2.5 Harbor Quests and Party Creation

Harbor Quests to Elite and Creating Groups

As I mentioned in a previous post, you can attempt most quests at one of three difficulty levels: Normal, Hard, or Elite. Setting a quest to ‘Normal’ means the quest is the level displayed. The level the quest entrance displays is somewhat misleading. According to official DDO literature, the quest level means that the quest is appropriately challenging for a group of four players at the indicated level. A quest rated as level three would be appropriate for a group of four adventurers who are all third level. For the opening quests, this is a good rule of thumb. For later quests, this does not apply so well. Higher level adventures require more than just higher level. You also must have appropriate equipment for your level that greatly improves your attack score, damage bonus, saving throws, spell points, etc…

When you set a quest to ‘hard’ before entering, you raise the difficulty of the quest by one level. The monsters will be one level higher, and the spell casters in the dungeon will cast more powerful spells. When you set the quest to ‘elite’, it is set two levels higher than what is displayed on the entrance. The monsters will be two levels higher and cast even more powerful spells. Just because you walk through a quest on Normal very easily doesn’t mean you can take it on elite. You should try it on hard, then see how it goes. Each level increases the difficulty by a significant margin. Also, someone in your party must have completed a quest on normal for your party to open it on hard, and someone must have completed the quest on hard to open it on elite. Be careful taking a newly formed party on a quest set to elite. I’ve seen many brave adventurers wish they had tried it on normal or hard first!

Today I am creating a group to run the harbor quests. The Harbor quests are all the quests located in Stormreach’s harbor. If you aren’t in the marketplace yet, you are in the harbor. The Wayward Lobster, Leaky Dinghy, and Wavecrest taverns are all in the harbor. Any quests you pick up at one of those taverns are known as harbor quests. There are a few others like Kobold Assault and Irestone Inlet which are also harbor quests and you retrieve those quests from NPC’s standing in the harbor. When you see other groups advertising to do harbor quests, expect to be doing quests out of those three aforementioned taverns.

Here’s how to create your own party. First, advertise what you are looking to do. Click on the Social panel, then on Grouping. Now click on ‘Create Party.’ Click the box at the top of the screen that says Advertise your group. Now, you have an advertised group. Update the advertisement by changing the options in the open Create Party dialog. You can set the levels you are looking to recruit, the types of classes, and even write a little note. I don’t ever use the Quest selection box. I just write a note in the note box saying what quest or what types of quests I want to do. Be sure to click the update my party button before you close this window to save any changes. Now other adventurers can see you request by looking at the Grouping tab in their Social Menu. When another adventurer wants to join your group, you will get a little message saying ‘so and so wants to join your group’. You can add them in one of two ways. You can simply type ‘/invite ’. You can also go back to the create party dialog by clicking the social menu, then the grouping tab, then the create party button. This won’t create a new party, it will simply open your current advertisement’s options. You will see a list of all the adventurers who wish to join your group at the bottom. You can select any of them, and click the Accept button to allow them entry into your group. Seems simple enough… So what do you do when no one seems to be coming to the party?

You click on the social menu, then on the ‘Who’ tab. This shows you everyone who is logged into your server. You can then change the selection criteria to match your preference and search for available adventurers. You will notice the little box to the left of the names listed below. This tells you if the adventurer is in a group, looking for a group, or just hanging around. Move your mouse over the icon to find out which is which. Do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT invite strangers to a group without sending them a tell message first asking them whether they would like to join. This is one of the most annoying things you can do. Please don’t do it. It will get you put on squelch lists and then you won’t be able to send messages of any kind. Use the Who list to find other adventurers who are either looking for a group or just hanging around. Send out a few tell messages and see who replies. Sometimes people are away from their keyboards (afk) and won’t respond to you. Sometimes you will get a polite ‘sorry, but I am logging’ message which means the character in question is about to log off for the day or night. Sometimes you get a ‘sure!’ back and then you type ‘/invite ’ to invite the character to your group. I am very good at filling parties and keeping them full when members leave in between quests using this technique. Just use the Who list to find other characters. When building groups, follow these rules: 1) Every group needs a healer! Clerics are preferred but at lower levels bards suffice. 2) Tanks are necessary and 2 or 3 work very well. Tanks include fighters (the best tanks), barbarians, and paladins. 3) You only need one rogue, ranger, or bard. No more. These classes are supportive, and they need tanks and spell slingers to support. 4) 2 casters are a good idea for most parties. Casters include wizards and sorcerers, no one else. 5) The ideal group has a Cleric, 1 Fighter, 1 other Tank, 2 Casters, and one support character such as a bard, ranger, or rogue. Some quests require a rogue. Know if you NEED a rogue before entering a quest. Keep in mind that if you made the group, the other group members will naturally look to you for guidance. It is a good idea to let everyone else in the group know if you don’t know the quest you are doing very well. Ask if someone else knows the quest, and have them lead the way through. There isn’t much worse than a bad leader in a DDO party. You can end up getting other characters killed. They won’t appreciate that very much. See you next time.