Does taking lvls 24-25 gimp your 'gameplay'?

[chickenmaniac]

I just took lvls 24-25 and it feels as though I just gimped my 'game play'.
Sounds odd, but there are not too many players with lfms for lvl25s and I am now taking a considerable hit to xp on just about all epic quests.

I know there was a discussion in the beta about this and the original idea was that your lvl was actually heroic+destiny.
This was all changed pretty quickly to what we have on live and I am not really sure either way is the solution.

I remember reading about this a couple of times on the forums without much feedback from the devs.
It is a curly one, I admit, but as it stands, lvl 25 seems a little redundant. You gain a few hitpoints and a feat and lose a lot of XP and therefore acceptance in groups.

My proposal would be to make lvls 21-25 all count as 21. Simple as that.

Pros: You could actually take your Epic lvls and still farm out the destinies and group with other players without penalising them.
Cons: ... ... slight imbalance in challenge drop rates, struggling here...

[Krell]

A weekly forum topic that I agree with. I'd like to see no power level penalties for any character 20+ and no over level penalty for any quest that is 20+. Basically let any epic player quest with any other epic player in any epic quest without having to worry about a penalty.

[luvirini]

Yeah, I am planning to stay level 23 on my characters atleast for now in order to not take and cause high penalties.

[chickenmaniac]

Yeah, I am planning to stay level 23 on my characters atleast for now in order to not take and cause high penalties.

I was doing the same. It just seemed so ridiculous to have to gimp both my character lvl and my destiny lvl if I wanted to farm out XP for twists, that I capitulated and took my final lvls just to see if it did actually have an effect on gameplay. It does, which kind of diminishes the impact of capping your toon.

I have always been excited to get to lvl 20; 25 is not the same experience.

[nibel]

/signed and also add that heroic content will cap any level as 20 (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=378093), so Amrath, VoD, ToD and Shroud runs still award some XP for people leveling.

Myself, I'll stay level 23 (XP capped) until they add level 24 Normal quests in the game.

[akiraproject24]

Ive been working 5 toons ...and I did take 24 on my wizard the day the ability pt fix came out but that was to max my dcs. My other toons Im leaving at 23 (some arent quite there yet as wizard got all my attention) in order to benefit from lower lvl content xp and pugging. But yeah I recognize that taking 25 will limit you a bit as to lfms and lower lvl quests...but you still got all those challenges where the real xp lies anyhow.

[akash]

Why not trying to find a static or semi static group and regularly play some epic elites with them, that won't cut the XP. Currently the number of level 25s are limited, give it some time and you will see more level 25s than level 20-24 combined.

[MRMechMan]

Being a level 25 and playing with level 20s in Epic Normal or Hard will definitely break the balance of the game.

No, it won't.

A character that is 21 with maxed EDs (maybe TRed after maxing EDs and is getting back to 25) is vastly more powerful than the character who is 25 and does not have EDs.

Levels 21-25 give VERY little compared to epic destinies.

Taking a level and getting +1 skills and the odd saving throw boost are not a huge power leap; nor are the 2 feats you can get.

Epic destinies, however, are a huge power leap.


I agree that the system is not ideal-being able to not really do shrouds/TODs/some epic normal/hards as the lfms are 18-20 or 20-23 really sucks. I think it will get better with time though.

[Krell]

Being a level 25 and playing with level 20s in Epic Normal or Hard will definitely break the balance of the game. Why not trying to find a static or semi static group and regularly play some epic elites with them, that won't cut the XP. Currently the number of level 25s are limited, give it some time and you will see more level 25s than level 20-24 combined.

I think the epic destinies increase your power a lot more than the 50 HP, 5 skill points, 1 stat point, and 2 feats that epic levels 21-25 grant. Compare a level 21 with Magister5 and a level 25 with Magister5 and I don't think you will see much difference in performance. The level 25 with Magister5 will have a harder time leveling up another destiny though which is the issue the OP refers to.

[Muspellsheimr]

Being a level 25 and playing with level 20s in Epic Normal or Hard will definitely break the balance of the game. Why not trying to find a static or semi static group and regularly play some epic elites with them, that won't cut the XP. Currently the number of level 25s are limited, give it some time and you will see more level 25s than level 20-24 combined.

Oh, that's exactly the problem - level 25 so incredibly powerful it breaks gameplay for level 20's in the same group, and so incredibly hard to reach there's only a few of them around.

Wakeup call - my secondary character is a couple hundred thousand experience away from level 25, measured by epic destinies. And yet, my experience bar reads 1,349,999 - one point away from level 23. If I where to suddenly level up to 25, I would gain a grand total of 1 feat, 1 attribute point, ~75 hitpoints, and slightly better saves & skills. In exchange, I would take significant penalties to experience towards destiny advancement in nearly all the current content, and impose those penalties (plus power leveling penalties) to everyone else in my group.

Levels 22-25 represent a very minor power increase by themselves, while imposing significant penalties to both yourself and others. The single greatest flaw of the epic level design Turbine made was disassociating epic destiny level with epic character level. The second greatest flaw of the design (largely a result of the first) is exactly what the OP is complaining about - the level based experience penalties.

[chickenmaniac]

Being a level 25 and playing with level 20s in Epic Normal or Hard will definitely break the balance of the game. Why not trying to find a static or semi static group and regularly play some epic elites with them, that won't cut the XP. Currently the number of level 25s are limited, give it some time and you will see more level 25s than level 20-24 combined.

You're absolutely right. I could only play with my static groups on Epic Elite.

However I don't agree with the argument that 20's playing with 25's will imbalance the game. You get your destiny at 20 and cap it without taking a single Epic Lvl. The benefits of taking your Epic lvls are far from those of the destinies.

It just seems to diminish the fun. No raids except 'that which shall not be named' , no pugs, poor XP farming.
Bit limiting really and in a practical sense could be said to break the destiny twist farming mechanic.

[Gkar]

Being a level 25 and playing with level 20s in Epic Normal or Hard will definitely break the balance of the game. Why not trying to find a static or semi static group and regularly play some epic elites with them, that won't cut the XP. Currently the number of level 25s are limited, give it some time and you will see more level 25s than level 20-24 combined.

I don't know about your life, but mine doesn't give me the guarenteed time for a fixed playing time/day, thus static groups are never an option for me. I'm sure I'm not alone.

[01000010]

lvling past 23 is a bad idea if you want to group up at all, even lvling past 20 is iffy tho i like the feat at 21 amd only hurts the xp of 17s in a group.

[arminius]

I thought that the point was to get to 25 asap with as few quests as possible so that your repeat penalties cap out and all the future experience you earn goes to churning through EDs as an endless XP font with no diminishment ever.

Has that philosophy changed? Or did I misunderstand it all along?

[Muspellsheimr]

Or did I misunderstand it all along?

The goal is not to reach level 25, but to reach 3 million experience (the experience needed for level 25). This is achievable at level 23.

Level 21 gives you a feat, without significantly affecting which groups you can join. I would recommend taking level 21.
Level 22 is worthless. Never take level 22 unless you are ready to take 23.
Level 23 allows you to reach the experience cap, negating future repetition penalties. It also does not significantly affect the experience from epic quest. Take level 23 if you are not planning to TR anytime soon.
Level 24 gives you a feat. Take level 24 only if you need the feat for your build (most don't).
Level 25 is worthless. Do not ever take level 25, unless the system changes.

[Raithe]

I don't know about your life, but mine doesn't give me the guarenteed time for a fixed playing time/day, thus static groups are never an option for me.


lvling past 23 is a bad idea if you want to group up at all, even lvling past 20 is iffy tho i like the feat at 21 amd only hurts the xp of 17s in a group.

I'm fairly certain a "group" can consist of two or more players, and not necessarily the maximum a quest allows. Several of the new quests (and probably old) are level 24 on epic hard, which allows for a significant degree of scaling. Even level 23 on hard wouldn't be a drastic loss of xp (-10% I believe).

Which brings up the point that the fastest xp leveling is available from certain challenges, and the challenges in question scale reasonably at all levels (there are no epic elite options for challenges). The only real effect for choosing level 25 in a challenge suitable for a level 25 character (even if that character is just character level 21 with capped destinies) is you get better drops from chests (along with some minor increases in difficulty). Of course, everyone hates better chest drops... :rolleyes:.

The actual problem is that most people with capped destinies will be running level 25 content, and will discriminate against lower level people without capped destinies. I love how everything gets turned upside down and backwards here on the forums tho... :rolleyes:.

[akash]

ok :o /signed

and Thank you everyone for correcting me. I totally overlooked the destinies, so now I edited my previous post. However, multi destiny TR toons are very few atm. So, if we assume everyone has started from the scratch, we will see toons who gained XP, and levelled up their destinies are more stronger than the people who just levelled to 20. This problem will eventually solve when more of those lower epic toons will level to their destinies but still DEVs can do this easy fix by removing the epic xp penalty which will help the community greatly.

[arminius]

The goal is not to reach level 25, but to reach 3 million experience (the experience needed for level 25). This is achievable at level 23.

Level 21 gives you a feat, without significantly affecting which groups you can join. I would recommend taking level 21.
Level 22 is worthless. Never take level 22 unless you are ready to take 23.
Level 23 allows you to reach the experience cap, negating future repetition penalties. It also does not significantly affect the experience from epic quest. Take level 23 if you are not planning to TR anytime soon.
Level 24 gives you a feat. Take level 24 only if you need the feat for your build (most don't).
Level 25 is worthless. Do not ever take level 25, unless the system changes.

Ah, understood. I was missing the point in bold.

[luvirini]

The goal is not to reach level 25, but to reach 3 million experience (the experience needed for level 25). This is achievable at level 23.

Level 21 gives you a feat, without significantly affecting which groups you can join. I would recommend taking level 21.
Level 22 is worthless. Never take level 22 unless you are ready to take 23.
Level 23 allows you to reach the experience cap, negating future repetition penalties. It also does not significantly affect the experience from epic quest. Take level 23 if you are not planning to TR anytime soon.
Level 24 gives you a feat. Take level 24 only if you need the feat for your build (most don't).
Level 25 is worthless. Do not ever take level 25, unless the system changes.

qft. This is why I have no plans to level up above 23 on any character.

[noinfo]

I just took lvls 24-25 and it feels as though I just gimped my 'game play'.
Sounds odd, but there are not too many players with lfms for lvl25s and I am now taking a considerable hit to xp on just about all epic quests.

I know there was a discussion in the beta about this and the original idea was that your lvl was actually heroic+destiny.
This was all changed pretty quickly to what we have on live and I am not really sure either way is the solution.

I remember reading about this a couple of times on the forums without much feedback from the devs.
It is a curly one, I admit, but as it stands, lvl 25 seems a little redundant. You gain a few hitpoints and a feat and lose a lot of XP and therefore acceptance in groups.

My proposal would be to make lvls 21-25 all count as 21. Simple as that.

Pros: You could actually take your Epic lvls and still farm out the destinies and group with other players without penalising them.
Cons: ... ... slight imbalance in challenge drop rates, struggling here...

This has been said before by myself and many others.
The strength in their new system comes from ED, with a few nice things happening in the leveling process.
The comparative strength between a level 23 (everyone finds this the sweet spot) and 25 is 1 stat point and a feat and some hp. Its more than possible due to twists etc that a 23 can be significantly more powerful than a 25. There should be encouragement to level to that level (exception being challenges)
Get rid of level counting for stuff with regards to epic quests as the level of quest should just count for base xp generation ie a level 23 should have more xp than a level 22 quest. Let people level to 25 without gimping their xp.

This should go into patch 2 as well :D

[Faent]

Level 25 is worthless. Do not ever take level 25, unless the system changes.

Level 25 is worthless for a lot of builds, but it's needed by a lot of casters for hitting Spell Pen requirements in Epic Elite content. Of course, Epic Elite content is **** XP/minute, and I'll be avoiding it entirely while leveling up destinies. And so I'll be staying at 23.

That said, if you're taken 25 and are feeling upset about it (looking at you OP), remember that you have a few options. A possibly nasty one is TR'ing. But you can also farm Challenges for XP. Some of the Challenges are fantastic XP/minute, and the XP doesn't degrade from repetition. You can easily put a group together for these Challenges with a level range from 20-25. This might, however, bore you to death. When you get bored to death, I'd suggest TR'ing and holding 23 next time.

[Muspellsheimr]

Level 25 is worthless for a lot of builds, but it's needed by a lot of casters for hitting Spell Pen requirements in Epic Elite content.

Well yes, IF epic levels affected your caster level. Epic destinies, NOT epic levels, increase caster level & spell penetration.


The single greatest flaw of the epic level design Turbine made was disassociating epic destiny level with epic character level.
^ ^ ^
I stand by that.

[pseudomasochist]

The single greatest flaw of the epic level design Turbine made was disassociating epic destiny level with epic character level.

^ ^ ^
I stand by that.

Flaw or intended feature? After all, 21-25 are free and Epic Destinies need to be purchased. Maybe I'm just a jaded cynic but it sure looks like the Destinies got all the thought, development work, and benefits then five generic levels were tacked on so "level cap raised to 25" could be included in the MotU marketing materials.

I agree with eliminating experience penalties based on character level for 21-25 because power at those levels come from Destinies. If there must be penalties, 20 + active Destiny level would be more appropriate than simple character level.

[Uhtred_Stark]

What this is seriously hurting is guild play. In a large guild not everyone is concerned about min/max xp levels nor are all people interested in grinding millions of xp for marginal ED twists. Most players just want to level up to 25 in their preferred epic destiny and quest, do raids, do challenges etc. However, now large guilds are put in situations where you have L25s in raids and L20s. This extends to any guild event epics. So now L20s have their xp drastically cut because L25s are in the group. This makes no sense and is extremly difficult to manage when you have a guild event calendar. What are we supposed to do in guild, ban the L25s? Tell the L20s its just tough?

I really wish turbine would stop catering to small guilds of power gamers who max out all abilities and xp/min quests and then base the rest of the game on the assumption that this how quests are run.

And if the answer is "don't take L25" that is just absurd. People work toward goals, capping a character is one of the primary ones in the game, if capping your character breaks the grouping mechanic then you have a flawed system.

[chickenmaniac]

/Snip

I agree with eliminating experience penalties based on character level for 21-25 because power at those levels come from Destinies. If there must be penalties, 20 + active Destiny level would be more appropriate than simple character level.

This was one of the original ideas by the devs. It certainly solves the XP penalty when fleshing out twists. Unfortunately it doesn't address the difficulty in creating groups at Epic levels.
The vast majority of Epic content is lvl21-2. If your toon is lvl 25 (20heroic + 5 epic/destiny) then the whole group will take a penalty unless you gimp yourself by switching to a lower lvled destiny. This would be an odd mechanic.

There are a whole bunch of old and new epics that are worth running at normal or hard but you just cant run them in a group due to the lvling mechanics.

[PopeJual]

Level 25 is worthless for a lot of builds, but it's needed by a lot of casters for hitting Spell Pen requirements in Epic Elite content. Of course, Epic Elite content is **** XP/minute, and I'll be avoiding it entirely while leveling up destinies. And so I'll be staying at 23.

That said, if you're taken 25 and are feeling upset about it (looking at you OP), remember that you have a few options. A possibly nasty one is TR'ing. But you can also farm Challenges for XP. Some of the Challenges are fantastic XP/minute, and the XP doesn't degrade from repetition. You can easily put a group together for these Challenges with a level range from 20-25. This might, however, bore you to death. When you get bored to death, I'd suggest TR'ing and holding 23 next time.

Faent is incorrect.

Epic levels do not add to your caster levels. Taking level 25 will not add anything to any of your spells. It will not add spell penetration. It will not add caster levels to your offensive spells. It will not add duration to your buffs or debuffs. It will not add to your DCs.

The only thing that will improve with your epic levels are the +1 stat on level 24 and whatever bonuses you get with your level 21 and level 24 feats.

ALL spellcasting improvement aside from the two feats and the +1 to your casting stat come from your Epic Destinies. ALL of it.

[EllisDee37]

The only real effect for choosing level 25 in a challenge suitable for a level 25 character (even if that character is just character level 21 with capped destinies) is you get better drops from chests (along with some minor increases in difficulty). Of course, everyone hates better chest drops... :rolleyes:.Not true. Running a challenge above your level gives you bonus xp and parts. You cannot get any of these bonuses if you are level 25, so even with challenges there is strong incentive not to level to 25. As far as challenges are concerned, the incentive is to stay as low level as you possibly can.

21 is a good level to take and stay at for a while. 22 is worth taking if you have ML22 stuff you want to use. 23 is a good level to take when you're completely done with TR and want to start capping destinies. I see no reason to take 24 and 25 pretty much ever. If your build desperately needs that last feat and levelup, that's a problem with planning.

[Ertay]

Sadly, taking levels beyond 23 is a noob trap now. And a quite hideous one at that, because it is so very contraintuitive. I'd go even further andsay epic XP penalties as a whole need serious look at.

The mechanism we have now requires you to grind every quest 2x and do challenges in order to not increase, all the while not increasing your level beyond 23. This is a very artificial way of progression, if you don't read the forums or get advice elsewhere you can end up screwed with no way to go back.

At this point, I'm not too keen on getting this "fixed" without knowing what the fix will look like though. I fear they just might remove the repitition lock so we'll have to either tr or grind challenges from then on...

[ethyr]

i took level 24, and shortly after 25, within the first week of lauch, since then i've found very few 25 LFMs, alot of lfms, like shroud and other raids seem to not want 25's at all.

with my other characters stuck at slow levels or waiting on friends to catch up, i tend to log in for 5 minutes then logout, once a week i ransack my epic chests =/

miss being able to jump in a reavers or shroud while im waiting on other lfms to form, but theres nothing for 25's atm =/

[Stillwaters]

/tinfoil hat on

***NEW*** to DDO Store:

Negative LR heart -2

Now you can remove any chosen 2 levels from your gimped lvl 25 toon and start grinding destiny xp with everyone else @ lvl 23 again.
Only 2500 TP (50% off)

/tinfoil off

Seriously now...
lvl 25 isnt "Optimal" but is still useful and for raiding or gear grinding no one cares about xp anyway and still puts up 20-25 LFMs. But i do agree it is counter-intuitive to leave your toon capped at lvl 23 to keep gaining power faster.

[GreatOwl]

A weekly forum topic that I agree with. I'd like to see no power level penalties for any character 20+ and no over level penalty for any quest that is 20+. Basically let any epic player quest with any other epic player in any epic quest without having to worry about a penalty.

This.

Current situation is a trap for anyone who's not paying attention or planning much, which in a game is most people.

[Antiguo]

Level 25 is worthless for a lot of builds, but it's needed by a lot of casters for hitting Spell Pen requirements in Epic Elite content.

Character level doesnt add caster level, only some epic destinies do that.

[My2Cents]

I'm all for this, I agree, get rid of the penalties for 20+.

Right now I'm hesitant to even take 21 until I do more of the older quests, then if I need an item that requires 21 or 22 I'll do it after I'm done building some destinies.

(I also think XP repeaat penalties should decay or ransack/regen or something.)

[Atremus]

Level 23 is all you need under the current system. Epic norm/hard is much better XP/min when grinding destinies. At least that has been my experience so far

[djl]

This system particularly sucks for barbarians, who would benefit greatly from that extra feat because they are so feat starved.

[Miow]

/signed for sure.

[rimble]

Yeah, I am planning to stay level 23 on my characters atleast for now in order to not take and cause high penalties.

Yup, another peculiarity about the new systems I don't like.

Main one I don't like is having to traverse all the ED's, including ones you REALLY don't care about, to gain additional Fate Points.

Second one is this, that you need to stop at level 23.

Another trap is not carefully capping your xp (and staying at 23) such that you avoid repeat penalties while you're grinding through EDs. Try not to do any Epic quests more than twice until you're xp capped and repeat penalties are stopped.

[Dilbon]

Not true. Running a challenge above your level gives you bonus xp and parts. You cannot get any of these bonuses if you are level 25, so even with challenges there is strong incentive not to level to 25. As far as challenges are concerned, the incentive is to stay as low level as you possibly can.

How about doing level 26-30 challenges then?

[psteen1]

Originally the plan was for the character level to equal 20+epic destiny level. Either MadFloyd or Tolero or one of the main dev's was working on this.

Forumites, including myself, who had not yet even played the new content yet protested this as too confusing. Hence, the dev's just did what we wanted and made our levels equal 20+epic levels.

Now that we realized we all screwed it up, I think we need to say "We are sorry" and "MadFloyd, you knew better than we did and you had it right from the beginning. Please go back to your original plan for determining character level."

MadFloyd, I am sorry. Please go back to the original plan and make our effective level equal 20+current epic destiny level.

[voodoogroves]

I've got one character I'll go to 24 on, 'cause I want the extra feat.

Others are stopping and farming EDs.

[EllisDee37]

How about doing level 26-30 challenges then?Those can only be found in Eveningstar, of which I see zero redeeming value. House C challenges are the only ones worth grinding. (3k xp per minute while also getting 1 epic token every 10 minutes. Plus actual loot worth making.)

[danotmano1998]

The really BAD part about having destinies progress your character level is that they AUTOLEVEL.

This was the part that hosed people on BETA.

Jump in a quest at one level with a party, come out as another. Kill someones Bravery Bonus completely by accident.

If they were to make the destiny level up ONLY at a fatespinner, I'd happily change my previous opinion.


Now that we realized we all screwed it up, I think we need to say "We are sorry" and "MadFloyd, you knew better than we did and you had it right from the beginning. Please go back to your original plan for determining character level."

QFT - Ditto!

[Noctus]

The Power is in the Epic Destinies.

Epic levels are weak, contribute neglectable things to your characters.

Taking level 25 before having maxed out all Destinies is ... dumb. Even taking Level 24 is debatable and some builds will be clearly better served with also not even taking 24th level.

This is because of the XP-hits you take while getting the XP for your destinies are in no way worth it for the miniscule value of an epic level.



This here is Mr. Epic Levels:

http://c.cslacker.com/2100l.jpg



And this here is Mr. Epic Destinies:

https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS9EcKzTyW3ybZRV3XQwpIkmOtMJUfgF 24QzaRX46vMtHg2p-N6

[Moonsickle]

Level 24 doesn't seem to be as much as a problem...


most epic hard is lvl 22 so you could get away with no penalty on xp for levels on alot of it, the repeat penalty is a killer. [if they're not going to drop the repeat penalty then lower it to -5% instead of -10% each time]
especially if you are more towards the casual/guildless gamer type.


Level 25 doesn't seem to make sense to take at this point... unless you plan to play Epic Elite or Challenges mostly.

as for old raids if you're lvl 23+, you're as welcome as a leper to most groups... lvl 22 can be a problem at times.



Seems like not very much was thought out...


This is definitely one of those "they learn as you learn situations"... it's not like they built the expansion and actually played it themselves to see the actual features work before releasing it to Beta.
They built it, threw it out as a Beta in which very few people tested for too short of a time while ignoring most bugs that were reported, and then just released it Live on the date they said they would release it.


There was [and still seems to be] very little external support for new features... the day MotU released the game manual you could download was the pre-expansion one... and probably still is




then again I'm not sure they anticipated that 3 weeks into the expansion that there would be maxed Level 25/ maxed ED characters.

I'm at lvl 22 [ with 23 banked ] and I've seen a few people who leveled a Druid to 20 for Completionist, did a TR and now are lvl 25 again in that same time... which is awesome if you can do that [obviously I am not awesome].

but for those people... none of this is an issue.



.

[nibel]

I'm fairly certain a "group" can consist of two or more players, and not necessarily the maximum a quest allows. Several of the new quests (and probably old) are level 24 on epic hard, which allows for a significant degree of scaling. Even level 23 on hard wouldn't be a drastic loss of xp (-10% I believe).

You forgot the part that if a level 21 groups with a level 25, he will take -50% XP from powerleveling, and a level 20 character will take 0 XP. That is the main issue with level 25 in pugs. You know, just like before U14 was an issue for level 16 playing Shroud.


The single greatest flaw of the epic level design Turbine made was disassociating epic destiny level with epic character level.

I remember on closed Beta (not Lamma) someone showing up with this problem, and the devs said something along the lines "High tier ED enhancements will require higher epic levels to work". Like, "If you want your Dreadnough Haste Boost, you need to be level 22, and if you want your Shiradi Tea with the Queen, you need to be 25". That would be fine AND incentive everyone to take level 25.

As is? If you level up to 25, your only chances at decent XP are demonweb quests on hard, and challenges. Epic Elite is too hard to be worth as a XP quest.

[Moonsickle]

The really BAD part about having destinies progress your character level is that they AUTOLEVEL.

This was the part that hosed people on BETA.

Jump in a quest at one level with a party, come out as another. Kill someones Bravery Bonus completely by accident.

If they were to make the destiny level up ONLY at a fatespinner, I'd happily change my previous opinion.

QFT - Ditto!



Epic Destiny levels don't affect xp quest?



You have to level your Epic Levels at a Fatespinner... ED does not automatically level your Epic Levels?



.

[psteen1]

The really BAD part about having destinies progress your character level is that they AUTOLEVEL.

This was the part that hosed people on BETA.

Jump in a quest at one level with a party, come out as another. Kill someones Bravery Bonus completely by accident.

If they were to make the destiny level up ONLY at a fatespinner, I'd happily change my previous opinion.



Yeah, I like this. Don't allow autoleveling of epic destinies, and then make our character level equal to 20+active destiny level. Then I can go back to running lower level raids simply by selecting an unused destiny... and this would help on the fate point grind as well.

[darksol23]

I have no plans to take any of my 23's to 25 until either:

1) Turbine provides us a incentive too... (e.g. ML25 worthwhile loot or capstone, and no I won't play the ML24 random challenge loot lottery)
2) I want to TR the character
3) The character has maxed out all destinies and solo runs raids

[Faent]

Well yes, IF epic levels affected your caster level. Epic destinies, NOT epic levels, increase caster level & spell penetration.

I stand corrected. Sometimes even I make a drunken error. =)

[danotmano1998]

Epic Destiny levels don't affect xp quest?
You have to level your Epic Levels at a Fatespinner... ED does not automatically level your Epic Levels?
.

Not as it is now, no.
Epic character level plus heroic character level.
Destiny level means nothing in terms of xp gain, which is actually the way Turbine wanted to do it in the first place.

But that broke groups entirely. People were autoleveling in the middle of a quest and hosing xp, plus you weren't able to hold xp over.

It was just "Bam". You're level 24! You just killed the xp in the group by 20% and can't do a thing about it other than recall, reform, and boot the poor person who leveled. Have a nice day!

[arkonas]

oh i love this already. update 15 is near coming out and your all complaining ALL ready. dont blame others because you leveled to 25 so quickly. some people are taking their sweet time and enjoying it. Its not our fault you already capped or what not.


You have to understand that there was only going to be so many quests you could run before you capped and kept seeing the same stuff. you knew it wouldnt take long to hit 25. Seriously i just wished people would stop whining so badly.

Turbine can only release so much content at a time or do big updates as well. Point being if you reach the max quickly dont complain to others that you have nothing else to do. Some of us are still enjoying it and not cap yet.

[Moonsickle]

Originally the plan was for the character level to equal 20+epic destiny level. Either MadFloyd or Tolero or one of the main dev's was working on this.

Forumites, including myself, who had not yet even played the new content yet protested this as too confusing. Hence, the dev's just did what we wanted and made our levels equal 20+epic levels.

Now that we realized we all screwed it up, I think we need to say "We are sorry" and "MadFloyd, you knew better than we did and you had it right from the beginning. Please go back to your original plan for determining character level."

MadFloyd, I am sorry. Please go back to the original plan and make our effective level equal 20+current epic destiny level.




You really think they listened to the forums and that changed their minds and/or agenda???


really?




They've stated before that the forums are only one tool in determining factors in DDO, that's right they called each one of us... a tool!


and that the forums were a very small factor in deciding to make changes to the game at that...


bad enough to be called a tool... but a very small tool to boot!



Only times when changes are made based on the forums seem to be... when a quest become seriously broken they may shut it down [even then I think it's only to assess if it's exploitable or not if they respond to it] or something seems like an exploit.


If they really listened to the forums then explain this...

Why with hundreds if not thousands of posts about bugs in the Beta that were reported... why are those same bugs still in the Live game [ in some cases with more bugs added even]???




I think they really tried to bring a better gaming experience to us all and I as I'm sure others may appreciate that...
but it's the execution [pardon the pun] of this expansion that has failed miserably.





As for the 20+Destiny scenario:

I'm sure having your character level switching all the time as you switch Destinies wouldn't be too confusing?

and I'm sure the Bravery Bonus crowd would have loved having invited a level 21 Dreadnaught into their lvl 20-21 group on Level 21 quest only to have that person realize they needed their Shadowdancer skills for the quest and in haste to get to the quest in progress... switch to Shadowdancer at lvl 24 and jump into the quest to kill their xp & wipe their 100+ BB streaks on a... Oops my bad! moment




.

[danotmano1998]

dont blame others because you leveled to 25 so quickly. some people are taking their sweet time and enjoying it...

I think you may be missing the point of this thread.

It's more of a discussion of how taking levels 24 and 25 reduce your options and limit your XP while gaining you only a marginal fraction of power, and how this effects gameplay.

However, NONE of this would be a problem if Turbine had stuck to their original statements which was very clearly written as:

"levels 20-25 won't have ANY xp penalties when grouping."

Which, obviously, they didn't.

[Moonsickle]

Not as it is now, no.
Epic character level plus heroic character level.
Destiny level means nothing in terms of xp gain, which is actually the way Turbine wanted to do it in the first place.

But that broke groups entirely. People were autoleveling in the middle of a quest and hosing xp, plus you weren't able to hold xp over.

It was just "Bam". You're level 24! You just killed the xp in the group by 20% and can't do a thing about it other than recall, reform, and boot the poor person who leveled. Have a nice day!




I take you were speaking about the Beta in the previous post... I apologize if I misunderstood



but I agree 20+Destiny with autolevel... would have really sucked...



even better would be have an optional xp kick in while fighting the end fight to autolevel you out of that 20% xp...

but then again I always enjoy running a quest to end only to have it glitch and receive no xp anyway

l
l
l
l
V

[gphysalis]

[url=http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=378093]Myself, I'll stay level 23 (XP capped) until they add level 24 Normal quests in the game.

The raid is lvl 24, right? because that was in the game, briefly.

I entirely agree with this thread that taking the last two epic levels is a trap, and that this is a terrible game mechanic.

[Natashaelle]

Level 25 is worthless. Do not ever take level 25, unless the system changes.

So .... WHY exactly is it that we don't have epic multiclassing with the standard character classes again ?

So that "level 25" is considered as "worthless" ? Or did I miss an episode ?

[psteen1]

You really think they listened to the forums and that changed their minds and/or agenda???

Don't believe me, eh, Mr. Conspiracy Theory?

Look at the original thread where MadFloyd discussed this issue: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=377208&page=1

Originally the character level for xp purposes was to be 20+current destiny level.

Everyone complained.

MadFloyd then said, "Ok, fine. Well it is easy to program it the way you people want anyway."

We should have kept to his original plan--- provided that destiny levels are not autogranted. I hate it that my level 24 can't run the level 21 quests anymore without an xp penalty... while I try to level up my epic destinies that I suck in.

[danotmano1998]

So .... WHY exactly is it that we don't have epic multiclassing with the standard character classes again ?

So that "level 25" is considered as "worthless" ? Or did I miss an episode ?

Because Turbine decided they needed more money.

They took epic levels and split them in half.
The powerful half is pay. (Action Points !!)
The weak half is free. (Levels, which give a marginal increase in power only.)

Had they made them actual class levels, they probably wouldn't have been able to separate them and charge the $$.
(That's probably NOT the only reason. I'm sure there were many others we aren't aware of.)




Look at the original thread where MadFloyd discussed this issue: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=377208&page=1


Thanks for that. I was trying to figure out how to get back into those hidden forums again to show the quotes. +1.

EDIT: I just remembered one other HUGE point as to why Heroic level plus Destiny level was a bad idea.
For those that don't have the destinies purchased, they are perma-stuck at level 20.

[gphysalis]

I almost forgot about gear.
Taking levels 24 and 25 would allow you to use ML 24-25 gear

But... Its still a trap

Even the raid gear is ML 23

[Moonsickle]

Don't believe me, eh, Mr. Conspiracy Theory?

Look at the original thread where MadFloyd discussed this issue: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=377208&page=1

Originally the character level for xp purposes was to be 20+current destiny level.

Everyone complained.

MadFloyd then said, "Ok, fine. Well it is easy to program it the way you people want anyway."

We should have kept to his original plan--- provided that destiny levels are not autogranted. I hate it that my level 24 can't run the level 21 quests anymore without an xp penalty... while I try to level up my epic destinies that I suck in.


MadFloyd stated

"I want to clear up something about how XP penalties work for epic levels.

For the purposes of determining whether there will be an XP penalty, we calculate a player's level this way:

# Heroic Levels + # Active Destiny Levels

(or 20 + active destiny level)

We do this to provide flexibility. This means someone that has, say, a level 4 destiny and TR's, once he hits level 20, if he makes that destiny active, he's considered level 24.

Conversely a level 25 player can switch to a new destiny and be considered level 20 for the purposes of XP penalties.

We welcome feedback on this, especially the constructive kind.


EDIT: Based on feedback, this change will be reverted. Thanks for the feedback!"




That was for xp Penalties which should have been removed... but since that post was edited unless you have the original post MadFloyd made.. who knows what the OP may have said.

MY EDIT: [ but there would have actually STILL been xp penalties if he put in his system of 20+destiny in from what he stated. ]


Did you read why 20+destiny was a bad idea?

people offered their reasons & opinions are NOT complaints when asked to give them!!!



you said "We should have kept to his original plan--- provided that destiny levels are not autogranted."

well did his original plan included destiny levels not being autogranted?

because if not... even more reason not to go with 20+destiny




and where did he say "Ok, fine. Well it is easy to program it the way you people want anyway."

but MadFloyd did say this:

"The simpler method is heroic level + epic level with the same XP penalties as on live servers today.

We save a lot of work by reverting the change. The intent was to provide more flexibility for players, example you're level 25 and now you start a new destiny. You're less powerful and would prefer to play lower level content; you can do so without penalties.

It was also the reason you can switch destinies as many times as you like.

That said, there are some complexities with this scheme - appropriate feedback everyone is one of them - and it's a big one. The other complexity is that some people (as pointed out here) may not have epic destinies (a scenario we sadly have to support). There are a couple other complexities that I won't get into, but suffice to say reverting this is much easier and unless all of you were going to really appreciate the new scheme (which you don't), it's simply not worth it.

And of course, there is a lot of value in 'KISS'."

This is always scary to see in any Dev post:
"There are a couple other complexities that I won't get into"


but what was missed is at level 22 I can play a lvl 1 Dreadnaught, lvl 4 Shadowdancer or lvl 0 anything else...

under 20+Destiny:

lvl 21 Dreadnaught - a little underpowered
lvl 24 Shadowdancer - an out of work Rogue as lvl 24-25 can be a pox unless you're in a high level guild or able to run with some of them... which is not an option for myself.
lvl 22 anything else - and underpowered
and if I want gain xp in a Destiny I have to raise it and effectively raise my overall character level in doing so.



with the current system I'm lvl 22 and can play what I want for a Destiny & level them up freely plus control what character level I am...


which is more flexible?





I've always banked 2 levels of xp and leveled only when I had to[ rare occasion for feat/gear ] on every character I've used... and people asked "Why would you do that?"
for me it always kept more quests below me in xp range with lesser penalty, as I tend to run solo alot.

well here's where that habit finally paid off... I didn't level too soon before realizing that it may come back to haunt me... as I'm 350k from 2.1M epic xp, might go to 23 then stop but work on leveling up a few Destinies to lvl 3 for now.

[danotmano1998]

There are good and bad options to both systems.

The best way to do it, IMO, is to:


1. Leave character level as it is. Heroic level + Epic level.

This will ensure even treatment of both people with destinies and without them.
No segregation. Your level is your level. Plus, this is the simpler, easier to understand format. Everyone can be level 25, instead of non-destinied folk being perma-stuck at 20.

2. Remove the XP penalty completely for levels 20-25.

This will once again even out the playing field, promote grouping, and open up a lot more options for enjoyable game play. Plus, now you have a reason TO TAKE the levels, not a reason NOT TO.

Can anyone think of a reason why this wouldn't work or come up with a better solution?

[psteen1]

MadFloyd stated etc etc...



Dude I am pretty sure we agree with each other so I don't know why you are arguing points that we agree on.

[samthedagger]

I think the best solution to this is to simply increase the base level of most epic quests by one. No change to xp, scaling or otherwise, kind of like they did with taming the flames a couple years back. Of course this is probably only a short-term problem. With any luck they will be adding more epic content in U15 that will not penalize for level 25 on elite difficulty.

In the short-term, either make your own LFMs for level 22-25 or just try to focus on epic elite and raids. Honestly there is little reason to take level 25 anyway. 10 up and +1 to saves and skills is not a big deal.

[MadFloyd]

Couple things:

1) There is (already on live) no power leveling penalty for anyone 20 and over.

2) For patch 2, we are reducing XP penalties as follows:

a) If the quest CR is level 21+ the spread between max player level and quest CR is reduced by 2 (for XP purposes only).
b) If the quest CR is level 20 the spread between max player level and quest CR is reduced by 1 (for XP purposes only).

This will not affect challenges.

Perhaps not perfect, but should help.

[Krell]

Couple things:

1) There is (already on live) no power leveling penalty for anyone 20 and over.

2) For patch 2, we are reducing XP penalties as follows:

a) If the quest CR is level 21+ the spread between max player level and quest CR is reduced by 2 (for XP purposes only).
b) If the quest CR is level 20 the spread between max player level and quest CR is reduced by 1 (for XP purposes only).

This will not affect challenges.

Perhaps not perfect, but should help.

Good news. Thanks for listening.

[Alundaar]

its a good step in the direction that will allow people of varing progress thru epic levels to work together without forcing anyone to limit themselfs or take a large xp loss. this way i can gain xp while grinding thru shroud/tod completions altho at a -75% for shroud hard and -50% for tod norm some is better than none.

thank you MFloyd

[danotmano1998]

Couple things:

1) There is (already on live) no power leveling penalty for anyone 20 and over.

2) For patch 2, we are reducing XP penalties as follows:

a) If the quest CR is level 21+ the spread between max player level and quest CR is reduced by 2 (for XP purposes only).
b) If the quest CR is level 20 the spread between max player level and quest CR is reduced by 1 (for XP purposes only).

This will not affect challenges.

Perhaps not perfect, but should help.

1. ?? :confused: I'm going to have to recheck this. Last I saw there was a -xp penalty when a lvl 25 joined the pug of level 21's and 22's.

2. I'm sorry.. could you elaborate? What does the "spread between max player level and quest CR" mean? Example?
EDIT.. SO if a max player level is 25, and the quest CR is 21.. The quest is recalculated at 23?

[nivarch]

Couple things:

1) There is (already on live) no power leveling penalty for anyone 20 and over.


Good to know. Wasn't aware of this (I should since my level 21 sorc was in party with level 25 but didn't pay much attention)


Couple things:
2) For patch 2, we are reducing XP penalties as follows:

a) If the quest CR is level 21+ the spread between max player level and quest CR is reduced by 2 (for XP purposes only).
b) If the quest CR is level 20 the spread between max player level and quest CR is reduced by 1 (for XP purposes only).

Perhaps not perfect, but should help.

So if understand correctly:
- in a level 20 quest on normal, if everyone is below 22, we will get full XP ; if someone is 23 we'll get a 10% malus?
- in a level 21 quest on normal, if everyone is below 24, we will get full XP ; if someone is 25 we'll get a 10% malus?
- what will happen on a level 20 quest on hard? Does it become a 21 quest? Same for a 19 quest on elite?

Anyway that seems like a nice change.
However my question is why make it so complicated?? You are basically removing experience penalty for quests over 21, but it will be very hard for everyone to be aware of this change, and to understand it.

I imagine the player reaction: so quest is 20, usually I could go in with a 21 without malus, but since it's 20+ it's 2 more level, so I can go with someone 2 levels higher, oh wait no 1 level because rule is different for level 20 quests... so I can open it up to level 22! Oh wait I want to run it on hard, is it a level 21 quest now so I can open it up to level 24 or is it to level 23?!!!

Why not simply say, level 20+ quests have no xp penalty for anyone in the level 20-25 bracket? It's been suggested already on the beta forum when you asked our feedback on using destinies as the new lvl20+ character level calculation, and this seems like a straightforward and efficient system.

Also are you going to do the same for challenges? CR 23 vs CR 25 makes a HUGE difference for cannith challenges.


EDIT: Don't want to look like I don't like the change, it is a great lovely change. And thanks for making it!

[aurum1]

Couple things:

1) There is (already on live) no power leveling penalty for anyone 20 and over.

2) For patch 2, we are reducing XP penalties as follows:

a) If the quest CR is level 21+ the spread between max player level and quest CR is reduced by 2 (for XP purposes only).
b) If the quest CR is level 20 the spread between max player level and quest CR is reduced by 1 (for XP purposes only).

This will not affect challenges.

Perhaps not perfect, but should help.

Does 'for xp purposes' include bravery bonus?

[SirValentine]

mistype

[MadFloyd]

mistype

No, you're quoting my post before I realized it was wrong and edited it. :o

[Scraap]

Couple things:

1) There is (already on live) no power leveling penalty for anyone 20 and over.

2) For patch 2, we are reducing XP penalties as follows:

a) If the quest CR is level 21+ the spread between max player level and quest CR is reduced by 2 (for XP purposes only).
b) If the quest CR is level 20 the spread between max player level and quest CR is reduced by 1 (for XP purposes only).

This will not affect challenges.

Perhaps not perfect, but should help.

Baseline, or + difficulty?

[MadFloyd]

Baseline, or + difficulty?

+difficulty

[MadFloyd]

Does 'for xp purposes' include bravery bonus?

Unfortunately not - at least not for patch 2. :(

Thanks for asking that, it's important to distinguish. It was all we could do to squeeze this in. We'll look at it again for Update 15 (August).

[djl]

Unfortunately not - at least not for patch 2. :(

Thanks for asking that, it's important to distinguish. It was all we could do to squeeze this in. We'll look at it again for Update 15 (August).

Would it be possible to also change/remove the "repetition penalties" for epic level quests, as well? With the way it's currently designed, after capping four or five destinies you have almost used up every bit of exp available and have to resort to doing challenges over and over or else TR to reset your counters. Many people don't find challenges interesting enough to grind for millions of experience, and on third life+ characters it's a headache to go through 4m more heroic exp just to get back to where you can enjoyably quest at the epic level.

[Ertay]

Would it be possible to also change/remove the "repetition penalties" for epic level quests, as well? With the way it's currently designed, after capping four or five destinies you have almost used up every bit of exp available and have to resort to doing challenges over and over or else TR to reset your counters. Many people don't find challenges interesting enough to grind for millions of experience, and on third life+ characters it's a headache to go through 4m more heroic exp just to get back to where you can enjoyably quest at the epic level.

In fact, the most problematic part of this is that this system actively penalizes you for running a quest you like multiple times. You have to purposefully hold back on the quests that suit your playstyle/that you find effective in grinding out xp, until you hit 25 in order to get the most out of it.

Under the current system, I'd say the best way I see would be waiving the repetition penalties as well once you reach 25. It won't change anything for the people who know about it already, and will protect the less knowledgeable players from cheating themselves out of their xp in the end.

[maddmatt70]

Couple things:

1) There is (already on live) no power leveling penalty for anyone 20 and over.

2) For patch 2, we are reducing XP penalties as follows:

a) If the quest CR is level 21+ the spread between max player level and quest CR is reduced by 2 (for XP purposes only).
b) If the quest CR is level 20 the spread between max player level and quest CR is reduced by 1 (for XP purposes only).

This will not affect challenges.

Perhaps not perfect, but should help.

This is a nice change but I will still leave my characters at 23 for the most part because I do not want to take the xp penalty for running level 22 or 23 quests at level 25. You devs will have to do better then this.

[nivarch]

Would it be possible to also change/remove the "repetition penalties" for epic level quests, as well? With the way it's currently designed, after capping four or five destinies you have almost used up every bit of exp available and have to resort to doing challenges over and over or else TR to reset your counters. Many people don't find challenges interesting enough to grind for millions of experience, and on third life+ characters it's a headache to go through 4m more heroic exp just to get back to where you can enjoyably quest at the epic level.

Agreed.

The current best way to level up is to run good quests once, then grind challenges until you are capped, then farm the best quests without repetition penalty.

[Carpone]

Would it be possible to also change/remove the "repetition penalties" for epic level quests, as well? With the way it's currently designed, after capping four or five destinies you have almost used up every bit of exp available and have to resort to doing challenges over and over or else TR to reset your counters. Many people don't find challenges interesting enough to grind for millions of experience, and on third life+ characters it's a headache to go through 4m more heroic exp just to get back to where you can enjoyably quest at the epic level.
I'd really like to hear more from developers about this specific issue. Several of my characters have completed most MOTU quests multiple times while leveling, so even at cap they are receiving a repetition penalty (even though repetitions no longer increment at level cap). Older epic quests are too low level to farm for XP due to being base level 20-22.

[chickenmaniac]

Thanks for your responses all. Glad it didn't end up a doom thread. Probably why we got a positive response so quickly. ;)

I imagine the main reason for creating an algorithm for the xp penalty rather than a blanket (21+ = 20 for xp purposes) is to leave room for quests CR 25+ in the future.

[nibel]

2) For patch 2, we are reducing XP penalties as follows:

a) If the quest CR is level 21+ the spread between max player level and quest CR is reduced by 2 (for XP purposes only).
b) If the quest CR is level 20 the spread between max player level and quest CR is reduced by 1 (for XP purposes only).

Just to be very, very clear in this matter: It counts the base quest level, or the modified quest level (hard +1, elite +2)?

Considering it is only the base quest level, this mean:

Monastery of Scorpion normal (Level 17): Allow a group of level 15-18 without any XP penalty
Monastery of Scorpion hard (Level 17+1): Allow a group of level 16-19 without any XP penalty
Monastery of Scorpion elite (Level 17+2): Allow a group of level 17-20 without any XP penalty, but the level 20 will not allow group to achieve bravery bonus

Tower of Despair normal (Level 20): Allow a group of level 17-22 without any XP penalty (The level 17 will not be powerleveled, the level 22 will not impact the quest XP)
Tower of Despair hard (Level 20+1): Allow a group of level 17-23 without any XP penalty (The level 17 will not be powerleveled, the level 23 will not impact the quest XP)
Tower of Despair elite (Level 20+2): Allow a group of level 17-24 without any XP penalty (The level 17 will not be powerleveled, the level 24 will not impact the quest XP)

Impossible Demands normal (Level 21): Allow a group of level 20-24 (since you need to be at least 20 to enter the King's Forest) without any XP penalty (The level 20 will not be powerleveled, the level 24 will not impact the quest XP)
Impossible Demands hard (Level 21+1): Allow a group of level 20-25 without any XP penalty (The level 20 will not be powerleveled, the level 25 will not impact the quest XP)
Impossible Demands elite (Level 21+2): Allow a group of level 20-25 without any XP penalty (The level 20 will not be powerleveled, the level 25 will not impact the quest XP)

Did I got the numbers right?

[Vormaerin]

This is a nice change but I will still leave my characters at 23 for the most part because I do not want to take the xp penalty for running level 22 or 23 quests at level 25. You devs will have to do better then this.

What penalty? You mean the old epics? EE means lvl 22, so +1 the old way, +1 for this change. So I suppose you'll lose 10% of xp? Won't the repetition penalty outweigh that quite quickly?

For the MotU quests, you are looking at 22+2 (elite)+2 (new change) means you get full xp to 25?

Or am I misunderstanding something here?

[Vormaerin]

Just to be very, very clear in this matter: It counts the base quest level, or the modified quest level (hard +1, elite +2)?

Did I got the numbers right?

One of MadFloyd's answers said its after difficulty.

[sirgog]

Couple things:

1) There is (already on live) no power leveling penalty for anyone 20 and over.

2) For patch 2, we are reducing XP penalties as follows:

a) If the quest CR is level 21+ the spread between max player level and quest CR is reduced by 2 (for XP purposes only).
b) If the quest CR is level 20 the spread between max player level and quest CR is reduced by 1 (for XP purposes only).

This will not affect challenges.

Perhaps not perfect, but should help.

Problem solved except for old raids that remain of some interest to capped characters.

Can I suggest adding the 'no power level, reduced overlevel penalty' to all 17+ non-epic raids? Abbot, Shroud, TOD and maybe some of the others still have some interest to a significant number of 21+s, and some of them remain quite hard on higher difficulties. (Has there been a single elite Abbot completion since the xpack?)

This is particularly true of Shroud which still has clear best-in-slot items (+6 exceptional UMD/Intimidate items, +45hp items, +150 SP items, Displacement clickies, Concordant Opposition, and some other more niche effects). Level 18s do not want 23s let alone 25s in their groups for it yet you can't often find enough <21s to run it close to level now.

[SirValentine]

No, you're quoting my post before I realized it was wrong and edited it. :o

Wow, you were watching this thread pretty closely if you saw my response, then, after re-looking at your post, thought I had misunderstood and so deleted myself about 30 seconds later.

I actually liked what I thought I read, before I re-read it and realized it said something very different. :-)

[Vormaerin]

Level 18s do not want 23s let alone 25s in their groups for it yet you can't often find enough <21s to run it close to level now.

But do we really want to encourage folks to blow through the raid on their 25s? That seems rather the opposite of what would be good for the game.

[Vengeance777]

Any news on how players who leveled to 25 before last patch can get the Stat point that was bugged and they didn't receive at level 24?

[Auran82]

But do we really want to encourage folks to blow through the raid on their 25s? That seems rather the opposite of what would be good for the game.

I have run a couple of 17-20 shrouds since the expansion hit, but it is annoying having to segregate who can join your group between those that just want XP and those that just want completions.

[losian2]

I'd really like to hear more from developers about this specific issue. Several of my characters have completed most MOTU quests multiple times while leveling, so even at cap they are receiving a repetition penalty (even though repetitions no longer increment at level cap). Older epic quests are too low level to farm for XP due to being base level 20-22.

Yes, yes, yes, and yes please. The repetition hits hard and hits fast, especially with relatively few epic quests available. It gets worse when you solo, too, and didn't get the eHard/eElite extra bonuses and ran casual/normal. Please consider at least a decay of repetition penalties!

[danotmano1998]

Did I got the numbers right?

:confused: :confused:

Um.. I have no idea.


a) If the quest CR is level 21+ the spread between max player level and quest CR is reduced by 2 (for XP purposes only).
b) If the quest CR is level 20 the spread between max player level and quest CR is reduced by 1 (for XP purposes only).

EDIT: The vocabulary is what confused me. Instead of saying the spread between max player level and quest CR is reduced by 2, just say:
In a level 20 quest, you can have a level range of 3, in a level 21 quest+ you can have a level range of 4.

[dubyprime]

Thanks MF. This is awesome btw. Its not perfect, but it addresses major concern/play issues.

Nibel's numbers look right to me, however a lvl 17 will get powerleveled by a lvl 21. A lvl 21 will not get power leveled by a 25, but a lvl 20 will from my understanding.

I do find it silly that so much of the playerbase doesn't understand bravery/Xp penalties/Powerleveling penalty. It is pretty simple and straight forward. From my experience with pugs, it is the case that a large number of players don't understand. Many have picked up the rules by which we quest(ie. 2 levels over base for bravery), but don't understand what makes or breaks a streak.

[aurum1]

Unfortunately not - at least not for patch 2. :(

Thanks for asking that, it's important to distinguish. It was all we could do to squeeze this in. We'll look at it again for Update 15 (August).

Thanks for keeping it in mind. The bonus is pretty nice on 1st runs.

[Raist1280]

Any news on how players who leveled to 25 before last patch can get the Stat point that was bugged and they didn't receive at level 24?

I'm willing to bet the answer to that is going to be to LR.... not that it makes me terribly happy to have to go through a complete LR just to get my +1 (which is likely why I haven't bothered with it yet)

[danielhrobbins]

Any news on how players who leveled to 25 before last patch can get the Stat point that was bugged and they didn't receive at level 24?

This. Please. I've had several people tell me the devs have said that we will be getting a fix (another free LR, I assume) but I have yet actually see a dev say this ... and I've looked. So please, any dev, please say this. I really don't understand why we should be waiting on this as is, to be honest ... just give us another free LR, it isn't brain surgery.

BTW: I tried opening a ticket on this, but the client help request feature is bugged; so I tried to submit one online (in which I told them the online help wasn't working). The response I got? Try using the in game help request feature. Gee, thanks.

Between things like this, Shadowdancer being mostly broke, and the raid STILL being closed, my desire to play this game is dwindling every day.

[nibel]

Nibel's numbers look right to me, however a lvl 17 will get powerleveled by a lvl 21. A lvl 21 will not get power leveled by a 25, but a lvl 20 will from my understanding.

I hope not. The powerlevel issue is the harsher one. I can live with -10% from a level 20 in shroud hard. Bites me in the back a -50% on my #17s because a level 21 is there.

[maddmatt70]

What penalty? You mean the old epics? EE means lvl 22, so +1 the old way, +1 for this change. So I suppose you'll lose 10% of xp? Won't the repetition penalty outweigh that quite quickly?

For the MotU quests, you are looking at 22+2 (elite)+2 (new change) means you get full xp to 25?

Or am I misunderstanding something here?

The way I read this is if I am farming a level 22 quest on epic normal on a level 25 I take a 25% hit. If I am on a level 25 and running with a level 21 the level 21 takes no hit if we are running a level 25 quest, but if we are running a level 22 quest we both take a 25% hit. This means that instead of taking a 25% hit for minimal power game I should stay as a level 23 and farm the quests that way.

[Jasparion]

Problem solved except for old raids that remain of some interest to capped characters.

Can I suggest adding the 'no power level, reduced overlevel penalty' to all 17+ non-epic raids? Abbot, Shroud, TOD and maybe some of the others still have some interest to a significant number of 21+s, and some of them remain quite hard on higher difficulties. (Has there been a single elite Abbot completion since the xpack?)

This is particularly true of Shroud which still has clear best-in-slot items (+6 exceptional UMD/Intimidate items, +45hp items, +150 SP items, Displacement clickies, Concordant Opposition, and some other more niche effects). Level 18s do not want 23s let alone 25s in their groups for it yet you can't often find enough <21s to run it close to level now.

This would be fantastic. Or maybe even a flat -10% penalty for having anyone over level 21. There probably should be some sort of penalty, and the -10% XP is more than made up for by being able to complete far quicker and often a higher difficulty.

[noinfo]

The way I read this is if I am farming a level 22 quest on epic normal on a level 25 I take a 25% hit. If I am on a level 25 and running with a level 21 the level 21 takes no hit if we are running a level 25 quest, but if we are running a level 22 quest we both take a 25% hit. This means that instead of taking a 25% hit for minimal power game I should stay as a level 23 and farm the quests that way.

I would have thought it went like this:

Level 21 quest on hard is level 22

22 + 2 gives and effect of 24 for level of quest

you can do a quest 1 level above with no penalty so a level 25 could run this, only taking a penalty on a level 21 EN quest. (BB is different though)

[masterzzan]

/signed

[wax_on_wax_off]

So in U14.2 Amrath quests on elite will give a -10% xp penalty if there is a level 25 in the party but no penalty otherwise?

Similarly with DD quests on elite and Secrets of the Artificers. Excellent!

[Merrelll]

Any news on how players who leveled to 25 before last patch can get the Stat point that was bugged and they didn't receive at level 24?
I wonder also.

[Emili]

I would have thought it went like this:

Level 21 quest on hard is level 22

22 + 2 gives and effect of 24 for level of quest

you can do a quest 1 level above with no penalty so a level 25 could run this, only taking a penalty on a level 21 EN quest. (BB is different though)

That is correct.




Couple things:

1) There is (already on live) no power leveling penalty for anyone 20 and over.

2) For patch 2, we are reducing XP penalties as follows:

a) If the quest CR is level 21+ the spread between max player level and quest CR is reduced by 2 (for XP purposes only).
b) If the quest CR is level 20 the spread between max player level and quest CR is reduced by 1 (for XP purposes only).

This will not affect challenges.

Perhaps not perfect, but should help.
Baseline, or + difficulty?
+difficulty

... clarified here. BB was over-sight when this was brought to attention of the devs.

Something I find strange is that this situation was brought up in both Beta and Lamannia, although it was not pressed as hard by the community due to how easy in was to level/max destinies there - was hidden to most got buried - Yet, the powers to be knew the situation existed.

[Hordo]

Ok, I'm a bit slow of late, so I'd like to know if this is a fair summary/tldr version:

At 25 you can still nerf XP for a level 22 quest but at 24 you are no longer nerfing any epic xp, but your BB is still toast.

OR

At 25 you are not nerfing anyone's epic xp, but their BB still goes bye-bye.

If neither, feel free to make fun of me. ;)

[voodoogroves]

Mad it only partially has to do with power leveling. A level 23 character can run a level 21 on hard with no penalty. A 25 in the party gives you a bigger XP hit.

[DeafeningWhisper]

Ok, I'm a bit slow of late, so I'd like to know if this is a fair summary/tldr version:

At 25 you can still nerf XP for a level 22 quest but at 24 you are no longer nerfing any epic xp, but your BB is still toast.

OR

At 25 you are not nerfing anyone's epic xp, but their BB still goes bye-bye.

If neither, feel free to make fun of me. ;)


Both actually, if you take 25 you cripple exp by been too high level for most quests and make others in your party unable to have BB apply.

Long story short: unless you plan on doing nothing but loot runs and challenges lvl 24 and 25 (plenty of quests are lvl 21) will gimp your exp and greatly reduce your chances of getting into a pug.

While Turbine did remove the "power leveled" penalty from having a high level toon, the level of quests still cares for toon levels and punishes evryone for been too high, same with BB.

[Barazon]

Couple things:

1) There is (already on live) no power leveling penalty for anyone 20 and over.

2) For patch 2, we are reducing XP penalties as follows:

a) If the quest CR is level 21+ the spread between max player level and quest CR is reduced by 2 (for XP purposes only).
b) If the quest CR is level 20 the spread between max player level and quest CR is reduced by 1 (for XP purposes only).

This will not affect challenges.

Perhaps not perfect, but should help.

What about an option (c) for raids only below level 20, such as shroud? Currently a level 25 in shroud can reduce everyone's xp to 0.

[Moonsickle]

Dude I am pretty sure we agree with each other so I don't know why you are arguing points that we agree on.



Actually it was the fact that you were apologizing for me that I did something wrong...

when I didn't believe the System that MadFloyd was looking to put in was right.



If that system was in place... I've have lvl 25 Shadowdancer instead of a lvl 22 with Shadowdancer 5


there's a huge difference between the two right now with regards to xp & grouping




We voiced our opinions to why that system didn't seem right... and now voiced opinions again to have them consider changes this current problem.



Which looks like they were actually listening... so I stand corrected on that statement I made... but reserve my right to rescind that until the dust settles and see the final outcome of all this.




Nothing actually personal... except that I like to make my own apologies


.

[Moonsickle]

What about an option (c) for raids only below level 20, such as shroud? Currently a level 25 in shroud can reduce everyone's xp to 0.


Will option (c) apply on Chronoscope loot runs too? I mean even a level 15 can reduce everyone's xp to 0 also.



[sorry my sig wouldn't allow me to resist] ;)



unfortunately if powerleveling is such a problem... don't think there will be an option (c)


take 6 lvl 25 with 6 lvl 20 into Shroud do you think they're going to allow the lvl 20's to get xp?


.

[Kiel]

I honestly didnt even consider it and i just leveled to 24.Would using a LR to re-level my toon to 23 and stop be a temp workaround?

[GreatOwl]

I'm really glad the devs are taking a look at this and trying to fix the issue.

However, this new system:
1. is really complicated and counterintuitive, not sure how anyone not reading (closely) the forums will figure it out
2. doesn't really solve the current paradox that taking levels 24 and 25 will make your game experience worse (by making grouping harder)

[MadFloyd]

Unfortunately not - at least not for patch 2. :(

Thanks for asking that, it's important to distinguish. It was all we could do to squeeze this in. We'll look at it again for Update 15 (August).

UPDATE: The fix to bravery bonus has now made it into Patch 2. Bravery bonuses will now match over level XP penalty logic.

[Zess-wolf]

UPDATE: The fix to bravery bonus has now made it into Patch 2. Bravery bonuses will now match over level XP penalty logic.

Sorry for asking this, but whats the problem with bravery?

Thanks

Zess

[Scraap]

UPDATE: The fix to bravery bonus has now made it into Patch 2. Bravery bonuses will now match over level XP penalty logic.

Thanks for the buff, back to yelling about nerfs :p

[oweieie]

UPDATE: The fix to bravery bonus has now made it into Patch 2. Bravery bonuses will now match over level XP penalty logic.

Yeah, that is nice and all sweety, but level means nothing since all the power gain has been shoved into epic destinies, why are you continuing to apply level penalties to quests at all? A level 20 with a level 5 destiny is FAR more powerful than a level 25 without the pack and no destiny. Basing ANYTHING off levels past 20 is completely and totally nonsensical. Just stop it. Please. Stop these half-measures of getting rid of the 4 level difference and just accept that level past 20 means absolutely nothing and stop making people suffer for it.

[MadFloyd]

Sorry for asking this, but whats the problem with bravery?

Thanks

Zess

It gets people killed.

[Cyndrome]

It gets people killed.

I heard that about curiosity too.

[danotmano1998]

While Turbine did remove the "power leveled" penalty from having a high level toon, the level of quests still cares for toon levels and punishes evryone for been too high, same with BB.

AHA!

That is exactly what I was thinking.
So they only 1/2 fixed the problem..


Half thanks for half fixing it! ;)

[dTarkanan]

It gets people killed.
I thought that was the definition of a hero.

[djl]

UPDATE: The fix to bravery bonus has now made it into Patch 2. Bravery bonuses will now match over level XP penalty logic.

Thank you for the update, but you still have not addressed the increasingly-common questions about what you are going to do (if anything) about remedying the "repetition" problem. It's more pertinent than ever, now that challenge exp has drastically reduced.

[Alundaar]

I heard that about curiosity too.

curiosity was framed. ignorance was what killed the cat. ;)

[Vormaerin]

AHA!

That is exactly what I was thinking.
So they only 1/2 fixed the problem..


Half thanks for half fixing it! ;)

Well, since you only half read the Devs' reponses, I suppose that's reasonable.

What he said was "Powerleveling is already disabled, the issues with level difference and BB are fixed in the next patch."

[DeafeningWhisper]

I thought that was the definition of a hero.

Only if *other* people get killed.

[danotmano1998]

Well, since you only half read the Devs' reponses, I suppose that's reasonable.

What he said was "Powerleveling is already disabled, the issues with level difference and BB are fixed in the next patch."

If a lvl 21 quest is run by a group of lvl 21-25's, would you not still get a sizable xp hit? Or am I misunderstanding the implementation of the new mechanic?

[oweieie]

Thank you for the update, but you still have not addressed the increasingly-common questions about what you are going to do (if anything) about remedying the "repetition" problem. It's more pertinent than ever, now that challenge exp has drastically reduced.

Based on the poorly considered challenge XP nerf:

3 minutes for 20k XP from a quest > 5 minutes for 19-27k xp from a challenge. Solution is obvious, make quests like challenges: Remove repetition penalty and reduce quest XP by 66%. Managers and designers pat themselves on the back for a player base well screwed.

[DeafeningWhisper]

Based on the poorly considered challenge XP nerf:

3 minutes for 20k XP from a quest > 5 minutes for 19-27k xp from a challenge. Solution is obvious, make quests like challenges: Remove repetition penalty and reduce quest XP by 66%. Managers and designers pat themselves on the back for a player base well screwed.

Simple, once your reach lvl 25 reset and remove repetition penalties, while disabling BB and other exp boosts.

That way you can farm which ever quest you like to get your destinies.

[Vormaerin]

If a lvl 21 quest is run by a group of lvl 21-25's, would you not still get a sizable xp hit? Or am I misunderstanding the implementation of the new mechanic?

If you run a quest that is lvl 21 on Normal, you would have a small penalty with a lvl 25 of 10% for being overlevel. You can already be 1 lvl over without a problem and the Devs are adding an additional -2.

Anything that nets out to be 22+ is going to be full for 25s.

If the quest counts as lvl 20, there's a -1. So a 25 there would bring a pretty significant penalty for being 3 over. But there's really no reason for a lvl 25 to run Eberron epics on normal. Amrath elite is 21. So only a 10% penalty there.

Shroud you are screwed on, but really...shouldn't you be?

[danotmano1998]

If you run a quest that is lvl 21 on Normal, you would have a small penalty with a lvl 25 of 10% for being overlevel. You can already be 1 lvl over without a problem and the Devs are adding an additional -2.

Anything that nets out to be 22+ is going to be full for 25s.

I will believe that when I see it. If that is the case, it's a workable solution.
+1, thanks. The way it was written is not intuitive by any means.

[Eladiun]

It gets people killed.

Nice one. We'll make a full fledged troll of you, yet! :P

[dubyprime]

It gets people killed.

"You must spread around some Reputation before giving it to MadFloyd again."

[MrkGrismer]

Bravery|Recklessnes

[fyrst.grok]

You should have kept the idea with heroic level + destiny level.

I know a lot of people raged about it from a f2p point of view, but as it makes a lot more sense than holding level 24+ not to get xp penalties.

[~Quilny]

I just took lvls 24-25 and it feels as though I just gimped my 'game play'.
Sounds odd, but there are not too many players with lfms for lvl25s and I am now taking a considerable hit to xp on just about all epic quests.

I know there was a discussion in the beta about this and the original idea was that your lvl was actually heroic+destiny.
This was all changed pretty quickly to what we have on live and I am not really sure either way is the solution.

I remember reading about this a couple of times on the forums without much feedback from the devs.
It is a curly one, I admit, but as it stands, lvl 25 seems a little redundant. You gain a few hitpoints and a feat and lose a lot of XP and therefore acceptance in groups.

My proposal would be to make lvls 21-25 all count as 21. Simple as that.

Pros: You could actually take your Epic lvls and still farm out the destinies and group with other players without penalising them.
Cons: ... ... slight imbalance in challenge drop rates, struggling here...

I believe it does when expansion hit I TR'ed druid then Tr'ed to cleric which thank god gave me tiem to hear everyone talk about how gimped their xp was once they took 25 and how Impposible it was to find a group after level 23. You take 24 and it gets hard to find groups.

which is why I havent taken level 24 yet been holding 24/25 :D

[Vormaerin]

You should have kept the idea with heroic level + destiny level.

I know a lot of people raged about it from a f2p point of view, but as it makes a lot more sense than holding level 24+ not to get xp penalties.

That will go away next patch. Unless you are dead set on running the old epics on epic normal. Even then, the penalty will be a little less.

[Antiguo]

I heard that about curiosity too.

No, curiosity beats cats.

[fyrst.grok]

That will go away next patch. Unless you are dead set on running the old epics on epic normal. Even then, the penalty will be a little less.

I know, but that solution made more sense.. IMO at least :)

[Cade_Wells]

UPDATE: The fix to bravery bonus has now made it into Patch 2. Bravery bonuses will now match over level XP penalty logic.

Just checking did this get in to patch 2?

looks like it did according the release notes :)

[SirValentine]

2) For patch 2, we are reducing XP penalties as follows:
a) If the quest CR is level 21+ the spread between max player level and quest CR is reduced by 2 (for XP purposes only).
b) If the quest CR is level 20 the spread between max player level and quest CR is reduced by 1 (for XP purposes only).



UPDATE: The fix to bravery bonus has now made it into Patch 2. Bravery bonuses will now match over level XP penalty logic.


OK, either I'm misinterpreting this, or something isn't working right.

A quest that is BASE level 18, on ELITE, should be quest CR 20, right?

Normally, to get Bravery Bonus, maximum character level should be no more than 2 levels over the BASE quest level. If this change is active, and I understand it, then for a CR 20 that should be expanded by 1 level. So a base-level-18 quest, on Elite, should qualify for bravery with a level 21 character in the party, shouldn't it?

Just stepped in to an Elite base-18 quest with a level 21 character and the XP report said no Bravery Bonus for me.

[teh_meh]

OK, either I'm misinterpreting this, or something isn't working right.

A quest that is BASE level 18, on ELITE, should be quest CR 20, right?

Normally, to get Bravery Bonus, maximum character level should be no more than 2 levels over the BASE quest level. If this change is active, and I understand it, then for a CR 20 that should be expanded by 1 level. So a base-level-18 quest, on Elite, should qualify for bravery with a level 21 character in the party, shouldn't it?

Just stepped in to an Elite base-18 quest with a level 21 character and the XP report said no Bravery Bonus for me.

No. BB is ONLY awarded if you are no higher than 2 levels over the quest's base level ON NORMAL. says right in the BB description "on normal". You ran a level 18 within a level 21 char. You're 3 levels over so no BB.

[SirValentine]

No. BB is ONLY awarded if you are no higher than 2 levels over the quest's base level ON NORMAL. says right in the BB description "on normal". You ran a level 18 within a level 21 char. You're 3 levels over so no BB.

Did you look at the change MadFloyd put in for the logic for higher level characters? It's supposed to work for Bravery Bonus, too.

I know it works exactly how you said for lower level quests. But the change supposedly reduces the quest/character level difference by 1 for all CR 20 quests and 2 for CR 21+ quests.




Baseline, or + difficulty?

+difficulty

[teh_meh]

Did you look at the change MadFloyd put in for the logic for higher level characters? It's supposed to work for Bravery Bonus, too.

I know it works exactly how you said for lower level quests. But the change supposedly reduces the quest/character level difference by 1 for all CR 20 quests and 2 for CR 21+ quests.

I was aware that the over level penalties were changed from MotU launch default settings, because they were restricting group play for LVL 20+ quests. I was not aware of the specifics though as I was still in hard core TR mode when all that went down.

I suspect your attempt didn't meet the criteria of whatever change they implemented because it wouldn't have applied to heroic level quests. A level 18 heroic on elite does not make it an epic level quest (i.e.You're still going in under the 'heroic' tag on the quest launch panel pop-up, right?)

That would be my best guess at it.

[skullzz]

1) this thread as been necroed

2) level 24 and 25 count as 2 levels lower than the actually are in all epic / Lvl 20 on normal quests (eveningstar most). That means if the quest is lvl 22 on normal on hard 23 a lvl 25 character will get a bravery bonus.
this has opened epic groups up more if people remember that little tidbit.

3) if the quest is heroic lvl 24 & 25 count as 1 lvl lower.

[SirValentine]

1) this thread as been necroed


Deliberately. I was trying to get clarification on what MadFloyd posted IN THIS THREAD, just 2 months ago.



2) level 24 and 25 count as 2 levels lower than the actually are in all epic / Lvl 20 on normal quests (eveningstar most). That means if the quest is lvl 22 on normal on hard 23 a lvl 25 character will get a bravery bonus.
this has opened epic groups up more if people remember that little tidbit.

3) if the quest is heroic lvl 24 & 25 count as 1 lvl lower.


That certainly doesn't match the way MadFloyd explained it, but then, as I said, behavior in-game doesn't match what MadFloyd said, either. Have you tested and confirmed what you said?