Ransack penalties are destroying the game

[Xulders]

I know many will disagree but I reckon the falling population is being caused by ransack penalties.
I understand the flawed thinking on Turbine's part which is behind ransack. The dev's definitely wont like us players not playing many dungeons & packs because so many are garbage, it doesn't look good at the board meetings when a team's work has added no player numbers & is widely avoided. So the lala land solution is to try to force players to play the realms which then equals kudos for dev's.
The other flawed reason is probably that management think if we are forced to play longer & it's harder to get exp then we'll buy more tomes & ultimately subscribe to the game for more month/years than we would have. So players repeating content they like & getting fast exp is a bad thing in their thinking, in their minds it's better to have players crawling along & forced to play the whole game.

I've two words for this dangerous kind of thinking..XBox One.

Microsoft learned a hard lesson about who the master is in the games world..it's the customer. If you try to force players to do things they don't like they will not buy your product, end of.

All DDO players are playing this game for fun (except for those manipulating AH prices maybe), so if Turbine make players play the garbage parts of the game then don't be shocked when they stop playing.

I was impressed with this game when I came to it, but I quickly learned how annoying it can be. Death's are really annoying with the lack of non paying self rez, death penalties to the exp of other group members is a farce, but I came to quickly grasp that the best way to learn the game is repeat runs & for those 'challenging' dungeons you just have to put up with being a pain while you try to learn it. But now rerunning dungeons is not a viable option & groups & especially TR's know that the first run has to go well as there's no farming option to make up the losses. So players with skills are effectively being encouraged to avoid pugs, as condensing that exp is now more important than ever.
So where does that leave the noob entering the game. They come to a game where learning dungeons is penalized, they find a game where playing in groups is essential, but there's few players willing to group, and they find a game where poorly crafted/annoying content almost has to be played in order to effectively level up.

Noobs are the lifeblood of the game, lose them and the game dies, but Turbine haven't just nerfed the game for most noobs, they've nerfed it for everyone.

Allow us to play what we want when we want without nerfing exp all the time & DDO might have a future, don't and the game will be continue to die a slow death.

[SemiraLynn]

For me personally, the new ransack xp system is terrific. After being away from the game for 9 months and returning to this system, I loved it immediately. Groups were already almost impossible to find but now I can just rerun quests once a day without having to worry about permanent repeat penalties. Plus you get a +20% bonus for running something for the first time that day. I really don't have to worry about xp issues of any kind now. For me, xp has never been easier and less stressful to get.

[Ivan_Milic]

DDO has no death penalty, *** is wrong with you people?
I love this new xp ransack too and they had to do it because of epic tr.
Your logic is not good.
People actually get a lot more xp now than before.
It is much more forgiving than before when losing 10% when someone died when we didnt have bb, xp tomes, 20% daily.

[Whitehairguy]

It really only affects the people that wanted to run the same 10 quests over and over again to cap. I used to be one of those people.
I'm happy for the change now. Playing more content get me more points and find some hidden gems out there I normally never touched.

[Ivan_Milic]

Op seems like a troll.

[Uska]

Completely and utterly incorrect in my mind! You just got here and I have been here from the start and I like the ransack system compared to what we had before!

[arkonas]

I know many will disagree but I reckon the falling population is being caused by ransack penalties.
I understand the flawed thinking on Turbine's part which is behind ransack. The dev's definitely wont like us players not playing many dungeons & packs because so many are garbage, it doesn't look good at the board meetings when a team's work has added no player numbers & is widely avoided. So the lala land solution is to try to force players to play the realms which then equals kudos for dev's.
The other flawed reason is probably that management think if we are forced to play longer & it's harder to get exp then we'll buy more tomes & ultimately subscribe to the game for more month/years than we would have. So players repeating content they like & getting fast exp is a bad thing in their thinking, in their minds it's better to have players crawling along & forced to play the whole game.

I've two words for this dangerous kind of thinking..XBox One.

Microsoft learned a hard lesson about who the master is in the games world..it's the customer. If you try to force players to do things they don't like they will not buy your product, end of.

All DDO players are playing this game for fun (except for those manipulating AH prices maybe), so if Turbine make players play the garbage parts of the game then don't be shocked when they stop playing.

I was impressed with this game when I came to it, but I quickly learned how annoying it can be. Death's are really annoying with the lack of non paying self rez, death penalties to the exp of other group members is a farce, but I came to quickly grasp that the best way to learn the game is repeat runs & for those 'challenging' dungeons you just have to put up with being a pain while you try to learn it. But now rerunning dungeons is not a viable option & groups & especially TR's know that the first run has to go well as there's no farming option to make up the losses. So players with skills are effectively being encouraged to avoid pugs, as condensing that exp is now more important than ever.
So where does that leave the noob entering the game. They come to a game where learning dungeons is penalized, they find a game where playing in groups is essential, but there's few players willing to group, and they find a game where poorly crafted/annoying content almost has to be played in order to effectively level up.

Noobs are the lifeblood of the game, lose them and the game dies, but Turbine haven't just nerfed the game for most noobs, they've nerfed it for everyone.

Allow us to play what we want when we want without nerfing exp all the time & DDO might have a future, don't and the game will be continue to die a slow death.



what are you talking about? the new ransack feature is one of the best things ever. what is wrong with you? before it once you ran the quest into the ground you got 0xp. now you can go away for a day or 2 and still get xp. how on earth is that a bad thing? oh no we can't farm as much noooes. do it the next day lol. as for the grouping yeah its better to be in a guild or channel but heck you can always toss up a lfm. oh wait most don't do that right? since they don't want to lead or know quests. yeah gotcha.


please stop trolling and open your mind to the game. this has made the game much better and easier to get xp. so if some people find some quests too difficult either a repeat ones you did, group or just skip them.

[Metaljaw]

Except that my game play turned into running VON3 once per day on my toons to level them. Which was more boring than before. At least I could wear it down on a toon and move on before. That and that Shadow Crypt leveling went bye-bye. From someone who has not played the game in 6 to 9 months (can't really remember when I swapped over but GW2 is constantly adding content and has an end game system, some would say that the game actually starts at level cap), the changes to the ransack penalty and move to once per day was just too much boring to keep me hooked. The new content was not that fun to me. And the prospect of having to level my previously capped 20 toons from 20 to 30 just had me throw in the towel. Add that to those people that were running around with the shears of fate bug and the Dev's scaling content to them, and I pretty much am off the opinion that I will wait and see.

When DDO gets end game raiding back then maybe. Now it is boring.

[Ivan_Milic]

You play only one quest and wonder why it is boring?

[alvarego]

All DDO players are playing this game for fun (except for those manipulating AH prices maybe), so if Turbine make players play the garbage parts of the game then don't be shocked when they stop playing.

So new definition of fun is making VoN3 until your eyes bleed ... funny :p

[Lonnbeimnech]

The -10% from dying, or more accurately not getting a +10% was a big deal way back before bravery bonus. When players would farm the high xp quests 11 times on norm, then once on hard and elite. That eleventh run, if you were already at -90% from repetition, not getting all the little bonuses for traps, ransack, conquest meant that you were better off moving on to the next quest.

These days, with 50% from bravery, 80% from doing it on elite for the first time, and an additional +20% for picking elite as you first difficulty, means all those little bonuses don't matter nearly as much, including the 'death penalty'. Just zerg to the end, kill the redname, ddoor out, move on to the next quest. Hit them all once.

The reason vets don't pug as much is

1. they don't need to. They have been playing long enough to have several friends in game and they group with those players most of the time.

2. power creep has gotten to the point that most content is not that hard, so waiting around 30 min for 5 other people to join you to do a 5 min quest, is pointless, when you could have spent that time doing 6 dungeons, and move on to another chain.

[Kaytis]

Resetting ransack xp has almost certainly been a net positive to the game. People no longer play crazy keep-away games from the good quests as they level up.

If you want to point to a system that has been massively corrosive to the game at heroic levels, look no further than the bravery streak system. It has been profoundly destructive to the LFM scene. It hurts epic levels too but to a much smaller extent due to the widened level ranges.

[Vint]

So new definition of fun is making VoN3 until your eyes bleed ... funny :p

I tell you what is not fun. Running many epic quests (non first time) and only getting 30k xp without a pot running. Needing 6.6 million xp and spending 30 mins or so in a quest to get 30k?

You can say that you do not need to run multiple ETR’s, but what else is there to do? TR’ing is the only real endgame.

Sure people have quit because there is no endgame except for tr’ing, but there are many other people that have walked away because the amount of time needed for many players (not the ubers here) to tr and then getting very little gain for all the time invested.

At this point I could care less about the xp nerf to von or the removal of sagas. Either way we need too much xp (grind) for a very little gain. This is a real problem and declining populations are the proof. This may not be the biggest cause of player loss, but it sure is not helping.

[Ivan_Milic]

I tell you what is not fun. Running many epic quests (non first time) and only getting 30k xp without a pot running. Needing 6.6 million xp and spending 30 mins or so in a quest to get 30k?

You can say that you do not need to run multiple ETR’s, but what else is there to do? TR’ing is the only real endgame.

Sure people have quit because there is no endgame except for tr’ing, but there are many other people that have walked away because the amount of time needed for many players (not the ubers here) to tr and then getting very little gain for all the time invested.

At this point I could care less about the xp nerf to von or the removal of sagas. Either way we need too much xp (grind) for a very little gain. This is a real problem and declining populations are the proof. This may not be the biggest cause of player loss, but it sure is not helping.

Yep, difference between en and ee base quest xp is 3k max, compared to difficulty its stupid, ridiculous, outrageous.

[Uska]

Except that my game play turned into running VON3 once per day on my toons to level them. Which was more boring than before. At least I could wear it down on a toon and move on before. That and that Shadow Crypt leveling went bye-bye. From someone who has not played the game in 6 to 9 months (can't really remember when I swapped over but GW2 is constantly adding content and has an end game system, some would say that the game actually starts at level cap), the changes to the ransack penalty and move to once per day was just too much boring to keep me hooked. The new content was not that fun to me. And the prospect of having to level my previously capped 20 toons from 20 to 30 just had me throw in the towel. Add that to those people that were running around with the shears of fate bug and the Dev's scaling content to them, and I pretty much am off the opinion that I will wait and see.

When DDO gets end game raiding back then maybe. Now it is boring.

Not everyone likes end game and even if GW2 added a trillion quests a nano second it would still be boring!

[Amundir]

I enjoy the current system. Granted I'm now lv 7 on a forth life, but I enjoy doing all the content and doing elite bb runs, do quest once and done, we're getting plenty of heroic xp and my toon is geared toward (e)TRs. I only have one char as I don't play a lot during the week and when I do I focus one my one toon. Opinion may change when I get to epics again to see if I do indeed get enough coms to eTR this time, or if I will need to buy a heart again.

[alvarego]

I tell you what is not fun. Running many epic quests (non first time) and only getting 30k xp without a pot running. Needing 6.6 million xp and spending 30 mins or so in a quest to get 30k?

You can say that you do not need to run multiple ETR’s, but what else is there to do? TR’ing is the only real endgame.

Sure people have quit because there is no endgame except for tr’ing, but there are many other people that have walked away because the amount of time needed for many players (not the ubers here) to tr and then getting very little gain for all the time invested.

At this point I could care less about the xp nerf to von or the removal of sagas. Either way we need too much xp (grind) for a very little gain. This is a real problem and declining populations are the proof. This may not be the biggest cause of player loss, but it sure is not helping.

I can agree with you in all you said, and still the solution is not removing ransack, maybe lowering XPs, this seems like a needed thing when you think on lvl30 cap and what will it be 10 mill? :-|

[IronClan]

So new definition of fun is making VoN3 until your eyes bleed ... funny :p

Were you here before XP ransack? 9000 times Rusted blades or 7000X Impossible demands? The only reason anyone does Von3 every day is it's meta gamed to death, right now it's way worse XP/min than many faster quests. You can get old VON3 sized XP out of Into The Deep (red fens end chain quest) yet it's a little further out and people don't have it memorized... VON5 is awesome XP, there's LOTS of daily XP runs now: Wiz King, eGH, LoD chain, Saga's (when they turn them back on), even the CitW flagging quests are good stuff.

If you're doing VON3 and logging out until tomorrow that's your own dang fool fault. :p

[Xulders]

I'll have to take the consensus that ransack is popular with most current players then, but the tumbleweed in some realms might be telling a different tale. I guess it's down to what style of gameplay you like, restricted & slow play really bugs me, but each to their own.

[XiaNYdE]

Microsoft learned a hard lesson about who the master is in the games world..it's the customer.

and just how did they do that lol, they backed down on one issue, so did Turbine here and Sony there, seems more like a troll post to me, what you are telling us is nothing new.

[alvarego]

Were you here before XP ransack? 9000 times Rusted blades or 7000X Impossible demands? The only reason anyone does Von3 every day is it's meta gamed to death, right now it's way worse XP/min than many faster quests. You can get old VON3 sized XP out of Into The Deep (red fens end chain quest) yet it's a little further out and people don't have it memorized... VON5 is awesome XP, there's LOTS of daily XP runs now: Wiz King, eGH, LoD chain, Saga's (when they turn them back on), even the CitW flagging quests are good stuff.

If you're doing VON3 and logging out until tomorrow that's your own dang fool fault. :p

If I recall right all that rusted blades and impossible demands grind was once you had reached max level 25 and was done to max EDs so is not the same thing, and people now complain and remember how lovely old ransack was ... BUT the old ransack did never go and you were on certain quests with -80% for life.

About Into the Deep same XPs as VoN3, heh yeah sure, that's why there're lots and lots of LFMs for it ;-)

All on all I don't think you get what I was trying to mean, I mean I prefer diversity to always the same quest that is what would happend if there were no ransack, don't mind VoN3 or whichever

[SirValentine]

DDO has no death penalty, *** is wrong with you people?


http://ddowiki.com/page/Death_penalty

And not only that, but every in your party gets penalized with 10% less of the base XP on completion, too.

[Oxarhamar]

http://ddowiki.com/page/Death_penalty

And not only that, but every in your party gets penalized with 10% less of the base XP on completion, too.

got that wrong

it is not a loss of 10% base XP it is a loss of the 10% Flawless Victory bonus Base XP is unaffected.

[Ivan_Milic]

http://ddowiki.com/page/Death_penalty

And not only that, but every in your party gets penalized with 10% less of the base XP on completion, too.

You dont get penalized, you lose bonus.
Also if you remove the bonus from game because you think it is penalty, wouldnt you just lose 10% bonus xp on every quest, and not only in quest when someone dies?

[Xioden]

You dont get penalized, you lose bonus.
Also if you remove the bonus from game because you think it is penalty, wouldnt you just lose 10% bonus xp on every quest, and not only in quest when someone dies?

When you can get through a full life with few or no deaths, and by opening up your group to pugs results in you often losing said 10%, it's a penalty not a bonus.

[Ivan_Milic]

When you can get through a full life with few or no deaths, and by opening up your group to pugs results in you often losing said 10%, it's a penalty not a bonus.

With all these bonuses if you care about that minor 10% which in most quests isnt over 1k, you are really selfish.

[Uska]

When you can get through a full life with few or no deaths, and by opening up your group to pugs results in you often losing said 10%, it's a penalty not a bonus.

No matter how you phrase it, its still a bonus and the real bonus in my mind is playing with other real people most of whom I enjoy playing with even if its just that one time or they or I die.

[Ivan_Milic]

When you can get through a full life with few or no deaths, and by opening up your group to pugs results in you often losing said 10%, it's a penalty not a bonus.

So you would prefer it if 10% no death bonus was not in game?
This way you would never get 10% more.

[Powskier]

i guess players are wanting to ETR in only a few days? I like to dismiss those toughts of lvling in record time;Runnin quests at zerg speed isnt alot of fun.We should be seeing alot of Slayer groups in all the cool epic wilderness',but the XP demand send players to quests straightaway..I'd say the TR system, is Ransacking the fun, out of CoolContent.

[Ivan_Milic]

You can etr in few days.

[Gremmlynn]

I tell you what is not fun. Running many epic quests (non first time) and only getting 30k xp without a pot running. Needing 6.6 million xp and spending 30 mins or so in a quest to get 30k?

You can say that you do not need to run multiple ETR’s, but what else is there to do? TR’ing is the only real endgame.

Sure people have quit because there is no endgame except for tr’ing, but there are many other people that have walked away because the amount of time needed for many players (not the ubers here) to tr and then getting very little gain for all the time invested.

At this point I could care less about the xp nerf to von or the removal of sagas. Either way we need too much xp (grind) for a very little gain. This is a real problem and declining populations are the proof. This may not be the biggest cause of player loss, but it sure is not helping.What alternative would you suggest that doesn't just lead to players "finishing" the game and then leaving anyway?

Maybe I'm missing something, but the way I see it the choice seems to be between some players leaving because it takes to long to finish the game or everybody leaving because they finished more quickly and have nothing left to do.

[Turbosilk]

I tell you what is not fun. Running many epic quests (non first time) and only getting 30k xp without a pot running. Needing 6.6 million xp and spending 30 mins or so in a quest to get 30k?

Exp/min is all that matters. Looking at total quest exp is very shortsighted.

And if you are spending 30 min in a quest...amazing.

[Xioden]

No matter how you phrase it, its still a bonus and the real bonus in my mind is playing with other real people most of whom I enjoy playing with even if its just that one time or they or I die.

When you're getting it 99%+ of the time on your own, for all intent and purpose, it's part of the base XP of the quest. When running with pugs doing elite BB, to say 90%+ of the time at least one person is going to do would be fair. At that point, yes, it becomes a penalty.


So you would prefer it if 10% no death bonus was not in game?
This way you would never get 10% more.

I'd prefer not getting penalized for preferring to group with other players.


With all these bonuses if you care about that minor 10% which in most quests isnt over 1k, you are really selfish. Over the course of a couple hundred quests each life, that's a lot of experience.

[Coyopa]

I know many will disagree but I reckon the falling population is being caused by ransack penalties.
I understand the flawed thinking on Turbine's part which is behind ransack. The dev's definitely wont like us players not playing many dungeons & packs because so many are garbage, it doesn't look good at the board meetings when a team's work has added no player numbers & is widely avoided. So the lala land solution is to try to force players to play the realms which then equals kudos for dev's.
The other flawed reason is probably that management think if we are forced to play longer & it's harder to get exp then we'll buy more tomes & ultimately subscribe to the game for more month/years than we would have. So players repeating content they like & getting fast exp is a bad thing in their thinking, in their minds it's better to have players crawling along & forced to play the whole game.

I've two words for this dangerous kind of thinking..XBox One.

Microsoft learned a hard lesson about who the master is in the games world..it's the customer. If you try to force players to do things they don't like they will not buy your product, end of.

All DDO players are playing this game for fun (except for those manipulating AH prices maybe), so if Turbine make players play the garbage parts of the game then don't be shocked when they stop playing.

I was impressed with this game when I came to it, but I quickly learned how annoying it can be. Death's are really annoying with the lack of non paying self rez, death penalties to the exp of other group members is a farce, but I came to quickly grasp that the best way to learn the game is repeat runs & for those 'challenging' dungeons you just have to put up with being a pain while you try to learn it. But now rerunning dungeons is not a viable option & groups & especially TR's know that the first run has to go well as there's no farming option to make up the losses. So players with skills are effectively being encouraged to avoid pugs, as condensing that exp is now more important than ever.
So where does that leave the noob entering the game. They come to a game where learning dungeons is penalized, they find a game where playing in groups is essential, but there's few players willing to group, and they find a game where poorly crafted/annoying content almost has to be played in order to effectively level up.

Noobs are the lifeblood of the game, lose them and the game dies, but Turbine haven't just nerfed the game for most noobs, they've nerfed it for everyone.

Allow us to play what we want when we want without nerfing exp all the time & DDO might have a future, don't and the game will be continue to die a slow death.

All your complaints about this system are imaginary and in your own head only. Getting groups was tough before the ransack system. So, there goes your theory about the ransack system being the cause of that.

As far as having to play content you dislike, well there goes that theory too. I hate Necro 1 to 3 and I never play it - except if I can find someone who puts up an LFM for Shadow Crypt. I don't even run it on 3rd life and later TR's.

Death is hardly annoying. I can't even qualify it as a minor inconvenience. Go play a game where you actually lose experience when you die - and not just temporarily lose it, either. As far as the loss of the 10% bonus for nobody dying during a quest, it has been more than 18 months since I have met anyone in-game who even cares if someone dies during a quest. 10% is just immaterial now. It was always a paltry amount and now with all the sources of experience that are in the game, nobody even notices the loss of that bonus.

When it comes to farming, there are still good quests to farm. You just don't farm a quest more than 3x in one day if you're smart. Furthermore, farming is really not even needed anymore. On my TR's, I only bank levels until I have done all the quests (that I want to do) at a given level. After that, I level up. Usually by about 6th level, I am banking a full level all the way to 20. There are a few levels where I might end up taking it a rank or 2 before being hard capped for the level - and level 13 is the one that stands out the most to me but this is usually because I don't have the patience to find groups for a few of the quests available at this level. I find that if I do all the explorers for each wilderness as I level up (not including Wheloon Prison, which I simply never do, and Stormhorn Mountains on heroic) and then start getting all the rares either in Red Fens or Menechtarun, then it doesn't really matter if I skip some quests. Again, that is even true of my characters who are doing their 3rd and later lives.

[Vint]

What alternative would you suggest that doesn't just lead to players "finishing" the game and then leaving anyway?

Maybe I'm missing something, but the way I see it the choice seems to be between some players leaving because it takes to long to finish the game or everybody leaving because they finished more quickly and have nothing left to do.

The longest vacation I ever took from this game was right after I completed my 60th ToD on my barb and had yet to see an encrusted ring. Maybe I am different from some, but I will not quit when I have my name in the achievements forums.

Truth be told, many people here have soloed everything and they are still here. What drives many people away (and I am not talking about the folks that want this to be candy land) is the fact that the enormous grind that Turbine calls an endgame only provides a minimal advantage.

As you pointed out people may quit the game when they reach the pinnacle, but there are still a few vets here that really enjoy at least a few aspects of the game. Sure we lost many people when Turbine changed things so that heroic tr’s would be considered endgame, but we survived and people were constantly on the tr train.

As we continue people are starting to see that the reward for epic completionist is completely unneeded considering that players are forced into taking comms for end rewards, forced into running high comm rate quests. So what is the answer? Make people spend on hearts and otto boxes? I’m sure that what Turbine thinks and this is why we are seeing a steady decline in population. The reward nowhere nears the investment.

[Gremmlynn]

The longest vacation I ever took from this game was right after I completed my 60th ToD on my barb and had yet to see an encrusted ring. Maybe I am different from some, but I will not quit when I have my name in the achievements forums.

Truth be told, many people here have soloed everything and they are still here. What drives many people away (and I am not talking about the folks that want this to be candy land) is the fact that the enormous grind that Turbine calls an endgame only provides a minimal advantage.

As you pointed out people may quit the game when they reach the pinnacle, but there are still a few vets here that really enjoy at least a few aspects of the game. Sure we lost many people when Turbine changed things so that heroic tr’s would be considered endgame, but we survived and people were constantly on the tr train.

As we continue people are starting to see that the reward for epic completionist is completely unneeded considering that players are forced into taking comms for end rewards, forced into running high comm rate quests. So what is the answer? Make people spend on hearts and otto boxes? I’m sure that what Turbine thinks and this is why we are seeing a steady decline in population. The reward nowhere nears the investment.From my perspective, TRs and eTRs are little more than self inflicted time sinks anyway as neither provides anything I would consider to be actually part of a build (outside of maybe the extra build points on a rather overreaching build). Just a little something extra. They are both simply something else to do to give a reason to keep playing the game. I see both token and comm farming to be the same, something to do to give me a reason to keep playing the game. Maybe I'm just so extraordinarily simple minded as to see gaining comms as a form of progress in itself.

[Vint]

From my perspective, TRs and eTRs are little more than self inflicted time sinks anyway as neither provides anything I would consider to be actually part of a build (outside of maybe the extra build points on a rather overreaching build). Just a little something extra. They are both simply something else to do to give a reason to keep playing the game. I see both token and comm farming to be the same, something to do to give me a reason to keep playing the game. Maybe I'm just so extraordinarily simple minded as to see gaining comms as a form of progress in itself.

Well I prefer heroic content and I am not complaining about burnout or nothing to do. I will follow my own path of enjoyment and not follow the one Turbine has laid out. (Either spend $$$ on Ehearts due to a high comm rate needed or spend $$$ on ottos so you have to spend less time in an off destiny in quest that gives putrid xp).

I will continue to play in a way that brings me enjoyment.

The writing is on the wall. As more and more people leave, the more inclined Turbine will be to gouge the remaining players. Time will tell.

[Ykt]

Truth be told, many people here have soloed everything and they are still here.

I don't know about that. There is at least (!) a hundred active forum members.

I've been playing for 5 years and I only solo when I have to, because there are no people to play with (slow time of day, ...).
I'm more interested in playing with a group than playing alone, I had enough of that with singleplayer games.

[Jasparion]

You think that chain running the same dungeon over and over and over is better for the game than encouraging people to run all the content?

Really?

[Uska]

When you're getting it 99%+ of the time on your own, for all intent and purpose, it's part of the base XP of the quest. When running with pugs doing elite BB, to say 90%+ of the time at least one person is going to do would be fair. At that point, yes, it becomes a penalty.



I'd prefer not getting penalized for preferring to group with other players.

Over the course of a couple hundred quests each life, that's a lot of experience.

Then play by yourself and no matter what you say it's a bonus! I think you might be better off with a different game like elder scrolls and I don't mean the online game! Since you don't seem to want to play with others why even play a MMO? The only reason I do is to group with others!

[Uska]

I don't know about that. There is at least (!) a hundred active forum members.

I've been playing for 5 years and I only solo when I have to, because there are no people to play with (slow time of day, ...).
I'm more interested in playing with a group than playing alone, I had enough of that with singleplayer games.

Bingo

[Gremmlynn]

Then play by yourself and no matter what you say it's a bonus! I think you might be better off with a different game like elder scrolls and I don't mean the online game! Since you don't seem to want to play with others why even play a MMO? The only reason I do is to group with others!Not to take a side, but this has always seemed a pretty silly statement to me.

Why play an MMO solo?
Because they may like that particular game and it doesn't come in a single player version.

[Uska]

Not to take a side, but this has always seemed a pretty silly statement to me.

Why play an MMO solo?
Because they may like that particular game and it doesn't come in a single player version.

There are plenty of single player games I will never understand why some would play a group game if they don't like people

[Gremmlynn]

There are plenty of single player games I will never understand why some would play a group game if they don't like peopleBecause they like the game? That's like asking why some play 1 on 1 basketball when there are plenty of games designed to be played 1 on 1. Those other games aren't basketball.

Really, why does it matter?

[Ivan_Milic]

When you're getting it 99%+ of the time on your own, for all intent and purpose, it's part of the base XP of the quest. When running with pugs doing elite BB, to say 90%+ of the time at least one person is going to do would be fair. At that point, yes, it becomes a penalty.



I'd prefer not getting penalized for preferring to group with other players.

Over the course of a couple hundred quests each life, that's a lot of experience.

But if you remove it from game you wont get it in any quest, so you would lose a lot more xp.

[patang01]

There's nothing wrong with the ransack system; every day you can do the same quest with 20% XP bonus unless you ransack it. What they did wrong in my honest opinion was to half VON3s XP. Sure, it was easy for well geared players but I loath running the xpack quests. They're boring. With the target of 6+ million XP each Epic life and the diminishing return of slayer and explorer there need to be something reliable you can run in the early 5 levels and then continue to help in the last 3 (later 5 with the 30 cap). Simply put - they'll moved the good xp quests (and terrible too) to the backend where as VON 3 used to help out for that quick pickmeup in the early levels.

I'm sure things will change tho when they keep releasing more Epic quests. I am curious as to how E3BC will be since I always skip it in heroic and haven't played it more than 1-2 times.

[Algreg]

I know many will disagree but I reckon the falling population is being caused by ransack penalties.
I understand the flawed thinking on Turbine's part which is behind ransack. The dev's definitely wont like us players not playing many dungeons & packs because so many are garbage, it doesn't look good at the board meetings when a team's work has added no player numbers & is widely avoided. So the lala land solution is to try to force players to play the realms which then equals kudos for dev's.
The other flawed reason is probably that management think if we are forced to play longer & it's harder to get exp then we'll buy more tomes & ultimately subscribe to the game for more month/years than we would have. So players repeating content they like & getting fast exp is a bad thing in their thinking, in their minds it's better to have players crawling along & forced to play the whole game.

I've two words for this dangerous kind of thinking..XBox One.

Microsoft learned a hard lesson about who the master is in the games world..it's the customer. If you try to force players to do things they don't like they will not buy your product, end of.

All DDO players are playing this game for fun (except for those manipulating AH prices maybe), so if Turbine make players play the garbage parts of the game then don't be shocked when they stop playing.

I was impressed with this game when I came to it, but I quickly learned how annoying it can be. Death's are really annoying with the lack of non paying self rez, death penalties to the exp of other group members is a farce, but I came to quickly grasp that the best way to learn the game is repeat runs & for those 'challenging' dungeons you just have to put up with being a pain while you try to learn it. But now rerunning dungeons is not a viable option & groups & especially TR's know that the first run has to go well as there's no farming option to make up the losses. So players with skills are effectively being encouraged to avoid pugs, as condensing that exp is now more important than ever.
So where does that leave the noob entering the game. They come to a game where learning dungeons is penalized, they find a game where playing in groups is essential, but there's few players willing to group, and they find a game where poorly crafted/annoying content almost has to be played in order to effectively level up.

Noobs are the lifeblood of the game, lose them and the game dies, but Turbine haven't just nerfed the game for most noobs, they've nerfed it for everyone.

Allow us to play what we want when we want without nerfing exp all the time & DDO might have a future, don't and the game will be continue to die a slow death.

- the game declines because of other reasons and mostly its age.
- Experience is not harder to get than it was before, I´d even argue it is way easier and more entertaining because of variety.
- "farce" means more or less the exact opposite of what you think it means
- "the lack of non paying self rez" - what do you mean, autowin in all quests? WP faceroll in the likes of GW2? I sincerly believe you will enjoy a more modern, "casual friendly" product more if you think death is too harsh in this game.
- death penalty for groups - here you are right, they should get rid of that. But I doubt it is the main reason for avoiding PUGs. dungeon scaling, prolonging quests through "flower sniffing" etc. weigh heavier.

[Algreg]

There are plenty of single player games I will never understand why some would play a group game if they don't like people

How was that not answered by the very post you are referring to?

[BigErkyKid]

When I play epics, I have two different modes:

- XP grind: I run in an odd destiny easy XP quests / raids. (Sagas down...). Ransack doesn't matter here because I run them once top twice any day.

VON 3, VON 5 and Wizking EN. Those might not be the best choices but they are frequently PUGed and people know them well.

- Loot runs: just with qualified groups. Happens far less often so again ransack doesn't matter.

I find 2/3 of my time playing DDO to be a pure grind that I endure because I still want to try a few different end game builds.

In heroics, every single quest is a grind. I don't enjoy anymore any of them because I tend to zerg through them with experienced players, by now a large fraction of the playerbase. I don't judge how my build performs according to heroics since often late bloomers completely overshadow those builds that kick as$ in heroics.

So there is absolutely nothing for me in heroics right now. Heroics is the price I pay to try a different build for epics. I feel that knowing this, turbine came up with eTR. This is for people who just want to keep playing epics and need a goal.

/rant over.

[Ivan_Milic]

So people want 10% no death bonus to go away so they can get less xp in every quest instead of getting less xp in quests only where people die?
Makes sense.

[Nédime]

When you're getting it 99%+ of the time on your own, for all intent and purpose, it's part of the base XP of the quest. When running with pugs doing elite BB, to say 90%+ of the time at least one person is going to do would be fair. At that point, yes, it becomes a penalty.



I'd prefer not getting penalized for preferring to group with other players.

Over the course of a couple hundred quests each life, that's a lot of experience.

Stop trolling, they decreased XP cap at level 20 (like 500k less xp for 3rd lifer +). They introduced tome of learning, bravery bonus and 20% daily completion and you're still crying for that death penalty lol.

I am at the point where finsihed my shroud flag AND web of chaos chain BEFORE hitting 20 is a real challenge so please stop the whining and go pug maybe you'll meet some good peeps out there.

[patang01]

There are plenty of single player games I will never understand why some would play a group game if they don't like people

A game is a game, DDO happen to be a good game. Why does it matter if I solo or group? Not that I mind doing either, but it's not always ideal to try to form or wait for groups playing specific quests with limited playtime. I just don't see why some have to make out soloing as the enemy of this game when it's clear that Turbines many monetizing schemes along with a terrible xpack accelerated the decline - not 'soloists'.

[TheGardes]

This topic was being talked about the other day in game. Ransack never came up as a reason.. but what did was that all those people who dupped thousands of every mat have no reason to play the game any longer. They have the best of everything now and there is no need to run quests any more for mats.

For those of us who don't dup, the new raids items take forever to build. It's much slower than GS is/was and no where near as flexible.

So, ransack penalties have nothing to do with destroying the game.. it's the dupers.

[Vint]

This topic was being talked about the other day in game. Ransack never came up as a reason.. but what did was that all those people who dupped thousands of every mat have no reason to play the game any longer. They have the best of everything now and there is no need to run quests any more for mats.

For those of us who don't dup, the new raids items take forever to build. It's much slower than GS is/was and no where near as flexible.

So, ransack penalties have nothing to do with destroying the game.. it's the dupers.

Disagree

You can complete any mission in this game without having the best in slot items. Contrary to popular belief you also do not need a million past lives. As I said earlier it is very frustrating when you run a quest 60 times and not get what you want and this is very similar to the low drop rate/high cost to make some of the TF items.

As for dupers quitting because there is nothing to do is wrong as well. After 8 years of playing I have more ingredients/collectibles than I know what to do with. The reason why people leave is the grind (challenge) is not worth the reward.

[Seikojin]

For me personally, the new ransack xp system is terrific. After being away from the game for 9 months and returning to this system, I loved it immediately. Groups were already almost impossible to find but now I can just rerun quests once a day without having to worry about permanent repeat penalties. Plus you get a +20% bonus for running something for the first time that day. I really don't have to worry about xp issues of any kind now. For me, xp has never been easier and less stressful to get.

This! With the new system I can run what I want to run, get what I want to get, and do something different if I get bored of doing what I was doing. Win, win, win if you ask me.

[Xioden]

But if you remove it from game you wont get it in any quest, so you would lose a lot more xp.

Don't put words in my mouth. I never said I think they should remove it. If anything they should make it an "above the line" bonus that applies to individual players.


Stop trolling, they decreased XP cap at level 20 (like 500k less xp for 3rd lifer +). They introduced tome of learning, bravery bonus and 20% daily completion and you're still crying for that death penalty lol.

I am at the point where finsihed my shroud flag AND web of chaos chain BEFORE hitting 20 is a real challenge so please stop the whining and go pug maybe you'll meet some good peeps out there.

I do pug quite a bit. Probably every 2 or 3 days I see/hear someone on Khyber give someone a hard time .

It's only 10%, but over the course of doing multiple HR past lives, epic levels, epic TRs, it gets to be a very large amount of XP you consistently lose out on. I wrote off the "bonus" a long time ago for the purpose of pugs.

I can make sure we get the conquest bonus.
I can make sure we get the ransack bonus.
I can make sure we get the secret door bonus.
I can make sure we get the disable traps bonus (where applicable).
Persistence bonus I think I've only not gotten a handful of times over years of playing.


All of those bonuses can achieved directly by a single player. The flawless victory bonus relies on 1-5 other people not screwing up. That's often a tall order when you're in a pug.

[Nédime]

Don't put words in my mouth. I never said I think they should remove it. If anything they should make it an "above the line" bonus that applies to individual players.



I do pug quite a bit. Probably every 2 or 3 days I see/hear someone on Khyber give someone a hard time .

It's only 10%, but over the course of doing multiple HR past lives, epic levels, epic TRs, it gets to be a very large amount of XP you consistently lose out on. I wrote off the "bonus" a long time ago for the purpose of pugs.

I can make sure we get the conquest bonus.
I can make sure we get the ransack bonus.
I can make sure we get the secret door bonus.
I can make sure we get the disable traps bonus (where applicable).
Persistence bonus I think I've only not gotten a handful of times over years of playing.


All of those bonuses can achieved directly by a single player. The flawless victory bonus relies on 1-5 other people not screwing up. That's often a tall order when you're in a pug.

You meaning grouping with some one dying at EACH quest ?

Well I had this one guy who leveled with me for 2-3 lives - he used to play completely drunk. He sure died a lot but he made our parties so much fun - a guildie called him the laugh factor - that we almost never got mad about him - plus he was the reason we took umd on most of our lives and learned to use the "a+e" keys (to get his stone).

And by completely drunk I mean the guy, in Rainbow, falls in the spikes (not dying because he was a dwarbarian with lots of hp), I throw otto sphere of dancing (so he can see where ladder is) and then he says : huh ? discoballs are we fighting yet ? - am afraid i can't reach up top to fight - know what just leave me here and finish the quest.

[Nédime]

All of those bonuses can achieved directly by a single player. The flawless victory bonus relies on 1-5 other people not screwing up. That's often a tall order when you're in a pug.

While I agree with the general philosophy of your sentence, always remember that you are also 1-5 other people for another guy. I've found that the guys complaining about 10% and other people's death are the more immaginative when they happen to die.

[Whitehairguy]

I can make sure we get the conquest bonus.
I can make sure we get the ransack bonus.
I can make sure we get the secret door bonus.
I can make sure we get the disable traps bonus (where applicable).
Persistence bonus I think I've only not gotten a handful of times over years of playing.


All of those bonuses can achieved directly by a single player. The flawless victory bonus relies on 1-5 other people not screwing up. That's often a tall order when you're in a pug.


And in the time you've spent doing all that by yourself, I'll take losing the 10% xp bonus by completing quests faster with puggers (all while doing all of the above) thus negating any "loss".

[Ivan_Milic]

So you would rather solo and finish slower, than to finish faster and maybe lose 10% bonus?

[Enoach]

@Xioden - I think the issue is that you see the loss of this 10% as a penalty to your play style and see its loss as outside of your control, when this was implemented as a bonus. Until you see this as a bonus it will always be a penalty in your mind.

@OP - The ransack of XP on Quests change that recently happened was a net positive on the community. While I know reading the forums one can become convinced that "everyone" TR's multiple times, but in reality this is not true. In the guild I am in there are many long time players that have been around since the beginning and have not done a TR on a character. These characters have often run each of the quests so many times and no longer earn any XP after the First Time run of a Difficulty. What this did was allow them to get the benefits of XP on quests they had marked as XP capped years before Epics even existed.

If I had to point out why population was dwindling it would be more for these reasons:

Age of the game - while not always a primary cause, newer things come along and people will move on
Lack of LFM's - Causes of this range from - People moving to Guild/Channel running, or simply not comfortable putting up an LFM to form a group (Possible fear of rejection but other factors may come into play)
Perception - LFMs are empty because there is nothing at your level or nothing up that you want to run

[schelsullivan]

http://ddowiki.com/page/Death_penalty

And not only that, but every in your party gets penalized with 10% less of the base XP on completion, too.

I didnt play DDO back in the beginning but back then your CHARACTER lost XP when they died correct?

I played Everquest 1 though, you could start a gaming session at level 10 and finish it at lev 5 with all your gear stuck on your corpse that would disappear in 24 hours. Now that was gaming!

[Coyopa]

I didnt play DDO back in the beginning but back then your CHARACTER lost XP when they died correct?

I played Everquest 1 though, you could start a gaming session at level 10 and finish it at lev 5 with all your gear stuck on your corpse that would disappear in 24 hours. Now that was gaming!

Ahh, yes. Glorious corpse runs through the Emerald Jungle to the City of Mist only to get beat down at the entrance by all the skellies and their friends. *sniff* I miss the old days.

[MiKe_de]

Except that my game play turned into running VON3 once per day on my toons to level them. Which was more boring than before. At least I could wear it down on a toon and move on before. That and that Shadow Crypt leveling went bye-bye. From someone who has not played the game in 6 to 9 months (can't really remember when I swapped over but GW2 is constantly adding content and has an end game system, some would say that the game actually starts at level cap), the changes to the ransack penalty and move to once per day was just too much boring to keep me hooked. The new content was not that fun to me. And the prospect of having to level my previously capped 20 toons from 20 to 30 just had me throw in the towel. Add that to those people that were running around with the shears of fate bug and the Dev's scaling content to them, and I pretty much am off the opinion that I will wait and see.

When DDO gets end game raiding back then maybe. Now it is boring.

Guild Wars adding constantly content? That made me laugh very hard. It's a lie and the same time the truth. They are adding AND destroying content the same time. It is so bad, that you, as new player, have no chance in hell to follow the world story after ending your personal story.

In the end, they can show NOTHING of their developed 1 year content. They have absolutly nothing to show new players. In fact, the world is more destroyed than at the start of the game, makes it uglier by the week.

[str8nger]

Ahh, yes. Glorious corpse runs through the Emerald Jungle to the City of Mist only to get beat down at the entrance by all the skellies and their friends. *sniff* I miss the old days.

My eyes welled up just a little and the thought of the Emerald Jungle...wow it's been a long time. Thanks for the memories EQ :) Now back to DDO all of you!!

[Coyopa]

My eyes welled up just a little and the thought of the Emerald Jungle...wow it's been a long time. Thanks for the memories EQ :) Now back to DDO all of you!!

Yea, it's funny how much you can miss it. My wife and I used to play EQ together - both on druids. We'd quad kite two groups of Frost Giants near that dwarf city in Scars of Velious. Occasionally, someone would come along and try to grab aggro from us. I don't think I've ever seen anyone die quite that fast as when 8 Frost Giants all stop and have a swing at them.

The best part of that is we killed so many Frost Giants that we actually had maximum positive faction with the dragons. My wife ended up in a group that went to the dragon city to fight. The only one left standing was my wife and it took everyone a bit to figure out what happened and why. LOL. So, she got to take a trip around a place most people never even got to see.

[Chai]

Ransack doesnt force anyone to play content they dont want to play.

Rate of character advancement is a monetized entity in DDO.

Im fine with ransack penalties if the primary focus on player retention is content and not systems. Its kind of ironic that they dont want us repeating the same content alot per day, but the entire system is designed around repeating the same content and level range per week or so.

[Banker]

@Xioden - I think the issue is that you see the loss of this 10% as a penalty to your play style and see its loss as outside of your control, when this was implemented as a bonus. Until you see this as a bonus it will always be a penalty in your mind.

@OP - The ransack of XP on Quests change that recently happened was a net positive on the community. While I know reading the forums one can become convinced that "everyone" TR's multiple times, but in reality this is not true. In the guild I am in there are many long time players that have been around since the beginning and have not done a TR on a character. These characters have often run each of the quests so many times and no longer earn any XP after the First Time run of a Difficulty. What this did was allow them to get the benefits of XP on quests they had marked as XP capped years before Epics even existed.

If I had to point out why population was dwindling it would be more for these reasons:

Age of the game - while not always a primary cause, newer things come along and people will move on
Lack of LFM's - Causes of this range from - People moving to Guild/Channel running, or simply not comfortable putting up an LFM to form a group (Possible fear of rejection but other factors may come into play)
Perception - LFMs are empty because there is nothing at your level or nothing up that you want to run


I have to agree with the lack of LFM's as being a bad thing. From what I've seen so far - to me that's the most detrimental thing to the game. Besides the fact that Healer types aren't necessary anymore either. Can you say BYOH?!? Since I've returned I've found that doing almost any quest is easy on normal, sometimes a struggle on hard - but Elite is very hard - and all this 'solo.' But then again - I know most of the quests to epic (or to the web series). I look at the LFM's and they seem mostly to be from levels 1 to 15; EXCEPT for the Epic VoN's 5/6 or other Epic quests/raids. Then there is the types of players that come into the game as a factor - those unwilling to wait 15 or 30 min to fill a group - as someone said - why wait a half hour to do a quest that takes 15 min? Those who want to level up ASAP.

Back in the day - waiting 20 or 30 min for a cleric was common. The LFM's where filled. So if a large population in the game is unwilling to wait and they can almost do any quest with a couple of people - why LFM? Then on the other side is those whom are new - struggling since they don't know the quest - waiting and looking for LFM's but... There aren't many... So why continue to play?

Back in the day it was mostly about teamwork. Where any of the 'good quests' you needed a balanced party - you needed a cleric. Today - it isn't that way. Why? Turbine's/etc quest/need for money.

So I hope you can see that without the need for a 'balanced party' - results in lowered numbers of LFM's which results in more players leaving. So basically the 'easy button' is going to kill the game; even though it's made turbine/etc some money 'at the moment.'

[Ivan_Milic]

Why lfm?
Because I want to meet more people.
But right now its kinda sad that you know most of the people that are playing epics.