Not sure if this came through in my last post, but one of the things that I really like about DDO is the fact that your individual skill running the gui significantly impacts the outcome of a battle.
In a one on one battle, it’s possible to be out of range of the thing that is attacking when it swings at you, then dart in and attack it and dodge out of its way again — not guaranteed, but possible. You also need to maintain a defensive stance (i.e. block with the shift key) unless you are attacking, to raise your defence and reduce the chance of creatures hitting you with special attacks. Because of this, I have found that after a weekend of playing I can get through a battle with much less loss of HP than I could when I first started.
Now, at one point on the weekend, I was in a party of six and we were fighting as many as eight things at once (in the Butcher’s Way, in case you were wondering). It’s clear that there are similar lessons to learn when fighting in a group, but it will take more practice. The battles are quite frenetic.
Speaking of grouping, what happened to the rest of you who said you were going to try this game? Todd said he’s probably going to give this one a miss, so in retaliation I re-created Baiserdmort. I have to tell you being a rogue is tough in this game, although I did (once) manage to do an effective backstab and did 89HP with my 1D4 weapon. 🙂
So far at least, playing Gimlit the dwarf paladin is much easier. With about six hours of soloing, plus one good group, I managed to make it to level 2 (real level 2, not the first mini-ding). For comparison, Baiserdmort in 4 hours of play hasn’t even gotten to the first mini-ding yet.
Unfortunately, I’ll be at the arts center tonight, so I won’t be on. I would like to pick a day when we can all play though. I can do Monday or Wednesday easily, and could probably do any night on the weekend, with a bit more effort. Let me know.