Needed Changes to Update 29 to Avoid Needing a Server Merge Next Year

[maddong]

1. Legendary content has to be challenging. Preferably with strategy (healing curse, stunning, crippling, ignoring PRR, antimagic) instead of just upping damage/hp for the 10 minute beatdown where you get one shot repeatedly.

2. Make the buddy xp bonus permanent in some fashion (reduce it or decrease bravery bonus). It is currently faster to get solo xp with dungeon scaling. No one would be playing this game after all these years if it was a single player game. The grouping screen is the heart of the game and buddy bonus xp is a time machine.

3. ML20 +9 stat items (especially if insight +4 is also dropping at that level) should not be dropping. This is Update 19 all over again.

4. ITR/ETR should stay at level 28. Our best chance at growing the player base is having people come back to the game and no one wants to come back to 25% more grind.

[Amundir]

I have to say as I started reading this post I thought "What does this have to do with avoiding a server merge?"

Just for clarification, are you making the argument that if these changes were made then they would result in an overall increased level of the user base, thus making it more relevant to have the number of servers we currently have?

[Jeromio]

1. Legendary content has to be challenging. Preferably with strategy (healing curse, stunning, crippling, ignoring PRR, antimagic) instead of just upping damage/hp for the 10 minute beatdown where you get one shot repeatedly.

2. Make the buddy xp bonus permanent in some fashion (reduce it or decrease bravery bonus). It is currently faster to get solo xp with dungeon scaling. No one would be playing this game after all these years if it was a single player game. The grouping screen is the heart of the game and buddy bonus xp is a time machine.

3. ML20 +9 stat items (especially if insight +4 is also dropping at that level) should not be dropping. This is Update 19 all over again.

4. ITR/ETR should stay at level 28. Our best chance at growing the player base is having people come back to the game and no one wants to come back to 25% more grind.

I think you'll be quite dissapointed when U29 lands!

[JOTMON]

1. Legendary content has to be challenging. Preferably with strategy (healing curse, stunning, crippling, ignoring PRR, antimagic) instead of just upping damage/hp for the 10 minute beatdown where you get one shot repeatedly.

2. Make the buddy xp bonus permanent in some fashion (reduce it or decrease bravery bonus). It is currently faster to get solo xp with dungeon scaling. No one would be playing this game after all these years if it was a single player game. The grouping screen is the heart of the game and buddy bonus xp is a time machine.

3. ML20 +9 stat items (especially if insight +4 is also dropping at that level) should not be dropping. This is Update 19 all over again.

4. ITR/ETR should stay at level 28. Our best chance at growing the player base is having people come back to the game and no one wants to come back to 25% more grind.


That's silly, we won't need a server merge if Legendary Shroud EE can be run 2man and 4man.

1. it should be challenging to a optimal group on Hard. Elite should only be viable to the stars aligned group.. at least until they have crafted a full compliment of Legendary Greensteel from grinding normal/hards...

2. Buddy bonus is good... Remove Dungeon scaling from all Elite difficulty.

3. better than average trending stats should be limited to named items, any exceptional items should be offset with some sort of negative that can be mitigated with other high level items.

4. I was hoping they would do something different here..
A. - Separate ER for destinies from the Epic levelling process and leave that reliant on sphere XP regardless of the player level.. turn in sphere when its capped, lose access to sphere destinies until they are re-levelled.
B - Separating level 29-30 as Legendary XP so that you need to run legendary content to level 29-30 and not farm low level epics in sleepwalk mode, ITR could still be based on Epic levels, while endgame was dependant on Legendary XP..

[Steve_Howe]

1. Legendary content has to be challenging. Preferably with strategy (healing curse, stunning, crippling, ignoring PRR, antimagic) instead of just upping damage/hp for the 10 minute beatdown where you get one shot repeatedly.

2. Make the buddy xp bonus permanent in some fashion (reduce it or decrease bravery bonus). It is currently faster to get solo xp with dungeon scaling. No one would be playing this game after all these years if it was a single player game. The grouping screen is the heart of the game and buddy bonus xp is a time machine.

3. ML20 +9 stat items (especially if insight +4 is also dropping at that level) should not be dropping. This is Update 19 all over again.
Yes



4. ITR/ETR should stay at level 28. Our best chance at growing the player base is having people come back to the game and no one wants to come back to 25% more grind.
No

[maddong]

I have to say as I started reading this post I thought "What does this have to do with avoiding a server merge?"

Just for clarification, are you making the argument that if these changes were made then they would result in an overall increased level of the user base, thus making it more relevant to have the number of servers we currently have?

Vibrant playerbase = no need for server merges

1. no challenge = continued attrition

2. continued loss of pickup groups = requests for server merge (current normal)

3. update 19 loot pass = start of decline of game after gianthold boost (update 17)

4. penalizing players that left = players don't come back

These are all mistakes for what little future of the game is left.

[SirValentine]

ML20 +9 stat items (especially if insight +4 is also dropping at that level) should not be dropping. This is Update 19 all over again.


/signed. You don't expand content or player experience by repeatedly destroying previous content and pulling the rug out from under players.

More powerful gear at the new higher levels in one thing. Completely invalidating a decade's worth of gear development across all the existing levels is something entirely different. And something very bad.

[slarden]

I don't think a few stat points at level 20 make a huge difference. +8 stats are available at level 15. +3 insightful are available at 22.

Most level old epic gear has been obsolete since motu.

It sounds like legendary and reaper are two different things - not sure what to say on difficulty at this point as I didn't run much on Lamannia.

However, if they need to fine tune difficulty they should really focus on elite at this point since they don't have much time left.

I don't want to see the release delayed for the simple fact alot of us are looking forward to playing more than usual during our extra time in late December.

I do hope if they release on 12/18 as someone predicted that it's after 4pm, because i am seeing Star Wars VII @ 1:30pm.

[Trogloditas]

3. ML20 +9 stat items (especially if insight +4 is also dropping at that level) should not be dropping. This is Update 19 all over again.

/signed. You don't expand content or player experience by repeatedly destroying previous content and pulling the rug out from under players.

More powerful gear at the new higher levels in one thing. Completely invalidating a decade's worth of gear development across all the existing levels is something entirely different. And something very bad.

^this

[KoobTheProud]

All gear that is loot-gen should be better balanced than it currently is. For anybody who has been playing for awhile nothing short of the topout attribute at a given level is acceptable and that's because wondrous craftsmanship and other effects make it possible to get items that are topout in 2 or more categories. That these "perfect" items are rare from loot-gen doesn't matter because they will accumulate over time and make 99% of the loot-gen stuff obsolete.

Every time I see an item at level 14 that is stat +4, some other thing IV I wonder why the loot system has become so broken that the item is useless.

Items should never have been created with a higher stat level than Tomes allowed at the same level (and I know they didn't use to scale originally either).

So at level 14 we should be talking +3/+4 tops for attribute stats with +3 also allowing additional effects although not IV or III, more like II.

A huge part of the lower level power creep is that after level 13 or so all characters are +6 equipment bonus to all necessary stats and Speed VI and 100% Fortification and Natural Armor +6 and Deflection +6, etc. It's not that you're likely to have that off of random drops during your first life but between multiple lives and the AH and the Shard Exchange it's your fault if you don't have it.

Rant mode off. I love the game but the power creep is hurting it a lot.

[ArekDorun]

All gear that is loot-gen should be better balanced than it currently is. For anybody who has been playing for awhile nothing short of the topout attribute at a given level is acceptable and that's because wondrous craftsmanship and other effects make it possible to get items that are topout in 2 or more categories. That these "perfect" items are rare from loot-gen doesn't matter because they will accumulate over time and make 99% of the loot-gen stuff obsolete.

Every time I see an item at level 14 that is stat +4, some other thing IV I wonder why the loot system has become so broken that the item is useless.

Items should never have been created with a higher stat level than Tomes allowed at the same level (and I know they didn't use to scale originally either).

So at level 14 we should be talking +3/+4 tops for attribute stats with +3 also allowing additional effects although not IV or III, more like II.

A huge part of the lower level power creep is that after level 13 or so all characters are +6 equipment bonus to all necessary stats and Speed VI and 100% Fortification and Natural Armor +6 and Deflection +6, etc. It's not that you're likely to have that off of random drops during your first life but between multiple lives and the AH and the Shard Exchange it's your fault if you don't have it.

Rant mode off. I love the game but the power creep is hurting it a lot.

Ok...I think you're gonna hate what the new loot system does for "power creep" - it's not creep, it's more like an explosion. I'm gonna use Cannith Crafting values for the example here, as the values are pretty similar. Currently, at ML13 you can get an Ability +6 of Skill +1 item (not counting Masterful/Wondrous craftsmanship). Under the new system, this same item would not only be ML 10, but would be something like Ability +6 of Skill +13. Not only that, but the item could have an Insightful Skill or Ability bonus on it in addition to the other effects.

I do like the new system, since it makes it easier to find the stat items you need at the proper levels. I do not, however, like the fact that the new random loot is going to invalidate almost all old named gear that isn't a weapon or armor (as in what goes in the "body" slot). Many named weapons are just too nice to be overshadowed by this, and the new system does very little to help random armor, tho there might be some cases where random armor is better than named (mostly when you've badly outleveled the named piece).

Because of this, the devs need to give consideration to revamping old named loot, even if they have to do it at a rate of 1-2 quests per update, starting with raid loot. Either that, or increase the ML/QL needed to get various enhancement levels.

--ArekDorun

[KoobTheProud]

Ok...I think you're gonna hate what the new loot system does for "power creep" - it's not creep, it's more like an explosion. I'm gonna use Cannith Crafting values for the example here, as the values are pretty similar. Currently, at ML13 you can get an Ability +6 of Skill +1 item (not counting Masterful/Wondrous craftsmanship). Under the new system, this same item would not only be ML 10, but would be something like Ability +6 of Skill +13. Not only that, but the item could have an Insightful Skill or Ability bonus on it in addition to the other effects.

I do like the new system, since it makes it easier to find the stat items you need at the proper levels. I do not, however, like the fact that the new random loot is going to invalidate almost all old named gear that isn't a weapon or armor (as in what goes in the "body" slot). Many named weapons are just too nice to be overshadowed by this, and the new system does very little to help random armor, tho there might be some cases where random armor is better than named (mostly when you've badly outleveled the named piece).

Because of this, the devs need to give consideration to revamping old named loot, even if they have to do it at a rate of 1-2 quests per update, starting with raid loot. Either that, or increase the ML/QL needed to get various enhancement levels.

--ArekDorun

I don't doubt that the power creep will continue indefinitely I just think it makes the game worse every time it iterates.

High powered lower level items allow people to easily solo, which is understandable because obviously Turbine wants as many people playing as possible and so you want people to solo easily and stay with the game.

However said people get up near endgame and have no idea how to group for the content that most people run at that level. The fact that they had over-powered gear early on means they were effectively playing a different game than DDO end game.

Veteran players have uber-powered gear early on and really understand the game so they have no incentive at all to group with new players and maybe teach them some of the things they'll need down the road.

Veteran players have a shrinking but still viable group of players to play with at end game and do not want to be bothered with teaching new players what they need to know given that wipe rates are 15% with all vet groups and 50% with just a few new players along, because the endgame content is hard just like the vets asked for.

That's what power creep does to a game like DDO. It enables everybody to have a perfectly nice time playing by themselves until endgame and then it segregates the population into very powerful vets and hopelessly out-classed new players.

[maddong]

Update 19 invalidated a lot of named loot (dream visor anyone?) and since then populations have been drifting down. This was following the hugely popular update 17 (gianthold).

[RobbinB]

1. Legendary content has to be challenging. Preferably with strategy (healing curse, stunning, crippling, ignoring PRR, antimagic) instead of just upping damage/hp for the 10 minute beatdown where you get one shot repeatedly.

2. Make the buddy xp bonus permanent in some fashion (reduce it or decrease bravery bonus). It is currently faster to get solo xp with dungeon scaling. No one would be playing this game after all these years if it was a single player game. The grouping screen is the heart of the game and buddy bonus xp is a time machine.

3. ML20 +9 stat items (especially if insight +4 is also dropping at that level) should not be dropping. This is Update 19 all over again.

4. ITR/ETR should stay at level 28. Our best chance at growing the player base is having people come back to the game and no one wants to come back to 25% more grind.

Check-check-check-check.

That these things seem so obvious and yet will not happen is seriously depressing.

[Marshal_Lannes]

No one leaves a game over items. People leave games because they become bored with the game. How do you keep players with god like powers from not getting bored? In D&D you started a new character. There is simply no challenge for a player with god like powers the system was never designed to provide it. I would bet that if you looked at a graph from the start of DDO until now the explosion of character power has severely spiked in the last couple years. Why? It seems the decision has been made to create a monty haul campaign to keep players interested. This works for a while cause everyone wants cool items and power, but very soon the players become bored with it so you have to keep adding more (insightful damage!). This simply cannot be sustained.

[Gremmlynn]

No one leaves a game over items. People leave games because they become bored with the game. How do you keep players with god like powers from not getting bored? In D&D you started a new character. There is simply no challenge for a player with god like powers the system was never designed to provide it. I would bet that if you looked at a graph from the start of DDO until now the explosion of character power has severely spiked in the last couple years. Why? It seems the decision has been made to create a monty haul campaign to keep players interested. This works for a while cause everyone wants cool items and power, but very soon the players become bored with it so you have to keep adding more (insightful damage!). This simply cannot be sustained.If they don't do that, then they have to add content to change things up or players become equally bored. That is also something that cannot be sustained economically.

[SirValentine]

No one leaves a game over items.


I'm afraid you don't get to speak for everyone in the whole wide world.

U29 has me seriously considering doing just that. Not the level cap raise. Not new feats. Not Green Steel. Not Legendary. Not even mob saves and the state of casters. Not higher-powered items as levels 28-30.

The stupid new random loot system that's going to invalidate a decade worth of named loot across all the lower levels.

It's not about the whole game being static, but there's a subjective difference between putting an-even-shinier shiny further out of reach to encourage you onward, versus smashing the shiny already in your hands. The latter is very disheartening. What U19 and some more recent updates did retail, U29 is about to do wholesale.

[maddong]

So far the only thing they are addressing is #1 and they are doing it wrong by just upping dps so things one shot you.

It is a shame because just like update 17 this one is a rare opportunity to grow the game.

[Marshal_Lannes]

I'm afraid you don't get to speak for everyone in the whole wide world.

U29 has me seriously considering doing just that..

I doubt it. You will hem and haw and whine but you aren't going to leave over items. No one leaves a MMO cause of this item or that. They get bored or it isn't fun for them anymore.

[Angelic-council]

I doubt it. You will hem and haw and whine but you aren't going to leave over items. No one leaves a MMO cause of this item or that. They get bored or it isn't fun for them anymore.

Yeah. Marshal is right.

There is little we can do with our suggestions. DDO is an old game, no surprise if anyone leaves once U29 hit the game. It's just matter of time and moment. People who play this game for a year or 2+ already know how turbine update their game. It's not like they are dumb and never discuss this subject on how to get more people and make DDO fun. The thing is, when we request something just like what OP did, we don't think about concequences and how that would affect this game in a long run. There is also a limit on what developers can do. I believe it's good that we share our opinion and build good thread, but.. just don't get dissapointed. Like, I personally warned turbine and nicely suggested something. It was denied and as I expected, I see more negatives than positive today (if I put nicely).

[zyp]

The discussion about items got me seriously thinking about this. Much (but certainly not all) of the game is about getting items. We loot them, farm them, trade them, craft them, collect them, glamer them and we even use them in the game (sometimes) to do questing and stuff. Items are not a trivial issue by any stretch. But would I leave the game over them? Well... yes I would if there wasn't anything else particularly compelling me to stick around.

Someone a few years back posted a little video about the issue of power creep by someone who seemed to be an expert on the subject. One of the examples he gave was from a trading card game where the ownership of the game changed hands and the new owners, hoping to spur sales, put out a new set with much more powerful cards than any of the previous sets. Unfortunately it had the opposite effect because all the long-time loyal players who had spent years collecting their 'items' just said 'Well, heck, now seems like a pretty good time to quit playing'.

[Thrudh]

/signed. You don't expand content or player experience by repeatedly destroying previous content and pulling the rug out from under players.

More powerful gear at the new higher levels in one thing. Completely invalidating a decade's worth of gear development across all the existing levels is something entirely different. And something very bad.

I 100% agree.