Yes, It is another 'End Game' thread - this time with proposed solution.

[slarden]

I had a thread about this but it was not concerning only loot problems but a general vision of the game, you can see the full text here https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/454603-How-to-Fix-DDO, but i'll quote the loot part anyways:

I think you are mostly right. The hardcore players and the in-between folks were mostly focused on TR and ran epics for gear and their 20 tokens then went back to TRing. However, there was a large casual base of players that stayed at cap and ran shroud, TOD, festivals and the easier epics like echrono, house p, house d. Back then most of the gear in the game was relatively easy to get and only Von, Sands and Red Fens items were grinds. I had several alts geared with decent equipment.

Most of the raids were run on normal and raids like Shroud applied the diminishing returns concept. By running elite shroud you got more favor, but the rewards between Normal and Elite were not much different otherwise so the people that wanted a challenge ran elite and the people that were more interested in a fun social raid ran normal, but everyone got their greensteel. There was only one epic setting, but most were easily beatable if you had the right roles (cc, heals, tank, dps and trapper).

One thing I will note is that the participation rate in epics wasn't all that high compared to raids and festivals. Mostly I saw eChorono, Devil Assault, House P and House D LFMs.

[The_Human_Cypher]

~ We talked about having a "Killer DM" difficulty level above elite that removed group scaling entirely, had an additional level of champion effects, and nudged up the damage and damage mitigation of enemies by, say, 10%. This has some challenges.

I started a thread a few months ago in the Suggestions sub forum requesting that a "Legendary" difficulty setting above Elite be implemented for very powerful characters.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/453465-Difficulty-Above-Elite

[Seljuck]

I had a thread about this but it was not concerning only loot problems but a general vision of the game, you can see the full text here https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/454603-How-to-Fix-DDO, but i'll quote the loot part anyways:

Good posts. I hope Devs will take that into consideration. Game is to good to leave it without proper end game. I would love to see player cooperation again..

Going back to EE High Road... last completion: EE Rest Stop... 4 min 15s... time to beat that again.

[Gremmlynn]

I say the opposite. Most people are not willing to pay for the opportunity to play a game in which they consistently win.I'll have to say that my experience with playing games of all types tells me otherwise.

[Gremmlynn]

Factually :)Heh, I didn't think Turbine would distribute the data needed to show that to be a fact. Might I ask where I could get it?

[Connman]

I'll have to say that my experience with playing games of all types tells me otherwise.

This seems like a very Cryptic answer to me...

[Cathimon]

I'll have to say that my experience with playing games of all types tells me otherwise.

You didn't have to say that. My own experience playing games tells me you're absolutly wrong. The most popular games out there offers challenge to its players. A lot of them are straight-up PvP games, so we'll pass for the ego of their players.

[Gremmlynn]

This seems like a very Cryptic answer to me...How so? It's my experience people are more likely to play games that they win at more than they lose at.

Developing a game that very few people can win at pretty much means developing a game that very few people are likely going to want to play.

Failing to keep players entertained in the process isn't the same thing.

[Gremmlynn]

You didn't have to say that. My own experience playing games tells me you're absolutly wrong. The most popular games out there offers challenge to its players. A lot of them are straight-up PvP games, so we'll pass for the ego of their players.The last straight up PvP MMO I played failed miserably as those player who were good won consistently and those who were bad lost consistently until they quit and were replaced by the next tier of players who lost consistently until they quit. This kept up until all that were left were those guilds who could at least hang with the best guilds.

[Cathimon]

The last straight up PvP MMO I played failed miserably as those player who were good won consistently and those who were bad lost consistently until they quit and were replaced by the next tier of players who lost consistently until they quit. This kept up until all that were left were those guilds who could at least hang with the best guilds.

So everybody playing League of Legends win constantly?

[PermaBanned]

How so? It's my experience people are more likely to play games that they win at more than they lose at.

Developing a game that very few people can win at pretty much means developing a game that very few people are likely going to want to play.

Failing to keep players entertained in the process isn't the same thing.

I won't comment on what I think other players do, but I know I will shelve the game I've beaten much sooner than the one I haven't. For me, that means I pay more to the MMO that keeps me engaged with difficulty.

Of course, multiple options on how to play (character customization) also extends a game's duration of interest (again, to me).

[Connman]

So everybody playing League of Legends win constantly?

There is a big difference between computerized AI, and a guy with a $200 keyboard, a case of Mountain Dew, and a strong desire to "kill all n00bz!"

[Cathimon]

There is a big difference between computerized AI, and a guy with a $200 keyboard, a case of Mountain Dew, and a strong desire to "kill all n00bz!"

Yea, like a guy buying supreme tomes and otto's boxes. But that's an other topic. And sure PvP is different to PvM, but our options are limited here.

[Gremmlynn]

So everybody playing League of Legends win constantly?I'm willing to bet anyone who loses constantly, wont be playing for long.

[Cathimon]

I'm willing to bet anyone who loses constantly, wont be playing for long.

That's their problem though, because LoL is one of the most popular game out there. That's the point too, isn't it? Chosing between making the game challenging and awesome, or make it a snooze-fest because the noobs can't handle it if it's tougher than it is right now.

[Connman]

That's their problem though, because LoL is one of the most popular game out there. That's the point too, isn't it? Chosing between making the game challenging and awesome, or make it a snooze-fest because the noobs can't handle it if it's tougher than it is right now.

If there was only one difficulty setting in this game you might have a valid point.

[Cathimon]

If there was only one difficulty setting in this game you might have a valid point.

To a lot of players there are just one difficulty, that's the valid point. We'd like an other.

[Azarddoze]

I'm willing to bet anyone who loses constantly, wont be playing for long.

That's why there are different difficulties or tiers in PvE games and a ranking system in PvP games. Everyone can be satisfied with an appropriate challenge.

[Gremmlynn]

That's their problem though, because LoL is one of the most popular game out there. That's the point too, isn't it? Chosing between making the game challenging and awesome, or make it a snooze-fest because the noobs can't handle it if it's tougher than it is right now.The thing is, your perspective is completely irrelevant. Game companies simply don't think in those terms. They think in terms of what is the most profitable or most marketable. If they believe that's a snooze fest, they make a snooze fest. If there are 10 "noobs" for every "leet" and/or those noobs are simply a lot easier (cheaper) to please it very well could even with them spending less individually.

That is the actual point and the only one that really matters as far as what games are even developed in the first place.

[Cathimon]

The thing is, your perspective is completely irrelevant. Game companies simply don't think in those terms. They think in terms of what is the most profitable or most marketable. If they believe that's a snooze fest, they make a snooze fest. If there are 10 "noobs" for every "leet" and/or those noobs are simply a lot easier (cheaper) to please it very well could even with them spending less individually.

That is the actual point and the only one that really matters as far as what games are even developed in the first place.

I'm not willing to give you that point 100%. Because I am sure there are developpers who think about making a good game in addition to making money and that they're not willing to sacrifice everything to make an extra buck. I know I wouldn't accept 10% more money for doing a bad job from now on. Some people might, but I know there are games who have turned their back on easy money to stand by their principles and that's awesome. In the end, those people might make bigger money too, due the reputation they've forged.

But even then. Yes, they want to be profitable. And this is where I think you and I disagree. I think they'll be more profitable by being a more challenging game with options for both the noobs/casuals and the more serious/veterans/good players(Whatever you want to call them). And there's no way, to my knowledge, that you can prove me wrong. Because you don't know if people will leave/stop spending $ on DDO then, and I don't know for a fact either.

My assumption is that very few will leave and some players will make a come back. I play very little right now and spend very little too, I can at least speak for myself and say I'd have a huge regain in interest to come play DDO.

Seriously, it's all speculation. 1- How many players unable to do an elite quest left DDO already?
2- How many players left due to boredom of how there's no challenge in DDO?

[McFlay]

DDO will never have an end game. No matter what they add for content people are going to farm it into the ground the first few weeks its out then be bored and waiting for the next update. Even if they add a new tier of gear, a new difficulty level, and a bunch of level 30 quests, its not going to matter...its all coming with a finite shelf life as people will just farm it out and be done with it, and we'll be right back to where we are now.

The only end game you have in online games is pvp, and ddo moved away from pvp long ago. Pve content is always going to be like playing a single player nintendo or playstation game...how many times can you trash the same level before you know it like the back of your hand and are bored with it...especially when DDO content is all pretty much static content and has very little randomization.

Once you are over the tr hamster wheel...there just really isn't anything for you to do in this game. I just wait for the updates and play for a week or two to check new stuff out, then it sinks in its just same old same old and off I go. Its not even worth chasing after all the new gear anymore, because you know within an update or two you'll be getting something better anyhow...and since its a pve game if you can beat stuff with not quite the best gear...there really isn't any point in getting the best gear just to make stuff you've already beaten a little bit easier.

[HAL]

I say the opposite. Most people are not willing to pay for the opportunity to play a game in which they consistently win.

So you honestly believe that people want to pay money to lose over and over? I don't know anyone who would. Facebook games and other "casual" games are so popular because they are easy. There are many times more people who play those games than RPGs. And most RPGs aren't particularly hard - one would think if "people" really enjoyed losing all the time that there would be more insanely difficult games...

[HAL]

But, the thing is there has to be motivation to run that superior setting. Loot is a driving goal. XP is another.

However, as proven it isn't needed to be completely viable in DDO. But the highest difficulty should be rewarding to those that play it. For the longest time that excluded me, and you never once heard me complain about it. I only wish more would follow my example.

Certain players keep saying they want harder content because they want a challenge. Then they say they want harder content for the loot. If people truly want a challenge presumably it is because they enjoy a challenge. Can't you enjoy it without loot? I do things I enjoy in life (reading, gaming, watching movies) because I enjoy them. They don't gain me any lasting benefit and yet I still do them.

[HAL]

So everybody playing League of Legends win constantly?

League of Legends, and games in that genre are not "the most popular games". In fact, if you read articles about gaming in general you read mostly about mobile gaming lately and no type of MMO is mentioned at all.

[Cathimon]

So you honestly believe that people want to pay money to lose over and over? I don't know anyone who would. Facebook games and other "casual" games are so popular because they are easy. There are many times more people who play those games than RPGs. And most RPGs aren't particularly hard - one would think if "people" really enjoyed losing all the time that there would be more insanely difficult games...

Lose over and over, no. But lose a few times, work your way up until you win, YES! That's the whole point, you don't get spoonfed. You try your hardest and get some emotions on the roller-coaster. That's what GRRM said when asked why Game of Thrones was so popular. It's because the audience doesn't know what's going to happen, unlike the boring movies where you know the hero will survive against all odds are every single turn.

We're beating a dead horse. You want the game to be easy, I want it to be hard. The question I've been asking people is, are you personally going to leave DDO if they add that new difficulty? Because that's all that matters. The game remains as it is, you'll see a lot less of me as time goes. That's all.

[Qhualor]

Certain players keep saying they want harder content because they want a challenge. Then they say they want harder content for the loot. If people truly want a challenge presumably it is because they enjoy a challenge. Can't you enjoy it without loot? I do things I enjoy in life (reading, gaming, watching movies) because I enjoy them. They don't gain me any lasting benefit and yet I still do them.

certain players want the game to be easy enough to get free TP and easy to get xp and loot.

the people saying they want more of a challenge also want an incentive worth the time, resources, etc to make it worth their while. playing just for the sake of challenge gets boring after awhile. I did it for about 2 months pre-MOTU running epics after I had almost everything I wanted on 4 characters until the announcement of an expansion. my interest was renewed after the first few weeks it was released which led me to stay busy working on past lives because I felt I needed them to do better. I had an incentive to be a better player and work towards a goal. for quite awhile now ive been wondering what the point is if I can handle EE playing a class I don't really know well to play to its full potential, using mostly chest loot gear and playing in completely useless destinies. I had more fun during the time of old epics where there was a realistic chance of failure, group play and making those shinies that much more special and desired.

[PermaBanned]

So you honestly believe that people want to pay money to lose over and over? I don't know anyone who would.Were quarter muncher arcade game's successful and profitable because they were easily beaten; or because they constantly killed you and you either plopped in another quarter "to continue" or you plopped in another quarter to see if you could get farther than last time? I doubt if I had a come accross an easy to beat one I'd have said "woot!" and plopped in another quarter to easily beat it again.

[Blackheartox]

So you honestly believe that people want to pay money to lose over and over? I don't know anyone who would. Facebook games and other "casual" games are so popular because they are easy. There are many times more people who play those games than RPGs. And most RPGs aren't particularly hard - one would think if "people" really enjoyed losing all the time that there would be more insanely difficult games...

Yet when you click on gaming sites and check the top ladders of most popular sold or best games you dont see casua fbook games there .
All i ever see are games drven by good graphic, gamrplay and that offer a challenge.
The mmo population has evolved so much that you need a reason to keep that playerbase.
You are better off with 1 fat chair lover who would sell his mother for a 7 str tome then a weekend only family employed guy.
And that fat dude wants to feel special because he can do something in game tjat the family guy cant.
When you lse that type of players you lose most income.

And honestly i dont know what is so bad in the following.
Make endgame borderline hard so that only the best can complete.
Noone is excluded from such a endgame.
Why? Because everyone has the abilty to improve and be the best.
I just dont get why are people so scared from ddo being harder then now.
Explain please

[Blackheartox]

DDO will never have an end game. No matter what they add for content people are going to farm it into the ground the first few weeks its out then be bored and waiting for the next update. Even if they add a new tier of gear, a new difficulty level, and a bunch of level 30 quests, its not going to matter...its all coming with a finite shelf life as people will just farm it out and be done with it, and we'll be right back to where we are now.

The only end game you have in online games is pvp, and ddo moved away from pvp long ago. Pve content is always going to be like playing a single player nintendo or playstation game...how many times can you trash the same level before you know it like the back of your hand and are bored with it...especially when DDO content is all pretty much static content and has very little randomization.

Once you are over the tr hamster wheel...there just really isn't anything for you to do in this game. I just wait for the updates and play for a week or two to check new stuff out, then it sinks in its just same old same old and off I go. Its not even worth chasing after all the new gear anymore, because you know within an update or two you'll be getting something better anyhow...and since its a pve game if you can beat stuff with not quite the best gear...there really isn't any point in getting the best gear just to make stuff you've already beaten a little bit easier.

Vindictus says you are wrong
Ignored pvp, a expanded crafting system, and focus on achievments and titles and constant updating.
Also i hope you were around before motu when all those issues didnt exist.
Best bet turbine has is to replicate old system imo

[Eth]

And most RPGs aren't particularly hard - one would think if "people" really enjoyed losing all the time that there would be more insanely difficult games...

The Dark Souls series is a RPG where you can easily lose progress.
Still it is very successful and even developed a fanbase around the theme of being a game that's not as easy as most other games are.

[Blackheartox]

The Dark Souls series is a RPG where you can easily lose progress.
Still it is very successful and even developed a fanbase around the theme of being a game that's not as easy as most other games are.

Indeed and it is so easy to die from every single enemy.
Really great and fun series

[Oxarhamar]

So you honestly believe that people want to pay money to lose over and over? I don't know anyone who would. Facebook games and other "casual" games are so popular because they are easy. There are many times more people who play those games than RPGs. And most RPGs aren't particularly hard - one would think if "people" really enjoyed losing all the time that there would be more insanely difficult games...

Ultima Online had some pretty harsh consequences if you died.

Entire inventory looted for starters but, be unluck/careless enough to be killed with a deed, house key, or recall rune set inside your dwelling and Years of your loot could be emptied out by other players very rapidly.

UO was largely successful for its time & was one of the games that jump started the whole graphicMMO genre.


Ah UO you will always have a special place in my heart. Corp Por!

[Gremmlynn]

I hope you two guys know, that your discussion under this topic is irrelevant? You talk about your assumptions without any data to support your arguments.What's more you talk about standard game difficulties, mostly in levels 1-28. And I wanted to start here constructivist discussion about level 30 ONLY.

It looks like people can only whine about certain 'hot' topics, but when they are asked to bring their solutions.. they don't have anything to say.

Finally, does addition of new lv 30 only difficulty affect your game style? Affect game overall difficulty for you?I gave you a post on level 30 end game. If someone wants to respond to it, I'll be more than happy to engage in that conversation. If not, I'll engage in a conversation that someone actually seems interested in having.

[Gremmlynn]

Ultima Online had some pretty harsh consequences if you died.

Entire inventory looted for starters but, be unluck/careless enough to be killed with a deed, house key, or recall rune set inside your dwelling and Years of your loot could be emptied out by other players very rapidly.

UO was largely successful for its time & was one of the games that jump started the whole graphicMMO genre.


Ah UO you will always have a special place in my heart. Corp Por!I'm guessing it was working so good for them that they came up with Trammel just to preserve their humility?

[Oxarhamar]

I'm guessing it was working so good for them that they came up with Trammel just to preserve their humility?

Trammel was in response to players who wanted strictly PVE.

Never said it was perfect but, it was a huge success in its hay day.

[Angelic-council]

DDO will never have an end game. No matter what they add for content people are going to farm it into the ground the first few weeks its out then be bored and waiting for the next update. Even if they add a new tier of gear, a new difficulty level, and a bunch of level 30 quests, its not going to matter...its all coming with a finite shelf life as people will just farm it out and be done with it, and we'll be right back to where we are now.

The only end game you have in online games is pvp, and ddo moved away from pvp long ago. Pve content is always going to be like playing a single player nintendo or playstation game...how many times can you trash the same level before you know it like the back of your hand and are bored with it...especially when DDO content is all pretty much static content and has very little randomization.

Once you are over the tr hamster wheel...there just really isn't anything for you to do in this game. I just wait for the updates and play for a week or two to check new stuff out, then it sinks in its just same old same old and off I go. Its not even worth chasing after all the new gear anymore, because you know within an update or two you'll be getting something better anyhow...and since its a pve game if you can beat stuff with not quite the best gear...there really isn't any point in getting the best gear just to make stuff you've already beaten a little bit easier.

It's possible to have an end game in DDO. But, it has to be some sort of new mechanic: maybe new crafting system. Something that can't be done in few weeks. Not if you farm it 7 hrs a day. I strongly believe if everyone stop arguing and start giving their examples, we can definitely move on from there.

Unfortunately, I never seen this was the case in this community. I see 2 or maybe 4 - 7 people trying something and they need all the support they could get... But they end up having their threads messed up by those who don't take this seriously. There is only 1 solution to this.. only one. And that's when we all start agreeing with each other. Finally for the 1st time, we critizie ones idea and take it to the next stage. If that idea is bad, then ok, how can it be improved.

Serious now, we don't need to know what others think about PvE or even PvP which is left behind long ago. We shouldn't be caring about how difficult is EE or what others think about who said what in previous post. We all want the reason to play DDO. How can that ruin anyone else's experience. If people think this was a joke started by OP, then I guess people are happy with current DDO and we don't need any end game.

[Blackheartox]

It's possible to have an end game in DDO. But, it has to be some sort of new mechanic: maybe new crafting system. Something that can't be done in few weeks. Not if you farm it 7 hrs a day. I strongly believe if everyone stop arguing and start giving their examples, we can definitely move on from there.

Unfortunately, I never seen this was the case in this community. I see 2 or maybe 4 - 7 people trying something and they need all the support they could get... But they end up having their threads messed up by those who don't take this seriously. There is only 1 solution to this.. only one. And that's when we all start agreeing with each other. Finally for the 1st time, we critizie ones idea and take it to the next stage. If that idea is bad, then ok, how can it be improved.

Serious now, we don't need to know what others think about PvE or even PvP which is left behind long ago. We shouldn't be caring about how difficult is EE or what others think about who said what in previous post. We all want the reason to play DDO. How can that ruin anyone else's experience. If people think this was a joke started by OP, then I guess people are happy with current DDO and we don't need any end game.

As i have agreed with opener.
S/s/s system and gsteel and end game pre motu was imo best.
I dont have faith personally in turbines implementation of new things.
Call me whatever but i was not impressed by anything they did recently as imo mark wyrm peaks and citw all have either a horrible raid mechanic, lag or a annoying crafting system that makes the player insecure how long til they make new gear that outperforms old.


I personally would like turbine to first and of all remove bypasses from new shroud and tod aka epic ones.
Make the rate horrible low.
Make the raids pretty hardcore.
Make ee version super hardcore that most of us even in guilds fail.
And then add content that fills gear gaps which those raids dont provide.
Good implementation would be those so called sentient weapons.
They start of really weak, gain xp and can be horribly powerful once you level em up, but not so powerful that you can braindead zerg elite content.
What needs to be addresed is the thing that costs most.
Enemy ai, special attacks and attack patterns.
You can make enemies more dangerous without adding 00000s to bars or damage with mechanic change.
All things i envision tho cost money and im pretty sure turbine will not do that.

In my little perfect world epic elite and endgame is so hard, yet gives the player achivments and special rewards so that he needs to push himself to his limits to complete something.
And even after gaining all those rewards he still needs and requires quick reaction time and knowledge on how to complete content.

A new diff would be ok and then make it enter at 30 only while eveery content has it.
And it as i said and opener gives something that lets you upgrade old epic gear to the new lv 30.
The ammount of form and rejuvenation of almost all content with that design in mind could be really good.
They just need to properly adjust that setting so that it offers a challenge.

Il say again, in my perfect little world even i should be failing epic elites constantly, even with my whole gear past lifes and game experience.
That is perfect ddo that i envision, a ddo where i feel great when i complete something, a ddo where i fail and have fun while doing so because i learn something new and develop new tactics and ways how to perform better. Since in my opinion a rpg game should be about evolving, not only my characters but also mine.

[Faltout]

It's possible to have an end game in DDO. But, it has to be some sort of new mechanic: maybe new crafting system. Something that can't be done in few weeks. Not if you farm it 7 hrs a day. I strongly believe if everyone stop arguing and start giving their examples, we can definitely move on from there.
Ok, let's talk about it, although I forsee my post won't be as structured as I would like it to be:

"Something that can't be done in few weeks." You see this as a new mechanic? I see this exactly the same as "can't be done in a few minutes/hours/days/weeks/months/years". And you know that you can't enforce the duration that something will take and make it last years because that's how long you want that player to stay around (who loves the "energy" games that you need time to replenish energy).
So after it is DONE, what next? Let's rule out what doesn't come next: Replaying the same content. Replaying lesser or equally difficult content.

So, there are different speculations about what might come next:

The players replay the same content because they enjoyed the challenge and not the reward. Well, while that may be true for some -me included-, we all know that for a large part of the forum base (can't say about the player base) this is not true. So those players have ended the end-game. I believe that means the end of their game.

The players play different characters who in turn need to go through the end-game. While this used to be true pre-MotU and still is for some players -me included-, it isn't true for a large part of the player base who has invested so much in one character and doesn't want to let go or doesn't find playing with other characters as fun as it is playing with one that he has invested in. That is really caused by the increase in difficulty to gain more for your character. While pre-MotU you had completionist and the epic gear, right now you have completionist, epic completionist, iconic completionist and twink gear (gear that is extremely good for its level, but not the top level gear). Getting most of that stuff on multiple characters is too much work. And not getting those would exclude you from the end game, since the game is already too hard without gear or past lives or resources even if noone will admit it. Finally, the fact that many characters have become the same. Be it because the players choose to have a single playstyle or be it because the game allows for everyone to do everything. Fact is no matter what character you hop on, you're going to play him the same way. So no reason to have less geared characters.

The players will move on to harder content. Even harder than the end-game? What gives? Well, the developers are still going to release new quests but if they go beyond level 30, then the end-game that we had wasn't really the end-game. And the solution would be to not have an end-game because it gives an expiration date on the game.
But harder content isn't always hard because you need better gear or moar lives or moar sp pots. Harder can mean that whatever you do, you have a chance at failure like Heroic Abbot. Gear will help, lives will help, pots will help, but ultimately nothing can trivialize the content because it is based on player skill and not character skill. And player skill never gets too good. (if exploits could be fixed like the goggles dropping on the ground, then Abbot would still be hard -not saying like it's not intended by the devs, but like it trivializes the puzzle)
We already had that kind of harder content like Abbot, or extreme challenges like Terminal Delirium, Crucible swim and stuff. Most people -not including me- say they don't like that kind of challenge.

So, giving an end-game that has some sort of expiration date is not good. What you need is something that keeps the characters in a loop. It should still be challenging for all players no matter what gear they have or what lives they have. It should still be fun (although completing a challenge where you have a chance to fail is fun) in terms of story/progress. It should never give rewards that would invalidate that content itself. As you can see, this is pretty hard to figure out. And yet, the devs have already have.



Reincarnation is what has been the end-game so far. It keeps the characters in a loop. It is fun in terms of progress. The rest could use some polishing, but this is what has kept DDO alive for all those years.

Challenge and rewards: The past lives by themselves don't give that much.
What makes low-level content so easy would be:
1. Player knowledge. A new player is choosing a pre-made path or not knowing the importance of CON, or not realizing the concept of "be the best at what you do" in addition to "be as good at what you do, as the content requires" and give some points to all their stats to be "balanced", or not knowing what character abilities exist that tie well together and make a build. A veteran player will choose the best character to their knowledge to play the content. A best character should have it easy in the low level quests.
2. Items. A veteran player knows which items to use and which not to. All the stuff is there for the new player to get, but the new player doesn't know what is good, what is needed and what is not worth it.
3. Ship-buffs. Some quests would still be a challenge for any veteran player if it wasn't for the 30 resists.
So, basically, low-level content is easy for ANY player as long as that player can make the right choices. But it's not like there's a barrier of items or past lives. Everything making the game easy is accessible to everyone.
What makes medium and high level content is:
1. Player knowledge. Knowing where the traps are, what to expect is pretty much uber.
2. Gear. A veteran player has gotten the best gear after some time of farming in his past lives.
3. Abilities. Some class abilities play too well together or are by themselves too powerful. Most veteran players -myself not included- will go for the best build around or a slight variation of the best build around.

The conclusion is that the end-game/reincarnation would still be challenging from medium levels and after if there wasn't so much power creep. Also if the quests were more random than monster champions. That would invalidate much of player knowledge that is present at every level of play. And I mentioned "the end-game should not provide loot that would invalidate the end-game itself". That basically means that what every player in this forum is requesting as loot should not be handed out. Players will always want more power even if what they really want is progression and challenge. That means loot that gives slight advantages to progress the character but doesn't trivialize the initial challenge. That's why games like "Dark Souls" are popular.

Also I would like to say again that most players DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY REALLY WANT (scientifically proven).



I also would like to reply to some posts about game popularity.

Game is popular means more money can be made. From side items sold, size of player base, etc. So when we say "a game is popular" we mean "that game has the chance to make money" whether the game decides to do it or not.

Why mobile games are popular? Simple, because they can be played anywhere. In the bus, in the train, at a meeting, at bed, in class. You can only play a MMO if you have a big sized screen and lots of time in your hands. Versatility means much today.

Are popular mobile games easy? Hell no. They have hundreds of levels and can easily make more. They have timers. They feed on the frustration of the player (you need to be frustrated to buy a boost to pass a level). They use known games that are successful. They provide competition between players.
People don't pay to always win. That option isn't there. You can pay to win a single element of the game, but there will be hundreds more where you will fail. As I said, these games feed on the frustration of the player. The timeline where you play such a game is important. If you are frustrated in DDO where you spend hours in a single session, you will leave fast. If you are frustrated in a mobile game that you play for 5 minutes, then you easily forget it and next time you buy your way through. I guess it's because it's much easier to buy your way through. Also the fact that you leaving it fast isn't the same. Fast will be the same time for you. For the mobile game it will be a lifetime (where it has gathered what it needed from you), while for DDO it will be a moment (where it didn't even get the chance to get something from you).

[Ague]

We see too much of the Epic level players running normal and lower level content because there is no worthy endgame content to grind.
Players are doing ETR's and ER's and ITR's or rehashing lower level content to the detriment of lower level players.
a Shroud 18-28 just means level 18 toons are being carried through content that should have presented a challenge.
Elites don't care because they just want the stuff from shroud for TR's, there is no penalty to anyone in the group other than the loss of some poor raid xp by having high level toons join their groups.

I can't honestly remember the last time I ran a Shroud and was able to get a full "at-level" group or just got XP period for it.

I see a simple solution to this problem (albeit, probably very far from being the most popular solution amongst players). We currently have power leveling penalties for players running content way over level with ppl either at or below level for the content. Instituting a "Power Looting" penalty would help keep people running quests at level. i.e. Player 1 level over quest level (at whatever difficulty), -1 to loot, -10% chance for named items, player 2 levels over, -2 to loot, -25%, 3 levels over, -3 loot, -50%. Or something to that accord.

But on the flip side, running 1 or 2 levels under (the base level of a quest on Norm, regardless of actual difficulty the quest is run on) could also increase chances for named loot, something to keep the challenge level up and more rewarding for those who put forth more time/effort/resources to under-level the quests.

Without something like this, raids like Shroud, Chrono, and Litany will always just be grinded out by players when they are capped for their next TR. This would also help keep quests run at the appropriate difficulty and strongly discourage the current capped loot farming scene and encourage more of a plan for your next life as you go.

Now don't go hating on me for this. I never said it would be a good idea. It's not by any means something I would ever wish on the game, but just a viable solution to the quoted quote above. (Would also keep things a bit more challenging and demand a bit more from some players in terms of paying attention to their builds/gear/etc.)

[HAL]

certain players want the game to be easy enough to get free TP and easy to get xp and loot.

Like who? Can you point me to one post where someone requested that?

[HAL]

Were quarter muncher arcade game's successful and profitable because they were easily beaten; or because they constantly killed you and you either plopped in another quarter "to continue" or you plopped in another quarter to see if you could get farther than last time? I doubt if I had a come accross an easy to beat one I'd have said "woot!" and plopped in another quarter to easily beat it again.

That is a format where "lives" are multiple and "dying" doesn't = "losing" since you can just add lives.

[Ague]

We currently have a double secret end game for raid timer bypass cliques. I wish there were no more bypasses BUT I also think 3 day timer is so 2010, it should be a one day timer like old epics (imo)...

I totally agree. Raid timers have become basically "Meh" with all the past exploits that existed just long enough for millions of timer bypasses to be created. I think 24-36 hours is plenty for raids and just ditch bypasses altogether. Or scrap current timer bypasses and add a new item similar, perhaps just cutting in half the amount of time you have to wait to raid again rather than bypassing the timer altogether.

[HAL]

Yet when you click on gaming sites and check the top ladders of most popular sold or best games you dont see casua fbook games there .

Many games are not sold today, they get their money from their cash shop. So games sold is not a good indicator of popularity anymore. And "best" is a matter of opinion and not an indicator of how many people play it.


Make endgame borderline hard so that only the best can complete.
Noone is excluded from such a endgame.
Why? Because everyone has the abilty to improve and be the best.
I just dont get why are people so scared from ddo being harder then now.
Explain please

This is completely incorrect. Making a game so that "only the best can complete" will end up discouraging a large percentage of players. There is a whole population of gamer that wants to play games for fun, not for work. They don't want to come home from work to do another "job", to fail at something over and over "until they get it right". That might be interesting and fun for some people but it is not for many others. If endgame is so difficult that it requires work and grind to be successful those people will simply leave when they get to the point of wanting an endgame.

[HAL]

The Dark Souls series is a RPG where you can easily lose progress.
Still it is very successful and even developed a fanbase around the theme of being a game that's not as easy as most other games are.

Yes, some people enjoy that type of play. My point is that "people" in general do not.

[HAL]

Trammel was in response to players who wanted strictly PVE.

Never said it was perfect but, it was a huge success in its hay day.

Ultima Online was a huge success in part because it had very few competitors. As MMOs became more popular, the vast majority of them were made to be fairly easy to play. There is a reason for that.

And I'm not certain why people are responding with "there is this one game". I never said that there weren't people who enjoyed a really harsh game. I just said that you can't say there is a large population of those people based on the prevalence of games that are more accessible.

[Qhualor]

Players who are not playing completionist and/or raid geared characters are not "sleepwalking" through Elite. In general (as has been said MANY times), these players still find EE challenging. That is why many of those players (including myself) don't want Elite to be made more difficult. We want to still be able to get our Favor and BB.

And I'm not sure why we are suddenly talking about EE. In your previous post you said:



I play quests once and done at level. Sounds like you are suggesting playing on Hard to get to Epics and then going back with your Epic character and do quests over in order to get the Elite Favor.


Like who? Can you point me to one post where someone requested that?

You say this kind of thing a lot. There are others who post basically the same thing, but I won't quote them unless they ask too.

[Ague]

Some thoughts:

~ There are some things that are clear from our datamining in multiple games and here is one of them; if the game does not occasionally offer new challenges and new rewards then players leave. This isn't power creep, but rather a planned increase in power and challenge. We call it vertical progression; an update with vertical progression will offer greater loot and also offer up larger challenges. That doesn't mean there aren't lots of opportunities for horizontal progression as well for updates that are focused on that.

~ The harder the content, the more player organizers have to pay attention to the gearing of potential adventurers. Sometimes it is the elitism of an organizer that just feels like having an easy run with geared out companions, but as the challenge of content increases it can also become more and more an issue of just being practical. If we tune content to be really hard then there will be players who are excluded because of gear. I've been there and it sucks to be excluded because you aren't geared up enough; we are sensitive to this. On the other hand making all content easy enough where gearing doesn't matter creates a game that not only lacks challenge, but also lacks any practical motivation for gearing up.

These are the types of discussions and decisions we work on all the time. The hardest part is that there is no one "correct" answer since a change that is good for one type of player could be bad for another group.

~ We talked about having a "Killer DM" difficulty level above elite that removed group scaling entirely, had an additional level of champion effects, and nudged up the damage and damage mitigation of enemies by, say, 10%. This has some challenges.

("Killer DM" is not serious, it's our internal joke way of referring to a higher difficulty.)

1.) We would now be spreading players over an additional difficulty. In the best scenario players who feel like grouping flock to this difficulty because it doesn't scale down with group size. In a worse scenario we now have players looking for groups split between Elite and Killer DM mode and it becomes harder to find groups.

2.) How do we reward players willing to run on Killer DM difficulty? Revamping all the loot in the game for a new difficulty is not an option. More loot boosts will just make items you can't use yet. We don't want to drastically increase the amount of XP players are getting as we already have players who don't feel they have enough to do. We could create a series of achievements based on completing Killer DM dungeons but would that really motivate players to participate?

3.) Would the game even be improved by a feature like this?

As you can see, these discussions bring up a lot of difficult side questions and potential consequences.

Sev~

If a more extreme difficulty were to be added ("killer DM" or "Mythic" or whatever), would that justify ditching "Casual"? I'm sure you guys have statistics on how often things are run on the different difficulties and I honestly can't imagine Casual being close to the top tier of those stats. Make Normal the norm. Keep the handful of solo quests that already exist in the game (except maybe Raiding the Giants Vault, ramp the difficulty up somehow and open it up to the other difficulties.)

[Blackheartox]

Many games are not sold today, they get their money from their cash shop. So games sold is not a good indicator of popularity anymore. And "best" is a matter of opinion and not an indicator of how many people play it.



This is completely incorrect. Making a game so that "only the best can complete" will end up discouraging a large percentage of players. There is a whole population of gamer that wants to play games for fun, not for work. They don't want to come home from work to do another "job", to fail at something over and over "until they get it right". That might be interesting and fun for some people but it is not for many others. If endgame is so difficult that it requires work and grind to be successful those people will simply leave when they get to the point of wanting an endgame.

And making epic elite so boring that you lose most of your population daily, threads poping daily about game being easy and how people are forced to solo since there is no interest in the game is the correct approach?

It can be seen from most sold and popular games that people pay for progress and challenge and not for a game that plays itself.
If they continue with this trend the next move they should do is add a complete quest and loot button when you select difficulty that you buy for tp from store and can get it for free 3x per day as vip.

Do you think it is ok not to add a spice of challenge to ddo?
Do you really think players have fun in the game walking like demigods?
I dont think so.
I dont want ddo to be my job, but i dedicated many hours of my life to this game and i think that me and many players like myself deserve at least 1 wish granted.
And that is a independent of casuals difficulty that we can play and enjoy.
It does not touch the life or gameplay of normal and hard players at all.
And such a difficulty alrdy existed in ddo and ddo was most popular back then.
Many were excluded from epics and from elite raids, everyone was in those shoes.

And ddo had more playerbase, a healthier game, more raids, more grouping, everything was better.
Yet the game was considerably harder and fun.
Back then the way i played was tr tr and do a ocassional epics life with friends.
We had our share of troubles and it was fun.
Now, i can do any epic i want solo on elite without breaking a sweat, on multiple different builds, from fotm to super weak ones.
Do i have fun while doing so?
No, and that is the fate of everyone that wants to be better at ddo.
They will meet a dead end since you dont need to be good due to recent buffs.
If they dont stop this and make the game as it should be.
A game that originates from d&d, one of hardest to grasp games with the most brutal gameplay and ability to wipe any adventurer.
Then its a shame to say, but most people who play this for the dnd feel will just quit.

At least imo, i might be totally wrong.
But i anticipated that easyfication of the game will slowly but surely kill it as they give reason to all theirserious players to quit.

[Blackheartox]

Yes, some people enjoy that type of play. My point is that "people" in general do not.

GAMERS in general enjoy that sort of play.
And you earn money from them and not the play the game 2 hours per week sort of players.

[HAL]

certain players want the game to be easy enough to get free TP and easy to get xp and loot.


You say this kind of thing a lot. There are others who post basically the same thing, but I won't quote them unless they ask too.

I said "Players who are not playing completionist and/or raid geared characters are not "sleepwalking" through Elite. In general (as has been said MANY times), these players still find EE challenging." Finding EE challenging does not = finding EE easy.

[Qhualor]

That is why many of those players (including myself) don't want Elite to be made more difficult. We want to still be able to get our Favor and BB.

I play quests once and done at level. Sounds like you are suggesting playing on Hard to get to Epics and then going back with your Epic character and do quests over in order to get the Elite Favor.


irrelevant post for what you asked for.

I broke down the important part for you to make it easier.

[Blackheartox]

I said "Players who are not playing completionist and/or raid geared characters are not "sleepwalking" through Elite. In general (as has been said MANY times), these players still find EE challenging." Finding EE challenging does not = finding EE easy.

Im playing a alt whom im ashamed of its gear and im still sleep walking with her thro ee.
And i bet there are many more out there that are multiple times better then me at this game.
I cant even imagine what they feel about current ddo.

[Chai]

~ The harder the content, the more player organizers have to pay attention to the gearing of potential adventurers. Sometimes it is the elitism of an organizer that just feels like having an easy run with geared out companions, but as the challenge of content increases it can also become more and more an issue of just being practical. If we tune content to be really hard then there will be players who are excluded because of gear. I've been there and it sucks to be excluded because you aren't geared up enough; we are sensitive to this. On the other hand making all content easy enough where gearing doesn't matter creates a game that not only lacks challenge, but also lacks any practical motivation for gearing up.


Specifically addressing this part - this is why DDO has 4 difficulties. If this was working properly in heroic, we can have our automatic completions on casual and normal, spice it up a bit on hard, and elite would be for 4+ people who have the gear and metagaming experience.

When the default leveling difficulty on heroic is elite, theres no headroom to challenge those players who effectively graduated that difficulty setting due to learning the game, and differences in attainable character between the era when the quest was designed and nowdays.

Im fine with people screening their groups for elite runs. When people are kicked from normal runs because they cant break DR 10/- on a 1k+DPS character, the player mentality, and not game design, comes into question. In this situation when elite is the default grouping difficulty, it creates a wider gap between people who aren't there yet equipment and meta game wise, and those who are, due to the level of exclusionary behavior that comes with elite, and far less normal and hard runs where people running less than perfect characters can cut their teeth.

[Ellihor]

This is completely incorrect. Making a game so that "only the best can complete" will end up discouraging a large percentage of players. There is a whole population of gamer that wants to play games for fun, not for work. They don't want to come home from work to do another "job", to fail at something over and over "until they get it right". That might be interesting and fun for some people but it is not for many others. If endgame is so difficult that it requires work and grind to be successful those people will simply leave when they get to the point of wanting an endgame.

You don't have to complete everything in game. How many people reached the max favor in DDO? You can just not play epic elite if you think it is too hard and don't like it. The top difficulty should bee for hardcore players, who play like it is a job... because they have fun doind that (guess what not everyone hate theyr jobs) and can't have fun otherwise. Why does everyone HAVE to be able to complete the top difficulty? The answer is: they doesn't. Most people do not do EE raids often, and they don't boother with that...

Coming back to the topic, the only way to make the game better is make it works as it was before u14, jjust because it worked better and everyone (almost) liked the game more. Use that system. Quest timmers, raid timmers, hard stuff (encourage groupwork and roles), different kind of roles desired for specific situations, and all this encourage people to have more alts. Also, lower mob density and higher theyr quality, so wehave again those roomswhere were scared to go in alone... and don't have to kill waves of dozens and dozens of mobs because that is ****ing boring. I belive by making stuff more difficulty people want to play more in parties with teamwork and strategy, because otherwise they would wipe.

About loot make it hard to get, but hard to get useless by power creep. So you take a lot of time to finish an item, but also it should be useful for a long time before something better is realeased, just like before u14. Seal/shard/scroll/base was cool, with some packs dropping base and shards only in raids.

Another change that has to be done is rollbac the enhancement pass, because it kinda doubled the power creep speedand made a lot off very OP broken builds that are the main problem of the game now and DEVs keep failing trying to fiix it. Again, THIS IS THE BIGGER PROBLEM OF THE GAME NOW, and to solve it 3things should happen 1- rollback enh pass, 2- nerf divine crusader, 3- nerf bladforged reconstruct.

[janave]

Specifically addressing this part - this is why DDO has 4 difficulties. If this was working properly in heroic, we can have our automatic completions on casual and normal, spice it up a bit on hard, and elite would be for 4+ people who have the gear and metagaming experience.

.

Idealistically what you say is alright, but how devs adjust content to 4 seasoned player when even seasoned player using a solid optimal build doing 5 times less effectively to current space buffed "hey i found a loophole in the system" build?

Creating challenging content for n players is very difficulty with such differences to available power. How i imagine it solved is: first they come to an agreement with themselves AND the player base that x-number is now top DPS, anything that out does it is not working as intended, then they re-adjust each ability where they think it should be relative to x-number, given the circumstances of cost to use, cooldowns, ranged or melee ability etc..etc..

In a fair universe they would also remove ability to drink store manapots and healing in top level content or raids at least.

[Connman]

...people who have the gear and metagaming experience.


The one thing that trumps gear and metagaming experience, determination. When my wife and I started playing this game we, like most people that are just starting out, had nothing. No gear, I used to farm "Purge The Heretics" because there were 2 chests! Obviously I gained meta-gaming experience as time went by. I would stick to the quests I knew trying to get better gear and more experience, as well as more XP.

A lot of the quests we completed were challenging to us. But we didn't quit. Period. Have you ever died 20+ times at the end of VON 3 where the three mini bosses spawn? We did! And you know what, we completed that quest. Why? Desire. How? Sheer force of will. Naked, "acid fog is rough yo!," it is just a good thing there were some weapons in those chests or we would have been in a boxing match with the Marut.

So if you are a new player, or an old player, or a new old player, or an old new player, one thing is for sure. If you give up on stuff in real life easy, then no, you are not going to have a good time in a game where the difficulty requires you to not give up. If on the other hand you are the type of person that does not give up on things the first time things gets a little difficult, you will enjoy a game with some challenge.

So I guess the question you folks at Turbine have to ask yourselves is what type of people do you want engaging in this game. The kind that give up easy, and take there money with them, or the kind of people that stick things out?

[Seljuck]

I said "Players who are not playing completionist and/or raid geared characters are not "sleepwalking" through Elite. In general (as has been said MANY times), these players still find EE challenging." Finding EE challenging does not = finding EE easy.

Tell me how new game difficulty would affect those players? End game difficulty that won't give XP or more favor then epic elite.
Difficulty that won't mandatory.
Difficulty that bring new challenge for those who seek that.

[PermaBanned]

Many games are not sold today, they get their money from their cash shop. So games sold is not a good indicator of popularity anymore. And "best" is a matter of opinion and not an indicator of how many people play it.I think any comparison of MMO to silly mobile games was pointless. I highly HIGHLY doubt that any MMO has lost a worth while chunk of players to Candy Crush Saga or some other such.


This is completely incorrect. Making a game so that "only the best can complete" will end up discouraging a large percentage of players. There is a whole population of gamer that wants to play games for fun, not for work. They don't want to come home from work to do another "job", to fail at something over and over "until they get it right". That might be interesting and fun for some people but it is not for many others. If endgame is so difficult that it requires work and grind to be successful those people will simply leave when they get to the point of wanting an endgame.Yes, there is a large population that wants to play easy rpg/mmo game's; maybe there's even more of the "gimme little/no challenge" players than there are of the "gimme a challenge" players. Question: is it possible to get more pie on your plate if you're getting a large slice of a small pie instead of a small slice of a large pie? Being one of the few to offer a challenging game instead of oneod the many to offer an easy game might restrict your target audience, but it also restricts the size of your competition pool.

[Oxarhamar]

Ultima Online was a huge success in part because it had very few competitors. As MMOs became more popular, the vast majority of them were made to be fairly easy to play. There is a reason for that.

And I'm not certain why people are responding with "there is this one game". I never said that there weren't people who enjoyed a really harsh game. I just said that you can't say there is a large population of those people based on the prevalence of games that are more accessible.

Just giving an example of a successful harsh game. nothing more nothing less.

[Cathimon]

Tell me how new game difficulty would affect those players? End game difficulty that won't give XP or more favor then epic elite.
Difficulty that won't mandatory.
Difficulty that bring new challenge for those who seek that.

I'm far from being motivated by gain. But if the new difficulty gives absolutly no reward, the same favor and same xp, then it's rather stupid. Why not have casual give the same loot, xp and favor as elite while we're at it?

[Llewndyn]

Right now there is no real End Game in DDO. Everyone knows that, we have plenty of thread that can prove it. Lot of people complain also about overall game difficulty and other pressing issues. I do not have any solution for heroic/epic difficulty changes, it depends on too many factors and is not easy for a change. But there is a way to solve the problem of End Game.

The idea is not necessarily new, refers to what we had in the past and what worked out well. This should resolve the problem of end game difficulty and the lack of usefulness of older, epic items.
Proposed solution will not be cheap, and require a lot of coding time. But the effect is worth the costs incurred.

To the point.
I will explain the idea in 3 parts. To fully understand it, please read the whole text. Single points out of context may mislead you.

Pros:

adding a real end game to the game
a new level of difficulty as a remedy for the lack of challenges
solution to the problem of useless ‘old’ epic items
new end game crafting
motivation for playing in a group due to new difficulty
mythic difficulty as new module - income for Turbine

1) End Game

According to the statement, Dev does not have a plan to increase the maximum level of characters over thirty. This is why the End Game should be set at this level. Just create a new level of difficulty, such as Mythic (described in detail in the next section), available only for the thirty-level characters. Mythic difficulty level would only be added to quests that currently has epic version. Timers can also be considered, but should not be longer than 3-6 hours for quests and 2d18h for raids, without the possibility of their omission by the bypasses. Mythic should have only one version of difficulty, like the old epic.
As an incentive to run new difficulty, players will be given new ingredients, that combined with 'blank item' gives final item: 'Sentient Item' (System described in detail in the third paragraph). New difficulty, also give players opportunity to acquire Sentient Runes and Cells that will improve 'Sentient Items'.

2) New Difficulty

This is probably the hardest part, which requires time and resources. It's hard to imagine the actual End Game without a new level of difficulty, which will be characterized by a different approach than the standard epic. You should change players attitude from: ‘Brute force solve everything’ to ‘Only the cleverness and appropriate tactics solve it’.
In order to achieve this goal, you should significantly reduce the strength of the players, (NOT BY Player nerfs) but by skilful limiting damage taken by opponents.

For this purpose I introduce a number of factors:

Addition of PRR/MRR to opponents - major factor in defense. Each opponent should have some value of prr/mrr. Strongly armored opponents or some creatures could have up to 75% reduction. This factor can be explained by heavy armor, shield, scales or a thick layer of the skin.
Actually working AC - In its current form, the AC practically does not work. Even the wizard without power can easily hit every enemy in melee combat. Miss is now less common than critical hit on vorpal. While the total change in the mode of action of AC is rather unlikely, increasing the coefficient of opponents AC is perfectly possible. Increase of AC by 30-50% should significantly affect the usefulness of this factor.
Dodge/Concealment - Main protection of agile opponents, up to 50% for some creatures. Can be explained by small size of opponent, high speed or special abilities.
Randomness - One of the major shortcomings of the current opponents is their predictability. An experienced player does quests schematically, knows every opponent and know what to expect. Randomness factor may change this. Random opponents, random effects like: DR, resistance to specific damage, resistance to specific element, an increased prr, special attacks, slowing aura, regeneration, teleportation in a small range etc.
Potions/Wands - any intelligent, humanoid opponent should have a set of several different potions and wands, which if necessary could be use. F.eg. heal, shield (spell), invisibility etc.
Special attacks - Players have their cleaves, stuns, bursts, forms of monster hold etc. Opponents, on the other hand don’t use any special attacks, unless they are main bosses or specific creatures. To address this issue, give every opponent set of special attack like: chain-hold, cleave, deadly diseases, poisons, stun, daze, charm (Yes players can be charmed to!), pin (check shiradi ED), shattered armor (reduced prr) etc.

Quest mechanic:


Opponents - First, the level of opponents should be maintained at the level of epic elite Necro 4, Storm Horns or Mask of Deception. Their strength should not be in more HP and more powerful attacks, but in their special abilities and increased defense.
Champions - Introduction of champions is an interesting move. However, more needs to be developed. Champions as natural leaders should receive the effects such as of auras. Auras should affect champion allies, increasing their ability.
Adaptation – Player is using alot of Magic Missiles? Let's use Shield spell. Party full of monkchers? Chain and slow effect should do the trick. Caster with mass hold/energy burst on board? Freedom of Movement and protection from elements should help. And so on.
Cooperation – DDO is MMORPGs focused on grouping! At least it WAS focused on grouping. Currently, due to the changes in the game is rather a game for single player. This tendency should be stopped! Game should encourage for grouping. To achieve this quests should be designed for players cooperation. They could be done solo.. but that should be extremely hard due to quest mechanic or time invested.
Diversified Puzzles – End fight in Monastery of the Scorpion comes in mind, also whole Shadow Crypt quest, it’s one big puzzle. No more Detour like quests, zerging through it is boring. We need more quests like VoN 5, The Pit etc. just check next point.
Diversified quest design – there’s not much to say here, quest names explain everything: The Pit, Shadow Crypt, Spies in the House, Vault of Night, The Dreaming Dark, The Lord of Eyes, Stealer of Souls, Acute Delirium, Litany of the Dead, The Titan Awakes, The Twilight Forge.

3) End Game Crafting & Items

Time for the most interesting part from the players point of view - New Items. Currently, there is a tendency in the game to exclusion 'old' equipment by new, where the old most often comes from the most recently added module. This causes a lot of confusion when planning your next life, or a build for the 'end game'.
Often fall suggestions to remake the old epic items from 20ml, because in its current form are completely useless.
In the near future Dev plans to implement new type of Items, 'Sentient'. Because of the small amount of information that we received on this topic, it's hard to say how do Dev envision this being implemented in DDO.
How can you combine all of these elements for the benefit of the players and Dev?
Creating a new end game crafting, which, based on effective, existing solutions will encourage players to continue playing.
The end result of crafting, would be new kind of object, said Sentient Items. To create a Sentient Item would be needed:

Three types of ingredients, 2 (unbound) to find quests and 1 (BTC), available only in raids.
Base item, such as from epic crafting or quests available after the MotU. (BTC / BTA)
Charm, which is also the formula that describes what components are needed to create an Sentient Item (Unbound).
After the creation of the item ml would be 30. Each item would have the individual number of slots (but not more than 3) for special runes. For each item only one rune with a particular effect can be inserted. Once inserted, runes cannot be released. Runes would add new effects to the item, which, together with increasing experience would strengthen their effect. Runes can be gathered from the final chests on new difficulty. They can be also bought from players or auction house.
Gaining experience by weapons can be solved by introducing a 'charging'. Component, that would charge SI, would only be available in a new difficulty, in several versions, which differ in the amount of experience. Charging Cells would be unbound and tradable.
Sentient Items should not be 'stronger' than Thunder-Forged items or necro4 epic items. Their 'power' should result from the different effects.

Sample item:


Epic Seal of the Earth
Sentient Seal of the Earth


Stoneskin- 3 Charges (Recharged/Day: 3)
Avatar of Earth - 1 Charges (Recharged/Day: 1)(Exclusive) - for 15s/character level you take the form of Elder Earth Elemental.
Under earth form you gain DR30/-, immunity to critical hits, diseases and poison effects. You have two forms of attack, standard melee attack and boulder toss.
All your attacks deal blunt and acid damage. Under Earth elemental form all your weapons and their effects don't work.
Strength of Earth Avatar raises with the level of item.



Natural Armor +6
Natural Armor +10


Acid Resistance +30
Acid Resistance +50


Yellow Augment Slot
Green Augment Slot



Sentient Rune Slot



Sentient Rune Slot



What do you guys think about this ?

Well, really just one thought. After playing Baldur's Gate and fully appreciating how infuriating it is to be geared to the teeth and have all of that nullified by that ONE FRIGGIN CASTER HITTING US WITH MASS CHARM, I begrudgingly will admit it does add a sense of urgency to a battle, kind of a "Holy crud get the caster he's waving his hands around IGNORE THE OOOORRRCCCSS!!!!" kind of way, so I will agree with this as long as it doesn't leak too much over into the other settings. In all honesty, though I would give it a shot once in a while, I log in not to challenge and frustrate myself more, but to kill things that have done nothing to me in a feeble attempt to exert my will over SOMETHING... as long as my wife is ok with me doing that. I'm getting all sweaty typing this, meaning she is nearby, so I'll leave it at that.

I don't like the verbage though, it's starting to sound like Matrix III or X-Men, which got all lame when it was kind of like Dragonball Z and Sentient Punching planets into oblivion was common... but since I have no better suggestions I can't totally denigrate these for that either.

TL;DR I have no problems with this as long as it doesn't start leaking over so that Waterworks on HE had champions hitting for 140+ damage.

[Seljuck]

I'm far from being motivated by gain. But if the new difficulty gives absolutly no reward, the same favor and same xp, then it's rather stupid. Why not have casual give the same loot, xp and favor as elite while we're at it?

I was wondering?*whether?*to mention about new slightly better loot. If I would add that, people would say I need more power creep. When I leave it, you say that it's stupid.

[Ague]

One question.

Why would you have casual go away?

I ask because, unless you see it having some sort of negative effect on the game, even a small amount of effort spent removing it seems wasted.

While I partially agree with EllisDee37, Sev did express his concerns for splitting up the playerbase into too many grouping potentials. We already have 4 Heroic difficulties and 4 epic ones. Just think if we had a fifth group to spread out the players into? Grouping would be horrible. Some players don't join LFM's now unless it was a certain difficulty (not just elite, but any), with a spread of 5 it will be even worse I think.

[Monkey-Boy]

While I partially agree with EllisDee37, Sev did express his concerns for splitting up the playerbase into too many grouping potentials. We already have 4 Heroic difficulties and 4 epic ones. Just think if we had a fifth group to spread out the players into? Grouping would be horrible. Some players don't join LFM's now unless it was a certain difficulty (not just elite, but any), with a spread of 5 it will be even worse I think.

That's a silly concern, we're already split.

[PermaBanned]

While I partially agree with EllisDee37, Sev did express his concerns for splitting up the playerbase into too many grouping potentials. We already have 4 Heroic difficulties and 4 epic ones. Just think if we had a fifth group to spread out the players into? Grouping would be horrible. Some players don't join LFM's now unless it was a certain difficulty (not just elite, but any), with a spread of 5 it will be even worse I think.

I would actually suggest taking it a step further and reducing it to three difficulties:

• "Easy" - What is currently Normal, keep it for those that want it.
• "Normal" - What is currently Elite, because I honestly believe (by obsevarion) that Elite is what is normally/typically played.
• "Hard" - Whatever the new difficulty would be.

Just makes sense to me that "Normal" be the standard difficulty.

[Cathimon]

I was wondering?*whether?*to mention about new slightly better loot. If I would add that, people would say I need more power creep. When I leave it, you say that it's stupid.

Welcome to the DDO forums!

[Ague]

I disagree, I'd like a new difficulty accross the board. From Korthos to Shavarath and Wheloon. Call it Mythic, Insane, Nightmare or Killer DM I don't really care. The thing I hated on other MMOs I played were my friends at cap telling me ''right now it's boring but once you get to cap, it's going to be fun''.

The TR scene on DDO is huge. The people who do TR, (everybody?) could benefit from some more challenging Shan-to-Kor and stuff. I don't care that much about the rewards, it's about the thrill, the challenge, the fun.

Maybe scale all difficulty relative to number of past lives somehow? That would help against trivializing content for multi-tr's.

[Blackheartox]

Maybe scale all difficulty relative to number of past lives somehow? That would help against trivializing content for multi-tr's.

I like the idea

[Chai]

Idealistically what you say is alright, but how devs adjust content to 4 seasoned player when even seasoned player using a solid optimal build doing 5 times less effectively to current space buffed "hey i found a loophole in the system" build?

Creating challenging content for n players is very difficulty with such differences to available power. How i imagine it solved is: first they come to an agreement with themselves AND the player base that x-number is now top DPS, anything that out does it is not working as intended, then they re-adjust each ability where they think it should be relative to x-number, given the circumstances of cost to use, cooldowns, ranged or melee ability etc..etc..

That's why ALL completions are data mined and all play is data mined. Its not a matter of agreeing with players where the DPS benchmarks are, its a matter of data mining that information and extracting it from actual gameplay rather than from numbers in a vacuum.


In a fair universe they would also remove ability to drink store manapots and healing in top level content or raids at least.

This is part of why endgame content doesn't stay as interesting for longer periods of time. In other MMOs with endgame centric communities, new content is released, and it takes a few months in many cases for people to be able to consistently complete the new content. Even then its not guaranteed success each run and takes a while to master. In DDO an hour after release theres three guilds arguing about who got the game first. Not only is the content handedly defeated by guzzling lakes of mana potions to completion on day one, but this is done over and over again until people get their 20th completion lists within the first week. The overall shelf life of the content suffers due to this, but hey, those who want their loot as quickly as possible and beat it out of the content within days of release and will pay to do so.....

[Llewndyn]

That's why ALL completions are data mined and all play is data mined. Its not a matter of agreeing with players where the DPS benchmarks are, its a matter of data mining that information and extracting it from actual gameplay rather than from numbers in a vacuum.



This is part of why endgame content doesn't stay as interesting for longer periods of time. In other MMOs with endgame centric communities, new content is released, and it takes a few months in many cases for people to be able to consistently complete the new content. Even then its not guaranteed success each run and takes a while to master. In DDO an hour after release theres three guilds arguing about who got the game first. Not only is the content handedly defeated by guzzling lakes of mana potions to completion on day one, but this is done over and over again until people get their 20th completion lists within the first week. The overall shelf life of the content suffers due to this, but hey, those who want their loot as quickly as possible and beat it out of the content within days of release and will pay to do so.....

I actually agree with you, Chai. The problem I see with addressing this is it will, at least in the short run, run off those who are used to "New quest, take 10 minutes, chug pots, get pellet" and take a bit to stabilize. Factor in that people will not buy things on the DDO store if they are made null in new content (though in a perfect world I would think that would be a great way to keep an arc solvent a little longer), and you have to pick the lesser of two evils: Either throw out insane content that you almost HAVE to buy DDO store stuff to complete in order to help nullify the huge numbers of people buying store stuff, which will lead to veterans who take pride in beating content without all the crutches leaving... or make a given arc accessible to more people but risk annoying veterans, some of whom this will be the last straw and they will leave. I don't claim to have an answer to which is the best answer, I can only answer for myself, but I would rather have more people to run with even if the quests are easy than log on and only see a handful of people on who can take on the content in it's new incarnation.

As for the mythic/ Sentient/ Ninjablaster setting, I kind of agree about spreading difficulties even thinner, and would actually be OK with removing Casual and just taking champions out of Normal difficulty (though that may be the case now I haven't run a quest on normal since 2010 or so)... I do like the idea of giving mobs AC and workable PRR and the like as well but with that maybe make some of our weapon choices make more sense... in all honesty I just want to be justified for keeping my WoP +5 longsword. I refuse to sell it because I know Turbine will see the err of their ways and it will regain it's place as a weapon of DOOOOM! If it's good enough for Kai-Teng, it's good enough for me!

[Seljuck]

Ok, let's talk about it, although I forsee my post won't be as structured as I would like it to be:

"Something that can't be done in few weeks." You see this as a new mechanic? I see this exactly the same as "can't be done in a few minutes/hours/days/weeks/months/years". And you know that you can't enforce the duration that something will take and make it last years because that's how long you want that player to stay around (who loves the "energy" games that you need time to replenish energy).
So after it is DONE, what next? Let's rule out what doesn't come next: Replaying the same content. Replaying lesser or equally difficult content.

So, there are different speculations about what might come next:

The players replay the same content because they enjoyed the challenge and not the reward. Well, while that may be true for some -me included-, we all know that for a large part of the forum base (can't say about the player base) this is not true. So those players have ended the end-game. I believe that means the end of their game.

The players play different characters who in turn need to go through the end-game. While this used to be true pre-MotU and still is for some players -me included-, it isn't true for a large part of the player base who has invested so much in one character and doesn't want to let go or doesn't find playing with other characters as fun as it is playing with one that he has invested in. That is really caused by the increase in difficulty to gain more for your character. While pre-MotU you had completionist and the epic gear, right now you have completionist, epic completionist, iconic completionist and twink gear (gear that is extremely good for its level, but not the top level gear). Getting most of that stuff on multiple characters is too much work. And not getting those would exclude you from the end game, since the game is already too hard without gear or past lives or resources even if noone will admit it. Finally, the fact that many characters have become the same. Be it because the players choose to have a single playstyle or be it because the game allows for everyone to do everything. Fact is no matter what character you hop on, you're going to play him the same way. So no reason to have less geared characters.

The players will move on to harder content. Even harder than the end-game? What gives? Well, the developers are still going to release new quests but if they go beyond level 30, then the end-game that we had wasn't really the end-game. And the solution would be to not have an end-game because it gives an expiration date on the game.
But harder content isn't always hard because you need better gear or moar lives or moar sp pots. Harder can mean that whatever you do, you have a chance at failure like Heroic Abbot. Gear will help, lives will help, pots will help, but ultimately nothing can trivialize the content because it is based on player skill and not character skill. And player skill never gets too good. (if exploits could be fixed like the goggles dropping on the ground, then Abbot would still be hard -not saying like it's not intended by the devs, but like it trivializes the puzzle)
We already had that kind of harder content like Abbot, or extreme challenges like Terminal Delirium, Crucible swim and stuff. Most people -not including me- say they don't like that kind of challenge.

So, giving an end-game that has some sort of expiration date is not good. What you need is something that keeps the characters in a loop. It should still be challenging for all players no matter what gear they have or what lives they have. It should still be fun (although completing a challenge where you have a chance to fail is fun) in terms of story/progress. It should never give rewards that would invalidate that content itself. As you can see, this is pretty hard to figure out. And yet, the devs have already have.



Reincarnation is what has been the end-game so far. It keeps the characters in a loop. It is fun in terms of progress. The rest could use some polishing, but this is what has kept DDO alive for all those years.

Challenge and rewards: The past lives by themselves don't give that much.
What makes low-level content so easy would be:
1. Player knowledge. A new player is choosing a pre-made path or not knowing the importance of CON, or not realizing the concept of "be the best at what you do" in addition to "be as good at what you do, as the content requires" and give some points to all their stats to be "balanced", or not knowing what character abilities exist that tie well together and make a build. A veteran player will choose the best character to their knowledge to play the content. A best character should have it easy in the low level quests.
2. Items. A veteran player knows which items to use and which not to. All the stuff is there for the new player to get, but the new player doesn't know what is good, what is needed and what is not worth it.
3. Ship-buffs. Some quests would still be a challenge for any veteran player if it wasn't for the 30 resists.
So, basically, low-level content is easy for ANY player as long as that player can make the right choices. But it's not like there's a barrier of items or past lives. Everything making the game easy is accessible to everyone.
What makes medium and high level content is:
1. Player knowledge. Knowing where the traps are, what to expect is pretty much uber.
2. Gear. A veteran player has gotten the best gear after some time of farming in his past lives.
3. Abilities. Some class abilities play too well together or are by themselves too powerful. Most veteran players -myself not included- will go for the best build around or a slight variation of the best build around.

The conclusion is that the end-game/reincarnation would still be challenging from medium levels and after if there wasn't so much power creep. Also if the quests were more random than monster champions. That would invalidate much of player knowledge that is present at every level of play. And I mentioned "the end-game should not provide loot that would invalidate the end-game itself". That basically means that what every player in this forum is requesting as loot should not be handed out. Players will always want more power even if what they really want is progression and challenge. That means loot that gives slight advantages to progress the character but doesn't trivialize the initial challenge. That's why games like "Dark Souls" are popular.

Also I would like to say again that most players DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY REALLY WANT (scientifically proven).



I also would like to reply to some posts about game popularity.

Game is popular means more money can be made. From side items sold, size of player base, etc. So when we say "a game is popular" we mean "that game has the chance to make money" whether the game decides to do it or not.

Why mobile games are popular? Simple, because they can be played anywhere. In the bus, in the train, at a meeting, at bed, in class. You can only play a MMO if you have a big sized screen and lots of time in your hands. Versatility means much today.

Are popular mobile games easy? Hell no. They have hundreds of levels and can easily make more. They have timers. They feed on the frustration of the player (you need to be frustrated to buy a boost to pass a level). They use known games that are successful. They provide competition between players.
People don't pay to always win. That option isn't there. You can pay to win a single element of the game, but there will be hundreds more where you will fail. As I said, these games feed on the frustration of the player. The timeline where you play such a game is important. If you are frustrated in DDO where you spend hours in a single session, you will leave fast. If you are frustrated in a mobile game that you play for 5 minutes, then you easily forget it and next time you buy your way through. I guess it's because it's much easier to buy your way through. Also the fact that you leaving it fast isn't the same. Fast will be the same time for you. For the mobile game it will be a lifetime (where it has gathered what it needed from you), while for DDO it will be a moment (where it didn't even get the chance to get something from you).

That's quite nice sum up, well written post. +1 for you :)
I have to say that I agree with you here. I wish more people could see this that way.

[Seljuck]

Maybe scale all difficulty relative to number of past lives somehow? That would help against trivializing content for multi-tr's.

This is nice idea, but there will be one small problem.. If we take new player on 1st life char and throw him to party with triple completionist .. this 1st lifer will have extremely hard time there.

This could increase gap between veterans and new players.

[Angelic-council]

That's quite nice sum up, well written post. +1 for you :)
I have to say that I agree with you here. I wish more people could see this that way.

We need more people like Faltout, +1.

Now Faltout, by the new mechanic, I meant crafting system. Here is my original idea.

~ Altar of Forbidden ~
- Ancient altar which was discovered in Nine Hells, this altar seem to emit a small light, a light of hope, even now it fades away.. -
This new crafting will require you to complete specific tasks in order to progress. This will include: Collect four legendary shards to craft "corrupted crystal", one of which can be found from champion vendors (Shard of Might).
- {Reward} -
- You can craft "Corrupted Feats" which will apply buff + debuff to you (only 2 max).
- You can craft "Corrupted Armor Enchantments" which will apply permanent buff + debuff to your armor.
And so on..

This is just a very small idea of mine.

[Faltout]

Now Faltout, by the new mechanic, I meant crafting system. Here is my original idea.

~ Altar of Forbidden ~
- Ancient altar which was discovered in Nine Hells, this altar seem to emit a small light, a light of hope, even now it fades away.. -
This new crafting will require you to complete specific tasks in order to progress. This will include: Collect four legendary shards to craft "corrupted crystal", one of which can be found from champion vendors (Shard of Might).
- {Reward} -
- You can craft "Corrupted Feats" which will apply buff + debuff to you (only 2 max).
- You can craft "Corrupted Armor Enchantments" which will apply permanent buff + debuff to your armor.
And so on..

This is just a very small idea of mine.
I don't quite understand if the corrupted crystal does something or is an ingredient. Also don't understand what the {reward} is supposed to mean.

Anyway, what you're suggesting is basically seen the moment you say "debuff". You want something that will boost some element while hindering another, which is a great idea actually and strives for balance in playstyles. Kinda like the cursed items only not random and more thought out.
What I don't see is: where is the "game" from "end-game" because this seems to me like the reward of this game. (Hope you don't mean champion farming as "game") Where is the endless need that the players will have for this end-game? The fact that you can make something last long may be a solution for as long as it lasts, but ultimately it's not.

[Gremmlynn]

And honestly i dont know what is so bad in the following.
Make endgame borderline hard so that only the best can complete.
Noone is excluded from such a endgame.
Why? Because everyone has the abilty to improve and be the best.
I just dont get why are people so scared from ddo being harder then now.
Explain pleaseI wont even agree that every player is capable of being the best.

Even discounting that, others, myself included, could be much more successful at the game if we made success a priority over what we consider having fun playing.

So really, even if it were true that no one is excluded, what difference would that make if it isn't something they are interested in choosing to do?

[Angelic-council]

I don't quite understand if the corrupted crystal does something or is an ingredient. Also don't understand what the {reward} is supposed to mean.

Anyway, what you're suggesting is basically seen the moment you say "debuff". You want something that will boost some element while hindering another, which is a great idea actually and strives for balance in playstyles. Kinda like the cursed items only not random and more thought out.
What I don't see is: where is the "game" from "end-game" because this seems to me like the reward of this game. (Hope you don't mean champion farming as "game") Where is the endless need that the players will have for this end-game? The fact that you can make something last long may be a solution for as long as it lasts, but ultimately it's not.

Corrupted crystal will be used as an ingredient. That {reward} is basically what you get, Corrupted feat and Armor enchant.

I just replied to your part question where you asked me what is that "mechanic". Altar of Forbidden is just a small addition to the game. Sorry, I should have explained this more further.

Altar of Forbidden (AoF) uses power of Nine Hells to corrupt you in exchange of small power boost. This was specifically designed for those who looking for challenge.
You can get something like: Power of Corruption: You lose 200 HP and gain +2 STR or Enmity of Corrupted: You take 20% more damage with all sources, but your attacks will deal 10d10 non typed damage (2 - 3 sec CD) - (can be acquired only once). PS: I'm still working on this to be perfectly adjusted. But, AoF is not something like new comers would want to play with around.. it's evil, and increases your personal challenge. You also get small dark aura around your head (so people know that you are corrupted).

This AoF is not an end game, this is just one good example of "hard mode on" switch. Now.. the actual end game, I still need a time to think about this. I have couple of ideas, such as "Infinite Tower" or "Weekly tournaments", but still.. need to think more about this.

[Gremmlynn]

I can't honestly remember the last time I ran a Shroud and was able to get a full "at-level" group or just got XP period for it.

I see a simple solution to this problem (albeit, probably very far from being the most popular solution amongst players). We currently have power leveling penalties for players running content way over level with ppl either at or below level for the content. Instituting a "Power Looting" penalty would help keep people running quests at level. i.e. Player 1 level over quest level (at whatever difficulty), -1 to loot, -10% chance for named items, player 2 levels over, -2 to loot, -25%, 3 levels over, -3 loot, -50%. Or something to that accord.

But on the flip side, running 1 or 2 levels under (the base level of a quest on Norm, regardless of actual difficulty the quest is run on) could also increase chances for named loot, something to keep the challenge level up and more rewarding for those who put forth more time/effort/resources to under-level the quests.

Without something like this, raids like Shroud, Chrono, and Litany will always just be grinded out by players when they are capped for their next TR. This would also help keep quests run at the appropriate difficulty and strongly discourage the current capped loot farming scene and encourage more of a plan for your next life as you go.

Now don't go hating on me for this. I never said it would be a good idea. It's not by any means something I would ever wish on the game, but just a viable solution to the quoted quote above. (Would also keep things a bit more challenging and demand a bit more from some players in terms of paying attention to their builds/gear/etc.)I like it. Though, with that drop rates for content that used to be end game would have to go up to something that is reasonable to expect in the few runs one could squeeze in before advancing out of the level range. Else, it's likely many wont find much reason to run it at all. 20th lists, for example, would be a joke as how many players take the ~60 days needed without bypasses to gain the 4 levels from Normal at 2 levels under to elite at level at any point in the leveling process.

[Gremmlynn]

So I guess the question you folks at Turbine have to ask yourselves is what type of people do you want engaging in this game. The kind that give up easy, and take there money with them, or the kind of people that stick things out?I'm thinking the answer is; the kind that are most willing to spend money on it.

Here's one problem with determination, or stubbornness as I call it. With the way they set things up, those are the one's who are willing to put up with what it takes to pay the least.

[Gremmlynn]

That's a silly concern, we're already split.By many more things than what difficulties we play at that.

[Gremmlynn]

I would actually suggest taking it a step further and reducing it to three difficulties:

• "Easy" - What is currently Normal, keep it for those that want it.
• "Normal" - What is currently Elite, because I honestly believe (by obsevarion) that Elite is what is normally/typically played.
• "Hard" - Whatever the new difficulty would be.

Just makes sense to me that "Normal" be the standard difficulty.Normal/Super Tough/Insane would likely do more to stroke egos while not pushing players to beyond their capabilities.

[Connman]

I'm thinking the answer is; the kind that are most willing to spend money on it.

Here's one problem with determination, or stubbornness as I call it. With the way they set things up, those are the one's who are willing to put up with what it takes to pay the least.

I want to get your point, I really do, but I need you to elaborate on it.

[Gremmlynn]

I want to get your point, I really do, but I need you to elaborate on it.Do you really think that people who are not determined are going to stick with grinding out TPs? Hell, getting the whole game for free can be considered a challenge in itself. I wont go so far as to say that those who are determined necessarily are going to do that. But I really can't imagine anyone doing so without a large dose of determination.

Does that help?

[Connman]

Do you really think that people who are not determined are going to stick with grinding out TPs? Hell, getting the whole game for free can be considered a challenge in itself. I wont go so far as to say that those who are determined necessarily are going to do that. But I really can't imagine anyone doing so without a large dose of determination.

Does that help?

Gotcha. It boils down to math though. I have more determination than most when it comes to completing what I set out to do. So your point would be that determined people don't spend money. Maybe if those people are committed to not spending money. However if those people are only committed to getting turbine points, more to the point the goodies you can get with them, and then they come to the realization that I did, that it would easier for to grind out US currency by working a couple extra hours at work, they will do what I did, spend money.

Also you, and many, many others seem to have this belief that their are only 2 kinds of people, but I am here to tell you there are about 7 billion different kinds of people. Life is not a Coke or Pepsi thing, or a Democrat or Republican thing. It is not a duality, it is a scale, it goes from 1 to 10, 11 if you are "the" heavy metal band.

Again though my original question, that you answered, was a rhetorical question directed to the folks that work at Turbine.

Do you see my point?

[Connman]

You have a very good point. We are all different, but mostly same kind of people gather here. 90% of players I met in the game are seem to be not so intelligent in terms of critical thinking, while I care about my life and make some serious money. Others think how to gear themselves up and what game to play next, some parents play together with 4 - 5 years old, they roll up a barbarian and "slaughter" every mobs. :)

Well of course all the people that think video games are stupid don't come around, so that is one thing that we all, and I will say all here, have in common. We are gamers!

I also believe the very best thing they could do is remove C/N/H/E altogether. just have it be like the challenges with the drop down menu. Now the actual numbers it says, could be for example, 1-100. For purpose of favor, have 1-25 be considered the casual tier, 26-50 be normal, 51-75 be hard and have 76-100 be elite. With level 100 only completable by the so called perfect group, what ever that might be. Then instead of trying to divide there player base into 4 groups with C/N/H/E, you would be dividing them into 100 different groups. Instead of dropping all the way down to *big sigh* normal. You could drop down from 100-99 for example, depending on how much of you was left when the monsters were done with you, and only lose out on an appropriate scaling loss of XP but still be in that "elite" favor bracket. You could keep dropping down all the way to 76 before you would lose out on favor. Make level 100 so hard that if anyone is even able to complete it a world message could go out like the guild messages, <Player name>,<Player name>,<Player name>.. have just completed, quest name. at level 100. On second thought that might be annoying but I already typed it.

One of the arguments against this will be well that puts an even bigger barrier for grouping, the argument against a 5th difficulty setting, but I disagree because when cove is up I see people putting LFM's up for level ranges.

[Gremmlynn]

Gotcha. It boils down to math though. I have more determination than most when it comes to completing what I set out to do. So your point would be that determined people don't spend money. Maybe if those people are committed to not spending money. However if those people are only committed to getting turbine points, more to the point the goodies you can get with them, and then they come to the realization that I did, that it would easier for to grind out US currency by working a couple extra hours at work, they will do what I did, spend money.

Also you, and many, many others seem to have this belief that their are only 2 kinds of people, but I am here to tell you there are about 7 billion different kinds of people. Life is not a Coke or Pepsi thing, or a Democrat or Republican thing. It is not a duality, it is a scale, it goes from 1 to 10, 11 if you are "the" heavy metal band.

Again though my original question, that you answered, was a rhetorical question directed to the folks that work at Turbine.

Do you see my point?Actually you seem to contradict yourself.

First you say that people can only be single mindedly determined, then say everyone is different.

But you did miss my actual point. It wasn't that determined people don't spend money. It was that to not spend money one must have quite a bit of determination.

Frankly, I wont even begin to guess where the demographic sweet spot is for Turbine, but many here seem to believe they not only know where it is, but that they occupy it's exact center.

[Connman]

Actually you seem to contradict yourself.

First you say that people can only be single mindedly determined, then say everyone is different.

But you did miss my actual point. It wasn't that determined people don't spend money. It was that to not spend money one must have quite a bit of determination.

No matter what I type you will see what you want, i.e i never typed these words, or their equivalent, "people can only be single mindedly determined"

You don't have to have any determination to quit playing never having spent a dime. Regardless, I never expected to have an answer.

But on this note, we agree 100%,


Frankly, I wont even begin to guess where the demographic sweet spot is for Turbine, but many here seem to believe they not only know where it is, but that they occupy it's exact center.

See we can agree on some things! How about, "playing games is fun" Can I get you to agree with me on that one?

[redoubt]

Like who? Can you point me to one post where someone requested that?


You say this kind of thing a lot. There are others who post basically the same thing, but I won't quote them unless they ask too.

I will be honest enough to admit that I like free Turbine Points from Favor. I like fast complication free leveling. I'm not so much worried about easy loot. I'll get there someday.

That said, I could sleepwalk through HE and EH. I don't, I zerg the snot out of it and do it quickly for my quick xp and free TP. You could make both of these harder and I'd still be able to zerg them.

EE is different. My main, while not a completionist, has 20ish past lives and most of the gear that I could want. EE is not so bad unless I'm trying to solo high end stuff. In groups with similar people completion is likely. On my alts with very few past lives and lootgen items, EE is a challenge. In groups with similar people we have a reasonable chance of completion, but it won't be easy.

But even as I post this, it is again trying to reference "difficulty" based on a persons personal experience. What is easy for me is hard for someone else and what is hard for me is easy for someone else.

I go back to the need to break it down based on the % of the population who can complete the given difficulty. The numbers I'm going to show are just for explaining the idea, not my recommended numbers.

Set up the target for the population:
elite: 25%
hard 50%
norm: 90%
Casual: 100%
Then watch the completion rates and adjust as needed:
1. If only 10% of the characters are completing elite, then make elite easier.
2. If 50% of the characters are completing elite, then make elite harder.
3. Do the same for each difficulty level and adjust it for your target audience.

So that brings me to ask: What percentage of the population should be able to complete each difficulty level?

[redoubt]

The one thing that trumps gear and metagaming experience, determination. When my wife and I started playing this game we, like most people that are just starting out, had nothing. No gear, I used to farm "Purge The Heretics" because there were 2 chests! Obviously I gained meta-gaming experience as time went by. I would stick to the quests I knew trying to get better gear and more experience, as well as more XP.

A lot of the quests we completed were challenging to us. But we didn't quit. Period. Have you ever died 20+ times at the end of VON 3 where the three mini bosses spawn? We did! And you know what, we completed that quest. Why? Desire. How? Sheer force of will. Naked, "acid fog is rough yo!," it is just a good thing there were some weapons in those chests or we would have been in a boxing match with the Marut.

So if you are a new player, or an old player, or a new old player, or an old new player, one thing is for sure. If you give up on stuff in real life easy, then no, you are not going to have a good time in a game where the difficulty requires you to not give up. If on the other hand you are the type of person that does not give up on things the first time things gets a little difficult, you will enjoy a game with some challenge.

So I guess the question you folks at Turbine have to ask yourselves is what type of people do you want engaging in this game. The kind that give up easy, and take there money with them, or the kind of people that stick things out?

This brings back memories.

I remember Von 3 being a multi-hour quest. Yes I said multi-hour... on HEROIC (there was no epic back then.)

We would spend ALL week flagging for the dragon raid so we could run it on the weekend. If you had a good group, you might do 2 flagging quests in one day. (Today you can do all 4 in under an hour.)

It was a different game back then. I do have fond memories of it, but todays game is nothing like that and I don't think it would survive going back to multi-hour quest durations.

[redoubt]

Maybe scale all difficulty relative to number of past lives somehow? That would help against trivializing content for multi-tr's.

I'd feel sorry for the poor new guy who joined my static group.

Two of us have 30 past lives between us. Are sometimes third member has 2. We pug any open spots.

I can just see it, based on our past lives the kobold in WW is as tough as something out of low level EE. New guy = puddle.

"Anyone got a sponge so we can take the new guy to the shrine?"

[McFlay]

Vindictus says you are wrong
Ignored pvp, a expanded crafting system, and focus on achievments and titles and constant updating.

If it relies on constant updating, its not exactly an end game...as in, exactly what people are complaining about in DDO right now.

End game is a point in a game where you look at your level, and at your gear,and you say "done," now what can I go do? That is where ddo suffers...there is nothing once you get there.

Plus crafting...that's not helping end game. Maybe they can use it as a fun mechanism to get to end game, but its not end game in itself. As far as achievements and titles go...those are just like pets...totally useless and most people won't care about them at all, or at best you get some reward for it and its like the monster manual...something that's is kinda neat because you get stuff from it but again most people aren't going to care about it...if its something you get anyhow while playing cool...but not worth going out of the way for. In other words...its not something most people will care at all about, and its not anything worth staying at level cap or that will actually give you anything worthwhile to do at level cap...just fluff thats a waste of dev time.


Also i hope you were around before motu when all those issues didnt exist.
Best bet turbine has is to replicate old system imo

I was...and those issues did exist. Its just...the devs have made it much, much worse with raid bypass timers. Instead of taking 2 months to get up to a 20th list on a raid to have a good shot at what you want if you hadn't already gotten it, people are doing it within a few days.

Also a lot more people seemed to play a variety of alts back then. I'd blame it on a bunch of things...one being bypass timers...if you liked to raid you needed alts since you'd end up with all your raids on timer. Another being another being epic tr...since they have widened the gap even more between a toon with a ton of past lives and one with few/none it is more worthwhile than ever to focus on a single character. If you have maybe 1 toon instead of 3 now thats effectively 1/3 the time you spend gearing.

Don't kid yourself...if we had bypass timers and past lives that were more buff back so tr'ing was more of a must than just a few caster pl's when 20 was cap we'd have the exact same issues we have today. They obviously can't do anything with past lives at this point(unless they want to make them account wide to encourage alts), and they won't do anything with bypass timers since those are a cash cow, so unless you want to fall for fluff as the illusion of an end game, ddo will never have a meaningful endgame.

[McFlay]

It's possible to have an end game in DDO. But, it has to be some sort of new mechanic: maybe new crafting system. Something that can't be done in few weeks. Not if you farm it 7 hrs a day. I strongly believe if everyone stop arguing and start giving their examples, we can definitely move on from there.

Unfortunately, I never seen this was the case in this community. I see 2 or maybe 4 - 7 people trying something and they need all the support they could get... But they end up having their threads messed up by those who don't take this seriously. There is only 1 solution to this.. only one. And that's when we all start agreeing with each other. Finally for the 1st time, we critizie ones idea and take it to the next stage. If that idea is bad, then ok, how can it be improved.

Serious now, we don't need to know what others think about PvE or even PvP which is left behind long ago. We shouldn't be caring about how difficult is EE or what others think about who said what in previous post. We all want the reason to play DDO. How can that ruin anyone else's experience. If people think this was a joke started by OP, then I guess people are happy with current DDO and we don't need any end game.

Again...crafting isn't an end game. And end game is what do you do when you have all your gear? If you have a decked out toon and NOTHING TO DO WITH HIM, that is a lack of end game. If we had some uber crafting system...how is that decked out toon going to have anything to do? You aren't going to care about crafting if you already have all the best gears you can get...you are still going to hit a point where your toon is finished and you have NOTHING TO DO.

If people want an end game the solution needs to involve adding something to the game so when you have your decked out character with 100 past lives and all the best gear you log in and have something fun to do...not just go trash the same quests you've already farmed into the ground and memorized every important fight and trap in it, that you don't get any gear from anyhow since you already have it all.

I'd hate to say it, but the community is its own worst enemy. What if they were add a few super hard randomized dungeons that dropped no loot and the goal was to finish them as quickly as possible, and they added a scoreboard on the website for each server as an achievement system...so people could see who the fastest players were. You would always have goals then...as you'd be competing against not only your past times, but the times of other players, yet I could hear it now...people would just complain "there is no loot not worth bothering."

Or another example...one of the other games I play just introduced a dungeon that puts 2 parties in it at the same time. The goal is to get a higher score than the other party...you get points for killing mobs. You never come into direct contact with the other party, its like your both in your own instance, but there are things a group in one instance can do to add difficulty to the other groups dungeon. In ddo terms it would be like playing a dungeon, only the other party was like a gm trying to troll you by throwing curveballs at you, while you do the same thing back to them. That could be something fun for the randomness and the lolz, but again...back to ddo community being its own worst enemy...people would just cry its pvp, and/or no loot I need not worth bothering.

[Faltout]

Reply to Angelic-council:
What McFlay said in his 2 posts above this one, is basically what I said in this big post of mine. End-game based on constant updating is not an end-game. Reincarnation, PvP, scoreboard can be end-game. Why? because the constant updating is not on developer side, but on player side. So you have progress of character and harder things to achieve.

Problem with those things? Well, I already listed the problems with reincarnation. PvP in DDO is just wrong because the classes are not balanced against each other. They are balanced when grouping against monsters. Scoreboard can work as long as older players don't have an advantage over newer players. Which would mean some kind of clean-up of the scoreboards regularly. But then what would achieving something in the scoreboards mean for a player if it's not somewhat lasting?

By the way, all those problems are really for the players that strive for their character "completions". Many players don't play and build that way. So for those players DDO doesn't need an end-game besides reincarnation.

[HAL]

This is completely incorrect. Making a game so that "only the best can complete" will end up discouraging a large percentage of players. There is a whole population of gamer that wants to play games for fun, not for work. They don't want to come home from work to do another "job", to fail at something over and over "until they get it right". That might be interesting and fun for some people but it is not for many others. If endgame is so difficult that it requires work and grind to be successful those people will simply leave when they get to the point of wanting an endgame.


And making epic elite so boring that you lose most of your population daily, threads poping daily about game being easy and how people are forced to solo since there is no interest in the game is the correct approach?

First, you said to make end game so hard that only the best can complete, not EE. End game is an entire portion of the game, not just a difficulty level. Second, we don't know any numbers about population or why people leave. And the threads about the game being easy are from the same handful of people.


It can be seen from most sold and popular games that people pay for progress and challenge and not for a game that plays itself.
If they continue with this trend the next move they should do is add a complete quest and loot button when you select difficulty that you buy for tp from store and can get it for free 3x per day as vip.

Do you think it is ok not to add a spice of challenge to ddo?
Do you really think players have fun in the game walking like demigods?

There is challenge in DDO for many players. I believe that completionist / geared characters are a small percentage of the total game population. And yes, I think that some players of completionist / geared characters do enjoy the power they achieved.


I dont think so.
I dont want ddo to be my job, but i dedicated many hours of my life to this game and i think that me and many players like myself deserve at least 1 wish granted.
And that is a independent of casuals difficulty that we can play and enjoy.
It does not touch the life or gameplay of normal and hard players at all.
And such a difficulty alrdy existed in ddo and ddo was most popular back then.
Many were excluded from epics and from elite raids, everyone was in those shoes.

And ddo had more playerbase, a healthier game, more raids, more grouping, everything was better.

I think that many players see a cause and effect that is not linked here. Every game loses players as it gets older. People find newer games they want to play or stop playing altogether for various reasons. An older game doesn't get as many of the new players because there are newer games to choose from. That is why every MMO, even a giant like WoW, steadily loses players over time.

I'm not saying that there aren't players who left because their characters became too powerful, but that is normal in every MMO. In other MMOs if a player enjoys a real challenge and they progress their character to the point that they no longer have a challenge, they can either make a new character or find a new game to start from scratch. Why should this not be the case in DDO?

And there are many players who leave because DDO is too difficult. Either the character creation, or not enough grouping, or the prospect of needing to TR their character over and over (if they talk to people who are for that) can discourage many players. And yes, even the quests themselves with traps and puzzles and twitch combat that many MMO players aren't used to. I know players have left for these reasons because I have talked to many of them over the years.

What DDO developers must decide (and I'm sure they have been doing it for many years) is how many players truly want more difficult content than is already in the game, and are there enough of them / do they provide enough income for it to be worth catering to them at the expense of the rest of the player base.


Yet the game was considerably harder and fun.
Back then the way i played was tr tr and do a ocassional epics life with friends.
We had our share of troubles and it was fun.
Now, i can do any epic i want solo on elite without breaking a sweat, on multiple different builds, from fotm to super weak ones.

Do i have fun while doing so?
No, and that is the fate of everyone that wants to be better at ddo.
They will meet a dead end since you dont need to be good due to recent buffs.
If they dont stop this and make the game as it should be.
A game that originates from d&d, one of hardest to grasp games with the most brutal gameplay and ability to wipe any adventurer.
Then its a shame to say, but most people who play this for the dnd feel will just quit.

At least imo, i might be totally wrong.
But i anticipated that easyfication of the game will slowly but surely kill it as they give reason to all theirserious players to quit.

There aren't many players that can solo any EE quest without difficulty. As I said, the developers have to look at their numbers and decide how to balance the game. The handful who find the game extremely easy may not be enough to make that change for.

And I still disagree that DDO should have "the most brutal gameplay and ability to wipe any adventurer". That is not D&D to everyone since any DM could make the game his own. Challenge does not = "brutal".

[Azarddoze]

I think that many players see a cause and effect that is not linked here. Every game loses players as it gets older. People find newer games they want to play or stop playing altogether for various reasons. An older game doesn't get as many of the new players because there are newer games to choose from. That is why every MMO, even a giant like WoW, steadily loses players over time.

I'm not saying that there aren't players who left because their characters became too powerful, but that is normal in every MMO. In other MMOs if a player enjoys a real challenge and they progress their character to the point that they no longer have a challenge, they can either make a new character or find a new game to start from scratch. Why should this not be the case in DDO?

Alot of in-game reasons and decisions do accelerate people leaving en-masses though. Sure there is a natural decay (it may be the number 1 departure reason, I would tend to agree with that), but i've observed huge spikes of departure for X or Y reasons in other game. Sudden nerfs, sudden gameplay changes, bad update(s), etc.

On the 2nd point, I have to admit I have never played a serious MMO RPG where the power you could acquire from endgame was irrelevant to your success rate. Even if you're done with the last challenge (let's say final heroic boss of a raid in WoW), the gear acquired will give you a huge speed bonus when it comes to the next tier or the next time they raise the level cap. Also, for some of them the challenge at end game is still worth re-doing because it requires skills, coordination, more loot to acquire... let say it stimulates you.

In most games, the "end game" is there to challenge you even when you've acquired everything possible... hence why it is the current end game.

Since DDO isn't raid based, it seems like the only possibility goes by a smart usage of the different difficulties and, as other have proposed with different ideas, a worthwhile grind.

[Angelic-council]

Again...crafting isn't an end game. And end game is what do you do when you have all your gear? If you have a decked out toon and NOTHING TO DO WITH HIM, that is a lack of end game. If we had some uber crafting system...how is that decked out toon going to have anything to do? You aren't going to care about crafting if you already have all the best gears you can get...you are still going to hit a point where your toon is finished and you have NOTHING TO DO.

If people want an end game the solution needs to involve adding something to the game so when you have your decked out character with 100 past lives and all the best gear you log in and have something fun to do...not just go trash the same quests you've already farmed into the ground and memorized every important fight and trap in it, that you don't get any gear from anyhow since you already have it all.

I'd hate to say it, but the community is its own worst enemy. What if they were add a few super hard randomized dungeons that dropped no loot and the goal was to finish them as quickly as possible, and they added a scoreboard on the website for each server as an achievement system...so people could see who the fastest players were. You would always have goals then...as you'd be competing against not only your past times, but the times of other players, yet I could hear it now...people would just complain "there is no loot not worth bothering."

Or another example...one of the other games I play just introduced a dungeon that puts 2 parties in it at the same time. The goal is to get a higher score than the other party...you get points for killing mobs. You never come into direct contact with the other party, its like your both in your own instance, but there are things a group in one instance can do to add difficulty to the other groups dungeon. In ddo terms it would be like playing a dungeon, only the other party was like a gm trying to troll you by throwing curveballs at you, while you do the same thing back to them. That could be something fun for the randomness and the lolz, but again...back to ddo community being its own worst enemy...people would just cry its pvp, and/or no loot I need not worth bothering.

I didn't say it's an end game. You have to read my comment, and please realize that this is not a simple subject. It requires many help from others too. Something like end game crafting can be small addition to the end.

[Angelic-council]

Reply to Angelic-council:
What McFlay said in his 2 posts above this one, is basically what I said in this big post of mine. End-game based on constant updating is not an end-game. Reincarnation, PvP, scoreboard can be end-game. Why? because the constant updating is not on developer side, but on player side. So you have progress of character and harder things to achieve.

Problem with those things? Well, I already listed the problems with reincarnation. PvP in DDO is just wrong because the classes are not balanced against each other. They are balanced when grouping against monsters. Scoreboard can work as long as older players don't have an advantage over newer players. Which would mean some kind of clean-up of the scoreboards regularly. But then what would achieving something in the scoreboards mean for a player if it's not somewhat lasting?

By the way, all those problems are really for the players that strive for their character "completions". Many players don't play and build that way. So for those players DDO doesn't need an end-game besides reincarnation.

End game based on constant update is not an end game?.

This is a news. What happens after that, how about those people who achieved their goals. Without end game constantly updated, only the exp farming has left. Or just roll up another toon, play different build. If everything you have said is true, then I don't see any point in having to discuss anything here. Just introduce new quests, classes, Iconics like turbine used to and good luck.

Well then, I'm going to leave this thread for good if that's the case. Lets see how far people can go.

[Ellihor]

First, you said to make end game so hard that only the best can complete, not EE. End game is an entire portion of the game, not just a difficulty level. Second, we don't know any numbers about population or why people leave. And the threads about the game being easy are from the same handful of people.



There is challenge in DDO for many players. I believe that completionist / geared characters are a small percentage of the total game population. And yes, I think that some players of completionist / geared characters do enjoy the power they achieved.



I think that many players see a cause and effect that is not linked here. Every game loses players as it gets older. People find newer games they want to play or stop playing altogether for various reasons. An older game doesn't get as many of the new players because there are newer games to choose from. That is why every MMO, even a giant like WoW, steadily loses players over time.

I'm not saying that there aren't players who left because their characters became too powerful, but that is normal in every MMO. In other MMOs if a player enjoys a real challenge and they progress their character to the point that they no longer have a challenge, they can either make a new character or find a new game to start from scratch. Why should this not be the case in DDO?

And there are many players who leave because DDO is too difficult. Either the character creation, or not enough grouping, or the prospect of needing to TR their character over and over (if they talk to people who are for that) can discourage many players. And yes, even the quests themselves with traps and puzzles and twitch combat that many MMO players aren't used to. I know players have left for these reasons because I have talked to many of them over the years.

What DDO developers must decide (and I'm sure they have been doing it for many years) is how many players truly want more difficult content than is already in the game, and are there enough of them / do they provide enough income for it to be worth catering to them at the expense of the rest of the player base.



There aren't many players that can solo any EE quest without difficulty. As I said, the developers have to look at their numbers and decide how to balance the game. The handful who find the game extremely easy may not be enough to make that change for.

And I still disagree that DDO should have "the most brutal gameplay and ability to wipe any adventurer". That is not D&D to everyone since any DM could make the game his own. Challenge does not = "brutal".

So, many people find ddo challenging and stuf... I just cant see why. They don't have to play the harder difficulty, that's just so obvious. I just can't believe someone leave ddo because they think casual is too hard. What's the problem in creating a top difficulty for the hardcore players? It has nothing to do with the rest of the population, casuals etc, they don't HAVE to play in it. Heck, when motu was released I was OK to never step in ee because it was hard for me, but as I evolved, that became the only place I found some fun...

Really, I don't see what is your problem about creating something harder for the ones who WANT it.

[Nestroy]

Reply to Angelic-council:
What McFlay said in his 2 posts above this one, is basically what I said in this big post of mine. End-game based on constant updating is not an end-game. Reincarnation, PvP, scoreboard can be end-game. Why? because the constant updating is not on developer side, but on player side. So you have progress of character and harder things to achieve.

Problem with those things? Well, I already listed the problems with reincarnation. PvP in DDO is just wrong because the classes are not balanced against each other. They are balanced when grouping against monsters. Scoreboard can work as long as older players don't have an advantage over newer players. Which would mean some kind of clean-up of the scoreboards regularly. But then what would achieving something in the scoreboards mean for a player if it's not somewhat lasting?

By the way, all those problems are really for the players that strive for their character "completions". Many players don't play and build that way. So for those players DDO doesn't need an end-game besides reincarnation.

Most problems in regard of scorebords can be overcome. Easily by the way.

Rule one: There are weekly, monthly and yearly champs. After one turn the scoreboards get erased and we start over again.
Rule two: Only the relative whatever is measured, not the absolute. So even newbies with a high ratio of the whatever get good scores.
Rule three: A little token of appreciation (like some name additive on the toon name - e.g. TR wings in different color) goes a long way of motivating for more. Make these tokens available not only to the best, but to placed people as well + give different colors / tokens as there are different whatevers to reward.
Rule four: No lillte helpers to monetize, if possible. Else this just demotivates.

Measures: Dungeons completed, levles leveled, Xp achieved... Zhere is so much we can measure in DDO, actually.

Technical issues: The servers will get more load by keeping up with the concurrent data. Possible solution - only resolve database once daily. Make it known when so as many players as possible may enter and check.

Again, this could be done easily and would go a long way. If Turbine would be wise, they will introduce such a thing, like they did with the guild renown competition. I like that by the way. Just make such a score- and leaderboard system on an individual level.

[HAL]

So, many people find ddo challenging and stuf... I just cant see why. They don't have to play the harder difficulty, that's just so obvious. I just can't believe someone leave ddo because they think casual is too hard. What's the problem in creating a top difficulty for the hardcore players? It has nothing to do with the rest of the population, casuals etc, they don't HAVE to play in it. Heck, when motu was released I was OK to never step in ee because it was hard for me, but as I evolved, that became the only place I found some fun...

Really, I don't see what is your problem about creating something harder for the ones who WANT it.

I have 2 issues with creating a harder difficulty level:

-It will be a waste of development time because it won't get used enough. My personal opinion is that there are only a small percentage of players who could play a "Mythic" or "Killer DM" difficulty level regularly. I think some players might do the quests once on that difficulty for the experience or to say that they did it. But I think most "uber" players will want to do quests that are the best XP/min for their TRs and super difficult quests that require strategy and resources aren't going to cut it.

-It will become the new level that most people will want to play because of one or all of: Favor, loot, XP, grouping, etc. and will be too difficult causing disappointment in much of the player base. Why do players have to play content that is too difficult? They don't HAVE to, but many want to because of the items I listed. That is just human nature and is why many people have suggested that a new difficulty level should not have better things like I listed. Not because they don't want "ubers" to have better loot but because this issue is known.

[Postumus]

I have 2 issues with creating a harder difficulty level:

-It will be a waste of development time because it won't get used enough. My personal opinion is that there are only a small percentage of players who could play a "Mythic" or "Killer DM" difficulty level regularly. I think some players might do the quests once on that difficulty for the experience or to say that they did it. But I think most "uber" players will want to do quests that are the best XP/min for their TRs and super difficult quests that require strategy and resources aren't going to cut it.




Most likely this one. The 10-15 posters on the forums asking for this probably represent less than 1% of the player base. They are also the same group of players who devour new content, chewed it thoroughly, spit it out, and get bored with it before most of the player base has even run through it once. History shows this group will do the same with any "end game" content.


I'd rather the devs spend time on better AI, which would make game play across all levels more fun and challenging, than this - if the two require the same resources (which they probably do at this point in DDO's life).

[Cathimon]

Most likely this one. The 10-15 posters on the forums asking for this probably represent less than 1% of the player base. They are also the same group of players who devour new content, chewed it thoroughly, spit it out, and get bored with it before most of the player base has even run through it once. History shows this group will do the same with any "end game" content.


I'd rather the devs spend time on better AI, which would make game play across all levels more fun and challenging, than this - if the two require the same resources (which they probably do at this point in DDO's life).

Or maybe it's you and HAL who represents the 1%? And maybe a lot of the current players and some who left the game altogueter would be very interested. You don't know, so speak for yourself? Can't we make a poll here somewhere, we'd finaly have the opinion and thoughts of those on the forums at least.

And sure, I'm not going to disagree with you just to disagree. Sure, I want better AI. But I don't like having to chose between two good updates. I'd take both. You don't seriously believe though, that adding a new difficulty would be the equal amount of work as to modify the current AI? If it is, then I bet you regret a whole lot the work they did for casual lol. I know I do.

[Nestroy]

(...)-It will be a waste of development time because it won't get used enough. My personal opinion is that there are only a small percentage of players who could play a "Mythic" or "Killer DM" difficulty level regularly. I think some players might do the quests once on that difficulty for the experience or to say that they did it. But I think most "uber" players will want to do quests that are the best XP/min for their TRs and super difficult quests that require strategy and resources aren't going to cut it.

-It will become the new level that most people will want to play because of one or all of: Favor, loot, XP, grouping, etc. and will be too difficult causing disappointment in much of the player base. Why do players have to play content that is too difficult? They don't HAVE to, but many want to because of the items I listed. That is just human nature and is why many people have suggested that a new difficulty level should not have better things like I listed. Not because they don't want "ubers" to have better loot but because this issue is known.

By the way, I always find it funny that some of the most notorious complainers here on the forum are running lv. 28 toons capped and farmed out on lv. 21 quests in EE and are complaining, that a lv. 23 quest (EE gives +2 quest levels) is too easy. EE is NOT supposed to be endgame by any means. Lv. 30 quests are supposed to be endgame. And the more lv. 30 quests on EE. All else is just hard, harder or hardest to run, but is not supposed to be endgame.

By the way, TR train is supposed to be done insted of endgame. If anybody is a complete and total completionist with maxed out TR, iTR and eTR feats, congratulations - you finally won DDO.

[Seljuck]

Most likely this one. The 10-15 posters on the forums asking for this probably represent less than 1% of the player base. They are also the same group of players who devour new content, chewed it thoroughly, spit it out, and get bored with it before most of the player base has even run through it once. History shows this group will do the same with any "end game" content.


I'd rather the devs spend time on better AI, which would make game play across all levels more fun and challenging, than this - if the two require the same resources (which they probably do at this point in DDO's life).

Not 1% of player base, maybe 1% off forum users. Dev actually make note somewhere that forum users are 10% of all players. (if I remember correctly)

I'm sure that more people share same view, but they don't use forum to show their opinion... and in many situations just quit game without a word.

[Postumus]

Or maybe it's you and HAL who represents the 1%?


Except everyone NOT advocating for this type of change is a much larger number (on the forums) than those who ARE advocating for this. Math tells you most posters don't care about or want this change which indicates the majority probably doesn't want it. But only Turbine knows for certain.


If it thinks there is profit in it, then Turbine will do it. So far it hasn't so...

[Seljuck]

If not new difficulty.. then maybe some campaign setting? I know it's idea similar to NW .. but we do not have here to many options.
Maybe add new form of content, f eg. new plane (lamannia? :)) with big wilderness area full of activities, with few quest chains and raids. Throw there some kind of crafting, make this campaign in loop, so finishing it will reset it aswell.

[IronClan]

We don't have a choice but to deal with champs. If you want to know how everyone feels about them, not just the 2-3% of players that post on forums, add a survey at log in. Give 25 turbine points for filling out the survey so people will do it, and doing it at login will make it easy for you to make sure only one completion per account. I will bet you personally sev $100 the majority wants them gone. As far as grinding champ chunks who doesn't want a flask of FOM? In game personally I know 3 people that love the champs, another 6 that don't care either way, and around 20 that dislikes them. Those are just people I've grouped with, and either talked to about champs, or overheard talk about champs to others.

You have a choice, it's called a lower difficulty setting.

It's funny but I don't know anyone that talks about hating Champs, in fact most of the talk I hear is that they're minor road bumps and probably need to be made more interesting and do more damage.

I'd take a 100$ bet the other way any time... I think you're projecting your desire into an ad populum anecdotal argument.

I only see a few players (usually the same ones over and over) complaining loudly because their heroic ELite for BB and their nightly Epic EH wizKing/Von3's are slower because they run the content into the ground and have every inch meta-gamed to death... Do we really base game balance and challenge on this behavour? Nothing could ever challenge someone who only runs the same static **** every night; Except unpredictable bumps in the road like champions... so of course this is the type of player who complains the most.

Look, sure it takes all kinds and everyone can and should have some level of difficulty that suites them. Yours is Normal, you just refuse to use it. But surely everyone no matter how self centered, recognizes that there should be something to entertain and motivate and challenge better players to keep them playing and I think everyone who isn't just being willfully obtuce can agree that Elite should not be the difficulty of choice for "easy smooth XP".

The truth is we're dealing with players who are playing the WRONG DIFFICULTY

Sorry but Sev HAS to disregard your desires... because you're asking for (Expecting is the real term) something that is COMPLETELY UNREASONABLE in any intellectually honest discourse.

[Qhualor]

Or maybe it's you and HAL who represents the 1%?

wrong thread bleh

[IronClan]

Eliminate BB so players who have trouble with Champs can stop this entitled to run Elite attitude.

Then you can Fix the Difficulty settings that we already have and do not utilize enough, instead of adding Killer DM mode.

The solution really is just that simple.

As for Endgame... well you guys just don't get it so I'm probably going to give up trying to get you to see it, the problem is it takes years of playing the game at a non casual level to understand why Endgame matters (even if only a smaller % of players use it) it took me 3 years. So Sev, no offense but if you take as long as I took, well... I wont be here in 3 years.

At some point the passion turns to frustration, and then you either end up on that other Site mocking Dev's behind their backs and cussing like teenagers who just discovered how, or you throw your hands up and walk away. Sadly being on the PC and finding out just how little Turbine is willing to address the important issues has accelerated me down this path.

[Cathimon]

Why don't we give everybody triple completionist, max favor, ESOS and Epic ring of spell storing, etc. Some people are jealous and might quit if we don't.

[EllisDee37]

I understand that for some people reincarnation and repetition of Heroic content is a form of End Game, but this time I want to leave that for other threads. This time I want to focus ONLY at epic end game and beyond.

I wanted to hear opinions about how end game in DDO should work. How do you guys envision epic end game. What solution you can subject under discussion. I posted an idea for a DDO endgame back in November here (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/451955-Endgame-and-xp?p=5478133&viewfull=1#post5478133).

[redoubt]

I posted an idea for a DDO endgame back in November here (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/451955-Endgame-and-xp?p=5478133&viewfull=1#post5478133).

I like crafting and I find that to be an interesting concept. I think that would do a couple of things:

1. Extend the value/life of the higher end content

2. Provide additional incentive to run EE so that groups for that content happen more often (which is something that has been asked for here on the forums.)

[Seljuck]

I posted an idea for a DDO endgame back in November here (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/451955-Endgame-and-xp?p=5478133&viewfull=1#post5478133).

Basically any form of 'end game' crafting that will bond whole content is highly desirable in my opinion.
This is perfect example of interesting idea.. something that could use and improve older equipment.

[McFlay]

End game based on constant update is not an end game?.

This is a news. What happens after that, how about those people who achieved their goals. Without end game constantly updated, only the exp farming has left. Or just roll up another toon, play different build. If everything you have said is true, then I don't see any point in having to discuss anything here. Just introduce new quests, classes, Iconics like turbine used to and good luck.

Well then, I'm going to leave this thread for good if that's the case. Lets see how far people can go.

No, end game based on constant update is not end game. All it would be doing would be constantly adding power creep and just moving the mark for what end game is.

Think of it this way...games are like track and field. Leveling and gear farming is like running a 10 lap race around the track. Imagine if every time a few people running the race finish, the judges announce its an 11 lap race...everyone run an 11th lap...once people start finishing lap 11 they announce its a 12 lap race...etc. That is how a track meet would work with "constant updating." That is actually how ddo has been working since motu and people are complaining about it...if we get such updates every month instead of every 3 months...its not fixing the problem at all.

The alternative to that is when you finished your 10 lap race, you move on to other things, like the high jump, pole vaulting, javelin throw, shotput, hurdles, or the discus. That would be an end game...if they stop adding power creep pretty much every update, and instead focus on giving us different things to do once we are done leveling/gearing. But that is why the ddo community is their own worst enemy...most people view things as xp/min or gear...if content isn't providing something great as far as those two things are concerned it doesn't tend to get run much after its been around a couple weeks and the newness factor wears off for people.

The devs really screwed themselves pretty good with how they have been designing the game over the years. Constant updating/power creep = constant complaining about lack of end game. Adding a true end game, which would be things to do once your done leveling/gearing, and a lot of people would probably just complain you don't get great xp/gear for it and not bother. Its a lose lose for them at this point...so they'll probably just keep doing what they have been.

[Gremmlynn]

Not 1% of player base, maybe 1% off forum users. Dev actually make note somewhere that forum users are 10% of all players. (if I remember correctly)

I'm sure that more people share same view, but they don't use forum to show their opinion... and in many situations just quit game without a word.Are you saying that these forums have a disproportionally high ratio of casual players (you know the one's who generally play less and take the game less seriously) to hard core players (you know the one's who take the game very seriously) than what we see in the game in general?

That premise seems to defy logic.

[Seljuck]

Are you saying that these forums have a disproportionally high ratio of casual players (you know the one's who generally play less and take the game less seriously) to hard core players (you know the one's who take the game very seriously) than what we see in the game in general?

That premise seems to defy logic.

We both dont know that. I had used numbers, that Postumus bring in his post. And what You are saying here can be truth. Do You know why? Because lot of hard core players already leave us..

[Gremmlynn]

We both dont know that. I had used numbers, that Postumus bring in his post. And what You are saying here can be truth. Do You know why? Because lot of hard core players already leave us..I never claimed to know anything. I said it seems to defy logic to think that players who take the game less seriously are more likely to virtually hang out in that, or any, games forums arguing about that game than those players who take the game more seriously.

[Angelic-council]

No, end game based on constant update is not end game. All it would be doing would be constantly adding power creep and just moving the mark for what end game is.

Think of it this way...games are like track and field. Leveling and gear farming is like running a 10 lap race around the track. Imagine if every time a few people running the race finish, the judges announce its an 11 lap race...everyone run an 11th lap...once people start finishing lap 11 they announce its a 12 lap race...etc. That is how a track meet would work with "constant updating." That is actually how ddo has been working since motu and people are complaining about it...if we get such updates every month instead of every 3 months...its not fixing the problem at all.

The alternative to that is when you finished your 10 lap race, you move on to other things, like the high jump, pole vaulting, javelin throw, shotput, hurdles, or the discus. That would be an end game...if they stop adding power creep pretty much every update, and instead focus on giving us different things to do once we are done leveling/gearing. But that is why the ddo community is their own worst enemy...most people view things as xp/min or gear...if content isn't providing something great as far as those two things are concerned it doesn't tend to get run much after its been around a couple weeks and the newness factor wears off for people.

The devs really screwed themselves pretty good with how they have been designing the game over the years. Constant updating/power creep = constant complaining about lack of end game. Adding a true end game, which would be things to do once your done leveling/gearing, and a lot of people would probably just complain you don't get great xp/gear for it and not bother. Its a lose lose for them at this point...so they'll probably just keep doing what they have been.

Thank you for pointing those things out. But, I'm not entirely agree with you. End game is specifically designed so that, those people who attained maximum level can still enjoy what awaits them at the cap level. In DDO, as you may know, developers already updating the end game. MoD for example. Thunder forge (used to be). Every new update will bring more additions to the end game. But, why people complain all the time that there is no real end game?. It's simply because of the fast phased content design. Everything seems simple and easy. You don't need to farm hardest EE, just play on EN epic Necro 4 and you can easily aquire the best gear. Then people say "Now what, should I run raid or something?". Then you can see more and more players just wondering around at lv28 doing some random stuff because it's boring. Once we have something that give every players a reason to stay at level cap and do something. Turbine has to update it. And they will, it's going to be new dungeons, new weapons, maps.. But it has to be something that can't be skipped, long, fun farming with lots of new mechanics. If you think constant update = power creep, then sorry mate. That's how MMO works. And as developers update, they bring more challenging content so that people can compete with each other and show off their skills. What did you expected Mcflay, new end game that gives nothing in return? to prevent people from getting better and better?

[HAL]

You have a choice, it's called a lower difficulty setting.

It's funny but I don't know anyone that talks about hating Champs,

You might not know them personally, but there were many people in the threads when they first appeared that didn't like Champions. I don't like champions. They are random garbage that don't make any sense.


Look, sure it takes all kinds and everyone can and should have some level of difficulty that suites them. Yours is Normal, you just refuse to use it.

Really?!

The fact is that many players found Hard or Elite a fine challenge already and the introduction of Champions pushed that difficulty into an unenjoyable experience for some of those players. You can say "play a lower difficulty" but that lower difficulty has less Favor, XP and loot than the difficulty they were playing so its not that simple.

[Qhualor]

You might not know them personally, but there were many people in the threads when they first appeared that didn't like Champions. I don't like champions. They are random garbage that don't make any sense.

the 3 days those Champions were around it was a shock to the community. we have had the pleasure of almost no fail completions, speed TRing, power creep, be self sufficient for every class, 6 man groups that solo and easy to get loot for a long time. it should have been expected that the players would have mixed feelings. the devs injected a brand new challenge to us and we were caught off guard. suddenly, teamwork was important again, progression was slowed down, some didn't know how to use tactics or strategizing and some vocal people didn't like that. now Champions are at best speed bumps. groups went right back to the way they were before paying no never mind to Champions. and still some want them to be nerfed even more. for 1 minute we saw a flashback of the days when questing was actually tough for a lot of players and than it was ripped away. we cant even have that kind of challenge just on elite because that would still interfere with some players progression and they might have to sit up straight in their chair paying better attention and turning off their radio while playing.

[McFlay]

Thank you for pointing those things out. But, I'm not entirely agree with you. End game is specifically designed so that, those people who attained maximum level can still enjoy what awaits them at the cap level. In DDO, as you may know, developers already updating the end game. MoD for example. Thunder forge (used to be). Every new update will bring more additions to the end game. But, why people complain all the time that there is no real end game?. It's simply because of the fast phased content design. Everything seems simple and easy. You don't need to farm hardest EE, just play on EN epic Necro 4 and you can easily aquire the best gear. Then people say "Now what, should I run raid or something?". Then you can see more and more players just wondering around at lv28 doing some random stuff because it's boring. Once we have something that give every players a reason to stay at level cap and do something. Turbine has to update it. And they will, it's going to be new dungeons, new weapons, maps.. But it has to be something that can't be skipped, long, fun farming with lots of new mechanics. If you think constant update = power creep, then sorry mate. That's how MMO works. And as developers update, they bring more challenging content so that people can compete with each other and show off their skills. What did you expected Mcflay, new end game that gives nothing in return? to prevent people from getting better and better?

I already said what I expected...more of what we have been getting because that is all the devs can do at this point, ddo will never have a good end game. We'll keep getting a few more quests with some power creep each update like we have been since motu which will change the face of "end game" if you want to consider farming end game. People will farm it out fast as they can then proceed to complain about lack of end game.

I don't know how else to explain it to you, but farming can never be an end game simply because that means you are done when you get the best gear. End game is what you do at the point you have the best gear, not what you do to get to that point. Even if you want to consider end game high level gear farming, what makes that a pretty terrible end game design is that you can beat the hardest content without having the best gear, because the best gear is going to presumably drop in the hardest content, so realistically there is no reason to even farm the best gear since you don't need it. The best gear in ddo means you can run content that you already ran to get said best gear a little more easily.

That is why I laugh when the topic of end game comes up over and over. People want an end game but can't fathom the idea of new content and game mechanics that doesn't directly involve new best gear, so basically they complain about end game being bad but demand mechanics that make having any sort of true end game impossible. I'm not expecting power creep in this game to end or anything, all I'm saying is if people truly want end game they would have to be ok with updates that are simply things to do that does not involve chasing new best gear, if we ever had content updates like that people would throw forum tantrums, and the devs just want to give people what they want to keep the game profitable...so what happens, they make sure every new update has new shiny things to chase after to appease people, even though doing that every update means end game never improves, just a temporary fix until the next temporary fix. The player base is its own worst enemy...if gear was heroin, we are like heroin addicts complaining we are heroin addicts while holding the devs at gun point demanding they inject us with more heroin, then complaining we can't get clean, and the devs simply aren't going to deal with the short term fallout of saying no even if it helps in the long term.

[HAL]

Are you saying that these forums have a disproportionally high ratio of casual players (you know the one's who generally play less and take the game less seriously) to hard core players (you know the one's who take the game very seriously) than what we see in the game in general?

That premise seems to defy logic.

We both dont know that. I had used numbers, that Postumus bring in his post. And what You are saying here can be truth. Do You know why? Because lot of hard core players already leave us..

I never claimed to know anything. I said it seems to defy logic to think that players who take the game less seriously are more likely to virtually hang out in that, or any, games forums arguing about that game than those players who take the game more seriously.

This is an excellent example of the logic that your idea seems to be defying Seljuck

;)

[HAL]

I don't know how else to explain it to you, but farming can never be an end game simply because that means you are done when you get the best gear. End game is what you do at the point you have the best gear, not what you do to get to that point.

I believe that the point of end game raiding is to get the most rare gear, isn't it? I can't speak for all MMOs but that seems to be very common.

[McFlay]

I believe that the point of end game raiding is to get the most rare gear, isn't it? I can't speak for all MMOs but that seems to be very common.

The point of raiding/farming in most MMOs is to get good gear because there are things to do other than raiding/farming once you get the good gear.

Most other MMOs when you finish gearing its usually an awesome feeling because there are other things in the game to do without being a weak link to your team or at a disadvantage to the competition when applicable.

DDO when you finish gearing its just like meh...see ya next update, nothing left for me to do here.

Another thing that cracks me up about DDO end game...a lot of people on here talk like it was awesome when level 20 was cap and shroud/tod/hox/vod/abbot were all end game raids, and stuff that dropped in those quests made up a pretty significant portion of gear highly desired for level 20 play. Most of the reason why I played any of those raids was because with the exception of tod, all the drops were level 13 or lower, meaning the stuff was amazing for tr gear. I remember trying to get my 20th completion on shroud so I could cleanse a gs item was like torture, because I had to stay at level cap for a few weeks and couldn't tr or I wouldn't get my 20th list. At least when I got raid gear back then it actually had some function(tr'ing) other than to use just to keep farming the quests I just pulled it out of, and didn't need anything else from. I still remember the day I pulled my leviks bracers...I thought YESSS I DON'T HAVE TO RUN HOX ANYMORE!!!!...not YESSS I'LL BE A LITTLE MORE POWERFUL FOR THE NEXT 20 HOX RUNS I DO EVEN THOUGH I DON'T NEED ANYTHING FROM IT ANYMORE!!!

[HAL]

The point of raiding/farming in most MMOs is to get good gear because there are things to do other than raiding/farming once you get the good gear.

Most other MMOs when you finish gearing its usually an awesome feeling because there are other things in the game to do without being a weak link to your team or at a disadvantage to the competition when applicable.

You seem to think that other MMOs have some kind of endgame that doesn't involve better gear ("there are other things in the game to do..."). From what I have seen, endgame in other MMOs is raiding for better gear - what do they do in the MMOs that you are talking about?


DDO when you finish gearing its just like meh...see ya next update, nothing left for me to do here.

Another thing that cracks me up about DDO end game...a lot of people on here talk like it was awesome when level 20 was cap and shroud/tod/hox/vod/abbot were all end game raids, and stuff that dropped in those quests made up a pretty significant portion of gear highly desired for level 20 play. Most of the reason why I played any of those raids was because with the exception of tod, all the drops were level 13 or lower, meaning the stuff was amazing for tr gear. I remember trying to get my 20th completion on shroud so I could cleanse a gs item was like torture, because I had to stay at level cap for a few weeks and couldn't tr or I wouldn't get my 20th list. At least when I got raid gear back then it actually had some function(tr'ing) other than to use just to keep farming the quests I just pulled it out of, and didn't need anything else from. I still remember the day I pulled my leviks bracers...I thought YESSS I DON'T HAVE TO RUN HOX ANYMORE!!!!...not YESSS I'LL BE A LITTLE MORE POWERFUL FOR THE NEXT 20 HOX RUNS I DO EVEN THOUGH I DON'T NEED ANYTHING FROM IT ANYMORE!!!

Or maybe "yess, I'll be a little more powerful when I help my party / guildies try to get their gear from HOX..."? But as I said, most MMO endgames still seem to be about gear so idk why people are insisting on an endgame in DDO. Once people have all the gear they want, then what? The same as with other MMOs - make a new character or leave.

[Seljuck]

The point of raiding/farming in most MMOs is to get good gear because there are things to do other than raiding/farming once you get the good gear.

Most other MMOs when you finish gearing its usually an awesome feeling because there are other things in the game to do without being a weak link to your team or at a disadvantage to the competition when applicable.

You pointed this few times, but you never actually NAME this 'other things'. Tell me what people do in other games when they reach end game, and have all gear etc???

This question is basically essence of this topic, but lot of people refuse that, because its better to weaken idea of end game so nothing will change, then actually bring solutions that could help.

McFlay at least explained his position very well, so his voice is constructive and can bring counterweight to our statements.

[Seljuck]

This is an excellent example of the logic that your idea seems to be defying Seljuck

;)

English is not my native language, so im not good in verbal fencing with people who lead it to mastery. Again, those few people here that I wont name, reply to only those posts, that does not bring anything to the topic. They poested maybe 1 reply with their statement f.eg : I like this, or I dont like this. But they never bring any solution. I didnt saw single post with the proposal of end game system, or what can be done.

From the other hand we have those few people who understand essence of this topic and try actually bring fresh view, solutions, proposals, anything that can be usefull, but they are overwhelmed by posts like this:


Most likely this one. The 10-15 posters on the forums asking for this probably represent less than 1% of the player base. They are also the same group of players who devour new content, chewed it thoroughly, spit it out, and get bored with it before most of the player base has even run through it once. History shows this group will do the same with any "end game" content.

[Zasral]

You have a choice, it's called a lower difficulty setting.

It's funny but I don't know anyone that talks about hating Champs, in fact most of the talk I hear is that they're minor road bumps and probably need to be made more interesting and do more damage.

I'd take a 100$ bet the other way any time... I think you're projecting your desire into an ad populum anecdotal argument.

I only see a few players (usually the same ones over and over) complaining loudly because their heroic ELite for BB and their nightly Epic EH wizKing/Von3's are slower because they run the content into the ground and have every inch meta-gamed to death... Do we really base game balance and challenge on this behavour? Nothing could ever challenge someone who only runs the same static **** every night; Except unpredictable bumps in the road like champions... so of course this is the type of player who complains the most.

Look, sure it takes all kinds and everyone can and should have some level of difficulty that suites them. Yours is Normal, you just refuse to use it. But surely everyone no matter how self centered, recognizes that there should be something to entertain and motivate and challenge better players to keep them playing and I think everyone who isn't just being willfully obtuce can agree that Elite should not be the difficulty of choice for "easy smooth XP".

The truth is we're dealing with players who are playing the WRONG DIFFICULTY

Sorry but Sev HAS to disregard your desires... because you're asking for (Expecting is the real term) something that is COMPLETELY UNREASONABLE in any intellectually honest discourse.

I'm playing the wrong difficultlty? Thanks for clearing that up for me! Seriously the issue with champs has nothing to do with how hard ee is. If they want to make ee much harder than it is I would be fine with that. If they want to do away with scaleing I would be fine with that. My problem with champs is that trash is harder than bosses. I don't care how rare it is anything that can one shot, or two shot a player is ridiculous. Next is that if these remnants are what gives them power, why don't the red and orange named take them for themselves. Last to me there is no excuse to make the difficulty in an rpg based on luck. As far as asking the producer to poll his costumers and finds out what they as a whole really want, instead of listening to the vocal minority, makes nothing but sense to me.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Green Steel crafting kept us busy for a long time.

But if we add a new crafting system, I really wish there was some method of changing ingredients from other crafting systems... and allowing us to do any quest and still get useful crafting ingredients.



The guy who mentioned PvP isn't totally wrong either.
But not the stupid pits/cage matches.
Meaningful PvP should allow all player abilities to work and have value and allow tactics.
PvP dungeons where every spell and stealth etc. works would be fun.

All raids having an epic version.
Also might need to have EE updated to current character level on occasion.

I guess I am not totally against a new difficulty level.

Do not totally kill TR/ERing.


But.... But... But..... control the power creep!
Control the power gap! Between grinders and casuals.
Reward grinding, but in minor ways that does not make it useless for grinders and casuals to group together.

Yes, gear is important. But make ways to get decent power easily, and smaller increases with grinding...
(you guys have actually done a decent job of this recently.... but at the same time somehow the power gap has grown....)


Need lots of new end game content, frequently.



Eventually everyone gets everything, does everything, and gets bored.
So a true permanent end game doesn't work.

But you can have one for awhile....

[Chai]

You might not know them personally, but there were many people in the threads when they first appeared that didn't like Champions. I don't like champions. They are random garbage that don't make any sense.



Really?!

The fact is that many players found Hard or Elite a fine challenge already and the introduction of Champions pushed that difficulty into an unenjoyable experience for some of those players. You can say "play a lower difficulty" but that lower difficulty has less Favor, XP and loot than the difficulty they were playing so its not that simple.

It actually is quite simple. When rebalancing, the shift occurs toward the low end because there was headroom on the low end, while no headroom at the high end.

[Nestroy]

(...)But.... But... But..... control the power creep!
Control the power gap! Between grinders and casuals.
Reward grinding, but in minor ways that does not make it useless for grinders and casuals to group together.

Yes, gear is important. But make ways to get decent power easily, and smaller increases with grinding...
(you guys have actually done a decent job of this recently.... but at the same time somehow the power gap has grown...
(...)

There is a mathematical reason why even a slight power increase on several different items in total adds up. Just to show you an example:

There are typically 10 slots free to put items on a toon. let´s say, the toon is geared to a power level (arbitrary number) of 100 for each item, totalling power level 1000 for 10 items. Now new content arrives and is farmed for the new items. They each are built for power level 101 each (an increase of 1%, a number that more often than not is much higher in reality). The toon farms out ALL the new gear and gets 10 items at power levle 101 or totalling a power level of 1010. Still 1% increase. But in hard power level, the toon just increased in power by 10 points, in game terms the same as if one single item would all the sudden get 10% better.

This is one of the rare instances where there is leverage thru even smallest power level increases. Now, think of it, if you all the sudden do 10% more damage (if geared that way) or take 10% less elemental damage (if geared for this)... Now, this is just one single small power increase. Now we had how many updates since the introduction of epic levels in U14? Now, just make this an exponential instead of a strict linear increase and no wonder you are perfectly right. The gap widens. With every even so slight power level increase. And no force in the world, except a total stop of further even slightest power level increases on loot will be able to stop this.

[jalont]

You pointed this few times, but you never actually NAME this 'other things'. Tell me what people do in other games when they reach end game, and have all gear etc???

This question is basically essence of this topic, but lot of people refuse that, because its better to weaken idea of end game so nothing will change, then actually bring solutions that could help.

McFlay at least explained his position very well, so his voice is constructive and can bring counterweight to our statements.

In most MMOs, PvP is the actual endgame, so gearing up through raids and what not still has a purpose... so that you can use your gear to be better than other people. It's hard to buy into an "endgame" grind when the grind has absolutely no purpose.

[FestusHood]

You pointed this few times, but you never actually NAME this 'other things'. Tell me what people do in other games when they reach end game, and have all gear etc???

This question is basically essence of this topic, but lot of people refuse that, because its better to weaken idea of end game so nothing will change, then actually bring solutions that could help.

McFlay at least explained his position very well, so his voice is constructive and can bring counterweight to our statements.

Bass fishing.

[RTFM]

Well here is a standard definition of "end game": "the final stage of a game such as chess or bridge, when few pieces or cards remain."

As to an MMO, I never understood why people talk about "end game". It is a myth. Either the game continues to expand or it dies eventually. There is no "end game"

[Hydian]

Reading these endgame threads make me cringe. They're just as bad as the threads about balance, risk/reward, and a host of other topics. A bunch of people that have little to no experience with MMOs or game mechanics in general complain and/or make crazy suggestions/statements of "fact" and the few people that seem to have a clue get shouted down by the masses.

What is the end game in the vast majority of MMOs?

It pretty much boils down to one of two things; Either 1) Large scale PvP (which DDO is not mechanically built for) or 2) Large raid style assaults against huge boss mobs that usually reward you with really rare and powerful/unique loot.

There isn't really any "other". You'll see high level dungeons and other things to grind through between raids, but the raids themselves are the endgame.

These complaints about the end game goal posts being moved all the time via the level cap and power creep? That's what happens when a game continues to be developed for years. Look at Everquest or WoW. Did either of them stop at level 50? Is the gear that was considered to be top notch at release even decent at level now? No. The goalposts in those games have continued to move since they were released. That is how MMOs work and how they keep you playing once you have hit the cap and done everything.

So what should endgame look like for DDO? We've already got the Demonweb and have killed Dragons and Demons. Where do we go from there? I think that the answer lies in past enemies rather than simply looking for bigger and badder things to fight. I'd like to see the forces of Droam make a return leading to an assault on their city to stop them. There are all sorts of tactical possibilities with that sort of scenario, including needing multiple raids within a time period to finally take them down. Lower level quests could even be tied into the story if desired to bridge between the Attack on Stormreach quests and this.

That doesn't have to be the only thing going on either. They can keep creating new content. The only point in stopping at level 30 is to cap things off and stop moving the goal posts.

[Azarddoze]

Well here is a standard definition of "end game": "the final stage of a game such as chess or bridge, when few pieces or cards remain."

As to an MMO, I never understood why people talk about "end game". It is a myth. Either the game continues to expand or it dies eventually. There is no "end game"

While I won't waste time explaining what an end-game is and why it's needed in an MMORPG to someone who doesn't even believe it's something, i'll go with this mathematic equation:

MMORPG - Endgame = Korean Grinder

If you've ever played one of those, you also understand the need for something to do at cap.

[IronClan]

I'm playing the wrong difficultlty? Thanks for clearing that up for me! Seriously the issue with champs has nothing to do with how hard ee is. If they want to make ee much harder than it is I would be fine with that. If they want to do away with scaleing I would be fine with that. My problem with champs is that trash is harder than bosses. I don't care how rare it is anything that can one shot, or two shot a player is ridiculous. Next is that if these remnants are what gives them power, why don't the red and orange named take them for themselves. Last to me there is no excuse to make the difficulty in an rpg based on luck. As far as asking the producer to poll his costumers and finds out what they as a whole really want, instead of listening to the vocal minority, makes nothing but sense to me.

Well obviously I wasn't addressing you, your problem is something I agree with; the solution to Bosses occasionally being > Champs is simple, give all bosses the same wildcard ability raises, no need to call them champs, they are already analogous to champs in that they are the strongest and hardest. This would make Bosses far more interesting and it would also add a little more difficulty to the two modes that need it most.

[JOTMON]

Well obviously I wasn't addressing you, your problem is something I agree with; the solution to Bosses occasionally being > Champs is simple, give all bosses the same wildcard ability raises, no need to call them champs, they are already analogous to champs in that they are the strongest and hardest. This would make Bosses far more interesting and it would also add a little more difficulty to the two modes that need it most.

I can see it now.. get to Boss with random buffs..
Examine boss.. Boss has Ignore fortification buff and increased damage.. DDoor up.. will reset when everyone is out.
Rinse repeat until you get a Boss that isn't going to cause a rez-fest due to the Ignore Fortification buff that will crit through any and all fortification regardless of how much you have.
There's no CC to control a Boss wailing a way with insta-kills..

[RTFM]

No, I have not played the "Korean Grinder" (is that a game or a very rude connotation I cannot be sure), I have played this game DDO since its beginnings in 2006. Was it a grind? Yes. Is there an "end game"? Compared to what? As someone just posted after my post you refer to, "there is no end game in MMO", its either keep moving the goal posts, i.e.: level cap, or die. So there is no "end game" ..... its a myth.


While I won't waste time explaining what an end-game is and why it's needed in an MMORPG to someone who doesn't even believe it's something, i'll go with this mathematic equation:

MMORPG - Endgame = Korean Grinder

If you've ever played one of those, you also understand the need for something to do at cap.

[Azarddoze]

No, I have not played the "Korean Grinder" (is that a game or a very rude connotation I cannot be sure), I have played this game DDO since its beginnings in 2006. Was it a grind? Yes. Is there an "end game"? Compared to what? As someone just posted after my post you refer to, "there is no end game in MMO", its either keep moving the goal posts, i.e.: level cap, or die. So there is no "end game" ..... its a myth.

It's not that it is non-existent, but the end game shifts as new updates are released.

Basically, the term is not important. What is important though is that if there is nothing to do at cap (that requires time investment), you have no option other than re-rolling or TRing in order to progress. When no one had any PL or most still had alot of grind to reach their goal, it seemed smart to hold everyone into that grind. Over time, it just doesn't cut it anymore since most have reach the point where they don't get much benefit anymore from the PLs grind.

Other than that, it simply offers the choice to stay at cap or get back on the grind portion of the game (TRing). But if you remove one or another, the game does suffer for many players... even if it doesn't affect you personally.


Korean grinders are sometimes promising games with sometimes good mechanics. But you soon realize that the level 1 grind is pretty much the same as the top level one. The game just never evolves to something else and you basically only level up for the sake of it. DDO has far more content and the action gameplay is great but nonetheless, it can become a grindfest if your ONLY option is to re-run the same content non-stop.

[IronClan]

As to an MMO, I never understood why people talk about "end game". It is a myth. Either the game continues to expand or it dies eventually. There is no "end game"

You'll understand better when you've played longer, I made the same mistake of thinking endgame was a non-thing when I was new. DDO has actually had a fully functional endgame area to play in when the cap was 20 so "myth" is factually incorrect.

Endgame is easy to define: it's a place at cap with a wide breath of content for capped players who mostly have gotten to know each other and enjoy running together (guilds and such especially) to enjoy the "payoff" of a progressed character that is mostly finished and only undergoing some minor polishing via long term loot goals like Mythic, or eSoS (or S/S/S back at 20 cap) etc.

It is that simple... the content needs to be designed to challenge a fully leveled (and now a days TR'ed/ETR'ed) and mostly adequately geared character, that is basically a math problem (and yes some creative raid design helps), and ideally it should be dynamic enough that replaying the content over and over still presents some challenges even though it's been meta-gamed to death. An excellent example of content that could be replayed over and over and still fail because it was at least somewhat dynamic (or not fully static) is Accursed Ascension (Abbot) where team work, communication and some amount of player skill were absolutely required because tiles changed every time, you could not predict Inferno, or stand in the safe spots they put on the platform in the MOD version of the raid (well there was one safe spot but most people never knew about it until the last couple years) and there was no set pattern to memorize and abuse over and over.

An excellent example of endgame was the previously mentioned 20 cap endgame DDO had before MOTU raised the cap. This was a fully working non mythical endgame, and the login data suggests it was also the only time in DDO's post F2P history where people weren't leaving faster than they were joining (player activity actually increased steadily). It is an easy logical step to conclude that "end gamers"* weren't leaving in droves like they do now in DDO.

An MMO lacking an endgame is analogous to a stream of leveling Lemmings (note not trying to insult it's just the best visual) heading for a cliff... they've got nowhere to go but off the cliff... DDO cleverly managed to get a large percentage of these levelers to go back to the start all over again, up to even 39 times, and then they leveraged that systems mechanics to glue another 36+ repetitions on for Epic TR'ing

* Endgamer yes this is a state of mind but also a circumstance: an endgamer is someone who is mostly tired of TR'ing. or hasn't got much more to gain from it, and wants to stay within the level range of his or her friends to play a few hours every night, raiding, trying to get low drop chance items that will improve their character in a minor way. In many ways an Endgamer is a lot like someone who plays Counterstrike or Team Fortress 2 a decade later... Nothing new in those games, but they can still be fun to play. THE GAMEPLAY ITSELF IN DDO WITH A (mostly) FINISHED CHARACTER IS FUN AND COMPELLING if it's designed right. Especially if you add the social aspects (your friends are there playing). This is the part of the player base Turbine has most neglected and most abused over the years, and this has lead to players getting frustrated and throwing their hands up and leaving... MOST of them just leave... some of them post here insult the devs over and over then leave, another fraction makes a dramatic exit post... But most never post on the forums and just disapear inactive on your guild roster for 1 year and 6 months before the guild leader cleans them out...

You can take a casual stroll to endgame that for all intents and purposes will end when the servers shut down years from now (Ask Talon Moonshadow how many capped characters he has) or you can parade a dozen alts up to cap at a moderate pace (ask me about this) TR' some or all of them, or just race one ultimate completionist there... eventually no matter what: you're going to reach the point where you ask yourself; is there something to do with all those TR's? Is there a point? When the answer is no: you fall off the cliff... They can make the answer yes: just build a big ol party deck at the edge and get all those levelers intermingling and playing endgame in a wide (horizontal progression) content area.

This needs to happen, hopefully Severlin will be the first DDO producer to understand the need since Eladrin went where ever he went.

[jalont]

You'll understand better when you've played longer, I made the same mistake of thinking endgame was a non-thing when I was new. DDO has actually had a fully functional endgame area to play in when the cap was 20 so "myth" is factually incorrect.

Endgame is easy to define: it's a place at cap with a wide breath of content for capped players who mostly have gotten to know each other and enjoy running together (guilds and such especially) to enjoy the "payoff" of a progressed character that is mostly finished and only undergoing some minor polishing via long term loot goals like Mythic, or eSoS (or S/S/S back at 20 cap) etc.

It is that simple... the content needs to be designed to challenge a fully leveled (and now a days TR'ed/ETR'ed) and mostly adequately geared character, that is basically a math problem (and yes some creative raid design helps), and ideally it should be dynamic enough that replaying the content over and over still presents some challenges even though it's been meta-gamed to death. An excellent example of content that could be replayed over and over and still fail because it was at least somewhat dynamic (or not fully static) is Accursed Ascension (Abbot) where team work, communication and some amount of player skill were absolutely required because tiles changed every time, you could not predict Inferno, or stand in the safe spots they put on the platform in the MOD version of the raid (well there was one safe spot but most people never knew about it until the last couple years) and there was no set pattern to memorize and abuse over and over.

An excellent example of endgame was the previously mentioned 20 cap endgame DDO had before MOTU raised the cap. This was a fully working non mythical endgame, and the login data suggests it was also the only time in DDO's post F2P history where people weren't leaving faster than they were joining (player activity actually increased steadily). It is an easy logical step to conclude that "end gamers"* weren't leaving in droves like they do now in DDO.

An MMO lacking an endgame is analogous to a stream of leveling Lemmings (note not trying to insult it's just the best visual) heading for a cliff... they've got nowhere to go but off the cliff... DDO cleverly managed to get a large percentage of these levelers to go back to the start all over again, up to even 39 times, and then they leveraged that systems mechanics to glue another 36+ repetitions on for Epic TR'ing

* Endgamer yes this is a state of mind but also a circumstance: an endgamer is someone who is mostly tired of TR'ing. or hasn't got much more to gain from it, and wants to stay within the level range of his or her friends to play a few hours every night, raiding, trying to get low drop chance items that will improve their character in a minor way. In many ways an Endgamer is a lot like someone who plays Counterstrike or Team Fortress 2 a decade later... Nothing new in those games, but they can still be fun to play. THE GAMEPLAY ITSELF IN DDO WITH A (mostly) FINISHED CHARACTER IS FUN AND COMPELLING if it's designed right. Especially if you add the social aspects (your friends are there playing). This is the part of the player base Turbine has most neglected and most abused over the years, and this has lead to players getting frustrated and throwing their hands up and leaving... MOST of them just leave... some of them post here insult the devs over and over then leave, another fraction makes a dramatic exit post... But most never post on the forums and just disapear inactive on your guild roster for 1 year and 6 months before the guild leader cleans them out...

You can take a casual stroll to endgame that for all intents and purposes will end when the servers shut down years from now (Ask Talon Moonshadow how many capped characters he has) or you can parade a dozen alts up to cap at a moderate pace (ask me about this) TR' some or all of them, or just race one ultimate completionist there... eventually no matter what: you're going to reach the point where you ask yourself; is there something to do with all those TR's? Is there a point? When the answer is no: you fall off the cliff... They can make the answer yes: just build a big ol party deck at the edge and get all those levelers intermingling and playing endgame in a wide (vertical progression) content area.

This needs to happen, hopefully Severlin will be the first DDO producer to understand the need since Eladrin went where ever he went.

Okay, and once this endgame is established, how does the game expand?

[Nestroy]

Okay, and once this endgame is established, how does the game expand?

As it did with U14. Ever heared of the Myth levels from lv. 31 - 40? Me neither, but that seems like a good reason to sell two shody expansion packs and a lot of revamped myth level older packs... I am already looking forward to see the myth version of some lv. 1 old adventure set from PnP D&D Greyhawk setting ^^.

[JOTMON]

Okay, and once this endgame is established, how does the game expand?

With Expansions :)

[RTFM]

You'll understand better when you've played longer

I've played since May 2006. Please, I love the game, and I know it quite well and achieved most everything I want as far as the game goes. But "end game" has nothing to do with how long I've played. I've heard this "end game" argument when the lvl cap was 10, so I've played long enough to say...there is no "end game".

[jalont]

With Expansions :)

Well under the suggested idea of endgame, the expansions can't offer any more power or it would just be what we have now.

[Chai]

Well here is a standard definition of "end game": "the final stage of a game such as chess or bridge, when few pieces or cards remain."

As to an MMO, I never understood why people talk about "end game". It is a myth. Either the game continues to expand or it dies eventually. There is no "end game"

The game continuing doesn't mean theres no endgame. In most MMOs the current endgame content isn't handedly defeated the first day with people having full sets of gear from it within the first week. It takes 6 months minimum in many MMOs to gear an entire guilds main characters in a full suit of current endgame gear. In some it takes significantly longer than that. This gives the devs time to create the new endgame for when they raise the cap. The entire reason to raid endgame in those games is to amass gear which will help play in the new endgame once it is released. This is commonly referred to as progression raiding.

The issue in DDO is people have what they want out of the current endgame long before new stuff is released. What do they do in between those times? Many of these people who used to play DDO as their main game and break from it to play a different game once in a while now have a different main game, and come back to DDO when new content drops so they can extract all the new loot they want within the first few weeks after release, then go back to their main game.

[Monkey-Boy]

Well under the suggested idea of endgame, the expansions can't offer any more power or it would just be what we have now.

The level 30 is going to be the cap.

Just do what was done back when the cap was 20, make the game wider, not higher.

[Sulaan]

ddo had endgame long time ago. when you found a +1 vorpal item then you had it all. :)

[jalont]

The level 30 is going to be the cap.

Just do what was done back when the cap was 20, make the game wider, not higher.

I'd be fine with that, but would everyone else? It seems like when a new update comes, there's much gnashing of teeth if the new items aren't best in slot.

[Monkey-Boy]

I'd be fine with that, but would everyone else? It seems like when a new update comes, there's much gnashing of teeth if the new items aren't best in slot.

it depends on how long it takes to acquire said items. We were still running Shroud when LOB came out.

The most important thing it not to make content (loot) disposable.

[IronClan]

I can see it now.. get to Boss with random buffs..
Examine boss.. Boss has Ignore fortification buff and increased damage.. DDoor up.. will reset when everyone is out.
Rinse repeat until you get a Boss that isn't going to cause a rez-fest due to the Ignore Fortification buff that will crit through any and all fortification regardless of how much you have.
There's no CC to control a Boss wailing a way with insta-kills..

Wow think about what you're suggesting. Personally I would be embarassed as hell to suggest such a thing to my party, if I was a guild leader and heard something like this of a guildy I would boot the person for giving my guild a bad name. If I was in the group I would probably say no thanks and never again join a group lead by a person with that little self esteem. In fact I would suggest the player/leader drop and let those of us who don't suck, continue on. It is after all just a game. A tiny unimportant percent of people who have somehow forgotten the whole point of gaming should not be factored into it's design... even when all 10 of them constantly whine and complain on the forums... You just kinda have to ignore that part of the player base, as pandering to them means that everyone suffers a pathetic easy challengless game.

Games suck if you can't fail, if you don't believe this, then spend 5 hours a night playing Pachinko and get back to us.

BTW Normal would not have these buffs, SO the difficulty setting that is correct for players who want little to no challenge would allow them to avoid the added challenge.

[JOTMON]

Well under the suggested idea of endgame, the expansions can't offer any more power or it would just be what we have now.

It doesn't' have to be more increasing power, add more different stuff.. more variety, more choices..

We currently build around specific key power items, there is not a lot of versatility in choices in the top end gear.
I am looking forward to Epic Vale for the custom versatile gear.. like how shroud was the go to stuff for the longest time.. no matter your build/flavor you could work multiple shroud pieces in.
These types of packs make the grind worth while.. I have over a thousand shroud runs across my toons.. and will still run shroud for all my toons.. cant say that for most of the other packs.

Last barrage of stuff had lots of undead.. could have more Demon packs, Devil packs, Drow Packs, Giant Packs.. Dragon Packs, Elemental oriented packs, Githyanki pack..
ToEE has the potential to be a big pack with lots of variety.. wont know until we see it released..
Still waiting for a huge expansion to the whole underdark zone...
Eveningstar is just the tip of Forgotten realms.. lots more opportunity here.
Eberrron becomes coterminous with many realms that we haven't touched yet.


Not all packs have to go up.. building out is just as effective as long as it hits the range players want to play and maintain interest.
Evolving old content into the new content is another viable development.. adding "Mythic levels to current content..
Even Korthos can be revamped to endgame..
That frozen beast we iced as newbies in Stopping the sahuagin.. at endgame maybe we have to fight that beast that just broke free...Ancient dragon perhaps.. or some other great monsterous beast.
Misery's Peak.. we go left at the beginning and have kill the mindflayers minions and clear the path for the mind-controlled dragon while those newbies fly under the radar to break the crystal guarding the midflayers barriers..

[McFlay]

You pointed this few times, but you never actually NAME this 'other things'. Tell me what people do in other games when they reach end game, and have all gear etc???

This question is basically essence of this topic, but lot of people refuse that, because its better to weaken idea of end game so nothing will change, then actually bring solutions that could help.

McFlay at least explained his position very well, so his voice is constructive and can bring counterweight to our statements.

I already mentioned a few earlier in the thread, but I'll mention some ideas again.

1. PVP is the obvious answer to what people tend to do when fully geared. You actually want the best gear because if you don't you end up at a disadvantage to those that do have it...unlike ddo where you get the best gear to run the same content a little more easily. But to be fair, I pretty much have given up any hope on DDO ever improving PVP when they added dots to casters, and destinies was just the nail in the coffin.

2. Competitive dungeons - Put two groups in the same instance in dungeons set up so players can do things on their side that have an impact on the other side, and the goal is to finish first. Like if you achieve certain things on your half of the dungeon you can spawn extra mobs, extra traps, seal doors/hallways, buff mobs/traps, etc, on the other teams area to make it more difficult for them. Basically since making direct PVP in this game decent isn't ever going to happen at this point, instead focus on competitive pve. At least then you actually have something to do once you get all the best gear through conventional pve.

3. An endless dungeon with randomized floors...you beat a floor, you go on to the next. Disable use of all consumables/clickies and put a timer on each floor so you can't sit around for hours abusing regenerative skills. The only purpose would be to see how far you could get. Again...since you had limited resources it would pay to have the most efficient character possible, so gathering all the best gear actually has a point. Also, due to time restrictions and limited resources so the guy with the biggest stack of pots didn't get the furthest every time, actually grouping and trying to work together rather then split up and zerg for record completion time would be important in such a dungeon. Plus it would be random gen dungeons, so if you did split up you might end up getting demolished by a mini boss or something...not that you couldn't split up, it would just be something to employ decent tactics then what people are currently using for most content. I'd rather see them design something like this with some challenge and replay value then a bunch of level 30 dungeons that all take 10 minutes to zerg through that end up getting largely ignored once people farm gear out of them and its deemed they aren't best xp/min quests.

4. Sort of an addition to the above...keep a leader board with scores somewhere in game or on the website. People always like to brag about their exploits...well why not post it up where we can all see who the pros are.

5. Server challenges...maybe a little competition between servers for some sort of server wide buff. Maybe every 6 hours or something some sort of special raid/dungeon opens across all servers, and the server to complete it firsts gets some sort of server wide buff until the next time the raid/dungeon opens. Server population wouldn't matter much...all it would take would be to have 1 good group.

I could conjure up some more ideas...but I have to leave for work soon. So I'll just leave you again, with why I am a pessimist about DDO ever having a real end game. If all the above examples I gave didn't involve getting better gear, and were simply challenging things to do for fun and bragging rights, they would never be popular on this game, as evident by people in this thread who can't even fathom that "end game" in a lot of games involves things other than farming.

[IronClan]

Okay, and once this endgame is established, how does the game expand?

Easy horizontal progression (note I meant to say horizontal in my last post not vertical)... widen the endgame... Newer players enter a game that has a VAST endgame they might take years to play it all.

Do you know how long some people have played Team Fortress? You can log into a Quake Server right now and play the original game and find a full map* a game from 1996, almost 20 years old. Games that are intrinsically fun to play (and hopefully DDO fits this bill for most of us) can be replayed for DECADES. I had capped characters playing UO (Champ spawns when I left) for years... 8 years I played that game. That was an MMO without quests or raids!

* well you could a couple years ago when I tried it for nostalgia.

The game is not going to expand forever, eventually it will go into maintenance mode, it would be nice if it had an endgame to play before that point. (hopefully long before)

[IronClan]

I've played since May 2006. Please, I love the game, and I know it quite well and achieved most everything I want as far as the game goes. But "end game" has nothing to do with how long I've played. I've heard this "end game" argument when the lvl cap was 10, so I've played long enough to say...there is no "end game".

Not sure how you missed the 20 cap endgame then... Slow leveler? No friends? Not sure how else to explain how you could experience a game so differently than most here would describe it.

[Wulverine]

Not sure how you missed the 20 cap endgame then... Slow leveler? No friends? Not sure how else to explain how you could experience a game so differently than most here would describe it.

Nice ninja edit there Iron, lol ;)

But I agree with IronClan.

To me, the point is very simple. Do you, as developers, want people to keep playing this game and potentially spending money, or want people to leave (temporarily until the next update, with the risk of forever) when they've seen/done it all?

The answer is a no brainer and I hope they come up with some decent systems that can last for years for lvl30 endgame.

[McFlay]

An excellent example of endgame was the previously mentioned 20 cap endgame DDO had before MOTU raised the cap. This was a fully working non mythical endgame, and the login data suggests it was also the only time in DDO's post F2P history where people weren't leaving faster than they were joining (player activity actually increased steadily). It is an easy logical step to conclude that "end gamers"* weren't leaving in droves like they do now in DDO.

No sir, "end game," in the sense that you hit cap in stayed there because you had a lot to do was a complete myth then as well.

The only reason I ran hox/vod/shroud/abbot over and over was because the gear was level 13 and under and awesome for tr'ing purposes. That lemming mentality you mentioned is what gave me incentive to repeat any of those quests.

Also, I played more alts then as well, which meant I raided more, but ONLY shroud. I had several alts I would always run shroud on while off timer for the mats, to use on my main...so I could be better at TR'ing. If raid gear/gs back then was all level 20 gear, I'd have just ran a lot of that content once or twice to check it out, then tr'd, since getting to cap, getting gear you can only use at cap, then have nothing to do other then run the quests you just pulled that gear out of over and over has never been appealing to me. Basically I could tr and play through EVERYTHING again and get past lives, or just keep playing the same handful of quests over and over every day while getting nothing...whats more appealing? The answer is obvious...just like ddo never having a true end game is obvious.

[Chai]

No sir, "end game," in the sense that you hit cap in stayed there because you had a lot to do was a complete myth then as well.

The only reason I ran hox/vod/shroud/abbot over and over was because the gear was level 13 and under and awesome for tr'ing purposes. That lemming mentality you mentioned is what gave me incentive to repeat any of those quests.

Also, I played more alts then as well, which meant I raided more, but ONLY shroud. I had several alts I would always run shroud on while off timer for the mats, to use on my main...so I could be better at TR'ing. If raid gear/gs back then was all level 20 gear, I'd have just ran a lot of that content once or twice to check it out, then tr'd, since getting to cap, getting gear you can only use at cap, then have nothing to do other then run the quests you just pulled that gear out of over and over has never been appealing to me. Basically I could tr and play through EVERYTHING again and get past lives, or just keep playing the same handful of quests over and over every day while getting nothing...whats more appealing? The answer is obvious...just like ddo never having a true end game is obvious.

Theres no myth about it at all. Shroud came out in Jan 2008. From then, until 2012 when the cap raised from 20 - 25, people kept alts at 16 then at 20 (after f2p in 2009) to play shroud, tod, vod, hox, chrono, eVON, eDQ, LOB and MA when it was released. There were plenty of people who kept alts at cap to play those raids as well as level 20 epics.

DDO had a true end game then, and it was actually a true alternative to the TR grind.

Im fine with you saying you preferred TRing over raids and epics, but any claim that there was no endgame in that era, or that people didn't keep characters at cap to play endgame, is false.

[JOTMON]

Wow think about what you're suggesting. Personally I would be embarassed as hell to suggest such a thing to my party, if I was a guild leader and heard something like this of a guildy I would boot the person for giving my guild a bad name. If I was in the group I would probably say no thanks and never again join a group lead by a person with that little self esteem. In fact I would suggest the player/leader drop and let those of us who don't suck, continue on. It is after all just a game. A tiny unimportant percent of people who have somehow forgotten the whole point of gaming should not be factored into it's design... even when all 10 of them constantly whine and complain on the forums... You just kinda have to ignore that part of the player base, as pandering to them means that everyone suffers a pathetic easy challengless game.

Games suck if you can't fail, if you don't believe this, then spend 5 hours a night playing Pachinko and get back to us.

BTW Normal would not have these buffs, SO the difficulty setting that is correct for players who want little to no challenge would allow them to avoid the added challenge.

Not suggesting anything, just playing out devils advocate for pug runs.
DQ2 on EE would be interesting with the Demon Queen all buffed up and the ignore fortification and a triple attack for 18x attacks from her improved crit khopeshes., Beefed up Comet fall spams..

[Faltout]

Theres no myth about it at all. Shroud came out in Jan 2008. From then, until 2012 when the cap raised from 20 - 25, people kept alts at 16 then at 20 (after f2p in 2009) to play shroud, tod, vod, hox, chrono, eVON, eDQ, LOB and MA when it was released. There were plenty of people who kept alts at cap to play those raids as well as level 20 epics.

DDO had a true end game then, and it was actually a true alternative to the TR grind.

Im fine with you saying you preferred TRing over raids and epics, but any claim that there was no endgame in that era, or that people didn't keep characters at cap to play endgame, is false.
First of all, there was an influx of players when the game went f2p and new players need to go through the "end-game". The question is what would have happened to DDO if Shroud was still the "end-game"? The fact that it lasted for 2 years doesn't make it a correct "end-game". It just means "it lasted two years". And it certainly has an expiration date, but the game expanded before that was reached leaving you folks with the belief that this was an end-game because you never saw the end of it (some may have). The reason you're not considering TF weapons and MoD end-game is because people went through them too fast with all this power creep and timers.

End game happens AFTER you have acquired loot. So, what's the reason to run Shroud if you don't want any loot from it? And don't tell me "It takes a while to get loot from it" because the end-game won't start until you DO get the loot from it.

IronClan mentioned Abbot. Well, I mentioned him too as an example of an end-game raid. But the fact is that IronClan and me may like Abbot, but many players do not or SAY they do not. So? (question directed to IronClan)

[IronClan]

IronClan mentioned Abbot. Well, I mentioned him too as an example of an end-game raid. But the fact is that IronClan and me may like Abbot, but many players do not or SAY they do not. So? (question directed to IronClan)

Back then players played what they wanted for the purposes that motivate them personally. Back then TR players TR'ed and Endgamers repeated S/S/S epics (how quickly people forget these but they were true endgame content and brutal hard) shroud, HOX, TOD, VOD, Titan (AC tanks still wanted chattering ring, I was one of them) VON5-6, MA/LOB Abbot, and every single one of them was liable to pop up and fill on any given night most of them multiple times a night, despite no one having raid timer bypasses. Often an TR that got bored parked his toon for 20 completions (minimum 90 days) of one or more raids. Often Endgamers who got bored TR'ed. It was a working dynamic that is proven by the login activity INCREASING for the only time in DDO's history.

Half the dynamic that worked at 20 is broken currently TR players TR and Endgamers.... get bored and leave.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I already mentioned a few earlier in the thread, but I'll mention some ideas again.

1. PVP is the obvious answer to what people tend to do when fully geared. You actually want the best gear because if you don't you end up at a disadvantage to those that do have it...unlike ddo where you get the best gear to run the same content a little more easily. But to be fair, I pretty much have given up any hope on DDO ever improving PVP when they added dots to casters, and destinies was just the nail in the coffin.

2. Competitive dungeons - Put two groups in the same instance in dungeons set up so players can do things on their side that have an impact on the other side, and the goal is to finish first. Like if you achieve certain things on your half of the dungeon you can spawn extra mobs, extra traps, seal doors/hallways, buff mobs/traps, etc, on the other teams area to make it more difficult for them. Basically since making direct PVP in this game decent isn't ever going to happen at this point, instead focus on competitive pve. At least then you actually have something to do once you get all the best gear through conventional pve.

3. An endless dungeon with randomized floors...you beat a floor, you go on to the next. Disable use of all consumables/clickies and put a timer on each floor so you can't sit around for hours abusing regenerative skills. The only purpose would be to see how far you could get. Again...since you had limited resources it would pay to have the most efficient character possible, so gathering all the best gear actually has a point. Also, due to time restrictions and limited resources so the guy with the biggest stack of pots didn't get the furthest every time, actually grouping and trying to work together rather then split up and zerg for record completion time would be important in such a dungeon. Plus it would be random gen dungeons, so if you did split up you might end up getting demolished by a mini boss or something...not that you couldn't split up, it would just be something to employ decent tactics then what people are currently using for most content. I'd rather see them design something like this with some challenge and replay value then a bunch of level 30 dungeons that all take 10 minutes to zerg through that end up getting largely ignored once people farm gear out of them and its deemed they aren't best xp/min quests.

4. Sort of an addition to the above...keep a leader board with scores somewhere in game or on the website. People always like to brag about their exploits...well why not post it up where we can all see who the pros are.

5. Server challenges...maybe a little competition between servers for some sort of server wide buff. Maybe every 6 hours or something some sort of special raid/dungeon opens across all servers, and the server to complete it firsts gets some sort of server wide buff until the next time the raid/dungeon opens. Server population wouldn't matter much...all it would take would be to have 1 good group.

I could conjure up some more ideas...but I have to leave for work soon. So I'll just leave you again, with why I am a pessimist about DDO ever having a real end game. If all the above examples I gave didn't involve getting better gear, and were simply challenging things to do for fun and bragging rights, they would never be popular on this game, as evident by people in this thread who can't even fathom that "end game" in a lot of games involves things other than farming.


Careful with unlocking content/flagging etc. So that it does not limit grouping.
Would be nice if people can join an LFM no matter what they have previously completed.

[Faltout]

Back then players played what they wanted for the purposes that motivate them personally. So except all the other stuff about loot you said (to which I already answered with "end-game begins AFTER you get all the loot you need"), why don't current players get motivated to still run Abbot, Deathwyrm, Haunted Halls, MoD, etc. AFTER they all got what they want from those raids? Why are there complaints that there is no end-game since all those raids that you listed still exist and if you are saying "most people ran those raids because they were personally motivated" what has changed now and they don't run them?

[Chai]

First of all, there was an influx of players when the game went f2p and new players need to go through the "end-game". The question is what would have happened to DDO if Shroud was still the "end-game"? The fact that it lasted for 2 years doesn't make it a correct "end-game". It just means "it lasted two years". And it certainly has an expiration date, but the game expanded before that was reached leaving you folks with the belief that this was an end-game because you never saw the end of it (some may have). The reason you're not considering TF weapons and MoD end-game is because people went through them too fast with all this power creep and timers.

End game happens AFTER you have acquired loot. So, what's the reason to run Shroud if you don't want any loot from it? And don't tell me "It takes a while to get loot from it" because the end-game won't start until you DO get the loot from it.

IronClan mentioned Abbot. Well, I mentioned him too as an example of an end-game raid. But the fact is that IronClan and me may like Abbot, but many players do not or SAY they do not. So? (question directed to IronClan)

We can go back and forth about the definition of "endgame" all you want, but it doesn't change the nature of the true request here.

Give us a reason to stay at cap as a viable option rather than farming past lives. From 2008-2012 pre MOTU we had a viable reason, and there were people who did participate in that endgame of that era. I was one of them and was in multiple channels set up for that purpose, on multiple servers. The past life farm has long since gotten old, and many people are done with it.

[Chai]

So except all the other stuff about loot you said (to which I already answered with "end-game begins AFTER you get all the loot you need"), why don't current players get motivated to still run Abbot, Deathwyrm, Haunted Halls, MoD, etc. AFTER they all got what they want from those raids? Why are there complaints that there is no end-game since all those raids that you listed still exist and if you are saying "most people ran those raids because they were personally motivated" what has changed now and they don't run them?

Bolded is false. End game is a progression and does not adhere to the specific conditional definition you are claiming here. You farm loot from the current endgame until the devs create a new endgame, then the game progresses to people staying at cap to farm the new loot. 2008-2012, shroud, vod, hox, tod, eVon, eChrono, eDQ were endgame. There was a progression there.

The ghostbane-ing of loot along with handing out citw weapons stopped that progression in its tracks. We can make TF weapons which takes a few weeks, but then what?

[IronClan]

Not suggesting anything, just playing out devils advocate for pug runs.
DQ2 on EE would be interesting with the Demon Queen all buffed up and the ignore fortification and a triple attack for 18x attacks from her improved crit khopeshes., Beefed up Comet fall spams..

I don't think it would be hard to threshold the buffs on Bosses so that edge cases or doubling up of existing strengths like your example can't happen. I also wouldn't mind seeing this Boss buff only happen to Elite.

Not directing this at you necessarily but The problem with discussing things on Forums is that nits like this derail and hide productive discussion and often get people who don't know better to take up your concern as a reason to not do something, when in fact the concern is easily addressed by existing things they do for similar cases. For another example in a recent post in my TF tweaks thread someone (Eth?) said we can't move the lame Dragon breath clickies from T3 craft to T2 because then Arti's would run around with 50 TF weapons X3 dragon breath clickies (as if), and of course this, like the above is easily handled by simply making that crafting option put Exlusive on the item...).

Again not singling you out, but don't you guys get tired of never being able to post a statement without Disclaimers and footnotes that exhaustively cover every easily answered doubt or concern? I know I do...

[Wulverine]

Bolded is false. End game is a progression and does not adhere to the specific conditional definition you are claiming here. You farm loot from the current endgame until the devs create a new endgame, then the game progresses to people staying at cap to farm the new loot. 2008-2012, shroud, vod, hox, tod, eVon, eChrono, eDQ were endgame. There was a progression there.

Exactly.

Basically endgame is a system that allows you to "gain" something, to keep you playing. That can be loot, #1 spot on leaderbords, unlocks, whatever. It's a hamsterwheel to keep people playing, until the new content is released, which adds new endgame or rather builds upon that. Since you can't churn out content as fast as we can consume it, you build in hamsterwheels/carrots for us to chase. And to keeping spending $.

Thing is, duping and otto's stones killed a bunch of systems that were designed to keep us playing.

Also the devs made some poor choices in how easy it was to gain the most powerfull loot/best in slot items in the last few updates. And also some unwarranted jumps in item power. (the jump to +10/11 stat items for example).

[Monkey-Boy]

I just want something to do that doesn't involved TRing, is that too much to ask for?

[Postumus]

You'll understand better when you've played longer, I made the same mistake of thinking endgame was a non-thing when I was new. DDO has actually had a fully functional endgame area to play in when the cap was 20 so "myth" is factually incorrect.



Fully functional? I disagree. It was boring and horrible.


You could run one of 6 raids (but most only ran 4) or re-run low level epified content. So a lot like now except there is a ton more epic level content that isn't just re-hashed low level stuff.


The main differences between then and now were:

1- no raid timers, so you could only run the raid 2/week per character which gave the illusion of stretching out the content

2- incredibly horrible, soul-crushing drop rates for epic gear which everyone complained about (and still do) and required you to get 3 pieces to make one item.


What happens when Turbine comes out with new raids with incredibly low drop rates now? Players complain in droves. If Turbine switched back to the shard/seal/scroll mechanic with the same drop rates as they have in old epics (pre-Motu) for all new content, that would certainly drag out how many times players had to farm for specific gear, but it wouldn't be any more fun.

[IronClan]

So except all the other stuff about loot you said (to which I already answered with "end-game begins AFTER you get all the loot you need"), why don't current players get motivated to still run Abbot, Deathwyrm, Haunted Halls, MoD, etc. AFTER they all got what they want from those raids? Why are there complaints that there is no end-game since all those raids that you listed still exist and if you are saying "most people ran those raids because they were personally motivated" what has changed now and they don't run them?

I didn't address that because your contention that "endgame starts AFTER you have all the loot" is your arbitrary distinction and one I do not agree with. It's just a subjective statement, and I don't believe most endgame focused players would agree with it.. You're entitled to your opinion but I've never met anyone playing endgame who professed to not be "at endgame" because he still needed the shard, or the mythic helm to complete his gear.

In my experience loot is universally seen as a big part if not the only thing you're after at endgame by most, so by popular vernacular end game means capped and continuing to play a capped character for whatever floats your boat; Heart seeds, Tokens, Karma, Champ frags, S/S/S, ingrediants, Raid completions, Mythic loot, level 28 loot... (all of it is really just loot)

[Chai]

Fully functional? I disagree. It was boring and horrible.


You could run one of 6 raids or re-run low level epified content. So a lot like now except there is a ton more epic level content that isn't just re-hashed low level stuff.


The main differences between then and now were:

1- no raid timers, so you could only run the raid 2/week per character which gave the illusion of stretching out the content

2- incredibly horrible, soul-crushing drop rates for epic gear which everyone complained about (and still do) and required you to get 3 pieces to make one item.


What happens when Turbine comes out with new raids with incredibly low drop rates now? Players complain in droves. If Turbine switched back to the shard/seal/scroll mechanic with the same drop rates as they have in old epics (pre-Motu) for all new content, that would certainly drag out how many times players had to farm for specific gear, but it wouldn't be any more fun.

Its like I explained to the other poster. You can say you preferred TR over running raids in that era, but to claim there was no endgame in that era, or to claim there weren't people who stayed at cap to run raids in that era would be a false claim. We had a viable alternative to the TR farm or people who wanted to keep their characters at cap in that era, and there were channels full of people who played that way.

In say 2010 there was things to do for people who thought TRing was more fun AND things to do for people who thought raiding was more fun. Right now we have a past life grind, but no real viable reason to stay at cap for any reasonable length of time. Hopefully this changes with TOEE and the cap 30 raise.

[IronClan]

Fully functional? I disagree. It was boring and horrible.


You could run one of 6 raids (but most only ran 4) or re-run low level epified content. So a lot like now except there is a ton more epic level content that isn't just re-hashed low level stuff.

Your subjective opinion, there were scores of S/S/S quests and far more raids with viable gear (indeed almost every raid in the game had something that was desired).

It wasn't good enough for you, I found it compelling, a lot of it is "what you make of it". I made a AC tank and because I loved Titan I learned how to lead them, and tried to get that ring, I ran HOX's for Leviks... I had Alts as well, I ran Reavers fate (another end game raid despite it's level) for Boots on multiple toons, I ran it for Gauntlets for my Healers... I did NOT enjoy TR'ing so I made Alts and that gave me new things to strive for at Endgame. And at the same time it spread out the attainment of my goals as I cycled through characters as the whim hit me. eSoS, Alchemical +2 Wis for my FvS Epic Midnight Greetings for my Assassin (never did get it), Oh god I remember wanting eTwisted Talismans + Heroic Twisted Talisman's on 4 different toons... LOL... man I still only have heroic TT's every once in a while I will jump into the odd Into the deep looking for the shard.

No one can make you like the options that where there, but that is very different from saying their were no options, but there's no doubting that it kept some players playing the game to the degree that player activity increased slowly over time instead of decreasing.

[IronClan]

Its like I explained to the other poster. You can say you preferred TR over running raids in that era, but to claim there was no endgame in that era, or to claim there weren't people who stayed at cap to run raids in that era would be a false claim. We had a viable alternative to the TR farm or people who wanted to keep their characters at cap in that era, and there were channels full of people who played that way.

In say 2010 there was things to do for people who thought TRing was more fun AND things to do for people who thought raiding was more fun. Right now we have a past life grind, but no real viable reason to stay at cap for any reasonable length of time. Hopefully this changes with TOEE and the cap 30 raise.

This is the basic truth of the matter... phrased in such a way as to not end up in your Sig... hopefully lol.

[Postumus]

Back then players played what they wanted for the purposes that motivate them personally. Back then TR players TR'ed and Endgamers repeated S/S/S epics (how quickly people forget these but they were true endgame content and brutal hard) shroud, HOX, TOD, VOD, Titan (AC tanks still wanted chattering ring, I was one of them)


Shroud was never "brutal hard" unless you ran it on elite at level on first life non-twink characters. You know how many LFMs I saw for that? About as many as I do now. HOX, TOD, VOD, and Shroud were most often run on normal difficulty by capped out, epic geared characters who could, and often did, sleepwalk through the content.

Back then the threads were complaints about how a shroud took "more than two-rounds in part 4!!!" LOL. Not what I would call "brutal hard."

The only "epic" raids that were a semi-challenge for capped & geared characters were what, Chrono, Demon Queen, and VoN?

[Postumus]

Your subjective opinion, there were scores of S/S/S quests and far more raids with viable gear (indeed almost every raid in the game had something that was desired).



Correct. It is my opinion. Just like it is your opinion that what players can do at cap now is not as fun as what players could do at cap 5 years ago.

The game is a lot better now. IMO.

[Postumus]

I made a AC tank and because I loved Titan I learned how to lead them, and tried to get that ring, I ran HOX's for Leviks... I had Alts as well, I ran Reavers fate (another end game raid despite it's level) for Boots on multiple toons, I ran it for Gauntlets for my Healers..


Wait, you ran Titan on a capped character and found it challenging and "brutal hard?" A level 12 raid? Were you duoing it or something?


"Piker's Fate" was brutal hard? Challenging for a capped character? I disagree. We would short man that raid at level.


So basically you were running non-epic raids, some 6-8 levels below level, on capped epic geared characters and you thought those were brutal hard and challenging? Seriously Iron Clan? Challenging?


Honestly it just sounds like you want the devs to crank the drop rates of new content way down, back to the pre-MotU days, to require players to grind the heck out of the stuff like we used to.

No thank you.

[Qhualor]

Fully functional? I disagree. It was boring and horrible.


You could run one of 6 raids (but most only ran 4) or re-run low level epified content. So a lot like now except there is a ton more epic level content that isn't just re-hashed low level stuff.


The main differences between then and now were:

1- no raid timers, so you could only run the raid 2/week per character which gave the illusion of stretching out the content

2- incredibly horrible, soul-crushing drop rates for epic gear which everyone complained about (and still do) and required you to get 3 pieces to make one item.


What happens when Turbine comes out with new raids with incredibly low drop rates now? Players complain in droves. If Turbine switched back to the shard/seal/scroll mechanic with the same drop rates as they have in old epics (pre-Motu) for all new content, that would certainly drag out how many times players had to farm for specific gear, but it wouldn't be any more fun.

this sounds like more personal opinion than what actually happened back then.

every 3 days I would run as many raids as I could in one night on 4 characters. sometimes I couldn't fit all of them in and had to carry over the remaining raids the next day. the off days I would run epics and if I had a TR or a new toon I would play him. it would take me minimum 3 months to get everything I wanted from a raid, but there was always a reason to go back like tomes that didn't carry over on a TR. the added incentive was that they only dropped on hard/elite for heroics and there was actual challenge that I immensely enjoyed.

the lfm was full with sometimes multiples of the same raid. this of course was when we had a higher player base and the cap had yet to be extended past 20. I used to get tells all the time to tank and had to politely decline most of the time because I was always on timer. we had a good incentive to stay at cap and never personally saw a need to TR when I was able to handle end game content on any of my characters that had only 2 lives under their belt at the time.

1. no raid timers created no illusion that the life of raids extended longer. the drop rates were low mostly. it was easier to get your Leviks Bracers or Tharnes Goggles than it was to get your TOD ring or Madstone Boots. you were considered fortunate or grouped only with guildies who helped each other out if you got everything you wanted from a raid in 3 months. there was an old saying back then, "if you are not going to use the item, than please pass to someone who will".

2. the drop rates for some of the S/S/S was low for some things. it was easier to get the shards and seals if you knew how to farm certain chests in epic quests and some of the less sought after shards and seals seemed to drop fairly easily. it was the SOS and Claw set type of highly wanted stuff that was hard to get. the scroll market was controlled by the casters. either way, despite these low drop rates, epics were quite popular and often run. it was actually harder to find a good group that wanted to do DQ flaggers and Von3/4 than it was for Carnival and Fens because they were considered the tougher epics and even lower drop rates for seals and shards.

[Oxarhamar]

Correct. It is my opinion. Just like it is your opinion that what players can do at cap now is not as fun as what players could do at cap 5 years ago.

The game is a lot better now. IMO.

And what can players co at cap now that they cannot do at a lower level?

[Hydian]

We currently build around specific key power items, there is not a lot of versatility in choices in the top end gear.

More to the point, everybody builds around DPS. A majority of the player base thinks that class balance starts and ends with DPS. Everything that is not DPS is secondary. The devs have caved into this flawed way of thinking and it has hurt the game. For the long term health of the game, they need to move beyond DPS and get back to making the classes unique, making abilities beyond pure DPS relevant, and changing mobs from bags of hitpoints to strategic opponents with challenging abilities to counter. That is what this game used to be about and it is one of the things that separated it from the pack. It would be nice to see tactics and skill return to the game. But yes, I'd really like to see gear with neat abilities. Another + to an ability score or another bit of damage isn't all that interesting.


I *really* like the competitive dungeons idea being tossed around here. What if there was a lost city type of thing (think Myth Drannor) and the different factions all wanted to recover artifacts from it? Everybody could be forced to pick a faction to work for (members of a group possibly all working for different factions) and run quests to collect lost artifacts or what have you to increase their faction's power. When their faction was on top, they could offer certain rewards or something. You could throw in a bunch of optionals that require certain skills or classes to complete and reward additional artifacts to encourage more grouping. And then maybe at the center of this lost city is some raid or raids that lead to an unspeakable evil that the artifact hunters have unwittingly woken up (possibly even have multiple possible BBEGs that require very different tactics so you don't know ahead of time what you'll be facing). Set it up Mabar style so that each raid group starts in the same open ruins area trying to perform some task to collectively open the tomb. Once open, each raid group enters their own instance and it is a race to be the first to get to the center for the final battle (and to keep it from being too easy, you have an NPC group running the gauntlet so there is a clock working against you too). You could do things like have switches that activate traps or close doors in the other instances in an attempt to slow the others down.

[jalont]

More to the point, everybody builds around DPS. A majority of the player base thinks that class balance starts and ends with DPS. Everything that is not DPS is secondary. The devs have caved into this flawed way of thinking and it has hurt the game. For the long term health of the game, they need to move beyond DPS and get back to making the classes unique, making abilities beyond pure DPS relevant, and changing mobs from bags of hitpoints to strategic opponents with challenging abilities to counter. That is what this game used to be about and it is one of the things that separated it from the pack. It would be nice to see tactics and skill return to the game. But yes, I'd really like to see gear with neat abilities. Another + to an ability score or another bit of damage isn't all that interesting.


The playerbase has no one else to blame but themselves. As soon as divines started whining about not being personal healers, that meant that all toons had to be given self healing abilities... making dps the only thing that mattered. It's not like that's going to change. I mean, are you going to make a cleric and run behind me, healing me? The game is what it is, and there's not going to be any major changes like this. The game doesn't have much longer to go. We're winding down here.

[jalont]

this sounds like more personal opinion than what actually happened back then.

every 3 days I would run as many raids as I could in one night on 4 characters. sometimes I couldn't fit all of them in and had to carry over the remaining raids the next day. the off days I would run epics and if I had a TR or a new toon I would play him. it would take me minimum 3 months to get everything I wanted from a raid, but there was always a reason to go back like tomes that didn't carry over on a TR. the added incentive was that they only dropped on hard/elite for heroics and there was actual challenge that I immensely enjoyed.


Why can't you do this now?

[Nestroy]

The playerbase has no one else to blame but themselves. As soon as divines started whining about not being personal healers, that meant that all toons had to be given self healing abilities... making dps the only thing that mattered. It's not like that's going to change. I mean, are you going to make a cleric and run behind me, healing me? The game is what it is, and there's not going to be any major changes like this. The game doesn't have much longer to go. We're winding down here.

I can perfectly remember the regular abuse clerics got when they were the main source of healing. Any failure for keeping the barb alive was laid at our feet. That that f*censored for tone*diot was running and zerging thru the dungeon like crazy and we could not keep up did not matter. That that said *censored again* did not have any meaningful gear to mittigate incomming damage did not matter either. The cleric was the culprit. Always. Every. Single. Time!

What did anybody expect? Gulping down the anger, after burning thru 20 pots of Major Mnemonic Enhancements to keep the fool alive and after breaking down, getting flamed? Playing in 50 shades of gray and liking what was thrown at us?

I still love to play cleric. And I still love to carry groups. But I am happy most players meanwhile understand the concept of BYOH, even if that sometimes means they spawn a Hire. Better than keeping me babysitting players dumb enough to yell at me for not being able to overcome their shortcommings.

[Faltout]

Ok, I can't quote someone specific because many have replied to the same post.

Of course it all depends on what you mean by "end-game". But I'm finding that people want "end-game" without even elaborating on what that is and then complain because the current "end-game" is not what they wanted. So get your definitions straight. I replied with solutions and problems to a definition that seems logical to me.

What people say in the forums:

- I want end-game. I want to raid to get gear extremely rare and take a lot of time doing it. After or before I get that gear, I want devs to be ready with a new update to the game where better gear or harder content (more levels) exist.
- I want end-game. I want level 30 to be the cap and STAY there, because then the end-game would not be the end-game. I want you devs to make sure that what I do now will be equally as meaningful in the future.
- I want end-game. I want plain challenge that is meaningful to repeat. This challenge doesn't need to provide loot because I don't want to run this challenge with loot being the reward. I want something that will make me want to get all the loot I can get from regular game so I can best play the end-game. Also, I want progress. I want reward, but not loot or new abilities.
- I want end-game. I want exciting new mechanisms that will differentiate the end-game from the normal game. A new reward system, a new crafting system, a new fighting system. I want what I have achieved so far to mean something, but not that much compared to the rewards this end-game has to offer. Also, I want this system to take a while.
- I want end-game. I want the long waited PvP so I can smash skulls with the perfect build against players.
- I want end-game. I want something that will be popular to run so I can socialize.
- I don't want end-game. Game is fine as it is with all its possibilities. I find every day of gaming different because no build I make is the same and no group I join has the same balance.

What views are mostly presented are 1, 2, 3. 7 is not even presented because those people are happy right now.
As you can see 1 contradicts 2. And 1 and 2 contradict 3. Also, there are some voices from 4, 5, 6 here and there that pop in to say their opinion and get rejected by the crowd.

So you all think you're talking about the same things and arguing over ONE thing? You couldn't be more wrong. So how are the developers supposed to read your feedback and act accordingly if this is all so messed up? First decide what you define as end-game, get votes of the people who wants what kind of end-game and then the minority will just have to accept it. There is NO KIND OF END-GAME THAT COULD PLEASE ALL. At least not by what they're saying. Because my take is that number 3 (to which I responded with solutions and problems) would make most people happy even if they say they won't be.

[JOTMON]

I don't think it would be hard to threshold the buffs on Bosses so that edge cases or doubling up of existing strengths like your example can't happen. I also wouldn't mind seeing this Boss buff only happen to Elite.

Not directing this at you necessarily but The problem with discussing things on Forums is that nits like this derail and hide productive discussion and often get people who don't know better to take up your concern as a reason to not do something, when in fact the concern is easily addressed by existing things they do for similar cases. For another example in a recent post in my TF tweaks thread someone (Eth?) said we can't move the lame Dragon breath clickies from T3 craft to T2 because then Arti's would run around with 50 TF weapons X3 dragon breath clickies (as if), and of course this, like the above is easily handled by simply making that crafting option put Exlusive on the item...).

Again not singling you out, but don't you guys get tired of never being able to post a statement without Disclaimers and footnotes that exhaustively cover every easily answered doubt or concern? I know I do...


Isn't that part of the problem. DDO doesn't have the time/resources to individually tweak each old quest so they implement a blanket solution.
Problem is you cant blanket the problems, may quests were already adjusted/modified/tweaked and now get amped.

Nothing is easily addressed there are repercussions to every decision, ensuring the effect of the change is within the parameter of desired results is a challenge.
Unfortunately we see a bashing hammer being used as the solution when a screwdriver and several tweaking adjustments is what is needed.

even in your example.. your simple solution of making the item exclusive now locks out any other TF weapon from being utilized even if it has completely different purpose.
Now you have exclusive TF weapons.. TF becomes a build 1 item and done.. cant make anything else without throwing away your first weapon... oh you wanted to dual wield TF.. not now...
Every change nuance has to be hashed put.. hence the need for testing stages.. Not only do they have to look at game impact, they have to look at exploit potential... how can this item be used in a unintended way...
It also screws those that made them before they got changed... Ornamental Daggers anyone.... I farmed that until my eyes bled and more.. took days off work to grind the event.. then boom.. exclusive screwover..
Then later another screw over that turned the level 20 tier 3 best potency item in the game into a level 13 equivalent piece of random drop.

Even Feathers loot revamp screwed loot that I had earned legitimately during a double day bonus event where items were dropping with lower level min levels than the weapon would normally have..
My min level 2 Frost of Pure good Greataxe became level 8 and went from being a treasured awesome lowbie beater to a piece of s. deconstructed for scrap parts.
The retroactive loot revamp also took no consideration of named items. so named items either got skipped all together and nerfed by proxy.. like Dream Visor and random gen junk that was better...

Blanket fixes screw things that don't fit the trend. we collect things that don't fit the trend because they are unique..
Blanket fixes are bad and prone to screw up the things we care about instead of resolving the issue that it was supposed to address.

Forum discussions gets everything out on the table where many eyes can analyze and project impacts. This is good and bad.
Everyone has their own opinion on how this should be done and many conflicts arise.. threads often get fragmented and derailed.
but out of the ashes the failings are stripped away and a more polished product arises.

[Postumus]

I can perfectly remember the regular abuse clerics got when they were the main source of healing. Any failure for keeping the barb alive was laid at our feet. That that f*censored for tone*diot was running and zerging thru the dungeon like crazy and we could not keep up did not matter. That that said *censored again* did not have any meaningful gear to mittigate incomming damage did not matter either. The cleric was the culprit. Always. Every. Single. Time!




I remember my first life L12 fleshie sorc took a LOT of grief from a couple of WF barbs in a VoN raid because my one 6th level spell wasn't reconstruct and I didn't have stacks of reconstruct scrolls. They had a point with the scrolls I suppose, but back then I didn't even know you could buy them. LOL.

[Monkey-Boy]

I can perfectly remember the regular abuse clerics got when they were the main source of healing. Any failure for keeping the barb alive was laid at our feet. That that f*censored for tone*diot was running and zerging thru the dungeon like crazy and we could not keep up did not matter. That that said *censored again* did not have any meaningful gear to mittigate incomming damage did not matter either. The cleric was the culprit. Always. Every. Single. Time!

What did anybody expect? Gulping down the anger, after burning thru 20 pots of Major Mnemonic Enhancements to keep the fool alive and after breaking down, getting flamed? Playing in 50 shades of gray and liking what was thrown at us?

I still love to play cleric. And I still love to carry groups. But I am happy most players meanwhile understand the concept of BYOH, even if that sometimes means they spawn a Hire. Better than keeping me babysitting players dumb enough to yell at me for not being able to overcome their shortcommings.

back in the days of raiding/epics I never abused healers.

Coincidentally, I never had issues finding healers for anything.

I wonder why? :)

[jalont]

I can perfectly remember the regular abuse clerics got when they were the main source of healing. Any failure for keeping the barb alive was laid at our feet. That that f*censored for tone*diot was running and zerging thru the dungeon like crazy and we could not keep up did not matter. That that said *censored again* did not have any meaningful gear to mittigate incomming damage did not matter either. The cleric was the culprit. Always. Every. Single. Time!

What did anybody expect? Gulping down the anger, after burning thru 20 pots of Major Mnemonic Enhancements to keep the fool alive and after breaking down, getting flamed? Playing in 50 shades of gray and liking what was thrown at us?

I still love to play cleric. And I still love to carry groups. But I am happy most players meanwhile understand the concept of BYOH, even if that sometimes means they spawn a Hire. Better than keeping me babysitting players dumb enough to yell at me for not being able to overcome their shortcommings.

This game used to be riddled with mentally ill people that abused everyone for everything. Clerics were not unique in this.

[Postumus]

And what can players co at cap now that they cannot do at a lower level?

I think a better question is "what CAN'T players do at cap now that they couldn't do at cap pre-MotU?" They can still run the same 4 raids every three days. They can still run low level raids on over-leveled over-geared characters. They can still run low level quest that have been "epified."


With the reduced grind at cap, there is a lot less for players to do once they hit cap. That's both good and bad. Good that players don't have to grind like they used to, bad because they don't replay the content farming for the impossible drops which gives capped players something to do.


I don't think PvP is the answer. I don't think super-raids are the answer. I don't think capping the game at 30 and capping character advancement just to farm loot (like pre-motu) is the answer. I don't think making a level for "bragging rights" is the answer.


I do think character achievements might be an answer for some people. Having an image gallery I can fill out with all the named weapons or named bosses, similar to the MM, would give some players something to keep grinding for.

[IronClan]

Shroud was never "brutal hard"

Before you get WAY ahead or yourself and do something embarrassing like fling that accusation over and over in multiple posts like some schoolboy who thinks he found a "got'cha" (and BTW prove once again just how much you desire to "show me up" for past arguments you've lost) that brutal hard comment was about S/S/S Epic's you can tell this because it was in captions immediately after a comment about S/S/S epics. I will forgive you this slip up because you obviously have no experience with old Epics when they were hard, if you had experience you would have intuited what I meant.


Correct. It is my opinion. Just like it is your opinion that what players can do at cap now is not as fun as what players could do at cap 5 years ago.

The game is a lot better now. IMO.

So, because as you like TR'ing over and over better without an Endgame in place everyone who does wants an endgame can just go kick rocks?

Well you sure are considerate aren't you? So I guess we can chalk you up to "I just don't care about anyone but myself" type and regard your future posts with as much weight as someone like that merits.

In any case the data seems to indicate that not having an endgame has been bad for DDO. This is logical considering you might expect people who value endgame content to leave when they get none. If you doubt this then well... never mind why wouldn't you, as long as it disagrees with me you'll adopt it.

And no I'm not going to answer your doubting of how the science of statistical sampling works (which is naturally the subject you're leading into because: past lost arguments on the subject. I am moving on.



Honestly it just sounds like you want the devs to crank the drop rates of new content way down, back to the pre-MotU days, to require players to grind the heck out of the stuff like we used to. We disagree on that also.

You're not familiar with raid drop rates too much are you? Not surprised. They haven't exactly increased appreciably. MOTU had CITW surely you're familiar enough with raiding (or at least have read about it on the forums) to know that CITW might have the worst drop rates of any raid in the game? MOD and all the post MOTU raids are terrible as well though, perhaps worse than Pre MOTU but that would be my subjective feeling on the matter. I think raid drops rates could stand an increase personally. Though I like the new Mythic long term loot goals they put in, and want to see them continue with that from here on out.

[Postumus]

this sounds like more personal opinion than what actually happened back then.

So people weren't running level 18 raids on normal with capped characters? Really?



2. the drop rates for some of the S/S/S was low for some things. it was easier to get the shards and seals if you knew how to farm certain chests in epic quests and some of the less sought after shards and seals seemed to drop fairly easily. it was the SOS and Claw set type of highly wanted stuff that was hard to get.

So Antique GA, torc, those were easy to get? The five piece abashai was easy to get? Most of the good stuff was not easy to get. It still isn't easy to get. A lot of folks were never able to get all three items (scroll/shard/seal) until the bagapalooza even after running the stuff hundreds of times.




the scroll market was controlled by the casters. either way, despite these low drop rates, epics were quite popular and often run. it was actually harder to find a good group that wanted to do DQ flaggers and Von3/4 than it was for Carnival and Fens because they were considered the tougher epics and even lower drop rates for seals and shards.


Snitch was considered a tougher epic? Claw of Vulkoor?

We have very different memories of that time.

[Nestroy]

back in the days of raiding/epics I never abused healers.

Coincidentally, I never had issues finding healers for anything.

I wonder why? :)

I would bet you did not cause a cleric to burn thru 20 pots of mana in one raid either.

Well, there is a reason BYOH developed and it is not because there are no clerics playing at all...

[JOTMON]

More to the point, everybody builds around DPS. A majority of the player base thinks that class balance starts and ends with DPS. Everything that is not DPS is secondary. The devs have caved into this flawed way of thinking and it has hurt the game. For the long term health of the game, they need to move beyond DPS and get back to making the classes unique, making abilities beyond pure DPS relevant, and changing mobs from bags of hitpoints to strategic opponents with challenging abilities to counter. That is what this game used to be about and it is one of the things that separated it from the pack. It would be nice to see tactics and skill return to the game. But yes, I'd really like to see gear with neat abilities. Another + to an ability score or another bit of damage isn't all that interesting.


I *really* like the competitive dungeons idea being tossed around here. What if there was a lost city type of thing (think Myth Drannor) and the different factions all wanted to recover artifacts from it? Everybody could be forced to pick a faction to work for (members of a group possibly all working for different factions) and run quests to collect lost artifacts or what have you to increase their faction's power. When their faction was on top, they could offer certain rewards or something. You could throw in a bunch of optionals that require certain skills or classes to complete and reward additional artifacts to encourage more grouping. And then maybe at the center of this lost city is some raid or raids that lead to an unspeakable evil that the artifact hunters have unwittingly woken up (possibly even have multiple possible BBEGs that require very different tactics so you don't know ahead of time what you'll be facing). Set it up Mabar style so that each raid group starts in the same open ruins area trying to perform some task to collectively open the tomb. Once open, each raid group enters their own instance and it is a race to be the first to get to the center for the final battle (and to keep it from being too easy, you have an NPC group running the gauntlet so there is a clock working against you too). You could do things like have switches that activate traps or close doors in the other instances in an attempt to slow the others down.

While I disagree that everyone build around DPS.. there is some truth to it.. Intimidate is as step above worthless.. Aggro is established by DPS..
Tanks cant just be tanky they have to be able to maintain aggro with hate and DPS.

Builds build around DPS with survivability in mind..healing amp, PRR, Saves, Dodge, Ghostly, self healing, etc... are all relevant factors.
We have lost the unique buffs that unique classes bring

There is no more of the save a spot for a ranger and a paladin and a wizard, and a rogue, and a xxx, it is become a game of grab whatever BYOH..
Barkskin.. got an augment that gives more than that ranger spell ever could.., bard songs.. whatever...start, we don't need short duration songs to each party member..

[Seljuck]

Fully functional? I disagree. It was boring and horrible.


You could run one of 6 raids (but most only ran 4) or re-run low level epified content. So a lot like now except there is a ton more epic level content that isn't just re-hashed low level stuff.


The main differences between then and now were:

1- no raid timers, so you could only run the raid 2/week per character which gave the illusion of stretching out the content

2- incredibly horrible, soul-crushing drop rates for epic gear which everyone complained about (and still do) and required you to get 3 pieces to make one item.


What happens when Turbine comes out with new raids with incredibly low drop rates now? Players complain in droves. If Turbine switched back to the shard/seal/scroll mechanic with the same drop rates as they have in old epics (pre-Motu) for all new content, that would certainly drag out how many times players had to farm for specific gear, but it wouldn't be any more fun.

Drop rates wasn't actually so dramatic. Most of stuff was pretty common. Obviously people without luck had their own hard to find items. (I still have not found Mroranon Belt shard.. :) )
The only thing that actually have extremely low drop rate was SoS shard, SS ring shard and scroll, marilith chain scroll, torc and maybe claw set s/s/s. And you know why? Because it was best in game items and everyone want them. So basically no one put that for roll or trade when found one.


Ok, I can't quote someone specific because many have replied to the same post.

Of course it all depends on what you mean by "end-game". But I'm finding that people want "end-game" without even elaborating on what that is and then complain because the current "end-game" is not what they wanted. So get your definitions straight. I replied with solutions and problems to a definition that seems logical to me.

What people say in the forums:

- I want end-game. I want to raid to get gear extremely rare and take a lot of time doing it. After or before I get that gear, I want devs to be ready with a new update to the game where better gear or harder content (more levels) exist.
- I want end-game. I want level 30 to be the cap and STAY there, because then the end-game would not be the end-game. I want you devs to make sure that what I do now will be equally as meaningful in the future.
- I want end-game. I want plain challenge that is meaningful to repeat. This challenge doesn't need to provide loot because I don't want to run this challenge with loot being the reward. I want something that will make me want to get all the loot I can get from regular game so I can best play the end-game. Also, I want progress. I want reward, but not loot or new abilities.
- I want end-game. I want exciting new mechanisms that will differentiate the end-game from the normal game. A new reward system, a new crafting system, a new fighting system. I want what I have achieved so far to mean something, but not that much compared to the rewards this end-game has to offer. Also, I want this system to take a while.
- I want end-game. I want the long waited PvP so I can smash skulls with the perfect build against players.
- I want end-game. I want something that will be popular to run so I can socialize.
- I don't want end-game. Game is fine as it is with all its possibilities. I find every day of gaming different because no build I make is the same and no group I join has the same balance.

What views are mostly presented are 1, 2, 3. 7 is not even presented because those people are happy right now.
As you can see 1 contradicts 2. And 1 and 2 contradict 3. Also, there are some voices from 4, 5, 6 here and there that pop in to say their opinion and get rejected by the crowd.

So you all think you're talking about the same things and arguing over ONE thing? You couldn't be more wrong. So how are the developers supposed to read your feedback and act accordingly if this is all so messed up? First decide what you define as end-game, get votes of the people who wants what kind of end-game and then the minority will just have to accept it. There is NO KIND OF END-GAME THAT COULD PLEASE ALL. At least not by what they're saying. Because my take is that number 3 (to which I responded with solutions and problems) would make most people happy even if they say they won't be.

In game polls would be excellent idea. It could be significant source of data for Turbine. Data from whole player base, not just community around forum.

In my understanding 'game' is when the character is growing, gaining experience, abilities, knowledge. Gear dont have anything to do with character evolution. It's just a tool that helps your character in progression.
'End game' from other hand, in my understanding is when your character gain maximum experience, abilities. When evolutions is ended. When your character reach the level cap. Then, when progression is ended, you start working on your gear, on your reputation, on your guild, on scores etc. When your progression is ended, you are looking for something to do, something that would be incentive. But right now DDO offers only TR and not everyone like it.

[Hydian]

The playerbase has no one else to blame but themselves.

Yes, it is the fault of the playerbase. They claim to understand how MMOs work while showing complete ignorance of the same. They demand things that make the game worse and throw fits until they get them. Turbine is pretty much stuck trying to hold onto what little bit they have left.


As soon as divines started whining about not being personal healers, that meant that all toons had to be given self healing abilities... making dps the only thing that mattered.

Healers took a ton of abuse in large part because the non-healers stunk at MMO tactics in general and DDO's combat specifically and rather than actually learning to play the game, they blamed the healers for not being able to keep up. I had a cleric in my stable when that all started and never had issues when grouping within the guild, but we were all seasoned MMO veterans that had played at the top levels in several other games by this point. I PUGed a bit here and there and the average player was pretty horrible. I can see why the healers went on strike.


It's not like that's going to change. I mean, are you going to make a cleric and run behind me, healing me?

Funny enough, that's exactly how the game is played in just about every other MMO. Classes have roles and they perform their roles. That means that the healers heal. It has always worked out pretty well except in DDO. It isn't the game that makes healers a non-functional role, so it must be something else. Not everybody is cut out to perform every role, either. I've played healers in multiple games, but it isn't my preferred role. I know people that love it though.


The game is what it is, and there's not going to be any major changes like this. The game doesn't have much longer to go. We're winding down here.

Agreed. It would be nice to see the game fixed, but it will never happen. Even if Turbine wanted to do it, the current player base would never stand for it. Heck, they can't even handle a little challenge without getting some outsized reward for it. The idea that class balance doesn't mean that everybody has equivalent DPS would just cause heads to explode. We are much too far down this road to turn back now.

[Ague]

This is nice idea, but there will be one small problem.. If we take new player on 1st life char and throw him to party with triple completionist .. this 1st lifer will have extremely hard time there.

This could increase gap between veterans and new players.

That's where balancing would come into play. Take into considerations the lives of all players in the party and set a cap to scale to the lowest number of past lives in the party (or something like that). This idea isn't meant to be a serious idea by any means as it would require lots of planning and whatnot that I'm sure Turbine can't or won't allocate resources to. just some fuel for the convo. :)

[IronClan]

even in your example.. your simple solution of making the item exclusive now locks out any other TF weapon from being utilized even if it has completely different purpose.
Now you have exclusive TF weapons.. TF becomes a build 1 item and done..

The specific Dragon Breath (Storm clickies) AFFIX would make that specific item exclusive, you would have to build another TF weapon and then also craft Dragon Breath onto it to not be able to have (those two) weapons at the same time.

You see this is what I am talking about, instead of giving the person you're replying to the benefit of the doubt, understanding the issue and figuring out that your nit pick is not a big deal, not worth derailing over, you've emotionally invested in your nit pick and are so far down the rabbit hole you can't admit it wasn't a thing, so you intentionally or accidentally misunderstand a very clear sentence: "simply making that crafting option put Exlusive on the item".

How much more carefully do I need to word that so you understand the specific crafting option of Storm clickies would put exclusive on that specific TF weapon? Edit to add (because: everything must have deisclaimers and exhustive explanation on the DDO forums) You would then of course have to craft another TF weapon and cause it to become exclusive by crafting Storm clickies onto it.

LOL you know I worded that sentence anticipating that someone MIGHT misunderstand that I was proposing to make TF exclusive. :D Why did I do that? Crazy as it seems I am used to this Forum being full of massive pedantry and one-upsmanship, from people who are always trying to find a fault in what you're saying, to people who jump on your errors or who see errors where they don't exist because you have harmed them by disagreeing with them in the past.

**** people we've been arguing here for YEARS get over it and stop being so **** pedantic...

Edit: let me anticipate JOTMON's next move: he's going to say: it's beyond Turbine's technology to add Exclusive on an item without locking all other TF weapons out... *sigh* you know it's true...

[Monkey-Boy]

I would bet you did not cause a cleric to burn thru 20 pots of mana in one raid either.

If it happened I'd reimburse the pots used.



Well, there is a reason BYOH developed and it is not because there are no clerics playing at all...

It's much more complicated than that, remember how hard mobs hit in EE when GH first hit and how little PRR we had back then? Healing people the old ways was simply impossible. The paradigm of "stay together for mass curse and don't ever move" equaled death.

Next thing you know it's BYOH and monkchers! :)

[Ague]

I like it. Though, with that drop rates for content that used to be end game would have to go up to something that is reasonable to expect in the few runs one could squeeze in before advancing out of the level range. Else, it's likely many wont find much reason to run it at all. 20th lists, for example, would be a joke as how many players take the ~60 days needed without bypasses to gain the 4 levels from Normal at 2 levels under to elite at level at any point in the leveling process.

That's where some adjustment would need to come to the raid timers themselves. As I noted in another comment in this thread, maybe introduce a new Bypass Timer type item that doesn't eliminate the timer altogether, but instead reduces the amount of time of the timer. i.e. -25%, -50%, -75% of the remaining timer.So for the extreme casual players, they likely won't purchase a timer at all, and as the activeness of the player increases, the more timer-reduction would become appealing. If that makes any sense. I'm not sure how to really word that last part.

[Monkey-Boy]

Oh, and I love the "I hated raiding, so you should to" argument from some people here.

[Postumus]

Before you get WAY ahead or yourself and do something embarrassing like fling that accusation over and over in multiple posts like some schoolboy

Ad Hominem




Well you sure are considerate aren't you? So I guess we can chalk you up to "I just don't care about anyone but myself" type and regard your future posts with as much weight as someone like that merits.

Ad Hominem


In any case the data seems to indicate that not having an endgame has been bad for DDO.

Really? What data do have that you can present that shows this?



.. never mind why wouldn't you, as long as it disagrees with me you'll adopt it.

Ad Hominem



You're not familiar with raid drop rates too much are you? Not surprised.

Ad Hominem



MOD and all the post MOTU raids are terrible as well though, perhaps worse than Pre MOTU but that would be my subjective feeling on the matter. I think raid drops rates could stand an increase personally. Though I like the new Mythic long term loot goals they put in, and want to see them continue with that from here on out.


The need to be snarky and try to insult me personally only undermines your arguments, so lets try to focus on just the arguments instead.


You think Fall of Truth is a terrible raid? Interesting. I thought it was fun. You think the abbot raid is terrible? OK. I agree with you regarding CiTW and so do most posters in the forum who have commented on it.


Turning up the drop rates for raids actually reduces the need to replay them, so it is counter to your desire to return to the good old days of the capped 20 content. I think some of the other posters in this thread are correct: some capped players are bored but don't know what they want when they say "end game" because you keep contradicting each other and yourselves.

[Postumus]

Oh, and I love the "I hated raiding, so you should to" argument from some people here.

I don't see that argument made by anyone in this thread. Did you see it in another thread?

[redoubt]

Shroud was never "brutal hard" unless you ran it on elite at level on first life non-twink characters. You know how many LFMs I saw for that? About as many as I do now. HOX, TOD, VOD, and Shroud were most often run on normal difficulty by capped out, epic geared characters who could, and often did, sleepwalk through the content.

Back then the threads were complaints about how a shroud took "more than two-rounds in part 4!!!" LOL. Not what I would call "brutal hard."

The only "epic" raids that were a semi-challenge for capped & geared characters were what, Chrono, Demon Queen, and VoN?

There were no past lives. There was no twink gear. Normal was hard.

We would zone in and buff, then wait for the buffers to step out and get mana and come back. Did you ever run it back when that was a normal thing?

I remember 5 and 6 rounds during part 4. We went through a phase where we wanted lots of archers; you would get a holy bow and buy a ton of silver arrows. People had a hard time standing next to Harry.

I remember when part 1 was not a guarantee. We would put an insta-kill caster on each side because one alone could rarely keep up. We actually worried that portal spawned mobs would live to long.

Part 2 caused plenty of wipes. People waited when they zoned in and moved together. When the trash was cleared we stood around while the blue bars filled up in the trees.

In part 5 the we kept Harry on the altar so the clerics could heal from the pools.

Hound, VOD and TOD were also run by non-epic players before we had past lives. They were quite challenging as well.

[Ague]

The point of raiding/farming in most MMOs is to get good gear because there are things to do other than raiding/farming once you get the good gear.

Most other MMOs when you finish gearing its usually an awesome feeling because there are other things in the game to do without being a weak link to your team or at a disadvantage to the competition when applicable.

DDO when you finish gearing its just like meh...see ya next update, nothing left for me to do here.

Another thing that cracks me up about DDO end game...a lot of people on here talk like it was awesome when level 20 was cap and shroud/tod/hox/vod/abbot were all end game raids, and stuff that dropped in those quests made up a pretty significant portion of gear highly desired for level 20 play. Most of the reason why I played any of those raids was because with the exception of tod, all the drops were level 13 or lower, meaning the stuff was amazing for tr gear. I remember trying to get my 20th completion on shroud so I could cleanse a gs item was like torture, because I had to stay at level cap for a few weeks and couldn't tr or I wouldn't get my 20th list. At least when I got raid gear back then it actually had some function(tr'ing) other than to use just to keep farming the quests I just pulled it out of, and didn't need anything else from. I still remember the day I pulled my leviks bracers...I thought YESSS I DON'T HAVE TO RUN HOX ANYMORE!!!!...not YESSS I'LL BE A LITTLE MORE POWERFUL FOR THE NEXT 20 HOX RUNS I DO EVEN THOUGH I DON'T NEED ANYTHING FROM IT ANYMORE!!!

I definitely have to agree completely with this. Having "end-game" raid loot that is ML 28 (or 30 or whatever lvl cap ends up actually being) kind of defeats the purpose. I have a bunch of Thunderholme stuff and I only get to actually wear it for a short amount of time regardless of what kind of TR I do. Old "end-game" (lvl 20 cap) gear was good for the reason that it was wearable at slightly lower levels. And that is exactly the kind of new "end-game" loot I would hope to see out of the lvl 30 end-game content. regardless of how many future packs get added to this end-game, I would hope that all my excessive amounts of grinding isn't for only items that i can ONLY wear at end game. Disperse the level ranges. Give us something good for epic leveling gear (ML: low 20's) to work for and have some of that uber ML: Cap gear as well.

[Azarddoze]

While I disagree that everyone build around DPS.. there is some truth to it.. Intimidate is as step above worthless.. Aggro is established by DPS..
Tanks cant just be tanky they have to be able to maintain aggro with hate and DPS.

Builds build around DPS with survivability in mind..healing amp, PRR, Saves, Dodge, Ghostly, self healing, etc... are all relevant factors.
We have lost the unique buffs that unique classes bring

There is no more of the save a spot for a ranger and a paladin and a wizard, and a rogue, and a xxx, it is become a game of grab whatever BYOH..
Barkskin.. got an augment that gives more than that ranger spell ever could.., bard songs.. whatever...start, we don't need short duration songs to each party member..

It's by giving too much passive abilities or simply low-trade off on healing and mitigating abilities that they pushed everyone to focus on DPS. The problem is simply that the investment it takes to reach an "enought" to "more than enought" acceptable survivability keeps lowering.

And when GH first came out and that mobs would pretty much 3-4 shots you, the only smart answer is high dps and max avoidance. Now with crazy PRRs rating and MRR, all out avoidance isn't even needed anymore. Even buffs are overkill.

Cocoon and reconstruct is where it started crossing the line imo.

I wonder if this trend is a major factor to take in consideration when making content. Not soloable / complicated - scrap that idea. Most likely.

[Ague]

Okay, and once this endgame is established, how does the game expand?

To coin a term that Sev uses, the game expands horizontally. More content to fill in the gaps at lower levels, more end game content that adds a variety of different items that doesn't add to the power creep, just expands the variety of end-game loot to make it appealing to a more vast array of player play-styles. Ensuring that each class/race has more than just 1 or 2 things available to them at end game. things of that nature is how the game needs to expand if lvl 30 is going to truly be the end game of DDO.

[Nestroy]

If it happened I'd reimburse the pots used.



It's much more complicated than that, remember how hard mobs hit in EE when GH first hit and how little PRR we had back then? Healing people the old ways was simply impossible. The paradigm of "stay together for mass curse and don't ever move" equaled death.

Next thing you know it's BYOH and monkchers! :)

Actually, BYOH developed earlier, but yes, this took a huge jump forward with eGH...And I can perfectly well remember the forums full of complaints from healers and those healed... ;)

[Archaos]

Identify what factors and evaluate how important they are to the future of the game.

Things that spring to my mind are Warner Bros/Turbine (or whoever pays the wages, services and expenditures), other revenue streams such as player transactions, and size of active player base. Do WB see this game only to generate revenue, or are they happy to make a loss for other reasons? Players spending money is clearly important. Having a large active player base, although not necessarily related to player revenue, is also important to the life of the game.

Do a case study with the goal of trying to categorise all the reasons why people used to, still do, and/or will play this game. Cross these reasons against types of people profiled by how much they spend.

Brainstorm some hypotheses. Mine your data. Get more data. Keep mining. Discover more truth.

Some of my theories are:
Many people in most games play for power.
Most people in many games play for power.
The average age of a player for this game is above average than other similar games. Define similar.
This game has a role playing element that is rare in other/similar games. Define other/similar
Power games spend more money.
Older players have more money.
Players with more money spend more money.
An end-game only will only end the game.
Provide alternative end-games other than max xp, max items, max lives.


Perhaps develop an economy so large numbers of players work together to achieve something greater - like guilds.
Cosmetics, pets, dwellings, transports, public events.
DM controlled mobs
Player controlled mobs.
DM lead dungeons.

[Postumus]

Yes, it is the fault of the playerbase. They claim to understand how MMOs work while showing complete ignorance of the same. They demand things that make the game worse and throw fits until they get them. Turbine is pretty much stuck trying to hold onto what little bit they have left.


This.




Funny enough, that's exactly how the game is played in just about every other MMO. Classes have roles and they perform their roles. That means that the healers heal. It has always worked out pretty well except in DDO. It isn't the game that makes healers a non-functional role, so it must be something else.

This.



Agreed. It would be nice to see the game fixed, but it will never happen. Even if Turbine wanted to do it, the current player base would never stand for it. Heck, they can't even handle a little challenge without getting some outsized reward for it. The idea that class balance doesn't mean that everybody has equivalent DPS would just cause heads to explode. We are much too far down this road to turn back now.

And especially this.

[Seljuck]

I think a better question is "what CAN'T players do at cap now that they couldn't do at cap pre-MotU?" They can still run the same 4 raids every three days. They can still run low level raids on over-leveled over-geared characters. They can still run low level quest that have been "epified."


With the reduced grind at cap, there is a lot less for players to do once they hit cap. That's both good and bad. Good that players don't have to grind like they used to, bad because they don't replay the content farming for the impossible drops which gives capped players something to do.


I don't think PvP is the answer. I don't think super-raids are the answer. I don't think capping the game at 30 and capping character advancement just to farm loot (like pre-motu) is the answer. I don't think making a level for "bragging rights" is the answer.


I do think character achievements might be an answer for some people. Having an image gallery I can fill out with all the named weapons or named bosses, similar to the MM, would give some players something to keep grinding for.

Personally, I never liked achievements in any game. No matter SP or MMO or anything. It's quite stupid because It force players to play the way that was predetermined. Please don't compare this to linear games/gameplays, thats two different topics.


So people weren't running level 18 raids on normal with capped characters? Really?

So Antique GA, torc, those were easy to get? The five piece abashai was easy to get? Most of the good stuff was not easy to get. It still isn't easy to get. A lot of folks were never able to get all three items (scroll/shard/seal) until the bagapalooza even after running the stuff hundreds of times.


Snitch was considered a tougher epic? Claw of Vulkoor?

We have very different memories of that time.

And who tells you that those items SHOULD BE EASY TO GET? It's sounds like casual player complain : 'I want the best gear, that vets use, but I dont want to spend time and resources to get it, they should give it to me because I ACTUALLY PLAY THAT GAME' That can't be stated more clearly.

I play this game from 2010.. till this day I never get Mroranon Belt shard, I had run eVON 6 more then 200 times. Note, that there was no bypasses. but i never complain in forum and in any other place (maybe just guild chat :) ) that i hate this system because of that. That give me reason to run that evon so many times. You could say, that I was determined and some people may not be, and give up easly. But life is not easy, you must be determined if you want something, no wil lgive you that. And even if someone will give that for some reason, you won't be as happy as if you found this item.

[Postumus]

To coin a term that Sev uses, the game expands horizontally. More content to fill in the gaps at lower levels, more end game content that adds a variety of different items that doesn't add to the power creep, just expands the variety of end-game loot to make it appealing to a more vast array of player play-styles. Ensuring that each class/race has more than just 1 or 2 things available to them at end game. things of that nature is how the game needs to expand if lvl 30 is going to truly be the end game of DDO.


Historically adding loot that isn't better than older loot does not seem to inspire capped players to re-run content for loot they really don't need or want. If players are no longer obtaining more loot, favor, and XPs (to level) then what incentive do they have to re-run content after they've beaten it once or twice?


Adding better loot just leads to power creep, which is really what capped players seem to want, which then eventually trivializes content which makes the capped players bored again. It seems like a vicious cycle.

[Monkey-Boy]

Adding better loot just leads to power creep, which is really what capped players seem to want, which then eventually trivializes content which makes the capped players bored again. It seems like a vicious cycle.

So do nothing?

[Qhualor]

So people weren't running level 18 raids on normal with capped characters? Really?



So Antique GA, torc, those were easy to get? The five piece abashai was easy to get? Most of the good stuff was not easy to get. It still isn't easy to get. A lot of folks were never able to get all three items (scroll/shard/seal) until the bagapalooza even after running the stuff hundreds of times.





Snitch was considered a tougher epic? Claw of Vulkoor?

We have very different memories of that time.

Huh? What does that have to do with your post written as opinion?

I gave a couple examples. I didn't know I had to list everything.

It helps immensely if you read my post. I didn't say Snitch, which is part of Carnival chain, was a tough epic quest.

[Azarddoze]

With the reduced grind at cap, there is a lot less for players to do once they hit cap. That's both good and bad. Good that players don't have to grind like they used to, bad because they don't replay the content farming for the impossible drops which gives capped players something to do.

On drop rate / grind before and after MotU:

The old epics were meant to be played as a group and were more often than not actually being played as a group. This right there, is a huge multiplicator factor when it comes to drop rate. Unless everyone needs the exact same S/S/S, you had a much higher chance to get one if you would get a group of buddies, each working toward differents pieces. This creates a perception issues as to how hard or easy it was to acquire the old epic gear. Even in pugs, if you would say that you wanted something specific, you had a good chance to have it passed to you if it droped. Even in raids.

Now you can't do that. There are only BiS (and some drop rate sucks) and everyone wants the same piece. Also, the soloing trend and lack of reason to stay at cap makes it that you might wanna hold on to about anything as you know you'll end up TRing. Etc...

A bit of exaggeration and simplicity right there but you can see where i'm going. Even though the state of the game has to be taken into consideration, I really prefered the old epics era for the freedom, longetivity, grouping not being optional and challenge it offered.

I'm saying this and, personally, i've only had the chance to farm old epics with good folks for about a month total. Then took a break and I was alone. This made, raids aside, most of the end game exclusive to a bunch of people though. It's weird how things have changed to the opposite direction at that point.

[Postumus]

Personally, I never liked achievements in any game. No matter SP or MMO or anything. It's quite stupid because It force players to play the way that was predetermined. Please don't compare this to linear games/gameplays, thats two different topics.

The MM is basically just an achievement system and I don't think it forces anyone to play a particular way unless they really want to farm some pet they don't have. Even then they have choices on how to achieve that.

Favor is basically an achievement system.

I think having a named items type MM where the only achievement reward you get is a picture in your gallery or token rewards like the MM would be fine.




And who tells you that those items SHOULD BE EASY TO GET? It's sounds like casual player complain : 'I want the best gear, that vets use, but I dont want to spend time and resources to get it, they should give it to me because I ACTUALLY PLAY THAT GAME' That can't be stated more clearly.


I don't think it should be easy to get. And I also think the pre-motu system was needlessly messy (the scroll/seal/shard system) and the drop rates were too low.

I do like the thunderforged items because you can upgrade them as you level and you have options to tailor them to how you play.




I play this game from 2010.. till this day I never get Mroranon Belt shard, I had run eVON 6 more then 200 times. Note, that there was no bypasses. but i never complain in forum and in any other place (maybe just guild chat :) ) that i hate this system because of that.


And that's exactly why I, myself, think the drop rates for pre-Motu epics are too low. And now all the gear is obsolete anyway. I thought the CiTW drops were too low, and so did a LOT of posters who said the same thing.

[Ague]

Historically adding loot that isn't better than older loot does not seem to inspire capped players to re-run content for loot they really don't need or want. If players are no longer obtaining more loot, favor, and XPs (to level) then what incentive do they have to re-run content after they've beaten it once or twice?


Adding better loot just leads to power creep, which is really what capped players seem to want, which then eventually trivializes content which makes the capped players bored again. It seems like a vicious cycle.

It's not just about adding better loot or equal loot, it's about adding variety to the named loot tables. Giving players more and more options is always a good thing. I feel that was one of the biggest draws to Greensteel (besides the low ML) was having some variety so players could make what they actually wanted. This could even be accomplished by adding numerous rare, named augments, rather than whole new items. Something that players could use to customize their gear how they want it and feel a sense of pride that their gear is tuned to their wants/desires/needs.

Take a look at lvl 20 cap loot. You had Shroud for crafting, HOX/VOD for named items, TOD for customizing your rings. IMHO, end game for an MMO just needs to have (seemingly) endless combinations of loot so players can tweak their gear how they want. Thunderholme has some good stuff, but it could have been more diverse overall. That whole system (IMO) is too basic for end-game. I'm hoping that eGreensteel will help fill a large portion of that customization gap in end-game.

And yes, it is an extremely vicious cycle. That's why maximizing variety would be paramount. Making sure that each race/class has several choices of loot available. Something to appeal to all play styles, personalities, first lifers, multi-tr, completionists.

[jalont]

So do nothing?

Maybe.

I can't wrap my head around the differences. I've read what everyone has written on this topic for years, and I still do not get it. I don't see the difference between what we have now in three raids that people randomly grind and what people want in an endgame, besides the fact that you can run the raids before cap.

I think there's two things that people assume "endgame" will bring that it won't.

1.)Difficulty
2.)A more robust raid scene with people engaged in raids more than they are now.

I think once the cap gets raised to 30, Turbine will release some more raids, and some sort of endgame will come naturally. There will be (more) things for capped toons to do. But honestly I'm not sure that's any different than now.

[Azarddoze]

Maybe.

I can't wrap my head around the differences. I've read what everyone has written on this topic for years, and I still do not get it. I don't see the difference between what we have now in three raids that people randomly grind and what people want in an endgame, besides the fact that you can run the raids before cap.

I think there's two things that people assume "endgame" will bring that it won't.

1.)Difficulty
2.)A more robust raid scene with people engaged in raids more than they are now.

I think once the cap gets raised to 30, Turbine will release some more raids, and some sort of endgame will come naturally. There will be (more) things for capped toons to do. But honestly I'm not sure that's any different than now.

While it won't bring difficulty, something designed as "endgame" could perhaps be tweaked a bit harder (on the highest setting) without facing as much complaints? It would be about .05% of the game after all...

Just kidding, the raging will be the same as if the difficulty was raised across the board.

[Monkey-Boy]

I think once the cap gets raised to 30, Turbine will release some more raids, and some sort of endgame will come naturally. There will be (more) things for capped toons to do. But honestly I'm not sure that's any different than now.

I define an end-game as doing something to advance your character that doesn't involve leveling. In the past we had the level 20 raid and epic loot grind.

The difference between now and pre-MoTU is now every update replaces what game before (this is regarding loot) whereas pre-MoTU everything got "wider." Greensteel for weapons, RR for armor, Tod for sets, epic for more sets and items, and very little conflict between the gear that was already out and the newest stuff. It was like that until EGH came, and then it was time to replace every item on a character.

Gear is what keeps content relevant. We ran titan a zillion times for the ring and gloves as NOTHING else did what those items did for years. Same with TOR, VOD, etc . . .

Replacing gear, making the game taller, makes the game smaller. If Epic Greensteel weapons blow thunderforged out of the water they might as well just delete that pack.

Look at EGH now, there's one friggin chest worth farming in that entire pack now. I understand the game needs to progress but new content shouldn't pillage everything it it's wake.

[Zasral]

I definitely have to agree completely with this. Having "end-game" raid loot that is ML 28 (or 30 or whatever lvl cap ends up actually being) kind of defeats the purpose. I have a bunch of Thunderholme stuff and I only get to actually wear it for a short amount of time regardless of what kind of TR I do. Old "end-game" (lvl 20 cap) gear was good for the reason that it was wearable at slightly lower levels. And that is exactly the kind of new "end-game" loot I would hope to see out of the lvl 30 end-game content. regardless of how many future packs get added to this end-game, I would hope that all my excessive amounts of grinding isn't for only items that i can ONLY wear at end game. Disperse the level ranges. Give us something good for epic leveling gear (ML: low 20's) to work for and have some of that uber ML: Cap gear as well.

Great point. I completely agree. Tr'ing is a massive part of this game, and it's a big reason why shroud is the benchmark raid in ddo. A lvl 30 raid dropping loot, and/or crafting loot for lvl 23 would ensure the raid stays relevant for a long time after release.

[IronClan]

Ad Hominem

Deflection


Ad Hominem

Deflection


Really? What data do have that you can present that shows this?

The statistical data you ignore because it doesn't support what you want to believe is true. You know the thing you've been so totally wrong about that you've developed a thing for trying to get me back?



Ad Hominem

Deflection



Ad Hominem

And more deflection.

So let me get this straight, you can imply that I am less of a player because you think I called easy raids "brutal hard" but all of a sudden you're playing the victim card because I implied you don't have experience in old Epics or raiding? Wow really? Pot calling the Kettle black?

And you're accusing me of ad hominem because you don't realize (or wont admit to yourself) that your "end gamers can kick rocks, the game is good enough for me" stance is incredibly self centered?

I suppose I can look forward to hearing from Cordovan because you've reported me, for something you yourself just did before I did it back to you. If you can't take it don't dish it? Lets be grown men about this, don't use tactics and then cry when they are turned around on you, it makes you look bad.


The need to be snarky and try to insult me personally only undermines your arguments, so lets try to focus on just the arguments instead.

"brutal hard" multiple times ring any bells? Or does it not count as ad hominem because it backfired and made you look bad? I mean it's just not fair, but it still is you using ad hominem.


You think Fall of Truth is a terrible raid? Interesting. I thought it was fun. You think the abbot raid is terrible? OK. I agree with you regarding CiTW and so do most posters in the forum who have commented on it.

What in the world are you talking about? Did I mentioned FoT? I think FoT is okay these days, just another arena beatdown I run it regularly currently for an Aegis for my Vanguard and comms for a fresh black scale docent on my Staff build... What does that have to do with anything? Abbot is my favorite raid in the game, I run it occasionally for the heck of it. In your attempt to call every single point I made an ad hominem I think you imagined some stuff.


Turning up the drop rates for raids actually reduces the need to replay them, so it is counter to your desire to return to the good old days of the capped 20 content. I think some of the other posters in this thread are correct: some capped players are bored but don't know what they want when they say "end game" because you keep contradicting each other and yourselves.

I think this is you failing to understand a complex issue and attributing whatever the heck you want to, to me, as though it's something I said (I haven't mentioned any aspect of FoT in a very long time for example). I'm guessing you do that because that allows you to change the subject? I don't know man, I haven't mentioned drop rates very much at all... Let alone based my assessment of current Endgame on them. I also have not taken any sort of firm position on whether current raid item drop rates are good or bad for the game... I will, if you want me to: I think they could be a little higher on higher difficulty to lower EN chain runs of 20 becoming the normal way to raid as it has.

What I have said is that mythic items are good for the game for the same reason eSoS is (which should give you some hint that I don't have a problem with low drop rates in specific cases) I am also okay with raising raid drop rates on harder settings. mythics are raid loot, and they have a higher drop rate mechanic... So you might say my stance on drop rates is nuanced and varies by case.

[Qhualor]

Great point. I completely agree. Tr'ing is a massive part of this game, and it's a big reason why shroud is the benchmark raid in ddo. A lvl 30 raid dropping loot, and/or crafting loot for lvl 23 would ensure the raid stays relevant for a long time after release.

a level 30 raid that drops level 28-30 gear would be no different when we could only use epic gear when cap was 20. we still had lots of quests we could run at cap and going after epic loot. raids like TOD, VOD and Hound still had relevant end game gear that could also be used as twink gear while leveling. that's pretty similar to current epics where theres a lot of epic gear that is still relevant to use at 28. raids like CITW, FOT and TF can fit in that twink gear slot and still be relevant at cap.

[Oxarhamar]

a level 30 raid that drops level 28-30 gear would be no different when we could only use epic gear when cap was 20. we still had lots of quests we could run at cap and going after epic loot. raids like TOD, VOD and Hound still had relevant end game gear that could also be used as twink gear while leveling. that's pretty similar to current epics where theres a lot of epic gear that is still relevant to use at 28. raids like CITW, FOT and TF can fit in that twink gear slot and still be relevant at cap.

Agreed

We have enough epic twink gear. Time for endgame.

[Chai]

Shroud was never "brutal hard" unless you ran it on elite at level on first life non-twink characters. You know how many LFMs I saw for that? About as many as I do now. HOX, TOD, VOD, and Shroud were most often run on normal difficulty by capped out, epic geared characters who could, and often did, sleepwalk through the content.

Back then the threads were complaints about how a shroud took "more than two-rounds in part 4!!!" LOL. Not what I would call "brutal hard."

The only "epic" raids that were a semi-challenge for capped & geared characters were what, Chrono, Demon Queen, and VoN?

Epic geared characters? LOL :p

There were no epics when shroud, vod, and hox were released. We were level 16, with transmuting weapons and old school single PRE characters.

Shroud was hard in the beginning. It was one of the few raids people couldn't guzzle their way to victory in, on day one. In 2008 shortly after it came out, people would get to part 2, see the fire elemental and devil boss in the same instance, and the entire raid would recall out and reform to run part 1 again to try to get a different 4 mobs. A lot of groups were put together to farm parts 1-3 then recall because the groups couldn't do 4 and 5 yet.

VOD was also a very tough raid when it first came out. Many groups would have mana potion buy ins.

Those days are over. Nowdays raids are beaten handedly on day one. Difficulty is defeated on the forums rather than in game, and people argue that because they are satisfied with the current state of the game, they will not support making it better for others, even when making it better for others will not have any negative effect on the aspects of the game those who are satisfied with it like.

[Chai]

Historically adding loot that isn't better than older loot does not seem to inspire capped players to re-run content for loot they really don't need or want. If players are no longer obtaining more loot, favor, and XPs (to level) then what incentive do they have to re-run content after they've beaten it once or twice?

Many people farmed eAGA even when eSOS was in game, before EDs when the cap was 20. Tons of people made weapons in LOB even when those were outclassed by eSOS as well. Tons of people made cove scimitars rather than farm chaos blades. I still see people using epic thorn lord even though they made it rain pinyon, twice. I see a lot of people still using CitW weapons even though t2 TF (which can be bought without ever needing to run the raid) is better in most if not all cases.


Adding better loot just leads to power creep, which is really what capped players seem to want, which then eventually trivializes content which makes the capped players bored again. It seems like a vicious cycle.

Theres a difference between power creep and progression. The devs already addressed this, third page in this thread.

[Llewndyn]

Im playing a alt whom im ashamed of its gear and im still sleep walking with her thro ee.
And i bet there are many more out there that are multiple times better then me at this game.
I cant even imagine what they feel about current ddo.

While I support a mythic mode, posts like this just get to me. No one sleepwalks through EE, especially with champions now. I will say this to back my statement up, though... everyone who has come on this forum talking about how easy the game is and how you can take a premade character and solo EE has not been able to recreate the feat when I've been in their group. It has never happened, and I've done this enough over the years to safely say though it COULD happen, it won't with a first or second life or alt whose gear you're "ashamed" of.

That's always been an open challenge, by the way... if someone can show me that they can sleepwalk through EE (and I'm not a jerk, I will help them no problem) on a 2nd life or lower character with what someone with a 2nd life character would probably have (+2 tomes, coupla greensteel items, etc...) then I and a bunch of people who think like me would jump all over the "this game is so easy even a caveman could beat it" threads agreeing with you. It hasn't happened yet and I've been playing this game since 2009.

I support a mythic mode because I don't want to take fun away from the top 2% of players anymore than I want my fun taken away. The top 2% would be those few who CLAIM they solo EE all the time on non optimal builds with non-optimal gear, and then back it up. I don't even mean people I particularly like, I can think of 4 on Ghallanda who I wouldn't cross the street to spit on if they were on fire but that this mode would be perfect for because they could feel challenged. But the whole "yeah this game is so easy everyone just PWNs it" can only be used by a very small cross section of the populace, and I'm willing to bet the majority of the people talking about it on these forums aren't them.

[Postumus]

On drop rate / grind before and after MotU:

The old epics were meant to be played as a group and were more often than not actually being played as a group. This right there, is a huge multiplicator factor when it comes to drop rate. Unless everyone needs the exact same S/S/S, you had a much higher chance to get one if you would get a group of buddies, each working toward differents pieces. This creates a perception issues as to how hard or easy it was to acquire the old epic gear. Even in pugs, if you would say that you wanted something specific, you had a good chance to have it passed to you if it droped. Even in raids.


Good points. That certainly explains the differences in perception. I only started running old epics about 6 months before MotU because I was more interested in rolling new characters or TRing, so I was never in large groups actively farming for things. Soloing epics was a truly boring experience.

[Seljuck]

The best thing I'd like to see in the end game is raids, requiring the cooperation of players. Raids, where the biggest role play agility, land and available resources use, player cooperation and coordination. Not just generally understood character force.

Raids like abbot or titan, they can be failed even if we get all gear past live, triple completionist, twists ED etc. The strength of Character plays a secondary role there. That's should be reference point for Devs while they work on new content for 'end game'.

[Gremmlynn]

I already mentioned a few earlier in the thread, but I'll mention some ideas again.

1. PVP is the obvious answer to what people tend to do when fully geared. You actually want the best gear because if you don't you end up at a disadvantage to those that do have it...unlike ddo where you get the best gear to run the same content a little more easily. But to be fair, I pretty much have given up any hope on DDO ever improving PVP when they added dots to casters, and destinies was just the nail in the coffin.

2. Competitive dungeons - Put two groups in the same instance in dungeons set up so players can do things on their side that have an impact on the other side, and the goal is to finish first. Like if you achieve certain things on your half of the dungeon you can spawn extra mobs, extra traps, seal doors/hallways, buff mobs/traps, etc, on the other teams area to make it more difficult for them. Basically since making direct PVP in this game decent isn't ever going to happen at this point, instead focus on competitive pve. At least then you actually have something to do once you get all the best gear through conventional pve.

3. An endless dungeon with randomized floors...you beat a floor, you go on to the next. Disable use of all consumables/clickies and put a timer on each floor so you can't sit around for hours abusing regenerative skills. The only purpose would be to see how far you could get. Again...since you had limited resources it would pay to have the most efficient character possible, so gathering all the best gear actually has a point. Also, due to time restrictions and limited resources so the guy with the biggest stack of pots didn't get the furthest every time, actually grouping and trying to work together rather then split up and zerg for record completion time would be important in such a dungeon. Plus it would be random gen dungeons, so if you did split up you might end up getting demolished by a mini boss or something...not that you couldn't split up, it would just be something to employ decent tactics then what people are currently using for most content. I'd rather see them design something like this with some challenge and replay value then a bunch of level 30 dungeons that all take 10 minutes to zerg through that end up getting largely ignored once people farm gear out of them and its deemed they aren't best xp/min quests.

4. Sort of an addition to the above...keep a leader board with scores somewhere in game or on the website. People always like to brag about their exploits...well why not post it up where we can all see who the pros are.

5. Server challenges...maybe a little competition between servers for some sort of server wide buff. Maybe every 6 hours or something some sort of special raid/dungeon opens across all servers, and the server to complete it firsts gets some sort of server wide buff until the next time the raid/dungeon opens. Server population wouldn't matter much...all it would take would be to have 1 good group.

I could conjure up some more ideas...but I have to leave for work soon. So I'll just leave you again, with why I am a pessimist about DDO ever having a real end game. If all the above examples I gave didn't involve getting better gear, and were simply challenging things to do for fun and bragging rights, they would never be popular on this game, as evident by people in this thread who can't even fathom that "end game" in a lot of games involves things other than farming.1.PvP

2.PvP

3.Build to win.

4.PvP

5.PvP

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against good PvP. The problem with it is it really only stays interesting for those actually capable of winning. Once things shake out a pecking order is generally established with just slight variations. Moving from 3000 to 2999 on the leader board and back to 3000 on a regular basis just doesn't hold much interest. For those in the top 10, maybe even the top 100 it works, for the rest not so much.

Contrary to popular myth, everyone isn't capable of becoming the best in this game. Truth be told, everyone isn't even capable of comprehending what it takes to be the best. This is why so many games have cookie cutter characters to use in cookie cutter content. It provides balance between players as it doesn't matter as much how good a player is if their character limits how much skill they can utilize and it doesn't matter as much how smart they are if game play is limited to doing things the way they were designed to be done or fail.

[McFlay]

Theres no myth about it at all. Shroud came out in Jan 2008. From then, until 2012 when the cap raised from 20 - 25, people kept alts at 16 then at 20 (after f2p in 2009) to play shroud, tod, vod, hox, chrono, eVON, eDQ, LOB and MA when it was released. There were plenty of people who kept alts at cap to play those raids as well as level 20 epics.

Your just mixing too many variables together here.

First of all...alts is a big topic in itself. Thanks to tr, and even more thanks to etr people tend to play less alts now. Its simply more worthwhile to stack past lives on a main then it is to have a bunch of first lifers. Also, pre-tr, of course people were going to keep alts at cap...they really had no choice other than erase a toon. Another issue is simply class diversity...I feel a lot less inclined to make alts now because the devs keep making classes more and more similar rather then more distinct. Bypass timers have also given me less incentive to play alts...I used to play alts to farm shroud mats for my main that was the only toon I'd bother to tr...I don't need to now its easy enough to just get bypass timers. Plus epics used to have timers as well, so when all the things you consider "end game," high level raids and epics, all had timers...timers that couldn't be bypassed...of course people would make alts because you'd run out of stuff to do if you had one toon with too many things on cooldown all at once. Alts sort of were your bypass timers since then. So what's up with the decline of alts...is it end game was just so awesome then everyone wanted to play a ton of alts, or is it really just the devs have made so many changes over the years that simply made alts less useful, so people now tend to play less toons?

Epics...its interesting you mention epics as "end game." You know what epics were for a lot of people...they were that annoying thing you had to do when you hit level 20 to get tokens to buy a heart and tr. If tr'ing was something you could just do for free soon as you hit xp cap, no tokens, no heart required epics would have been far less played than they were.


DDO had a true end game then, and it was actually a true alternative to the TR grind.

The gear grind...the true alternative to the xp grind rofl.

Seriously the only difference between current "end game" and back then is timer bypasses for raids, lack of timers on quests, gear simply not being as rare as the old s/s/s system if you actually cared enough to get all the best gear, grouping being not needed for a lot of content, and duping today is a lot more of an issue then I recall it being back then.

Basically back then they'd add in a new raid...it would take people 20, 40, sometimes 60 completions to get what they wanted and they'd have to actually wait for the timer each time, and if they really wanted something they would hold off weeks on tr'ing to get to a 20th for a chance at a good loot list. Your talking months to get what you want. Since they made things so much easier and gave us so many work arounds now...what happened with the epic abbot raid...people had it farmed out on day 1 lol. If they had bypass timers and all that junk back then people would have done the same thing.



Im fine with you saying you preferred TRing over raids and epics, but any claim that there was no endgame in that era, or that people didn't keep characters at cap to play endgame, is false.

I'd hate to break your bubble...but nobody kept characters at cap to play end game back then because we never had an end game...we simply had farming that took longer. Of course people kept alts at cap back then, I'm not arguing that, people keep alts at cap today even with the lack of end game people are complaining about.

The thing is, you have some people that would refer to tr'ing as end game, while those of us that have the insight to see it for what it truly is know it is really just an extension of the xp farm so it takes a much longer time for people to hit a point where they don't need xp.

With that being said...what is new content with new gear to farm? Is it end game, or simply an extension of the gear farm? If you think level 30 cap and 5 new raids would magically fix "end game" you are simply wrong. People would have it farmed out in a couple weeks, and right back to complaining about lack of end game. If we had timer bypasses and no timers on epics 5 years ago...the same thing would have happened back then.


Many people farmed eAGA even when eSOS was in game, before EDs when the cap was 20. Tons of people made weapons in LOB even when those were outclassed by eSOS as well. Tons of people made cove scimitars rather than farm chaos blades. I still see people using epic thorn lord even though they made it rain pinyon, twice. I see a lot of people still using CitW weapons even though t2 TF (which can be bought without ever needing to run the raid) is better in most if not all cases.

I think you missed Postumus's point entirely here. If they release gear that is worse then what you can already get, and you already have better stuff, you aren't going to care about it. Like your eAGA/eSOS example...eAGA was great if you got it to drop before you got an eSOS, but if you had an eSOS you could care less about eAGA. Or your lob example...its actually pretty irrelevant because at the time if you were playing anything but a greatsword build, LOB gear was amazing.

Or in other words #2 or #3 best thing is pretty nice to have if you don't have #1, but once you get #1 you aren't going to waste your time chasing down something worse.

[McFlay]

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against good PvP. The problem with it is it really only stays interesting for those actually capable of winning. Once things shake out a pecking order is generally established with just slight variations. Moving from 3000 to 2999 on the leader board and back to 3000 on a regular basis just doesn't hold much interest. For those in the top 10, maybe even the top 100 it works, for the rest not so much.

All those suggestions aren't pvp as much as they are competitive...and it is the nature of competition that everyone can't be top dog. Playing basketball for example...is a lot of fun if your playing in a rec league with a bunch of other guys with a similar ability level. It doesn't somehow become less fun simply because guys in the NBA or the olympics are better then you.

Likewise if they added a few competitive aspects to the game to give people some new, dynamic goals, sure I'd rather be 10th place and 100th place, but if I went from 10th to 9th, or 100th to 99th, I'd be happy either way since I improved amongst people that are around my ability level.


Contrary to popular myth, everyone isn't capable of becoming the best in this game. Truth be told, everyone isn't even capable of comprehending what it takes to be the best. This is why so many games have cookie cutter characters to use in cookie cutter content. It provides balance between players as it doesn't matter as much how good a player is if their character limits how much skill they can utilize and it doesn't matter as much how smart they are if game play is limited to doing things the way they were designed to be done or fail.

So I've suggested some alternative things to xp/gear farm for people that are bored with those things. If you still see challenge and meaning in current pve designs that wouldn't be impacted at all...I simply think it would add more to end game to add some competitive type dungeons and achievements then to simply throw out another quest that moves the gear goal post back another 5 yards and gets farmed out in a few days and leaves the game in the exact same position it is in right now.

Honestly what your saying is like saying EE should be easier because not everybody can solo it. People shouldn't have to be expected to just play lower difficulties, to group, or to learn and improve, they should just get a medal for showing up, right?

[Gremmlynn]

Nice ninja edit there Iron, lol ;)

But I agree with IronClan.

To me, the point is very simple. Do you, as developers, want people to keep playing this game and potentially spending money, or want people to leave (temporarily until the next update, with the risk of forever) when they've seen/done it all?

The answer is a no brainer and I hope they come up with some decent systems that can last for years for lvl30 endgame.To me, the answer is far from a no brainer. First off, what the developers want is pretty much irrelevant as they do whatever it is they are told to do. Tough I'm sure they want it to keep going for at least as long as their employment prospects are tied to it being around.

Then there is the actual meat of the issue. How much would making this end game cost?

When that little issue is left out, it does seem like a no brainer. With it, not so much.

This in no way means I don't want to see an end game. I'm just saying that the issue isn't as simple as some seem to think and that doesn't even go into things like how much potential the people who actually approve the budgets for this type of thing see in the game.

[McFlay]

To me, the answer is far from a no brainer. First off, what the developers want is pretty much irrelevant as they do whatever it is they are told to do. Tough I'm sure they want it to keep going for at least as long as their employment prospects are tied to it being around.

Then there is the actual meat of the issue. How much would making this end game cost?

When that little issue is left out, it does seem like a no brainer. With it, not so much.

This in no way means I don't want to see an end game. I'm just saying that the issue isn't as simple as some seem to think and that doesn't even go into things like how much potential the people who actually approve the budgets for this type of thing see in the game.

Haha...I totally agree with this. They aren't going to change things much from how they have been since motu was released. We won't ever have a true end game...they'll just keep raising the bar on gear a bit each update to keep the hamsters on the wheel. If your a casual player its fine it just sucks for the guys who want to farm stuff out within a week of it being released.

I half expect them to attempt to come up with some kind of new tr though, or some tr where you can purchased new passive feats for your existing passive tr/etr feats, then go farm out some more trs/etrs...something to try to extend the xp farm even more. Or sentient weapons will involve some kind of massive long term farming to max out.

End game in the sense that you have something to do when your done with the farm will simply NEVER happen here. Its always been about extending the farm, and it always will be. The real issue isn't that new content is bad, or we don't have enough high level content to play...its that the devs have just made things so easy from so many different aspects that new content has a very limited shelf life for a lot of people.

[redoubt]

Epic geared characters? LOL :p

There were no epics when shroud, vod, and hox were released. We were level 16, with transmuting weapons and old school single PRE characters.

Shroud was hard in the beginning. It was one of the few raids people couldn't guzzle their way to victory in, on day one. In 2008 shortly after it came out, people would get to part 2, see the fire elemental and devil boss in the same instance, and the entire raid would recall out and reform to run part 1 again to try to get a different 4 mobs. A lot of groups were put together to farm parts 1-3 then recall because the groups couldn't do 4 and 5 yet.

VOD was also a very tough raid when it first came out. Many groups would have mana potion buy ins.

Those days are over. Nowdays raids are beaten handedly on day one. Difficulty is defeated on the forums rather than in game, and people argue that because they are satisfied with the current state of the game, they will not support making it better for others, even when making it better for others will not have any negative effect on the aspects of the game those who are satisfied with it like.

I agree with all of this (posted as such earlier as well) but last thing you mentioned made me think of something... the raids are not beat on day one. They are beat days, weeks and months before that on Lamania. Both those with good intentions and those with nefarious ones who play on Lamania often come to the release day of new content having already beaten it.

Should anyone be surprised that they share that knowledge with others and that those quests/raids are beaten on "release day"?

[redoubt]

I've played two other MMOs. SWG (before NGE) and SWTOR.

SWG had an end game. You could participate in the civil war both in PvE and PvP. There was also more crafting and building of things that you could work on and make incrementally better forever. If not for the NGE (the subsequent shutdown) I'd probably still play it. In fact, I occasionally log in to the emu project still.

SWTOR had crafting that was more involved than DDO, but far short of SWG. The end game there (for the 6 mo I played it) was built around PvP. Everything else you did was to power up to play in the PvP arenas.

I don't know how the end game from either of those would translate into DDO as I don't think PvP is the way to go. But I will say that if I found a game like SWG again, I'd probably spend years there building a storefront again and trying to make and then sell the best thingy to the other players. I had combat characters, I did both the old-school jedi and bounty hunter thing, I played in the civil war, but I spent crazy amounts of time acquiring the best resources I could to make the best armor I could and actually sold a lot of it. That was as rewarding as getting a Jedi to max level without getting caught, and that is saying something.

On the difficulty side of the discussion, there were things about SWG that were super hard. There were things that made my pulse race because I just knew I was a split second from death and death meant a lot in that game. There was a sense of fear, a sense that there was something to lose and that danger actually lurked around the every corner. I think part of that was the difficulty found on certain planets and part of it was from the persistent nature of the game. Sadly, I don't think that feeling nor the level of detail the SWG crafting system had could be brought into DDO.

I bring this up not to say DDO should be made like other games. I bring it up because this thread has turned into mindless bickering. Maybe if instead of arguing over who it right we talked a bit about what sorts of things worked as end game in things we played before we might find out how to define an end game and from there, figure out how to make one here.

[McFlay]

I've played two other MMOs. SWG (before NGE) and SWTOR.

SWG had an end game. You could participate in the civil war both in PvE and PvP. There was also more crafting and building of things that you could work on and make incrementally better forever. If not for the NGE (the subsequent shutdown) I'd probably still play it. In fact, I occasionally log in to the emu project still.

SWTOR had crafting that was more involved than DDO, but far short of SWG. The end game there (for the 6 mo I played it) was built around PvP. Everything else you did was to power up to play in the PvP arenas.

I don't know how the end game from either of those would translate into DDO as I don't think PvP is the way to go. But I will say that if I found a game like SWG again, I'd probably spend years there building a storefront again and trying to make and then sell the best thingy to the other players. I had combat characters, I did both the old-school jedi and bounty hunter thing, I played in the civil war, but I spent crazy amounts of time acquiring the best resources I could to make the best armor I could and actually sold a lot of it. That was as rewarding as getting a Jedi to max level without getting caught, and that is saying something.

On the difficulty side of the discussion, there were things about SWG that were super hard. There were things that made my pulse race because I just knew I was a split second from death and death meant a lot in that game. There was a sense of fear, a sense that there was something to lose and that danger actually lurked around the every corner. I think part of that was the difficulty found on certain planets and part of it was from the persistent nature of the game. Sadly, I don't think that feeling nor the level of detail the SWG crafting system had could be brought into DDO.

I bring this up not to say DDO should be made like other games. I bring it up because this thread has turned into mindless bickering. Maybe if instead of arguing over who it right we talked a bit about what sorts of things worked as end game in things we played before we might find out how to define an end game and from there, figure out how to make one here.

Well said sir. If people want an end game they need to float out ideas for things to do that aren't centered upon farming new gear. If they just want an endless gear farm, then stop bringing up the topic of end game and just beg the devs to make drops more rare, get rid of raid bypass timers, and put longer cooldowns on quest repeats so people run a larger variety of content, make more alts to get around the timers, and it takes months to farm something out instead of days.

But since you bring up the SWG crafting system...I think its worth mentioning a few things about that. One being that gear in that game got worn and broke over time. Crafting always had a market because your gear would eventually break forever if you used it enough. The other being the stats were more randomized based on your randomized mats and crafting levels. The "best armor" on the server, might actually be a one of a kind, actual best armor on the server, where as in ddo the "best armor" on the server is something everyone could get an exact clone of by running the same quest. And again with the whole "end game" idea...you weren't going to find a lot of people running around farming mats with all their best, most expensive gear on, they'd save that stuff for the end game, the pvp.

Taking that into consideration, did crafting work as an end game activity in swg? Yes. It was something you could potentially do forever as there was always a chance you could make something better then your current best, or you just needed new good stuff to replace things that were wearing out. Would it in ddo? Nope, all the factors that made it an endless activity in swg simply do not exist in this game.

[HAL]

There were no past lives. There was no twink gear. Normal was hard.

We would zone in and buff, then wait for the buffers to step out and get mana and come back. Did you ever run it back when that was a normal thing?

I remember 5 and 6 rounds during part 4. We went through a phase where we wanted lots of archers; you would get a holy bow and buy a ton of silver arrows. People had a hard time standing next to Harry.

I remember when part 1 was not a guarantee. We would put an insta-kill caster on each side because one alone could rarely keep up. We actually worried that portal spawned mobs would live to long.

Part 2 caused plenty of wipes. People waited when they zoned in and moved together. When the trash was cleared we stood around while the blue bars filled up in the trees.

In part 5 the we kept Harry on the altar so the clerics could heal from the pools.

Hound, VOD and TOD were also run by non-epic players before we had past lives. They were quite challenging as well.

Thanks for the reminder - I had completely forgotten about some of these tactics. Brings back memories lol.

[HAL]

Im playing a alt whom im ashamed of its gear and im still sleep walking with her thro ee.
And i bet there are many more out there that are multiple times better then me at this game.
I cant even imagine what they feel about current ddo.

While I support a mythic mode, posts like this just get to me. No one sleepwalks through EE, especially with champions now. I will say this to back my statement up, though... everyone who has come on this forum talking about how easy the game is and how you can take a premade character and solo EE has not been able to recreate the feat when I've been in their group.

Note that he doesn't say anything about how many PL or EDs this character has. And I bet his idea of gear he's "ashamed of" is gear I'd actually drool over lol.

[HAL]

The best thing I'd like to see in the end game is raids, requiring the cooperation of players. Raids, where the biggest role play agility, land and available resources use, player cooperation and coordination. Not just generally understood character force.

Raids like abbot or titan, they can be failed even if we get all gear past live, triple completionist, twists ED etc. The strength of Character plays a secondary role there. That's should be reference point for Devs while they work on new content for 'end game'.

Most people stopped playing the raids that were too difficult.

[HAL]

Honestly what your saying is like saying EE should be easier because not everybody can solo it. People shouldn't have to be expected to just play lower difficulties, to group, or to learn and improve, they should just get a medal for showing up, right?

I personally believe that the number of players who can solo all or most EE content is a tiny percentage. And I certainly hope that Turbine isn't going to develop content for such a tiny number of players when they could be spending that time on content for more players. With that in mind, if content is not aimed at that tiny percentage then they will remain unchallenged by any new difficulty solutions.

[Seljuck]

Most people stopped playing the raids that were too difficult.

This is a problem of those who surrender at the first difficulty. For this purpose game offer 3 difficulty types. From the perspective of time, does something was changed in those hard raids? Something was made easier? I only remember few tweaks for epic raids to make them more challenging.

I refer there to more complex raids. With different mechanic. raids that actually other games have, both MMO and SP.

[Qhualor]

I personally believe that the number of players who can solo all or most EE content is a tiny percentage. And I certainly hope that Turbine isn't going to develop content for such a tiny number of players when they could be spending that time on content for more players. With that in mind, if content is not aimed at that tiny percentage then they will remain unchallenged by any new difficulty solutions.

there may be a small per cent of players that can solo EE content, but theres a huge per cent of players in a group setting that can succeed at nearly 100% of the time in EE content.

[HAL]

This is a problem of those who surrender at the first difficulty. For this purpose game offer 3 difficulty types. From the perspective of time, does something was changed in those hard raids? Something was made easier? I only remember few tweaks for epic raids to make them more challenging.

I refer there to more complex raids. With different mechanic. raids that actually other games have, both MMO and SP.

Sorry, I'm not sure what you're asking. But people still don't like to do Abbott.

[Seljuck]

Sorry, I'm not sure what you're asking. But people still don't like to do Abbott.

Read with understanding.

People or You? Don't like Abbott? It's not objective answer.

Abbott possessed few buggs, so that's could be reason.

[HAL]

Read with understanding.

O.o


People or You? Don't like Abbott? It's not objective answer.

Abbott possessed few buggs, so that's could be reason.

People I know and have read in the forums. So you question my statement and then provide evidence to support why it could be true?

[Seljuck]

O.o



People I know and have read in the forums. So you question my statement and then provide evidence to support why it could be true?

First of all, bugged doesn't mean harder, it's mean bugged. I say there that abbot was bugged so people think its hard, but it was just bugged.
Secondly, where you found word 'hard' out 'harder' in my original post?

[Postumus]

there may be a small per cent of players that can solo EE content, but theres a huge per cent of players in a group setting that can succeed at nearly 100% of the time in EE content.


So what? Fully geared, experienced players should be able to beat EE in a group, shouldn't they?

[Qhualor]

So what? Fully geared, experienced players should be able to beat EE in a group, shouldn't they?

your argument is directed towards the wrong person. read the quote I responded to.

[Postumus]

There were no past lives. There was no twink gear. Normal was hard.

We would zone in and buff, then wait for the buffers to step out and get mana and come back. Did you ever run it back when that was a normal thing?


I started playing when DDO went F2P so that was before my time. I'm sure when Shroud first came out it was a great challenge and I would have loved to play it for the first time with other players who didn't know the raid.


By the time I started playing, Shrouds I joined were typically run with capped players where most of the players had already run it a thousand times and you were expected to know it. Anything longer than two rounds in pt 4 often resulted in a lot of drama. People DDooring or recalling instead of deathing out were derided for taking to long. There used to be a lot of needless, silly drama and subsequent forum posts if it wasn't an automatic face roll. I rarely saw Shroud LFMs for at level or on elite.


I don't enjoy face rolling content. It's not challenging to me if there is no chance of failure. That's why I generally play in Iron Man or PD groups where we run elites at or under level without ship buffs and all the other easy buttons some players are addicted to.

[Postumus]

your argument is directed towards the wrong person. read the quote I responded to.


Point taken.

[HAL]

your argument is directed towards the wrong person. read the quote I responded to.

My post was about players who solo EE.