Elite RiP

[Pyed-Pyper]

Reaper is a difficulty tier higher than Elite.
Reaper difficulty will be available at any level.
Reaper rewards include substantial, exclusive power creep.
Reaper is the new elite.

Meet the new hamster wheel. This one goes to eleven.

[silinteresting]

Reaper is a difficulty tier higher than Elite.
Reaper difficulty will be available at any level.
Reaper rewards include substantial, exclusive power creep.
Reaper is the new elite.

Meet the new hamster wheel. This one goes to eleven.

and your point is what?.

your friend sil :)

[Blastyswa]

Reaper is a difficulty tier higher than Elite.
Reaper difficulty will be available at any level.
Reaper rewards include substantial, exclusive power creep.
Reaper is the new elite.

Meet the new hamster wheel. This one goes to eleven.

1 I'm fine with, since the intent of Reaper was to provide additional challenge.
2 I think is frankly silly, I was personally expecting Reaper to be at max level and only enter-able by max levels. If people want more difficulty at low levels, that's what shortmanning chrono at 5 is for, or level 6 elite Devil Assault.
3 Isn't confirmed yet is it? If it's similar to mythic bonuses for rewards I'm not too worried about it, if it's similar to past-lives then stop, hamster time.
4 Yea

[Sam-u-r-eye]

1 I'm fine with, since the intent of Reaper was to provide additional challenge.
2 I think is frankly silly, I was personally expecting Reaper to be at max level and only enter-able by max levels. If people want more difficulty at low levels, that's what shortmanning chrono at 5 is for, or level 6 elite Devil Assault.
3 Isn't confirmed yet is it? If it's similar to mythic bonuses for rewards I'm not too worried about it, if it's similar to past-lives then stop, hamster time.
4 Yea

2 it is available while leveling.
3 Rewards are confirmed. I wouldn't call them OP since, especially at low levels, they aren't worth much.

[Pyed-Pyper]

1 I'm fine with, since the intent of Reaper was to provide additional challenge.
2 I think is frankly silly, I was personally expecting Reaper to be at max level and only enter-able by max levels. If people want more difficulty at low levels, that's what shortmanning chrono at 5 is for, or level 6 elite Devil Assault.
3 Isn't confirmed yet is it? If it's similar to mythic bonuses for rewards I'm not too worried about it, if it's similar to past-lives then stop, hamster time.
4 Yea

It appears to be a craftable (onto any gear), stacking, +2 to all stats.

[Pyed-Pyper]

and your point is what?.

your friend sil :)

My point is, my friend, that Reaper is the new Elite. My point is, my friend, that Reaper (as SSG plans to implement it) is a bad idea.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

It appears to be a craftable (onto any gear), stacking, +2 to all stats.

No. The bonus *drops* and excludes craftable loot. "Craftable." Not sure exactly what that includes but its not "craftable."

Relevant thread: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/482254-Reaper-and-Champion-Lamannia-pass

Couple of the interesting quotes. Keep in mind that this is in LAMMA:


The Reaper typed bonuses on items work just like a second Mythic type bonus. In that you can get one in each item slot and they stack with each other. They apply in all content regardless of difficulty.


Each item with a Reaper bonus will have one of:
- "Reaper Power" (Melee Power, Ranged Power, Spell Power) +3
- PRR +3
- MRR +3
- All Attributes +2 (These only appear on helmets and thus you can not stack multiple all attributes Reaper bonuses)

EDIT: Messed up the bonuses originally. Fixed.


Sure. There's no reason not to lay out the reward system. It's there to incentivize people to play Reaper. The reason to hold back info on actual Reaper mechanics is A: For it to be an exploratory process of playing to find the best ways to counter things as opposed to simply theory crafting. and B: To make sure people are giving feedback on the difficulty through actual experience rather than just guessing based off of numbers. Neither of those things apply to the rewards system.



This is a good question that I completely forgot to caveat: When I say that Reaper Bonuses (and Mythic for that matter) can now be found on all named items that drop as quest loot that (to my recollection while at home away from notes/documentation) specifically excludes named items that can be upgraded via crafting because that would have, as you suspected, caused the bonuses to be removed which is an undesirable headache.

I will amend the original statement to reflect this.

[Blastyswa]

It appears to be a craftable (onto any gear), stacking, +2 to all stats.

I hadn't seen that post originally, from what I can tell it looks like there will be a +2 stacking bonus to all stats strictly on helm items acquired from reaper quests (Legendary Pansophic Circlet and Legendary Executioner's Helm anyone?), with the other items only able to get +3 versions of the same type of bonuses as mythic, which stack with mythic. So while a +6 reaper mythic spinneret is nice, or +6 reaper mythic Legendary boots of the Devil Commander (So much stacking PRR!!!), I wouldn't call it a dramatic or overpowering increase in power. The +2 stacking bonus to stats is a little power creepy, but its nothing compared to what I was afraid it might be (Say, +9001 augments of superior gamewinning).

[vryxnr]

Well, I cannot resist...
... (Say, +9001 augments of superior gamewinning).

http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/88/88f0f2bf2507cf431bf6b63e9f15a4e5b4205bd1ce57f99501 6c5e75265093a5.jpg

[Pyed-Pyper]

It appears to be a craftable (onto any gear), stacking, +2 to all stats.


No. The bonus *drops* and excludes craftable loot. "Craftable." Not sure exactly what that includes but its not "craftable."

Relevant thread: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/482254-Reaper-and-Champion-Lamannia-pass

Couple of the interesting quotes. Keep in mind that this is in LAMMA:

You misread what I wrote, but it appears I misunderstood the dev's intent as well. It was my read that the bonus could be added to loot (named or otherwise), thus 'craftable'. You seem to be saying the bonus will appear as an extant bonus on named loot. If the latter is the case, then any quest with a named helm would seem to be a candidate for the stacking bonus. I'll be looking forward to Reaper The Crypt of Gerard Dryden (http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Battleworn_Helm), for nice power creepy TR gear.

However, if the bonus is in the style of the mythic crafting of Slavers, then it is indeed a 'craftable' stacking +2 bonus to stats. Since the dev's seem oblivious to the problems associated of power creep, if this is the case, then I don't think it is unreasonable to assume that it will have a 0 ML factor. Once again, some nice power creepy TR gear.

Since I first heard about Reaper, every single concern I had regarding its implementation has either been verified or turned out to be worse than I imagined. Yes, a number of people are invested in this happening, or at least invested in what they envision Reaper will be. My worry is that it will end badly, a flaming sack of cow patties on the doorstep of the game that I started playing many years ago. Maybe a few will be happy with Reaper, but I fear that a much more substantial portion of the game population will not be.

And when that happens, the dev's will be patting themselves on the back for a job well done, because the nearly 100% of the (now much smaller game population) loves Reaper.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

Y

Since I first heard about Reaper, every single concern I had regarding its implementation has either been verified or turned out to be worse than I imagined.

wait
lol

I think you're being silly dude but am not gonna nitpick.
have fun with DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

[Pyed-Pyper]

wait
lol

I think you're being silly dude but am not gonna nitpick.
have fun with DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

Does each one of the "O"'s represent something, server consolidation threads, perhaps?

Or did I miss where this game is growing by leaps and bounds?

[GoMeansGreen]

i like it.
someday there will be something more deadly than reaper (lol, sorry, pun not intended)

[Jetrule]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClQcUyhoxTg

[Dragavon]

And why is it a problem if people want to play on reaper instead of elite?

[AbyssalMage]

Reaper is a difficulty tier higher than Elite.
Reaper difficulty will be available at any level.
Reaper rewards include substantial, exclusive power creep.
Reaper is the new elite.

Meet the new hamster wheel. This one goes to eleven.
So they gave into the whining forumites :(
I was fine with the idea of Reaper until they added Power Creep in spades into the game with their implementation of Reaper. Yeah, Reaper is the new "Elite" and Elite will now just be a casualty like Hard and Normal. I guess they didn't hear the community "scream" that it shouldn't provide Power Creep, just consumables, cosmetics, and "leader boards." No! They had to give players a reason to run Reaper. Well, they got their wish. Now the question is how many players are they going to lose because they have alienated a section of their player base? Too bad, some of the developers were good people. Pink Slips suck, but at least this time, it was their own doing and not Turbine or WB. I want to feel empathy for them but currently having a hard time after this confirmation.

[Kebtid]

If you cant complete reaper then don't play it.
It is optional, same as elite is.
You have the choice to play it or not to play it.

I see it as a refreshment for the game that obviously became to freaking easy.
I like it and welcome the change as long as i can put some effort and twork into tring again.
Its absurdly dumb that i can zerg any content from 1-30 at elite/epic elite/legendary elite as most builds nowadys while provididing selfhealing dps and whatever is needed at the same time.
Its a mmorpg with no many players at the same time in same instance part in it but 1 player that is utter generalist that can complete anything.
Reaper will be good, thinking otherwise makes you just a selfish person who doesnt want others to have challenge, but want your safety zone to stay safe and to feel great about yourself that you are completing hardest content with 0 teamplay skill.

[FranOhmsford]

If you cant complete reaper then don't play it.
It is optional, same as elite is.
You have the choice to play it or not to play it.

Oh please stop with this disingenuous argument!


Prior to BB being introduced I was already running mainly Elite, I was already VIP and so no longer needed to run Normal or Hard at all! The ONLY reason to run N/H for me was to open Elite up! {In Heroics that is}

Now the difference was that in those days I would generally run a quest 3 levels above the base level so Tear at 10, WK at 15, Orchard at 17 in Groups, If I was soloing I could be 4,5,6 or even more levels above the base quest level.

It wasn't Elite that caused me to have problems it was Elite BB!
And even worse the Player Base's insistence upon a quest being IP before anyone would join!
So I had to not only be able to keep myself alive in Groups at BB Level, I had to also be able to SOLO at BB Level before I could get a Group in the first place!

The problem with Reaper giving out more bonuses than Elite is that players will gravitate to it!
Any player that is capable of getting a Group for Reaper will run Reaper NOT Elite!

Look at Epics right now - VoN 3, Spies, WK and a few others - These quests get run generally on EH/EN for first time bonus on each per day OR sometimes EN/EN for sheer speed - Because the reward is purely and simply XP and the difference in speed for EN or EH vs EE is far larger than the difference in XP for many players!
Now look at the Epics that actually reward running on EE - Any Saga Quest! These don't often get run on any other difficulty! Even players like me, I'm generally not running Saga Quests at Lvl 20 but at Lvl 30 and on EE!

It may take 6 months or even longer for let's say 50% of Puggers to be Reaper 1 Capable {25% will be Reaper 1 Capable right from the start!} but once we get to that point those players left running Elite just like those players running Hard or Normal in Heroics right now WILL BE UNABLE TO FIND GROUPS FOR THOSE DIFFICULTIES!
And sorry but I still hear about newbies and casuals failing to solo Hard or even Normal quite regularly! I ran with a TR just the other day who was surprised we were going to run Kobold Assault Elite at Lvl 2,3 and 4 {there were 3 of us}!

Right now I'm seeing EN/EN gradually being subsumed by EH/EN because so many players have become EH capable!
It won't be long {Especially with Reaper being added} before EN goes the way of Heroic Normal! - Many of us are worried Reaper won't just do this to EN though, It's that it will also do it to Heroic ELITE!

[Kebtid]

Oh please stop with this disingenuous argument!


Prior to BB being introduced I was already running mainly Elite, I was already VIP and so no longer needed to run Normal or Hard at all! The ONLY reason to run N/H for me was to open Elite up! {In Heroics that is}

Now the difference was that in those days I would generally run a quest 3 levels above the base level so Tear at 10, WK at 15, Orchard at 17 in Groups, If I was soloing I could be 4,5,6 or even more levels above the base quest level.

It wasn't Elite that caused me to have problems it was Elite BB!
And even worse the Player Base's insistence upon a quest being IP before anyone would join!
So I had to not only be able to keep myself alive in Groups at BB Level, I had to also be able to SOLO at BB Level before I could get a Group in the first place!

The problem with Reaper giving out more bonuses than Elite is that players will gravitate to it!
Any player that is capable of getting a Group for Reaper will run Reaper NOT Elite!

Look at Epics right now - VoN 3, Spies, WK and a few others - These quests get run generally on EH/EN for first time bonus on each per day OR sometimes EN/EN for sheer speed - Because the reward is purely and simply XP and the difference in speed for EN or EH vs EE is far larger than the difference in XP for many players!
Now look at the Epics that actually reward running on EE - Any Saga Quest! These don't often get run on any other difficulty! Even players like me, I'm generally not running Saga Quests at Lvl 20 but at Lvl 30 and on EE!

It may take 6 months or even longer for let's say 50% of Puggers to be Reaper 1 Capable {25% will be Reaper 1 Capable right from the start!} but once we get to that point those players left running Elite just like those players running Hard or Normal in Heroics right now WILL BE UNABLE TO FIND GROUPS FOR THOSE DIFFICULTIES!
And sorry but I still hear about newbies and casuals failing to solo Hard or even Normal quite regularly! I ran with a TR just the other day who was surprised we were going to run Kobold Assault Elite at Lvl 2,3 and 4 {there were 3 of us}!

Right now I'm seeing EN/EN gradually being subsumed by EH/EN because so many players have become EH capable!
It won't be long {Especially with Reaper being added} before EN goes the way of Heroic Normal! - Many of us are worried Reaper won't just do this to EN though, It's that it will also do it to Heroic ELITE!


Fran, there is a difference between peoples playsytles.

It is not a bad thing, you wont feel it, you wont do it, the rewards from it dont affect you, you can look at it as the ultimate challenge toward which you will want to improve yourself and find players who you can cooperate with to finish it.
Every single and i mean every single mmorpg out there has the Higher skill and teamwork needed = Better reward system implemented and it works great since it pushed people to improve.
Why do you think wow is so popular?
Did you ever actually play a game a mmorpg where teamwork and perfect flawless execution of ones role meant wipe or win?
In ddo we are allowed to make many many mistakes and we can still complete.
This game needs to change from its safety all is completable mentality.
Why do you think they are adding reaper in the first place?
Because devs realized that something is wrong and something needs to change, they have memories how hard the game was 8 years ago.
And most important is, we had more players back then when this game presented a challenge for its players.

[Dragavon]

I read your post Fran, and everything you say is complete rubbish.

I solo everything in heroic levels on elite with BB, and only a few quests are difficult to do. Only 3 quests come to mind, that is Ritual Sacrifice where the suicidal wizard will get himself killed if I can not kill mobs fast enough, Ghosts of perdition where the two brothers are tricky to solo without one of them leashing, and Delerium where herding beds is tricky with mobs coming at them from both directions. So for those I may join a pug or solo on hard after pausing my streak.

Or if there is a guildie with a character at the same level we will run together, then no problems at all.

I am very much looking forward to trying out how many skulls I can survive. The challenge will be fun :)

[sk3l3t0r]

Reaper is a difficulty tier higher than Elite.
Reaper difficulty will be available at any level.
Reaper rewards include substantial, exclusive power creep.
Reaper is the new elite.

Meet the new hamster wheel. This one goes to eleven.

Unless there is additional favour added with Reaper I disagree with #4 that reaper will be the new elite. In my experience, the majority of people run on elite for max favour rewards, once and done. Unless this update includes a revision to the favour reward system I don't see Elite being abandoned. Majority of players still struggle with Elite in PUGs, it's not going anywhere anytime soon.

How do I know this?

it's simple, look at the LFM panel at any given time OR spend a decent amount of time posting LFMs and taking anyone that joins. Heroics are EBB from 1 - 20, I rarely see LFMs in Heroics on a lower difficulty for leveling. In Epics, one of two things are going on for leveling:

1) Dailies (EN / EH), fastest path of least resistance for going 21 - 30
2) Sagas, people like me prefer the EE sagas over the dailies because of the variety in the quests (not the same 4 - 5 quests repeated daily then logoff) and because of the higher level of challenge involved.

Now if the Favour reward system was polished and favour added to Reaper, then yes I would agree Elite is dead, otherwise I am not really going to be running reaper while leveling, only when I hit cap and if I actually stay at cap for more than an hour and not TR. I need to be convinced that staying at cap is worthwhile, currently it isn't for me. Maybe Reaper may change this impression. Who knows, because every time I am free to try out Lama, the server is offline. So I will have to wait until it goes live to decide. The next Lama build will only be up for 2 whole days...

My impression and desire for Reaper was for something to do at cap, on a fully geared out, optimized toon that is the result of years of farming PLs, gear and tweaking the most out of your build. The concept of applying reaper at all levels seems like wasted time and effort because of the points above when it comes to leveling and the lack of revision of the favour reward system.

[FranOhmsford]

I solo everything in heroic levels on elite with BB, and only a few quests are difficult to do. Only 3 quests come to mind, that is Ritual Sacrifice where the suicidal wizard will get himself killed if I can not kill mobs fast enough, Ghosts of perdition where the two brothers are tricky to solo without one of them leashing, and Delerium where herding beds is tricky with mobs coming at them from both directions. So for those I may join a pug or solo on hard after pausing my streak.

Or if there is a guildie with a character at the same level we will run together, then no problems at all.

I am very much looking forward to trying out how many skulls I can survive. The challenge will be fun :)

Tomb of the Burning Heart
Xorian Cypher
Desert Caravan on many Builds
From Beyond the Grave
There aren't a huge amount of quests that are extremely mechanically difficult to solo and none that are actively impossible to solo anymore {Dual-Boxing being allowed now and Goldseal Hirelings being available}. But just because you solo 99% of Heroic Elite Quests at BB Level doesn't mean everyone can - As I pointed out I can solo 75% of Heroic Elite Quests at BB Level but contrary to what many of these forums seem to believe there are a heck of a lot of players in DDO not yet at even my low level!



When Groups are going to be highest difficulty only then people are going to gravitate to that highest difficulty!
The problem is that if say I have trouble soloing EN GoP but the only groups I can find are EE {Luckily they're not for that quest right now} or in future Reaper then I don't have a Choice - I can't Solo it at all full stop {I can but this is an example OK}.

How about a Quest I actually cannot Solo - Through a Mirror Darkly - In fact the only times I run that quest any more are when I'm specifically allowed to Pike until the endfight!

Or maybe What Goes Up - A Nightmare quest that there is no point running on anything other than EE {And generally I use my VIP+AS Skips on WGU and Mirror} - In fact it is highly DETRIMENTAL to run either of these two quests on a difficulty other than EE if you are in the middle of a Saga as upgrading costs more AS than skipping entirely!
Heck I skip Heroic WGU and Mirror never mind Epic!


I'm already seeing and have been for some time EN/EN Dailies becoming EH/EN as more and more players find they're capable at EH Level.
At some point EH/EN will become EE/EH and those fresh to Epics will no longer be able to find groups for EN!
And that's if it doesn't become Reaper 1/EE or Reaper 2/1 etc.


I don't want to HAVE to Solo!
I want to have a CHOICE!
And sorry but IF the Choice is between Soloing Elite and joining a Group for Reaper 1 then there are going to be a lot of players not truly Reaper capable joining those Reaper Groups! Especially for less popular or more mechanically difficult to solo quests!

[FranOhmsford]

My impression and desire for Reaper was for something to do at cap, on a fully geared out, optimized toon that is the result of years of farming PLs, gear and tweaking the most out of your build. The concept of applying reaper at all levels seems like wasted time and effort because of the points above when it comes to leveling and the lack of revision of the favour reward system.

Uh that's Legendary

The fact that the Devs messed up Legendary and didn't level gate it {well gave it the exact same Lvl 20 gate as Epics} is a problem of it's own.

Reaper and Legendary are not the same thing.

Reaper should have been {and still is in a weaksauce way} a CHALLENGE difficulty for Multi-Completionists bored of levelling up on Elite.

Unfortunately the Devs have seemingly decided to make the entry point - Reaper 1 - way too easy comparatively and I foresee within 6 months 50-75% of Pugs being Reaper Only!





EDIT:
Hey...How's about removing Reaper 1-4 and 6,8 & 9.
Just leaving Reaper 5 {Now 1}, 7 {Now 2} and 10 {Now 3}?

[sk3l3t0r]

If you cant complete reaper then don't play it.
It is optional, same as elite is.
You have the choice to play it or not to play it.

I see it as a refreshment for the game that obviously became to freaking easy.
I like it and welcome the change as long as i can put some effort and twork into tring again.
Its absurdly dumb that i can zerg any content from 1-30 at elite/epic elite/legendary elite as most builds nowadys while provididing selfhealing dps and whatever is needed at the same time.
Its a mmorpg with no many players at the same time in same instance part in it but 1 player that is utter generalist that can complete anything.
Reaper will be good, thinking otherwise makes you just a selfish person who doesnt want others to have challenge, but want your safety zone to stay safe and to feel great about yourself that you are completing hardest content with 0 teamplay skill.

I am all for for more difficulty, they didn't need to create a new level to accomplish this, they could of used the existing levels and made Elite, you know actually Elite...

I will run reaper, maybe at cap, but not while leveling because it provides no additional favour rewards. It's that simple, favour was my carrot. Challenge? How will reaper become challenging if the gear you pull makes the difficulty easy again? Maybe in the beginning, but once people start farming out that reaper gear and re-tool their toons they will be right back at square one.

i agree more difficulty was needed, the implementation plan was poorly thought out and doomed to fail within a few months of going live. Then we will be right back to where we are now...only with an additional difficulty level that eventually everyone will be able to complete easily.

Challenge is only fun as long as it remains challenging, once it is no longer challenging people will go right back to the hamster wheel TR'ing or shouting for more difficulty...power creep is the new hamster wheel.

[sk3l3t0r]

Uh that's Legendary

The fact that the Devs messed up Legendary and didn't level gate it {well gave it the exact same Lvl 20 gate as Epics} is a problem of it's own.

Reaper and Legendary are not the same thing.

Reaper should have been {and still is in a weaksauce way} a CHALLENGE difficulty for Multi-Completionists bored of levelling up on Elite.

Unfortunately the Devs have seemingly decided to make the entry point - Reaper 1 - way too easy comparatively and I foresee within 6 months 50-75% of Pugs being Reaper Only!





EDIT:
Hey...How's about removing Reaper 1-4 and 6,8 & 9.
Just leaving Reaper 5 {Now 1}, 7 {Now 2} and 10 {Now 3}?


I never stated reaper and legendary are the same now did I? I also never stated anything about either of the two legendary raids. My focus is the favour reward system and how reaper fits into it...otherwise I have no use for reaper unless it's to challenge my level 30 toon with all the gear and PLs coming together on an optimised build to run any level quest in reaper difficulty accessible only by level 30 toons.

I never wanted or expected reaper to be another level to be used for leveling 1 - 30, I wanted reaper to be level gated at 30 only.

[Kebtid]

I am all for for more difficulty, they didn't need to create a new level to accomplish this, they could of used the existing levels and made Elite, you know actually Elite...

I will run reaper, maybe at cap, but not while leveling because it provides no additional favour rewards. It's that simple, favour was my carrot. Challenge? How will reaper become challenging if the gear you pull makes the difficulty easy again? Maybe in the beginning, but once people start farming out that reaper gear and re-tool their toons they will be right back at square one.

i agree more difficulty was needed, the implementation plan was poorly thought out and doomed to fail within a few months of going live. Then we will be right back to where we are now...only with an additional difficulty level that eventually everyone will be able to complete easily.

Challenge is only fun as long as it remains challenging, once it is no longer challenging people will go right back to the hamster wheel TR'ing or shouting for more difficulty...power creep is the new hamster wheel.

One 1 thing i agree, the most challenging things i lived through in many many different mmos i played always was always a multi task specific challenge that required multiple people to do specific roles in sync with almost flawless execution times.
(in a game i played we took 2 and half weeks to complete 1 raid and we didnt finish it mainly because we had to adapt strat and practice teamplay to such flawless execution to actually make it through the endboss battle phase, it was extraordinary fun, rage and the feeling when we finished was priceless).

The thing i agree is, that changing mechanics and providing entirely different content that is forcing roles and tasks on people might have actually been the correct approach.
We really didnt get any of such content in past years.
But if the design of reaper is such as that you need tank/dps/healer/cc then i also want that.
IF they shift our focus from solobraindead speedzerg to party play, then they can add content with party play focus.
You need to change our mentality first and then you can change the game slowly.
I want generalist builds to disappear from ddo, dnd was never meant to be a "make a über toon and complete everything" kind of game, ddo should not be that as well

[sk3l3t0r]

One 1 thing i agree, the most challenging things i lived through in many many different mmos i played always was always a multi task specific challenge that required multiple people to do specific roles in sync with almost flawless execution times.
(in a game i played we took 2 and half weeks to complete 1 raid and we didnt finish it mainly because we had to adapt strat and practice teamplay to such flawless execution to actually make it through the endboss battle phase, it was extraordinary fun, rage and the feeling when we finished was priceless).

The thing i agree is, that changing mechanics and providing entirely different content that is forcing roles and tasks on people might have actually been the correct approach.
We really didnt get any of such content in past years.
But if the design of reaper is such as that you need tank/dps/healer/cc then i also want that.
IF they shift our focus from solobraindead speedzerg to party play, then they can add content with party play focus.
You need to change our mentality first and then you can change the game slowly.
I want generalist builds to disappear from ddo, dnd was never meant to be a "make a über toon and complete everything" kind of game, ddo should not be that as well

See for me in my MMO experience I always was into PVP, that is real challenge IMO, a human is much more capable than an AI in terms of offering challenge. When I came to DDO, a PVE MMO, it didn't take long to figure out the game mechanics and how to beat the AI. Building a toon however was much more difficult to figure out but in time was something I learned.

I fully agree we need roles, and that a group should have cooperation at making the quest / raid successfully complete-able, that is fun because it takes cooperation. But not all content should be like that, there are times I want to solo and just go at my own pace, some quest should still be that way. We need a balance between the two to cater to the larger game population.

I still don't like forced grouping, but I don't see Reaper as forced grouping yet because there is no additional favour reward. It's optional to play at reaper level, I personally don't think it should have been applied during he leveling process for my own reasons, but it's too late now and we have what we have. It will be good for some, I may play at that difficulty level from time to time, but I will still be doing EBB because gear is not my carrot.

I still see Elite as the go-to difficulty for now because it offer the max favour reward, decent difficulty for a good number of newer players and the more casual player types and good xp because of the bravery streak. This however can all change if reaper offers way better XP / favour rewards over elite during leveling.

There are many types of players in DDO, not all are after challenge, I would dare say a good sub-set of players in the community want their easy buttons otherwise we wouldn't have the things we have in the store if that wasn't the case.

[FranOhmsford]

I never stated reaper and legendary are the same now did I? I also never stated anything about either of the two legendary raids. My focus is the favour reward system and how reaper fits into it...otherwise I have no use for reaper unless it's to challenge my level 30 toon with all the gear and PLs coming together on an optimised build to run any level quest in reaper difficulty accessible only by level 30 toons.

I never wanted or expected reaper to be another level to be used for leveling 1 - 30, I wanted reaper to be level gated at 30 only.

You missed my point.


Legendary SHOULD have been level gated at 30 {or maybe 28} and have been the difficulty you want.


You're conflating Legendary and Reaper into one and the same thing!

There would be no need for what you're asking from Reaper if Legendary had been Level Gated properly!

[silinteresting]

Oh please stop with this disingenuous argument!


Prior to BB being introduced I was already running mainly Elite, I was already VIP and so no longer needed to run Normal or Hard at all! The ONLY reason to run N/H for me was to open Elite up! {In Heroics that is}

Now the difference was that in those days I would generally run a quest 3 levels above the base level so Tear at 10, WK at 15, Orchard at 17 in Groups, If I was soloing I could be 4,5,6 or even more levels above the base quest level.

It wasn't Elite that caused me to have problems it was Elite BB!
And even worse the Player Base's insistence upon a quest being IP before anyone would join!
So I had to not only be able to keep myself alive in Groups at BB Level, I had to also be able to SOLO at BB Level before I could get a Group in the first place!

The problem with Reaper giving out more bonuses than Elite is that players will gravitate to it!
Any player that is capable of getting a Group for Reaper will run Reaper NOT Elite!

Look at Epics right now - VoN 3, Spies, WK and a few others - These quests get run generally on EH/EN for first time bonus on each per day OR sometimes EN/EN for sheer speed - Because the reward is purely and simply XP and the difference in speed for EN or EH vs EE is far larger than the difference in XP for many players!
Now look at the Epics that actually reward running on EE - Any Saga Quest! These don't often get run on any other difficulty! Even players like me, I'm generally not running Saga Quests at Lvl 20 but at Lvl 30 and on EE!

It may take 6 months or even longer for let's say 50% of Puggers to be Reaper 1 Capable {25% will be Reaper 1 Capable right from the start!} but once we get to that point those players left running Elite just like those players running Hard or Normal in Heroics right now WILL BE UNABLE TO FIND GROUPS FOR THOSE DIFFICULTIES!
And sorry but I still hear about newbies and casuals failing to solo Hard or even Normal quite regularly! I ran with a TR just the other day who was surprised we were going to run Kobold Assault Elite at Lvl 2,3 and 4 {there were 3 of us}!

Right now I'm seeing EN/EN gradually being subsumed by EH/EN because so many players have become EH capable!
It won't be long {Especially with Reaper being added} before EN goes the way of Heroic Normal! - Many of us are worried Reaper won't just do this to EN though, It's that it will also do it to Heroic ELITE!

im really sorry if my words seem harsh here but im all im reading from the above is myself and others are not capable of running
elite bb and the people who carry us through it will no longer be around as there running reaper now.

your friend sil :)

[sk3l3t0r]

You missed my point.


Legendary SHOULD have been level gated at 30 {or maybe 28} and have been the difficulty you want.


You're conflating Legendary and Reaper into one and the same thing!

There would be no need for what you're asking from Reaper if Legendary had been Level Gated properly!

No, it's the other way around, you are missing my point. I agree the legendary content was incorrectly level gated, no argument there. But why limit players to only play a handful of quests / raids at level cap when you can provide ALL content level gated to 30 for a uber difficulty requiring group play, roles, tactics, etc ...

Reaper is applied on ALL quests / Raids, it's a new difficulty level above elite, however it still should have been level gated at 30 in my opinion, You have you opinion and I have mine, both are correct, I just don't agree with yours and you don't agree with mine, neither are wrong. let's agree to disagree.

The way I envisioned how reaper should have been from a design perspective is that you add the difficulty but only make it available to toons at the peek of their ability, thus level gate it at 30 so that teams of players can play all those quests again once they are fully optimized. We don't need a new difficulty level for leveling, we needed an adjustment to difficulty in Elite to actually make it elite because it had been nerfed down to the defacto standard for leveling that is boring as heck.

If they had not of messed up Legendary (we both agree there) we would of never needed reaper because they could of called it Legendary and applied it to all quests level gated at 30.

We don't need a new difficulty for leveling, you can attest to that because by your own admission you still struggle in parts of Elite content, and you are not the only player, I see players struggling in Elite even today all the time in my LFMs.

Reaper was a wasted development effort IMO, the same darn thing that we will have with reaper could have been accomplished if Elite was Elite and people didn't cry for nerfs to the hardest difficulty in the game thus alienating the stronger players and leaving them with no challenge.

[silinteresting]

How about a Quest I actually cannot Solo - Through a Mirror Darkly - In fact the only times I run that quest any more are when I'm specifically allowed to Pike until the endfight!

Or maybe What Goes Up - A Nightmare quest that there is no point running on anything other than EE {And generally I use my VIP+AS Skips on WGU and Mirror} - In fact it is highly DETRIMENTAL to run either of these two quests on a difficulty other than EE if you are in the middle of a Saga as upgrading costs more AS than skipping entirely!
Heck I skip Heroic WGU and Mirror never mind Epic!

mirror is a 5-7 minute quest soloing. i suggest you run it on normal a few times to learn where
the orbs are and the mechanic for getting them easly. ill give you a hint stand behind the tables
where the orbs are and invis yourself.

wgu is a 20 minute quest on normal and worth over 100k xp on epic, very easy to do and worth the
xp.

fran your problem is you cant be bothered to learn things and expect to be carried through them guess
what reaper isnt for you if thats your attitude. its like before when you asked about gear and i told you
run the house c challenges you reply was i cant be bothered with that and then moaned about not being
able to have the gear others have. your problem is yourself not reaper, elite bb etc etc.

again sorry if my words seem harsh.

your friend sil :)

[sk3l3t0r]

im really sorry if my words seem harsh here but im all im reading from the above is myself and others are not capable of running
elite bb and the people who carry us through it will no longer be around as there running reaper now.

your friend sil :)

Don't worry Sil, I will still be playing Elite to help you get through it :)

[janave]

Reaper loot ideally would come in a form of different or "outside of reaper nonstacking form". This way the reaper bonuses apply to reaper, but not serving to overpower previous content even further or just twinking charsheet numbers.

So, instead of adding further ability bonuses and base*power, some reaper only buffs would make sense. I can think along the lines how the Ranger favored enemy bonuses work, maybe defense and attack vs reapers and reaper flagged enemies would make sense.

If reaper has the exact same loot incentives, the countdown starts, only matter of time when it will be the new default difficulty.

[sk3l3t0r]

mirror is a 5-7 minute quest soloing. i suggest you run it on normal a few times to learn where
the orbs are and the mechanic for getting them easly. ill give you a hint stand behind the tables
where the orbs are and invis yourself.

wgu is a 20 minute quest on normal and worth over 100k xp on epic, very easy to do and worth the
xp.

fran your problem is you cant be bothered to learn things and expect to be carried through them guess
what reaper isnt for you if thats your attitude. its like before when you asked about gear and i told you
run the house c challenges you reply was i cant be bothered with that and then moaned about not being
able to have the gear others have. your problem is yourself not reaper, elite bb etc etc.

again sorry if my words seem harsh.

your friend sil :)

I agree here, Mirror and WGU on lower difficulty offer great rewards and my two favourite quests in E-Star to run. I run them twice each life (for Heroic and Epic sagas) and at least once or twice above that on other difficulties for the XP.

[KoobTheProud]

If Reaper is playable by the majority of the community then one of two things is true:

1. SSG misunderstood what the community was asking for with Reaper. They thought it was just a request to move the cheese and amp up the rewards on a global basis.

2. DDO is now largely populated by people uninterested in challenge but addicted to the notion that they are the best anyway and need to "prove" it on a daily basis.

If Reaper is just the new Elite then both are probably true.

Save the game SSG. Moving the cheese and amping up the rewards is only going to continue the trends that have been happening for the last half decade. Trends that you monitor as well as anybody could.

I'm hoping that when Reaper is released the forums are a nonstop whinefest from people who cannot complete the difficulty level and are threatening to quit as a result. That will be the surest indicator that Reaper was actually implemented in a way that might help retain the people who really need a challenge to keep logging in.

The short-manned LE raids completed in just a few attempts were an example of the kind of content that puts a knife to an aging games throat and begins to slowly cut.

[FranOhmsford]

No, it's the other way around, you are missing my point. I agree the legendary content was incorrectly level gated, no argument there. But why limit players to only play a handful of quests / raids at level cap when you can provide ALL content level gated to 30 for a uber difficulty requiring group play, roles, tactics, etc ...

Reaper is applied on ALL quests / Raids, it's a new difficulty level above elite, however it still should have been level gated at 30 in my opinion, You have you opinion and I have mine, both are correct, I just don't agree with yours and you don't agree with mine, neither are wrong. let's agree to disagree.

The way I envisioned how reaper should have been from a design perspective is that you add the difficulty but only make it available to toons at the peek of their ability, thus level gate it at 30 so that teams of players can play all those quests again once they are fully optimized. We don't need a new difficulty level for leveling, we needed an adjustment to difficulty in Elite to actually make it elite because it had been nerfed down to the defacto standard for leveling that is boring as heck.

If they had not of messed up Legendary (we both agree there) we would of never needed reaper because they could of called it Legendary and applied it to all quests level gated at 30.

We don't need a new difficulty for leveling, you can attest to that because by your own admission you still struggle in parts of Elite content, and you are not the only player, I see players struggling in Elite even today all the time in my LFMs.

Reaper was a wasted development effort IMO, the same darn thing that we will have with reaper could have been accomplished if Elite was Elite and people didn't cry for nerfs to the hardest difficulty in the game thus alienating the stronger players and leaving them with no challenge.

So which is it?

1) You're going to ignore the dozens of people on these forums who've stated outright that Elite is too easy?
or
2) You're going to ignore the dozens of people {not just myself} on these forums who've stated outright it's quite difficult enough?

BECAUSE YOU CAN'T HAVE BOTH!!!

Buffing up Elite {along with Normal and Hard} would Hurt people like me {and I'm just the most vocal!}.
You yourself have stated your focus is Favor and I have made no bones about that also being my focus over the years - Your way would cut me off from easily 1000 Favour per Life!


Meanwhile not allowing a new difficulty over Elite for those players who find it too easy is JUST AS BAD!


Legendary and Reaper are two different things - They were never meant to be the same - And even then Anything base lvl 20 or up on Reaper will likely already be more difficult than any Lvl 32 Legendary Quest we have currently available on LE!
You will have PLENTY of Reaper Content for End-Game Play! Especially on Reaper 10!

And seriously - What would be the point of Reaper Haverdasher at Lvl 30? Or Reaper Storehouse's Secret at Lvl 30?
The Challenge should be to complete them on Reaper 10 at Lvl ONE! Not at Lvl 30!

[Qhualor]

Buffing up Elite {along with Normal and Hard} would Hurt people like me {and I'm just the most vocal!}.
You yourself have stated your focus is Favor and I have made no bones about that also being my focus over the years - Your way would cut me off from easily 1000 Favour per Life!

no it wouldn't. you are just unwilling to drop down a difficulty and run elite at a higher level if you want more favor. this proves exactly my point of player roadblocks.

[dunklezhan]

I was certainly surprised to see that any part of the reward scheme would be additional general-use power, rather than something specifically limited to Reaper.

[psykopeta]

We're carrying from few years ago a big trouble: ppl keep skipping learning curve for any dumb reason they think is ok to do so

I mean, when i joined ddo as a clr i had to wait for parties to look for a healer, or solo (which wasn't happening ofc)

I tried 1st norm to see if i was capable, same thing i did when epic gh or high road was released (and at that point itwasn't my 1st life, however it waa my 1st time running these quests)

If ppl skip the learning curve, they come to the forum whining because they deserve running at highest diff w/o having a clue about their toon(as an example ppl hitting 20 with 6/6/8 builds becaude they couldn't do anything further, but hey they deserved running elite to tr ASAP)

Remember 1st released champs? They pushed 99% population to hard and lower diffs, did ppl accept that? No, so a higher diff is needed because legendary is just any epic quest with base lvl 30 or higher, wow, supalegendary

And woth reaper will prolly happen the same, so the thread should be called rip reaper

And whoever wanrs to lvl, will prolly do hard or elite if they have a clue about what they're doing

Unless they want to come here to whine because reaper 1 skull isn't easier than elite(yup, i wrote it right lol)
DDO has so many difficulties to allow ppl fit their exact difficulty, mine can be 1 skull and yours can be 5 skulls, i don't care

The day i get better gear, playing skills, build, i could aim to 2 skulls

But u can be sure i (and nobody should) won't come to forum bragging because i must be able to play 10 skulls

That's not selfish, that's dumb trying to assume i i have same skill as best ddo players

And yup, most of the whines come from olayers who haven't even proven their skills (call it soloing a quest/raid, having ingame reputation, speed run, whatever)

Ps: fran my 1st runs in mirror and wgu were as epic toon, with guide and heroic casual lol, from that u only get more and tougher mobs(and is quite easy to remember after few runs soloing)

Ps2: the reaper loot is laughable, caring for that minimal difference is worrying, i mean, i wasn't bothering on current mythic, why would anyone bother with reaper bonus? Give something to prove they have beaten reaper 10, like serverwide reputation(max 10 per quest obviously) and make ranks for olauers and guilds

[KoobTheProud]

So which is it?

1) You're going to ignore the dozens of people on these forums who've stated outright that Elite is too easy?
or
2) You're going to ignore the dozens of people {not just myself} on these forums who've stated outright it's quite difficult enough?

BECAUSE YOU CAN'T HAVE BOTH!!!

Buffing up Elite {along with Normal and Hard} would Hurt people like me {and I'm just the most vocal!}.
You yourself have stated your focus is Favor and I have made no bones about that also being my focus over the years - Your way would cut me off from easily 1000 Favour per Life!


Meanwhile not allowing a new difficulty over Elite for those players who find it too easy is JUST AS BAD!


Legendary and Reaper are two different things - They were never meant to be the same - And even then Anything base lvl 20 or up on Reaper will likely already be more difficult than any Lvl 32 Legendary Quest we have currently available on LE!
You will have PLENTY of Reaper Content for End-Game Play! Especially on Reaper 10!

And seriously - What would be the point of Reaper Haverdasher at Lvl 30? Or Reaper Storehouse's Secret at Lvl 30?
The Challenge should be to complete them on Reaper 10 at Lvl ONE! Not at Lvl 30!

They should buff up all the difficulty levels to make the game interesting again. They should get rid of Hard and Elite streak bonus XP.

Would you really care if you were soloing on Normal if that was interesting to play and the difference in loot/XP was not particularly large?

The problem is the difficulty levels at this point have become just a gateway to faster XP and better loot and so everybody is upset when they can't play at the optimal difficulty level exactly the way they want to play.

They need to fix the game to be a real game again, not a rat pellet race to better loot and more power.

[FranOhmsford]

no it wouldn't. you are just unwilling to drop down a difficulty and run elite at a higher level if you want more favor. this proves exactly my point of player roadblocks.

That's a Lie and you know it!

Because prior to BB I had absolutely no issues running quests at a higher level for favour and I STILL run quests at higher level for favour simply because there is too much xp in the game to run them all at level!

The problem is that I cannot get any higher level than 30!

Buffing Elite to Reaper 10 Levels {or even Reaper 1} would cut me off from a large amount of Favour PERMANENTLY!



They should buff up all the difficulty levels to make the game interesting again. They should get rid of Hard and Elite streak bonus XP.

Would you really care if you were soloing on Normal if that was interesting to play and the difference in loot/XP was not particularly large?

The problem is the difficulty levels at this point have become just a gateway to faster XP and better loot and so everybody is upset when they can't play at the optimal difficulty level exactly the way they want to play.

They need to fix the game to be a real game again, not a rat pellet race to better loot and more power.

But the point is that's never going to happen - For the simple reason that the "Elite" won't allow it to happen!
They have to have their Cherry for running the higher difficulty and the sheer difference between the XP of E-BB and heck even H-BB never mind Normal makes running anything other than E-BB a waste of time and effort! {In Heroic - It's different in Epics}.

I have argued over and over again that Reaper have NO Rewards over Elite and every time I'm shouted down!


I would like this to be my last post on this subject prior to Reaper actually making it to Live.
It probably won't be but it's certainly my last post in this thread!

[Qhualor]

That's a Lie and you know it!

Because prior to BB I had absolutely no issues running quests at a higher level for favour and I STILL run quests at higher level for favour simply because there is too much xp in the game to run them all at level!

The problem is that I cannot get any higher level than 30!

Buffing Elite to Reaper 10 Levels {or even Reaper 1} would cut me off from a large amount of Favour PERMANENTLY!

and than again my point is proven about how damaging BB is affecting players leading to roadblocks. anything else you want to say to only strengthen my points?

[Chai]

With the advocacy of no better rewards firmly in place, the entitlement based advocacy of nerfing reaper down to manageable levels for even the most casual players begins.

[Chimmy]

With the advocacy of no better rewards firmly in place, the entitlement based advocacy of nerfing reaper down to manageable levels for even the most casual players begins.

My cleric/mage/hamster can't solo reaper 10, I quit the game until I can solo reaper 10 with a ham sandwich and laxatives.

Seriously **** those guys and the crappy horse they rode in on.

[Chai]

So which is it?

1) You're going to ignore the dozens of people on these forums who've stated outright that Elite is too easy?
or
2) You're going to ignore the dozens of people {not just myself} on these forums who've stated outright it's quite difficult enough?

BECAUSE YOU CAN'T HAVE BOTH!!!



Both of those can be ignored in favor of the correct feedback, which is that the adjective used to describe the setting should be accurate. When I hear "elite" I dont think "run as quickly as possible for the best XP/min in the game".

The position that elite is difficult enough might be more convincing if many of the same people visibly taking that position weren't shouting down content challenge being buffed at the same rate as power creep occurs. The more power creep occurs, and the more the vast majority of the quests challenge levels stay the same, the easier and easier elite difficulty becomes. The majority of the 1-20 game has been out creeped in power for years on end due to this relative state between content challenge and power creep. This is why reaper is needed in the lower levels.

[Wizza]

I was certainly surprised to see that any part of the reward scheme would be additional general-use power, rather than something specifically limited to Reaper.

Agree. I was hoping Reaper had only Reaper-limited rewards and/or Titles and cosmetics to show off

[Chimmy]

From what I have heard it seemed like reaper was essentially the same as elite, but just increasing the chances of elite based gear or specific quest based gear. I had not heard of an reaper specific gear or reaper gear that outweighs normal gear, it was just an increase in the chances of finding such gears, compared to the normal rates.

Whether or not that is a good or bad thing remains to be seen.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

Both of those can be ignored in favor of the correct feedback, which is that the adjective used to describe the setting should be accurate. When I hear "elite" I dont think "run as quickly as possible for the best XP/min in the game".

+1

Thank you Chai.

Most people would like to run on Hard as the default setting with Normal available to new players and Reaper as a special thing ONLY.

I believe this is, in fact, Turbine's perception since most people actually don't run on elite according to Sev.

Having the difficulty go from easy to infinitely evil is good for everyone.
That said no one needs the sword of 10 thousand truths.
Gear should be on the opposite scaling.
Decent with the scaling decreasing as the difficulty does.

The current rewards look reasonable.

[silinteresting]

Don't worry Sil, I will still be playing Elite to help you get through it :)

lol thankyou.

your friend sil :)

[icekinslayer]

...

There is absolutely no reason to play reaper mode if you don't want to play reaper mode...I don't understand how the way someone plays the game affects you in any way?

[silinteresting]

With the advocacy of no better rewards firmly in place, the entitlement based advocacy of nerfing reaper down to manageable levels for even the most casual players begins.

lol we both new this would happen. entitlement is such a ugly thought at times lol.

your friend sil :)

[AbyssalMage]

Agree. I was hoping Reaper had only Reaper-limited rewards and/or Titles and cosmetics to show off
This is what should happen. It isn't live yet so it is still possible that the developers come to their senses, even if that is 99% unlikely.

[Kebtid]

This is what should happen. It isn't live yet so it is still possible that the developers come to their senses, even if that is 99% unlikely.

In all honesty, id rather have a brag cosmetic to show off for completing xxx reaper 10 quest then a item that i need to put in bio with hyperlink to brag about.
Maybe even reaper pets or something silly.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

We haven't seen how reaper would be monetized yet.

[AzB]

There is absolutely no reason to play reaper mode if you don't want to play reaper mode...I don't understand how the way someone plays the game affects you in any way?

Only in the sense that they're further fracturing the user base and using dev resources for something I could care less about.

Beyond that, I don't care.

Personally, I would have preferred them making hard just a tad harder, like somewhere between where elite and hard are now, and making elite significantly harder. But doing so through good dungeon design and better AI, not just more mobs, more hp, and nerfing character abilities like self heal.

But that's just me.

[AbyssalMage]

There is absolutely no reason to play reaper mode if you don't want to play reaper mode...I don't understand how the way someone plays the game affects you in any way?
The reason to play Reaper is the same reason people played EE when loot was tiered. The best loot will come out of Reaper. All of the other loot was considered "inferior" by the community. Justly or unjustly, that was the feeling of the community and the division that occurred.

So if you don't understand why this will affect your game play, then you were oblivious to the community during the "tiered era" of DDO.

[AbyssalMage]

I believe this is, in fact, Turbine's perception since most people actually don't run on elite according to Sev.

This would explain why they don't see the problems in their game. They are relying on "false" data points.

[Kebtid]

Only in the sense that they're further fracturing the user base and using dev resources for something I could care less about.

Beyond that, I don't care.

Personally, I would have preferred them making hard just a tad harder, like somewhere between where elite and hard are now, and making elite significantly harder. But doing so through good dungeon design and better AI, not just more mobs, more hp, and nerfing character abilities like self heal.

But that's just me.

They have alrdy said that they used minimal dev resources for reaper, the content devs only worked half cycle on reaper system.
Check out lam dev posts before assuming that they used 140% dev resources and put all their possible effort and time into reaper.

[psykopeta]

There is absolutely no reason to play reaper mode if you don't want to play reaper mode...I don't understand how the way someone plays the game affects you in any way?

Same ppl who want reaper nerfed, want warlock nerfed, all they want is rest of ddo players play that ppl game

[Kebtid]

Same ppl who want reaper nerfed, want warlock nerfed, all they want is rest of ddo players play that ppl game

I want reaper buffed and warlock nerfed, actually i want every single other easy cheasy build nerfed.
What does that make me?

[Pyed-Pyper]

We haven't seen how reaper would be monetized yet.

We've seen a hint. Someone posted a screen shot of Reaper pots in a thread that I cannot find at the moment.

It goes like this:

introduce a new difficulty tier to challenge the top % of fully geared players
introduce heavy-handed blanket nerfs to counter the accumulated power creep of said players
introduce consumables to mitigate heavy-handed nerfs
$$$ store sales


And what we end up with isn't a "challenge for the most skilled, best geared players" [the alleged purpose of Reaper], but rather a hamster wheel intended to wring more from the players that buy success. With a declining gamer population, it's the smart move for the next quarter; beyond that, not so much.

For a business that is now employee-owned, I would have expected self-interest to encourage a longer perspective.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

We've seen a hint. Someone posted a screen shot of Reaper pots in a thread that I cannot find at the moment.

It goes like this:

introduce a new difficulty tier to challenge the top % of fully geared players
introduce heavy-handed blanket nerfs to counter the accumulated power creep of said players
introduce consumables to mitigate heavy-handed nerfs
$$$ store sales


And what we end up with isn't a "challenge for the most skilled, best geared players" [the alleged purpose of Reaper], but rather a hamster wheel intended to wring more from the players that buy success. With a declining gamer population, it's the smart move for the next quarter; beyond that, not so much.

For a business that is now employee-owned, I would have expected self-interest to encourage a longer perspective.

again with your silly conspiracy!

Those pots you used mysterious remnants.

[AbyssalMage]

They have alrdy said that they used minimal dev resources for reaper, the content devs only worked half cycle on reaper system.
Check out lam dev posts before assuming that they used 140% dev resources and put all their possible effort and time into reaper.
Not sure where he said they pooled all of their resources into Reaper.

No one is even complaining that they created Reaper. People are upset that Reaper is providing more powerful gear, that will effect Heroic/Epic/Legendary, instead of the original intent that the players wanted. Something to challenge the "bored elite" players.

[Mr_Helmet]

you sure? maybe you're just g&r.

What's wrong with Guns and Roses? The were great on that last tour.

[Vulkoorex]

A way to monetize Reaper: sell pots that gives +200 heal amp for 5 min.

Lol

[AzB]

They have alrdy said that they used minimal dev resources for reaper, the content devs only worked half cycle on reaper system.
Check out lam dev posts before assuming that they used 140% dev resources and put all their possible effort and time into reaper.

Um, yeah. I never said anything but "dev resources". Everything else was you puttings words in my mouth.

Since I have no interest in reaper mode, even 1% of dev resources is wasted creating reaper according to my opinion. And I realize my opinion means nothing as it's a done deal anyway.

Have fun with reaper.

[Mr_Helmet]

We haven't seen how reaper would be monetized yet.

They'll sell stuff that'll let you "bypass" the difficulty some how. Expect pots of full self-healing in the store shortly after Reaper goes live.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Well, now I am starting to rethink my opinion on the self-healing in reaper thing.

it is one thing to view Reaper as a special, high level difficulty... where you have to bring friends and certain build abilities get semi-nerfed.

But when you start looking at it as the "normal" everytime you join a PUG difficulty.....
Well, then... what fun is it to see any nerf at all to your build's abilities.

So ... back in the day... I needed to wait around all day for a healer..... (if for no other reason then everyone else thought we needed one....)
... and now... I really do have to wait around for a healer......

Don't like that idea at all.

It is one thing to view it as a special quest....like a raid...
It's entirely another to view it as a way of life.... :(

[Wizza]

Well, now I am starting to rethink my opinion on the self-healing in reaper thing.

it is one thing to view Reaper as a special, high level difficulty... where you have to bring friends and certain build abilities get semi-nerfed.

But when you start looking at it as the "normal" everytime you join a PUG difficulty.....
Well, then... what fun is it to see any nerf at all to your build's abilities.

So ... back in the day... I needed to wait around all day for a healer..... (if for no other reason then everyone else thought we needed one....)
... and now... I really do have to wait around for a healer......

Don't like that idea at all.

It is one thing to view it as a special quest....like a raid...
It's entirely another to view it as a way of life.... :(

There is a noticeable difference between back in the day and Reaper now. The difference is that now, everyone can be a healer. Just need Cocoon, Renewal, or UMD for scrolls. You won't have to wait for anyone :)

[Pyed-Pyper]

Well, now I am starting to rethink my opinion on the self-healing in reaper thing.

it is one thing to view Reaper as a special, high level difficulty... where you have to bring friends and certain build abilities get semi-nerfed.

But when you start looking at it as the "normal" everytime you join a PUG difficulty.....
Well, then... what fun is it to see any nerf at all to your build's abilities.

So ... back in the day... I needed to wait around all day for a healer..... (if for no other reason then everyone else thought we needed one....)
... and now... I really do have to wait around for a healer......

Don't like that idea at all.

It is one thing to view it as a special quest....like a raid...
It's entirely another to view it as a way of life.... :(

Don't worry, there is a solution You can drag/drop the main menu buttons. Just hotbar the DDO store and you're set.

-

Maybe SSG could add a shortcut for store purchases, instead of going through the entire checkout process, a single button completes a purchase - hotbar your Reaper nerf bypass pots. That would be so convenient for combat situations.

[Kebtid]

Not sure where he said they pooled all of their resources into Reaper.

No one is even complaining that they created Reaper. People are upset that Reaper is providing more powerful gear, that will effect Heroic/Epic/Legendary, instead of the original intent that the players wanted. Something to challenge the "bored elite" players.

People, when making assumption on this forum always assume the worst or best possible case scenario.
So i can bet he hates that even a minimal amount of dev time has been put into something that many players requested.

// If it was not needed, then it would not been worked on and definitely would not be in test phase, lama preview and soon on live servers, right?

[Kebtid]

Have fun with reaper.

I will, i thank you very much.



This is how posts should be regarding reaper ;)

[arkonas]

Oh please stop with this disingenuous argument!


Prior to BB being introduced I was already running mainly Elite, I was already VIP and so no longer needed to run Normal or Hard at all! The ONLY reason to run N/H for me was to open Elite up! {In Heroics that is}

Now the difference was that in those days I would generally run a quest 3 levels above the base level so Tear at 10, WK at 15, Orchard at 17 in Groups, If I was soloing I could be 4,5,6 or even more levels above the base quest level.

It wasn't Elite that caused me to have problems it was Elite BB!
And even worse the Player Base's insistence upon a quest being IP before anyone would join!
So I had to not only be able to keep myself alive in Groups at BB Level, I had to also be able to SOLO at BB Level before I could get a Group in the first place!

The problem with Reaper giving out more bonuses than Elite is that players will gravitate to it!
Any player that is capable of getting a Group for Reaper will run Reaper NOT Elite!

Look at Epics right now - VoN 3, Spies, WK and a few others - These quests get run generally on EH/EN for first time bonus on each per day OR sometimes EN/EN for sheer speed - Because the reward is purely and simply XP and the difference in speed for EN or EH vs EE is far larger than the difference in XP for many players!
Now look at the Epics that actually reward running on EE - Any Saga Quest! These don't often get run on any other difficulty! Even players like me, I'm generally not running Saga Quests at Lvl 20 but at Lvl 30 and on EE!

It may take 6 months or even longer for let's say 50% of Puggers to be Reaper 1 Capable {25% will be Reaper 1 Capable right from the start!} but once we get to that point those players left running Elite just like those players running Hard or Normal in Heroics right now WILL BE UNABLE TO FIND GROUPS FOR THOSE DIFFICULTIES!
And sorry but I still hear about newbies and casuals failing to solo Hard or even Normal quite regularly! I ran with a TR just the other day who was surprised we were going to run Kobold Assault Elite at Lvl 2,3 and 4 {there were 3 of us}!

Right now I'm seeing EN/EN gradually being subsumed by EH/EN because so many players have become EH capable!
It won't be long {Especially with Reaper being added} before EN goes the way of Heroic Normal! - Many of us are worried Reaper won't just do this to EN though, It's that it will also do it to Heroic ELITE!

do you know the problem i see with the post you mentioned here is you're talking people do things differently then you. you complained about dailies and people running stuff on elite. you say because you have a problem with bravery bonus even though you run quests above level. see this is a you issue not anyone else. let me explain because some people like to do it within the level range. you know i was doing level ranges before bravery was ever introduced because the xp hit was still always there.

do you want to know why i ran elite because i didn't like doing normal/hard/elite to get max favor. i am the type of player that runs the quests once unless in epics and on the highest difficulty i can open. so a first life toon or 2nd tr toon im limited to that unless i run with someone else who can open. you don't see me complaining that i can't get something. i just roll with what i'm doing. i'm not saying you're wrong at all for not being happy with stuff just sometimes some things aren't worth it.

you mentioned people will have issues well despite what you said i always see groups up on various difficulties and sometimes they fill sometimes they don't. maybe a few will join. Again who would of thought we all have different playstyles and want different things. lets think about that before you go on some crusade vs a function.


Tomb of the Burning Heart
Xorian Cypher
Desert Caravan on many Builds
From Beyond the Grave
There aren't a huge amount of quests that are extremely mechanically difficult to solo and none that are actively impossible to solo anymore {Dual-Boxing being allowed now and Goldseal Hirelings being available}. But just because you solo 99% of Heroic Elite Quests at BB Level doesn't mean everyone can - As I pointed out I can solo 75% of Heroic Elite Quests at BB Level but contrary to what many of these forums seem to believe there are a heck of a lot of players in DDO not yet at even my low level!

When Groups are going to be highest difficulty only then people are going to gravitate to that highest difficulty!
The problem is that if say I have trouble soloing EN GoP but the only groups I can find are EE {Luckily they're not for that quest right now} or in future Reaper then I don't have a Choice - I can't Solo it at all full stop {I can but this is an example OK}.

How about a Quest I actually cannot Solo - Through a Mirror Darkly - In fact the only times I run that quest any more are when I'm specifically allowed to Pike until the endfight!

Or maybe What Goes Up - A Nightmare quest that there is no point running on anything other than EE {And generally I use my VIP+AS Skips on WGU and Mirror} - In fact it is highly DETRIMENTAL to run either of these two quests on a difficulty other than EE if you are in the middle of a Saga as upgrading costs more AS than skipping entirely!
Heck I skip Heroic WGU and Mirror never mind Epic!

I'm already seeing and have been for some time EN/EN Dailies becoming EH/EN as more and more players find they're capable at EH Level.
At some point EH/EN will become EE/EH and those fresh to Epics will no longer be able to find groups for EN!
And that's if it doesn't become Reaper 1/EE or Reaper 2/1 etc.


I don't want to HAVE to Solo!
I want to have a CHOICE!
And sorry but IF the Choice is between Soloing Elite and joining a Group for Reaper 1 then there are going to be a lot of players not truly Reaper capable joining those Reaper Groups! Especially for less popular or more mechanically difficult to solo quests!

in this post i see you talking about not being able to be carried through mirror. you want to pike it instead of learn it. that came from your own mouth. what goes up also another one you don't like. this one can provide a ton of xp on normal and hard. most people can do normal even if its with a hire. hard about the same and maybe a few less people but still its not difficult.

tomb of the burning heart isn't a hard quest. 1 hire 2 gold seals allows anyone to solo it. 2 manned 2 regular hires. etc. who would of thought there be some quests though that do require cooperation right? i wished there really was more and i'm not talking like crucible because that is usually one person do everything while the rest sit there twiddling their thumbs.

as for reaper maybe those people just put up their own groups instead of insisting on joining groups they are clearly not ready for. don't even give me that garbage that i can't lead or want to run it because i don't know it. you can clearly setup a lfm to show you don't want to be a leader in it. i see people do that as well. this is the problem with the game population. constant complaining about something but not doing anything to remedy it. you can't always rely on other players to set your groups up.

if i don't join a group and i want others to join i setup a lfm. i set it for what i want to do and not what anyone else wants. if people join cool. if not no big deal. the reason people do ip because they are tired of waiting for lfms to fill. you want to wait then so be it but don't complain about the ones who don't want to wait. simply do your own lfm. again if you don't want to solo do a lfm. simple solution. people always have lfms up. its whether you want to do what they want or not.


So which is it?

1) You're going to ignore the dozens of people on these forums who've stated outright that Elite is too easy?
or
2) You're going to ignore the dozens of people {not just myself} on these forums who've stated outright it's quite difficult enough?

BECAUSE YOU CAN'T HAVE BOTH!!!

Buffing up Elite {along with Normal and Hard} would Hurt people like me {and I'm just the most vocal!}.
You yourself have stated your focus is Favor and I have made no bones about that also being my focus over the years - Your way would cut me off from easily 1000 Favour per Life!


Meanwhile not allowing a new difficulty over Elite for those players who find it too easy is JUST AS BAD!


Legendary and Reaper are two different things - They were never meant to be the same - And even then Anything base lvl 20 or up on Reaper will likely already be more difficult than any Lvl 32 Legendary Quest we have currently available on LE!
You will have PLENTY of Reaper Content for End-Game Play! Especially on Reaper 10!

And seriously - What would be the point of Reaper Haverdasher at Lvl 30? Or Reaper Storehouse's Secret at Lvl 30?
The Challenge should be to complete them on Reaper 10 at Lvl ONE! Not at Lvl 30!

1. yes people think the game is too easy. what is wrong with that? reaper is for them.
2. ok you fit in this one and think the game can be hard. again it is to some. so guess what? things will be tough and you should do what you feel comfortable with. right?

last time i checked reaper is not giving more favor then elite. so not sure how you would lose favor or is that because people won't carry you through quests?

did you ever think not everyone will do reaper? some will try it but in the long run they will always go back to what makes them comfortable.


That's a Lie and you know it!

Because prior to BB I had absolutely no issues running quests at a higher level for favour and I STILL run quests at higher level for favour simply because there is too much xp in the game to run them all at level!

The problem is that I cannot get any higher level than 30!

Buffing Elite to Reaper 10 Levels {or even Reaper 1} would cut me off from a large amount of Favour PERMANENTLY!

But the point is that's never going to happen - For the simple reason that the "Elite" won't allow it to happen!
They have to have their Cherry for running the higher difficulty and the sheer difference between the XP of E-BB and heck even H-BB never mind Normal makes running anything other than E-BB a waste of time and effort! {In Heroic - It's different in Epics}.

I have argued over and over again that Reaper have NO Rewards over Elite and every time I'm shouted down!

I would like this to be my last post on this subject prior to Reaper actually making it to Live.
It probably won't be but it's certainly my last post in this thread!

see again this is the problem i see people complaining about from time to time. people ask for more difficulty because their toons are no longer challenged. so we get reaper. people complained because their elite groups will vanish and no longer get carried. yet they want max favor. now if reaper is done away with and elite becomes harder now you say wait that isn't fair because i can't handle it. so what is it fran? you can't have everything your way ever. you forget there are other players who want something different then you.

i am a favor man that likes to run elite but i run whatever my toon can handle. will i try reaper? sure bet. how many of my toons will be able to survive on reaper. probably 2 of 16. i won't lie at all. i have trouble on epic elite on some toons. i tried to solo some and got stomped. did it stop me from still trying from time to time? nope. again it was about testing my toons and how well i would do.

do you think i care if i lose my elite streak when i hit epics? nope. i don't care one bit. sometimes i won't even pause my streak and i lose all of it to do a quest/raid on normal. again i don't complain about it because it was a choice i made. i didn't have to do any of it. it was simply an option i took because i wanted to do it.

do you want to know the problem i have with the game which i wished would be addressed. dead raids. this is a common factor in every mmo. i'm tired of seeing it. ddo doesn't have to fall into the same category. i have constantly stated there should be some raid currency shared among all raids difficulty would determine the amount. then open a vendor just like mysterious remenants/ddo store. this allows raids to be ran just for the currency alone. you would be surprised how many people love those dead raids but atm there isn't a reason to run them anymore. they can't keep updating gear to keep them alive. so why not give them a reason to be ran.

difficulties are the least of my concern. i want there to be more people like we use to have. anyone who played years ago remember there were days you had 2-4 shrouds going up at a time. now you're lucky if there is one. yes the population is on a decline but name a mmo who hasn't seen loss. even wow has seen some. they have to constantly be doing things to get our interest.

[arkonas]

Same ppl who want reaper nerfed, want warlock nerfed, all they want is rest of ddo players play that ppl game

you're not wrong about that. i've seen this be said in groups. people get upset when their way isn't done. we see it in the forums as well. people wanted every class nerfed because it was better then theirs. it wasn't about balance. balance is different when things are overperforming.

we had people who wanted content to be removed because they thought it wasn't important. yep selfish ways. or classes removed, trs, etc. there is always someone who wants something removed because it doesn't fit their way but yet they want the game to be so easy even on the hardest difficulty instead of them working for it.

isn't that what elite says on the difficulty? that it might require assistance or a well prepared group?

i run what i can handle on my toons. if i can't do something on elite i run it lower. sometimes i lose my streak. i just don't care honestly. i just want to enjoy the game.

[Dragavon]

I'm already seeing and have been for some time EN/EN Dailies becoming EH/EN as more and more players find they're capable at EH Level.
At some point EH/EN will become EE/EH and those fresh to Epics will no longer be able to find groups for EN!
And that's if it doesn't become Reaper 1/EE or Reaper 2/1 etc.

And your solution to that is not to become a better player with better characters yourself, but to come here and complain on these forums.

If you had spent ONE tenth of the energy you spend on EXCLAMATION marks and capital LETTERS here you could probably become a really good player. Or not :rolleyes:

[AzB]

I will, i thank you very much.



This is how posts should be regarding reaper ;)

While I think reaper mode is stupid, I firmly stand behind your enjoyment of it. ;)

[PermaBanned]

Agree. I was hoping Reaper had only Reaper-limited rewards and/or Titles and cosmetics to show offYeah, that's been my opinion from the get-go of these "higher than Elite" difficulty threads too. At least with all the powercreep they've been introducing in the loot for current difficulty settings the additional Reaper bonuses will be effectively small. Assuming they follow the same format as Mythic bonuses, then:

• Weapons, belts, gloves, goggles, rings, and trinkets grant Mythic bonus to Melee, Ranged, and Universal Spell Power. +21 max cumulative Reaper bonus, mirroring the +21 max cumulative & currently available Mythic bonus.

• Armor, boots, bracers, cloaks, *headwear, necklaces, shields grant Mythic bonus to Physical and Magical Resistance Rating. +21 max cumulative Reaper bonus, possibly only +18 max; not sure if the headgear's potential +2 Reaper bonus to stats is in addition to or instead of the P&MRR. This ~mirrors the +21 Mythic already available.

I haven't noticed the Mythic bonuses being any sort of OP or unbalancing (again, as compared to the power available w/o Mythic) so if they "had" to provided more powercreep, at least it appears to be relatively small.


We haven't seen how reaper would be monetized yet.
I suspect it will be somewhat indirect. With so much of the game being dominatable w/o consumable Store resources, perhaps they're hoping/intending that folks will actually start using some?

Alternatively/additionally, it just might be possible that those of us who've claimed that a significant number of players (& thus payers) have left due to lack of challenge are correct. If those claims do have some merit in spite of our lack of "citation" available, then stopping the bleeding of (and perhaps recouping some of the lost) players would also have revenue benifits.


This would explain why they don't see the problems in their game. They are relying on "false" data points.Lmfao! When I log in and hit the "Who" list, I've no idea what the vast majority of them are choosing for difficulty - do you? Does any player? The Devs likely have actual metrics/data available for what get's played on what difficulties. We only have forum claims and subjective personal experience to rely on.

[walkin_dude]

Reaper will be good, thinking otherwise makes you just a selfish person who doesnt want others to have challenge, but want your safety zone to stay safe and to feel great about yourself that you are completing hardest content with 0 teamplay skill.

It'll probably be good for the first weekend, like champs. Then the entitlement brigade will start screaming because they deserve to have whatever rewards are available in reaper even though they can't complete it, and it'll be watered down so that it's barely different from elite.

At least, that has been my prediction since I first started hearing about "reaper" mode.

[changelingamuck]

It'll probably be good for the first weekend, like champs. Then the entitlement brigade will start screaming because they deserve to have whatever rewards are available in reaper even though they can't complete it, and it'll be watered down so that it's barely different from elite.

At least, that has been my prediction since I first started hearing about "reaper" mode.

That's not even necessary. It will be watered down by power creep/leap in due time. And instead of accepting a nerf pass that would reduce character power by 25% or whatever, players will do their "proud member of the angry mob" thing and we'll get another tacked-on difficulty setting that'll feature increased mob power by 25% or whatever--achieving the same effect as the nerfs would except requiring more developer time and splitting the player-base apart into more different difficulty settings. R.I.P. rationality.

[KoobTheProud]

One way to not split the player base heavily is to actually require grouping at most levels and for end game play. When a character can do it all you're more likely to get players of similar ability level playing together at all times because they can run whatever they want at whatever speed the group can handle and with whoever happens to be logged in from the group at the moment. Short-manning runs is a thing because when everybody is self-sufficient it's easier to overpower the content.

If you put players back into roles again, well it becomes important to get as big a group together as possible for end game play because then your odds of having everything you need for a given run are higher at a given time. Players are also a lot less picky about who they run with in that situation. Healer 2b looks awfully good when the 1's and 2a are not online atm. DPS 2d is an easy take when you need a half-dozen DPS minimum to do a given run. Tanking is the only area where you kinda have to have a #1 and maybe also a 1b or you could be in trouble.

But, just let everybody be everything in end game play with ED's and Enhancements providing the MULTI in multi-class and the playerbase will fracture along skill-based fault lines fairly quickly and you wind up where we are now.

[Qhualor]

Lmfao! When I log in and hit the "Who" list, I've no idea what the vast majority of them are choosing for difficulty - do you? Does any player? The Devs likely have actual metrics/data available for what get's played on what difficulties. We only have forum claims and subjective personal experience to rely on.

true that we the players don't have access to numbers of what difficulty setting players are running, the problem with numbers is that it doesn't reflect the reasoning as to why. it doesn't take much to understand why players run EN x2, "elite for saga", "hard and normal for first time bonus", well built and experienced vet players always running elite like it was on a normal setting, "elite for BB", "dailies", etc.

[arkonas]

One way to not split the player base heavily is to actually require grouping at most levels and for end game play. When a character can do it all you're more likely to get players of similar ability level playing together at all times because they can run whatever they want at whatever speed the group can handle and with whoever happens to be logged in from the group at the moment. Short-manning runs is a thing because when everybody is self-sufficient it's easier to overpower the content.

If you put players back into roles again, well it becomes important to get as big a group together as possible for end game play because then your odds of having everything you need for a given run are higher at a given time. Players are also a lot less picky about who they run with in that situation. Healer 2b looks awfully good when the 1's and 2a are not online atm. DPS 2d is an easy take when you need a half-dozen DPS minimum to do a given run. Tanking is the only area where you kinda have to have a #1 and maybe also a 1b or you could be in trouble.

But, just let everybody be everything in end game play with ED's and Enhancements providing the MULTI in multi-class and the playerbase will fracture along skill-based fault lines fairly quickly and you wind up where we are now.

the only thing wrong with putting people back into roles is no one will want to wait a long time for those roles to be filled. we don't have the population like we once did. could we get more with these changes and upcoming year sure its possible. to be honest i will never go back on to relying on other players to heal me. i did that and did not like it. its why i chose to be self sufficient. since ddo is unlike other mmos there really never was an ideal role for the toons to play. when you look at other games they require a tank, dps and a healer. maybe a support toon. even then you still were never guaranteed a group. if you were a tank or healer you had more of a chance getting in then dps.

in ddo its been proven that no one set class/role has ever been needed for raids. all cleric raids/ all barbarians/ etc. i remember those days. some did it for fun. some did the all divine to prove a point that they weren't anyone's babysitter. that was the common problem back then. tough runs and the healers got hosed by other players not helping them with their sp. most just went on their way. very few helped out.

[PermaBanned]

true that we the players don't have access to numbers of what difficulty setting players are running, the problem with numbers is that it doesn't reflect the reasoning as to why. it doesn't take much to understand why players run EN x2, "elite for saga", "hard and normal for first time bonus", well built and experienced vet players always running elite like it was on a normal setting, "elite for BB", "dailies", etc.
Completely agree there, that the "what" of the numbers doesn't reflect the "why." That said, the "what" information isn't without value, and the "why" of those mentioned scenarios isn't hard to figure out.

While I'm well aware of why this can't happen, it's too bad the Devs can't just reply to forum posters with actual data - like when Poster X says "the game is too easy & lacks challenge" it would be great if they could answer back with "maybe that's because your account only plays Elite 1 out of every 15 quest entry's, and you're usually over level when you do?" Or better yet, a Dev reply like: "Say that again from an account that's actually played on more than just the forums, and then we'll get back to ya ;)"

I mean, while I totally get the concept of playing for the fastest & most efficient rewards - fast & efficient has never equated challenging to my mind. Regardless of claims made on the forums, if a player actually wants to be challenged by the game they'll make quest selections accordingly; if a player wants fast & easy completions they'll make quest selections accordingly.

[Kebtid]

It'll probably be good for the first weekend, like champs. Then the entitlement brigade will start screaming because they deserve to have whatever rewards are available in reaper even though they can't complete it, and it'll be watered down so that it's barely different from elite.

At least, that has been my prediction since I first started hearing about "reaper" mode.

In all honesty id even want them to remove any special gear if that means that casuals wont cry for nerfs like they are doing before we even tested the difficulty properly.
Id rather have the challenge with no gain, then a challenge for the first week that is destroyed by people who cannot complete it.

(I am brainstorming with my static group ideas and we are gonna test many builds on lama during preview to find a optimal strat, we are active as never before, i do not want that destroyed by silly Bob the house keeper who has only 2 fingers, is bit mentally ill and wants to finish reaper 10 skull lshroud on first attempt on his halforc dart throwing char str based paladin cleric favored soul while playing 1 hour weekly, using voice ingame chat while arguing with his mom in her house basement during sessions and then getting drunk on keyboard and crying over his lost lover that died from overfeeding herself. Bob is the source of all evil)

[PermaBanned]

Completely tangential to the thread, and not intending to derail or anything but, this:

...halforc dart throwing char str based paladin cleric favored soul...struck me as funny, because I was running with some folks last night and one made a similar comment - which immediately reminded me of how the "Halfling Wizzy Shuriken specialist" used to be that joke example; then sometime later we had the Halfling "Shuricannon" variants that were Tier5 in Eldritch Knight. Never know what gimp might become viable (if not a full FotM) someday lol...

[Chai]

Not sure where he said they pooled all of their resources into Reaper.

No one is even complaining that they created Reaper. People are upset that Reaper is providing more powerful gear, that will effect Heroic/Epic/Legendary, instead of the original intent that the players wanted. Something to challenge the "bored elite" players.

Why are people who will not play in reaper, concerned with rewards people who will play in reaper obtain?

[PermaBanned]

Why are people who will not play in reaper, concerned with rewards people who will play in reaper obtain?Because even though I've no degree beyond my Highschool diploma, and I work in manufacturing, I should be paid equivalent to a brain surgeon - or perhaps more to the point, said brain surgeon shouldn't be paid more than me.

[nokowi]

While I'm well aware of why this can't happen, it's too bad the Devs can't just reply to forum posters with actual data - like when Poster X says "the game is too easy & lacks challenge" it would be great if they could answer back with "maybe that's because your account only plays Elite 1 out of every 15 quest entry's, and you're usually over level when you do?" Or better yet, a Dev reply like: "Say that again from an account that's actually played on more than just the forums, and then we'll get back to ya ;)"

.

I can give you my data.

I only solo/post elites while leveling, although I may join a group on hard if I feel like company. I solo as much as I group. I have solo'd almost all of the quests on elite, although raids are largely impossible to solo on an assassin. I have had elite streaks over 1000, usually lost when a guild raid is set for hard due to new players. (I have never paused bravery)

I typically joined guild raids 3-4 days a week.

I don't care about XP/min, and I'm perfectly happy to take an hour to complete a quest, or complete that same quest in 15 minutes with 1-3 other players. I'm happy to help other players (by request), as I have no agenda as a 3x completionist. If I see someone with an LFM up for a long period of time, I'm likely to join them, regardless of the difficulty or if it fits my agenda.

I left the game because of lack of challenge, but also because leading/joining groups on elite was not the type of cooperative experience with knowledgeable players that is was in the past. Grouping on elite became a mix of players with totally different knowledge/skill and play preferences.

My data will show I ran around in ToEE for hours upon hours (solo, EE) when 28 was cap, and largely stopped after I got shroud gear. I stopped both because the content was no longer as challenging, and also because players were no longer buying items (shards) from the quest.

My data shows I was soloing elites before the rogue pass, so when I talk about a lack of challenge it means there is a lack of challenge for players who know what they are doing, even on Tier 2 or Tier 3 builds.

I didn't bother with Slavers (left the game), because the game was too easy (and because grouping had degraded), and the power increase from this gear would only make the game less fun for me.

While I will do a lot to improve my character, I will only do this when the game is fun (challenging at times, cooperative at times) to play.

[PermaBanned]

I can give you my data.
No offense intended here, but... Why should I believe what is claimed in a post? For that matter, if I posted my data - why should you or anyone else believe it? That's the point I was getting at. Devs at least have some actual data available about player's activities, where just about all we have is hearsay.

To be clear (and hopefully fair) it's not my intention to call you Nokowi out specifically as one who is making false claims about their play experiences. There have however been a multitude of times I have doubted (if not out right disbelieved) what some posters have claimed.

I could be one who never steps out of Casual unless I'm piking/being carried through Elite when in-game, while on the forums I'm rockin' LE in record time. Nobody on the forums could say for fact if I'm one, the other or in-between; I'll bet the Devs could though even if they can't call me out publicly for it.

[Vint]

Because even though I've no degree beyond my Highschool diploma, and I work in manufacturing, I should be paid equivalent to a brain surgeon - or perhaps more to the point, said brain surgeon shouldn't be paid more than me.

So true. Unfortunately, I am sure the people who cannot survive in EH will cry enough to have reaper watered down so they can get in on the loots.

[nokowi]

No offense intended here, but... Why should I believe what is claimed in a post? For that matter, if I posted my data - why should you or anyone else believe it? That's the point I was getting at. Devs at least have some actual data available about player's activities, where just about all we have is hearsay.

To be clear (and hopefully fair) it's not my intention to call you Nokowi out specifically as one who is making false claims about their play experiences. There have however been a multitude of times I have doubted (if not out right disbelieved) what some posters have claimed.

I could be one who never steps out of Casual unless I'm piking/being carried through Elite when in-game, while on the forums I'm rockin' LE in record time. Nobody on the forums could say for fact if I'm one, the other or in-between; I'll bet the Devs could though even if they can't call me out publicly for it.

Because I have 3400 posts consistent with my statements.

Because I had an assassin website where I posted solo elite runs prior to the rogue pass.

Because I have a history of posts that show consistency throughout them.

Because I ran ToEE 2-man on elite with Cordovan when level 28 was max.

Because my forum name is my character name on Sarlona.

The people who count (devs), know that there are a significant number of players who find lack-of-challenge and lack of group cooperation to be big issues.

You can reason this out by the fact they are adding a reaper difficulty, despite the complaints by formerly casual players who have become entitled players.

[Chai]

No offense intended here, but... Why should I believe what is claimed in a post? For that matter, if I posted my data - why should you or anyone else believe it? That's the point I was getting at. Devs at least have some actual data available about player's activities, where just about all we have is hearsay.

To be clear (and hopefully fair) it's not my intention to call you Nokowi out specifically as one who is making false claims about their play experiences. There have however been a multitude of times I have doubted (if not out right disbelieved) what some posters have claimed.

I could be one who never steps out of Casual unless I'm piking/being carried through Elite when in-game, while on the forums I'm rockin' LE in record time. Nobody on the forums could say for fact if I'm one, the other or in-between; I'll bet the Devs could though even if they can't call me out publicly for it.

If I saw more evidence that this type of verification happens, then Id agree. I know quite a few on multiple servers who were verified to never have played a specific class they were demanding nerfs of after most of the passes for instance, and yet more of those nerf requests were taken far more seriously than they would have been if that verification actually occurred.

When they make comments that most people do not play elite regularly, they are likely looking at the vast number of people who do not use the LFM much, who are new or casual. The minority of folks who use the LFM mostly put up groups for elite and most are zerg for xp groups, which is why the perception exists that most run elite. How many are soloing elite, playing with friends, in guild on elite etc...who also do not use the LFM tool? More importantly, how many of those folks who do NOT play elite have come to the forums demanding to be able to? It is likely that few to none of them will be affected negatively by a new tougher than elite difficulty, if they are already not even playing elite yet, if what is reported about the majority not playing elite is true.

[Qhualor]

Why are people who will not play in reaper, concerned with rewards people who will play in reaper obtain?

because there is Reaper only bonus that can also be used in the other difficulties. I shouldn't have to say more than that and go into some detailed explanation.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

Why are people who will not play in reaper, concerned with rewards people who will play in reaper obtain?

why are ugly men like myself concerned with extremely good lookin gals?

We all want the best.
Doesn't matter in what context.

Do we want to live in a play pretend world with a low bar or a high one?

[Dragavon]

because there is Reaper only bonus that can also be used in the other difficulties. I shouldn't have to say more than that and go into some detailed explanation.

If you want that bonus go do quests on reaper mode. If you think that is unreasonable then you are wrong. Simple as that.

[Chimmy]

Completely agree there, that the "what" of the numbers doesn't reflect the "why." That said, the "what" information isn't without value, and the "why" of those mentioned scenarios isn't hard to figure out.

While I'm well aware of why this can't happen, it's too bad the Devs can't just reply to forum posters with actual data - like when Poster X says "the game is too easy & lacks challenge" it would be great if they could answer back with "maybe that's because your account only plays Elite 1 out of every 15 quest entry's, and you're usually over level when you do?" Or better yet, a Dev reply like: "Say that again from an account that's actually played on more than just the forums, and then we'll get back to ya ;)"

I mean, while I totally get the concept of playing for the fastest & most efficient rewards - fast & efficient has never equated challenging to my mind. Regardless of claims made on the forums, if a player actually wants to be challenged by the game they'll make quest selections accordingly; if a player wants fast & easy completions they'll make quest selections accordingly.

Yeah, and then they can check your bank account and say "by the way we don't listen to minimum wage earners" or "you only have $15 in your account and you think you can tell us how to run our business?"

Then they can view our private home security tapes and make judgement calls on our looks for each post.

Maybe we can also give them access to our stool samples too, so they can really diagnose bad posters.

[Pyed-Pyper]

If you want that bonus go do quests on reaper mode. If you think that is unreasonable then you are wrong. Simple as that.

That isn't the issue. I keep seeing really poor responses regarding concerns about Reaper, and I don't know what the reasons are. Just in case you, or anyone else, really don't understand something that has been explained multiple times in multiple threads by people that have done a very good job of explaining the issues, I'll try to summarize.

Power creep - this affects all aspects of the game, regardless of whether or not someone chooses to play or avoid Reaper. Example - Reaper only bonuses will be available at any level in any quest.
Altered mechanics - this affects all aspects of the game, regardless of whether or not someone chooses to play or avoid Reaper. Example - the new aggro mechanics in every quest, and even in slayer areas, that have so many people upset seem to be in preparation for Reaper.
Grouping - new power levels and new difficulty levels and the gaps between veteran players and newcomers work to create an atmosphere that is not conducive to growing the gamer population. Example - people in the forums are often requesting server consolidation because of declining player numbers, thus grouping options.
Game engine - the game has demonstrated limits with regard to scaling. Multiple examples exist, from dumbing down AI, spawn red alerts, lag, and numbers of monsters per encounter are just a few. Stressing the engine has many adverse effects which filter down into all aspects of the game, regardless of difficulty level.

Also, I keep reading from various posters about how "casuals will ruin Reaper". Personally haven't seen anyone post an example, just "dooooooooooooooom" whining about it from Reaper fanbois. Maybe someone can show me an example instead of speculating.

I have seen plenty of people voice concern about how Reaper will be implemented. Those concerns are met with strawman misrepresentations in the forums and a proxy big middle finger from SSG via their apparent implementation.

A few points: I think Reaper could be a good thing if implemented properly. Currently, indicators point to a poor implementation. ANY power creep from Reaper is contradictory to the advertised purpose of Reaper. Poor implementation of Reaper will affect aspects of the game outside of Reaper, thus even people "that won't play Reaper" deserve to be heard regarding it.

[Robbenklopper]

Reaper is a difficulty tier higher than Elite.
Reaper difficulty will be available at any level.
Reaper rewards include substantial, exclusive power creep.
Reaper is the new elite.

Meet the new hamster wheel. This one goes to eleven.

https://s23.postimg.org/nsogr84uv/49651600.jpg (https://postimg.org/image/nsogr84uv/)

[BigErkyKid]

instead of accepting a nerf pass that would reduce character power by 25% or whatever, [...] we'll get another tacked-on difficulty setting that'll feature increased mob power by 25% or whatever--achieving the same effect as the nerfs would except requiring more developer time and splitting the player-base apart into more different difficulty settings. R.I.P. rationality.

I don't agree with you much, but this is spot on.

We already have 4 difficulty settings, make them scale appropriately.

I think that the devs have realized that nerfs and changing the game won't get accepted without a fight. So they got away with a little trick: they change names.

Remember the mortal fear nerf? Mortal fear was a broken ability, much like level drain on crit and vorpal and so on. Their solution was to nerf it to the ground. However, instead of doing it openly, they created a "new setting", called legendary, where this wouldn't work. Then they said it was not a nerf since you could use it on all the content you had been using it on. Pretty good!

Now for reaper, the devs realize it is close to impossible to challenge us given current mechanics. They tried with elite raids and now that one-shotting there no longer stops us, they are thinking of other ways to introduce challenge. However, rebalancing old epic and legendary elites would require too many game changes. So instead they introduce a new difficulty setting where they can do as it pleases them without resistance. Namely, continue down the road of one shots, but this time nerfing players on top of it.

At the end of the day, we'll have vastly different parts of the game. Heroics where diversity and forgiveness are abundant. Epics where you need either a cookie cutter template or gear/pls/experience to make of for it. Then reaper where you need an uber specialized party to complete. All that while having 1/3 of the player base that started the epic journey.

[Duetotheseverity]

then reaper where you need a few cheese builds to complete.

ftfy

[GoMeansGreen]

i don't see how this will bring new players to the game, but ok; reaper is fine with me; but the name reaper is hard to top;
what will be the name of the next setting that is tougher than reaper? godkiller?

[AzB]

i don't see how this will bring new players to the game, but ok; reaper is fine with me; but the name reaper is hard to top;
what will be the name of the next setting that is tougher than reaper? godkiller?

Super ultra bonus reaper collector's edition plus.

[2pc2]

We've seen a hint. Someone posted a screen shot of Reaper pots in a thread that I cannot find at the moment.

It goes like this:

introduce a new difficulty tier to challenge the top % of fully geared players
introduce heavy-handed blanket nerfs to counter the accumulated power creep of said players
introduce consumables to mitigate heavy-handed nerfs
$$$ store sales


And what we end up with isn't a "challenge for the most skilled, best geared players" [the alleged purpose of Reaper], but rather a hamster wheel intended to wring more from the players that buy success. With a declining gamer population, it's the smart move for the next quarter; beyond that, not so much.

For a business that is now employee-owned, I would have expected self-interest to encourage a longer perspective.

QFT. Most if not all of the so called most skilled/geared players are not interested in challenge. They have plenty of ways to challenge themselves without the need for reaper (run underlevel, use no power creep gear/builds, etc) and yet they choose not to because there is no reward for doing that other than the challege itself.

Despite they say all day they want more challenge all they trully want is to feel special or loved/needed again. All they want is to have that shiny item no one else has so they can brag some when they are with newbs. All they want is to carry a group of newbs that needs them to complete thorough a dungeon while being told how uber and awesome they are.

This kind of people has troubles getting groups unless people needs them to complete because no one likes to play with elitist j****. The only way people wants to play with them is if they need them to complete quests. If the quests have no special rewards no one want to run it and no one needs them, that's why they will support new powercreep added to reaper although they have been whining about it for so long. They are fine with powercreep as long it's just for them or the ones running with them.

Challenge is just the excuse they use to try delude others and themselves into thinking there is a good and noble reason behind reaper, but it's all about Ego. It does always sound better if you say you want challenge instead of saying that all you want is to feel especial, needed and wated again because it's the only way people want to play with you. :)

[BigErkyKid]

QFT. Most if not all of the so called most skilled/geared players are not interested in challenge. They have plenty of ways to challenge themselves without the need for reaper (run underlevel, use no power creep gear/builds, etc) and yet they choose not to because there is no reward for doing that other than the challege itself.

Despite they say all day they want more challenge all they trully want is to feel special or loved/needed again. All they want is to have that shiny item no one else has so they can brag some when they are with newbs. All they want is to carry a group of newbs that needs them to complete thorough a dungeon while being told how uber and awesome they are.

This kind of people has troubles getting groups unless people needs them to complete because no one likes to play with elitist j****. The only way people wants to play with them is if they need them to complete quests. If the quests have no special rewards no one want to run it and no one needs them, that's why they will support new powercreep added to reaper although they have been whining about it for so long. They are fine with powercreep as long it's just for them or the ones running with them.

Challenge is just the excuse they use to try delude others and themselves into thinking there is a good and noble reason behind reaper, but it's all about Ego. It does always sound better if you say you want challenge instead of saying that all you want is to feel especial, needed and wated again because it's the only way people want to play with you. :)

I agree with what you say but disagree with the tone.

Sure a lot of reaper will be to regain the elite title. Is this a bad thing? Do you think that athletes do not have that in mind when competing?

If anything, the sport side of the game should be "buffed". Right now it has been tainted by lack of challenge and constant p2w additions to the store.


If reaper results in the better players being once again recognizable, as opposed to the current state in which in most cases you can barely tell apart, sure why not!

Bragging rights is one of the reason why some people play games and I see nothing wrong with it.

[Qhualor]

If you want that bonus go do quests on reaper mode. If you think that is unreasonable then you are wrong. Simple as that.

this makes absolutely no sense. I am wrong because I want a bonus that can only be found in Reaper to stay in Reaper? so what you are saying is you promote power creep and trivializing the game. gotcha.

[BigErkyKid]

from my perspective to actually get difficulty which would challenge us it way better than another useless pack which will be zerged to death first day after release.

This to me is the key. The rest is totally unnecessary BS.

The problem with content is lack of replay value. We just obliterate it, and now we run it for the rewards not because it is fun.

I understand there are hardcore grinders in this game, heck probably a large number of them, farming PLs and gear and what not.

However, a lot of people grind to be uber and have a shot at the top content.

SSG should stop confusing the path with the destination. If there is no destination running in the wheel is pointless.

[2pc2]

If reaper results in the better players being once again recognizable, as opposed to the current state in which in most cases you can barely tell apart, sure why not!

Bragging rights is one of the reason why some people play games and I see nothing wrong with it.

I don't need reaper to know if somene is better worse player. Really good players are easy to spot no matter what difficulty or class they play or how dumb is the game.

Braggig rights are legit, nothig wrong. Just be honest about it and don't disguise it under challenge. Instead of saying I want more challenge say I want more of those powercreep items I have been complaining for so long, I want them to be accesible only for the likes of me or the ones willing to quest with me so I can feel especial and brag some. I want peple to need me so I can feel especial again and fill my groups that otherwise won't fill because no ones seems to enjoy playing with people like me unless they really need me.

Or if you trully want challenge and think powercreep made the game so easy say that no significant rewards or powercreep should be added to reaper to avoid making it a joke in the long run just as it happened with elite. You won't see much people saying that because most people supporting reaper do it for his/her Ego not for the challenge. Thy acctually want powercreep as it makes the difficulty more desirable for those who don't want G and R challenge. They konw it's the only way they can drag a significant amout of players to play with them in this new difficulty.

SSG uses that b***hurt egos to it's own benefit to create an new hamster wheel/money grab difficulty and try to force everyone into it by adding shiny rewards (powercreep) that are exclusive of this new difficulty.

[Kebtid]

this makes absolutely no sense. I am wrong because I want a bonus that can only be found in Reaper to stay in Reaper? so what you are saying is you promote power creep and trivializing the game. gotcha.

Explain, why does it matter?
People who get reaper related gear /unless they have ego issues/ wont group with regular people to show off their gear, your killcount wont suffer.

IF reaper turns into what we predict and hope, it will require a comp of cooperative people.
And those people will use that gear to further complete harder reaper content, just explain, how does that gear negatively impact you?
Those players would dominate nonreaper either way, having +3 reaper prr/mrr wont make them suddenly more op then they alrdy were but will help in progress to complete harder reaper content.

[BigErkyKid]

I don't need reaper to know if somene is better worse player. Really good players are easy to spot no matter what difficulty or class they play or how dumb is the game.

I don't think that's the case nowadays. I have a very hard time telling apart a good from a great player, as content crumbles around us. By the way, this should be said, I consider myself an "average" player.


Braggig rights are legit, nothig wrong. Just be honest about it and don't disguise it under challenge. Instead of saying I want more challenge say I want more of those powercreep items I have been complaining for so long, I want them to be accesible only for the likes of me or the ones willing to quest with me so I can feel especial and brag some. I want peple to need me so I can feel especial again and fill my groups that otherwise won't fill because no ones seems to enjoy playing with people like me unless they really need me.
Well it goes without saying, if reaper is to become more than a once in a blue moon setting, it has to offer rewards. Think of the adventurers in DnD. They go into a dungeon for the reward, the shiny loot! As for the stuff about power creep, I agree that recently it has been out of control. However, if we adhere to this play for a reward way of thinking, then it has to be somehow desirable.


Or if you trully want challenge and think powercreep made the game so easy say that no significant rewards or powercreep should be added to reaper to avoid making it a joke in the long run just as it happened with elite.
You beat reaper, now what? Well a new adventure! Some vertical progression has to happen in the long run. However, since horizontal expansions are harder than adding yet another +1, we have too many leaps up. It is an issue of managing it well, not necessarily of the fact that it happens.


SSG uses that b***hurt egos to it's own benefit to create an new hamster wheel/money grab difficulty and try to force everyone into it by adding shiny rewards (powercreep) that are exclusive of this new difficulty.
SSG uses everything to milk us. Every single aspect of the game is corrupted by the aggravating microtransactions. Understand this, keep a tight control over your impulse spending, and then either live with it or quit the game. This reality is here to stay and won't change in the lifetime of DDO.

[Altamedes]

That isn't the issue. I keep seeing really poor responses regarding concerns about Reaper, and I don't know what the reasons are. Just in case you, or anyone else, really don't understand something that has been explained multiple times in multiple threads by people that have done a very good job of explaining the issues, I'll try to summarize.

Power creep - this affects all aspects of the game, regardless of whether or not someone chooses to play or avoid Reaper. Example - Reaper only bonuses will be available at any level in any quest.
Altered mechanics - this affects all aspects of the game, regardless of whether or not someone chooses to play or avoid Reaper. Example - the new aggro mechanics in every quest, and even in slayer areas, that have so many people upset seem to be in preparation for Reaper.
Grouping - new power levels and new difficulty levels and the gaps between veteran players and newcomers work to create an atmosphere that is not conducive to growing the gamer population. Example - people in the forums are often requesting server consolidation because of declining player numbers, thus grouping options.
Game engine - the game has demonstrated limits with regard to scaling. Multiple examples exist, from dumbing down AI, spawn red alerts, lag, and numbers of monsters per encounter are just a few. Stressing the engine has many adverse effects which filter down into all aspects of the game, regardless of difficulty level.

Also, I keep reading from various posters about how "casuals will ruin Reaper". Personally haven't seen anyone post an example, just "dooooooooooooooom" whining about it from Reaper fanbois. Maybe someone can show me an example instead of speculating.

I have seen plenty of people voice concern about how Reaper will be implemented. Those concerns are met with strawman misrepresentations in the forums and a proxy big middle finger from SSG via their apparent implementation.

A few points: I think Reaper could be a good thing if implemented properly. Currently, indicators point to a poor implementation. ANY power creep from Reaper is contradictory to the advertised purpose of Reaper. Poor implementation of Reaper will affect aspects of the game outside of Reaper, thus even people "that won't play Reaper" deserve to be heard regarding it.

Nice Summary

[2pc2]

Well it goes without saying, if reaper is to become more than a once in a blue moon setting, it has to offer rewards. Think of the adventurers in DnD. They go into a dungeon for the reward, the shiny loot! As for the stuff about power creep, I agree that recently it has been out of control. However, if we adhere to this play for a reward way of thinking, then it has to be somehow desirable.
.

Oh it has? I thought reaper was all about challenge, fun and getting rid of the powercreep? We have C/N/H/E to run for rewards I thought this whole new difficulty was to add challenge and what the other difficulties did not offer. Or that's what we have been told so far. Now it's not just about fun and challenege anymore it seems but another way to add yet more powercreep because it's no desirable without powercreep?

This just proves how much this people trully care for challenge. They care nothing unless there are shiny rewards. Most acctually just care for the rewards and feeling special again.

[mobrien316]

I was hoping that Reaper mode, since the stated reason for its existence was to provide a challenge, would give the same XP, favor, and rewards as elite. Otherwise, as already stated, Reaper becomes the new normal, and the power creep continues, to the detriment of the game.

It would have been nice if they could just have, for example, one Reaper quest in the game. Make it unbelievably, insanely difficult, to the point that only a group of multi-TR, fully geared, highly experienced players who work effectively together as a team have even the slightest chance of completing.

[AzureDragonas]

What makes you think I find the game challenging? I can destroy elite with any build or class too. Because of powercreep. And yes I did made the choice as everyone else, I decided to use that powercreep items and abilities when I could have chosen not to and challenge myself. You can be elite but not an elitist j***.

You make it sound as if I was against reaper or challenge. I'm not. I'm against adding more powercreep to reaper and if it is/was all about challenge it should be no problem if it had no rewards other than the fun.

If you are trully as worried about challenge as you try to make it look and 90% of the game according to your own words presents no challenge thaks to powercreep, why are you not defending that no sigificant reward that will make the game even easier should be added to reaper, insted of tryig to make it look like everyone against adding powercreep to reaper is a bad player who is against challenge or reaper itself?:)

When you talk about power creep at least measure it properly, i mean you claim that +2 score for most lucky and extra prr/mrr/mp/rp gonna break game while we keep zerging on warlocks clearing everything with 2 button clicks/ shuricannons throwing more shurikens than best rangers capable of shooting arrows or having some classes out of whack, look at recent monk pass it was failure and big, not because they "improved" already fine class not only by making it more pug friendly for those who uncapeable of learning to build, but they gave whiners what they wanted second blitz for free to a class loaded with highest in game defenses in a first place. PC comes from classes and how they "update" them and how "everyone" can make them and not from minor bonuses you will have to grind in first place, wanna remove pc? Then let best players to build end builds and use them as milestone what challenge on elite should be, cause right now even first lifers who at least read wiki/tips/forums can beat "elite".

[Paleus]

I see a lot of talking past each other and defining what other people are saying rather than engaging it. So, par for the course I guess.

For my two cp, I think OP's original comments are on point and getting lost by people trying to characterize those expressing disappointment as asking that Reaper be watered down for them.


Reaper is a difficulty tier higher than Elite.
Reaper difficulty will be available at any level.
Reaper rewards include substantial, exclusive power creep.
Reaper is the new elite.

Meet the new hamster wheel. This one goes to eleven.

I think for most, the request isn't to make it easier, but something different.

I would have been looking forward to reaper much more if it was a level 30 exclusive challenge. Implementing it across any level further underlines that there is no intention to build end-game challenge to DDO, just a continual hamster wheel of past lives that build to nothing other than having more power than the last life. I don't think that kind of design mentality encourages building in challenge that a player can build to. I wanted Reaper to be a challenge I could build to and engage in as an alternative to the continual hamster wheel the game is, something like what raids used to be. This implementation makes me feel like it will just be the new elite. If that's the case, why not just make elite harder?

Also, this all feels like an outgrowth of my on-going punching bag of saying you design around what you sell. There's no desire to design serious end-game challenge because the store sells XP, and if people are sitting at level 30 really being challenged then they aren't buying XP to get through the next past life. So reaper couldn't be designed in a way that might undermine that golden calf.

[Vint]

Also, I keep reading from various posters about how "casuals will ruin Reaper". Personally haven't seen anyone post an example, just "dooooooooooooooom" whining about it from Reaper fanbois. Maybe someone can show me an example instead of speculating.

There have been several examples of this over the years. Everyone wanted the favor/tp so they wanted to run elite even though they did not belong in elite. What did Turbine (at the time) do? They made elite easier. I do not know when you started playing, but Chai and many of the other players who you are speaking of with this can tell you from experience.

I am also thrown off by your "reaper fanboi" comment. Years ago I was part of first world wide completions of many raids and quests. I played a lot and worked to have the best in slot item/tome/PL. The game was easy to me because I had everything and I had the game knowledge to know quests, what to expect, and the amount of power creep. The point is, I took about a 9 month break from the game and when I returned I went totally solo while playing very little. I no longer care about world first, who has what tomes or has the best gear. I also have no interest in running reaper, but I do not hold it against people who do get an extra bonus because I have seen what they have planned for reaper and it looks like no joke.

If you want to harass anyone about reaper being added, look at your fellow forumites who demanded that elite be the default setting so they could get max favor/tp. Thank your fellow forumites who refused to accept running hard or normal. They made and continue to make claims that no one runs normal/hard, but is this the fault of SSG? Turbine? other players? No! The answer is it is the fault of the person who wants champions removed from elite. It is the player who wanted the Crucible removed from flagging. It is the player who cried that another got an extra green slot when they got their Blue dragon helm and they had to settle for the EH version of the helm.


Thank your fellow players who want to run on normal setting and demand elite rewards. If people would play within their means and not worry about what others are doing, they would have such a better time.

[Chai]

Reaper is a difficulty tier higher than Elite.
Reaper difficulty will be available at any level.
Reaper rewards include substantial, exclusive power creep.
Reaper is the new elite.

Meet the new hamster wheel. This one goes to eleven.

I havent seen anything "substantial" in power creep.

Increased chance of dropping named items.
Increased chance of named items having Mythic bonus.
Chance of named items having Reaper bonus.
Reaper Power +3 (Melee Power, Ranged Power, Spell Power)
Physical Resistance Rating +3
Magical Resistance Rating +3
All attributes +2 (helmets only)

None of that compares to going from +5 hit/damage to +11 hit/damage in one update, going from +11/4/1 statwise to +15/7/2 statwise in 6 months. DDO already went to 11 long before this, when selling tomes in the store, advocated using the motto "its only +1 more" each time + value was bumped up, and skipping over significant ranges of stat numbers. When the best deadly item was +5, had they put a +6 into the game, the power gamers would have chased that until they got it. Instead they went from +5 to +11, making all the numbers in between obtainable at lower levels instead of cap. This happened years ago. The "power creep" in reaper loot does not compare to previous levels of power creep.

[Dragavon]

A reaper bonus on a **** item does not make that item a good item.

[2pc2]

When you talk about power creep at least measure it properly, i mean you claim that +2 score for most lucky and extra prr/mrr/mp/rp gonna break game while we keep zerging on warlocks clearing everything with 2 button clicks/

The game being ridiculously broken for certain builds don't justify adding more powercreep to it, more like the other way around. If we have a completly broken game adding more powercreep will just make it worse.

+2 score is great for builds that use DC abilities, I have sold several +2 int spooky augments for over 2k on the ASAH, no one pays 2k AS for a minor upgrade. PRR/MRR/SP/MP/RP/ bonuses are accumulative and stack. It's not just +3, it's +3 x number of mythic/raeper bonus items.




I havent seen anything "substantial" in power creep.


None of that compares to going from +5 hit/damage to +11 hit/damage in one update, going from +11/4/1 statwise to +15/7/2 statwise in 6 months. DDO already went to 11 long before this, when selling tomes in the store, advocated using the motto "its only +1 more" each time + value was bumped up, and skipping over significant ranges of stat numbers. When the best deadly item was +5, had they put a +6 into the game, the power gamers would have chased that until they got it. Instead they went from +5 to +11, making all the numbers in between obtainable at lower levels instead of cap. This happened years ago. The "power creep" in reaper loot does not compare to previous levels of power creep.

Assuming the max reaper bonus is +3, which we dont know, you can wear up to 16 items. So you can have up to 16 x 3 = 47 extra MP/RP/SP or MRR/PRR . That's not powercreep right? :p

[BigErkyKid]

That's not powercreep right? :p

This is a MMO, not an RPG. People play it for the progression it offers. Difficulty without any sort of progression is not MMO-like, it is RPG like. There must be some sort of progression for a system to work, the question is how to do it.

[Chi_Ryu]

Spooky augments are useful because you can slot them onto items which are already useful to make them even better, so these aren't comparable. I agree with...


A reaper bonus on a **** item does not make that item a good item.

This. There is very little heroic-level items that I would try and farm at Reaper level, possibly one or two helms with the +2 stat bonus (which is miles ahead of the other bonuses) and a handful of raid loot (quiver and torc, mainly; assuming that end list items cannot be reaper-fied, only chest loot.

At higher levels (level 25 onwards), +3PRR/power is pretty insignificant, especially when again most loot has been superseded by those in later updates.

To be frank, aside from very few exceptions, Cannith crafted loot outspecs the majority of named loot, and even most Raid items, by so much that it'd have to be a great bonus to tempt me.


Assuming the max reaper bonus is +3, which we dont know, you can wear up to 16 items. So you can have up to 16 x 3 = 47 extra MP/RP/SP or MRR/PRR . That's not powercreep right? :p

If it is a typed bonus (the post suggest it will be of type "Reaper") then it won't stack.

[walkin_dude]

If you want that bonus go do quests on reaper mode. If you think that is unreasonable then you are wrong. Simple as that.

You must have missed all of the (probably thousands of) similar comments made about elite and EE difficulties over the years. There are apparently a lot of people who are offended by the idea of playing something other than the toughest version of the game - and the game is at fault if they can't.

[Qhualor]

Explain, why does it matter?
People who get reaper related gear /unless they have ego issues/ wont group with regular people to show off their gear, your killcount wont suffer.

IF reaper turns into what we predict and hope, it will require a comp of cooperative people.
And those people will use that gear to further complete harder reaper content, just explain, how does that gear negatively impact you?
Those players would dominate nonreaper either way, having +3 reaper prr/mrr wont make them suddenly more op then they alrdy were but will help in progress to complete harder reaper content.

This is false. You really think players with Reaper gear won't group with other players in the other difficulties?

Wishes and dreams for Reaper has no bearing on the discussion of the fact that a bonus that comes from only Reaper can be used in the other difficulties. What it does do, as I already have said, is trivialize content even more and creates more imbalance between players in content that is supposed to be balanced with gear, enhancements, etc. As I also said before, I am seeing lots of similarities between Reaper and elite. If people think it's going to stop here, I've got a bridge to sell you.

[Vint]

This is false. You really think players with Reaper gear won't group with other players in the other difficulties?

Wishes and dreams for Reaper has no bearing on the discussion of the fact that a bonus that comes from only Reaper can be used in the other difficulties. What it does do, as I already have said, is trivialize content even more and creates more imbalance between players in content that is supposed to be balanced with gear, enhancements, etc. As I also said before, I am seeing lots of similarities between Reaper and elite. If people think it's going to stop here, I've got a bridge to sell you.

So should we make it so only legends can play with each other? Those with no PL can group with each other? You will always have players that are not good at the game riding the coat tails of those that do.

[2pc2]

This is a MMO, not an RPG. People play it for the progression it offers. Difficulty without any sort of progression is not MMO-like, it is RPG like. There must be some sort of progression for a system to work, the question is how to do it.

Silly me, I always thought that people played for fun, and only grinded items or past life to have fun with it later :) I didn't know that some actually enjoyed the farm. :eek:

You can't progress without adding powercreep?

The progression imo shouldn't be get this or that powercreep items and then you are good, but play and get experinced and with experience you get better, because no gear, build or past life are going to save you. That's what reaper should look like, rather than "get this items or play this class and you are god, don't get this items and don't play this class you suck" that we have now and that seems that will be the same with reaper and the powercreep introduced with it.

True progression my friend is getting better at the game no matter what you play and how well geared it is. Not getting 30 past lifes, not getting this or that item or playing that complete broken build that would make a monkey look like a good player. That's good for the ego but it's not real progression. But hey, maybe I'm too much of an idealist and what peple really want is more powercreep, just disgised as challenge so the pill is easier to swallow :p

[2pc2]

If it is a typed bonus (the post suggest it will be of type "Reaper") then it won't stack.

Mythic bonuses are typed as Mythic and yet they stack. Pretty sure reaper bonuses will do too ;)

[nokowi]

because no gear, build or past life are going to save you.

So in other words, they mythic bonus will not cause players to be successful that would not otherwise already be successful.

Mythic bonuses simply provide an incentive for players that want to be the best to group and play reaper. Since XP is not an incentive, it is reasonable for players to have a reason to run reaper beyond just challenge. Players only want challenge some fraction of the time, and grouping would be difficult across 30 levels for challenge alone. One of the goals of reaper was grouping and cooperation. It is not there just for challenge.

Level 30 design probably could have succeeded without any incentives, but Level 1-30 will not.

Entitled players ego's are less important than have a successful reaper mode, that players actually play.

[BigErkyKid]

Silly me, I always thought that people played for fun, and only grinded items or past life to have fun with it later :) I didn't know that some actually enjoyed the farm. :eek:

I don't like farming, but I like acquiring items. Preferably after truly difficult fights.

It is part of MMOs, it appeals to hoarders somehow.

I would def not have played this long if it was only about beating the quests. I can't speak for others though.

An MMO is intended to bring the RPG feeling, but with infinite progression, to a multi player. Both the difficulty and the shinies are part of what I play them, and I think this is true for some others too.

[2pc2]

but I do not hold it against people who do get an extra bonus because I have seen what they have planned for reaper and it looks like no joke.



It's not being against anything. It's called common sense. Some peps are bored with how easy the game is, they ask for challenge. That's fine and I agree with that. But why the game is so easy? Because we have been given a lot of power while the mobs stayed the same. Solution give mobs more power while reducing player power. But... they also give that players extra and new bonuses to make up for their reduced power, for now the bonuses don't overcome the penalties, but for how long? Once this new bonuses get better because of progression and start overcoming the penalties what will happen? I can see a pattern here :rolleyes:

It' s simple :

Increase players power and keep mobs the same = gets easy ( what we have now )

Increase mobs power and nerf or keep players the same = it gets difficult ( what reaper should be if it was for the challenge)

Increase mobs power and increase players power = the hamster wheel starts again ( what reaper seems to be in the long run )

Just common sense ;)

[mobrien316]

It seems inconsistent to say that we need Reaper mode for the challenge and we also need Reaper mode to give better stuff than elite because otherwise there would be no reason to run Reaper mode.

[Vint]

.....Just common sense ;)

What you say is common sense. What will happen is reality. The first day; the very first day reaper is released, these forums will be filled with players demanding that reaper be dumbed down. They will complain about stupid damage and how they will take their money to another game because they cannot compete or live long in reaper. In fact, I am sure we will see a few people claim that they "own the adventure pack" and they should be able to enjoy all difficulties of the content.

Power creep is an issue in this game, and I couldn't care less about getting mythic items or extra xp. Leave them out for all I care.

What I hate is the entitled attitude of players who will demand that reaper be watered down to fit their poor game play and their attitude that no one should get better loot than them.

If we are going to talk about balance and what is game breaking, start a petition to remove self healing. Start a petition to limit multi classing. Keep up this petition to keep better rewards from reaper for all it matters. Within a few weeks it will be dumbed down to appease the masses so I guess it doesn't matter anyway.

[BigErkyKid]

I would have been looking forward to reaper much more if it was a level 30 exclusive challenge. Implementing it across any level further underlines that there is no intention to build end-game challenge to DDO, just a continual hamster wheel of past lives

This implementation makes me feel like it will just be the new elite. If that's the case, why not just make elite harder?

There's no desire to design serious end-game challenge because the store sells XP, and if people are sitting at level 30 really being challenged then they aren't buying XP to get through the next past life. So reaper couldn't be designed in a way that might undermine that golden calf.

Right here. They haven't figured out ways to monetize other stuff, so we don't get it. How about giving us sufficient content to merit a freaking subscription?

But it is the story of a defeat from the start. They didn't get enough people to make it viable by subscription (by their own admission, although I don't know how much profit they wanted out of it), so they made it viable via p2w. By making it a super grindy p2skip scheme, they alienated a lot of people, either actual players or potential. Then given the small player base milking the grinders is the cheapest development option.

Makes me sad because the base engine of the game is fantastic. I am amazed by it, even by modern day standards. Certainly WAAAAAY better than neverwinter. And then again, I play because I loved DnD as a teenager and an MMO is my only possible substitute nowadays.

[Forzah]

It seems inconsistent to say that we need Reaper mode for the challenge and we also need Reaper mode to give better stuff than elite because otherwise there would be no reason to run Reaper mode.

Is it really?

There would certainly be less reason to run reaper if there is no reward. Challenge alone attracts only a few people. Include a reward and it will attract many people.

I'd probably only run a reaper quest once if it gave no reward. When I've beaten it once, the challenge is pretty much gone.

[Qhualor]

So should we make it so only legends can play with each other? Those with no PL can group with each other? You will always have players that are not good at the game riding the coat tails of those that do.

Good or bad doesn't matter. What I am talking about is a Reaper bonus that works not just in Reaper, but in the other difficulties. Before Reaper content was supposed to be designed around character power in that intended level range. Over time, only newer content supposedly is designed around that and older content is left alone. Power creep continues to trivialize.

[Vint]

Good or bad doesn't matter. What I am talking about is a Reaper bonus that works not just in Reaper, but in the other difficulties. Before Reaper content was supposed to be designed around character power in that intended level range. Over time, only newer content supposedly is designed around that and older content is left alone. Power creep continues to trivialize.

Would you like to see the HP doubled for mobs in heroic Gianthold? I can tell you exactly what would happen. The people that couldn't handle the change would not start running heroic hard, they would come here complaining that they are entitled to run heroic elite GH and then demand that the devs reverse it.

As I said in my last post, difficulty level was fine until many people started whining that EVERYONE should be able to run elite setting. They apparently felt less of a person if they were forced to run normal or hard. They couldn't stand that the people running elite were getting more xp and +1 better loot.

Look back over the years. Reaper will be no change just as I stated in my last post.

[Qhualor]

Would you like to see the HP doubled for mobs in heroic Gianthold? I can tell you exactly what would happen. The people that couldn't handle the change would not start running heroic hard, they would come here complaining that they are entitled to run heroic elite GH and then demand that the devs reverse it.

As I said in my last post, difficulty level was fine until many people started whining that EVERYONE should be able to run elite setting. They apparently felt less of a person if they were forced to run normal or hard. They couldn't stand that the people running elite were getting more xp and +1 better loot.

Look back over the years. Reaper will be no change just as I stated in my last post.

I actually would like to see hitpoints increased for mobs in older content that matches closer to potential character damage output. Character power has grown considerably over the years. When I solo those heroic quests, mobs are usually dead between 1 and 5 hits that include bosses. There are specific cases in higher level old content that do take more than 5 hits.

Oh I've seen the complaints, but it doesn't mean adding more hitpoints to mobs has to be the only answer. I've always suggested more interesting and challenging encounters that include mob self healing and improving existing self healing for mobs, Improved AI, more spell/tactical/dps options and increasing DR as necessary. This isn't going to happen though because the devs have said they will not update old content. Despite that, it is what should have been done all along and maybe the game would be very different than what is now.

[Pyed-Pyper]

Explain, why does it matter?
People who get reaper related gear /unless they have ego issues/ wont group with regular people to show off their gear, your killcount wont suffer.

IF reaper turns into what we predict and hope, it will require a comp of cooperative people.
And those people will use that gear to further complete harder reaper content, just explain, how does that gear negatively impact you?
Those players would dominate nonreaper either way, having +3 reaper prr/mrr wont make them suddenly more op then they alrdy were but will help in progress to complete harder reaper content.

Wow. I want to thank you. I love my words. I love them so much I write them down, and I type them for others to read. It is rare that I get to repeat those words but you, you wonderful person you. You post something so oblivious that I get to repeat my wonderful words verbatim. And it was very thoughtful of you to not make me go looking any further than the very same page.


That isn't the issue. I keep seeing really poor responses regarding concerns about Reaper, and I don't know what the reasons are. Just in case you, or anyone else, really don't understand something that has been explained multiple times in multiple threads by people that have done a very good job of explaining the issues, I'll try to summarize.

Power creep - this affects all aspects of the game, regardless of whether or not someone chooses to play or avoid Reaper. Example - Reaper only bonuses will be available at any level in any quest.
Altered mechanics - this affects all aspects of the game, regardless of whether or not someone chooses to play or avoid Reaper. Example - the new aggro mechanics in every quest, and even in slayer areas, that have so many people upset seem to be in preparation for Reaper.
Grouping - new power levels and new difficulty levels and the gaps between veteran players and newcomers work to create an atmosphere that is not conducive to growing the gamer population. Example - people in the forums are often requesting server consolidation because of declining player numbers, thus grouping options.
Game engine - the game has demonstrated limits with regard to scaling. Multiple examples exist, from dumbing down AI, spawn red alerts, lag, and numbers of monsters per encounter are just a few. Stressing the engine has many adverse effects which filter down into all aspects of the game, regardless of difficulty level.

Also, I keep reading from various posters about how "casuals will ruin Reaper". Personally haven't seen anyone post an example, just "dooooooooooooooom" whining about it from Reaper fanbois. Maybe someone can show me an example instead of speculating.

I have seen plenty of people voice concern about how Reaper will be implemented. Those concerns are met with strawman misrepresentations in the forums and a proxy big middle finger from SSG via their apparent implementation.

A few points: I think Reaper could be a good thing if implemented properly. Currently, indicators point to a poor implementation. ANY power creep from Reaper is contradictory to the advertised purpose of Reaper. Poor implementation of Reaper will affect aspects of the game outside of Reaper, thus even people "that won't play Reaper" deserve to be heard regarding it.

[Pyed-Pyper]

When you talk about power creep at least measure it properly, i mean you claim that +2 score for most lucky and extra prr/mrr/mp/rp gonna break game while we keep zerging on warlocks clearing everything with 2 button clicks/ shuricannons throwing more shurikens than best rangers capable of shooting arrows or having some classes out of whack, look at recent monk pass it was failure and big, not because they "improved" already fine class not only by making it more pug friendly for those who uncapeable of learning to build, but they gave whiners what they wanted second blitz for free to a class loaded with highest in game defenses in a first place. PC comes from classes and how they "update" them and how "everyone" can make them and not from minor bonuses you will have to grind in first place, wanna remove pc? Then let best players to build end builds and use them as milestone what challenge on elite should be, cause right now even first lifers who at least read wiki/tips/forums can beat "elite".

The Reaper-type bonuses are stacking. They stack with everything. That is the very definition of power creep. A +2 to all stats is equal to the "Completionist" feat. You know, the one that takes TRs to get? Granted, that doesn't mean what it used to, because of power creep, yet a stacking +2 to stats is another point for DC, so yes that measly little bit is a big deal.

You stray off topic when you start talking about classes and FoTM builds. We are talking about Reaper, and how its implementation will affect the game. If you want to complain about how Warlock needs a nerf, or shuricannons are OP, there are plenty of other threads for that.

Just as Rome wasn't built in a day, changes to the game that trivialized content weren't added all at once. They happened just the way Reaper is happening.

[Vint]

I actually would like to see hitpoints increased for mobs in older content that matches closer to potential character damage output. Character power has grown considerably over the years. When I solo those heroic quests, mobs are usually dead between 1 and 5 hits that include bosses. There are specific cases in higher level old content that do take more than 5 hits.

Oh I've seen the complaints, but it doesn't mean adding more hitpoints to mobs has to be the only answer. I've always suggested more interesting and challenging encounters that include mob self healing and improving existing self healing for mobs, Improved AI, more spell/tactical/dps options and increasing DR as necessary. This isn't going to happen though because the devs have said they will not update old content. Despite that, it is what should have been done all along and maybe the game would be very different than what is now.

I can agree, but would you tell people that complain they can no longer play elite? Take their money to another game? Grow a pair? Run normal/hard?

I would say about any of these things, but many players are used to crying until they get what they want and I bet the devs would cave in fear because they know these entitled people would leave.

[Qhualor]

I can agree, but would you tell people that complain they can no longer play elite? Take their money to another game? Grow a pair? Run normal/hard?

I would say about any of these things, but many players are used to crying until they get what they want and I bet the devs would cave in fear because they know these entitled people would leave.

I do tell people if they can't handle elite they should be running lower difficulties until they get better to handle elite, but the response is always justification and entitlement. When I first started playing that is how I did it and that's what vets told me I should be doing. I never ran elite unless I thought my character was strong enough to handle it and my player skills had improved enough. For some reason Turbine/SSG strayed from the importance of the learning curve that I believe was partially for business reasons. Whatever the reason, it is what has led to so many problems with the game and why things have ended up as they have.

[mobrien316]

Is it really?

There would certainly be less reason to run reaper if there is no reward. Challenge alone attracts only a few people. Include a reward and it will attract many people.

I'd probably only run a reaper quest once if it gave no reward. When I've beaten it once, the challenge is pretty much gone.

If the stated reason to have Reaper is for challenge, then Reaper quests should be fulfilling their reason for existence by providing a challenge. If it provides super shinies that outclass those found on elite, then Reaper quickly becomes the new elite.

Perhaps they could make cosmetic armor and equipment that can only be obtained in Reaper quests, and make it all BtC. Then people could show other people that they completed a Reaper quest.

[Pyed-Pyper]

There have been several examples of this over the years. Everyone wanted the favor/tp so they wanted to run elite even though they did not belong in elite. What did Turbine (at the time) do? They made elite easier. I do not know when you started playing, but Chai and many of the other players who you are speaking of with this can tell you from experience.

Yes, I keep hearing from people that this happened. Still, I haven't seen an example. Do you have one? Doesn't really matter anyway, because....

Let's take your point as fully true and correct, and walk through it:
Reaper comes with greater difficulty and power creep.
We are unworthy-types see the shiny new toys the Ubers have earned and in fits of jealousy cry until they have access to it.
Reaper gets nerfed, and the unwashed masses get the exact same uber-stuff as those who "earned" it.
Head wagging and sad faces are shared amongst the Uber Players because they no longer have distinguishing merit badges.

By your own estimation, at the end of this process what we have is more power creep for all. Thus, my advocacy for ZERO power creep from Reaper. Cosmetics earned from Reaper completions, not available in the store, is one possible solution. I have suggested other ego-stroking rewards.



I am also thrown off by your "reaper fanboi" comment. .....

If the shoe fits.... That comment wasn't aimed at you. If you feel insulted, I suggest some introspective meditation.



If you want to harass anyone about reaper being added, look at your fellow forumites who demanded that elite be the default setting so they could get max favor/tp. Thank your fellow forumites who refused to accept running hard or normal. They made and continue to make claims that no one runs normal/hard, but is this the fault of SSG? Turbine? other players? No! The answer is it is the fault of the person who wants champions removed from elite. It is the player who wanted the Crucible removed from flagging. It is the player who cried that another got an extra green slot when they got their Blue dragon helm and they had to settle for the EH version of the helm.

Thank your fellow players who want to run on normal setting and demand elite rewards. If people would play within their means and not worry about what others are doing, they would have such a better time.

Are you feeling harassed? Once again, anecdotal non-sequiturs about unwashed heathens ruining your party. I have never seen this. Got a quote? Got an example? Again, it isn't relevant. This is about Reaper. This about how the implementation will affect the game outside of Reaper. This about how Reaper fanbois will ruin my party. I'd expect a little sympathy from someone such as yourself who has endured others ruining your fun.

[Vint]

Reaper gets nerfed, and the unwashed masses get the exact same uber-stuff as those who "earned" it.
This is not the point. I don’t think anyone cares what loot anyone else has. To tell you the truth when epic Gianthold was endgame, I sold a ton of epic items to other players for otto boxes and tp codes. I couldn’t care less if the worst player in the game has the best loot. What I care about is the people that will cry and complain that they cannot survive in reaper, and the devs water it down.
We are in the same boat as we are now. There will be no challenge for the “ubers”.


If the shoe fits.... That comment wasn't aimed at you. If you feel insulted, I suggest some introspective meditation.

I am not insulted by this at all. I can tell by your condensation that you do not like good players and that is fine. I do not plan to live in reaper content and have no problem if you or anyone else can or cannot. My point is that the forums will be full the first day of people crying because they cannot survive. You may direct this question towards people who refuse to play in hard/normal setting without trying to get the game watered down to their level.


Are you feeling harassed? Once again, anecdotal non-sequiturs about unwashed heathens ruining your party. I have never seen this. Got a quote? Got an example? Again, it isn't relevant. This is about Reaper. This about how the implementation will affect the game outside of Reaper. This about how Reaper fanbois will ruin my party. I'd expect a little sympathy from someone such as yourself who has endured others ruining your fun.
I do not feel harassed and do not have anything against the so called heathens. I will say that years ago I would lead parties all the time but I stopped and started to solo/channel/guild only. I’ll give you an example of why.

I would put up an LFM for wiz king and it would say “be able to solo a tower”. People would join and guess what they would do? Nope, not solo a tower. They would follow we around and when I asked them to go solo a tower they said they couldn’t. This happened in many quests when the party could split up. Players didn’t know where the quest was, didn’t have their own heals, needed a guide, wanted someone to carry them.

Things have not changed. Keep asking for the game to be watered down. Keep asking for a crutch. Keep hating the power gamers who have better loot and can go faster than others. Keep feeling hate. I am having a good time so you don’t need to worry about how I am doing with the change. I’ll continue to solo. You just keep up the good fight for the players who refuse to help themselves.

[Miow]

Well this is going well. I miss how the game felt with the old elite with the shard seal scroll crafting at it's peak.

[Thrudh]

Why are people who will not play in reaper, concerned with rewards people who will play in reaper obtain?

Because it "might" split the player base even more.

I will wait and see, but I don't think very many people will run reaper all the time when leveling 1-20. You don't get any more favor or normal exp, so it will be faster to level on elite, and having bonuses on heroic loot isn't really needed or worth the time. So no problem.

Now, in the epic levels, I can see more people running reaper, maybe, for the loot bonuses. This will make it harder to find a group for elite.

I will wait and see, but I thought reaper was going to be for bragging rights, cosmetics, etc. Not more power-creep.

[2pc2]

What you say is common sense. What will happen is reality. The first day; the very first day reaper is released, these forums will be filled with players demanding that reaper be dumbed down. They will complain about stupid damage and how they will take their money to another game because they cannot compete or live long in reaper. In fact, I am sure we will see a few people claim that they "own the adventure pack" and they should be able to enjoy all difficulties of the content.

Power creep is an issue in this game, and I couldn't care less about getting mythic items or extra xp. Leave them out for all I care.

What I hate is the entitled attitude of players who will demand that reaper be watered down to fit their poor game play and their attitude that no one should get better loot than them.


This hasn't happened yet, I don't doubt it will but it has not for now. People here are complaining about more powercreep being added to reaper not about reaper being too difficult.

It will happen only because of the rewards. If there were no special rewards for reaper no one would demand it to be dumbed down because no one but people trully intersted in challenge would be interested in running it. If you add up to +48 extra PRR/MRR/SP/MP/RP (and that's just the start...) of course everyone will be willing to run it, if only for the rewards, even those who are not ready and/or dislike challenge.

This people who don't like challenge has been destroying the game on its max difficulty (elite) while getting elite rewards for years without it requiring any thought or skill, for those too bad to easily dominate elite they created the warlock. Do you think this same people will not demand reaper to be dumbed down so they can get the new shinies if there are any good rewards on it? Of course they will. Best solution: add reaper with no significant rewards, just challenge. People trully looking for challenge would be happy as they would have it and people who don't like it won't feel forced to play it to get the new shinies they had been easily handed for so long.

Up to +48 RR/MRR/SP/MP/RP it's a lot of powercreep. A lvl 20 ranger tempest ( a good dps) gets only 10 MP from capstone a 20 DC wizzard with full set of reaper items will have more MP than a pure ranger tempest ( a physical damage dealer specialist) with no reaper bonus. Every epic level gives +3 MP, a level 30 character has +30 MP from 10 epic levels.... This bonus gives more MP than 10 levels. If we want the gear to be even more impoortant than the build or the skill or even the epic levels then yeah, this is the way to go; if we want to get rid of this powercreep that made the game so easy it's not.

[2pc2]

There would certainly be less reason to run reaper if there is no reward. Challenge alone attracts only a few people. Include a reward and it will attract many people.



An then it will stop being challenging as most people don't like it. It will stop being the challenging dificulty and become the new normal, just like it happened with elite. It's just a matter of time.

The mistake, if the intention is to make reaper difficult, is trying to get everyone into reaper with shiny rewards rather than let everyone freely decide if they want to run it just for challenge or not. If you want to start a new hamster wheel using challenge as an excuse then adding shiny rewards to try force everyone into it is the best solution, on the other hand if you want to make a new and trully challenging difficulty for the bored hardcore vets giving them more powercreep and trying to force the average player into it with shiny rewards will only result in the difficulty being dumbed down sooner or later. Thus being challenging no more, thus defeating the initial purpose of the difficulty itself.

[die]

I for one am for Reaper. My friends and I are not the only one's who just tear through the content. even Crowns dont slow us down. Reaper should put some challenge back into the game for us.

[nokowi]

If the stated reason to have Reaper is for challenge, then Reaper quests should be fulfilling their reason for existence by providing a challenge.

It was for cooperative grouping AND challenge.

No rewards equals no group to cooperate with.

Those with an obvious agenda seem to ignore the first part.

[doubledge]

This hasn't happened yet, I don't doubt it will but it has not for now. People here are complaining about more powercreep being added to reaper not about reaper being too difficult.

It will happen only because of the rewards. If there were no special rewards for reaper no one would demand it to be dumbed down because no one but people trully intersted in challenge would be interested in running it. If you add up to +48 extra PRR/MRR/SP/MP/RP (and that's just the start...) of course everyone will be willing to run it, if only for the rewards, even those who are not ready and/or dislike challenge.

This people who don't like challenge has been destroying the game on its max difficulty (elite) while getting elite rewards for years without it requiring any thought or skill, for those too bad to easily dominate elite they created the warlock. Do you think this same people will not demand reaper to be dumbed down so they can get the new shinies if there are any good rewards on it? Of course they will. Best solution: add reaper with no significant rewards, just challenge. People trully looking for challenge would be happy as they would have it and people who don't like it won't feel forced to play it to get the new shinies they had been easily handed for so long.

Up to +48 RR/MRR/SP/MP/RP it's a lot of powercreep. A lvl 20 ranger tempest ( a good dps) gets only 10 MP from capstone a 20 DC wizzard with full set of reaper items will have more MP than a pure ranger tempest ( a physical damage dealer specialist) with no reaper bonus. Every epic level gives +3 MP, a level 30 character has +30 MP from 10 epic levels.... This bonus gives more MP than 10 levels. If we want the gear to be even more impoortant than the build or the skill or even the epic levels then yeah, this is the way to go; if we want to get rid of this powercreep that made the game so easy it's not.


You have to remember: This new Reaper bonus DOESN'T appear on craftable items. That means reaper bonuses don't appear on ANYTHING from Slavelords. That 48 prr OR 48 mrr OR SP/MP/RP competes with Slavelords gear, AND Cannith crafted gear, and you'll need to make a very difficult choice between your +21 stat item, and a reaper power item, along with massively powerful doubleslot CC items (I want my +7 insightful int, dammit!), and legendary shroud items...

Let's be honest here. You're ALWAYS going to want a +21 item to the stat of your choice. That lowers your estimates by 3.

Now let's extrapolate some more.

You're probably going to want a LGS Triple-Pos-Regeneration item. Estimate -3.

I'm extremely partial to a Con +21 item. Estimate -3.

I am probably going to spend hours farming for a reaper power quiver of some kind. Estimate +3.

Slavelords gear is extremely useful, and the set bonuses compete heavily with reaper power. Depending on if you're going for the set bonus (Spell dcs, or artefact damage), that eats 3-5 slots. Estimate -3 to 9.

So that's -9 to 15 points of whatever from your estimate. dropping the value from 48 whatever to 39 to 33.

Truth: There are very few decent cloaks. You're probably going to cannith craft one. Value down to 36 to 30.

Truth: You are an absolute moron if you aren't using a reaper +2 prismatic stats helm. Value down to 33 to 27

So that's 33 (three piece set of slavelords gear) to 27 (5 piece) points of whatever.

NOW: do we have any confirmation that the new reaper power is shackled to gear slot like Mythic, or are we grasping at straws?

Finally: I'm not sure about you, but I'm sure as hell not willing to ditch all of my DC casting gear for 27 spellpower.

-

Let's look at all of the craftable gear, which would be excluded from reaper.

- Slavelords, and any named item from Slavelords
- Epic Necro (INCLUDING EPIC LITANY)
- TOEE
- LShroud

So unless you want to gear up entirely with reaper lootgen... (Ew.)

That'd leave behind the only competitive slot options for reaper as things from U31. (MMM. MP/RP +14 ring of prowess. Just saying...)


Now don't mind me, I'm off to go get ready to laugh my butt off when I try and fail to do 10-skull Harbor.

[nokowi]

An then it will stop being challenging as most people don't like it. It will stop being the challenging dificulty and become the new normal, just like it happened with elite. It's just a matter of time.

The mistake, if the intention is to make reaper difficult, is trying to get everyone into reaper with shiny rewards rather than let everyone freely decide if they want to run it just for challenge or not. If you want to start a new hamster wheel using challenge as an excuse then adding shiny rewards to try force everyone into it is the best solution, on the other hand if you want to make a new and trully challenging difficulty for the bored hardcore vets giving them more powercreep and trying to force the average player into it with shiny rewards will only result in the difficulty being dumbed down sooner or later. Thus being challenging no more, thus defeating the initial purpose of the difficulty itself.

There is something between zero and infinity.

They need to provide enough rewards that players can reasonably find/form a reaper group without providing so many rewards that the wrong people (casuals demanding content be made easier) move to reaper.

This would have been much easier to do if reaper was level 30 only.

[Vint]

This hasn't happened yet, I don't doubt it will but it has not for now. People here are complaining about more powercreep being added to reaper not about reaper being too difficult.

Lets say the devs change their mind and the only reward for reaper will be a cosmetic item. Are you telling me that we will not see any complaints about reaper being too difficult?

Its sour grapes.

[2pc2]

~snip~ So unless you want to gear up entirely with reaper lootgen... (Ew.)

That'd leave behind the only competitive slot options for reaper as things from U31.

Yeah and what will happen with new updates and new best in slot not upgradable gear that will come with the updates? Cannith crafted and slavers are not going to stay top tier gear forever... Sooner or later you will see people with full reaper equipment set also we don't konw if +3 is the maximum and for how long it will stay the maximum if it is. So sooner or later you will see people with +48 (or more) MRR/PRR/SP/MP/RP just from reaper bonuses. That's prbably the biggest powercreep itroduced in the game since warlock release ;)

[nokowi]

Yeah and what will happen with new updates and new best in slot not upgradable gear that will come with the updates? Cannith crafted and slavers are not going to stay top tier gear forever... Sooner or later you will see people with full reaper equipment set also we don't konw if +3 is the maximum and for how long it will stay the maximum if it is. So sooner or later you will see people with +48 (or more) MRR/PRR/SP/MP/RP just from reaper bonuses. That's prbably the biggest powercreep itroduced in the game since warlock release ;)

It depends how long it takes to acquire all +3 mythic gear, and how quickly it gets replaced by better non mythic gear.

It may require an extreme amount of play time to keep up with the Jones, and even have a few +3 items.

I don't know any player that is close to having all max mythic items now.

Making this your inevitable conclusion is a weak argument.

[arkonas]

This hasn't happened yet, I don't doubt it will but it has not for now. People here are complaining about more powercreep being added to reaper not about reaper being too difficult.

It will happen only because of the rewards. If there were no special rewards for reaper no one would demand it to be dumbed down because no one but people trully intersted in challenge would be interested in running it. If you add up to +48 extra PRR/MRR/SP/MP/RP (and that's just the start...) of course everyone will be willing to run it, if only for the rewards, even those who are not ready and/or dislike challenge.

This people who don't like challenge has been destroying the game on its max difficulty (elite) while getting elite rewards for years without it requiring any thought or skill, for those too bad to easily dominate elite they created the warlock. Do you think this same people will not demand reaper to be dumbed down so they can get the new shinies if there are any good rewards on it? Of course they will. Best solution: add reaper with no significant rewards, just challenge. People trully looking for challenge would be happy as they would have it and people who don't like it won't feel forced to play it to get the new shinies they had been easily handed for so long.

Up to +48 RR/MRR/SP/MP/RP it's a lot of powercreep. A lvl 20 ranger tempest ( a good dps) gets only 10 MP from capstone a 20 DC wizzard with full set of reaper items will have more MP than a pure ranger tempest ( a physical damage dealer specialist) with no reaper bonus. Every epic level gives +3 MP, a level 30 character has +30 MP from 10 epic levels.... This bonus gives more MP than 10 levels. If we want the gear to be even more impoortant than the build or the skill or even the epic levels then yeah, this is the way to go; if we want to get rid of this powercreep that made the game so easy it's not.

it didn't happen for reaper but lets see champions people did complain and guess what it got nerfed. people still were not happy and wanted removal of them because its too hard for them. random mobs who might be able to kill you compared to the regular mobs which you killed on a daily basis for years. it brought in that random element but again champs only appeared on hard/elite. hard champs really aren't that difficult for most people. yet those people did complain about elite because it was too tough. i constantly see people complain about no lfms but refuse to set one up. they complain about ip lfms but again refuse to set one up. not just that but people also clashing because of different styles and no respect to each other. so both of their gaming is ruined. people have complained a lot over the years things were too tough.

i have seen people lobby for more balance. lets look at mob density which a lot of people have issues with. i don't mind it to an extent, but i do wish to see variations in the mob sizes. mobs that include special mobs, leaders, champs, etc. like orcs leading some ogres into battle vs you with a shaman or melee calling shots. doesn't have to be a red name but 5-6 of them could really put a dent in you. worgs with kobolds or even kobold riding wargs with a few archers and a spellcaster. we don't need 20 group mobs on every corner of every inch of a map.

the umber hulks are a great example. 3-6 of them. or couple golems with some cannons/defenders. again small groups but dangerous opponents.

[2pc2]

Lets say the devs change their mind and the only reward for reaper will be a cosmetic item. Are you telling me that we will not see any complaints about reaper being too difficult?



Exactly. There will always be someone complaining but not that much. People who would find it too difficult for their taste would just pay no attention to it and go play other equaly rewarding difficulties since it won't have any incentive to them utside of the challenge in what they are not interested. People don't use to complain about things that are not of their interest and of course if you add +48 MRR/PRR/SP/MP/RP people will be intersted in it even if they are not interested in challenge.

[mobrien316]

It was for cooperative grouping AND challenge.

No rewards equals no group to cooperate with.

Those with an obvious agenda seem to ignore the first part.

If Reaper mode is made so insanely difficult that only experienced groups who are able to work well together can complete, isn't that still a challenge? Was Reaper supposed to be designed for challenging solo play? You seem to be saying that only one person wants Reaper mode, so unless there are rewards that person will have no one to group with. It seems more likely that an extremely, extremely difficult Reaper mode will draw groups who want a challenge. Perhaps it could have BtC cosmetic gear as a reward so they can wear it around and everyone will know they completed Reaper.

[mobrien316]

Lets say the devs change their mind and the only reward for reaper will be a cosmetic item. Are you telling me that we will not see any complaints about reaper being too difficult?

Its sour grapes.

People will complain, but they will properly be advised that Reaper is not for everyone. I think the cosmetic item reward is a great idea.

People still complain occasionally that elite is too hard, or champions are too hard. Those people are advised, hopefully politely, that there are other difficulty settings that are easier, and that champs don't appear on normal, so they should play the easier difficulties until they get more gear, more game knowledge, and more experience building their characters.

[2pc2]

it didn't happen for reaper but lets see champions people did complain and guess what it got nerfed. people still were not happy and wanted removal of them because its too hard for them.

Why those people complained about elite champs insted of going to play normal or casual where ther are no champs if they hated it so much? Because they wanted elite rewards and xp.
If normal or casual would give the same or almost the same rewards and xp as H or E they would have never complained as they would have been busy playing normal with no champs while getting almost the same rewards as people playing higher and more challenging difficulties they enjoy more. It's a win win situation average players get their shinies while not having to deal with unwanted challenge and vets with all shinies get their fun.

Same story with reaper, trying to force everyone into it with more powercreep and shinies will only result in complaints from this same people and the difficulty dumbed down. Since they are by far more numerous than the powergamers or people who trully care for challenge, and they don't care as much for challenge as they do for loot.

[Vint]

People will complain, but they will properly be advised that Reaper is not for everyone. I think the cosmetic item reward is a great idea.

People still complain occasionally that elite is too hard, or champions are too hard. Those people are advised, hopefully politely, that there are other difficulty settings that are easier, and that champs don't appear on normal, so they should play the easier difficulties until they get more gear, more game knowledge, and more experience building their characters.

You have been playing long enough to know better than this. You cant honestly believe that people will just start running hard if elite is too tough. I will be reading the forums the day reaper is released and I hope you and a few of the others will be here to counsel people and let them know that running hard/elite makes them just as good of a person as those running reaper.

[AbyssalMage]

Yeah, that's been my opinion from the get-go of these "higher than Elite" difficulty threads too. At least with all the powercreep they've been introducing in the loot for current difficulty settings the additional Reaper bonuses will be effectively small. Assuming they follow the same format as Mythic bonuses, then:

• Weapons, belts, gloves, goggles, rings, and trinkets grant Mythic bonus to Melee, Ranged, and Universal Spell Power. +21 max cumulative Reaper bonus, mirroring the +21 max cumulative & currently available Mythic bonus.

• Armor, boots, bracers, cloaks, *headwear, necklaces, shields grant Mythic bonus to Physical and Magical Resistance Rating. +21 max cumulative Reaper bonus, possibly only +18 max; not sure if the headgear's potential +2 Reaper bonus to stats is in addition to or instead of the P&MRR. This ~mirrors the +21 Mythic already available.

I haven't noticed the Mythic bonuses being any sort of OP or unbalancing (again, as compared to the power available w/o Mythic) so if they "had" to provided more powercreep, at least it appears to be relatively small.
An additional 21% Power Creep. 1/5 more damage? When players are doing 2 to 20k damage with out an additional 21% more power(Reaper bonus)? Yeah, you haven't seen power creep because of mythic bonuses, you have been playing blindfolded.


I suspect it will be somewhat indirect. With so much of the game being dominatable w/o consumable Store resources, perhaps they're hoping/intending that folks will actually start using some?
They did this with Cannith Crafting. It was only a small (month or two) influx of money. The game though has suffered irreversible harm.


Alternatively/additionally, it just might be possible that those of us who've claimed that a significant number of players (& thus payers) have left due to lack of challenge are correct. If those claims do have some merit in spite of our lack of "citation" available, then stopping the bleeding of (and perhaps recouping some of the lost) players would also have revenue benifits.
They will still leave. Players who complain about "challenge" have learned the AI, which means that is what they would have to change. Reaper will still use the same AI. Power Creep will ensure that their gear will allow them to "be bored" until the next "mouse wheel" is introduced.


Lmfao! When I log in and hit the "Who" list, I've no idea what the vast majority of them are choosing for difficulty - do you? Does any player? The Devs likely have actual metrics/data available for what get's played on what difficulties. We only have forum claims and subjective personal experience to rely on.
Exactly the problem.

For example:
I have one toon who can open elite (3x TR)
I have two (soon to be 3) toons who can open Hard (1xTR)
I have multiple toons who can only open Normal (alt'itis)
So when you use my data points, you get a lot of "false points" because I have many more toons who have to run Norma/Hard in Heroics. I would gladly run Elite in Heroic, I have the maps, NPC's, AI memorized pretty well in Heroics because of the sheer amount of Normal Runs I have had to do. But is it an accurate representation of the community? No, because I am sure Premium/F2P accounts skew their Data Points giving them false information.

[Vint]

Same story with reaper, trying to force everyone into it with more powercreep and shinies will only result in complaints from this same people and the difficulty dumbed down. Since they are by far more numerous than the powergamers or people who trully care for challenge, and they don't care as much for challenge as they do for loot.

This goes back to everyone running elite. If there are that many people who want to run hard, why not more hard LFM's? (in heroic at least). The answer is always the same.

Same old rhetoric. People are not forced into elite. They are not forced into having the best gear, a million PL's or having all the game knowledge in the world. This premise for power creep is just a front for people who want all the loot while only running normal difficulty.

[Jasparion]

Same ppl who want reaper nerfed, want warlock nerfed, all they want is rest of ddo players play that ppl game

I want Reaper to be ridiculously tough, and I want Warlock nerfed because all classes should be reasonably balanced around DPS, insta-kill, tankiness, self-heals and group heals (where being really good in one should mean you are not so strong in others - not that all classes must be equal).

[2pc2]

It was for cooperative grouping AND challenge.

No rewards equals no group to cooperate with.

Those with an obvious agenda seem to ignore the first part.



There is something between zero and infinity.

They need to provide enough rewards that players can reasonably find/form a reaper group without providing so many rewards that the wrong people (casuals demanding content be made easier) move to reaper.



Challenge leads to cooperative grouping you can't have the 2nd without the first. Why dont we have cooperative grouping right now? Because the game is so easy that it's not needed.It's faster and easier to just kill everything straight while running in braindead mode. Reaper on it's max difficulty setting requires cooperative play with or without rewards.

If people are not interested in challenge or cooperative grouping unless there are rewards then maybe is that people in general don't like it and I don't see why they should be forced into it by ading yet more powercreep. If you fail or falied to find 5 other like minded people who like challenge in your server then maybe people don't like challenge and the whole challenge motivation behind reaper is a failure bacause people are not interested on it but just on the rewards it offers. If a lot people were trully interested in cooperative gameplay and challenge ther should be no need to incentivate it with powercreep, people would be willing to run it just for the fun, it would happen naturally. On the otherhand if you really think that there is enough ppl genuinely interested in challenge and cooperative gameplay to justify the creation of a new difficulty for them then you should have no problems getting some like minded ppl to play with you even with no extra rewards, unless you are really bad at making like minded friends, in that last case scenario no reward added will make you more desirable, not in the long run. ;)

But hey don't worry with the powercreep introduced (up to +48 PRR/MRR/SP/MP/RP) every casual will be willing to play it, if only for the rewards. So you won't be short of ppl willing to run with you for interest although they would have probably never grouped with you for fun :) Just don't complain much when this same ppl ask for the difficulty to be dumbed down to their level or demands more powercreep to overcome it. Don't complain either when this same ppl get all their shinies or get enough powercreep to not need you anymore and you are left alone again carying for cooperative grouping and challenge while asking for more powercreep to be introduced to help you make some in game friends that otherwise you seem incapable of making :o

[2pc2]

This goes back to everyone running elite. If there are that many people who want to run hard, why not more hard LFM's? (in heroic at least). The answer is always the same.

Same old rhetoric. People are not forced into elite. They are not forced into having the best gear, a million PL's or having all the game knowledge in the world. This premise for power creep is just a front for people who want all the loot while only running normal difficulty.

Yet they are defending that no more powerceep should be introduced with reaper while you defend that more powercreep for reaper is good as long it's only for the elitist j**** while complaining the game is too easy. I have yet to see anyone asking for normal to have the same powercreep rewards as reaper will have. All they say is that no powercreep should be introduced in reaper, not that the new powercreep should be handed to everyone like you try to make it look like. The only ones asking for more powercreep to make reaper desirable are those who complained the game is to easy. Not the ppl playing normal.

You don't see more LFM for hard because the rewards on elite (specially xp) are way better, if hard rewards were closer to elite you would see more as they are more time efficient. Yet unprepared ppl prefer to have a hard time on elite than enjoy hard just becasue of the rewards. Conclusion, excessive rewards for higher difficulties lead ppl into playing diffculties not meant for them and demanding them to be dumbed down when they fail at it. That's a lesson that should have been learned with elite, sadly it wasn't.

[Chai]

Because it "might" split the player base even more.

I will wait and see, but I don't think very many people will run reaper all the time when leveling 1-20. You don't get any more favor or normal exp, so it will be faster to level on elite, and having bonuses on heroic loot isn't really needed or worth the time. So no problem.

Now, in the epic levels, I can see more people running reaper, maybe, for the loot bonuses. This will make it harder to find a group for elite.

I will wait and see, but I thought reaper was going to be for bragging rights, cosmetics, etc. Not more power-creep.

That split will have benefits as well as drawbacks. For instance, consider all those people complaining that "X build ruins my fun because it trivializes the content" can now play elite without having to worry about having someone else nerfed just to enjoy the game they currently play.

[Chai]

Yet they are defending that no more powerceep should be introduced with reaper while you defend that more powercreep for reaper is good as long it's only for the elitist j**** while complaining the game is too easy. I have yet to see anyone asking for normal to have the same powercreep rewards as reaper will have. All they say is that no powercreep should be introduced in reaper, not that the new powercreep should be handed to everyone like you try to make it look like. The only ones asking for more powercreep to make reaper desirable are those who complained the game is to easy. Not the ppl playing normal.

No one needs to complain that normal should have the same rewards. They will ask for reaper to be the new normal instead, as elite is currently.


You don't see more LFM for hard because the rewards on elite (specially xp) are way better, if hard rewards were closer to elite you would see more as they are more time efficient. Yet unprepared ppl prefer to have a hard time on elite than enjoy hard just becasue of the rewards. Conclusion, excessive rewards for higher difficulties lead ppl into playing diffculties not meant for them and demanding them to be dumbed down when they fail at it. That's a lesson that should have been learned with elite, sadly it wasn't.

Power creep occurs when the content challenge level stagnates while the gear level rises. With a rise in gear effectiveness AND challenge level, power creep has not occurred. The new gear stats in reaper are not a net power creep in reaper due to the added difficulty in reaper.

[nokowi]

Challenge leads to cooperative grouping you can't have the 2nd without the first. Why dont we have cooperative grouping right now? Because the game is so easy that it's not needed.It's faster and easier to just kill everything straight while running in braindead mode.

Because devs took every synergy away from players and gave them self healing.

Elite would have cooperative game play with reduced self healing, even when challenge is low.

Challenge and cooperation are not exclusive. Your logic is flawed.

Some players want to work together to do better than they do alone, even if that means a faster run without challenge.

This is largely what we had (little challenge with cooperation) when players had roles and quest leaders made sure each role was present.





Reaper on it's max difficulty setting requires cooperative play with or without rewards.

If people are not interested in challenge or cooperative grouping unless there are rewards then maybe is that people in general don't like it and I don't see why they should be forced into it by ading yet more powercreep. If you fail or falied to find 5 other like minded people who like challenge in your server then maybe people don't like challenge and the whole challenge motivation behind reaper is a failure bacause people are not interested on it but just on the rewards it offers. If a lot people were trully interested in cooperative gameplay and challenge ther should be no need to incentivate it with powercreep, people would be willing to run it just for the fun, it would happen naturally. On the otherhand if you really think that there is enough ppl genuinely interested in challenge and cooperative gameplay to justify the creation of a new difficulty for them then you should have no problems getting some like minded ppl to play with you even with no extra rewards, unless you are really bad at making like minded friends, in that last case scenario no reward added will make you more desirable, not in the long run. ;)

But hey don't worry with the powercreep introduced (up to +48 PRR/MRR/SP/MP/RP) every casual will be willing to play it, if only for the rewards. So you won't be short of ppl willing to run with you for interest although they would have probably never grouped with you for fun :) Just don't complain much when this same ppl ask for the difficulty to be dumbed down to their level or demands more powercreep to overcome it. Don't complain either when this same ppl get all their shinies or get enough powercreep to not need you anymore and you are left alone again carying for cooperative grouping and challenge while asking for more powercreep to be introduced to help you make some in game friends that otherwise you seem incapable of making :o

I argued against the Bard Pass power creep, while people cheered loudly. As one of the first people to identify this power creep as a problem, when I say that some reward is needed in reaper it actually means something.

I'm not responsible for the state of power in the game. I argued against it.

The same rational thought that allowed me to argue against the power in the class passes allows me to say some reward is needed in reaper for a level 1 to 30 implementation to have a viable population of players for grouping.

[nokowi]

You don't see more LFM for hard because the rewards on elite (specially xp) are way better, if hard rewards were closer to elite you would see more as they are more time efficient. Yet unprepared ppl prefer to have a hard time on elite than enjoy hard just becasue of the rewards. Conclusion, excessive rewards for higher difficulties lead ppl into playing diffculties not meant for them and demanding them to be dumbed down when they fail at it. That's a lesson that should have been learned with elite, sadly it wasn't.

See Below


Casual players will not run a quest 30x to get the reward. That's what makes them casual.

When casual players find mythic drops to be too rare, and the majority of their time is spent dead on death-timer, I doubt they will stay in reaper.

You can't predict what players will do, because you don't know what the final trade-offs will be.

(XP/min vs chance of mythic drop)
(Getting new gear faster vs chance of that new gear being mythic)
(Playing with players that "ruin your fun" vs those with similar play preferences)

When you make predictions that are extreme absent information, you reveal an agenda.

A rational person could say this might or might not happen, depending on the trade-offs.

There is no Manifest Destiny going on.

[mobrien316]

You have been playing long enough to know better than this. You cant honestly believe that people will just start running hard if elite is too tough. I will be reading the forums the day reaper is released and I hope you and a few of the others will be here to counsel people and let them know that running hard/elite makes them just as good of a person as those running reaper.

It's not a matter of whether running hard/elite makes them just as good or not. That's not even remotely relevant to what I wrote.

When people complain now that they started playing the game on Monday and on Tuesday they tried to solo an elite quest and got wiped out and therefore elite is too hard, they are usually (if not always) told that elite is not too hard, but you need game knowledge, gear, and experience before most people can easily solo it.

Since the stated purpose of Reaper is to provide a challenge, it should be so insanely difficult that it's news when a group completes a Reaper quest. Maybe a post in the "accomplishments" section of this board is warranted; that's how difficult it should be. Not impossible for anyone, but so difficult to do that only experienced layers who are able to function well as a group have a chance of completing. As such, if anyone complains that Reaper is too hard, they should be told that it's supposed to be hard, and that it's supposed to cause party wipes the majority of the time, and that there are other difficultly levels you can play if you don't want that sort of challenge.

Personally, I would be far more disappointed in Reaper mode if the first week it was released there were screenshots showing that basically everyone who runs it gets a completion than I would be if a ton of groups try to complete and two or three are actually able to do so.

[2pc2]

No one needs to complain that normal should have the same rewards. They will ask for reaper to be the new normal instead, as elite is currently.



Power creep occurs when the content challenge level stagnates while the gear level rises. With a rise in gear effectiveness AND challenge level, power creep has not occurred. The new gear stats in reaper are not a net power creep in reaper due to the added difficulty in reaper.

Of course they will, as long as new powercreep is introduced with reaper. Why defend more powercreep being intorduced with reaper if all it will achieve is causing it to be dumbed down? Wouldn't be smarter to avoid it so it stays challenging ? No one would demand it to be the new normal if it had no powercreep because only ppl playing for challenge would be interested in it.

If you think +48 PRR/MRR/SP/MP/RP is not powerceep and its useless because it does not make the game easier then why don't just reamove it? It makes no sense to cry about how powercreep ruined the game and the fun for you and then defend new powercreep being itroduced with a new difficulty that in theory is there too challenge ppl who like you complained about powercreep ruining their fun.

As far what is powercreep...the game never stagnated, legenadry quests are harder than elite quests, new packs are harder than old packs and with them new powercreep was introduced to make them easier. You had no problem calling that powercreep because it fitted you motivations. If what we will have with reaper is not powercreep because the difficulty raises, neither was powercreep what we had till now becasue the difficulty raised too ( try run legendary quests with lvl 20 gear on a non warlock ;)). You want to have a little of coherence with what you call powercreep rather than changing it according to your own motivations if you want somene to take you seriously ;)

+48 PRR/MRR/SP/RP/MP ( more than what 10 epic levels or any class give you ) by just wearing some items is obvious powercreep like it or not. It does not surprise me since what they want is a lot of ppl in reaper to make a lot of money, what suprises me is that some posters that have been crying about how powercreep ruined the game for them and made it look like it was the only problem in DDO now defend this nonsense of adding more powercreep to reaper saying that what they called powercreep for years it's now not powercreep anymore becasue it fits his motivations and it will be good for his fragile ego.

[Coyopa]

In all honesty, id rather have a brag cosmetic to show off for completing xxx reaper 10 quest then a item that i need to put in bio with hyperlink to brag about.
Maybe even reaper pets or something silly.

I think these would be perfect rewards. Something cosmetic would probably motivate me to at least attempt the most difficult Reaper setting. They don't need to add more power to the game to get people to run Reaper. If they do, I'll evaluate it and see whether it's enough motivation for me to chase it.

[Chai]

Of course they will, as long as new powercreep is introduced with reaper. Why defend more powercreep being intorduced with reaper if all it will achieve is causing it to be dumbed down? Wouldn't be smarter to avoid it so it stays challenging ? No one would demand it to be the new normal if it had no powercreep because only ppl playing for challenge would be interested in it.

If you think +48 PRR/MRR/SP/MP/RP is not powerceep and its useless because it does not make the game easier then why don't just reamove it? It makes no sense to cry about how powercreep ruined the game and the fun for you and then defend new powercreep being itroduced with a new difficulty that in theory is there too challenge ppl who like you complained about powercreep ruining their fun.

As far what is powercreep...the game never stagnated, legenadry quests are harder than elite quests, new packs are harder than old packs and with them new powercreep was introduced to make them easier. You had no problem calling that powercreep because it fitted you motivations. If what we will have with reaper is not powercreep because the difficulty raises, neither was powercreep what we had till now becasue the difficulty raised too ( try run legendary quests with lvl 20 gear on a non warlock ;)). You want to have a little of coherence with what you call powercreep rather than changing it according to your own motivations if you want somene to take you seriously ;)

+48 PRR/MRR/SP/RP/MP ( more than what 10 epic levels or any class give you ) by just wearing some items is obvious powercreep like it or not. It does not surprise me since what they want is a lot of ppl in reaper to make a lot of money, what suprises me is that some posters that have been crying about how powercreep ruined the game for them and made it look like it was the only problem in DDO now defend this nonsense of adding more powercreep to reaper saying that what they called powercreep for years it's now not powercreep anymore becasue it fits his motivations and it will be good for his fragile ego.

If the content was stagnating in challenge level like it has for a few years now then the power creep claim might be valid. In this case it is not because power creep is not occurring in this scenario, because of the raise in difficulty.

Legendary quests are not harder than elite quests.
Legendary is what the company calls content over level 30, just like it calls content between 20-30 epic.
Elite is a difficulty setting. Quests can be both legendary and elite.

Most LE quests feel like running EE quests - so yes, the challenge level did stagnate, or at least did not rise to meet the power level provided by new gear, thus power creep occurred. When the difficulty is raised more than the power level of the new gear accounts for, no power creep occurs. Continuing to use the term power creep in the reaper scenario, is currently incorrect. People are talking about having to modify their entire build style and play style just to play in reaper. This did not occur during the transition between EE and LE. Maybe at some point, if that new power level stagnates but gear power level continues to rise there will be power creep, but thats not what we are looking at currently.

Anyone have any examples of any MMOs where they release more difficult content with absolutely no better rewards than the last content had whatsoever which have succeeded for a significant period of time afterward? I can name quite a few which introduced better gear along with the more difficult content, which have succeeded for long periods of time.

[2pc2]

Challenge leads to cooperative grouping you can't have the 2nd without the first. Why dont we have cooperative grouping right now? Because the game is so easy that it's not needed.It's faster and easier to just kill everything straight while running in braindead mode. Reaper on it's max difficulty setting requires cooperative play with or without rewards.





Challenge and cooperation are not exclusive. Your logic is flawed.



And that's what I said exactly, that they are not exclusive but rather linked one to another (read the bolded part ). Your reading comprehension is flawed ;)

I will try and expalin it again with no challenge there is no cooperation in 99% of the cases, because it's not needed. They are not exclusive but the other way around no challenge = no team play. You need one to have the other, and powercreep is not good for the challenge... You got it now or want me to elaborate more? :p




I argued against the Bard Pass power creep, while people cheered loudly. As one of the first people to identify this power creep as a problem, when I say that some reward is needed in reaper it actually means something.

I'm not responsible for the state of power in the game. I argued against it.

The same rational thought that allowed me to argue against the power in the class passes allows me to say some reward is needed in reaper for a level 1 to 30 implementation to have a viable population of players for grouping.

I don't know what you did during bard pass and honestly I dont give a f***. All I know is that you now defend more powercreep being introduced with reaper because you fear you wont be able to get ppl or any friend ( if you have any) to play with you unless thay are handed some powercreep.

Does that same "rational" (LOL) thought that allow you to cry against powercreep allows you to cry at the same time demanding for more powercreep to be added to reaper ( even if it goes against challenge and the purpose for what it was created ) just so you can finally get someone to want to group with you even if it's only for the rewards? If so let me tell you my friend that your concept of logic and rational thought is a little flawed :)

[2pc2]

Legendary quests are not harder than elite quests.

Most LE quests feel like running EE quests

So to curse the sky LE is about as difficult as EE snitch according to you, ok, here is where I give up. You can't have any intersting or usefull dicussion with ppl who make that kind of claims even when they know they are wrong just to try and make a point :p

[Chai]

So to curse the sky LE is about as difficult as EE snitch according to you, ok, here is where I give up.

To curse the sky LE when it first came out, is about as difficult as epic snitch when it first came out, yes.

Now since snitch is 6+ years old, that content stagnated (something you claimed hasnt occurred) and since so much more power is now available, snitch is now hilariously easy due to power creep between then and now.


You can't have any intersting or usefull dicussion with ppl who make that kind of claims even when they know they are wrong just to try and make a point :p

Agreed. Calling any increase in power "power creep" without also comparing the increase in difficulty, is indeed wrong, and a buzz word repeated over and over again even when incorrect just to try to justify the current agenda of making sure no more effort is required in the future to obtain best in slot gear.

Since this was glossed over due to having no answer for it, I will ask the below question again.

Anyone have any examples of any MMOs where they release more difficult content with absolutely no better rewards than the last content had whatsoever which have succeeded for a significant period of time afterward? I can name quite a few which introduced better gear along with the more difficult content, which have succeeded for long periods of time.

[2pc2]

Anyone have any examples of any MMOs where they release more difficult content with absolutely no better rewards than the last content had whatsoever which have succeeded for a significant period of time afterward? I can name quite a few which introduced better gear along with the more difficult content, which have succeeded for long periods of time.

Are you a SSG employee or a player? You seem to care more for the success of the game than for your actual gameplay here. That would make a lot of sense from the business point of view ( keep them busy and droping $.$ while adding more powercreep disguised as challenge ) not so much from the player's. It seems to me that players should be more worried about how fun is the game they play than the longevity or success of it. :rolleyes:

[2pc2]

To curse the sky LE when it first came out, is about as difficult as epic snitch when it first came out, yes.

.

Just thanks to powercreep, to curse the sky felt easy because of powercreep. Try run it with lvl 20 gear. It was made easy because of the gear, class revamps and all the powercreep we have been handed to beat this thougher content as if it was as easy as a lvl 20 EE quest. If we had not been handed that much of powercreep it would look much more difficult, so the quests increased in difficulty but we got an even bigger increase in powercreep and if they didn't actually feel like being more difficult despite them actually being more difficult is because of the powercreep handed to us made the increse in difficulty a joke not because the quests weren't more difficult than the old ones.




Agreed. Calling any increase in power "power creep" without also comparing the increase in difficulty, is indeed wrong, and a buzz word repeated over and over again even when incorrect just to try to justify the current agenda of making sure no more effort is required in the future to obtain best in slot gear.

Oh but you did it for years when it fitted your motivations, crying against any increase of player power even when the content level increased too is what you have been doing for some time now. It' seems like you changed your mind now and what you considered to be bad powercreep for years is no more powercreep because it fits your motivations or ego now.

As for peple wanting best in slot gear with no effort... Well those are probably people like you who defend more powercreep introduced in reaper so they can cheese their way to best in slot items even if they don't have the skill for it, no the ones demanding that no powercreep should be added to reaper.

It does not make much sense to ask for no extra bonus added in reaper and wanting new best in slot items easy. On the other hand, it makes a lot of sense that people who want best in slot gear with no effort and don't have the skill for it ask for powercreep to be introduced in reaper so it becomes the "new normal" and they can have the easy path to those future shinies. And then they can complain the game is too esay and about how powercreep ruined the game for them while supprting more pwercreep to be introduced in the game.

It's the never-ending story of DDO.

[nokowi]

And that's what I said exactly, that they are not exclusive but rather linked one to another (read the bolded part ). Your reading comprehension is flawed ;)

I gave you examples, such as running a quest faster with cooperative play, even though it is not challenging.

It only takes one example to prove you wrong.





I will try and expalin it again with no challenge there is no cooperation in 99% of the cases, because it's not needed. They are not exclusive but the other way around no challenge = no team play. You need one to have the other, and powercreep is not good for the challenge... You got it now or want me to elaborate more? :p

Keep trying, you were just proven wrong, unless you care to refute the idea that a cooperative group can get better XP/min in non challenging content.






I don't know what you did during bard pass and honestly I dont give a f***. All I know is that you now defend more powercreep being introduced with reaper because you fear you wont be able to get ppl or any friend ( if you have any) to play with you unless thay are handed some powercreep.


Devs should listen to players who have a history of good advice. It means nothing to you, but it should to the people who matter.



Does that same "rational" (LOL) thought that allow you to cry against powercreep allows you to cry at the same time demanding for more powercreep to be added to reaper ( even if it goes against challenge and the purpose for what it was created ) just so you can finally get someone to want to group with you even if it's only for the rewards? If so let me tell you my friend that your concept of logic and rational thought is a little flawed :)

Nearly every MMO that survives for any length of time introduces better stuff as you continue to play the game.

DDO would not have lasted 11 years without it, and your tirade against it shows a complete lack of understanding of the players that play these games.

[Knobull]

Anecdote:

I cancelled my VIP two years ago in favour of being premium and buying packs to get all the content permanently instead of having to pay a subscription.

So - now I can only open quests on normal on my first life characters and I only have one character that has TR'd and can open quests on hard.

I always play the highest level quests that I can open (once past the lower levels, this usually means quests two levels higher than my character level).

For example my current level 14 2nd life character is playing level 16 quests opened on hard (to make them level 17).

The loot that I get from these quests is already too high level to be useful to my character for some time (ML17-18 loot just is of no use to a level 14 character). Also, since the random loot update, most items are ridiculously powerful already. I simply have no desire or need for more powerful items.

I do not care what happens with reaper difficulty and its loot. It will have no effect on how I play the game whatsoever. Uber loot and uber players have nothing to do with me. Nothing.

I am sure I am not the only one who plays like this.

The point of this anecdote is to inform those who insist that all non-uber players will cry for uber loot on normal and hard difficulty are talking through their sphincter (the lower one).

That is all. Carry on.

Actually that is not all. This whole reaper difficulty and loot thing is all about epeen measuring and it is effing nauseating to read. Give it a rest. There is plenty of challenge in the game if you do not look for the easiest way to play (i.e. stop running quests two levels below your character level on elite).

Excuse me while I go barf and bleach the sight of so much syphilitic epeen from my eyes.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

There is plenty of challenge in the game if you do not look for the easiest way to play (i.e. stop running quests two levels below your character level on elite).

How about when I'm capped with the gear I have and all my fun cool toys?

There's 3-4 decent activities atm. Opening up those to include 25+ activities is a big win for the future of the game and everyone who plays it.

The game is much to easy for many people.

It's about keeping those people around.

They are part of the community to.

Hopefully you'll put some of that ad hom aside.

[Knobull]

How about when I'm capped with the gear I have and all my fun cool toys?

Oh I dunno... start a new character? On a new server? Play a new race or class? I've been playing for 7 years and still haven't played them all.


Hopefully you'll put some of that ad hom aside.

I directly addressed no one. My observations are accurate and truthful. So leave the first year logic class terminology out of it. Thanks.

[Pyed-Pyper]

This is not the point. I don’t think anyone cares what loot anyone else has. To tell you the truth when epic Gianthold was endgame, I sold a ton of epic items to other players for otto boxes and tp codes. I couldn’t care less if the worst player in the game has the best loot. What I care about is the people that will cry and complain that they cannot survive in reaper, and the devs water it down.
We are in the same boat as we are now. There will be no challenge for the “ubers”.

Again, I really don't know where you are going with this. Has anyone in this thread said they want Reaper made easier? ANYONE? I haven't seen a single post. Maybe I missed one, if so, please help me out.

The purpose of this thread is to discuss the problems associated with a botched implementation of Reaper. I don't want Reaper to be easy or easier. I don't know of a single person that feels the same way, so unless you have some evidence that your concern is in any way related to the topic at hand, please feel free to start your own thread and fret at will about how people will want Reaper nerfed. But please stop doing it here because it isn't relevant.



I am not insulted by this at all. I can tell by your condensation that you do not like good players and that is fine. I do not plan to live in reaper content and have no problem if you or anyone else can or cannot. My point is that the forums will be full the first day of people crying because they cannot survive. You may direct this question towards people who refuse to play in hard/normal setting without trying to get the game watered down to their level.

Condensation is a real issue, especially in winter. The windows get foggy and wet and then sometimes freeze. What a mess. Not really sure what that has to do with players, though.



I do not feel harassed and do not have anything against the so called heathens. I will say that years ago I would lead parties all the time but I stopped and started to solo/channel/guild only. I’ll give you an example of why.

I would put up an LFM for wiz king and it would say “be able to solo a tower”. People would join and guess what they would do? Nope, not solo a tower. They would follow we around and when I asked them to go solo a tower they said they couldn’t. This happened in many quests when the party could split up. Players didn’t know where the quest was, didn’t have their own heals, needed a guide, wanted someone to carry them.

Things have not changed. Keep asking for the game to be watered down. Keep asking for a crutch. Keep hating the power gamers who have better loot and can go faster than others. Keep feeling hate. I am having a good time so you don’t need to worry about how I am doing with the change. I’ll continue to solo. You just keep up the good fight for the players who refuse to help themselves.

Again, not really sure where you're going with this. Not relevant to the topic at hand. I've elaborated on the issues relating to how the as-announced version of Reaper will be detrimental to the game. Do you have any thoughts regarding this?

[Pyed-Pyper]

lets say the devs change their mind and the only reward for reaper will be a cosmetic item. Are you telling me that we will not see any complaints about reaper being too difficult?

Its sour grapes.

who cares?!

[Pyed-Pyper]

It depends how long it takes to acquire all +3 mythic gear, and how quickly it gets replaced by better non mythic gear.

.....

Not necessarily. When content is balanced vs the latest and greatest possible, then whether or not the gaming population has it is irrelevant.

[PermaBanned]

When content is balanced vs the latest and greatest possible, then whether or not the gaming population has it is irrelevant.It'll be interesting to see just how that plays out going forward.

• Pre-Reaper: "Content" has 4 difficulty options, with Elite *needing to remain complete-able by the masses. Thus it couldn't be "balanced" to challenge the top end of power they'd made attainable without excluding too many folks below that threshold.
* It was quite some time ago, and I don't have a link handy (nor the inclination to dig it up). However, back when these "difficulty higher than Elite" (before the title "Reaper" even came around) discussions got started Sev~ stated flatly that they had zero intention of "taking anything away" (i.e. Favor/Loot/BBXP) from folks as a response to suggesting an increase in the difficulty of Hard/Elite to match their names instead of adding a new, higher difficulty setting.

• Post-Reaper: Perhaps Elite will remain "balanced for the masses" while only Reaper will be balanced against "the latest & greatest possible?"


Edit: Though in hindsight & on second thought... It's strikes me as an interesting statement to have made, when compared to another Sev~ statement that Elite isn't what's played the most...
/shrug

[Vint]

The purpose of this thread is to discuss the problems associated with a botched implementation of Reaper.

IMO, botched would be adding a race/class to the game that has the same stats (nothing extra) as the current class/races. Only a few would buy it for the lore. This is how I see reaper. If there is no incentive, I doubt we will see a huge crowd running it for any length of time.


Again, I really don't know where you are going with this. Has anyone in this thread said they want Reaper made easier? ANYONE? I haven't seen a single post. Maybe I missed one, if so, please help me out.

I will not bring this up again in your thread. However, look me up the day this is introduced and we will discuss it more then.


Again, not really sure where you're going with this. Not relevant to the topic at hand. I've elaborated on the issues relating to how the as-announced version of Reaper will be detrimental to the game. Do you have any thoughts regarding this?

It appears to me that if anyone disagrees with you they are automatically wrong. But I will try it again. This is a PVE game, not PVP. It makes no difference to me if your toon has +35 to all stats, 1000 to all saves and infinite sp and hp. As long as I can still play the game without SSG requiring my toon to have the items you have, then I have nothing to complain about. I wont even cry if you spend your mortgage payment for P2W in the store. Power creep is out of control and no one can deny that. But I do not see the planned loot to make the game over the top broken (any more than what it is).

I think your real issue is that the regular crowd will have to fend for themselves in epics if the “ubers” are all hanging together in reaper. Once again, I do not plan on playing reaper. I am not an uber lover or a guy that hates the regular crowd, I just play what is put in front of me and wish others could do the same.

[slarden]

The devs already know that an item with +2 stacking bonus to all stats will be highly coveted. Let's face it an item with +2 stacking stats is going to be listed as gear in every end game DC oriented build.

If the drop rate is reasonable I am indifferent as I am sure I will get enough runs in. If it's something you might not get in 200 runs then they are simply adding another grind to the game.

Some people want more of a grind so I can't say it's a bad thing. But I was viewing reaper as a mechanism for challenge and not another grind. Reaper is also about a hat with +2 stacking bonus to all stats that requires forced grouping.

Overall I think the devs are doing a great job on reaper so I am not about to nitpick on the rewards. I just don't see +2 to all stats as a necessary perk.

[PermaBanned]

I just don't see +2 to all stats as a necessary perk.
0.o? Surely without that +1 to Saves, Skills & DCs and +30 HP any toon will be a gimp waste of a party slot!

[Pyed-Pyper]

IMO, botched would be adding a race/class to the game that has the same stats (nothing extra) as the current class/races. Only a few would buy it for the lore. This is how I see reaper. If there is no incentive, I doubt we will see a huge crowd running it for any length of time.

The incentive *allegedly* is some sort of end-game for the power gamers. A place to showcase awesomeness. I am definitely ok with that existing even if I never run it. I do have a problem when that negatively impacts rest of the game. And as I see it being implemented, that is exactly what will happen.




I will not bring this up again in your thread. However, look me up the day this is introduced and we will discuss it more then.


The first time someone complains about Reaper being too hard, I will gladly join you in roundly mocking them. Someone else said, and I agree, the only complaint (regarding difficulty) the devs should investigate is it being too easy.



It appears to me that if anyone disagrees with you they are automatically wrong. But I will try it again. This is a PVE game, not PVP. It makes no difference to me if your toon has +35 to all stats, 1000 to all saves and infinite sp and hp. As long as I can still play the game without SSG requiring my toon to have the items you have, then I have nothing to complain about. I wont even cry if you spend your mortgage payment for P2W in the store. Power creep is out of control and no one can deny that. But I do not see the planned loot to make the game over the top broken (any more than what it is).

I think your real issue is that the regular crowd will have to fend for themselves in epics if the “ubers” are all hanging together in reaper. Once again, I do not plan on playing reaper. I am not an uber lover or a guy that hates the regular crowd, I just play what is put in front of me and wish others could do the same.

I've said this previously here, and I will repeat it now for you. I don't care if someone disagrees with me. But if you disagree, you'd better be able to defend your position. So far I have not seen an argument against my positions, namely -

Why is power creep *any power creep* being introduced with Reaper, especially if the purpose is to challenge players?
Why is Reaper going to be available at any level?

My suspicions are that the purpose of Reaper isn't what is being advertised, as I have said repeatedly here and elsewhere. My reasons for being against the current implementation of Reaper are as follows -

Power creep - this affects all aspects of the game, regardless of whether or not someone chooses to play or avoid Reaper. Example - Reaper only bonuses will be available at any level in any quest.
Altered mechanics - this affects all aspects of the game, regardless of whether or not someone chooses to play or avoid Reaper. Example - the new aggro mechanics in every quest, and even in slayer areas, that have so many people upset seem to be in preparation for Reaper.
Grouping - new power levels and new difficulty levels and the gaps between veteran players and newcomers work to create an atmosphere that is not conducive to growing the gamer population. Example - people in the forums are often requesting server consolidation because of declining player numbers, thus grouping options.
Game engine - the game has demonstrated limits with regard to scaling. Multiple examples exist, from dumbing down AI, spawn red alerts, lag, and numbers of monsters per encounter are just a few. Stressing the engine has many adverse effects which filter down into all aspects of the game, regardless of difficulty level.

Now, do you agree or disagree with the above? Why?

[Jetrule]

In all honesty id even want them to remove any special gear if that means that casuals wont cry for nerfs like they are doing before we even tested the difficulty properly.
Id rather have the challenge with no gain, then a challenge for the first week that is destroyed by people who cannot complete it.

(I am brainstorming with my static group ideas and we are gonna test many builds on lama during preview to find a optimal strat, we are active as never before, i do not want that destroyed by silly Bob the house keeper who has only 2 fingers, is bit mentally ill and wants to finish reaper 10 skull lshroud on first attempt on his halforc dart throwing char str based paladin cleric favored soul while playing 1 hour weekly, using voice ingame chat while arguing with his mom in her house basement during sessions and then getting drunk on keyboard and crying over his lost lover that died from overfeeding herself. Bob is the source of all evil)



This post is fantastic! Like you My static group is brainstorming and we are ready to lam test reaper this week. We are posting ideas and builds in our guild site and watching reaper videos from last months lamania preview. Also planning on reincarnating and running 1-30 on our currently level 30 slaver farming characters. Talking about best tactics and ideal cooperative group characters. I am looking forward to the wipes and making videos of us all being slaughtered too many skulls over our heads in Kobold Assault. Have the music picked out and how I want to edit the video in the planing. I am needless to say very excited.

I expect bugs and reaper effects to bleed over to all difficulties. I expect fixes promptly and skillfully done. I think there will be some further dividing of the player base. Maybe not so much in the pug scene because to complete higher difficulty reaper quests it is supposed to take a team of specialists. I think teamwork and the right mix of specialization will be more important than raw character power as a soloist working with other soloists as is so often the case now. I hope for a fun and challenging life on my main character. Who will be either a spell singer bard or a Rogue Assassin.

As to power creep, I hope to get a nice panasophic helm of uberness or a ring of improved badasssery. The ods seem pretty low of me wanting to come out of current crafted gear though for the most part. But none of the rewards listed truly incentivises me as much as the prospect finding the perfect difficulty for our group in a 1-10 skull range on various quests. I am thrilled at the prospect of turning ho hum easily crushable heroic quests like say the catacombs chain into a freaking horror show. A intense fight for survival that has us constantly using teamwork and communication, skill and resourcefulness to stay alive. One that hopefully turns that chain into a 2 session barely completed accomplishment instead of a 45 minute sprint that we run only if the third iifers need some more xp to cap.

[Robbenklopper]

With the coming new shift in top difficulty from elite to reaper there will be ... lesser so called "elitists"! Or more? .
Fact is that Change is the essential process of all existence, true is we already had big Change with new ranloot/LGS/SLV, but are we talking about new gains in "powercreep" of, what, +100%?. Nope.
Reaper will definetly unlock more challenge, Entertainment and joy of DDO to the People who like to Play it. Many People are vets and Play this game for 5+ years, so it´s totally ok to give them some new challenge, not everyone is a 1isher.

[AzureDragonas]

My suspicions are that the purpose of Reaper isn't what is being advertised, as I have said repeatedly here and elsewhere. My reasons for being against the current implementation of Reaper are as follows -

Power creep - this affects all aspects of the game, regardless of whether or not someone chooses to play or avoid Reaper. Example - Reaper only bonuses will be available at any level in any quest.
Altered mechanics - this affects all aspects of the game, regardless of whether or not someone chooses to play or avoid Reaper. Example - the new aggro mechanics in every quest, and even in slayer areas, that have so many people upset seem to be in preparation for Reaper.
Grouping - new power levels and new difficulty levels and the gaps between veteran players and newcomers work to create an atmosphere that is not conducive to growing the gamer population. Example - people in the forums are often requesting server consolidation because of declining player numbers, thus grouping options.
Game engine - the game has demonstrated limits with regard to scaling. Multiple examples exist, from dumbing down AI, spawn red alerts, lag, and numbers of monsters per encounter are just a few. Stressing the engine has many adverse effects which filter down into all aspects of the game, regardless of difficulty level.

Now, do you agree or disagree with the above? Why?

Power creep - class passes/new items gave more PC to game than current reaper implementation will be able do in remaining ddo lifetime. Or you don't agree that easily attainable twice as high dc/score/spellpower than before do less than reaper bonuses?

Altered mechanics - God bless america pugs won't be able stand next to mobs and kill one by one because those mobs too dump to react finally they are doing more than playing cosmetic dummy! So many doom threads so much nonsense about "entire dungeon crawling to start on enter". All those "doom" players either don't know how to build/play or relied on broken mechanic in first place from here comes all those "players".

Grouping - so certain part of playerbase which is already rolling over most of content without anything to do and just picking those "new" players on way without bother will have they separate playzone. We have more issues with new players unable to learn anything while veterans can nonstop run to end because hardest difficulty posses no challenge to slow them down at least a bit. On second hand we will have more LFM thx to reaper becouse there will be challenge which will require group, so less soloable content to do.

Game engine - i wonder what is impacting game mechanic more smarter mobs or players doing 5 digit damage 4 times each second AOE damage with extra effects not fitting into screens.

From my perspective your arguments are rubbish of a pug who's unhappy he won't be able get for free what others have to earn.

[Chai]

Just thanks to powercreep, to curse the sky felt easy because of powercreep. Try run it with lvl 20 gear. It was made easy because of the gear, class revamps and all the powercreep we have been handed to beat this thougher content as if it was as easy as a lvl 20 EE quest. If we had not been handed that much of powercreep it would look much more difficult, so the quests increased in difficulty but we got an even bigger increase in powercreep and if they didn't actually feel like being more difficult despite them actually being more difficult is because of the powercreep handed to us made the increse in difficulty a joke not because the quests weren't more difficult than the old ones.





Oh but you did it for years when it fitted your motivations, crying against any increase of player power even when the content level increased too is what you have been doing for some time now. It' seems like you changed your mind now and what you considered to be bad powercreep for years is no more powercreep because it fits your motivations or ego now.

As for peple wanting best in slot gear with no effort... Well those are probably people like you who defend more powercreep introduced in reaper so they can cheese their way to best in slot items even if they don't have the skill for it, no the ones demanding that no powercreep should be added to reaper.

It does not make much sense to ask for no extra bonus added in reaper and wanting new best in slot items easy. On the other hand, it makes a lot of sense that people who want best in slot gear with no effort and don't have the skill for it ask for powercreep to be introduced in reaper so it becomes the "new normal" and they can have the easy path to those future shinies. And then they can complain the game is too esay and about how powercreep ruined the game for them while supprting more pwercreep to be introduced in the game.

It's the never-ending story of DDO.

Nope, because when I called it power creep over those years, the content challenge stagnated while the power actually increased. This is actual power creep.

What you are calling power creep here is incorrect, because the content challenge is also increasing to match the power (in this case the content challenge is increasing even more than the power is)


Oh but you did it for years when it fitted your motivations...

Whose sock am I conversing with here?
-calling a small list of very specific people out for what they did **over the years**
-on an account that is ~3 months old
-quoting and replying back to mostly the same few people
-specific use of two different word patterns, and (mis)spellings of specific words
(using these commonality patterns alone, I have it narrowed down to two possible people at this point)


Are you a SSG employee or a player? You seem to care more for the success of the game than for your actual gameplay here. That would make a lot of sense from the business point of view ( keep them busy and droping $.$ while adding more powercreep disguised as challenge ) not so much from the player's. It seems to me that players should be more worried about how fun is the game they play than the longevity or success of it. :rolleyes:

The claim that its either one or the other is a classic false dichotomy example. Those positions are not opposite sides of the discussion so there is no reason why people cannot be interested in both their game play experience and the success of the game itself. Ive been posting the marketing position on the forums for years too, because I understand it. In this case, this is not a rhetorical question - Id actually like to see some examples so I will ask the question again.

Anyone have any examples of any MMOs where they release more difficult content with absolutely no better rewards than the last content had whatsoever which have succeeded for a significant period of time afterward? I can name quite a few which introduced better gear along with the more difficult content, which have succeeded for long periods of time.

[Vint]

Power creep - this affects all aspects of the game, regardless of whether or not someone chooses to play or avoid Reaper. Example - Reaper only bonuses will be available at any level in any quest.

Again, I agree that power creep is out of control. But at most, you get a helm with +1 saves, +1 to all skills, and maybe 30 extra sp. This is not game breaking compared to what is OP and broken when it comes to balance. To me (IMHO), this is not game breaking.


Altered mechanics - this affects all aspects of the game, regardless of whether or not someone chooses to play or avoid Reaper. Example - the new aggro mechanics in every quest, and even in slayer areas, that have so many people upset seem to be in preparation for Reaper.
This change had nothing to do with reaper. It was a “fixed” issue. I hate this and hope that they reverse it. It is BS to red alert the WHOLE dungeon while stealth killing a mob.


Grouping - new power levels and new difficulty levels and the gaps between veteran players and newcomers work to create an atmosphere that is not conducive to growing the gamer population. Example - people in the forums are often requesting server consolidation because of declining player numbers, thus grouping options.

You cannot win this argument. If the forum/population not complained so much to make elite accessible, we would not have this problem. What you have now is vets LEAVING the game because they are not challenged. I wish the devs would get rid of bravery bonus and increase first time bonus for all difficulties.
This is not a slam toward the unwashed masses. I think you have to admit that there has to be a challenge for long time vets. Asking them to play on a Disney level setting just to appease the new guy or person that only plays 3 hours a week is not fair.


Game engine - the game has demonstrated limits with regard to scaling. Multiple examples exist, from dumbing down AI, spawn red alerts, lag, and numbers of monsters per encounter are just a few. Stressing the engine has many adverse effects which filter down into all aspects of the game, regardless of difficulty level

I have seen DPS lag too often and agree that it is something that needs to be addressed. I did not check lamania this time to see how reaper would be, but if it does lag the system, I’ll sign your petition.


Now, do you agree or disagree with the above? Why?
You can see.

I agree with you on some issues, but not all.

[silinteresting]

i posted this elsewhere but i thought id post it here too, if crafted items cannot contain a reaper bonus
then:

level 30:
of the 14 items my character will use five are slavers, five are shroud, one is cannith crafted so that leaves
three possible items for reaper bonus. wow i dont think the possible so called power creep on 3 items is going
to make much difference to me.

level 13-26:
all my items are cannith crafted so no power creep for me from reaper.

level 1-13:
everything random loot and thrown away after use so no power creep for me there either.

guess all this shouting about power creep aint effecting me booooooo, i want some creep to its not fair.

your friend sil :)

[Vanhooger]

Lol some post are really silly in this thread. Someone complaining that Standing stone want to get some cash with reaper, made me laugh.

Obviously they want to get some money out of it, do you think they work for free? Do you also think making new content doesn't require money? Just lol.

If they sell a pot +50% heal amp in the store and people buy it that's good, ddo make money and the game as longer life. If nobody spend money on ddo or games in general they're going to die, full stop.

[Chai]

Not necessarily. When content is balanced vs the latest and greatest possible, then whether or not the gaming population has it is irrelevant.

Whether or not the population has it, and the time it takes them to get it, is absolutely relevant.

Example 1. If the populace who plays in that setting all gets it in a small period of time and becomes saturated with it, then the game has to put more even better loot into the next new content to incentivize the same people running it.

Example 2. If the populace takes longer to acquire the new loot than it takes the company to put out new content, then the company can start thinking about lateral progression rather than always having to put better loot into the next new content.

For instance, legendary shroud loot is +15/+7/+2 for stats. If people took a long time to get this, slavers loot could have also been implemented as +15/+7/+2, and people now have the option to farm both at the same time to get items for different slots with different stats. This is not the case in DDO however. The populace became saturated with +15/+7/+2 quite quickly so slavers loot was increased to 17/4. People can still farm them in a parallel fashion, but will want slavers for the clearly superior enhancement bonus for min maxing purposes.

[Chai]

Lol some post are really silly in this thread. Someone complaining that Standing stone want to get some cash with reaper, made me laugh.

Obviously they want to get some money out of it, do you think they work for free? Do you also think making new content doesn't require money? Just lol.

If they sell a pot +50% heal amp in the store and people buy it that's good, ddo make money and the game as longer life. If nobody spend money on ddo or games in general they're going to die, full stop.

-If they reduce the effectiveness of self healing in that difficulty setting, and...
-Then implement the 50% heal amp potion, purchasable from the store and...
-This potion allows people to solo/duo reaper while those not buying it are barely making it through in groups...
-Then that is a blatant cash grab. Its also p2w.

It wouldnt surprise me if that happens, as paying to circumvent game balance is not a new concept in DDO.

Claiming that the game has to make cash using these tactics or it will cease to exist, means you do not believe the game can make enough money to succeed using any other tactics. If it can make enough money to succeed using any other tactics, then any justification of p2w "keeping the game alive" is incorrect.

[BigErkyKid]

Lol some post are really silly in this thread. Someone complaining that Standing stone want to get some cash with reaper, made me laugh.

Obviously they want to get some money out of it, do you think they work for free? Do you also think making new content doesn't require money? Just lol.

If they sell a pot +50% heal amp in the store and people buy it that's good, ddo make money and the game as longer life. If nobody spend money on ddo or games in general they're going to die, full stop.

I would very much prefer if they sold me content and not power. I would pay for content a lot more than I am willing to pay for power. In fact, I keep my spending in check because I know I am being cash grabbed every time I use the DDO store for anything but renewing my subscription.

[2pc2]

I would very much prefer if they sold me content and not power

This ^^.

[nokowi]

Not necessarily. When content is balanced vs the latest and greatest possible, then whether or not the gaming population has it is irrelevant.

Wrong!

What matters is what happens in the game, not some forumites imaginary issues.

[nokowi]

This ^^.

They are selling a bunch of new content end of 2017.

I look forward to your & Big Erky's complaints about it being sold instead of being free.


The real question is, since they are working on what you want (selling content), can you support what some other people want?

[2pc2]

Lol some post are really silly in this thread. Someone complaining that Standing stone want to get some cash with reaper, made me laugh.

Obviously they want to get some money out of it, do you think they work for free? Do you also think making new content doesn't require money? Just lol.

If they sell a pot +50% heal amp in the store and people buy it that's good, ddo make money and the game as longer life. If nobody spend money on ddo or games in general they're going to die, full stop.

No one is against SSG making money. Although it's werid that a player care more for how succesfull will be the business part than how good, fun or enjoyeble will be the game. On the other hand, it's not that werid that an empleyee or somene who recives favors form SSG fr supporting the current agenda care more for it than the quality of the game.

I personally prefer a good and fun game that lasts 1 year than another boring p2w hamster wheel that lasts 5 more years, but that's just a matter of preference. If they are going to sell more powercreep or p2w stuff in the store why all this challenge talk why create a whole new difficulty with the excuse of challenge if you later are going to sell p2w stuff to overcome that challenge easy? Why reduce healing for everyone if you later are going to give it back but only to those who pay money? Easy. Because reaper is not about challenge and it never has been for SSG it's an excuse to trick some players into thinking the new moneygrab hamsterwheel starts for a good reason. When it's just another moneygrab that will make the game even dumber on the long run at the same time that it will become more profitable. A win for SSG a lose for the playerbase who trully likes challenge and fun and not this endless grind for the new shiny items. They know they will have the support of bad players who need powercreep intrduced to succed they used the challenge excuse to get the support of ppl trully looking for challenge, those are ging to end very disapointed with the results but by then there will be no way back and reaper ( the new hamster wheel ) will be already in to stay.

[slarden]

0.o? Surely without that +1 to Saves, Skills & DCs and +30 HP any toon will be a gimp waste of a party slot!

As I said, it will be included in all end game DC build threads. It's no different than littany which people farmed until they got it even if that was 20 completions rather than a chest drop. Same with completionist. History has proven anything with stacking stat bonuses will be highly coveted in this game, especially builds where every DC matters like a necro warlock for example.

It shouldn't be there in my opinion, but as I said I am not going to nitpick the loot choices because overall I think they did good. But again, depending on the drop rate this went from being something for challenge to another grind for the stacking +2 stats. I make no judgement on whether it's good or bad - just pointing it out.

[BigErkyKid]

They are selling a bunch of new content end of 2017.

I look forward to your & Big Erky's complaints about it being sold instead of being free.


The real question is, since they are working on what you want (selling content), can you support what some other people want?

I think they said it would be free for people with subscriptions. You are way out of line, I NEVER said I wouldn't pay for content, or complain at the cost of it. Never, you can go back through all my posting history.

I do dislike though when they include cash grabs.

So no need to be combative for the sake of it.

[Pyed-Pyper]

Power creep - class passes/new items gave more PC to game than current reaper implementation will be able do in remaining ddo lifetime. Or you don't agree that easily attainable twice as high dc/score/spellpower than before do less than reaper bonuses?

Too much power creep, I agree. My point, as it seems I must continually repeat, is that power creep from Reaper is counterproductive to the *alleged* reason for creating it in the first place. If the purpose of Reaper is to challenge players, then why make reduce the challenge by making more power available?




Altered mechanics - God bless america pugs won't be able stand next to mobs and kill one by one because those mobs too dump to react finally they are doing more than playing cosmetic dummy! So many doom threads so much nonsense about "entire dungeon crawling to start on enter". All those "doom" players either don't know how to build/play or relied on broken mechanic in first place from here comes all those "players".

Nice way to blame the victim. There's more to altered mechanics besides that one issue, dumbed-down AI for one. I don't play assassins so I cannot speak from personal experience. When there are multiple threads on how a thing is broken, do you immediately think that those players lack skill?



Grouping - so certain part of playerbase which is already rolling over most of content without anything to do and just picking those "new" players on way without bother will have they separate playzone. We have more issues with new players unable to learn anything while veterans can nonstop run to end because hardest difficulty posses no challenge to slow them down at least a bit. On second hand we will have more LFM thx to reaper becouse there will be challenge which will require group, so less soloable content to do.

There is a huge disparity in power between between beginners and long-time vets. Adding more power creep in the highest difficulties will not improve that situation. Fragmenting the player base further with exclusive difficulties will not improve that situation. Adding more powerful gear will not improve that situation. Balancing the content versus the latest and greatest power creep will not improve the situation for beginners. Do you want the game to grow or wither?




Game engine - i wonder what is impacting game mechanic more smarter mobs or players doing 5 digit damage 4 times each second AOE damage with extra effects not fitting into screens.

If you are saying you don't like the end result of power creep, I agree with you.



From my perspective your arguments are rubbish of a pug who's unhappy he won't be able get for free what others have to earn.

[yawn]

[Pyed-Pyper]

The devs already know that an item with +2 stacking bonus to all stats will be highly coveted. Let's face it an item with +2 stacking stats is going to be listed as gear in every end game DC oriented build.

....

This is exactly correct.

[Pyed-Pyper]

I would very much prefer if they sold me content and not power. ....

+1

[Pyed-Pyper]

Wrong!

....

Wow, you convinced me!

[KoobTheProud]

I think they said it would be free for people with subscriptions. You are way out of line, I NEVER said I wouldn't pay for content, or complain at the cost of it. Never, you can go back through all my posting history.

I do dislike though when they include cash grabs.

So no need to be combative for the sake of it.

The new content tentatively promised for the end of 2017 has been described as an expansion and will not be free for anybody.

As to cash grabs, well if you like DDO and want to keep playing it you'd better hope that SSG figures out a way to make a few non-power creep cash grabs because otherwise the game will be folding soon one way or the other.

I'd like it if they figured out a way to do 2 paid x-pacs a year for the next couple of years. Cash grab? Yeah. The game would be great for at least two years in that Situation.

[slarden]

Grouping - so certain part of playerbase which is already rolling over most of content without anything to do and just picking those "new" players on way without bother will have they separate playzone. We have more issues with new players unable to learn anything while veterans can nonstop run to end because hardest difficulty posses no challenge to slow them down at least a bit. On second hand we will have more LFM thx to reaper becouse there will be challenge which will require group, so less soloable content to do.

...

From my perspective your arguments are rubbish of a pug who's unhappy he won't be able get for free what others have to earn.

There is alot of truth to this. There are many players that aren't really built or geared for elite that can join a group and get what they need because even if they contribute nothing it doesn't matter.

I am not convinced it will lead to more lfms - likely more small groups and private chat channels since groups won't want random players. It's easy enough to check the "who" tab and fill the last spot or 2 with ungrouped people you know are capable since the community is so small.

[Thrudh]

You have to remember: This new Reaper bonus DOESN'T appear on craftable items. That means reaper bonuses don't appear on ANYTHING from Slavelords. That 48 prr OR 48 mrr OR SP/MP/RP competes with Slavelords gear, AND Cannith crafted gear, and you'll need to make a very difficult choice between your +21 stat item, and a reaper power item, along with massively powerful doubleslot CC items (I want my +7 insightful int, dammit!), and legendary shroud items...

This is a very good point, and it does strongly diminish the value of the reaper rewards.

[2pc2]

So no need to be combative for the sake of it.

You have to undestand, try to have some emphaty... He's just upset that no one wants to play with him unless they need this or that powercreep item. It must bring some frustration and anger :p

[2pc2]

This is a very good point, and it does strongly diminish the value of the reaper rewards.

Only as long as CC gear and slavers gear stays top tier, so maybe a couple of updates or a few months, by the time u26 hits life CC and slavers gear will be far from top tier if they follow the formula used in the last 2 years which don't seem to be changing anytime soon.

[2pc2]

There is alot of truth to this. There are many players that aren't really built or geared for elite that can join a group and get what they need because even if they contribute nothing it doesn't matter.

I am not convinced it will lead to more lfms - likely more small groups and private chat channels since groups won't want random players. It's easy enough to check the "who" tab and fill the last spot or 2 with ungrouped people you know are capable since the community is so small.

Here is the essence of the problem and why DDO will never be challenging in that situation we have now no matter what they say or try, as long as ppl mentality don't change with it.

According to your reasoning an elite player is that who have a good build and the best gear. Skill? Nah, that's for ungeared nuubs. Why getting better at playing if all you need to do is to build the last FOTM and/or get the newset top tier gear and then play in braindead mode in the max difficulty.

If you guys like a game where any not so skilled player can play max difficulty just because he copypasted the FOTM build or got that new powercreep items that's legit, just be straight about it and don't try disguise it under challenge. I personally prefer a game where if you are not skilled enough you won't be able to play max difficulty setting unless you get better at the game because no gear or copypasted build is going to save you .

[nokowi]

I think they said it would be free for people with subscriptions. You are way out of line, I NEVER said I wouldn't pay for content, or complain at the cost of it. Never, you can go back through all my posting history.

I do dislike though when they include cash grabs.

So no need to be combative for the sake of it.

I fully expect you to call it a cash grab based on your history of complaints - and based on your additional statement.

I do hope you prove me wrong.

The purpose of my posts was to call out those asking for content, when said content is already in the works.

Please don't take it too personally --> I value some of the ideas you have added to the forums.

[nokowi]

Here is the essence of the problem and why DDO will never be challenging in that situation we have now no matter what they say or try, as long as ppl mentality don't change with it.

According to your reasoning an elite player is that who have a good build and the best gear. Skill? Nah, that's for ungeared nuubs. Why getting better at playing if all you need to do is to build the last FOTM and/or get the newset top tier gear and then play in braindead mode in the max difficulty.

If you guys like a game where any not so skilled player can play max difficulty just because he copypasted the FOTM build or got that new powercreep items that's legit, just be straight about it and don't try disguise it under challenge. I personally prefer a game where if you are not skilled enough you won't be able to play max difficulty setting unless you get better at the game because no gear or copypasted build is going to save you .

Sadly, many players with FOTM builds would still fail.

It's the combination of build, gear, past lives, player knowledge, and player skill (for some builds) that determine how well you do.

Just because you can solo elites does not mean you are a good player - the game has become that easy.

Reaper will help separate those that have all of the above from the pretenders.

[Vanhooger]

This ^^.

Making content take way longer then throw a potion in the store I guess.

[nokowi]

Making content take way longer then throw a potion in the store I guess.

The staff that make content are already making content.

The only way to get significantly more content is to add more content creation staff.

Taking something you don't like or care about (whether crafting, reaper, new races, etc) and then blaming it for everything is a sure sign that there is no basis for the argument.

I've heard reaper won't serve enough players, too many players, now its causing a lack of content, ...


Let's just be honest and say that there are those who can not accept anything that is not for them.

My hope is that a group-based portion of the game will bring back players capable of wanting the game to work for everyone.

[2pc2]

Making content take way longer then throw a potion in the store I guess.

Yes. Adding powercreep is more profitable since you can make the same ammount of money with half the effort and investment although it dumbs the game down. That's why it makes sense to defend this reasoning from a SSG employee POV. Not so much from a player POV who actually should care more for the game being fun, entertaining and somehow challenging, than how profitable it is.

[nokowi]

Yes. Adding powercreep is more profitable since you can make the same ammount of money with half the effort and investment although it dumbs the game down. That's why it makes sense to defend this reasoning from a SSG employee POV. Not so much from a player POV who actually should care more for the game being fun, entertaining and somehow challenging, than how profitable it is.

If reaper is power creep, I look forward to your solo at-level 10 skull video.

We all know this won't happen.

There will be an area of the game that requires more skill and intelligence, and I believe you've stated you will not play it.

The whole point of reaper is to provide a portion of the game that is more fun, entertaining and challenging for those that like challenge and grouping.

[2pc2]

Sadly, many players with FOTM builds would still fail.

It's the combination of build, gear, past lives, player knowledge, and player skill (for some builds) that determine how well you do.

Just because you can solo elites does not mean you are a good player - the game has become that easy.

Reaper will help separate those that have all of the above from the pretenders.

Wise words about what reaper will be from someone who has tryed it on lama... because you have tryed it on lama right befre talking about how difficult it will be? :rolleyes:

I will give you a hint : it's a rethorical question, no need to answer this since I already know you have not :p That doesn't prevent you from talking like you actually knew what it will look like despite actually having no idea other than what have you read about it. Because you know, talking about things you have no clue about like if you did it's free.

Still its irrelevant, like a farmer talking about rocket sience. Try it by youself before jumping into any conclusions on how difficult it will be, that is if you want anyone to take you seriously, on the other hand if you want ppl to have a good laugh keep talking about how difficult reaper will be without even having tryed it before, it's really funny ;)

[slarden]

Here is the essence of the problem and why DDO will never be challenging in that situation we have now no matter what they say or try, as long as ppl mentality don't change with it.

According to your reasoning an elite player is that who have a good build and the best gear. Skill? Nah, that's for ungeared nuubs. Why getting better at playing if all you need to do is to build the last FOTM and/or get the newset top tier gear and then play in braindead mode in the max difficulty.

If you guys like a game where any not so skilled player can play max difficulty just because he copypasted the FOTM build or got that new powercreep items that's legit, just be straight about it and don't try disguise it under challenge. I personally prefer a game where if you are not skilled enough you won't be able to play max difficulty setting unless you get better at the game because no gear or copypasted build is going to save you . Your comment is so far off from what I was talking about it's hard to even respond to your comments. Almost all my builds are self-made as making and experimenting with builds is one of the funnest parts of the game for me. For example when you challenged me make a fleshy fighter monk and complete slavers part 3 to prove I wasn't making things up, I enjoyed doing it even though I didn't feel I owed you or anyone else anything. I wanted to test out a few ideas anyhow so it was fun.

Of my main 6 characters all of my builds are posted on the forums except my 17 wiz / 3 fvs shiradi caster and my 18 sorc / 1 wiz / 1 fighter. All 6 are self-made builds and some actually defy conventional fotm wisdom. For example conventional wisdom says a 10 sorc / 6 wiz / 4 fvs is the optimal shiradi caster. It could be, but I am having a blast with my 17 wizard / 3 fvs shiradi and enjoying the benefits of the higher level spells and wraith form instead of zombie form. Whatever superiority the other build has simply isn't needed for any content I've run and doesn't increase the level of fun.

As for your skill comments - it doesn't resonate with what I see in game. What I see in game is alot of people running supposed OP broken builds and struggling to survive and/or contribute effective dps. I see vets running supposedly weak under-powered builds crushing the content.

What I was referring to is situations where people bring characters to LE content that are unable to contribute effectively because they know others can carry them through the quest/raid on legendary elite. I don't always know the reason for their deficiencies, but these characters include warlocks, wizards, sorcs, monks, throwers and other builds. If someone brings a healing cleric I am not counting that - because the character might be fine even if the role is completely unnecessary.

My point was simply that most people don't mind opening up an LFM to anyone on elite because people can solo it anyhow. Very few players are picky and they are the ones that need help finishing. With reaper 10 skulls that might not be the case. Folks might be more selective which means people will need to up their game a bit if they want to run reaper. I don't think that's a bad thing, but it might mean some people will find a difficult time finding reaper groups willing to take them where in the past they would hit the lfm and always be accepted.

[Rys]

QFT. Most if not all of the so called most skilled/geared players are not interested in challenge. They have plenty of ways to challenge themselves without the need for reaper (run underlevel, use no power creep gear/builds, etc) and yet they choose not to because there is no reward for doing that other than the challege itself.

Despite they say all day they want more challenge all they trully want is to feel special or loved/needed again. All they want is to have that shiny item no one else has so they can brag some when they are with newbs. All they want is to carry a group of newbs that needs them to complete thorough a dungeon while being told how uber and awesome they are.

This kind of people has troubles getting groups unless people needs them to complete because no one likes to play with elitist j****. The only way people wants to play with them is if they need them to complete quests. If the quests have no special rewards no one want to run it and no one needs them, that's why they will support new powercreep added to reaper although they have been whining about it for so long. They are fine with powercreep as long it's just for them or the ones running with them.

Challenge is just the excuse they use to try delude others and themselves into thinking there is a good and noble reason behind reaper, but it's all about Ego. It does always sound better if you say you want challenge instead of saying that all you want is to feel especial, needed and wated again because it's the only way people want to play with you. :)

o/ from the elitist j***

[Sehenry03]

My point was simply that most people don't mind opening up an LFM to anyone on elite because people can solo it anyhow. Very few players are picky and they are the ones that need help finishing. With reaper 10 skulls that might not be the case. Folks might be more selective which means people will need to up their game a bit if they want to run reaper. I don't think that's a bad thing, but it might mean some people will find a difficult time finding reaper groups willing to take them where in the past they would hit the lfm and always be accepted.

I personally always open my groups up to anyone that wants to join whether I have to carry them or not and I always will. I know guildies get a little irritated with me at times for doing this but that's how I play. You are probably 100% correct with the reaper guess but one thing I am waiting to happen not long after reaper is released is that there will be a TON of people whining that reaper is too hard and they can't get the same gear now and feel left out that DDO will AGAIN cave in and give them what they want instead of making a difficulty designed for the elite players in the game with elite gear. I personally will never run reaper much unless it is with my guild, and I have no problem with people who run reaper getting better gear because they can handle it, on the flip side there is a large population who feels they are owed the same gear without having to earn it.

P.S. Any chance I could get your wiz/fvs shirardi build PM'ed to me? I would love to try it and see what it is like.

[2pc2]

o/ from the elitist j***

Happy you liked it :)

It's painfull but necesary at the same time to hear the sad truth every now and then. Glad that a few days after you are still thinking about it and wondering why, it was the intention all along. ;)

[Chai]

Happy you liked it :)

It's painfull but necesary at the same time to hear the straw man every now and then. Glad that a few days after you are still thinking about it and wondering why, it was the intention all along. ;)

FTFY.

Something I have only seen happen in DDO - those who have no interest in the new difficulty setting above and beyond making sure those who play it are not rewarded any more than they already are for playing elite, are the ones claiming its all about ego....

...when its their jealousy about how someone else who plays a game in a way they do not play it, will be rewarded that drives their overly repeated feedback.

No game change should ever be based on the feedback of those who have loudly and often claimed they are not interested in the difficulty setting (or whatever is being discussed). There should be no concern from that group whatsoever about how others who do participate in that difficulty setting (or whatever is being discussed) are incentivized to do so.


Challenge is just the excuse they use to try delude others and themselves into thinking there is a good and noble reason behind reaper, but it's all about Ego. It does always sound better if you say you want challenge instead of saying that all you want is to feel especial, needed and wated again because it's the only way people want to play with you.

I now have it figured out, due to cross referencing this little ditty here with the other previously mentioned pattern based criteria. I had it narrowed down to two before. I now know exactly who it is. Thanks.

[2pc2]

I'm awesome blah blah blah...Yawn

Why do you take any argument against you point of view as a personal atack and start talking about yourself and how awesome you are (even if no one cares and it's not related to the discusion going on, LOL) when you have no arguments to defend it? You seem to fail to understand it, it's not against you. I just gave my point of view about what you seem to think/consider to be a top or reaper ready player (someone with a good build and gear) as opposed to what I consider to be or that should be a reaper ready player (someone with skill, even if he/she does not have the better build or gear of the moment ). If you hold that opinion give arguments why you think its better than giving more importance to gear and build as opposed to player skill if what we really want is challenge? If you do not hold that opinin and think I missinterpreted you then say so with some rational argument and we can have a reasonable discussion or agree that player skill should be give more importance than gear or builds if what we want is challenge. Starting with personal atacks and rants and bragging how supposedly awesome you are don't add anything interesting to the discussion and, honestly, I have 0 interest on it.:)

[nokowi]

Wise words about what reaper will be from someone who has tryed it on lama... because you have tryed it on lama right befre talking about how difficult it will be? :rolleyes:

I will give you a hint : it's a rethorical question, no need to answer this since I already know you have not :p That doesn't prevent you from talking like you actually knew what it will look like despite actually having no idea other than what have you read about it. Because you know, talking about things you have no clue about like if you did it's free.

Still its irrelevant, like a farmer talking about rocket sience. Try it by youself before jumping into any conclusions on how difficult it will be, that is if you want anyone to take you seriously, on the other hand if you want ppl to have a good laugh keep talking about how difficult reaper will be without even having tryed it before, it's really funny ;)

You are on record that you can solo reaper 10 skull, and that it will be easier than what we have on EE, given all the "power creep" you yell so loudly about.

If rogue is ever fixed, I will reinstall DDO and try out reaper.

I happen to be capable of listening to first person feedback and forming reasonable conclusions. Given that players can easily solo existing content, and could not do so on reaper, even with bugs such as negative energy self healing, its rational to conclude reaper 10 skull is more difficult than existing content.

Even a farmer could look at the stated purpose of reaper (DM wants to kill you), increased champions with new abilities, look at self healing nerf, look at mobs taking reduced damage and conclude that these things add difficulty.

Only a forum troll would be confused with respect to difficulty, or how 10-20 MP compares to ~90% self healing nerf along with these other changes.


I'll post some solo videos for you (not 10 skull) if I find it enjoyable enough to play again and restart my assassin Youtube page, that is if you have not moved on to a new forum account.

[slarden]

one thing I am waiting to happen not long after reaper is released is that there will be a TON of people whining that reaper is too hard and they can't get the same gear now and feel left out that DDO will AGAIN cave in and give them what they want instead of making a difficulty designed for the elite players in the game with elite gear.

Turbine needs to ignore all complaints about the quests being too difficult. They should only pay attention to complaints that certain abilities and class features are making reaper too easy. They need to ignore all complaints about classes being unbalanced. People are free to build a character specifically for reaper so it's not unfair if some builds struggle in reaper.

I don't know what the drop rates will be like so it's hard to comment. As someone that builds alot of DC builds and wants to max out my main stat I am concerned reaper will be turned into another grind to get that stacking +2 bonus to stats. Right now it's the circlet for many caster builds, but then a new better caster hat comes out and a new +2 bonus is needed on it.

In slavers I had maybe 15-20 statuette of the gods drop but the busts are exponentially more rare - most people I know never had one drop. I've talked to other people that said they ran it alot and never got even a statuette to drop.
So my original thinking I would run reaper mainly as a hardcore test for some builds. Now it's also about +2 stacking stats which means I am not just running it for challenge.

I was not wanting another grind added to the game, but I understand the devs feel they need to add something so people feel rewarded.

The reward I don't mind. Another grind added to the game on top of tr, etr, raids and other crafting systems is more what I am not excited about. Although like all grinds it's 100% optional the continual adding of more grinds make it tough for someone that wants multiple alts. Some people like the grind because they have alot of time on their hands and/or only gear up 1 character.


P.S. Any chance I could get your wiz/fvs shirardi build PM'ed to me? I would love to try it and see what it is like.

Yes. I am not sure if I can login tonight, but I should be able to tomorrow.

[Rys]

Happy you liked it :)

It's painfull but necesary at the same time to hear the sad truth every now and then. Glad that a few days after you are still thinking about it and wondering why, it was the intention all along. ;)

Days after, I was wondering what was so offensive about my comment that it disappeared and yours didn't ;) So YOLO

[nokowi]

I was not wanting another grind added to the game, but I understand the devs feel they need to add something so people feel rewarded.



My guess is that you won't need to bother for the rewards - the next set of named loot will outdo whatever you grinded for, and the grind is infinite (renews with each update).

You may need to change your mentality when reaper comes out --> and just get the rewards you get while playing content you enjoy.

The reaper rewards will likely be for those that like the grind, and will provide a pool of players for you when you feel like tackling reaper.

[slarden]

Why do you take any argument against you point of view as a personal atack and start talking about yourself and how awesome you are (even if no one cares and it's not related to the discusion going on, LOL) when you have no arguments to defend it? You seem to fail to understand it, it's not against you.

It wasn't viewed as a personal attack. Since my previous message and your response didn't seem to relate at all I tried to lay out in more detail why your point of view doesn't resonate with my own experience.

I didn't think your post was against me. I was giving my personal view point as someone that doesn't use so-called fotm builds but instead makes my own. I missed the part where I referred to myself as awesome, in fact, I mentioned some of my builds might be less than optimal but more fun for me.


I just gave my point of view about what you seem to think/consider to be a top or reaper ready player (someone with a good build and gear) as opposed to what I consider to be or that should be a reaper ready player (someone with skill, even if he/she does not have the better build or gear of the moment ).

Again, I gave the example of someone coming to a quest with a build that isn't working and/or insufficient gear. Lacking those things are problematic as are other things. Think of the person that joins LE slavers with 500 hp and low prr and complains about enemies hitting too hard. It happens when you accept anyone.

I am not sure what skills in reaper you are even referring to. This is not that hard of game that requires any special phsyical or mental abilities. It's mostly about learning how to build a character properly, how to play a character properly and how to beat the AI.


If you hold that opinion give arguments why you think its better than giving more importance to gear and build as opposed to player skill if what we really want is challenge? If you do not hold that opinin and think I missinterpreted you then say so with some rational argument and we can have a reasonable discussion or agree that player skill should be give more importance than gear or builds if what we want is challenge. Starting with personal atacks and rants and bragging how supposedly awesome you are don't add anything interesting to the discussion and, honestly, I have 0 interest on it.:)
You will have to elaborate on what you mean by player skill.

I gave an example of people coming to quests with insufficient build and gear which is a common correctable problem I see in pugs - I never said that was an exhaustive list of all things needed for reaper. My impression is reaper is it's like the old epics. Forced grouping but people will easily be able to beat it in short order. It will be a bell curve like the old epics with super easy quests that can be solo'd like the old epic partycrashers and quests that were a bit tougher like epic wiz king was - although it may have only seemed tougher to me because I had so few chances to run it compared to the easy ones. People will take the path of least resistance and use every short cut, safe spot, ai glitch, etc. just like they did with the old epics.

That's my opinion of reaper, but it's also what people want. Some people liked the forced grouping and they want something unique for it because it takes longer to find a group and then run.

[slarden]

My guess is that you won't need to bother for the rewards - the next set of named loot will outdo whatever you grinded for, and the grind is infinite (renews with each update).

You may need to change your mentality when reaper comes out --> and just get the rewards you get while playing content you enjoy.

The reaper rewards will likely be for those that like the grind, and will provide a pool of players for you when you feel like tackling reaper. Agreed, this is normally what I do. I don't have all +3 mythic bonuses on all my characters and all my items. I don't think I ever got a single +3 mythic bonus on legendary pansophic circlet. There are other items I get 4 or 5 versions with +3 bonuses and only use 1 or 2 of those.

It depends on how rare the +2 bonus is and how many more grinds get added to the game. There is a point where you feel spread too thin is my only point - especially with multiple alts. I think of raids as the forced grouping grind and not quests. Although I guess that's exactly how the old epics used to be.

At the moment you are right, a +2 bonus isn't make or break on any build. However it depends how the reaper reward system is expanded and how rare drops are.

[Pyed-Pyper]

If reaper is power creep, I look forward to your solo at-level 10 skull video.

We all know this won't happen.

There will be an area of the game that requires more skill and intelligence, and I believe you've stated you will not play it.

The whole point of reaper is to provide a portion of the game that is more fun, entertaining and challenging for those that like challenge and grouping.

They are adding power creep to Reaper, which itself is so obviously counterproductive to the alleged purpose I am flabbergasted that we have to discuss it. That is bad enough. What is even worse is that the power creep from Reaper will be available in the rest of the game, which already suffers from too much power creep.

Why is this so hard to understand?

It makes me think that the people "wanting challenge" that defend the power creep really don't care about that so much as being able to power through content even faster than ever, like it is some kind of badge of honor. That's the least unflattering reason I can conjure. If there is better explanation, I'd love to hear it.

[PermaBanned]

They are adding power creep to Reaper, which itself is so obviously counterproductive to the alleged purpose I am flabbergasted that we have to discuss it. That is bad enough. What is even worse is that the power creep from Reaper will be available in the rest of the game, which already suffers from too much power creep.

Why is this so hard to understand?

It makes me think that the people "wanting challenge" that defend the power creep really don't care about that so much as being able to power through content even faster than ever, like it is some kind of badge of honor. That's the least unflattering reason I can conjure. If there is better explanation, I'd love to hear it.
Fwiw: some of us aren't so much "defending" it as we are just glad that it's quite minimal - actual "creep" vs the "leaps" we've had lately.

Yeah, on one hand it's kinda silly that the same amount of bonus will apearantly be available on Named level 1 gear as Named level 30 gear. On the other hand, that gear will stil need to be obtained by running the content @ Reaper difficulty - not exactly handing it out like candy ;) This is also further balanced/countered by Cannith Crafting: like that CC stuff? No Reaper bonuses there. Old names items - the stuff actually eligible for Reaper bonuses at Heroic levels - tends to be carp compared to current random loot; I don't see a Reaper bonus really altering that either.

[Altamedes]

Just a reminder, for those who haven't been on Lammania to actually try out Reaper, 1 Skull is a joke - I'm not sure if I can even tell the difference between 1 skull for a particular quest and the corresponding E, EE, or LE. They actually "feel" the same. But I think this should be expected with how they have decided to implement Reaper - with 10 more settings, the difference between E, EE, LE and 1 skull should be expected to be tiny.

The reason this is important is because once the people figure out that there's minimal difference between elite and 1 Skull, those who are regularly running E/EE/LE will simply go up to 1 skull, even if they aren't part of the player base that is looking for increased challenge.

[NaturalHazard]

Just a reminder, for those who haven't been on Lammania to actually try out Reaper, 1 Skull is a joke - I'm not sure if I can even tell the difference between 1 skull for a particular quest and the corresponding E, EE, or LE. They actually "feel" the same. But I think this should be expected with how they have decided to implement Reaper - with 10 more settings, the difference between E, EE, LE and 1 skull should be expected to be tiny.

The reason this is important is because once the people figure out that there's minimal difference between elite and 1 Skull, those who are regularly running E/EE/LE will simply go up to 1 skull, even if they aren't part of the player base that is looking for increased challenge.

is there still a chance of getting teh uber lootz that reaper is suppose to drop?

[Pyed-Pyper]

is there still a chance of getting teh uber lootz that reaper is suppose to drop?

Coming soon to the Store: Reaper anti-nerf pots, Reaper loot boost pots

[Qhualor]

Just a reminder, for those who haven't been on Lammania to actually try out Reaper, 1 Skull is a joke - I'm not sure if I can even tell the difference between 1 skull for a particular quest and the corresponding E, EE, or LE. They actually "feel" the same. But I think this should be expected with how they have decided to implement Reaper - with 10 more settings, the difference between E, EE, LE and 1 skull should be expected to be tiny.

The reason this is important is because once the people figure out that there's minimal difference between elite and 1 Skull, those who are regularly running E/EE/LE will simply go up to 1 skull, even if they aren't part of the player base that is looking for increased challenge.

if this is true and WAI, than get ready for I told you so.

[PermaBanned]

Is there any official info regarding Skull count and if more/less Skulls effects odds of receiving a Reaper bonused item?

[Altamedes]

Is there any official info regarding Skull count and if more/less Skulls effects odds of receiving a Reaper bonused item?

Nothing official in the Lammania release notes for the build released today. One would assume (and hope) low Skulls would drastically reduce drop rates.

[NaturalHazard]

Coming soon to the Store: Reaper anti-nerf pots, Reaper loot boost pots

would not be surprised.

[Pyed-Pyper]

Fwiw: some of us aren't so much "defending" it as we are just glad that it's quite minimal - actual "creep" vs the "leaps" we've had lately.
....

Pretty sad that your expectations are along the lines of "It could have been worse," instead of something positive.

[PermaBanned]

Pretty sad that your expectations are along the lines of "It could have been worse," instead of something positive.That would be a misinterpretation of my post, as I had no expectaions to begin with. I didn't want any power increase coming from the loot. Given that in order to receive the Reaper power boost in many cases will require using less than ideal loot (nothing CC, no LGS, no Slaver's crafted items) I'm still thinking this whole Reaper powercreep issue is being blown out of proportion.

I certainly could be wrong - time will tell.

[2pc2]

It makes me think that the people "wanting challenge" that defend the power creep really don't care about that so much as being able to power through content even faster than ever, like it is some kind of badge of honor. That's the least unflattering reason I can conjure. If there is better explanation, I'd love to hear it.

That's very accurate. But they can already power thorough content fast. So there must be something else. The problem they have is that most ppl can do it also, so they stop feeling special. What they really want is to power thorough content just because they have some new powercreep items, while those who do not have it can't, even if they are more skilled than them. This way they can feel special again. Who cares if its only because they have been handed more powercreep or play the FOTM build and there is 0 merit or challenge on what they do as long as they can brag and feel special again?

Reaper sadly is all about hurt egos who want to feel special again and money grab. Challenge is the excuse used by them to hide how childish they are and used by SSG to push the new hamster wheel into live with the complicity of those hurt egos in need of some love or attention. :)

[Chai]

They are adding power creep to Reaper, which itself is so obviously counterproductive to the alleged purpose I am flabbergasted that we have to discuss it. That is bad enough. What is even worse is that the power creep from Reaper will be available in the rest of the game, which already suffers from too much power creep.

Why is this so hard to understand?

It makes me think that the people "wanting challenge" that defend the power creep really don't care about that so much as being able to power through content even faster than ever, like it is some kind of badge of honor. That's the least unflattering reason I can conjure. If there is better explanation, I'd love to hear it.

Its not hard to understand. Its just incorrect. The difficulty is being increased more than the added power through gear accounts for, so its not power creep. The heavy lobbying for keeping content challenge at ~2012 levels while increasing loot gains in N,H,E, questing, is power creep. Since most of that content can be defeated handedly already due to power creep, even on elite, why are people all of a sudden just now concerned about this, when not only were they not concerned about it before, but many were lobbying heavily to keep it in place before? It sounds to anyone being objective that those who do not want any more challenge or game engagement are those lobbying for no new increase in gear quality. That will keep the game like they have lobbied for in the past, easy runs for top end gear, no new learning curve, and no reason to consume more time in hopes that they will get better gear.



If you guys like a game where any not so skilled player can play max difficulty just because he copypasted the FOTM build or got that new powercreep items that's legit, just be straight about it and don't try disguise it under challenge. I personally prefer a game where if you are not skilled enough you won't be able to play max difficulty setting unless you get better at the game because no gear or copypasted build is going to save you .

I find it ironic that the people hiding behind socks, are the ones accusing others posting on their real player accounts of hiding behind agendas. If you really believe this position, just be straight about it and don't try disguise it under a different name.

As for the challenge issue, the ones lobbying for no new challenge are those lobbying for no better gear in the new difficulty setting, per above, as that will keep the game like they have lobbied for in the past, easy runs for top end gear, no new learning curve, and no reason to consume more time in hopes that they will get better gear. The fact that they lobbied for elite to be easy in the past is the reason why they need to hide behind socks to lobby for this "no new gear in the higher difficulty setting" now.

[slarden]

What they really want is to power thorough content just because they have some new powercreep items, while those who do not have it can't, even if they are more skilled than them. This way they can feel special again. Who cares if its only because they have been handed more powercreep or play the FOTM build and there is 0 merit or challenge on what they do as long as they can brag and feel special again?

Reaper sadly is all about hurt egos who want to feel special again and money grab. Challenge is the excuse used by them to hide how childish they are and used by SSG to push the new hamster wheel into live with the complicity of those hurt egos in need of some love or attention. :) You still haven't elaborated on what "skills" you think people are lacking that they are making up for by playing with power creep items and fotm builds.

From what I can tell reaper completions mostly will require a competent group with the right roles. It might seem a bit hard at first as people get used to it like the old epics, but it will quickly become a scripted auto-complete just like the old epics. I hope the participation rate is higher. I think the fact that people can get twink TR gear in reaper makes it more likely reaper will be a success than the old epics which few participated in. I assume reaper rewards will be gated by level so someone can't farm heroic reaper quests at level 30 to get gear. That would really diminish the meaning of those items.

I don't like the hamster wheel aspect of it (grind for stacking +2 stat helm), but I consider it to be a minor negative in a system full of positives. The game is full of grinds already.

[Chai]

You still haven't elaborated on what "skills" you think people are lacking that they are making up for by playing with power creep items and fotm builds.

From what I can tell reaper completions mostly will require a competent group with the right roles. It might seem a bit hard at first as people get used to it like the old epics, but it will quickly become a scripted auto-complete just like the old epics. I hope the participation rate is higher. I think the fact that people can get twink TR gear in reaper makes it more likely reaper will be a success than the old epics which few participated in. I assume reaper rewards will be gated by level so someone can't farm heroic reaper quests at level 30 to get gear. That would really diminish the meaning of those items.

I don't like the hamster wheel aspect of it (grind for stacking +2 stat helm), but I consider it to be a minor negative in a system full of positives. The game is full of grinds already.

Likely the biggest "upheaval" (if thats what we want to call it) is a new meta will rise for reaper with builds that are successful in playing specific roles on that setting, and people will have to figure out what those builds are, how they are best played, etc. Since the quest layouts are the same, and the AI is the same, play skill will not be an issue. The willingness to play together and cooperate to beat content as a single group entity will be tested, as the game has gone too long with groups comprised of 2-6 people soloing in the same instance.

[Duetotheseverity]

The strategy for raper is the same we have now in LE garbage raids:

2-3 cheese builds crush it while the rest raise the dead bodies.

Fail garbage challenge is fail garbage.

Thats the "strategy" and "grouping" that raper will create....