About a server merge...

[Nayus]

Turbine:
Admit we lost players...
Admit DDO is not the same when you can't barely join a group...
Admit a group is not the same when it only has 2 or 3 people...
Admit a group is not the same when we're all but soloists gathered together...
Admit you gave self-healing and survivability to everyone but Fighters so no one absolutely needs to join a group...
Admit even Fighters can multi-class and get some self-healing (Barbarians can't by the way)...
Admit that hirelings exist...
Admit even if you hadn't done that, we would still be better off solo'ing because Heroics are mostly easy for a veteran as long as they take it cool...

Admit we lost players (again)...
Admit DDO is not the same when there are so few PUGs... again...


Merge some servers for the sake of Lady Vol... Pretty please... do it :/

[Teh_Troll]

better idea . . . release more than 2 quests in a 6 month period.

There are always lulls between updates. The problem is these lulls keep getting longer and longer.

[Nestroy]

Instead of a server merge, just make grouping better, imho:

+ Do away with dungeon scaling for the 5th and 6th player so these can marginally contribute.
+ Do away with making it easier for soloers. Give them the full broadside inside the dungeons. This especially means traps!
+ Increase the level ranges a dungeon might be run in.
+ Give a bonus for players leading groups thru dungeons. Give a 5% XP incentive or a +1 loot incentive for the group leaders upon completion - or give them better end reward loot lists. Alternatively, if group members die, the leader retains the 10% no-dead bonus, only void if he himself dies.

All these are easier to acomplish than a server merge and would go a great length for opening more LFMs.

This even could lead to more players retained because they find help and advice in groups.

[FranOhmsford]

My Suggestion for how to do this...Yet again:

Merge Lowest Population Server with highest till you have 4 Servers!

Wayfinder with Ghallanda
Orien with Thelanis
Cannith with Khyber
Sarlona with Argo

Add "of Ghallanda, Thelanis, Khyber etc. etc. to Player and Guild Names.

Add 2 Character Slots to every f2p account
Add 4 Character Slots to every Premium account
Add 6 Character Slots to every VIP Account {this last one would hurt me if Cannith and Sarlona were to be merged as I have 12 characters on Sarlona}

For people who do have more than 6 Characters on a Second Server and that second server is merged with their main server {which is also maxed out on characters} - Halve the Price of Extra Character Slots for 3 Months!

Also allow 2 FREE Character Transfers per Account.


Finally Advertise this PROPERLY!
Use the opportunity to Bring in Brand New Non-Laggy Servers {4 of them} and Transfer 2 old Servers to each New one!

[Teh_Troll]

When comm drops were "doubled" pugging was AWESOME. EE groups for everything, filled fast and was a ton of fun.

Do something like that again.

[Seikojin]

better idea . . . release more than 2 quests in a 6 month period.

There are always lulls between updates. The problem is these lulls keep getting longer and longer.

^This^

Even if they are small arcs that have no central plot tied to the core plots. The more variety, the more people will be happy. Imagine if you could run a few different sets of low level quests to get from 1 - 10?

Or a bunch of solo only quests that carry you to 3 in your 3rd+ life? Maybe some solo epic quests (more than there currently are)? Or very long dialog based quests? I know how much people would love that. In all honesty, there is room for every playstyle to be quested. If you never had to think about it, sure, people would leap at the shortest to biggest gains per minute. Clearly Turbine knows how to fix that.

It only sucks on content creation because Turbine doesn't have the tools to just pump out content, even custom. On the back end they don't have the right tools to do it quickly.

[Vint]

Turbine:
Admit we lost players...
Admit DDO is not the same when you can't barely join a group...
Admit a group is not the same when it only has 2 or 3 people...
Admit a group is not the same when we're all but soloists gathered together...
Admit you gave self-healing and survivability to everyone but Fighters so no one absolutely needs to join a group...
Admit even Fighters can multi-class and get some self-healing (Barbarians can't by the way)...
Admit that hirelings exist...
Admit even if you hadn't done that, we would still be better off solo'ing because Heroics are mostly easy for a veteran as long as they take it cool...

Admit we lost players (again)...
Admit DDO is not the same when there are so few PUGs... again...


Merge some servers for the sake of Lady Vol... Pretty please... do it :/

You can make any class a half elf or bladeforge. Problem solved with a person not being able to make a survivable toon.

Number 2, The game has moved away from needing a full party and I do not think it will help if you tell people that they have to group or have to be full to survive. It might be fun to have it this way, but many people cannot be bothered to deal with puggers even though this is an MMO.

And C, Thelanis was laggy as Hell last night. I had to DC 3 times as I was unable to log in at different times last night. Adding more people to the same laggy servers sounds like a nightmare. No thanks.

[Loromir]

My Suggestion for how to do this...Yet again:

Merge Lowest Population Server with highest till you have 4 Servers!

Wayfinder with Ghallanda
Orien with Thelanis
Cannith with Khyber
Sarlona with Argo

Add "of Ghallanda, Thelanis, Khyber etc. etc. to Player and Guild Names.

Add 2 Character Slots to every f2p account
Add 4 Character Slots to every Premium account
Add 6 Character Slots to every VIP Account {this last one would hurt me if Cannith and Sarlona were to be merged as I have 12 characters on Sarlona}

For people who do have more than 6 Characters on a Second Server and that second server is merged with their main server {which is also maxed out on characters} - Halve the Price of Extra Character Slots for 3 Months!

Also allow 2 FREE Character Transfers per Account.


Finally Advertise this PROPERLY!
Use the opportunity to Bring in Brand New Non-Laggy Servers {4 of them} and Transfer 2 old Servers to each New one!


Cannit with Khyber??? No thanks!!!!

[FranOhmsford]

Cannit with Khyber??? No thanks!!!!

Perhaps Orien has a slightly larger population than Cannith atm - this would end up with Cannith being Merged with Thelanis - Would that suit you better?


Honestly - There's good and bad people on every server - There's good and Bad Players on every server - There's good and bad Guilds on every server!

The Reason I suggest merging lowest to highest until we have 4 servers rather than 8 is so the 4 servers we do then have have roughly equal populations!

Consider if they merged Ghallanda with Thelanis and Orien with Wayfinder?
The difference in population between those two new servers would be Insane!



Current Server Populations based on Hearsay and conjecture would leave us with this list - Highest first:

Ghallanda
Thelanis
Khyber
Argonessen
Sarlona
Cannith
Orien
Wayfinder

Though from my own personal experience recently on Sarlona and Cannith I'd suggest that Cannith is now ahead of Sarlona Population wise - Something that would have been unthinkable 18 months ago!


Cannith with Argo and Sarlona with Khyber would be FUN! For me!

[phinius]

Change the 'No deaths bonus' inside quests to a personal bonus and not a group bonus. This has gone around many times and I have seen many arguments stating something like, '10% only amounts to this much XP or this much time.' This may be the logical argument but logic does not mesh well with something that is supposed to be FUN. Most players I know do not stop with a single TR. With a death in every quest and a plan to TR at least 10 times this equates to needing the XP for a complete additional life. This is NOT fun.

With the friends and guilds I usually run with this is the single most common reason for not opening up the group and posting an LFM. Deaths happen and most players will die at some point and no one I run with will care about an occasional or accidental death or deaths because of external forces. However, each player added off an LFM really does seem to double the chance for stupid (avoidable) deaths regardless of the amount of hand-holding or explanations of tactics or strategy.

To a lesser extent and as others have posted already, dungeon scaling is also another factor for not filling a party. I have thought about this often and I am not sure there is an optimum balance. Perhaps changing it to just two modes; 1-3 and 4-6 (or even three modes; 1-2, 3-4 and 5-6). This puts a little more pressure on soloers but does not make it anymore difficult to allow at least a couple other players to come along, especially if the Death Bonus is only lost because of a personal death.

Forcing players to group is not the answer but there should also be no disincentives to allowing other players into the party.

[Memnir]

About a server merge... No.

[FranOhmsford]

No.

Yes Mem cos we all know your word is law on Server Merges and a One Word Statement is all that's required from you for the Devs to throw any such suggestion in the bin!

Come on Now!

Give us a reason why you're so set against the very idea of a Server Merger that the only way you can put this into words is by typing the same two letters in every single Thread about said subject!

[gordgray]

Not going to happen UN-till a lot more leave the game.

[Memnir]

Give us a reason why you're so set against the very idea of a Server Merger that the only way you can put this into words is by typing the same two letters in every single Thread about said subject!No.

[Chai]

yes mem cos we all know your word is law on server merges and a one word statement is all that's required from you for the devs to throw any such suggestion in the bin!

Come on now!

Give us a reason why you're so set against the very idea of a server merger that the only way you can put this into words is by typing the same two letters in every single thread about said subject!

lag

[Deadlock]

+ Do away with dungeon scaling for the 5th and 6th player so these can marginally contribute.

This was done some time back. Has something reverted back so 5th and 6th slots make a difference? Dev quote to confirm from way back. (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/383683-Spell-damage-in-Heroic-Elite?p=4618086#post4618086)

[jalont]

Cannit with Khyber??? No thanks!!!!

And this is the problem right here.

Where would Cannith, a place many of us escaped due to the people and culture, actually go. You're just going to shove that negative culture down a bunch of our throats again? No thanks.

For the most part, struggling servers are struggling because of the people on them. This can't be said about Wayfinder, and I'd gladly have Wayfinder merge with Ghallanda, especially with our already large population of non-US players. Other servers? Not so much.

[Gremmlynn]

My Suggestion for how to do this...Yet again:

Merge Lowest Population Server with highest till you have 4 Servers!

Wayfinder with Ghallanda
Orien with Thelanis
Cannith with Khyber
Sarlona with Argo

Add "of Ghallanda, Thelanis, Khyber etc. etc. to Player and Guild Names.

Add 2 Character Slots to every f2p account
Add 4 Character Slots to every Premium account
Add 6 Character Slots to every VIP Account {this last one would hurt me if Cannith and Sarlona were to be merged as I have 12 characters on Sarlona}

For people who do have more than 6 Characters on a Second Server and that second server is merged with their main server {which is also maxed out on characters} - Halve the Price of Extra Character Slots for 3 Months!

Also allow 2 FREE Character Transfers per Account.


Finally Advertise this PROPERLY!
Use the opportunity to Bring in Brand New Non-Laggy Servers {4 of them} and Transfer 2 old Servers to each New one!Meh, I don't think Gland would be helped much from Wayfinder and most of us left on Wayfinder are still there because we like it that way.

[Tscheuss]

No.

I agree with the dancing bear. :)

[Chai]

And this is the problem right here.

Where would Cannith, a place many of us escaped due to the people and culture, actually go. You're just going to shove that negative culture down a bunch of our throats again? No thanks.

For the most part, struggling servers are struggling because of the people on them. This can't be said about Wayfinder, and I'd gladly have Wayfinder merge with Ghallanda, especially with our already large population of non-US players. Other servers? Not so much.

So Cannith is now the Park Place of DDO?

[FlaviusMaximus]

This was done some time back. Has something reverted back so 5th and 6th slots make a difference? Dev quote to confirm from way back. (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/383683-Spell-damage-in-Heroic-Elite?p=4618086#post4618086)

Good to know. They should publicize this on the loading screens to make it more widely known.

[NaturalHazard]

My Suggestion for how to do this...Yet again:

Merge Lowest Population Server with highest till you have 4 Servers!

Wayfinder with Ghallanda
Orien with Thelanis
Cannith with Khyber
Sarlona with Argo

Add "of Ghallanda, Thelanis, Khyber etc. etc. to Player and Guild Names.

Add 2 Character Slots to every f2p account
Add 4 Character Slots to every Premium account
Add 6 Character Slots to every VIP Account {this last one would hurt me if Cannith and Sarlona were to be merged as I have 12 characters on Sarlona}

For people who do have more than 6 Characters on a Second Server and that second server is merged with their main server {which is also maxed out on characters} - Halve the Price of Extra Character Slots for 3 Months!

Also allow 2 FREE Character Transfers per Account.


Finally Advertise this PROPERLY!
Use the opportunity to Bring in Brand New Non-Laggy Servers {4 of them} and Transfer 2 old Servers to each New one!

Har Har!!!! Argo gets sarlona!!!!

[Paleus]

Turbine:
Admit you gave self-healing and survivability to everyone but Fighters so no one absolutely needs to join a group...


This bullet point from your original post encapsulates the reason I don't think server merges should be your focus. I find people asking for a server merge are actually asking for more grouping to occur. The problem is, the reason grouping doesn't occur as much as it used has a lot to do with player culture and related changes in game design. Sure, there are fewer players online than there used to be and maybe a server merger will incrementally increase the pugs temporarily, at the cost of increases to lag. But leaving game trends (ex. no raids, loot ghostbanascos) and player culture (channel > pugs) intact is like curing the symptoms and not the disease.

[hp1055cm]

And C, Thelanis was laggy as Hell last night. I had to DC 3 times as I was unable to log in at different times last night. Adding more people to the same laggy servers sounds like a nightmare. No thanks.

So continuing to play on laggy servers is acceptable then?
The problem isn't the population - its the less than optimal hardware design and the apparent difficulty to running proper maintenance that would minimize the lag.

How about we ask them to update the game into the 21st century instead with a load balancing virtual server farm that can scale up to any size population? It is absurd that the playing population is even split-up in the first place when it should be one contiguous game where you can group with anybody or effortlessly change instances to find them.
The fact that they charge people to switch servers, if that service is even available, is a joke. I have played a few other MMO's and this is the only one I have found that purposely divides it's playing population.

[Loromir]

So Cannith is now the Park Place of DDO?


I was hoping folks wouldn't figure that out. Now you know.


We have been happy flying under the radar for 4+ years.

[Vint]

So continuing to play on laggy servers is acceptable then?
The problem isn't the population - its the less than optimal hardware design and the apparent difficulty to running proper maintenance that would minimize the lag.

How about we ask them to update the game into the 21st century instead with a load balancing virtual server farm that can scale up to any size population? It is absurd that the playing population is even split-up in the first place when it should be one contiguous game where you can group with anybody or effortlessly change instances to find them.
The fact that they charge people to switch servers, if that service is even available, is a joke. I have played a few other MMO's and this is the only one I have found that purposely divides it's playing population.

I was trying to be realistic. I highly doubt that Turbine would make a new server to accommodate everyone (unless we are talking about right before they shut off the lights). The answer that they always give is that the software is not the problem; it is that anyone that lags must have a junk computer. If this is their answer I would hate to see all those “junk computers” playing at the same time on a server.

As I said I hardly ever lag. I have a good machine, but be realistic. This is an 8 year old game that may have already seen its best days long ago so I doubt that they are interested in putting that much money into a game where there may not be a tomorrow.

[FranOhmsford]

I was trying to be realistic. I highly doubt that Turbine would make a new server to accommodate everyone (unless we are talking about right before they shut off the lights). The answer that they always give is that the software is not the problem; it is that anyone that lags must have a junk computer. If this is their answer I would hate to see all those “junk computers” playing at the same time on a server.

As I said I hardly ever lag. I have a good machine, but be realistic. This is an 8 year old game that may have already seen its best days long ago so I doubt that they are interested in putting that much money into a game where there may not be a tomorrow.

We all know that Turbine aren't going to come out and say "Hey guys, We know our Servers are Sh173"


Despite the Opportunity for Dooooom! A Server Merge could be the best thing to happen to DDO since F2P!

IF

The Devs take the Opportunity to Buy FOUR NEW SERVERS!

Then transfer 2 Old Servers to each New Server!

They could then go over the Old Servers and maybe use them for Minority Pastimes like PvP, Permadeath, Roleplay etc. etc.

[NaturalHazard]

We all know that Turbine aren't going to come out and say "Hey guys, We know our Servers are Sh173"


Despite the Opportunity for Dooooom! A Server Merge could be the best thing to happen to DDO since F2P!

IF

The Devs take the Opportunity to Buy FOUR NEW SERVERS!

Then transfer 2 Old Servers to each New Server!

They could then go over the Old Servers and maybe use them for Minority Pastimes like PvP, Permadeath, Roleplay etc. etc.

Buy maor boxes so they can afford new servers!!!!

[Zzevel]

Step 1 - Add a new field to the Character Record behind the Scenes (P_SERV)
Step 2 - Add current server name into that field (i.e. P_SERV = Sarlona)
Step 3 - Bypass character duplicate name not allowed code if new P_Serve field /=
Step 4 - Guild names updated to .. [Guild name] of <Current Server>)
Step 5 - Merge all "active" (been played once in last 18 months) characters from all servers to one New server
Step 6 - Introduce Server Guild Wars
Step 7 - Merge all "inactive" characters to a different server where all they can do is transfer if they come back to DDO
Step 8 - Give all Inactive player accounts 2 free transfers from the inactive to active server
Step 9 - Charge $9.99/or TP to transfer additional characters from inactive to active servers
Step 10a - PUGies have groups to join
Step 10b - The pattern in the Shroud will never be correct
Step 10c - I stop seeing server merge threads
Step 10d - Profit /less Turbine resources needed because they spend less time doing updates and maintaining 10 different servers

[Chai]

We all know that Turbine aren't going to come out and say "Hey guys, We know our Servers are Sh173"


Despite the Opportunity for Dooooom! A Server Merge could be the best thing to happen to DDO since F2P!

IF

The Devs take the Opportunity to Buy FOUR NEW SERVERS!

Then transfer 2 Old Servers to each New Server!

They could then go over the Old Servers and maybe use them for Minority Pastimes like PvP, Permadeath, Roleplay etc. etc.

Im not so sure. You know how laggy it is when mabar happens each year? Multiply that by 2.

There were already server merges and they havent used any of the old servers for niche playstyles.

Plus a server merge is basically an admission of loss of headcount, usually reserved as a last resort when all else has failed to generate more long term users. Is DDO at that point yet? Seems like they are still trying to turn it around.

[jalont]

So Cannith is now the Park Place of DDO?

Cannith has a dead pug scene and it's completely self-inflicted. So what happens when you take those people and add them to something like Ghallanda? Do they change? Do they change Ghallanda? Who knows. It'd be an interesting experiment, and I'd love to see the results. Just not on my server please.

[Oxarhamar]

Turbine:
Admit we lost players...
Admit DDO is not the same when you can't barely join a group...
Admit a group is not the same when it only has 2 or 3 people...
Admit a group is not the same when we're all but soloists gathered together...
Admit you gave self-healing and survivability to everyone but Fighters so no one absolutely needs to join a group...
Admit even Fighters can multi-class and get some self-healing (Barbarians can't by the way)...
Admit that hirelings exist...
Admit even if you hadn't done that, we would still be better off solo'ing because Heroics are mostly easy for a veteran as long as they take it cool...

Admit we lost players (again)...
Admit DDO is not the same when there are so few PUGs... again...


Merge some servers for the sake of Lady Vol... Pretty please... do it :/


Sounds like your grouping problems are self inflicted

You are still stuck to the concept that Fighter and Barbs can't self heal themselves and therefor MUST have a group

You just sound like you want everyone to group with you so that they can carry you through the quests

There are not that many LFMs also because, players join Guilds, make Friends, and use Channels to run static they rarely need to PUG.


I PUG since my playtimes have changed and I am no longer able to run static with my guild.

I have no problems with my groups filling and generally I can put up the LFM buff and have 1 join by the time I am done buffing. Then I change the LFM to IP and start the quest by the time we are though the quest the group is full. From there people come and go I just put the LFM back up for IP whatever the next quest is.

[Oxarhamar]

better idea . . . release more than 2 quests in a 6 month period.

There are always lulls between updates. The problem is these lulls keep getting longer and longer.

Absolutely


When comm drops were "doubled" pugging was AWESOME. EE groups for everything, filled fast and was a ton of fun.

Do something like that again.

+1 100% right there

[Vallin]

Merge some servers for the sake of Lady Vol... Pretty please... do it :/

Well I got a 'Server Full' message when attempting to log onto Khyber at 8:15pm EST on 1/14/04. I don't think I have ever seen that message before. ***?

Vallin.

[Ivan_Milic]

Thelanis is fine, dont need more people.

[Miahoo]

Actually,
A new server,
With a new economy,
With no transfers to it allowed,
Will be so awesome!

[NaturalHazard]

Actually,
A new server,
With a new economy,
With no transfers to it allowed,
Will be so awesome!

Why? no hoards of exploited stuffs?

[humbleroller]

better idea . . . release more than 2 quests in a 6 month period.

There are always lulls between updates. The problem is these lulls keep getting longer and longer.
that ^^

and stop calling them expansion packs unless they are an expansion. MOTU was, Shadowfell wasnt. The new characters where.
VIPs should have gotten the Shadowfell quests for free.

[Hafeal]

Op -

No, not feeling the need.


that ^^

and stop calling them expansion packs unless they are an expansion. MOTU was, Shadowfell wasnt. The new characters where.
VIPs should have gotten the Shadowfell quests for free.

So, there have been more than 2 quests released in the last 6 months, you are just upset one was a paid expansion. *shrug* Everyone wants something for free. Complain about the 'fail" of the expansion but more than 2 quests have been released - the fact that they may not have been available to you without spending some cash, is a different issue.

[Tscheuss]

so continuing to play on laggy servers is acceptable then?
The problem isn't the population - its the less than optimal hardware design and the apparent difficulty to running proper maintenance that would minimize the lag.

How about we ask them to update the game into the 21st century instead with a load balancing virtual server farm that can scale up to any size population? It is absurd that the playing population is even split-up in the first place when it should be one contiguous game where you can group with anybody or effortlessly change instances to find them.
The fact that they charge people to switch servers, if that service is even available, is a joke. I have played a few other mmo's and this is the only one i have found that purposely divides it's playing population.

swtor

[Nestroy]

1st, DDO will not invest in 4 new servers. This is just too cost intensive.
2nd, since they introduced crushing lag on Wayfinder some time ago, I am not sure if DDO still is on physically different machines. When they last time switched ware houses (last year, I think) I am sure they virtualized the servers.
3rd, joining servers would be admitting defeat. So this is only the way of last resort.

Therefore, do not expect anything from them in that department soon, and if it is comming, expcet DDO to die within 1/2 year.

@ Deadlock

Thank you for the information. this greatly helps! Another big fail from Turbine to communicate appropriately.

[humbleroller]

Op -
...
So, there have been more than 2 quests released in the last 6 months, you are just upset one was a paid expansion. *shrug* Everyone wants something for free. Complain about the 'fail" of the expansion but more than 2 quests have been released - the fact that they may not have been available to you without spending some cash, is a different issue.
as i said, VIPs should have got it for free.

[Sokól]

When comm drops were "doubled" pugging was AWESOME. EE groups for everything, filled fast and was a ton of fun.

Do something like that again.

This was also the case on Argo.

[SirValentine]

DDO is instanced. Quests are private instances, and public areas spawn additional instances as needed. So why do we even have separate servers at all?

I rather doubt that one "server" actually corresponds to a single physical machine. I'd assume they have farms of machines, load balance across them, etc.. Couldn't they just do that on a bigger scale with a single, integrated world?

It it just to increase the character name space?

[SirValentine]

there have been more than 2 quests released in the last 6 months


You are so right. Pardon him for imprecise dates, as the truth is it's only been a 4.9-month stretch with only those 2 quests, not 6 months.

(But how long until more show up? Next update is not even on Lama yet. It may well be 6 months by then.)

[Hafeal]

as i said, VIPs should have got it for free.

Again, a different issue. I am not saying your concern is invalid or your criticism unwarranted.


You are so right. Pardon him for imprecise dates, as the truth is it's only been a 4.9-month stretch with only those 2 quests, not 6 months.

(But how long until more show up? Next update is not even on Lama yet. It may well be 6 months by then.)

Based on the history of updates since the launch of EU, I would guess an update for mid to late February around DDO's 8th birthday. :cool:

[Gremmlynn]

as i said, VIPs should have got it for free.Poorly stated.

"It should have been made part of the subscription" is what you wanted to say. VIPs don't get anything for free, they pay for all of it on a subscription basis.

Also, I agree with you. It seems that things are so tight that both new adventure packs developed in 2013 were simply lumped together and called an expansion to allow them to be relatively overpriced and not part of the VIP subscription. Other than that we got an epic retread of GH a couple short lead in quests to that expansion and two stand alone quests near the end of the year.

[Chai]

Op -

No, not feeling the need.



So, there have been more than 2 quests released in the last 6 months, you are just upset one was a paid expansion. *shrug* Everyone wants something for free. Complain about the 'fail" of the expansion but more than 2 quests have been released - the fact that they may not have been available to you without spending some cash, is a different issue.

Historically content updates have been more than 2 quests. It shows the lack of focus on content, with the rise of focus on systems to provide the time sync. Instead of getting new content to play through, we get a new system to grind for, in the same old content.

[Teh_Troll]

Historically content updates have been more than 2 quests. It shows the lack of focus on content, with the rise of focus on systems to provide the time sync. Instead of getting new content to play through, we get a new system to grind for, in the same old content.

Funny thing about this "content" is I've run both the quests once on EE . . . an haven't bothered running them again. I forget they exist.

[Robai]

Remove scaling (totally)
+10% Flawless Victory Bonus (= no death) should be per person, not per party
Give +10% xp bonus for full parties (no hirelings)
Server merge would be nice, but only if possible to avoid noticeable additional lag (some lag is better than ghost towns, but ghost towns is better than huge lag)

[FranOhmsford]

Remove scaling (totally)
+10% Flawless Victory Bonus (= no death) should be per person, not per party
Give +10% xp bonus for full parties (no hirelings)
Server merge would be nice, but only if possible to avoid noticeable additional lag (some lag is better than ghost towns, but ghost towns is better than huge lag)


*And go back to the era of Soloing being Impossible? No thanks!
*Absolutely! /Signed
*No No No! Why would you give MORE XP to the Party without the Intentional Gimping?
Seriously - You put in an XP Bonus for No Hirelings and Players who use Hires will become Pariahs!
Just NO!
P.S. Every Single One of My IP LFMs starts {and 99% of the time finishes} with a Hire - I have no problems with joiners also pulling Hires! - Yet how many people would join, see hire, Leave if your suggestion was acted upon by the Devs?
*Give the Devs SOME Credit at least! - They MUST Realise that delivering Server Merges that Produce MOAR Lag would be a BAD thing to do and therefore if they were to Server Merge would be Unlikely to do so!

[Seikojin]

Server merges are a death rattle sign. So no merges.

[Nayus]

I don't think removing it would be a good idea but vastly decreasing how dungeon scaling works would work out pretty well, you would need to reduce Trap Damage and maybe Caster damage in the other hand.

[Erdrique]

I'm not sure a merging of the servers is going to solve any of the plugging issues. I frequently see a large number of groups in LFM panel during my play times on Thelanis. I have started to put up my own LFM as well, but most of the time these dont't fill but I do get a few folks to join. I think the issue is more centered around the incentive to group as opposed to low population size. I would try increasing the benefits to grouping, as suggested by many others, prior to another server merge.

[Icywave]

I don't think removing it would be a good idea but vastly decreasing how dungeon scaling works would work out pretty well, you would need to reduce Trap Damage and maybe Caster damage in the other hand.

Decreasing dungeon scaling??? Sorry, " vastly decreasing " ...

No, no and no.

Simple Math here.... party of 6 instead of 1. Boss has lets say 300k HP rather than 210k HP. ..... that's 50k per person, rather than 210k for one person. How is scaling even an issue?! Even if you had 2 PROFESSIONAL PIKERS who can't DPS AT ALL... that's 4 DPS... Hence 75k HP to remove from boss per person, instead of 210k.

So either way, scaling is already a joke in comparison to how much more easier it gets by adding people.

[Hafeal]

Historically content updates have been more than 2 quests. It shows the lack of focus on content, with the rise of focus on systems to provide the time sync. Instead of getting new content to play through, we get a new system to grind for, in the same old content.

*shrug* Some people want a content free update dedicated only to fixing bugs.

It isn't the first time they have issued a content with only a couple of free quests. The last 2 years have certainly been spent on Reincarnation, Augments and 2 paid expansions. So, perhaps you are right. Of course, between the layoffs in 2012 and the plain turn-over, apparently, of most of the known (on the forums) dev staff, I am not so sure your point of focus isn't dead on.

[sha123]

Turbine:
Admit we lost players...
Admit DDO is not the same when you can't barely join a group...
Admit a group is not the same when it only has 2 or 3 people...
Admit a group is not the same when we're all but soloists gathered together...
Admit you gave self-healing and survivability to everyone but Fighters so no one absolutely needs to join a group...
Admit even Fighters can multi-class and get some self-healing (Barbarians can't by the way)...
Admit that hirelings exist...
Admit even if you hadn't done that, we would still be better off solo'ing because Heroics are mostly easy for a veteran as long as they take it cool...

Admit we lost players (again)...
Admit DDO is not the same when there are so few PUGs... again...


Merge some servers for the sake of Lady Vol... Pretty please... do it :/

Dont worry, many more players will be leaving for upcoming big named games. Good thing is that it will get rid of the noobs infesting my server.

[Robai]

*And go back to the era of Soloing being Impossible? No thanks!
*Absolutely! /Signed
*No No No! Why would you give MORE XP to the Party without the Intentional Gimping?
Seriously - You put in an XP Bonus for No Hirelings and Players who use Hires will become Pariahs!
Just NO!
P.S. Every Single One of My IP LFMs starts {and 99% of the time finishes} with a Hire - I have no problems with joiners also pulling Hires! - Yet how many people would join, see hire, Leave if your suggestion was acted upon by the Devs?
*Give the Devs SOME Credit at least! - They MUST Realise that delivering Server Merges that Produce MOAR Lag would be a BAD thing to do and therefore if they were to Server Merge would be Unlikely to do so!

Soloing Elites at level should be very hard! That's the point!
Soloing would still be easy on Normal or being higher lvl than quest lvl.

You got me wrong, I quite often use hirelings on my Barbarian/Fighter. Hirelings are good for that! But the 'full party' bonus should apply only for full party of real persons (it's just an additional BONUS, to encourage grouping).
For example, 3 persons + 3 hirelings = no ' full party' bonus.
And you can always dismiss hire if anyone wants to join.

[jalont]

Again, for people that want to see dungeon scaling done away with, you don't fully understand what you're asking. Good players will continue to solo and pugs will be noob-central even more so than now.

[Robai]

Good players will continue to solo
and it will be a lot slower to solo elites at level (as it should!).

pugs will be noob-central even more so than now.
Why? In full groups it won't make any difference.
If new players prefer to solo easily then there is Normal/Casual for that.

Even I very often solo or duo with a guildier since putting lfm now = increased scaling and high chance of -10% xp death penalty.
At least I will always put lfm if scaling will be removed (even -10% xp death penalty would be worth that if quest will be completed at least 15% faster).

[Nestroy]

Again, for people that want to see dungeon scaling done away with, you don't fully understand what you're asking. Good players will continue to solo and pugs will be noob-central even more so than now.

At least we would have pugs.

We now face the problems that the noobs are not learning, but leaving the game. All of you had been noobs in their beginning time as well. It takes time to learn the game.

[Tscheuss]

and it will be a lot slower to solo elites at level (as it should!).

Why? In full groups it won't make any difference.
If new players prefer to solo easily then there is Normal/Casual for that.

Even I very often solo or duo with a guildier since putting lfm now = increased scaling and high chance of -10% xp death penalty.
At least I will always put lfm if scaling will be removed (even -10% xp death penalty would be worth that if quest will be completed at least 15% faster).

There is no such thing as a -10% death penalty. :p

[ishr]

Admit a group is not the same when we're all but soloists gathered together...
Admit you gave self-healing and survivability to everyone but Fighters so no one absolutely needs to join a group...
Admit even if you hadn't done that, we would still be better off solo'ing because Heroics are mostly easy for a veteran as long as they take it cool...

unfortunately these will not be solved by a server merge, people don't group any more because content is too easy and nobody needs to work as a team any more. it used to be that you needed at least 2 or 3 people to play specific roles to defeat a quest. now you can just roll up with whoever (or nobody else at all) and make quick work of it. although some of your grievances CAN be solved by a server merge, these can only be solved by changes in game design.

[NaturalHazard]

unfortunately these will not be solved by a server merge, people don't group any more because content is too easy and nobody needs to work as a team any more. it used to be that you needed at least 2 or 3 people to play specific roles to defeat a quest. now you can just roll up with whoever (or nobody else at all) and make quick work of it. although some of your grievances CAN be solved by a server merge, these can only be solved by changes in game design.

The focus should be not on forcing people to group but providing more incentives to do so, and more incentives to play as well, some type of end game, some raids that stay relevant, a system when adding more people to your group by random is not more likely going to slow you down than help speed things along.

[Raithe]

it used to be that you needed at least 2 or 3 people to play specific roles to defeat a quest...

This has never occurred in the entire history of DDO. Every single quest in the game, possibly barring a few with switch requirements, was solo'd on elite by some particular character, at or near the time of its release. Some raids might have taken some time to be solo'd, but eventually even they fell (to power creep, if nothing else). I remember jjFlannigan (a programmer that developed several 3rd party DDO programs/websites), used to run a paladin/sorc back when pally/sorcs were shunned by the metagaming lemmings (actual gamers knew they were overpowered)...

If what you are trying to claim is that the average PUG is now usually a non-cooperative kill count competition, I'll agree for the most part. That's because that for the players that are left playing, that is what matters to them (in a generalized sense), and that is why the few people remaining still group and group often - to play the lame form of PvP that metagamers like to play...

You are correct, however, that merging servers would just attract some additional metagamers back to the game, momentarily, to participate in even more mob mow-downs - which would only hasten the demise of the game, and it would be a non-development-oriented expense for which I don't think Turbine is currently willing to foot the bill. We'll see...

[Nayus]

This has never occurred in the entire history of DDO. Every single quest in the game, possibly barring a few with switch requirements, was solo'd on elite by some particular character, at or near the time of its release. Some raids might have taken some time to be solo'd, but eventually even they fell (to power creep, if nothing else). I remember jjFlannigan (a programmer that developed several 3rd party DDO programs/websites), used to run a paladin/sorc back when pally/sorcs were shunned by the metagaming lemmings (actual gamers knew they were overpowered)...

If what you are trying to claim is that the average PUG is now usually a non-cooperative kill count competition, I'll agree for the most part. That's because that for the players that are left playing, that is what matters to them (in a generalized sense), and that is why the few people remaining still group and group often - to play the lame form of PvP that metagamers like to play...

You are correct, however, that merging servers would just attract some additional metagamers back to the game, momentarily, to participate in even more mob mow-downs - which would only hasten the demise of the game, and it would be a non-development-oriented expense for which I don't think Turbine is currently willing to foot the bill. We'll see...
1st: TheUberz are a minority, we should concentrate on the average player instead. Even because by making average players need to group to complete a quest we actually give the soloist something to brag about.

2nd: It's because characters keep getting more and more powerful with enhancement, loot and whatever "passes" while mobs only get nerfed, content is too easy and that's another HUGE problem in this game. I join a party without any cleric or any crowd-control and no one is even considering the possibility of dying? Of course I'll keep hitting X after every encounter.

3rd: It was always like this and it will always be like that for as long as kill count exists, the only difference will always be how much you're risking to get ahead of everyone else in the kill count. Nowadays your party won't wipe because you switched your main weapons for Paralyzers and you probably won't die because you tried to solo a encounter (splitting up). Difficulty of content is an entirely separate problem and should have its own thread.

[Robai]

There is no such thing as a -10% death penalty. :p

"-10% xp death penalty" = the absence of "+10% Flawless Victory Bonus"
(just in case you didn't know :cool:)

[Oxarhamar]

1st: TheUberz are a minority, we should concentrate on the average player instead. Even because by making average players need to group to complete a quest we actually give the soloist something to brag about.

2nd: It's because characters keep getting more and more powerful with enhancement, loot and whatever "passes" while mobs only get nerfed, content is too easy and that's another HUGE problem in this game. I join a party without any cleric or any crowd-control and no one is even considering the possibility of dying? Of course I'll keep hitting X after every encounter.

3rd: It was always like this and it will always be like that for as long as kill count exists, the only difference will always be how much you're risking to get ahead of everyone else in the kill count. Nowadays your party won't wipe because you switched your main weapons for Paralyzers and you probably won't die because you tried to solo a encounter (splitting up). Difficulty of content is an entirely separate problem and should have its own thread.

so because you need someone to hold your hand in the quest you want to force players to group.... you real funny now

let me explain how that will go for you.

You NEED group for quest.
Put up LFM.
Group no fill.
No change.

[Nayus]

so because you need someone to hold your hand in the quest you want to force players to group.... you real funny now
I never said that, stop using troll methods to divert the point and hide your lack of arguments.

[Oxarhamar]

I never said that, stop using troll methods to divert the point and hide your lack of arguments.

stop trying to force everyone else to play the way you want.

[Sam1313]

I have a character on every server between the levels of 4 to 11, Except on Cannith wich is my home server there I have a 28 AA ranger, 19 AA ranger, TR 14 Wizard. From what I have seen on other servers, Cannith is not small. It's not as small as most of you think it is. A lot of people on the Cannith server work between the hours of 8am EST to 5 pm EST and also a lot of these people go Anonymous. The thing I have noticed on Cannith unlike the other servers is that there are few LFG's. This could be because the players on cannith are vets and solo everything except the raids. Or We have great guilds that hold guild parties so there is no need to post a LFG. If cannith had to be forced to merge with any of the other servers then I would hope that it would be Orien.

[Ivan_Milic]

I have a character on every server between the levels of 4 to 11, Except on Cannith wich is my home server there I have a 28 AA ranger, 19 AA ranger, TR 14 Wizard. From what I have seen on other servers, Cannith is not small. It's not as small as most of you think it is. A lot of people on the Cannith server work between the hours of 8am EST to 5 pm EST and also a lot of these people go Anonymous. The thing I have noticed on Cannith unlike the other servers is that there are few LFG's. This could be because the players on cannith are vets and solo everything except the raids. Or We have great guilds that hold guild parties so there is no need to post a LFG. If cannith had to be forced to merge with any of the other servers then I would hope that it would be Orien.

Nice try to get people to join Cannith.

[Tscheuss]

"-10% xp death penalty" = the absence of "+10% Flawless Victory Bonus"
(just in case you didn't know :cool:)

The absence of +10% bonus is 9% less than what it would be with said bonus (other bonuses notwithstanding).

Either way, the absence of a bonus does not constitute a penalty.

This is a case of counting chickens. :p

[Tscheuss]

Vote NO on server merge.
Vote NO on more lag.

[Icywave]

The absence of +10% bonus is 9% less than what it would be with said bonus (other bonuses notwithstanding).

Either way, the absence of a bonus does not constitute a penalty.

This is a case of counting chickens. :p

On top of that... it isn't 10% of total xp, but BASE XP... so yeah big deal if someone dies ... not!

[Chai]

Again, for people that want to see dungeon scaling done away with, you don't fully understand what you're asking. Good players will continue to solo and pugs will be noob-central even more so than now.

Wrong. We do know what we are asking, because we played the game for years without dungeon scaling. When people need to learn the game rather than have victory handed to them, it makes the PUG scene far less noob central than it is now.

[jalont]

Wrong. We do know what we are asking, because we played the game for years without dungeon scaling. When people need to learn the game rather than have victory handed to them, it makes the PUG scene far less noob central than it is now.

I'm sorry, was this back in the "good old times" where content was "hard" and people "raided" because they wanted the "challenge"? Yeah, I don't know Chai. Content's always been easy. Content will remain easy after the removal of scaling. People that want to run with friends/guildies/channel/solo will continue to do just that. People who want to PUG will continue to do so, just like they do now.

Pugging isn't a popular way of playing DDO. No amount of force is going to make people suddenly like it.

[jalont]

At least we would have pugs.

We now face the problems that the noobs are not learning, but leaving the game. All of you had been noobs in their beginning time as well. It takes time to learn the game.

This is totally opposite of what I would expect. New people will no longer be able to learn by running content solo, pushing them into the PUG system, and pushing more non-newbs out.

[Nayus]

stop trying to force everyone else to play the way you want.LMAO, I apologize if you didn't notice this was a MMO.

[Nayus]

This is totally opposite of what I would expect. New people will no longer be able to learn by running content solo, pushing them into the PUG system, and pushing more non-newbs out.It's called "Normal Difficulty".

And Casual is a difficulty level too.

[Gremmlynn]

At least we would have pugs.

We now face the problems that the noobs are not learning, but leaving the game. All of you had been noobs in their beginning time as well. It takes time to learn the game.Strange, I played the game for about 3 months before I even though I was good enough to inflict myself on a group. I don't think scaling existed back then either, but neither did BB or any sort of first time elite opening (VIPs could open hard).

Do people actually prefer to experience those learning failures publicly and be a burden on those around them?

[Oxarhamar]

LMAO, I apologize if you didn't notice this was a MMO.

seams like you didn't notice this was an MMO.

Google the definition of an MMO

MMO
(video games) A massively multiplayer online game. A computer game in which a large number of players can simultaneously interact in a persistent world.

Nothing in that definition says that the interaction must be in a group guild or anything else. It simple states a platform which multiple players interact with a persistent world at the same time

So people saying this is a mmo so that means you have to group are completely inaccurate and are simply trying to force people to play the way they want them to play.



The bottom line is if you want to play in a group do it but, forcing others to do it is not going to make up for your failures at grouping.

[Nestroy]

Strange, I played the game for about 3 months before I even though I was good enough to inflict myself on a group. I don't think scaling existed back then either, but neither did BB or any sort of first time elite opening (VIPs could open hard).

Do people actually prefer to experience those learning failures publicly and be a burden on those around them?

I think it depends on playstyle. I did a lot of puging in my own beginning. And while only speaking for my server, I see a lot of Korthos pugs, some Habor and then a big black hole until the Elite is LFMing again for Stormhorns. and in between there is ... (drumrolls) ... nothing. So it´s easy to conclude that many players switch to either guild groups, solo, or leaving the game in between lv. 6-25.

[Silverleafeon]

Moving player between worlds destroys TR caches...and I rather like some of my loot.

http://support.turbine.com/link/portal/24001/24001/Article/57/DDO-World-Character-Transfer-FAQs


NOTE: A World Character Transfer will result in the loss of any items left in your Reincarnation Cache!

[Xianio]

If the servers can handle the load, it's always better to have high game-world populations.

This is just as much about LFG's as it is for the feeling of being in a community of like-minded individuals. When you enter a game with lots of chatter and people running around it fills in the world and helps hide the rough edges.

After all, if you could run into any area and always have 3-4 people in sight the game would feel more real, which goes a surprisingly long way.

(That said, the layout was obviously built over time. The constant 'new areas' really segment each servers population into sub-environments resulting in players feeling alone/with nothing but npc's a lot of the time)

[Oxarhamar]

If the servers can handle the load, it's always better to have high game-world populations.

This is just as much about LFG's as it is for the feeling of being in a community of like-minded individuals. When you enter a game with lots of chatter and people running around it fills in the world and helps hide the rough edges.

After all, if you could run into any area and always have 3-4 people in sight the game would feel more real, which goes a surprisingly long way.

(That said, the layout was obviously built over time. The constant 'new areas' really segment each servers population into sub-environments resulting in players feeling alone/with nothing but npc's a lot of the time)

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/ultima/ultimaonline-1.jpg
I dunno days like this on UO always had the opposite effect due to extreme lag

[Chai]

I'm sorry, was this back in the "good old times" where content was "hard" and people "raided" because they wanted the "challenge"? Yeah, I don't know Chai. Content's always been easy. Content will remain easy after the removal of scaling. People that want to run with friends/guildies/channel/solo will continue to do just that. People who want to PUG will continue to do so, just like they do now.

Pugging isn't a popular way of playing DDO. No amount of force is going to make people suddenly like it.

Nope, content has not "always been easy". Content was made easy when power creep went sky high, and scaling created a huge handicap situation for soloers.

Soloing was an accomplishment in that era. Nowdays its demanded to be commonplace by those who feel victory should be guaranteed on their first run on elite sans preparation.

[harry-pancreas]

seams like you didn't notice this was an MMO.

Google the definition of an MMO

MMO
(video games) A massively multiplayer online game. A computer game in which a large number of players can simultaneously interact in a persistent world.

Nothing in that definition says that the interaction must be in a group guild or anything else. It simple states a platform which multiple players interact with a persistent world at the same time

So people saying this is a mmo so that means you have to group are completely inaccurate and are simply trying to force people to play the way they want them to play.



The bottom line is if you want to play in a group do it but, forcing others to do it is not going to make up for your failures at grouping.

so you tolerate lag and other issues just to solo ?

xD

[Oxarhamar]

so you tolerate lag and other issues just to solo ?

xD

that's funny.

last 3 times I had lag:
The day House K moved in slow motion
during Mabar in EE Von2 the Dragon instance opened and broke the Ooze encounter
Last time I ran EN Devils assault and Baktor went teleport crazy (mass invs fixed this)

I run on a bare bones setup other than the rare event I don't get much lag at all.

I do solo a lot in heroic levels. I have found it much faster to get the most out of my time to wait for no one through most of the levels.My preferred play style is static. I run static with friends and guildies when our schedules permit. Having done Multiple TRs in 3 man static groups we learn to complement each other and are very effective at getting quest done quickly and moving on. I also PUG and I have no problems filling my groups. As I have stated in a previous post I generally put up an LFM then buff and most times I get at least 1 player to join by the time I am done buffing. We start the quest updating the LFM to IP. By the time we are finished the group is almost always full. If I'm doing a chain people come and go the group rarely has an open spot for long.

I am against changes that force grouping or hinder soloing.

forcing players to need a group to enter quests will not improve the game at all.

[slarden]

If they could bring all the servers together without losing stuff and without lag it would definitely be good for the game. If they could do it, they would have already done it because it simplifies everything for them.

If you make soloing difficult you will lose x% of solo players - it's as simple as that. You can't force people to group and why would you want to?

[Nestroy]

If they could bring all the servers together without losing stuff and without lag it would definitely be good for the game. If they could do it, they would have already done it because it simplifies everything for them.

If you make soloing difficult you will lose x% of solo players - it's as simple as that. You can't force people to group and why would you want to?

The sad thing is that they made soloing so much easier than grouping to begin with. Now a group of 6 toons has about the same good chance as soloers... And in between we have full hit by scaling.

And I do still not understand the formula how scaling caluclates elites, I have to admit. My reference always is "Eye of the Titan" for survivability. I can easily solo HE with most of my lv. 18+ toons. I usually have a hard time on groups f 3-4 players, with the same toons. Last time we breezed through on lv. 18-19 with a group of 6. So either solo or do a really big group, but forget the rest in between???

[Cetus]

Argo and Khyber

Go

[slarden]

The sad thing is that they made soloing so much easier than grouping to begin with. Now a group of 6 toons has about the same good chance as soloers... And in between we have full hit by scaling.

And I do still not understand the formula how scaling caluclates elites, I have to admit. My reference always is "Eye of the Titan" for survivability. I can easily solo HE with most of my lv. 18+ toons. I usually have a hard time on groups f 3-4 players, with the same toons. Last time we breezed through on lv. 18-19 with a group of 6. So either solo or do a really big group, but forget the rest in between???

With epic elite scaling I think the idea that scaling makes it harder for a group is way overblown. With the monster manual it's easy to see that total room hp/person goes down as you add more people. I haven't really noticed the damage being that much worse, but even if it is a little higher the amount of aggro is split among more people and again the # of monsters / person goes down as the party size goes up.

The thing that sometimes makes grouping harder is that people have different playstyles and don't act as a team. One person is kiting around the whole room with a bow while another person is trying to get them all grouped up for big burst damage. One person is zerging while another person is soloing an optional everyone else wants to skip. A pug barbarian in magister may not be a huge contributer. Still with pug EE I've never seen a failed quest and the last time I saw a wipe that required some people to re-enter was EE belly of the beast prior to U15 and that ended in success.

[Nestroy]

With epic elite scaling I think the idea that scaling makes it harder for a group is way overblown. With the monster manual it's easy to see that total room hp/person goes down as you add more people. I haven't really noticed the damage being that much worse, but even if it is a little higher the amount of aggro is split among more people and again the # of monsters / person goes down as the party size goes up.

The thing that sometimes makes grouping harder is that people have different playstyles and don't act as a team. One person is kiting around the whole room with a bow while another person is trying to get them all grouped up for big burst damage. One person is zerging while another person is soloing an optional everyone else wants to skip. A pug barbarian in magister may not be a huge contributer. Still with pug EE I've never seen a failed quest and the last time I saw a wipe that required some people to re-enter was EE belly of the beast prior to U15 and that ended in success.

Slarden, the reason why you see so few groups is exactly what you describe. People are not used to work toegether as a group. Those that are tend to form semi-fixed groups that know how to operate as a team. A pug group leader can go only a certain way too. He cann´t kick a member directly. So his options for bringing in line group members are limited, except for desperate measures like reforming outside.Now dungeon scaling kicks in. Groups always loose efficiency a soloist has. Now there is a challenge increase. Most pug groups have 1-2 competent contributors, 1-2 contibutors at best effort and 1-2 members that do not know and are not better than pikers. So nobody groups in pugs, everybody looks for players she or he knows as competent. Pug scene dead.

To my mind, the only possible soution, at the danger of the outcry from all the soloists: Dungeon scaling scaled down. Yes, this means making it harder for the soloist. And yes, this means it is getting dumb easy for big groups. But it is the only solution to make grouping with others than the own team attractive. And for the monkcher zerg soloist specialist that currently complains for DDO to be "too easy" the challenge is up again - and solo is unplayable for everybody else.

[Phaeton_Seraph]

To my mind, the only possible soution, at the danger of the outcry from all the soloists: Dungeon scaling scaled down. Yes, this means making it harder for the soloist. And yes, this means it is getting dumb easy for big groups. But it is the only solution to make grouping with others than the own team attractive. And for the monkcher zerg soloist specialist that currently complains for DDO to be "too easy" the challenge is up again - and solo is unplayable for everybody else.


Ban the soloists! Let's give them an offline copy of an Elder Scrolls game and be done with them. This is an MMO, it's supposed to be social.

[Waaye]

[,,,]Merge some servers for the sake of Lady Vol... Pretty please... do it :/

Even though I have no knowledge of what Turbine is actually doing I doubt that these "servers" are actual physical boxes dedicated to running DDO. Every player's game world is generated on the local machine and all that needs to be transferred to it is positional information about the movements of external characters. This does not take much processing power and I expect the actual physical boxes are doing much more than just acting as a server for DDO.

What I think would be a good solution to the low population problem would be a group finder that works across all the virtual servers. if an instance is found on another server then a temporary copy of the players character could be copied to that server for the quest and copied back when finished. Sadly, this will do nothing to compensate for the huge speed differential between questers and meta-gamers but it would be a start.

[Nestroy]

Ban the soloists! Let's give them an offline copy of an Elder Scrolls game and be done with them. This is an MMO, it's supposed to be social.

Well, with the up and comming Elder Scrolls Online game...

Fun apart, I am somewhat of your opinion. But not banning, making it harder for the soloists. That´s enough.

[Uska]

Change the 'No deaths bonus' inside quests to a personal bonus and not a group bonus. This has gone around many times and I have seen many arguments stating something like, '10% only amounts to this much XP or this much time.' This may be the logical argument but logic does not mesh well with something that is supposed to be FUN. Most players I know do not stop with a single TR. With a death in every quest and a plan to TR at least 10 times this equates to needing the XP for a complete additional life. This is NOT fun.

With the friends and guilds I usually run with this is the single most common reason for not opening up the group and posting an LFM. Deaths happen and most players will die at some point and no one I run with will care about an occasional or accidental death or deaths because of external forces. However, each player added off an LFM really does seem to double the chance for stupid (avoidable) deaths regardless of the amount of hand-holding or explanations of tactics or strategy.

To a lesser extent and as others have posted already, dungeon scaling is also another factor for not filling a party. I have thought about this often and I am not sure there is an optimum balance. Perhaps changing it to just two modes; 1-3 and 4-6 (or even three modes; 1-2, 3-4 and 5-6). This puts a little more pressure on soloers but does not make it anymore difficult to allow at least a couple other players to come along, especially if the Death Bonus is only lost because of a personal death.

Forcing players to group is not the answer but there should also be no disincentives to allowing other players into the party.

Having no deaths being a group bonus encourages people to work together better and some people hold to much importance on zero deaths and are usually people I want nothing to do with. We get zero deaths great someone dies so what. There should be zero changes to how this works, but if you want it individual well then let's make all of the bonuses that way including traps eh? Doesn't sound so good now does it?

[taurean430]

Well, with the up and comming Elder Scrolls Online game...

Fun apart, I am somewhat of your opinion. But not banning, making it harder for the soloists. That´s enough.

The problem with your argument is that it won't be more difficult for soloists with full scaling on elite difficulty. Solo'd when I felt like it then, and solo when I feel like it now.

Cutting off a paying portion of the playerbase is never, ever, a good idea btw...

[Nestroy]

The problem with your argument is that it won't be more difficult for soloists with full scaling on elite difficulty. Solo'd when I felt like it then, and solo when I feel like it now.

Cutting off a paying portion of the playerbase is never, ever, a good idea btw...

Again, I can only test for "Eye of the Titan", my reference quest for elite diffiulties. Solo this (on a lv. 20 toon with EDs) and do it with a hire and on a group of 4 and a group of 6. And now please check with me - which run had been the hardest (on account of monster resistances, monster hp and damage).

I had the impression that soloing is a walk in the park, running with a hire as usual is a very mixed experience and running with 3 fellow puggers is the worst. With 6 group members the quest is a walk in the park again.

So either - just my feelings - the dungeon scaling on that special quest is rampantly wrong (and elite scales on normal levels) or elite scales into epic levels and give epic resistances to the mobs and bosses with more members inside. Either way, soloing is a breeze and all else (with the exception of full group) is a grind.

[Gremmlynn]

Slarden, the reason why you see so few groups is exactly what you describe. People are not used to work toegether as a group. Those that are tend to form semi-fixed groups that know how to operate as a team. A pug group leader can go only a certain way too. He cann´t kick a member directly. So his options for bringing in line group members are limited, except for desperate measures like reforming outside.Now dungeon scaling kicks in. Groups always loose efficiency a soloist has. Now there is a challenge increase. Most pug groups have 1-2 competent contributors, 1-2 contibutors at best effort and 1-2 members that do not know and are not better than pikers. So nobody groups in pugs, everybody looks for players she or he knows as competent. Pug scene dead.Well, while it does contribute to it, that isn't the only or even main reason the pug scene is dead. The design of the game making pugs illogical does more IMO.


To my mind, the only possible soution, at the danger of the outcry from all the soloists: Dungeon scaling scaled down. Yes, this means making it harder for the soloist. And yes, this means it is getting dumb easy for big groups. But it is the only solution to make grouping with others than the own team attractive. And for the monkcher zerg soloist specialist that currently complains for DDO to be "too easy" the challenge is up again - and solo is unplayable for everybody else.It would probably be easy enough to set the current 2 man scaling for solo play, 3 man for dual and full scaling for 3+. That should always make adding players more beneficial than not while not completely breaking the game for those who simply can't find enough other players to run what they want in an almost immediate manner. Waiting for groups in a game that offers so little to do while waiting is not a real good thing.

[Gremmlynn]

Ban the soloists! Let's give them an offline copy of an Elder Scrolls game and be done with them. This is an MMO, it's supposed to be social.But is was poorly designed to be that way. It was designed to reward competence by offering the lions share of the reward for completing quests. When the game gives players more reasons to be wary of others messing up their progress or slowing them down than it does to being social it gets in it's own way in that regard.

[Gremmlynn]

Having no deaths being a group bonus encourages people to work together better and some people hold to much importance on zero deaths and are usually people I want nothing to do with. We get zero deaths great someone dies so what. There should be zero changes to how this works, but if you want it individual well then let's make all of the bonuses that way including traps eh? Doesn't sound so good now does it?The problem with this is that in an effort to get players to work together, the game gives them a reason to not be inclusive.

I think a better idea than to making all bonuses individual (which would likely just lead to players both soloing more as well as competing against each other for those bonuses - and a lot more rogue splashes) would be to just do away with the bonus completely. Personally, this is something I would have done years ago.

[Oxarhamar]

You say MMOs are a social game? Well get social make some friends and do some quests.

[slarden]

Slarden, the reason why you see so few groups is exactly what you describe. People are not used to work toegether as a group. Those that are tend to form semi-fixed groups that know how to operate as a team. A pug group leader can go only a certain way too. He cann´t kick a member directly. So his options for bringing in line group members are limited, except for desperate measures like reforming outside.Now dungeon scaling kicks in. Groups always loose efficiency a soloist has. Now there is a challenge increase. Most pug groups have 1-2 competent contributors, 1-2 contibutors at best effort and 1-2 members that do not know and are not better than pikers. So nobody groups in pugs, everybody looks for players she or he knows as competent. Pug scene dead.

To my mind, the only possible soution, at the danger of the outcry from all the soloists: Dungeon scaling scaled down. Yes, this means making it harder for the soloist. And yes, this means it is getting dumb easy for big groups. But it is the only solution to make grouping with others than the own team attractive. And for the monkcher zerg soloist specialist that currently complains for DDO to be "too easy" the challenge is up again - and solo is unplayable for everybody else.

The only significant problem I see with the scaling as it exists today is with dungeon alert. I don't believe dungeon alert is scaling at all so one person soloing can zerg past quite a few mobs before clearing is necessary. If you have a fully party of 6 with more mobs dungeon alert happens much sooner = sometimes just in the course of a quest when enemies appear and every previous mob was cleared. Fixing dungeon alert should be a priority for the devs.

On Sarlona it is not so hard to find groups at epic levels, although it depends on time of day and your typical cycles where server population is up and down. Today I joined quite a few pugs and they all went well. The first group I was in had 3 of the best players on Sarlona plus myself and 2 others I didn't know - all joining the group independently.

When I am running in an off-destiny I really like to solo because I don't want to be judged for my lower dps, etc. when I am not in my best build. I really don't want that option taken away and any amount of penalty added for soloing won't make me group. It will only make me like the game less.

One thing with EE is that they hit hard and you die sometimes. When soloing EE and you die- you have to release and re-enter if there isn't a shrine around. Quests like Thrill of the Hunt for example I can solo EE with my wizard, but I can easily get killed shortly after initiating the end fight. There is some spots you can get to that are safe, but that guy can hit you hard before you get there. I really don't find that quest easier to solo on EE. My wiz doesn't have the PRR of a monkcher.

[Nestroy]

The only significant problem I see with the scaling as it exists today is with dungeon alert. I don't believe dungeon alert is scaling at all so one person soloing can zerg past quite a few mobs before clearing is necessary. If you have a fully party of 6 with more mobs dungeon alert happens much sooner = sometimes just in the course of a quest when enemies appear and every previous mob was cleared. Fixing dungeon alert should be a priority for the devs.

On Sarlona it is not so hard to find groups at epic levels, although it depends on time of day and your typical cycles where server population is up and down. Today I joined quite a few pugs and they all went well. The first group I was in had 3 of the best players on Sarlona plus myself and 2 others I didn't know - all joining the group independently.

When I am running in an off-destiny I really like to solo because I don't want to be judged for my lower dps, etc. when I am not in my best build. I really don't want that option taken away and any amount of penalty added for soloing won't make me group. It will only make me like the game less.

One thing with EE is that they hit hard and you die sometimes. When soloing EE and you die- you have to release and re-enter if there isn't a shrine around. Quests like Thrill of the Hunt for example I can solo EE with my wizard, but I can easily get killed shortly after initiating the end fight. There is some spots you can get to that are safe, but that guy can hit you hard before you get there. I really don't find that quest easier to solo on EE. My wiz doesn't have the PRR of a monkcher.

Why is everybody always talking about EE and nothing else. The main problems with grouping are the low-mid levels in Heroic. Epics are doing fine. If I look into the group paneel, as usual dependent on time of the day, I find a lot of Korthos groups and some Habor groups, then a big nothing and then some epic groups. This means that most toons do not play beyond habor. While we always see plenty of favor grinders, there are many players outside that stop playing after the habor or market place. Why? Why are so many stopping at lv. 8-10? I think, simply because there are too few pugs out there where they might group and learn the game.

My guild does a tremendous job in helping new members. But one has to find the way on bord before the help kicks in. We retain many or most of our fresh members. Of course the occassional zerg joins too. But theese get weeded out over time when they are not online any more. I always hear "why isn´t there a pug group to join" from the newer members. And I usually anser "please do open one yourself". They flll up quite nicely. But I hear always the same rants afterwards: "Wow, the quest got so much harder in group. When I solo I do not have any problems." Ok, and that´s it.

The well trained completionist on EE with the best gear available will not have real problems soloing or contributing in groups. The first lifer getting finally into meaningful levels now is a completely different matter. And saying them "get to my level, kid" does not help either.

I always tell my fellow guildies the same thing: "You either grind out the TP you need or you invest at least some money." I always try to lead them through the first levels, the first grind to TP and the first packs. I school them how the ddowiki works and what to look for. But one thing I cannot help them: Grouping and running the quests. And DDO in it´s current state isn´t too helpful with retaining new players either.

[Vint]

Why is everybody always talking about EE and nothing else. The main problems with grouping are the low-mid levels in Heroic. Epics are doing fine. If I look into the group paneel, as usual dependent on time of the day, I find a lot of Korthos groups and some Habor groups, then a big nothing and then some epic groups. This means that most toons do not play beyond habor. While we always see plenty of favor grinders, there are many players outside that stop playing after the habor or market place. Why? Why are so many stopping at lv. 8-10? I think, simply because there are too few pugs out there where they might group and learn the game.

The other day I saw something in the dev tracker along the lines of “New people, buy otto boxes or GTFO”.

[Varthalos]

Totally agree with server mergers, find a way to get all players on 1 server. The more the merrier, there can never be too many people to play with imo. Make sure the technology can support it (if it cant fix it so that it can). Sort things out so that all the systems make sense and do it. It would be great for the game imo.

[JamnJD]

Totally agree with server mergers, find a way to get all players on 1 server. The more the merrier, there can never be too many people to play with imo. Make sure the technology can support it (if it cant fix it so that it can). Sort things out so that all the systems make sense and do it. It would be great for the game imo.

A DDO engineer has already commented on this in the past. The limitations are software, and date back to the original design of the game, which is almost 9 years old (8 years in production.)

Changes would pretty much require a re-write. And so, we will never see DDO's entire population merged into one system.

...J

[Nestroy]

The other day I saw something in the dev tracker along the lines of “New people, buy otto boxes or GTFO”.

If that holds any truth (oficially from the devs), then the DDO future is more bleak than I thought. I can understand if they want new players to use the shop as much as possible. But you do not learn from chugging stones.

[Vint]

If that holds any truth (oficially from the devs), then the DDO future is more bleak than I thought. I can understand if they want new players to use the shop as much as possible. But you do not learn from chugging stones.

No, this was pure sarcasm, but I really do not think Turbine (actually WB) gives a **** how many people quit as long as there are whales that will stay to support the game.

[NaturalHazard]

No, this was pure sarcasm, but I really do not think Turbine (actually WB) gives a **** how many people quit as long as there are whales that will stay to support the game.

whales play DDO?

[Vint]

whales play DDO?

Apparently, check this post out:


Anyone willing to buy an Otto's stone is also spending the money for the epic heart, and not grinding comms.

They will keep the number of comms high until the people who are willing to spend tons of cash slow down a bit. Believe me, they have made a ton of money...

Thrudh has it exactly right. They will milk people for whatever they can, and right before people start to walk away they will give the same “we are going to do you a favor and reduce the amount of comms you need” speech. They know full well that they have to do this or more and more people will walk. Milk for everything you can and hopefully you do not lose more spenders that the big spenders can make up.

[Failedlegend]

Merging Servers is a terrible idea unless they double the amount of character slots everyone has (ie. if u currentli have 6 u get 12...9 gets 18, etc.) otherwise alot of people are going to lose access to some of their characters. Personally I play multiple characters on Orien (My Gamer Girl and I), Thelanis (My Solo/Experiment Server) and Argo (My static group with 5 other friends) if any of those were merged I'd be WELL past my character limit.

[JamnJD]

No, this was pure sarcasm, but I really do not think Turbine (actually WB) gives a **** how many people quit as long as there are whales that will stay to support the game.

Bingo!

To Turbine, this is all that really matters right now. Unfortunately, for the game, I think this will hurt the game long term.

Selling boxes, stones, ETR etc... is big money right now. But eventually a lot of gamers are going to buy their way to the top, and then get bored and leave. At least until the next gimmick comes out.

I feel sorry for those suckered into the Epic TR game. Turbine comes out with this gimmick, and many jump all over it because there is nothing else. Grind for Covs? Or buy your ETR? It reminds me of the Coke/Pepsi challenge. I remember so many people asking me which I preferred. Surprised them when I answered neither, I preferred Sprite at the time.

Sometimes the only way to win is to not to play the game. So I do other things in DDO and ignore the gimmicks like the ETR game completely.

OP: DDO is still fun. Ignore ETR and find something else to do. Maybe take a break for a bit, see how you feel. Your post reads like you're not having fun in the game right now, which seems like a waste of time to me. But this is just my opinion.

...J

edit: OK, it's late where I am. My last comment was to the OP of this thread:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/434781-Buy-ETR-stones-Or-Else

[Gremmlynn]

The only significant problem I see with the scaling as it exists today is with dungeon alert. I don't believe dungeon alert is scaling at all so one person soloing can zerg past quite a few mobs before clearing is necessary. If you have a fully party of 6 with more mobs dungeon alert happens much sooner = sometimes just in the course of a quest when enemies appear and every previous mob was cleared. Fixing dungeon alert should be a priority for the devs.DA isn't supposed to scale. It's a mechanic that is designed to keep things within the capabilities of the system, not to balance game play. If an instance is scaled to have fewer mobs than the player(s) will be able to move further before the DA thresholds are met.

[Gremmlynn]

Why is everybody always talking about EE and nothing else. The main problems with grouping are the low-mid levels in Heroic. Epics are doing fine. If I look into the group paneel, as usual dependent on time of the day, I find a lot of Korthos groups and some Habor groups, then a big nothing and then some epic groups. This means that most toons do not play beyond habor. While we always see plenty of favor grinders, there are many players outside that stop playing after the habor or market place. Why? Why are so many stopping at lv. 8-10? I think, simply because there are too few pugs out there where they might group and learn the game. Maybe it's that by those levels people generally find enough players they know they enjoy playing with that they can avoid the **** shoot that is pugging and the chance they will end up with some they don't enjoy playing with. I know that's what I did.

[Gremmlynn]

No, this was pure sarcasm, but I really do not think Turbine (actually WB) gives a **** how many people quit as long as there are whales that will stay to support the game.Well yeah. Why would you expect anything else? They are in it to make money, not win awards for being the best game ever (unless doing so makes them more money. To put it bluntly, they don't give a rats ass about anyone who isn't spending money on their game except in how they may be keeping those who are entertained or in how they might be able to convince them to spend money on the game (cheaply).

[Satyriasys]

Go ahead and merge the other servers but Thelanis doesn't need or want your refugees.
The simple fact is this game is getting dumbed down and all strategy and teamwork has been rendered obsolete in a desperate attempt to attract new players.

When I first started this game and realized my blindness was not going to wear off, even after finishing the quest and wandering around the marketplace blind, begging for help, I fell in love with DDO.
There was a time when you needed a balanced party but now everyone is a balanced party themselves. There is only one solution to fixing the pug scene and that is nerfs across the board and that is not going to happen.

Multi-classing is a good thing, but unrestricted multi-classing leads to a game with only 1 class.

[Nestroy]

Maybe it's that by those levels people generally find enough players they know they enjoy playing with that they can avoid the **** shoot that is pugging and the chance they will end up with some they don't enjoy playing with. I know that's what I did.

Thank you for backing my arguments.

Well, DDO is going down the tube anyway, it´s just a matter of time. Let´s have fun while it lasts and does not cost an avalanche to still play.

[harry-pancreas]

i was wrong then, but you changed a bit you're statement. Lag was an example of many, we all know MMO's have issues that you won't find in a stand alone game (looking at you, server maintenance and other stuff)


that's funny.

last 3 times I had lag:
The day House K moved in slow motion
during Mabar in EE Von2 the Dragon instance opened and broke the Ooze encounter
Last time I ran EN Devils assault and Baktor went teleport crazy (mass invs fixed this)

I run on a bare bones setup other than the rare event I don't get much lag at all.

I do solo a lot in heroic levels. I have found it much faster to get the most out of my time to wait for no one through most of the levels.My preferred play style is static. I run static with friends and guildies when our schedules permit. Having done Multiple TRs in 3 man static groups we learn to complement each other and are very effective at getting quest done quickly and moving on. I also PUG and I have no problems filling my groups. As I have stated in a previous post I generally put up an LFM then buff and most times I get at least 1 player to join by the time I am done buffing. We start the quest updating the LFM to IP. By the time we are finished the group is almost always full. If I'm doing a chain people come and go the group rarely has an open spot for long.

I am against changes that force grouping or hinder soloing.

forcing players to need a group to enter quests will not improve the game at all.

[TFPAQ]

I've read some good posts and thoughts in this thread.

In many respects, solo is quicker, easier, and time effective. I hate "wasting" time waiting for groups to form, etc.

Most of my grouping these days isn't PUG, but guild-based (mostly raids) because they are planned in advance and don't "waste" time standing around, etc.

I don't think that the lack of "pugable" groups and listings is really reflective of the state of the game; it is just that most players group within their guild and so you don't have nearly the number of quests "open" like there used to be.

My fix: add a 25% XP boost to any group of two or more. That amount of XP would offset the waiting around, taking longer to complete, etc. I'd be fine with scaling it up to 40% with 4+ members.

Given the vast differences in levels and play styles (completionists, etc) - the grouping of the good 'ol days doesn't exist anymore for the vast majority of players.

[Failedlegend]

I'm all for an XP boost for grouping as the main reason for elitists not grouping is claiming pugging = lose 10% xp but 40% for a full group is overkill I'd say +4% per member in group...so 2 people +4%, 3 +8%, 4 +12%,5 +16%, 6 +20%...raids function slightly different with the xp increasing for for every 2nd person that joins

[Deadlock]

I'm all for an XP boost for grouping as the main reason for elitists not grouping is claiming pugging = lose 10% xp but 40% for a full group is overkill I'd say +4% per member in group...so 2 people +4%, 3 +8%, 4 +12%,5 +16%, 6 +20%...raids function slightly different with the xp increasing for for every 2nd person that joins

Then you just get people multiboxing. No point.

[slarden]

Slarden, the reason why you see so few groups is exactly what you describe. People are not used to work toegether as a group. Those that are tend to form semi-fixed groups that know how to operate as a team. A pug group leader can go only a certain way too. He cann´t kick a member directly. So his options for bringing in line group members are limited, except for desperate measures like reforming outside.Now dungeon scaling kicks in. Groups always loose efficiency a soloist has. Now there is a challenge increase. Most pug groups have 1-2 competent contributors, 1-2 contibutors at best effort and 1-2 members that do not know and are not better than pikers. So nobody groups in pugs, everybody looks for players she or he knows as competent. Pug scene dead.

To my mind, the only possible soution, at the danger of the outcry from all the soloists: Dungeon scaling scaled down. Yes, this means making it harder for the soloist. And yes, this means it is getting dumb easy for big groups. But it is the only solution to make grouping with others than the own team attractive. And for the monkcher zerg soloist specialist that currently complains for DDO to be "too easy" the challenge is up again - and solo is unplayable for everybody else.

With heroic leveling alot of people can solo a dungeon even if it is scaled to 6. It's a completely different issue on heroic levels - speed. It takes way longer to level with a random party than it does solo.

They likely can't get rid of bravery bonus now without alot of complaints, but they really should have just made it a grouping bonus instead. And it doesn't matter what they do because people will work the system in ways Turbine doesn't anticipate.

Personally I think Turbine should avoid social engineering because they aren't very good at it. Just let people play the way they want.

[Nestroy]

With heroic leveling alot of people can solo a dungeon even if it is scaled to 6. It's a completely different issue on heroic levels - speed. It takes way longer to level with a random party than it does solo.

They likely can't get rid of bravery bonus now without alot of complaints, but they really should have just made it a grouping bonus instead. And it doesn't matter what they do because people will work the system in ways Turbine doesn't anticipate.

Personally I think Turbine should avoid social engineering because they aren't very good at it. Just let people play the way they want.

That´s something I could /sign any time. I would not see the bravery streak as a major source of disconnection between soloing and grouping but on a second thought you may be perfectly right.

I think there are several game mechanics that currently and in total discourage group play:

- Bravery Streaks hinder people to go into (any) groups.
- Dungeon Scaling favors the solo zerg.
- Power differences due to past life feats and better banked equipement between first lifers and new players, and the vets.
- Risk of loosing the 10% bonus for quests without deaths actually discourages many players to group.

+ Missing incentives to actively group (like XP group bonuses).
+ Too short running ship buffs - too long buff up times. Buffs are vitaly important for newer players, though, to even out the power difference between them and the vets.
+ The death penalty (loss of bonus) should only apply to the individual player.
+ Too less incentive to actually run the quests instead of flashing and zerging through. Optionals should either bring more XP and completing the quest less, or generally more optionals while doing the quests.

[Phaeton_Seraph]

Well, with the up and comming Elder Scrolls Online game...

Fun apart, I am somewhat of your opinion. But not banning, making it harder for the soloists. That´s enough.


I didn't really mean "ban" them. Just there's so been so many banning threads in the last couple of months that I got carried away.

Maybe it should have been "Squelch the soloists!" Who do they got to talk to anyway?

[Failedlegend]

Then you just get people multiboxing. No point.

Just because a FEW people would do that is not a reason to not add a incentive to group.

Also what wrong with multi-boxing the devs literally built it into the launcher so clearly they approve of that playstyle.

[Kir1]

Decreasing dungeon scaling??? Sorry, " vastly decreasing " ...

No, no and no.

Simple Math here.... party of 6 instead of 1. Boss has lets say 300k HP rather than 210k HP. ..... that's 50k per person, rather than 210k for one person. How is scaling even an issue?! Even if you had 2 PROFESSIONAL PIKERS who can't DPS AT ALL... that's 4 DPS... Hence 75k HP to remove from boss per person, instead of 210k.

So either way, scaling is already a joke in comparison to how much more easier it gets by adding people.

You forgot to mention that 1) it is usualy twice more hp then just 300k->210k hp. 2) boss also hits much less dmg when you solo 3) a lot players in PUG do bad dps, looking at those clerics with 1 kill and no healing done (what are they doing whole quest since they are actualy moving with group and not piking at entrance?).

[Kir1]

The problem with your argument is that it won't be more difficult for soloists with full scaling on elite difficulty. Solo'd when I felt like it then, and solo when I feel like it now.

Cutting off a paying portion of the playerbase is never, ever, a good idea btw...

They should remove scaling on Elite only. I cant stress how much this is important.

Hard and Normal should keep difficulty scaling.


This way you can still get easy solo runs on "hard", but for Elite to solo you actually need to go be good. If you are not good enough for Elite, i repeat there are other difficulty settings for quest, they exist for a reason.

[Nestroy]

You forgot to mention that 1) it is usualy twice more hp then just 300k->210k hp. 2) boss also hits much less dmg when you solo 3) a lot players in PUG do bad dps, looking at those clerics with 1 kill and no healing done (what are they doing whole quest since they are actualy moving with group and not piking at entrance?).

Regarding the non-piking cleric with only a few kills:

I currently have a 3rd life cleric speced for undead slaying. This is a lv. 12 undead killing / healbot machine. Let this cleric run any Necro quest and look at the kill stats afterwards. OK, and now let the same cleric run any flagging quest in menech that is not wiz king. I ran Chains of Flame on elite a few days ago with a guild party. We had a lot of fun in that quest, but with most of my fellow guildies quite self sufficient and DPS monsters I did not have much to do. Blade Barrier is stationary and most other spells do not help much against the mobs in there. Meleeing as a turning-specced cleric? Meh.

I think I had about 5 kills, most out of courtesy, I would guess. OK, my group had been Vet only with three very apt players, me excluded. So these had most of the DPS and kills. I had a quiet day and a lot of XP. And I had been the failsafe fallback cleric in there contributing little, but being a good buff / rez / heal option in case something would have went wrong.

Did I contribute big time? No.
Did I pike? Neither.
Would I have been a waste of a group spot? Objectively said, yes. I had been unneccesary. I would not have been good for a BYOH/zerg group, since I could not contribute big DPS or anything that makes the group faster. I saw myself more of a failsafe though. My BBs stood when the Sorc needed a short break from the mobs. And I tossed the occassional healing spell when needed.
Would I have been able to contribute more? Compared to my fellow guildies, no. Compared to the average pug I perhaps would have carried such a group alone on my back through the quest.
Does this make me a bad ceric / bad player ? This depends on the definition of "bad" - pure DPS contributing output, clerly yes. Working as a team or contributing on more intangible things, perhaps no.

Bottom line - a cleric is not supposed to be the big time DPS killing machine. If a cleric can contribute, fine. If a cleric of apt level can rez and toss the occassional heal, this is a must. I would expect the cleric to have kills near ot at the bottom of the killing list. But!!! But I would expect the cleric to make sure there are no deaths in a group. And to clean up any dead members on the way if necessary. So finding a cleric on the bottom of the kills list? No problem. That said - as long as a cleric is doing a good job at healing / rezing / buffing, the cleric does not need to shine in the DPS department in a big group. DPS in a big group from a cleric is purely optional. If the cleric fails his core duty duty however, the player better deletes the toon and starts anew.

[Deadlock]

They should remove scaling on Elite only. I cant stress how much this is important.

Hard and Normal should keep difficulty scaling.

This way you can still get easy solo runs on "hard", but for Elite to solo you actually need to go be good. If you are not good enough for Elite, i repeat there are other difficulty settings for quest, they exist for a reason.

What exactly do you think would be achieved if this was done?

Do you think this will encourage grouping? Or do you think this will improve the epeen of those of us who can carry a full party of puggers through Elite as it is at the moment?

[Icywave]

You forgot to mention that 1) it is usualy twice more hp then just 300k->210k hp. 2) boss also hits much less dmg when you solo 3) a lot players in PUG do bad dps, looking at those clerics with 1 kill and no healing done (what are they doing whole quest since they are actualy moving with group and not piking at entrance?).

So what if they have twice the HP .. you have 6 times the people!

And if you have pikers, that's another matter entirely. Personally, I have no problem telling them " Stop piking, or you shall never be part of my groups again ". That's it, that's all.

[Icywave]

They should remove scaling on Elite only. I cant stress how much this is important.

Hard and Normal should keep difficulty scaling.


This way you can still get easy solo runs on "hard", but for Elite to solo you actually need to go be good. If you are not good enough for Elite, i repeat there are other difficulty settings for quest, they exist for a reason.

I disagree on having a treatment or game mechanic only for A difficulty level. Also, Elite is about the only " challenge " for some in the game at the moment, so no, lets not remove scaling for it.

[taurean430]

Again, I can only test for "Eye of the Titan", my reference quest for elite diffiulties. Solo this (on a lv. 20 toon with EDs) and do it with a hire and on a group of 4 and a group of 6. And now please check with me - which run had been the hardest (on account of monster resistances, monster hp and damage).

I had the impression that soloing is a walk in the park, running with a hire as usual is a very mixed experience and running with 3 fellow puggers is the worst. With 6 group members the quest is a walk in the park again.

So either - just my feelings - the dungeon scaling on that special quest is rampantly wrong (and elite scales on normal levels) or elite scales into epic levels and give epic resistances to the mobs and bosses with more members inside. Either way, soloing is a breeze and all else (with the exception of full group) is a grind.

Eye of the Titan might not be a fair example, as it does scale into epic levels (21 on elite).

What I am trying to say here really is that those who do choose to solo content will continue to do so despite changing the scaling mechanic to favor grouping. In the example you mention, I had a much easier time runnng it on elite solo. But it wasn't due to scaling. In both runs my level 16 Wizard/2 Rogue had no trouble dealing with the mobs. But grouping cost 90% more sp and some aggrivation due to the behavior of the other players in the group. Finger of death was adequate in both cases on this build, which had no past life Wiz. But other players affecting the mob's aggro with their actions caused missed level drains via Circle of Death/Symbol of Death. The other party members required buffing, or rebuffing if they died. The boss had more HP. Yet the start to finish time (observed by ship buff timer) was 45 seconds more in a group where the HP's were increased. It required 3 additional casts compared to soloing it. Not an excessive gain imo. The additional cost to grouping, and therefore disincentive, in that quest was loss of survival bonus, and mem pot usuage due to inefficiency caused by the actions of party members.

Now, I agree with you that more need be done to encourage grouping. However, giving full scaling on elite for soloists is not something that I believe will accomplish this. It used to be that way, and the same people who could solo it did so then. I have been convinced for some time that what discourages grouping is based largely in the behavior of the members of the group and not the quest mechanics. Going back to Eye of the Titan, going solo saved me some aggrivation, 3 mem pots, and gave me a 10% bonus for not dying.

Encouraging grouping is what is needed I think. Not forcing others to be a burden upon others.

[Deadlock]

I disagree on having a treatment or game mechanic only for A difficulty level. Also, Elite is about the only " challenge " for some in the game at the moment, so no, lets not remove scaling for it.

Scaling reduces the difficulty for anything less than 4 people in the party. Removing scaling means it's treated as a full party regardless of number of people in the group. Like raids.

I'm still not understanding what the OP thinks will be achieved by this.

[TFPAQ]

Instead of any type of penalization for soloers, just put "something" in the mix that rewards grouping.

Given how this game isn't limited by level anymore (really - reincarnations, etc). Give the people an additional 5 - 10% XP for each person in the group. 6 players = 30 - 60% more XP.

Also make ship buffs last for the whole time you are logged in on that toon. That way, everyone buffs upon log-in and away we go!

Also get rid of the bravery streak as I think it is counterproductive to grouping, and focus the addtional XP into the grouping reworked XP.

[harry-pancreas]

I'm all for an XP boost for grouping as the main reason for elitists not grouping is claiming pugging = lose 10% xp but 40% for a full group is overkill I'd say +4% per member in group...so 2 people +4%, 3 +8%, 4 +12%,5 +16%, 6 +20%...raids function slightly different with the xp increasing for for every 2nd person that joins

raids wouldn't need that, they're still being running in group fairly often, the ones that are being run

and i'd give only +10%, if i'd give anything. If someone dies the bonuses cancel each other. And i'd cancel the bonus if one of the members ends the quest with penalties to xp for being late

[harry-pancreas]

I disagree on having a treatment or game mechanic only for A difficulty level. Also, Elite is about the only " challenge " for some in the game at the moment, so no, lets not remove scaling for it.

huh ? no scaling= more challenge.

elite is about the only challenge for SOME people in the game. Why not make hard challenging for some, elite for everyone ?

[Icywave]

Scaling reduces the difficulty for anything less than 4 people in the party. Removing scaling means it's treated as a full party regardless of number of people in the group. Like raids.

I'm still not understanding what the OP thinks will be achieved by this.

oh ok... a bit the other way around of what I understood. Got it, thanks.

As to what the OP wants, not sure either how it would help.