Recommendations for which expansion to take?

[kadzartathram]

The April gift seems pretty cool, I certainly won't say no to a free expansion, but the question is, which one?

I don't currently have any of the expansions or have any experience with them, so I figured I'd ask here. Which ones give the most value, or which are the most fun? I'm guessing there may not be one right answer to this, but I figured it would be good to get the community's opinion on this before I make a decision.

[Taebrythn]

isle of dread

[Dracoco OwO]

I honestly still dunno if i'm either Taking Feydark, Sharn or Isle of Dread because all of them got good gear, Feydark got Feydark illusionist tree which is pretty good , Sharn got the Inquisitive tree as well as the tiefling iconic which is pretty good to tr from early for the stance that give you 30% movement speed and isle dread i got the argument it's basically the most expansive extension and end game gear in this is among the best period.

[Doug]

Originally posted by Dracoco OwO:

I honestly still dunno if i'm either Taking Feydark, Sharn or Isle of Dread because all of them got good gear, Feydark got Feydark illusionist tree which is pretty good , Sharn got the Inquisitive tree as well as the tiefling iconic which is pretty good to tr from early for the stance that give you 30% movement speed and isle dread i got the argument it's basically the most expansive extension and end game gear in this is among the best period.

The trees are unlocked with Favor, so that's valid: if you have the expansion, you can unlock the trees.

But you will NOT get the Tiefling Iconic. The offer specifically only includes access to the content, not any of the other things that would come if you bought the expansion from the DDO Market. Be careful of that.

[Dracoco OwO]

Originally posted by Doug:

Originally posted by Dracoco OwO:

I honestly still dunno if i'm either Taking Feydark, Sharn or Isle of Dread because all of them got good gear, Feydark got Feydark illusionist tree which is pretty good , Sharn got the Inquisitive tree as well as the tiefling iconic which is pretty good to tr from early for the stance that give you 30% movement speed and isle dread i got the argument it's basically the most expansive extension and end game gear in this is among the best period.

The trees are unlocked with Favor, so that's valid: if you have the expansion, you can unlock the trees.

But you will NOT get the Tiefling Iconic. The offer specifically only includes access to the content, not any of the other things that would come if you bought the expansion from the DDO Market. Be careful of that.

Ok good to know i took Isle of Dread anyways. I thought you could get the iconics that way. I didn't read the wiki and offer properly i guess.

[NavFamG]

Originally posted by kadzartathram:

The April gift seems pretty cool, I certainly won't say no to a free expansion, but the question is, which one?

Depends on what level your character is currently at. If you're still on the starter island Korthos picking one of the high level expansions isn't going to do you any good for quite a while.

Some things to think about; there's a LOT of existing low level content so you might not really need one of the low level expansions like Saltmarsh unless you've already run a gazillon characters through the low level stuff and want something different.

Also if you're a tabletop D&D'er and know some of these modules the want / pass my come from that knowledge.

My take on what's offered:
Saltmarsh - I enjoyed it. Nice wilderness area, good mix of quests.
Feywild - Had a hard time getting into it just didn't catch my attention.
Isle of Dread - Not a dinosaur fan, but it was the only 1 I didn't have so I took it.
Ravenloft - Great expac, nice 'spooky' feel to it.
Shadowfell - Didn't really do much for me.
Sharn - This one gives you 2 areas; the city's quests where nice and enjoyed that part, the other is in the underground (wilderness area) and I wasn't as thrilled with it.
Underdark - follow on to Shadowfell, pretty much the same for it.
Vecna - Haven't gotten around to doing anything with it.

[Doug]

Originally posted by NavFamG:

Originally posted by kadzartathram:

The April gift seems pretty cool, I certainly won't say no to a free expansion, but the question is, which one?

Depends on what level your character is currently at. If you're still on the starter island Korthos picking one of the high level expansions isn't going to do you any good for quite a while.

Some things to think about; there's a LOT of existing low level content so you might not really need one of the low level expansions like Saltmarsh unless you've already run a gazillon characters through the low level stuff and want something different.

Also if you're a tabletop D&D'er and know some of these modules the want / pass my come from that knowledge.

My take on what's offered:
Saltmarsh - I enjoyed it. Nice wilderness area, good mix of quests.
Feywild - Had a hard time getting into it just didn't catch my attention.
Isle of Dread - Not a dinosaur fan, but it was the only 1 I didn't have so I took it.
Ravenloft - Great expac, nice 'spooky' feel to it.
Shadowfell - Didn't really do much for me.
Sharn - This one gives you 2 areas; the city's quests where nice and enjoyed that part, the other is in the underground (wilderness area) and I wasn't as thrilled with it.
Underdark - follow on to Shadowfell, pretty much the same for it.
Vecna - Haven't gotten around to doing anything with it.

Vecna's specifically not included in the offer.

There are several measures one could use to decide which expansion to select.

Cost: Isle of Dread at 3995 DDO points is the most expensive.

Gear: I can't speak to IoD on this one; just picked it up. Ravenloft weapons that you can get simply by running the very first quest and walking a bit into the wilderness are ML10 but are good enough to use pretty much right up to L20, especially if you stick a Ruby in them that adds 3d6 elemental damage (ML8 augment). Over multiple lives, you could decide to grab 3 of the same weapon and put ML12 (4d6) and ML16 (5d6) Rubies in them to keep them even more useful and relevant. (You'd want 3 because adding an Augment of higher ML than the weapon raises the ML of the weapon to that of the Augment.)
But Feywild gear sets are also excellent, especially with the multi-item bonuses, and Sharn also has great gear. Saltmarsh has one of the best Deathward clickies in the game. Its gear is also good, but of such a low level that most of it is quickly outgrown. Neither MotU nor Shadowfell is known for their gear.

XP: F2P players have access to lots of free content at low levels; it's in the mid-to-high Heroic and Epic levels where they begin to suffer. That makes Sharn, Shadowfell and MotU excellent options for those seeking to fill XP holes. Epic versions of the others are either Legendary (L30+) or close to it... not particularly useful unless you're playing at end-game: if you're still running the hamster-wheel of TRs/ETRs/Iconics, they don't buy you much usable XP.

Sagas and Saga rewards: Sagas grant rewards including Skill Tomes of up to +3 and 15,000 Guild Renown (also the option for a huge chunk of bonus XP). Sharn contains 2 self-contained Sagas (no other packs required) at both Heroic and Epic, which is hard to beat. OTOH, MotU quests form part of no less than 4 different Sagas (all Epic).. but you need the other packs/expansions involved to profit from them.

Favor: If there's something you want that requires a particular Patron's Favor, one or another pack may appeal to you on that basis.

Those are just the approaches to the decision that occur to me offhand; there are no doubt others, equally valid.

I picked Isle of Dread; it's the only one on the list I didn't yet have. I was literally waiting for a sale on it, so this has saved me a raft of DDO points.

Whatever you choose, it's quite a boon!

[kadzartathram]

Originally posted by Doug:

Originally posted by NavFamG:

Depends on what level your character is currently at. If you're still on the starter island Korthos picking one of the high level expansions isn't going to do you any good for quite a while.

Some things to think about; there's a LOT of existing low level content so you might not really need one of the low level expansions like Saltmarsh unless you've already run a gazillon characters through the low level stuff and want something different.

Also if you're a tabletop D&D'er and know some of these modules the want / pass my come from that knowledge.

My take on what's offered:
Saltmarsh - I enjoyed it. Nice wilderness area, good mix of quests.
Feywild - Had a hard time getting into it just didn't catch my attention.
Isle of Dread - Not a dinosaur fan, but it was the only 1 I didn't have so I took it.
Ravenloft - Great expac, nice 'spooky' feel to it.
Shadowfell - Didn't really do much for me.
Sharn - This one gives you 2 areas; the city's quests where nice and enjoyed that part, the other is in the underground (wilderness area) and I wasn't as thrilled with it.
Underdark - follow on to Shadowfell, pretty much the same for it.
Vecna - Haven't gotten around to doing anything with it.

Vecna's specifically not included in the offer.

There are several measures one could use to decide which expansion to select.

Cost: Isle of Dread at 3995 DDO points is the most expensive.

Gear: I can't speak to IoD on this one; just picked it up. Ravenloft weapons that you can get simply by running the very first quest and walking a bit into the wilderness are ML10 but are good enough to use pretty much right up to L20, especially if you stick a Ruby in them that adds 3d6 elemental damage (ML8 augment). Over multiple lives, you could decide to grab 3 of the same weapon and put ML12 (4d6) and ML16 (5d6) Rubies in them to keep them even more useful and relevant. (You'd want 3 because adding an Augment of higher ML than the weapon raises the ML of the weapon to that of the Augment.)
But Feywild gear sets are also excellent, especially with the multi-item bonuses, and Sharn also has great gear. Saltmarsh has one of the best Deathward clickies in the game. Its gear is also good, but of such a low level that most of it is quickly outgrown. Neither MotU nor Shadowfell is known for their gear.

XP: F2P players have access to lots of free content at low levels; it's in the mid-to-high Heroic and Epic levels where they begin to suffer. That makes Sharn, Shadowfell and MotU excellent options for those seeking to fill XP holes. Epic versions of the others are either Legendary (L30+) or close to it... not particularly useful unless you're playing at end-game: if you're still running the hamster-wheel of TRs/ETRs/Iconics, they don't buy you much usable XP.

Sagas and Saga rewards: Sagas grant rewards including Skill Tomes of up to +3 and 15,000 Guild Renown (also the option for a huge chunk of bonus XP). Sharn contains 2 self-contained Sagas (no other packs required) at both Heroic and Epic, which is hard to beat. OTOH, MotU quests form part of no less than 4 different Sagas (all Epic).. but you need the other packs/expansions involved to profit from them.

Favor: If there's something you want that requires a particular Patron's Favor, one or another pack may appeal to you on that basis.

Those are just the approaches to the decision that occur to me offhand; there are no doubt others, equally valid.

I picked Isle of Dread; it's the only one on the list I didn't yet have. I was literally waiting for a sale on it, so this has saved me a raft of DDO points.

Whatever you choose, it's quite a boon!

Thanks a bunch to both of you for taking the time to give such thorough answers! I'll probably need to do a bit of additional research on my own, but this is at least a very good starting point.

Going just by what interests me, I'm kind of leaning toward either Ravenloft or Sharn, since I was in a 5e Ravenloft campaign for a while that eventually got derailed or Sharn because I'm a fan of the Eberron world (mostly because of this game) and would like to do some adventures in the main city of the setting. Also, it sounds like both of them have some good benefits.

The concept of xp and favor as a F2P player has me making some considerations, though. Lately I've been soloing a bunch of lower level adventures I missed before (a lot of them I think were from the free giveaway in January) to make sure I get as much favor out of them as possible, along with maybe a little xp, and I've made it to level 11 without much trouble. I don't really mind a hard grind or a slow pace for leveling, i'm just here to experience the game, but, if I'm going to have trouble even making it through the levels, I guess maybe I should do something about it.

Anyway, thanks for you advice, and have a good day!

[Doug]

Originally posted by kadzartathram:

The concept of xp and favor as a F2P player has me making some considerations, though. Lately I've been soloing a bunch of lower level adventures I missed before (a lot of them I think were from the free giveaway in January) to make sure I get as much favor out of them as possible, along with maybe a little xp, and I've made it to level 11 without much trouble. I don't really mind a hard grind or a slow pace for leveling, i'm just here to experience the game, but, if I'm going to have trouble even making it through the levels, I guess maybe I should do something about it.

Just a note: If you have used the freebie code that gets you a raft of quests for free, you won't have the issue with having enough quests available to level, and you can discard XP as one of your criteria for picking an expansion. That option was for anyone who hasn't encountered and used one of the freebie codes (yet). It's much harder to give advice on this topic than it used to be because there's no way to tell when or if they'll release another such code, so we as advisors are torn in what advice to give.

[Squishyb]

Is there something wrong with the free expansion? i talk to the dragon, it says the event is currently suspended.

[Dracoco OwO]

Originally posted by Squishyb:

Is there something wrong with the free expansion? i talk to the dragon, it says the event is currently suspended.

Devs ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up, so they don't give away stuff currently so you need to wait for the fix, it's because some peoples with all expansions were facing an issues where they wouldn't get the exp buff and get the menu to choose an expansion or something like that.

[Squishyb]

thanks

[Last of the Order]

Anyone know if the expansion claim is fixed yet?

[Doug]

Originally posted by Last of the Order:

Anyone know if the expansion claim is fixed yet?

Tomorrow's update, supposedly:
https://www.ddo.com/update-notes/ddo-update-67-2-1-release-notes