One of the recurring topics of this blog is how often I die in any particular MMO. If a game is too easy it's going to impact my experience of it in a lot of ways – none of them good. I'll be less interested and less involved, and I'll play far worse. If everything dies in three hits then why spend time on character builds, gear selection or attack rotations? I don't get much enjoyment out of god mode overkill.
It's something I've criticised in the first 30 levels of Neverwinter, and the first 15 of Secret World Legends. It's why I try to solo dungeons designed for groups. It's why I'll likely never return to World of Warcraft*, and why in City of Heroes I roam around in hazard zones and raise my notoriety if things start to feel too easy.
Lord of the Rings Online is perhaps the only MMO I've played that gets a pass on this. In part because I've been running on a tank-spec warden who is pretty much designed to be very hard to kill, and partly because... well, because it's LOTRO, and I like being in that world too much to give it a hard time. Usually.
*Unless I take another run at the Ironman Challenge, which I haven't done since Cataclysm and which I suspect is practically impossible on a warrior now that level scaling has been implemented. Or I might return when The Burning Crusade comes to Classic. Maybe.
So how about Dungeons & Dragons Online?
During my first 24 hours of DDO I died three times – twice from running out of arrows and once from walking unwittingly into an extreme challenge dungeon above my level. I died more in every other game, even LOTRO. That lack of danger was likely a factor in how slowly I went through that run.
Now? Now things have changed.
I'm having to think more about the weapons I use. A lot of my damage output comes from poison, and that's not so good when I run into enemies that are immune to that damage type. The starter potions of cure light wounds I've had since Korthos Island are long gone now, and encounters with fire elementals have seen me scrambling for the fire resistance potions that were also been gathering dust in my inventory.
Oh and when this game hits you with a Blind spell it makes sure you know it.
These are on-level, single player quests, and there are encounters in there that will kill me if I don't think about what I'm doing and make the most of my skills and spells and gear. DDO is showing its teeth, and it's a better experience for it.
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