things could be better spent on improving the mechanics / avatars already in use or deveolping something else that the playerbase might use. </p><p>Why continue to develop a set of Avatars that will not be used, simply adding one more thing that has to be maintained over time that sees no use?</p>

[Freejazzlive]

<p>IMO, while you can make "avatar play" less irritatingly loathesome than it currently is, you can't do <strong>anything</strong> to make it actually "fun."</p><p>Just get with giving us our own characters back, already. DM is worthless to me until that happens.</p>

[Gyee]

<p><cite>Maergoth@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>People weren't just solely using auto attack because it was easy. They were doing that because the abilities are poorly concieved and underwhelming.</p><p>Solution: Crank everything up. Give things more damage, more hp, and make the abilities do more. Make heals actually heal and power regen actually regen. If you want to tie some savagery-type mana generation mechanic into it, fine, but the abilities have to be beefed up.</p></blockquote><p>^^^ Personally as an the genie mage. I felt I was semi powerful but I spent a lot of time sitting around waiting on spells to refresh. I could spam only one and cast the others when they refreshed.</p><p>Avatars become interesting with varied mechanics or specialties. The four spells are find for now. But each avatars "specialty" should be a little more pronounced.</p><p>Recommendaton 1: I recommend for the current style avatars lessen their current recast timers and add some more spells.</p><p>Recommendation 2: The double dm token event, I think, was good event. An occasionaly double dm token or double dm xp will get people to try the feature even if apprenhensive, due to special reward circumstances. Oh and additional dungeon maker loots are always fun.</p><p>(small aside)i.e. Exceptional repair kits are EXEMPLARY reward for dungen finder tokens. Half way through drunder, some ones like I'm broken anyone got a bot? No, but you have dm tokens... buy one of them repair kits.. ding problem solved.</p><p>===This second part is my idea for group synergy to encourage players to pull friends in with them. ====</p><p>Each avatars additional specialty spells should reward group play. Because the dungeon will scale in difficulty, add some more syngery between class types as reward for grouping in dungeon maker.</p><p>i.e. genie mage by himself can nuke, aoe root with nuke, self buff power, and aoe nuke. additional spell, could be "Fire power- group buff cast until canceled" if(tank/scout) add chance to melee small fire proc if (mage/priest) on harmful spell cast add chance for small spell fire proc.</p><p>i.e. one scout avatar could add accuracy, another could have a group poison proc buff, another group slow proc. maybe a healer with the same slow proc. Some bard scouts, have a subset of this ability but should be expanded to all avatars perhaps.</p><p>In the end, each avatar with a unique group buff reinforces grouping /group synergies. It would be up to the players to form their own group with best synergies.</p><p>And while avatars are rotated... so are the synergies.. (which are really just group, until cancelled, buffs).  Just have to monitor the effect of difficulty scaling to multi-buff scaling and adjust accordingly.</p><p>What do you all think?</p>

[Freejazzlive]

<p><cite>Jasarina wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Thank you!!! I know some people do not like the avatars but I really like playing them. I like the idea of keeping the existing avatars as they are and adding news ones too..</p></blockquote><p>I think it would be a <strong>VERY</strong> fine thing if SOE would give us the option, somehow. But until they let me actually play my Troubie Kitty, DM is less than interesting.</p><p>At the very least they need to give us some more abilities. One button spam is dull as dirt.</p>

[Gyee]

<p><cite>Persyphony@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Lyndro-EQ2 wrote:</cite></p><p>Why would you continue to throw money, time and resources to a mechanic that is, so far, universally disliked by everyone who has tried it?  It seems like these things could be better spent on improving the mechanics / avatars already in use or deveolping something else that the playerbase might use. </p><p>Why continue to develop a set of Avatars that will not be used, simply adding one more thing that has to be maintained over time that sees no use?</p></blockquote><p>I'm not everyone but... I enjoy using the avatars. So, I wouldn't say its universally disliked .. just everyone has an opinion on how it could be changed so they would use it/like it more.</p><p>The people who say they aren't interested are in a feedback thread.. so I don't read to much into that. The reason why to continue working on it if simple put for options.</p><p>After all, it's free to play ... your way. Whatever your way may be.</p>

[Cuora]

<p>I played in a dungeon on Test yesterday as Sister Thog and she was completely unplayable.  I enjoy using the avatars and I got the sisters because of that.  I died twice and noticed an option at the bottom where I was able to play as myself.  I picked that option and ran through the dungeon just fine as my paladin.  I think having the play as yourself option is great but the avatars need to be as playable as your character, otherwise, no reason to have them there.</p>

[msgnomer]

<p>Speaking of Sister Thog, I played her yesterday (on the regular servers) and while I found her powerful enough, I found the combat quite annoying because of the almost constant knockdown effect. </p><p>Combat started with a pull and a mob getting knocked down and sliding toward my avatar feet first (seriously!) and then the entire battle consisted of facing characters laid out flat on the floor almost all the time.  The only solution I could find was to stop using spells and let the avatar play on auto attack.  Not fun.</p><p>It might be ok if one or the other of the attack spells didn't have the knockdown and/or it didn't result in a knockdown 100% of the time.  I like this avatar aside from this issue.</p><p><strong>On the new avatar design</strong>: I'm quite happy to hear you will retain the old avatar design.  Add a new design in the mix is fine too.  People can use them if they want or use the originals.  Choices are great, and I'm sure there will be statistics somewhere to indicate which combat style gets played more and deserves more new avatars.</p>

[Grumble69]

<p>I thought SJ had said back in December that they were going to let us use our characters.  I don't understand this continued push for something that people don't want.</p>

[Bhagpuss]

<p>I just wanted to say that I also like the Avatar system (the normal one without the power-management nonsense, that is). I like collecting them and I find them amusing to play. If you can work out a means of letting people play their own characters, fine. Some people obviously want that. If so, please have that as an alternative, though. Don't just replace a system that, as evidenced in several comments in this thread, is working nicely for some of us already.</p><p>But as also mentioned several times above, what the Dungeon Maker really needs is more options for the people making them to tell better stories and create batter gameplay. That's where the development effort should be directed.</p><p>And for Brell's sake, let the mobs drop some loot! Even if it's just chests with the tokens in. It's soul-destroying going through an entire dungeon without picking up anything!</p>

[screenid]

<p><span><p><span style="color: #ffff99;">I think we need the ability to play as ourselves and as avatars. </span></p><p><span style="color: #ffff99;">I love being able to quickly play other classes … I just want to visually play as my TOON. (most times)</span></p><strong><p><span style="color: #ffff99;">Here is what I would like to see for the Avatars System</span></p></strong><strong><p><span style="color: #ffff99;">I zone into a Dungeon and:</span></p></strong><strong><em><p><span style="color: #ffffff; font-size: small;">1) select an Avatar</span></p><p><span style="color: #ffff99;">-Avatars have no Assigned role (still require you to find or buy Avatars)</span></p><p><span style="color: #ffff99;">-I can pick my TOON (Visual only)</span></p><p><span style="color: #ffff99;">-If playing self (Armor stats are based on the class you pick below) </span></p><strong><p><span style="color: #ffffff; font-size: medium;">2) select a class</span></p></strong><p><span style="color: #ffff99;">-Pick a class to play ......your Avatar will take on that role. </span></p><p><span style="color: #ffff99;">-All classes will have default spells/combat arts selected (for quick game play) However the player can change these spells/combat arts out with others from the class tree (that they have unlocked)</span></p><p><span style="color: #ffff99;">-let us Unlock other Spells/Combat arts with Dungeon Marks</span></p><strong><p><span><span style="color: #ffffff;">3)select spells/combat arts -- <span style="font-size: large;">if not going with Default</span></span></span></p></strong><p><span style="color: #ffff99;">-Allow us to select up to 8 spells/combat arts from that Class Tree</span></p><p><span style="color: #ffff99;">-5 (1 of which is auto attack) is just too few …8 feels right =-)~</span></p><p><span style="color: #ffff99;">-Allow us to unlock more spells from that class tree (to rotate into our  8 )</span></p><p><span style="color: #ffff99;">Benefit -gives me the ability to customize my class build based on the Dungeon/Group/Solo play</span></p></em></strong></span></p>

[Freejazzlive]

<p><cite>Arduous@The Bazaar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span><p><span style="color: #ffff99;">I think we need the ability to play as ourselves and as avatars. </span></p></span></p></blockquote><p>I could get behind this entire post.</p>

[Littlelove]

<p><cite>Arduous@The Bazaar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><strong><em><p><span style="color: #ffff99;">-I can pick my TOON (Visual only)</span></p></em></strong></blockquote><p>To me, this still defeats the purpose.  I want to play my character because that's what I enjoy playing.  I want to advance MY character and use MY abilities/spells.  If I was only able to use a the appearance of my toon, who cares, I'll just pick one of the avatars... which I don't want.</p>

[Novusod]

<p>The Avatar changes are silly when it is clear most people just want to use their own characters in the dungeon maker. I would rather see more interesting monsters and customizing features for the dungeon maker.</p>

[Raknid]

<p><cite>Novusod wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The Avatar changes are silly when it is clear most people just want to use their own characters in the dungeon maker.</p></blockquote><p>They can't sell you the ability to play your own toon though, and most every avatar they sell will be less desirable to a majority of the population.</p><p>If people REALLY want to play their own toons, as I do, and are vested in the DM, they are going to have to continue to push until they make it a VIABLE option, not some nerferd up, messed up, option that pushes you toward the avatars.</p><p>Admittedly, the sold avatar options are thin now, but if everyone starts playing their won caharacter it might wipe out their future plans on selling more powerful avatars.</p><p>It would be nice to hear a status update and roadmap on getting the player characters into the dungeons.</p>

[Kenazeer]

<p><span style="color: #ffffff;"><p><span style="color: #ffffff;">Old avatar system was better in my opinion. However...</span></p></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;">Smokejumper posted this on <strong>12-19</strong></span></p><p><span ><span style="color: #ff0000;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Starting in the next day or two (on Test server only) you'll be able to play any of your characters in a player-created Dungeon Maker instance.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">This doesn't invalidate playing as an Adventurer, but you can also <em>play as your regular characters, regardless of level</em>. (Well, okay, you still have to be at least level 20 to play a DM instance, but you can play any characters from 20-90.)</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">We have still code to create, but we're excited enough about getting this to work that we're putting it on Test over the holidays so that we can get your feedback on this cool new addition to Dungeon Maker.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Please play a bit on Test over the holidays, if you're so inclined. We're eager to get your feedback when we come back for 2012 so we can tear into it and make it great for you! This is going to be awesome. The creativity of this community is unparalleled, and if you can play your own characters in those dungeons, then the sky's the limit!</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Here’s a few bits of info about the feature as it is on Test:</span></p><ul><li><span style="color: #ff0000;">You still have to be level 20 to play in a Dungeon Maker dungeon, but any character that’s level 20+ can be used. </span></li><li><span style="color: #ff0000;">You can *also* still play as an Adventurer if desired.  </span></li><li><span style="color: #ff0000;">For this test, player parties have to be composed entirely of either all Adventurers, or all regular player characters. Mixing of Adventurers and real characters is not currently allowed in this version. </span></li><li><span style="color: #ff0000;">Dungeon Mark rewards are turned off while on Test. (Until we balance the feature further, we can’t reward Dungeon Marks.) </span></li><li><span style="color: #ff0000;">This feature is not finalized. It’s on Test because we want your feedback on it so that we can then tune it to a finalized state after the New Year.</span></li></ul><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Enjoy! <strong>This will be coming to Live servers as soon as we can finish it up after the New Year!</strong></span></p><p>We are now just a couple days shy of <strong>two months</strong> since this announcement. Can we get a status update and rough roadmap of functionality to this "coming soon" feature?</p>

[Jasarina]

<p>I know I am in the minority here when I say I really enjoy the avatars. I do not wish to play as myself in the DM. I have no problems with them providing the ability to play as yourself provided that I can still play the avatars and the avatars are still supported and continued to be developed. </p><p>I have read a lot of posts staring that the avatars are universally disliked or no one wants to play them. This is not true. The people who are happy with the avatars just tend to be less vocal and post less. I enjoy collecting avatars. I enjoy playing as different ones in the DM depending on my mood that day. While I agree that the avatars need more spell variations and mechanics I do not want to see the avatars go away. </p><p>I also agree with players who have started there needs to be drops in the DM. Even just random chests with junk look to sell, extra DM tokens off boss mobs etc... Does not need to be anything powerful just something extra to collect along the way. I also believe as I have posted before that adding city tokens and event coins/tokens from currently running live events would encourage people to use the DM more. </p><p>I also would like to see more loot/items added for my own character added in to buy with my tokens. Currently there is only 1 mount and a limited selection of weapons and armor. I would like to see more mounts, more level apporiate armor/weapons, house items, titles etc.. </p><p>Please do not forget the minority of us who enjoy the avatars as you continue to develops this system. </p><p>Thank you, </p>

[Freejazzlive]

<p><cite>Kenazeer wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #ffffff;"><p><span style="color: #ffffff;">Old avatar system was better in my opinion. However...</span></p></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;">Smokejumper posted this on <strong>12-19</strong></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Starting in the next day or two (on Test server only) you'll be able to play any of your characters in a player-created Dungeon Maker instance.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">This doesn't invalidate playing as an Adventurer, but you can also <em>play as your regular characters, regardless of level</em>. (Well, okay, you still have to be at least level 20 to play a DM instance, but you can play any characters from 20-90.)</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">We have still code to create, but we're excited enough about getting this to work that we're putting it on Test over the holidays so that we can get your feedback on this cool new addition to Dungeon Maker.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Please play a bit on Test over the holidays, if you're so inclined. We're eager to get your feedback when we come back for 2012 so we can tear into it and make it great for you! This is going to be awesome. The creativity of this community is unparalleled, and if you can play your own characters in those dungeons, then the sky's the limit!</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Here’s a few bits of info about the feature as it is on Test:</span></p><ul><li><span style="color: #ff0000;">You still have to be level 20 to play in a Dungeon Maker dungeon, but any character that’s level 20+ can be used. </span></li><li><span style="color: #ff0000;">You can *also* still play as an Adventurer if desired.  </span></li><li><span style="color: #ff0000;">For this test, player parties have to be composed entirely of either all Adventurers, or all regular player characters. Mixing of Adventurers and real characters is not currently allowed in this version. </span></li><li><span style="color: #ff0000;">Dungeon Mark rewards are turned off while on Test. (Until we balance the feature further, we can’t reward Dungeon Marks.) </span></li><li><span style="color: #ff0000;">This feature is not finalized. It’s on Test because we want your feedback on it so that we can then tune it to a finalized state after the New Year.</span></li></ul><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Enjoy! <strong>This will be coming to Live servers as soon as we can finish it up after the New Year!</strong></span></p><p>We are now just a couple days shy of <strong>two months</strong> since this announcement. Can we get a status update and rough roadmap of functionality to this "coming soon" feature?</p></blockquote><p>Indeed: can we <strong>PLEASE</strong> get an update on this? Even if it's just a "we've got lots of work still to do on this feature before we can even talk about it, but rest assured it's coming 'soon'!"</p><p><strong>PLEASE?????</strong></p><p>FWIW, I couldn't care less about Dungeon Marks <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" /></p>

[gourdon]

<p><cite>Freejazzlive wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Kenazeer wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #ffffff;">Old avatar system was better in my opinion. However...</span></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;">Smokejumper posted this on <strong>12-19</strong></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Starting in the next day or two (on Test server only) you'll be able to play any of your characters in a player-created Dungeon Maker instance.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">This doesn't invalidate playing as an Adventurer, but you can also <em>play as your regular characters, regardless of level</em>. (Well, okay, you still have to be at least level 20 to play a DM instance, but you can play any characters from 20-90.)</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">We have still code to create, but we're excited enough about getting this to work that we're putting it on Test over the holidays so that we can get your feedback on this cool new addition to Dungeon Maker.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Please play a bit on Test over the holidays, if you're so inclined. We're eager to get your feedback when we come back for 2012 so we can tear into it and make it great for you! This is going to be awesome. The creativity of this community is unparalleled, and if you can play your own characters in those dungeons, then the sky's the limit!</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Here’s a few bits of info about the feature as it is on Test:</span></p><ul><li><span style="color: #ff0000;">You still have to be level 20 to play in a Dungeon Maker dungeon, but any character that’s level 20+ can be used. </span></li><li><span style="color: #ff0000;">You can *also* still play as an Adventurer if desired.  </span></li><li><span style="color: #ff0000;">For this test, player parties have to be composed entirely of either all Adventurers, or all regular player characters. Mixing of Adventurers and real characters is not currently allowed in this version. </span></li><li><span style="color: #ff0000;">Dungeon Mark rewards are turned off while on Test. (Until we balance the feature further, we can’t reward Dungeon Marks.) </span></li><li><span style="color: #ff0000;">This feature is not finalized. It’s on Test because we want your feedback on it so that we can then tune it to a finalized state after the New Year.</span></li></ul><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Enjoy! <strong>This will be coming to Live servers as soon as we can finish it up after the New Year!</strong></span></p><p>We are now just a couple days shy of <strong>two months</strong> since this announcement. Can we get a status update and rough roadmap of functionality to this "coming soon" feature?</p></blockquote><p>Indeed: can we <strong>PLEASE</strong> get an update on this? Even if it's just a "we've got lots of work still to do on this feature before we can even talk about it, but rest assured it's coming 'soon'!"</p><p><strong>PLEASE?????</strong></p><p>FWIW, I couldn't care less about Dungeon Marks <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>They don't really need to do that much work to make DMs work with regular characters.  Let us pick the difficulty of the dungeon mobs from really easy solo to x2 Epic and have them drop loot and xp at half or less the rate of a regular mob of that level and difficulty in the game.  Then, give us some very small number of dungeon marks upon completion of the dungeon based upon the algorithm they already use for DM now, ensuring that using an avatar will gain marks faster than a player.</p><p>Obviously, there are some scripts in many regular game dungeons, so there can't really be anything dropped that is comparable to named loot in regular dungeons.  However, Masters, mute fodder and valuable body drops should be reasonably plentiful and enough reason to go do somebody's cool dungeon.</p>

[Gyee]

<p>So....</p><p>I went to listen to the future of EQ2 broadcast and they talked about dungeon maker. I thought to myself its been a minute since I tried it.</p><p>so, I played with it while listening on live. (yeah, I know this is a testing forum).</p><p>I played some guildies easy and more challenging dungeons with different avatars.</p><p>The old style ones (full power, with regenarating power for abilities) were capable and were still enjoyable.</p><p>With the new ones (empty power, skills build power) I actually was able to take on a little more challenging stuff and rotated between and was rather fun!!I think i got about 36% of a level and 175ish tokens in about an hour of playing around. By the time I was done, made a little one myself and played through it.</p><p>All in all, It'll be interesting to see play with your own character and the level agnostic version and if you can play with your toon grouped with someone avatar and visa versa.</p><p>One more thing.. Lyndro? Maybe add avatar affinity (yeah yeah maybe similair to beastlord affinity) to have people feel more connected to playing them or "leveling" (since, you know, there are no levels) And avatar affinity titles or rewards.. Like a plushie for each avatar you max affinity or a book that tells of their lore.. just a suggestion. Similiar to the monsters in eq1 rank 1,2 they didn't really gain any power just another stat to reflect time played.</p><p>Favorite avator: clockwork menace ...</p>