A few things that could make ddo much better

[mkmcgw17]

The new enhancement system with its liberal combining of classes has fractionalized the diminishing player base this coupled with streaking rules and the BB (ugh) have created so many different agendas between players its very hard to get a group together. Most streakers are only willing to do a handful of quests. Eliminate the BB and streaking. A attempt was made to reverse the tragic error they introduced but most players were hooked for some reason. Any quest can be done infinite times. No need for streak or such a narrow focus. Perhaps increase xp slightly all around to placate the whiners. Encourage role playing by giving decision trees which reward playing alignment and class and punish those who stray out of character. Something like the first cell in Prison of Planes or Litany with the Dragon. Encourage healers and trappers with special xp rewards for team play. Decrease all drop rates for all items. Its silly. Read the forward to the first dungeon masters guide on how to moderate treasure with quests and player wants. Also ddo is on its way out. Less players everyday. I place blame for this not on the developers but on executive level decision making forcing the developers to take wrong turns when they know how to run a game such as this. Stop cost cutting start advertising. Release new content not recycled and encourage team play it will come around. New players usually come from the paper world and are put off by the limited team play options provided my BBs and streaks and also bewildered by the constant rule changes and sometimes arrogant attitudes of the old players. No more streaks. Cut loose the developers. Add new content and encourage role playing and team play. The games called dungeons and dragons make it that game. And as long as your at it merge some servers they're are less than 200 active players on Orien. I counted them repeatedly in case you care to dispute my claim. Thanks I welcome discussion.

[TheLegendOfAra]

Do that, and we can all sit back and watch the players leave in droves, and just laugh, and laugh, and laugh...

[Thayion516]

Ya.. The point is to make money.. not loose it.

[janave]

DDO is a pretty good experience the first time around* if you can evade the quest zerging vets, tons of whoa , waht was that moments..

(*granted you start normall on lvl1 with a non twinked char)

problems:
* fixed content - metagaming makes it incredibly easier the nth time
* overpowered abilities - most any spell casting, since they are spammable and intentionally so. where as in D&D they have strategical/tectical purpose with very limited use, hence the power,
* too highly incentivized systems, favor, nth completion, too much xp for completion, too few for optionals, sagas, streaks, etc etc... - people do whats progressive to them, not what they find more fun
* lackful and shifting end game
* too many stacking bonuses - TR cycles give too much to powercreep
* gear bypasses, absorb/immunity items
* exceedingly OP p2w combinations, bladeforged, warfoged + arcanes
* leveling bypasses, vet status, iconics
* encounter and dungeon design favoring x class, wizard is a popular one to build dungeons around being super easy to solo.
* due to the tree system multiclassing is too powerful, multi tree allows many synergies that create godlike builds.
* ceirtain items and item min levels are too powerful esp with character builds specifically around the items. (more metagaming)

[Kaytis]

This is a great thread! Here are some more ideas to add challenge:

* casting ingredients should not be purchaseable, they should only drop in high level chests and rarely.
* the ml on all weapons should be raised to at least 4 so that melee toons can learn unarmed combat first.
* the chalices should be removed from all quest givers so as not to coddle players with excessive information.
* creatures in dungeons are entirely too conversant in "Common". NPCs should speak only in their native tongues. Not conversant in "Yugoloth"? You are not trying hard enough.

[Galeria]

This is a great thread! Here are some more ideas to add challenge:

* casting ingredients should not be purchaseable, they should only drop in high level chests and rarely.
* the ml on all weapons should be raised to at least 4 so that melee toons can learn unarmed combat first.
* the chalices should be removed from all quest givers so as not to coddle players with excessive information.
* creatures in dungeons are entirely too conversant in "Common". NPCs should speak only in their native tongues. Not conversant in "Yugoloth"? You are not trying hard enough.

+1!!


Bring back the death penalty. Poor players should find themselves repeating level 1 over and over.
Restrict key areas like the market place to players who have proven their mettle by soloing difficult low-level content.
Death in public areas is fun! Add more danger to finding quests both in public areas and wildernesses.
Make Mordenkainen's Disjunction permanent. Anyone who gets disjuncted will have to throw away everything in their backpack and start over. Or apply an adamantine ritual to each item to unbreak it.
Since when do bartenders know how to fix weapons? Make players find the appropriate tradesman to fix their broken armor and items.

[Vooduspyce]

This is a great thread! Here are some more ideas to add challenge:

* casting ingredients should not be purchaseable, they should only drop in high level chests and rarely.
* the ml on all weapons should be raised to at least 4 so that melee toons can learn unarmed combat first.
* the chalices should be removed from all quest givers so as not to coddle players with excessive information.
* creatures in dungeons are entirely too conversant in "Common". NPCs should speak only in their native tongues. Not conversant in "Yugoloth"? You are not trying hard enough.
Omg this made me lolz :)

[TheLegendOfAra]

Are we trying to kill the game?
Is that what this is?

[SirValentine]

...its very hard to get a group together.
...
Eliminate the BB and streaking.


Your join date is 2009. You were around before Bravery Bonus. Don't you remember what those days were like?

Groups were far more exclusive in who they'd let in for their (Normal x8) runs than folks are now for their (once-and-done Elite) runs.

In my experience, Bravery Bonus has made groups far more accepting, and got far more people to challenge a wider variety of content, and on higher difficulties, which, to me, are all Good Things (TM).

If there's fewer LFMs, it's just because there's fewer total players. It's not because of Bravery Bonus.

I certainly don't want to go back to the days where farming the easiest difficulty over and over was the only half-way decent way to get XP, and where you don't dare risk 10% of your XP on an unknown PUG-er.

[Hydian]

+1!!


Bring back the death penalty. Poor players should find themselves repeating level 1 over and over.
Restrict key areas like the market place to players who have proven their mettle by soloing difficult low-level content.
Death in public areas is fun! Add more danger to finding quests both in public areas and wildernesses.
Make Mordenkainen's Disjunction permanent. Anyone who gets disjuncted will have to throw away everything in their backpack and start over. Or apply an adamantine ritual to each item to unbreak it.
Since when do bartenders know how to fix weapons? Make players find the appropriate tradesman to fix their broken armor and items.



Revamp the enhancement system so everybody gets 5. Not 5 per level, just 5. No more exploit builds.
Make effects like curse and blindness permanent, even upon leaving the dungeon. No potion to remove it? Sorry about that.
Put things into each dungeon to force people to group up to complete them. That'll ensure everybody has a dungeon buddy.


That'll bring them in.

[kismetbuy]

The game is ok by me other than running the same quest i did in heroic on epic. Of course i don't have to but then it'll take a hell of a lot longer to cap.

[IronClan]

Your join date is 2009. You were around before Bravery Bonus. Don't you remember what those days were like?

Groups were far more exclusive in who they'd let in for their (Normal x8) runs than folks are now for their (once-and-done Elite) runs.

In my experience, Bravery Bonus has made groups far more accepting, and got far more people to challenge a wider variety of content, and on higher difficulties, which, to me, are all Good Things (TM).

If there's fewer LFMs, it's just because there's fewer total players. It's not because of Bravery Bonus.

I certainly don't want to go back to the days where farming the easiest difficulty over and over was the only half-way decent way to get XP, and where you don't dare risk 10% of your XP on an unknown PUG-er.

BB was a good mechanic but it's served its purpose and is now obsolete, a left over that forces everyone including unprepared new players if they want to find any groups at all, to run on only elite and causes all groups to advertize a 2 or 3 level spread so as to stack the deck in their favor.

Daily bonus encourages players to not repeat quests more than twice moving on instead of endlessly farming the same quest
XP ransack encourages players to not repeat quests
Saga's encourage players to run chains

These all do a better job of encouraging varied content than BB does, and they do it in a way that is more inclusive of players who aren't ready for Elite.

BB straight jackets every LFM and causes new players to sit around in unfilled Normal and Hard LFM's... In a game with very few players this is a garrote wire around the neck of PUG'ing. It's killing the game coming and going, it's causing less LFM's and it's causing new players to feel like no one will play with them (on normal or hard) BB's time is over, the XP bonus can be folded into daily bonus, but they need to eliminate BB... as well as other overly restrictive aspects of grouping. In a game with so few players, it's just strangling.

Since this thread is all about the bullet lists:



Make a new swath of F2P content by releasing lots of old packs as free, STK, Delera's, Threnal, Necropolis etc.
Give MOTU + Epic Destinies away for free send out "come back to DDO" Emails and offer old players MOTU for free



Put the free server transfers that Major Mal promised into the game this will allow us to congregate to 3 or 4 servers creating a healthy PUG scene. Those who wish to can stay on the "lag free" servers.
Actually advertize the game
widen level ranges allowed in groups and lower the power leveling penalty to only the over level player. Let more people stay within range of being able to group with each other. No one ever left DDO because they were helped to level so they could re-join their friends or help keep up with the TR train.
remove the -10% for dieing AKA: the "make new players not want to join LFM's penalty"
put a LFM tutorial on Korthos get new players familiar with it. I can't tell you how many new players come to Harbor and don't have any idea how to join a group.
before that improve the LFM panel and make quest picker searchable and give all groups a default range that is inclusive
Actually advertize the game
Set up an event that generates new interest in DDO (preferable tied in with new F2P content and giving away MOTU and epic destinies), get Massively and other MMO sites talking about how much DDO has changed and what deep and fully fleshed game it is (omit talking about the lack of much end game).

[Saekee]

Revamp the enhancement system so everybody gets 5. Not 5 per level, just 5. No more exploit builds.
Make effects like curse and blindness permanent, even upon leaving the dungeon. No potion to remove it? Sorry about that.
Put things into each dungeon to force people to group up to complete them. That'll ensure everybody has a dungeon buddy.


That'll bring them in.

Make it so characters need to occasionally relieve themselves. Takes time to get out of that plate armor...
Have the rate increase if under shaken or fear effects.

Wait is this a serious thread or a playful one?

[stratagem]

last thing DDO needs is making it harder for newbies. Game is great as is,but to achieve crazy fun yumminess, they need to add...
1)Gnomes...the classic gear head or the Ilusionist!
2)Guild wars (maybe even factions)!! PvP in taverns? Really?
If they could somehow balance classes and add a 2 or 3 instance wilderness area each as large as, lets say, King's Forest... where PvP, guild wars(and/or faction wars) could take place...well that would rock!!! Make it level based, can only engage with toons 2 levels within range of your own.
Nuker:"hey bandit, what instance ya in?
Bandit:"instance#2. Hiding right now...tracking members of the stupid guild. Gotta stay hidden or they'll snuff me"
Nuker:"assassinate them!!"
Bandit:"I can't, their cleric got 'em covered with deathward!"
Nuker;"kk, I'll gather the group"
Bandit: "roger that, let me know when yer in and we'll set up a staging area"
Nuker:"k bro, stay hidden...be there in a bit"
...See...fun times :-)
3)Keep the Forgotten Realms expansion packs comin'!!
That is all.

[Llewndyn]

BB was a good mechanic but it's served its purpose and is now obsolete, a left over that forces everyone including unprepared new players if they want to find any groups at all, to run on only elite and causes all groups to advertize a 2 or 3 level spread so as to stack the deck in their favor.

Daily bonus encourages players to not repeat quests more than twice moving on instead of endlessly farming the same quest
XP ransack encourages players to not repeat quests
Saga's encourage players to run chains

These all do a better job of encouraging varied content than BB does, and they do it in a way that is more inclusive of players who aren't ready for Elite.

BB straight jackets every LFM and causes new players to sit around in unfilled Normal and Hard LFM's... In a game with very few players this is a garrote wire around the neck of PUG'ing. It's killing the game coming and going, it's causing less LFM's and it's causing new players to feel like no one will play with them (on normal or hard) BB's time is over, the XP bonus can be folded into daily bonus, but they need to eliminate BB... as well as other overly restrictive aspects of grouping. In a game with so few players, it's just strangling.

Since this thread is all about the bullet lists:



Make a new swath of F2P content by releasing lots of old packs as free, STK, Delera's, Threnal, Necropolis etc.
Give MOTU + Epic Destinies away for free send out "come back to DDO" Emails and offer old players MOTU for free



Put the free server transfers that Major Mal promised into the game this will allow us to congregate to 3 or 4 servers creating a healthy PUG scene. Those who wish to can stay on the "lag free" servers.
Actually advertize the game
widen level ranges allowed in groups and lower the power leveling penalty to only the over level player. Let more people stay within range of being able to group with each other. No one ever left DDO because they were helped to level so they could re-join their friends or help keep up with the TR train.
remove the -10% for dieing AKA: the "make new players not want to join LFM's penalty"
put a LFM tutorial on Korthos get new players familiar with it. I can't tell you how many new players come to Harbor and don't have any idea how to join a group.
before that improve the LFM panel and make quest picker searchable and give all groups a default range that is inclusive
Actually advertize the game
Set up an event that generates new interest in DDO (preferable tied in with new F2P content and giving away MOTU and epic destinies), get Massively and other MMO sites talking about how much DDO has changed and what deep and fully fleshed game it is (omit talking about the lack of much end game).


While this has been my argument all along, apparently we are in the vast minority and there are tons of normal LFMs up. The problem is all P2W and noobs running EE.

[dunklezhan]

Serious list:

-Do something about raid timers. Please.
-Moar XP passes on lower level (and some higher level) quests - some still need a good solid boost. It increases longevity of content if anything as you dont' need to run as much of it until 3rd life. Letting people level faster is not 'bad'. I don't think streaks were the final answer on how to deal with it, but they were a wonderful idea initially.
-Cut the max BB for hard and elite in half, or do away with streak bonuses completely. I love them, I love them, I love them with all my heart... but I think they're hurting the game. Just for a while, nerf them, see if the pug scene picks up. Again: letting people level faster is not 'bad', I just don't think, with hindsight, that streaks were how to deal with it.
-I like daily playthrough and XP ransack. You should keep those.
-let vorpal be vorpal on trash mobs. For the love of the sacred polyhedron!
-change the XP survival bonus so it is only applied at the end of the quest. I'm sick of the periodic forum arguments. Making it less visibly lost might help. :)

The How 2 Kill DDO Immediately version:
-Drop all the named loot possible for a quest on the first end reward list. Quite evidently the issue we have in DDO is not enough power in the game for casuals like me. Make it so.
-Double the amount of XP needed for each life from current levels. At least. It was way better when there wasn't enough XP for a first life to once and done, what were you drinking the day you nerfed it so even 3rd lifers could just about manage it?!
-Delete a couple of adventure packs. Let's say... Desert and Vale. Yeah. They're too popular, I'm bored of them.
-Go back to sub only. Get rid of those filthy leeching freemium players.