View Full Version : Cheap, easy and massive game expansion ideas!
FURYous
10-01-2013, 01:00 PM
Idea 1:
Take all the quests/raids in the game that have the lowest attendance, add 10% XP. Rinse and repeat until you have a better balance across the game.
This would also help a LOT with burnout, I for one, get tired of running the same quests over and over, but if I deviate, it takes twice as long to level. Also some of these quests are great and took a long time to create, wouldn't it be nice if more than 2 people a week did them?
================================================== ==========================
Idea two:
Give a bonus to players that spend extra time in a quest. Reward the people who take the time to enjoy the trip rather than try to get to the end ASAP. It shouldn't be too hard to make a baseline and then give a bonus based on if you were over that time. NOTE: I am a zerger and just want to get back to cap ASAP, but I want to see the role-players get rewarded for playing the game the way it was designed.
If you knew that the extra time you spent in coalescence chamber or proof is in the poison and such was going to add up to an extra 50% XP for a "smelling the flowers" bonus or what ever, wouldn't you do them?
Also it would encourage the zergers to slow down when they have non zergers in the group, lend a helping hand to teach rather than tell them to just wait for you to finish it for them.
Make it easy to see by adding it as an optional, the "smelling the flowers option" :)
================================================== =========================
Idea Three:
Add a bonus for non hireling group size, it wouldn't have to be much, 5% per member added, so 25% max for a full group?. This would encourage grouping and that may lead to making friends and that may lead to more time playing the game.
================================================== =========================
Any other ideas?
Oh wait! I just got a great self serving idea! Give an Otto's box or some other significant reward for the ideas your players come up with that you use! ;)
patang01
10-01-2013, 01:15 PM
Drop chance for heroic comms in all epic raids.
Add a new side quest feature to all current quests - roll out more and more in every update. Side quests are a number of random fairly straight forward side dungeons seeded randomly at 1 of up to 5 spots in the changed quest. It's entirely voluntary. It comes in a mega spawned, trapped or spawned flavor. The higher difficulty the greater chance that you find a side quest, that it's either mega or trapped and that it's one of the longer side quests.
Each side quest provides 1 chest per difficulty setting (no side quests spawns in casual) and the XP should be around 50% to 75% of the the regular quest. These side quests will be pre-determined as regular quests are converted to include side quests. Usually in obscure spots that will provide an incentive to explore. If no side quest spawns it's a bricked over wall. If it does (and it can spawn multiple side quests in each quest) it's a door.
Again - all voluntary, but with a decent enough XP incentive and loot thrown in for good measure. Each side quest is randomly pulled from 15-30 different dungeons of a varied amount of localities. Think those side caves from rare locations in wilderness but larger. It can be a overgrown cave, a small ruined under ground temple, man made caves or tunnels and the traps can be stuff like rocks and such falling if you make enough ruckus.
The XP target should always be so that it makes sense to explore and complete and it should be motivating enough for everyone from XP/minute players to flower sniffers. (since most side quests are fairly straight forward this should be a no brainer for people who want to get their xp per minute hats on)
And if loot strikes your fancy these could be created so the loot drop is 1 or 2 steps higher then normal, or even specific named loot only drops in these side quests. Kind of like Icy Raiment and the subt skellie.
Havok.cry
10-01-2013, 01:20 PM
Idea 1:
Take all the quests/raids in the game that have the lowest attendance, add 10% XP. Rinse and repeat until you have a better balance across the game.
This would also help a LOT with burnout, I for one, get tired of running the same quests over and over, but if I deviate, it takes twice as long to level. Also some of these quests are great and took a long time to create, wouldn't it be nice if more than 2 people a week did them?
================================================== ==========================
Idea two:
Give a bonus to players that spend extra time in a quest. Reward the people who take the time to enjoy the trip rather than try to get to the end ASAP. It shouldn't be too hard to make a baseline and then give a bonus based on if you were over that time. NOTE: I am a zerger and just want to get back to cap ASAP, but I want to see the role-players get rewarded for playing the game the way it was designed.
If you knew that the extra time you spent in coalescence chamber or proof is in the poison and such was going to add up to an extra 50% XP for a "smelling the flowers" bonus or what ever, wouldn't you do them?
Also it would encourage the zergers to slow down when they have non zergers in the group, lend a helping hand to teach rather than tell them to just wait for you to finish it for them.
Make it easy to see by adding it as an optional, the "smelling the flowers option" :)
================================================== =========================
Idea Three:
Add a bonus for non hireling group size, it wouldn't have to be much, 5% per member added, so 25% max for a full group?. This would encourage grouping and that may lead to making friends and that may lead to more time playing the game.
================================================== =========================
Any other ideas?
Oh wait! I just got a great self serving idea! Give an Otto's box or some other significant reward for the ideas your players come up with that you use! ;)
/signed
In addition: Change bravery bonus to be the first time you run it on that difficulty rather than just the first time you run the quest. This would releive the drive most have to run it the first time on elite and would maybe open up more lfms for all those who solo now because their non-elite lfms never fill. It would also retain the bonus for everyone one who can do everything on elite. It would be new player friendly as well as they could learn the content, then try for elite later.
Havok.cry
10-01-2013, 01:24 PM
If no side quest spawns it's a bricked over wall. If it does (and it can spawn multiple side quests in each quest) it's a door.
I like your idea, and /signed to most of it. This part however I would change. It would take less resources for them to implement this into dungeons if they just drop in a portal instead of altering the architecture, so I would do this with portals. The easier it is for them to implement, the more likely it might happen. Actual doors would look better though, in most cases.
Charononus
10-01-2013, 01:27 PM
Idea 1:
Take all the quests/raids in the game that have the lowest attendance, add 10% XP. Rinse and repeat until you have a better balance across the game.
This would also help a LOT with burnout, I for one, get tired of running the same quests over and over, but if I deviate, it takes twice as long to level. Also some of these quests are great and took a long time to create, wouldn't it be nice if more than 2 people a week did them?
some need a whole ________ of a lot more than 10% but it'd be a start.
Idea two:
Give a bonus to players that spend extra time in a quest. Reward the people who take the time to enjoy the trip rather than try to get to the end ASAP. It shouldn't be too hard to make a baseline and then give a bonus based on if you were over that time. NOTE: I am a zerger and just want to get back to cap ASAP, but I want to see the role-players get rewarded for playing the game the way it was designed.
If you knew that the extra time you spent in coalescence chamber or proof is in the poison and such was going to add up to an extra 50% XP for a "smelling the flowers" bonus or what ever, wouldn't you do them?
Also it would encourage the zergers to slow down when they have non zergers in the group, lend a helping hand to teach rather than tell them to just wait for you to finish it for them.
Make it easy to see by adding it as an optional, the "smelling the flowers option" :)
Some quests even if you add a 500% bonus wouldn't have optionals that would be worth it. Also you don't want zergers in the same group with flowersniffers, the power level difference and mindset is so different that you will never get a good interaction with the two groups. I don't think this one should be done, I think it would fix nothing and potentially cause more problems if you did manage to throw the two groups together. That leaves out the pseudo exploit of ok I'm in shadow crypt I'm going to go make a sandwhich have a smoke then start so I get the full bonus.
Idea Three:
Add a bonus for non hireling group size, it wouldn't have to be much, 5% per member added, so 25% max for a full group?. This would encourage grouping and that may lead to making friends and that may lead to more time playing the game.
================================================== =========================
Any other ideas?
Oh wait! I just got a great self serving idea! Give an Otto's box or some other significant reward for the ideas your players come up with that you use! ;)
This would encourage multi-boxing not grouping, want to encourage grouping? Eliminate all scaling from elite and put those at a scaling of 6 people at all times.
danotmano1998
10-01-2013, 01:35 PM
Idea 1:
Take all the quests/raids in the game that have the lowest attendance, add 10% XP.
Agreed!!
Idea two:
Give a bonus to players that spend extra time in a quest.
That is too easily exploitable.
You could just go into the dungeon and afk for 20 minutes.
Plus, this is already implemented in a way by completing optionals.
I would suggest just upping the optional xp in some cases, and perhaps offering a bonus optional that rewards additional xp if ALL the optionals are done in that quest.
Idea Three:
Add a bonus for non hireling group size,
You would encourage multi-boxing, so this is debatable as to it's actual worth IMO.
FURYous
10-01-2013, 01:45 PM
some need a whole ________ of a lot more than 10% but it'd be a start.
The idea would be to keep adding 10% until they got used more. Just do it in passes so you don't have to keep re-balancing.
Some quests even if you add a 500% bonus wouldn't have optionals that would be worth it. Also you don't want zergers in the same group with flowersniffers, the power level difference and mindset is so different that you will never get a good interaction with the two groups. I don't think this one should be done, I think it would fix nothing and potentially cause more problems if you did manage to throw the two groups together. That leaves out the pseudo exploit of ok I'm in shadow crypt I'm going to go make a sandwhich have a smoke then start so I get the full bonus.
I have to disagree with you on this, I consider myself a zerger but there are times I want to just group and play too. I don't want to take all day in a quest but if I have someone new to the game with me, I normally slow down a bit to make sure they see how to do the quest. If there was a bonus for taking my time to show them the quest, I would do it a lot more often.
On your point of eating a sandwich, so? OK, go get your sandwich, you still have to complete the quest and you get less XP than it would take me to do it 2 or 3 times in the same amount of time it took you to do it once with a sandwich. Oh wait I see the problem, I don't get a sammich! **** it, I want a sammich!
This would encourage multi-boxing not grouping, want to encourage grouping? Eliminate all scaling from elite and put those at a scaling of 6 people at all times.
Maybe for some, but they are already multi boxing if they want to. For me at least, I play multi player games to play with other real live people, they just get in the way sometimes if I am in a hurry to get XP, if adding them to my group got me more XP, guess what?
Charononus
10-01-2013, 01:50 PM
On your point of eating a sandwich, so? OK, go get your sandwich, you still have to complete the quest and you get less XP than it would take me to do it 2 or 3 times in the same amount of time it took you to do it once with a sandwich. Oh wait I see the problem, I don't get a sammich! **** it, I want a sammich!
It's more on the lines of I was going to take a break but instead of logging off I'm sitting in a quest, and if you made it big enough to be worth it as a bonus to not zerg for whatever reasons it means it'd be worth it to get that bonus to stack onto the streak run for the big xp quests.
FURYous
10-01-2013, 02:17 PM
It's more on the lines of I was going to take a break but instead of logging off I'm sitting in a quest, and if you made it big enough to be worth it as a bonus to not zerg for whatever reasons it means it'd be worth it to get that bonus to stack onto the streak run for the big xp quests.
There will always be exceptions to the rule. I still don't see the problem with this but I will grant your point for the sake of argument.
Let's say they do this, they get a bonus to one quest and they still have to get back before they time out. They can't do this very many times without having to just sit and play the game for real.
I am not advocating making this an hour or longer, just long enough that if a new player were to do all the optional, they would get a bonus, it doesn't have to be 50%, how about 25%? enough that if you take your time you don't lose too much over zerging.
The up side of this, is that you reward the many people who would prefer to take their time and not be rushed by the want-to-be zergers in their group.
Also, maybe it would be nice to take a pee break once in a while without your fellow zergers complaining about how you are slowing them down ;) maybe take a minute or three to level up? spend enhancements? ;)
In a nutshell, make it so you don't lose too much if you do decide to slow down a bit and just enjoy the details.
patang01
10-01-2013, 02:22 PM
I like your idea, and /signed to most of it. This part however I would change. It would take less resources for them to implement this into dungeons if they just drop in a portal instead of altering the architecture, so I would do this with portals. The easier it is for them to implement, the more likely it might happen. Actual doors would look better though, in most cases.
Sure - the idea with the brick wall is just to indicate for people who search for them that this is a spot where it would normally spawn. Unless there's a relatively safe way to spawn these doors anywhere - without breaking the quest progress. My idea is that you create these spots for every quests so you know they're safe and then just random whether or not they're up. But whatever works. And they should all be located outside the normal path so it provides an incentive to explore.
redspecter23
10-01-2013, 02:28 PM
In terms of lowest effort to awesomeness ratio.
1. Add heroic commendations to all epic raids. Yes I know it's been mentioned already, but it's such an easy quick fix to get raids back on the map again that it needs more attention. Man hours? Probably about 10 minutes to replace the loot table data per raid and a few hours to test before it hits lam for real testing.
2. Add +5 upgrade tomes back at level 27 loot. Basically revert the tome system to that of pre U19. Add skill tomes if necessary, but make it separate so it doesn't clutter up the ability tome tables. Make augment drop rates static between levels. 5% per chest. None of this 1% nonsense for high levels chests. Adding skill augments to that pool just made it worse. Man hours? Who knows. It probably shouldn't have been tinkered with in U19 to start with. It's some number changes on loot tables. Shouldn't be too extensive.
3. Scrap the new loot gen system until it's actually finished. It's missing so many affixes it feels like bare bones alpha test mode. Give us back what we had before and if that means loot table caps at 31 until you get the new system ready, that's fine by me. I still have a feeling the loot table is capped below what's possible anyway, making gems in highest content a waste of money. Man hours? A couple hours to dig up the old code and copy/paste it onto the mess that is the new loot gen system. I'm sure it's more complicated than that, but like #2, it was better before any changes, just revert. With Turbine's version control, we might just end up getting this anyway, completely accidentally.
hp1055cm
10-01-2013, 02:52 PM
Cut the subscription rate in half, cut the TP price in half at the store and get more people to play and thereby have more PUGs running PTP quests. Everybody wins.
Forzah
10-01-2013, 02:55 PM
I like all those 3 ideas!
Teh_Troll
10-01-2013, 02:57 PM
Give a player 5 TP for every LFM he puts up that fills (with some mechanism to prevent exploitation).
redspecter23
10-01-2013, 02:58 PM
Give a player 5 TP for every LFM he puts up that fills (with some mechanism to prevent exploitation).
Turbine paying me to fill up groups? Sign me up. It would be tremendously difficult to set up in a non exploitive way, but the idea is a good one overall.
Teh_Troll
10-01-2013, 03:01 PM
Turbine paying me to fill up groups? Sign me up. It would be tremendously difficult to set up in a non exploitive way, but the idea is a good one overall.
a cap of one per hour or something so you can't just break and reform every quest.
And too be even more evil . . . make it only for those inane public LFMs.
Ashlayna
10-01-2013, 03:06 PM
There will always be exceptions to the rule. I still don't see the problem with this but I will grant your point for the sake of argument.
Let's say they do this, they get a bonus to one quest and they still have to get back before they time out. They can't do this very many times without having to just sit and play the game for real.
I am not advocating making this an hour or longer, just long enough that if a new player were to do all the optional, they would get a bonus, it doesn't have to be 50%, how about 25%? enough that if you take your time you don't lose too much over zerging.
The up side of this, is that you reward the many people who would prefer to take their time and not be rushed by the want-to-be zergers in their group.
Also, maybe it would be nice to take a pee break once in a while without your fellow zergers complaining about how you are slowing them down ;) maybe take a minute or three to level up? spend enhancements? ;)
In a nutshell, make it so you don't lose too much if you do decide to slow down a bit and just enjoy the details.
As a free player, you can afk for 30 minutes, and as a VIP, it's an hour. I can, and have afkd for both amounts of time while, quite literally running to the store. So, instead of sitting in town, I sit in a quest, come back, and zerg, and presto, the best of both worlds. That's the problem with adding something easily exploitable, it will easily be exploited. The idea of adding a bonus for completing all optionals would be better, since it would actually require playing the quest rather than sitting at the entrance for a half hour.
Bolo_Grubb
10-01-2013, 03:11 PM
I like a lot of these ideas.
Some raids just need to be easier to get to after the first time there. IE the Hound and Vision of destruction. Teleport systems similar to the Stormhorn are and there quest.
Or make the subterrane more rewarding somehow. the Subterrane and the Vale are the same level range but the subterrane seem way more difficult.
Teh_Troll
10-01-2013, 03:12 PM
The idea of adding a bonus for completing all optionals would be better, since it would actually require playing the quest rather than sitting at the entrance for a half hour.
Optionals should pay a lot more than they do.
And all new quests since MoTU should have their XP base doubled.
Ashlayna
10-01-2013, 03:14 PM
Optionals should pay a lot more than they do.
And all new quests since MoTU should have their XP base doubled.
I don't disagree with that. My point in that post was that XP for X amount of time in a quest is a bad idea.
patang01
10-01-2013, 03:18 PM
I like a lot of these ideas.
Some raids just need to be easier to get to after the first time there. IE the Hound and Vision of destruction. Teleport systems similar to the Stormhorn are and there quest.
Or make the subterrane more rewarding somehow. the Subterrane and the Vale are the same level range but the subterrane seem way more difficult.
Easy - make an epic version of both raids. For purpose of dropping comms and to upgrade to Epic through comms. Just let the upgrade work like the current EN, EH and EE version. Higher chance to drop comms and heroic item and comms to upgrade to Epic (EE should be able to drop the EN version to - sort of how FoT does it with diff settings and what version drops). Then use comms to upgrade first from EN to EH then EH to EE version.
It's clear that a system with incremental upgrade works best. Instant gratification just breaks things.
Saravis
10-01-2013, 03:25 PM
There could be an optionals completion tiered xp percentage bonus similar to trap disabling, breakables, etc bonuses. The more optionals completed the higher the bonus. They could even adjust some optionals to be segmented into multiple smaller optionals to encourage their completion; ex: finding the prisoners in Chains of Flames.
FURYous
10-01-2013, 03:59 PM
There could be an optionals completion tiered xp percentage bonus similar to trap disabling, breakables, etc bonuses. The more optionals completed the higher the bonus. They could even adjust some optionals to be segmented into multiple smaller optionals to encourage their completion; ex: finding the prisoners in Chains of Flames.
Great idea
cnynridr2
10-01-2013, 04:15 PM
I don't think that putting in a smell the roses bonus is bad idea and those of us who zerg probably won't care since, for example, if the quest takes 35 minutes to finish and you add 15 or 20 minutes for the roses bonus xp the zergers will be 2/3 to 3/4 done with the second run already for more xp/min anyways unless the roses bonus is that huge.
IronClan
10-01-2013, 05:10 PM
Great ideas OP. Personally I'd like to get rid of timed XP pots, replace them with 1 per quest potion that is based on roughly getting the same XP for the TP cost, but make them work per quest instead of on a timer.
So like if people tend to get 11 quests out of a XP pot, replace this with 12 one shot pots for the same TP cost. So you could buy a "six pack" of pots to do 6 quests for the same value as a current pot that would get you through 6 quests if you zerged/farmed them.*
Why? Because the times I've been most impatient and "elitist-like" in this game were when I had a Sovereign pot going. If a XP pot can turn me into an elitist then I can't imagine what they do to people who are ALREADY impatient and unforgiving overly self serious types :)
* suggest 6 pack, 12 pack and case... um 24 pack... I mean 24 pack.
Another idea for "easy cheap massive" improvement:
Make one Epic Sword of Shadows like item for each of the old end game raids... 10 items or so of Artifact like power, and give them all scroll/shard/seal like epic drop rates... Possibly just boost one or two existing items up into eSoS like "artifact" power. You may or may not have liked the old epic drop rate/grind, but at least people continued to play the game back then.
Epic VON5-6 is now the most run raid on Thelanis by my guestimation and that is crazy... but it's also a testiment to the fact that the old grind when the loot was shiny was better for the health (continued replaying) of the game. I'm actually building a build FOR epic Sword of Shadows, SO I HAVE SOMETHING TO STRIVE FOR TO KEEP PLAYING DDO.
I love playing DDO but Turbine is NOT making it easy for me to keep doing so.
mrtweakin
10-01-2013, 05:53 PM
A lot of good ideas in here. My favorite so far is adding comms to all epic raids.
A TON could be done by simply adjusting XP in certain series. There is no shortage of threads, nor has there been in years, describing the quests with awful XP. So I suspect this will never be done.
Rakuda13
10-01-2013, 08:37 PM
I like a lot of these ideas.
Some raids just need to be easier to get to after the first time there. IE the Hound and Vision of destruction. Teleport systems similar to the Stormhorn are and there quest.
Or make the subterrane more rewarding somehow. the Subterrane and the Vale are the same level range but the subterrane seem way more difficult.
The only thing hard about the Subterrane is people not going there,its a RAID size explorer.12 people can run around there making it a lot easier at level.
Singular
10-02-2013, 02:56 AM
/signed
In addition: Change bravery bonus to be the first time you run it on that difficulty rather than just the first time you run the quest. This would releive the drive most have to run it the first time on elite and would maybe open up more lfms for all those who solo now because their non-elite lfms never fill. It would also retain the bonus for everyone one who can do everything on elite. It would be new player friendly as well as they could learn the content, then try for elite later.
This idea would be great - and also encourage players to take on quests well above their level range on the normal setting. Currently, when I get to around 14 or so, I run LOD on elite - that's tough :) If your idea was in place, I'd run it on normal when I was level 10 or something.
SirValentine
10-02-2013, 04:54 AM
Idea 1:
Take all the quests/raids in the game that have the lowest attendance, add 10% XP. Rinse and repeat until you have a better balance across the game.
This is a good idea.
/signed
Idea two:
Give a bonus to players that spend extra time in a quest.
So...I continue to play all quests at the same speed, but by starting a quest and staying logged in before I go to work or go to sleep, I can accumulate massive XP while I'm NOT playing?
This is way too ripe for abuse. No thanks.
Add a bonus for non hireling group size, it wouldn't have to be much, 5% per member added, so 25% max for a full group?. This would encourage grouping and that may lead to making friends and that may lead to more time playing the game.
I don't think this is an effective idea to get people to group, and some people would abuse it via multiboxing, but I don't think it's as bad as idea #2. <shrug>
lyrecono
10-02-2013, 06:37 AM
some need a whole ________ of a lot more than 10% but it'd be a start.
Some quests even if you add a 500% bonus wouldn't have optionals that would be worth it. Also you don't want zergers in the same group with flowersniffers, the power level difference and mindset is so different that you will never get a good interaction with the two groups. I don't think this one should be done, I think it would fix nothing and potentially cause more problems if you did manage to throw the two groups together. That leaves out the pseudo exploit of ok I'm in shadow crypt I'm going to go make a sandwhich have a smoke then start so I get the full bonus.
This would encourage multi-boxing not grouping, want to encourage grouping? Eliminate all scaling from elite and put those at a scaling of 6 people at all times.
for old raids the sollution is simple, remove the level, wanne run titan?, be a min lv of 10 and gain full exp no mater your or the party's level.
Timmers will block abussing this.
a cap of one per hour or something so you can't just break and reform every quest.
And too be even more evil . . . make it only for those inane public LFMs.
With the low population? i can see the lfm's fill with 4 peeps for the same quest, refusing to join the other, trolling eachother.... fun material for the "whats wrong with the lfm"topics though
Easy - make an epic version of both raids. For purpose of dropping comms and to upgrade to Epic through comms. Just let the upgrade work like the current EN, EH and EE version. Higher chance to drop comms and heroic item and comms to upgrade to Epic (EE should be able to drop the EN version to - sort of how FoT does it with diff settings and what version drops). Then use comms to upgrade first from EN to EH then EH to EE version.
It's clear that a system with incremental upgrade works best. Instant gratification just breaks things.
Rumor has it that an old pack will hit epic soon, if it's the Vale, that dream will come true faster then you'll think.
(i think it's the Vale pack because thats what they did with Gianthold, that pack was epiced already, and leaked on Lamania years ago, so did Eshroud ing)
I personaly hope so, Vale/Hound/Vod was run alot during the high days of ddo, the days when the who list had more then 60-70 people on it, the days you couldn't log on without seeing a raid up, the days that shroud was run atleast 8 times by lfm during my playtime (about 3 hours).
Maybe we see some good people return, maybe we'll keep those people this time instead of chassing them of with a subpar double questpack *cough "expansion" cough*
Maybe the'll get the server merges going too, to fill up the ranks
Charononus
10-02-2013, 06:42 AM
for old raids the sollution is simple, remove the level, wanne run titan?, be a min lv of 10 and gain full exp no mater your or the party's level.
Timmers will block abussing this.
Timers don't matter since there are bypasses and there seems to always be people willing to sell them for plat or items. That said the only raid I can think of with enough xp to justify this would be von5. However since you say full xp no matter the parties level it means you'd have problems because you'd have say 6 pikers on lowbies and 6 people doing the work at higher level to complete. That is not a good system.
FURYous
10-02-2013, 11:41 AM
So...I continue to play all quests at the same speed, but by starting a quest and staying logged in before I go to work or go to sleep, I can accumulate massive XP while I'm NOT playing?
These comments confuse me. At most we are talking about a 25 - 50% XP bonus if you take your time to go through it. if you start a quest and go to bed/work then you will time out and get kicked out.
If you start a quest and take a shower, you still have to finish the quest and you get the bonus for one quest. if you do this 10 times a day, you will have gotten the bonus 10 times over several hours.
If you had just ran quests you will have gotten more XP in one hour. If you add all the time they spend finishing the quests between their breaks, they would have spent more than an hour and they would lose out on things like their XP pots timing out, their ship XP shrine timing out and so on.
I don't see many people doing this more than, at most, once per day, it takes too much effort VS reward to make sure you are back to your KB before timeout to finish the quest.
But for the sake of argument, let's say there are people that exploit this, they are doing the quests so slowly during their breaks that even with the bonus, they level slower than anyone just playing the game. It would take them months to get to level 20. And they have to finish the quest, so it isn't like they get to skip anything.
Somehow an exploit that allows you to get to level 20 in months without skipping any actual quest content doesn't sound like much of an exploit to me.
FURYous
10-02-2013, 11:52 AM
I don't think this is an effective idea to get people to group, and some people would abuse it via multiboxing, but I don't think it's as bad as idea #2. <shrug>
I multibox but mostly for access to quests you have to be flagged for. The majority of people in the game don't because it is a PITA to multibox in this game (no follow command, need to buy content for multiple accounts ETC)
There should be a requirement that the entire party to have been in the quest (no late penalties on anyone) to get the bonus.
I don't see many people creating multiple accounts, buying all the packs or paying for VIP for them, moving all the toons to each quest ETC, just to get an extra 5% XP. Even if they did, the dungeon scaling alone would slow them by 5% (not to mention the time it takes to run multiple toons to the next quest) to make this a negative return on time vs reward.
Maybe with a bracelet of friends you can get close to reducing the time between quests but this wouldn't help with scaling. And you have to keep buying bracelets.
Ashlayna
10-02-2013, 12:18 PM
I multibox but mostly for access to quests you have to be flagged for. The majority of people in the game don't because it is a PITA to multibox in this game (no follow command, need to buy content for multiple accounts ETC)
There should be a requirement that the entire party to have been in the quest (no late penalties on anyone) to get the bonus.
I don't see many people creating multiple accounts, buying all the packs or paying for VIP for them, moving all the toons to each quest ETC, just to get an extra 5% XP. Even if they did, the dungeon scaling alone would slow them by 5% (not to mention the time it takes to run multiple toons to the next quest) to make this a negative return on time vs reward.
Maybe with a bracelet of friends you can get close to reducing the time between quests but this wouldn't help with scaling. And you have to keep buying bracelets.
Why add even a potential exploit to the game? There are people that will figure a way to make it lucrative. The far better solution was suggested earlier, by someone else, by awarding a bonus for completing all optionals, scaled just as the Breakables and Kills are now. This at least rewards someone for playing the game instead of going rewarding them for going afk for 15 minutes, because there are quests that would make 15 minutes (for example) afk for 25% xp very lucrative. Delera's 2 comes immediately to mind. You could run it back to back and negate the initial quest ransack, and since it's zergable, you're talking about maybe an hour, maybe, for a **** ton of xp. Why do that, when you can award optional completions instead, and not just the way it is now, but for completing all of them. This goes a lot further to encouraging "flower sniffing" than allowing an "x amount of time AFK followed by zerg for 25% more xp".
FURYous
10-02-2013, 12:35 PM
Why add even a potential exploit to the game? There are people that will figure a way to make it lucrative. The far better solution was suggested earlier, by someone else, by awarding a bonus for completing all optionals, scaled just as the Breakables and Kills are now. This at least rewards someone for playing the game instead of going rewarding them for going afk for 15 minutes, because there are quests that would make 15 minutes (for example) afk for 25% xp very lucrative. Delera's 2 comes immediately to mind. You could run it back to back and negate the initial quest ransack, and since it's zergable, you're talking about maybe an hour, maybe, for a **** ton of xp. Why do that, when you can award optional completions instead, and not just the way it is now, but for completing all of them. This goes a lot further to encouraging "flower sniffing" than allowing an "x amount of time AFK followed by zerg for 25% more xp".
Because rewarding for the optionals (a great idea btw) rewards zergers more then flower sniffers. In the event of option completion rewards you just encourage the zergers to compound the problem and only group with other zergers that know how to split up and each solo a section thus leaving the flower sniffers without a group. Shadow Crypt and Tear of Drakhan are examples of this.
P.S. how is it a "potential exploit" if it is working as intended? the flower sniffers bonus would be time based. It just rewards you for taking your time, what you do with that extra time doesn't really matter as you cant' really get more XP per hour by using this bonus. The people who want to exploit are looking for the most return for the least effort, this doesn't qualify because it makes you stay in one quest for the entire duration.
and if this is an exploit what do you call unlimited stones of experience that allow you to bypass 75% of the content on the way to 20? Or even more if you "exploit" it by getting XP pots and using the stones during XP boost periods?
Charononus
10-02-2013, 12:43 PM
Because rewarding for the optionals (a great idea btw) rewards zergers more then flower sniffers. In the event of option completion rewards you just encourage the zergers to compound the problem and only group with other zergers that know how to split up and each solo a section thus leaving the flower sniffers without a group. Shadow Crypt and Tear of Drakhan are examples of this.
So what you're saying is you hate zerging so much you want to add exploits in.
*Not that it would in anyway shape or form stop the zerg it would just add an exploit to current mechanics.
Ashlayna
10-02-2013, 12:49 PM
Because rewarding for the optionals (a great idea btw) rewards zergers more then flower sniffers. In the event of option completion rewards you just encourage the zergers to compound the problem and only group with other zergers that know how to split up and each solo a section thus leaving the flower sniffers without a group. Shadow Crypt and Tear of Drakhan are examples of this.
P.S. how is it a "potential exploit" if it is working as intended? the flower sniffers bonus would be time based. It just rewards you for taking your time, what you do with that extra time doesn't really matter as you cant' really get more XP per hour by using this bonus. The people who want to exploit are looking for the most return for the least effort, this doesn't qualify because it makes you stay in one quest for the entire duration.
and if this is an exploit what do you call unlimited stones of experience that allow you to bypass 75% of the content on the way to 20? Or even more if you "exploit" it by getting XP pots and using the stones during XP boost periods?
It's an exploit because you don't have to do anything to get it. As proposed, you could sit AFK for x amount of time for a 25% bonus to xp. This would make xp pots so 2012. Yes, there are some quests where it wouldn't be worth it, but there would be others where it was.
Forzah
10-02-2013, 01:01 PM
So...I continue to play all quests at the same speed, but by starting a quest and staying logged in before I go to work or go to sleep, I can accumulate massive XP while I'm NOT playing?
This is way too ripe for abuse. No thanks.
How exactly is this ripe for abuse? It's a 25% bonus that caps out after some time... what massive gain do you get for not playing? Sure, you can enter a quest and hit the store, then come back and gain 25%, but well... that's so much slower than just zerging.
I don't think this is an effective idea to get people to group, and some people would abuse it via multiboxing, but I don't think it's as bad as idea #2. <shrug>
Why would it not be effective? People are already crazy about the 5% xp shrine on the ship. If you can get more xp just by inviting some people, it's a great incentive to encourage grouping. I would always open up a LFM to increase my xp; I'm sure the majority of players would too! I don't really see a problem with abuse via multiboxing. If you want to pay for multiple accounts to get a small xp bonus, just go ahead. I'd rather invite real people.
FranOhmsford
10-02-2013, 01:03 PM
Idea Three:
Add a bonus for non hireling group size, it wouldn't have to be much, 5% per member added, so 25% max for a full group?. This would encourage grouping and that may lead to making friends and that may lead to more time playing the game.
Do this Devs and you may as well remove Hirelings from the game completely!
Because those of us who use them will no longer be able to get groups together ourselves and will quit the game!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Better and Fairer option to ALL your Players would be to Allow a 5% XP Bonus for 3 players, 10% for 4 and 15% for 5 players.
This way Soloers and Duoers can go on doing their things
Soloists with Hires and Shortman Groups with Hires are ok too
Full Groups get the same bonus whether or not the 6th man/woman/child is Real or AI!
An Even better option that would give the Same Benefit to XP {Almost} Would be to Simply Remove The Group Death and Re-Entry Penalties whilst leaving them affecting the Person who died/re-entered!
And of course - Removing Entirely the Hireling Death Penalty {which is way too subject to Laggy AI}.
Gremmlynn
10-02-2013, 01:06 PM
The only thing hard about the Subterrane is people not going there,its a RAID size explorer.12 people can run around there making it a lot easier at level.The subT has a few problems. It's not easily soloed due to no hirelings being allowed. It doesn't have normal quests in it. It has multiple nodes that allow the others to reset, so joining IP can be problematic.
It simply doesn't have a lot of the functionality of other explorers due to these things as they all work against it being someplace to knock around in as a group fills or one has little time to play.
lyrecono
10-02-2013, 01:29 PM
Timers don't matter since there are bypasses and there seems to always be people willing to sell them for plat or items. That said the only raid I can think of with enough xp to justify this would be von5. However since you say full xp no matter the parties level it means you'd have problems because you'd have say 6 pikers on lowbies and 6 people doing the work at higher level to complete. That is not a good system.
it would fill turbines pockets, keeping the timer for this mechanic, making you loose the overlevel penalty every 3 days(or so)
Charononus
10-02-2013, 01:54 PM
it would fill turbines pockets, keeping the timer for this mechanic, making you loose the overlevel penalty every 3 days(or so)
Turbine could also make money with a well designed system that doesn't promote p2w and cheating. The more p2w is added, the more many people put away their wallet and go f2p / leave entirely.
lyrecono
10-03-2013, 03:59 AM
true,
i was hoping to see people return to raiding, since turbine can't revive the raiding community we used to have, maybe something like this would help.
A few old raids never needed the hp/saves/damage boost the got just before MotU, lots of raids had mechanics that didn't just revolved around a beat down.
The (power) level of the toons involved didn't matter all too much. Titan/abot/pikers fate/hound etc were about the social fun and game mechanics. we ran pikers fate for items whille being lv 20 for years.
the gear is outdated now but even at lv nobody bothers to run it anymore, the power boost those raid bosses got makes it downright impossible for newer players/first lifers. with the bleeding of players, there aren't enough tr's around that level to do it either.
maybe the server merge will patch things up for a short whille but we need a long term solution and we need it soon.
Edit:
Also, turbine, well designed system..... does not compute....does not compute....does not compute....
RedOrm
10-03-2013, 06:56 AM
Idea 1: /signed.
Idea 2: /signed, though some adjustments might be needed.
I would think an AFK exploit is easily countered by a timer. Flowersniffers take their time, but generally they are NOT inactive. Set a timer for, say, 3 minuted (to admire the view or take a quick bio break), and if a toon remains inactive for longer than that, the flowersniffing bonus stops. It doesn't vanish, mind, it just stops, ready to continue when you are.
Alternatively, there could be Wandering Monsters: Rares that spawn (wander by) only after you stayed in a room for a certain amount of time.
Or somewhat of a combination: after the first minute, for every 30 seconds that a toon remains inactive, there's a stacking 10% chance of a mini-boss spawning in that location, granting bonus xp when defeated and obviously (eventually) killing anyone actually AFK.
Idea 3: /signed.
Drop chance for heroic comms in all epic raids: /signed.
Side-quest suggestion: /signed
Change bravery bonus to be the first time you run it on that difficulty rather than just the first time you run the quest: /signed.
Add +5 upgrade tomes back at level 27 loot: /signed.
Lots of good suggestions in this thread!
Greetz,
Red Orm
Capricorpus
10-03-2013, 09:18 AM
I have to disagree with you on this, I consider myself a zerger but there are times I want to just group and play too. I don't want to take all day in a quest but if I have someone new to the game with me, I normally slow down a bit to make sure they see how to do the quest. If there was a bonus for taking my time to show them the quest, I would do it a lot more often.
However, that's just your opinion. Although it's commendable that you're willing to take the time to show people how to do a quest, there shouldn't be a bonus for doing so. Many people have no interest whatsoever in going slowly, especially if they're attempting to rack up past lives and/or planning on doing the same quest multiple times in a row. You shouldn't be penalized for trying to get your xp and get out.
Maybe for some, but they are already multi boxing if they want to. For me at least, I play multi player games to play with other real live people, they just get in the way sometimes if I am in a hurry to get XP, if adding them to my group got me more XP, guess what?
This is also incorrect. I, for example, multibox primarily when I need an opener for a given quest - I don't drag my other characters around with me otherwise. This would not only encourage people to multibox, it would be an unfair penalty to people who don't play on the peak times on their server. Being unable to get a group is already frustrating enough for many players, I see no reason to make it even more so with a "group benefit".
However, I did like your first idea!
Charononus
10-03-2013, 12:12 PM
true,
i was hoping to see people return to raiding, since turbine can't revive the raiding community we used to have, maybe something like this would help.
Update the loot, when the loot is relevant and useful people raid.
A few old raids never needed the hp/saves/damage boost the got just before MotU, lots of raids had mechanics that didn't just revolved around a beat down.
The (power) level of the toons involved didn't matter all too much. Titan/abot/pikers fate/hound etc were about the social fun and game mechanics. we ran pikers fate for items whille being lv 20 for years.
the gear is outdated now but even at lv nobody bothers to run it anymore, the power boost those raid bosses got makes it downright impossible for newer players/first lifers. with the bleeding of players, there aren't enough tr's around that level to do it either.
With the exception of von5 because it's good xp/min and fairly simple to run, most raids have never been ran at level, at least that I've seen. You don't stay at level for more than a day, other quests have better xp/min, and with it having to be on elite for a streak there are easier ways to get xp. This is not to say that they're impossible for new players/first lifers, because a new players/first lifers don't need a streak so if you got enough of them together they could do a normal run, and even elite isn't out of possibility considering good random gen with a good build is all it really takes. The fact that it doesn't is mostly do to the fact that there are easier ways to get xp/min that don't require coordination. It's fun to run at level raids for xp once in a while but it is what it is.
maybe the server merge will patch things up for a short whille but we need a long term solution and we need it soon.
Turbine has given no indication of doing a merger, it's something many of us would like but it probably won't be soon(tm).
That said all that needs to be done to make raiding happen again is a loot update, which means drilling into the loot designers
named loot is static not with random properties
named loot is better than any random gen of the same level
and finally getting the loot designers to play the game so that they can figure out what things are useful and what aren't. Illusion focus on a named item this past expansion was a sick joke.
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.3 Copyright © 2025 vBulletin Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.