Reaper Experience (With Numbers)

[Blastyswa]

This post will contain a lot of numbers as I go through my reasoning for why Reaper Xp should be modified. If you're not a numbers person, here's the summary:
Change Reaper xp's formula to somewhat closely model the cosmetic reward tiers.

With that said, I do try and make this post friendly if you don't love numbers, so read on if you want.

Now, without further ado, I'll get into the numbers.

Firstly, I'm going to have to extrapolate a little here, because for some reason I haven't yet maxed out reaper experience. I have however gotten one character to reaper points 6, and the assumption I'll be making is that the formula for reaper xp/rank is 2000 * (level-1) +1000. Meaning, the first point is 1k, second point is 3k, third point is 5k, and it goes up from there. The three reaper trees each have different numbers of enhancements: 55 in adversary, 44 in thaumaturge, and 58 in tank. So because of that we'll use one third of the total available reaper enhancements as our mark for maxing out a single tree, even though that ends up being 52, which can only fill thaumaturge (We're doing an average here). 52 Reaper Enhancements, plugging the formula into excel, takes 2,601,000 reaper xp. So the player will have finished the second cosmetic tier a little before this point.

Next, how much does it take to fill out a second tree? Well, the average for that comes out to 105. At that value, you need a cumulative 10,816,000 reaper experience. At this point you will have doubled the experience it took you to get the third cosmetic tier. To put this into perspective a little, lets assume the player is making 500 reaper xp per quest on average; not unreasonable, that's basically running on 5 skulls everywhere for first time bonuses, which is difficult but can be done with a balanced party. That's 21,632 quests for that second tier. If each quest takes 30 minutes, which is a pretty generous estimate for 5 skull at one level over base, that's a total of (21,623 * 30 minutes, /60 minutes, /24 hours, /365 days) 1.24 years spent in quests.

1.24 years. Let's look at that number a little bit:
1.24 years is 10,816 hours. The 10,000 hour rule states that it takes about 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become an expert at something. Any player who makes it to 2/3rds completion of reaper experience is an expert at grinding reaper experience.

In 1.24 years, working U.S. minimum wage you could make around 20,000 dollars after taxes.

In 1.24 years, you could travel a decent chunk of the world.

In 1.24 years, you could get that 10,000 hour expert proficiency in cooking, or welding, or a musical instrument.

In 1.24 years, you could get over halfway done with an associates degree.

In 1.24 years, you could gain some bonuses for a virtual character, although by that point we'll be on update 40 and the bonuses will likely have been significantly devalued by natural power creep.

Keep in mind this isn't 1.24 years playing dungeons and dragons online. This doesn't mean that at the start of summer of 2018 you're finished. This is time spent in quest. This is not time spent chatting with friends while standing on the airship or waiting for a party to form, this is time spent running through a quest.

Now to the kicker. That number is so vast you're probably thinking right now "Wow, maxing out the trees is tough!". If you are, you're forgetting one thing. That. Was. 2/3rds. That number wasn't for maxing out reaper enhancements, it was for getting two trees done. If you want your third tree, this is the xp requirement:

24,336,000 reaper experience.

That's over quadruple the value needed for the third cosmetic tier. That's over double the value for maxing out the second tree. And, that is equivalent (48672*30/60/24/365) to 2.78 years.

In 2.78 years, you could have made over 40,000 dollars after taxes at minimum wage.

In 2.78 years, you could have traveled extensively over the entire world.

In 2.78 years, which translates to 24,336 hours, you could become an expert in 2 and a half things.

In 2.78 years, you could have an associates degree, and have been working for almost a year with it.

In 2.78 years, you could max out the reaper trees, at which point we'll be on update 50 (Or the game will be shut down) and those bonuses won't be big deals.


Now here's the responses I'm sure I'd get if this is where I stopped.
"Well it's meant to be a long trek"
"Reaper xp is bad"
"Your face is dumb"

So, i'll present my alternate formula, into which quite a bit of math went.

My Formula:
Base = 700
Increase = 450

Current Formula:
Base = 1,000
Increase = 2,000

So basically what this means is the requirement currently is 1000 first point, 3000 second point, 5000 third point, etc. With my formula, the requirement is 700 first point, 1150 second point, 1600 third point, 2050 fourth point, etc.

Question: "How is this hard math? You said quite a bit of math went into this, but then all you did was reduce the numbers by some random amount"
Answer: Oh lordy, there was way too much math involved with this. I worked the formula backwards from the endgoal to the formula, first establishing an effective base and increase for a linear progression, and then rescaling that multiple times so that the curve fit the current cosmetics model. Because here is the beautiful thing:

1/3rd Reaper Points:
Current Formula: 2,601,000 xp
My Formula: 633,000 xp

2/3rd Reaper Points:
Current Formula: 10,816,000 xp
My Formula: 2,530,500 xp

Complete Reaper Points:
Current Formula: 24,336,000 xp
My Formula: 5,620,000 xp

Notice something? My formula maintains approximately the same differences between point totals (Around x4 from 1/3rd to 2/3rd, around x2 from 2/3rd to Complete) but drops requirements by about 75%. Furthermore, dropping in that manner lines up my formula's benchmarks with cosmetic tiers.

So with the current formula, 1/3rd reaper points you have second cosmetic tier, and halfway to 2/3rd you maxed out the third cosmetic tier. With my formula, by the first tier you have just reached the first cosmetic tier and hit 1/3rd reaper points, by the second tier you reached the 2nd cosmetic tier and hit 2/3rd reaper points, and by the third tier you're complete in both cosmetics and reaper experience simultaneously.

Let's quickly look over the time requirements for my formula:

1st tier:
Current Formula: 0.297 years (108.4 days, 2,601 hours)
My Formula: 0.07 years (26 days, 624 hours)

2nd tier:
Current Formula: 1.24 years (450.8 days, 10,818 hours)
My Formula: 0.29 years (105.4 days, 2,530 hours)

3rd tier:
Current Formula: 2.78 years (1014.7 days, 24,352.8 hours)
My Formula: 0.64 years (234.2 days, 5,620 hours)

As you can see, my formula cuts all the xp totals significantly in addition to scaling them to the cosmetic tiers. With that said, the time investments are still large. If any additional changes (If my above formula were adopted) were to be made to the xp requirement, it should be made through increasing of xp per quest and not through rescaling the formula, unless the cosmetic tiers were scaled with it.

As a sidenote, here are some numbers for completionist, triple completionist, epic completionist, triple epic completionist, and triple triple completionist, just for comparison to the current grind in the game.
(Heroic TRs assume 24 hours spent in quest per TR, epics do the same.)

Heroic Completionist: 14 days (336 hours)
Triple Heroic Completionist: 42 days (1008 hours)
Epic Completionist: 12 days (288 hours)
Triple Epic Completionist: 36 days (864 hours)
Triple Triple Completionist: 78 days (1872 hours) (Ignores iconics, which are assumed to be included in heroics and done in about the same time)

So looking at this, under the current formula maxing out reaper trees will take about 13x the time requirement for triple triple completionist. Honestly, I think that if the developers adopt my above formula, multiply all reaper xp gain on reaper quests by x3, and then make adjustments to make the first time bonus not so important to experience, then reaper xp will remain the long journey (Equivalent to triple triple completionist) the developers want, without being near impossible. Here are the numbers if they were to do that:

1st tree:
My Formula, with 1,500 xp for 30 minutes instead of 500: 8.8 days (211 hours)

2nd tree:
My Formula: 35 days (843 hours)

3rd tree:
My Formula: 78 days (1,873 hours)

The grind for 1st tree becomes about 2/3rds of the requirement for heroic completionist. The requirement for 2nd tree becomes about the requirement for triple completionist (A little less). And, the point I balanced around, maxing out all trees becomes almost exactly equivalent to triple triple completionist.

Now my fellow math junkies will already know this, but for this thread I:

Extrapolated the current formula
Used Dimensional Analysis to convert the current formulas xp requirements into a time
Designed my own formula modeled to the cosmetic tiers from scratch, starting with a linear progression and then redesigning it to match the cosmetic tiers at all 3 levels
Calculated the time requirements for all sorts of completionist tiers, still with dimensional analysis but not with as much
Scaled my formula to match the time frame of completionist

And good god it took forever, so please let any responses be positive or at least neutral, or constructive criticism.

[Faltout]

1. You are making the assumption that reaper points will go over 80. Has this been confirmed?
2. I don't see how I can get a heroic PL in 24 hours. Are you using best xp per min quests, top notch players to party and bunch of experience potions and tomes? If so, why are you assuming 500 xp per quest in reaper? Following the best xp per min path with the best gear, top notch players to party, you should be getting 1000 reaper xp per 20 minutes. (doing 10 skulls with experience tomes and potions boosting reaper xp)

With the above in mind, it should get you 150 days to finish 2/3rds of the reaper trees. And if you are not allowed to do that, then it's significantly lower, to the point where it comes close to the triple triple completionist time you have listed.

The way I see it, it hasn't been a week since reaper was released and you already have 6 points of reaper. When getting from level 1 to level 2, you get 4 AP. So, within a week you got from level 1 to halfway of level 2 in a tree that probably has only 20 levels. It will take you a couple of years (real years, not playtime), but you will eventually reach level 20. Which is something many players haven't even accomplished for other areas of the game in 10 years, like completionist.

[Mandelia]

The xp curve on reaper looks like a Fibonacci Sequence. The sun will explode before any casual player gets through it.

[SpartanKiller13]

10,800 hours is actually 5.4 work years (a work year is basically 2000 hours) so assuming your numbers are accurate (lot of assumptions) tier one is, at US Minimum wage, more like $90,000.

More than likely if it is actually going to be 10.8k hours those who are interested will invest in a "reaper xp tome" and "reaper xp pots" which are sure to come out soon.

Also I rather doubt that SSG's expectation is 10.8k hours to max the first tree.

[SerPounce]

It's interesting how upset people are about this. If you want to do something else than play ddo, then do that. Go learn that musical instrument, cook, climb mountains, whatever. I'm a runner myself, I do about 30-60 miles a week and marathons a few times a year. It's great to have other hobbies.

I'm never going to get those millions of xp for reaper wings, and I'm totally OK with that. I actually like the idea that there are achievements in this game that I'll probably never get. It makes the game feel expansive and endless. With no end, I don't feel any pressure to play if I'm not feeling it.

Just don't stress it. There will be some hardcore types that go for it, and good for them. Having big goals and achieving them is great in any context. It will make it neat and special when the first person gets reaper wings whether that's in 6 months or 3 years.

[Enoach]

Now bearing in mind that I'm not a fan of adding in the Reaper Trees or the idea of Reaper XP - I do get you need a way to gate a tiered system for the cosmetics.

I do like that you also appeared to adjust the cosmetics to match up with a completion of one of the Current Trees. I like that because of the Progression.

I'm just not convinced that just over 1/2 year to "Get it All", mind you each person that 1/2 year will actually very based on time is the right amount of time for this system. Personally I was hoping for it to be a bit longer.

Again for me Reaper was about the challenge and the cosmetics not about how I can get a more powerful item or more enhancements.

But I do like the way you laid it out and your extrapolations. It is a good place to start the discussion instead of "this system sucks".

[AbyssalMage]

1. You are making the assumption that reaper points will go over 80. Has this been confirmed?
no clue.

2. I don't see how I can get a heroic PL in 24 hours. Are you using best xp per min quests, top notch players to party and bunch of experience potions and tomes? If so, why are you assuming 500 xp per quest in reaper? Following the best xp per min path with the best gear, top notch players to party, you should be getting 1000 reaper xp per 20 minutes. (doing 10 skulls with experience tomes and potions boosting reaper xp)
24 hours of playing (not including talking to trainers, running to guild ship/quests, ect..) has been accomplished. Or maybe it was 24 hours with running/talking, it's been awhile since I read that post and the feat. But yes, it is best xp/min using BB, xp potions, teamwork.


With the above in mind, it should get you 150 days to finish 2/3rds of the reaper trees. And if you are not allowed to do that, then it's significantly lower, to the point where it comes close to the triple triple completionist time you have listed.

The way I see it, it hasn't been a week since reaper was released and you already have 6 points of reaper. When getting from level 1 to level 2, you get 4 AP. So, within a week you got from level 1 to halfway of level 2 in a tree that probably has only 20 levels. It will take you a couple of years (real years, not playtime), but you will eventually reach level 20. Which is something many players haven't even accomplished for other areas of the game in 10 years, like completionist.
From my perspective, it seems the best way to farm reaper is Skull 1-3, on a Heroic/Epic Train. This of course hurts the triple/triple/triple completionists but they have already shown they will jump on any mouse wheel.

[Saekee]

I was against the reaper trees due to powercreep but the fact that they will be nigh-impossible to level is a good thing. You need to run it for the gear and the challenge.

I am actually excited about my upcoming TR.

edit: btw thx OP for all those calcs!

[Blastyswa]

1. You are making the assumption that reaper points will go over 80. Has this been confirmed?
2. I don't see how I can get a heroic PL in 24 hours. Are you using best xp per min quests, top notch players to party and bunch of experience potions and tomes? If so, why are you assuming 500 xp per quest in reaper? Following the best xp per min path with the best gear, top notch players to party, you should be getting 1000 reaper xp per 20 minutes. (doing 10 skulls with experience tomes and potions boosting reaper xp)

With the above in mind, it should get you 150 days to finish 2/3rds of the reaper trees. And if you are not allowed to do that, then it's significantly lower, to the point where it comes close to the triple triple completionist time you have listed.

The way I see it, it hasn't been a week since reaper was released and you already have 6 points of reaper. When getting from level 1 to level 2, you get 4 AP. So, within a week you got from level 1 to halfway of level 2 in a tree that probably has only 20 levels. It will take you a couple of years (real years, not playtime), but you will eventually reach level 20. Which is something many players haven't even accomplished for other areas of the game in 10 years, like completionist.

Reaper enhancements can go all the way to 157; for a little bit during one of the lammania passes, reaper points could be taken without getting all the experience and putting points into all the trees was completely possible. In addition, reaper enhancements t5's are not locked and the trees are eventually intended to be able to be completely maxed out.

All time listings I used throughout the post were actual times spent in quests. If you cut out the time running around to quests, and the time gearing up, and running to rebuff/sell/repair, etc., and especially the time spent not online. The provided times don't mean that players can get Triple Triple completionist in 78 days as in by May this year a new player can be a triple triple completionist, it means that after spending 78 actual days (1872 hours) actually in quests moving at a decent pace the player can be a triple triple completionist. For a normal player, this process will take years. In the same train of thought, 2.78 years to max out reaper trees doesn't mean that by late 2018 players will be maxed out, that means that after spending 2.78 years in quests moving at a decent pace they will be triple reaper trees. This process, taking over 700 days, would take around 10x the time for triple completionist, so instead of taking 2-3 years it would take 20-30 years.

The numbers provided were because Reaper 5 is assumed to be about the maximum difficulty a 24 hour quest-time TR player can accomplish, while 30 minutes is assumed to be about the time it would take. A fully maximized party could do heroic TR's in less than 20 hours easily, but it's not realistic to balance by a fully maximized party. The math is easy though, so here is how long a fully maximized player would take to max out reaper trees:
24,336,000 reaper xp
24,336 quests
* 20 minutes
486720 minutes
8112 hours
338 days
.93 years

So a fully maximized party that somehow manages to run reaper 10 quests in 20 minutes (Which is not realistic) would take over 4x the time to max out reaper trees as to get triple triple completionist at a normal speed; if you balance it against the speed run triple triple times, the difference is even more. Finishing 2/3rds of the reaper trees takes:

10,816,000 reaper xp
10,816 quests
* 20 minutes
216320 minutes
3605 hours
150 days

Which is correct. What you aren't considering is that, again, this time is in quest time. 150 days does not mean 5 months, at 40 hours of DDO a week (Which would be a lot, I do around 20-30 usually) it would take 90 weeks, or 1.7 years. Fully maximizing the trees takes 203 weeks, or 3.9 years. That's assuming that those hours are all spent on farming reaper experience.

You're also ignoring the fact that this isn't a linear progression; the cumulative experience I have for 6 reaper points is 36,000. The requirement to go from point 19-20 is 37,000. The requirement from point 156-157 is 311,000 reaper xp. The points get more and more reaper xp intensive as you go up, so getting the first 6 might take a week of intense play, but getting the next 6 won't take a week, it'll take three weeks. And then 5 additional weeks for the next 6. And it keeps going up. For my formula it also keeps going up, but at a significantly slower rate that allows for the first tree to be attainable, while the second and third are chasers.

[Blastyswa]

10,800 hours is actually 5.4 work years (a work year is basically 2000 hours) so assuming your numbers are accurate (lot of assumptions) tier one is, at US Minimum wage, more like $90,000.

More than likely if it is actually going to be 10.8k hours those who are interested will invest in a "reaper xp tome" and "reaper xp pots" which are sure to come out soon.

Also I rather doubt that SSG's expectation is 10.8k hours to max the first tree.

They're accurate, I provided the formulas so people can feel free to check me if they'd like. Interesting to know the wage things though. My assumption is that SSG started the xp very high so people didn't max out the trees before they could tweak them, so this thread is more of a "Now that you know it's too high, tweak it down to about this" instead of "OMG Itz 2 much I needz free stuff".

[Blastyswa]

It's interesting how upset people are about this. If you want to do something else than play ddo, then do that. Go learn that musical instrument, cook, climb mountains, whatever. I'm a runner myself, I do about 30-60 miles a week and marathons a few times a year. It's great to have other hobbies.

I'm never going to get those millions of xp for reaper wings, and I'm totally OK with that. I actually like the idea that there are achievements in this game that I'll probably never get. It makes the game feel expansive and endless. With no end, I don't feel any pressure to play if I'm not feeling it.

Just don't stress it. There will be some hardcore types that go for it, and good for them. Having big goals and achieving them is great in any context. It will make it neat and special when the first person gets reaper wings whether that's in 6 months or 3 years.

The issue isn't that people don't want to put in time to get the items, its that the time you'd have to put in is absolutely insane. With the current formula you'd have to spend close to 3 years just in questing, not including time spent running to quests or finding people to quest with, assuming you're playing on reaper 5 with 30 minute average completion times. Triple triple completionist is an example of a good chaser goal; I got triple completionist a year or two ago after years of playing on my main character, and am still (Very slowly with all the alts i have now) getting closer to triple triple. A journey of a few years is a great chaser, especially when it feels like you're accomplishing something. As I showed with my math on the first post, maxing out reaper trees is about 13x the time requirement as triple triple completionist. I'm not by any means saying that reaper enhancements should be handed out like candy, I'm saying that they should be scaled down from an impossible 20 year grind to a 3-4 year grind like triple triple completionist, especially since by the time those 3-4 years have passed the bonuses won't be that amazing in the grand scheme of things in all likelihood.

[Blastyswa]

Now bearing in mind that I'm not a fan of adding in the Reaper Trees or the idea of Reaper XP - I do get you need a way to gate a tiered system for the cosmetics.

I do like that you also appeared to adjust the cosmetics to match up with a completion of one of the Current Trees. I like that because of the Progression.

I'm just not convinced that just over 1/2 year to "Get it All", mind you each person that 1/2 year will actually very based on time is the right amount of time for this system. Personally I was hoping for it to be a bit longer.

Again for me Reaper was about the challenge and the cosmetics not about how I can get a more powerful item or more enhancements.

But I do like the way you laid it out and your extrapolations. It is a good place to start the discussion instead of "this system sucks".

I'm starting to realize, not in a mean or hostile way but just as a statement, that I probably should have steered clear of the version into years. The 0.64 years time doesn't mean that we'd have a lot of people maxed out by this autumn, it means that players have to spent .64 years actually inside quests completing reaper content. If you assume that the player is spending 40 hours a week, or 2080 hours a year, on DDO, and that 1/2 of that time is spent on non reaper farming content, chatting with friends, alts, etc., then it would take about 5 years (5620/1040) for players to max out the reaper trees under my formula. With the current formula it would take closer to 20 years. The grind is still there, it's just balanced against both the cosmetics and triple triple completionist.

[Tentaki]

I agree that given the current information and setup, it'll take months if not years before some of the top-tier reaper rewards become available to even the most diehard of players.

But, you know, I'm cool with that. DDO's about to celebrate its 11th anniversary and I myself have been playing for about 7 years. For a long term reward that's persistent and always available, the fact that it will probably take most of us years to get the rewards in full seems... feasible. My only suggestion would be to make reaper XP apply to all your characters as an account-wide reward, not just an individual one, if the current XP scale is kept.

And yeah, if you grind with the primary goal of getting reaper XP, you'll probably pull your hair out. If it's looked at as a nice "on-the-side" bonus that's not a primary focus, I don't think it's that bad. Current groups have already proved its possible to complete 10 skull content, so it's not holding anything back that you couldn't access otherwise.

[Blastyswa]

I was against the reaper trees due to powercreep but the fact that they will be nigh-impossible to level is a good thing. You need to run it for the gear and the challenge.

I am actually excited about my upcoming TR.

edit: btw thx OP for all those calcs!

Oh I'm all for lots of time investment; in my last post quoting Enoach I got 5 years as the time for a typical hardcore DDO gamer to max out reaper trees under my formula, 20 years under the current formula. Reaper trees should still definitely be a grind, and a huge grind at that; I'm basically just saying that grind should be balanced against triple triple completionist, instead of being in a huge league of its own. It's not going to be too easy or anything like that, because after all how many fully maxed out triple triple completionists do you know? I know of 5-6 on Cannith, out of a population of thousands of players.

I expect that more players will begin agreeing with my viewpoint also after they rise a little bit in reaper trees and realize "Wow, this just keeps getting more and more impossible". As it changes from getting 5 reaper points from a TR to getting 3, and then 1, and then very quickly having to do multiple TRs to get a single reaper point, the current formula looks more and more painful.

And no problem, I love doing math like this; the weird reaper xp formula and trying to figure out how to balance my own formula against everything was incredibly fun.

[Blastyswa]

I agree that given the current information and setup, it'll take months if not years before some of the top-tier reaper rewards become available to even the most diehard of players.

But, you know, I'm cool with that. DDO's about to celebrate its 11th anniversary and I myself have been playing for about 7 years. For a long term reward that's persistent and always available, the fact that it will probably take most of us years to get the rewards in full seems... feasible. My only suggestion would be to make reaper XP apply to all your characters as an account-wide reward, not just an individual one, if the current XP scale is kept.

And yeah, if you grind with the primary goal of getting reaper XP, you'll probably pull your hair out. If it's looked at as a nice "on-the-side" bonus that's not a primary focus, I don't think it's that bad.

Account-wide would be interesting. With that said, the thing is my numbers weren't showing "Right now reaper is a grind, and we should make it easy." They were showing "Maxing out reaper trees currently will take about 20 years, which should be dropped to 5". I agree with the setup of having reaper enhancements take a lot of xp, and of having it be a long-haul goal, but it personally shouldn't be something that is completely unrealistic for any player.

If reaper xp were to be made account-wide, which I'd be a big fan of, I'd still recommend that my formula be adopted, but for reaper xp values to stay the same as right now (Instead of tripling as per my proposal). This would make the grind triple that of triple triple completionist (I said triple three times, this post is very illuminati) which means it would still takes plenty of years, but wouldn't require grinding out on multiple toons. I'm fine with it being viewable as an on the side bonus, but under the current system hardcore grinding for reaper xp will take decades; for on the side players, the system won't really ever become very used.

[Sam1313]

I feel they should keep it as it is. Delay the powercreep, keep the numbers high. Reaper was for those asking for a challenge not more power.

[Eryhn]

that's a total of (21,623 * 30 minutes, /60 minutes, /24 hours, /365 days) 1.24 years spent in quests.


right here I went "LOL/CRY sametime and TL;DR"
great you wrote that all down but im not even gonna go into the rest of it, bottom line, this is excessive, and then some.

I dont even mind the reaper trees being super expensive and longterm, but they should be atainable.
I DO want cosmetics though, and there are like 3-5 alts I might at times run at various levels with others.

So, rly,

step a) code account wide reaper xp much like monster manual. from there, can unlock cosmetic vendors, too

step b) leave the trees unlocked per character, but, mhm, maybe revisit that curve for the trees a bit in half a year or so lol


not that I rly wanted the trees in the first place. but since you coded them in anyways, at least dont make it quite as ... well idk quite as "what", 1+ year pure playtime, still at loss for words :D

[Blastyswa]

I feel they should keep it as it is. Delay the powercreep, keep the numbers high. Reaper was for those asking for a challenge not more power.

The numbers would stay high; they'd be scaled to be about the same time investment as completing every possible past life. The issue right now is that the numbers are incredibly high, and my suggested scaling would make them just high.

[mikarddo]

Your math seems a bit off to me based on the numbers shown (you didnt actually show the math as I wish you had).

The current 1,3, 5, 7, 9 etc means a cumulative of 1, 4, 9, 16, 25 etc which are exactly the square numbers.
Thus 52 points would be 52*52=2704 meaning 2.704 mill, but you have listed it as 2.601 mill. which is actually 51 points (51^2 *1000)

If instead of base=1000 and inc=2000 you take base and inc as unknown you get the following formulae for the cumulative xp (where n is total number of points).

f(n) = (inc*(n-1)+2*base)*n/2 (finite series theory slightly modifying the formulae (n+1)*n/2)

With base=1000 and inc=2000 an example is f(3) = (2000*2+2*1000)*3/2 = 9000 as it should be.

If you want f(52)=625000 and f(157)=5625000 to calibrate with the 1st and 3rd cosmetic vendor you solve the two equations with two unknown (base and inc) and get base = 455.0 and inc=453.5 (rounded numbers).

I cannot explain the numbers (700 and 450) you are getting though solving f(51)=625000 and f(155)=5625000 does come close at 699 and 462.

Not that any of this changes the gist of your post but it does bother my math brain. The above took 10 mins so I have a feeling you may have crossed quite a few bridges to get water if your calculations took alot of time :)

Edit: I think I see it now, the 3000 for the 2nd point is not in addition to the 1000 for the 1st point, but 3000 is the total for both points). I that case our numbers nearly agree though you seem to have rounded 462 down to 450 which is alot of rounding down, and to have used 156 total points rather than 157).

[Renvar]

Reaper was for those asking for a challenge not more power.

Incorrect.


Reaper was for the entire player base and various segments of the player base was asking for different things, including challenge, cosmetic rewards, and more power.

Correct.

[karatemack]

This is the compromise for those of us who wanted Reaper to offer ZERO power creep.

There is theoretical power creep, but it will be out of the reach of most.

[zehnvhex]

Truth be told as it stands you don't need any reaper points to do R10 so it's a bit of a moot point. I mean it's hardly efficient to do R10 if you're interested in RxP but even maxing out all the trees will hardly change that.

[mikarddo]

Maxing one tree seeing doable for those that grind quite a bit (years).
Maxing all 3 trees seem practially impossible though not theoretically so.
I dont see a problem here - only in the expectation that maxing all 3 trees should be doable which I dont share.

[Cantor]

Now bearing in mind that I'm not a fan of adding in the Reaper Trees or the idea of Reaper XP - I do get you need a way to gate a tiered system for the cosmetics.

I do like that you also appeared to adjust the cosmetics to match up with a completion of one of the Current Trees. I like that because of the Progression.

I'm just not convinced that just over 1/2 year to "Get it All", mind you each person that 1/2 year will actually very based on time is the right amount of time for this system. Personally I was hoping for it to be a bit longer.

Again for me Reaper was about the challenge and the cosmetics not about how I can get a more powerful item or more enhancements.

But I do like the way you laid it out and your extrapolations. It is a good place to start the discussion instead of "this system sucks".

1/2 a year at 8 hrs in quest a day is a year and a half. More like 2 + for even harecore players.

OP does assume that points continue to increase in cost linearly. God I hope not that kind of progression is insane and not fun or rewarding. I had assumed it would cap at some point.OP does make a good point if we can go over 80 and if cost is uncapped.

[Vish]

You had me with
Your face is dumb

This is my reaper experience
With numbers
Reaper +120
Elite +80
So that's +200
Run em back to back, double dip
And you're tr in half the time
So maybe a year takes 6 months
So reaper just halved our playing time
Pretty nice bonus huh?

I wouldn't cry over how much xp this will take
We just got handed a golden egg
Don't break it...

[SirValentine]

lets assume the player is making 500 reaper xp per quest on average


I think that estimate is over-optimistic, but let's go with it.



In 2.78 years, you could max out the reaper trees


As you pointed out, that's "in-quest" time. Let me extrapolate a bit further to put it more into perspective.:

Assume you play DDO 42 hours a week (similar to a full-time job), and spend half that, 21 hours a week, actively running Reaper quests (as opposed to gearing/buffing/selling, maintenance, flagging, running non-Reaper raids, socializing with friends, whatever). That's only 1/8 as much as the hypothetical no-sleeping-no-eating-no-bathing-no-working Reaper-24/7.

So, even doing DDO as a full-time job, 2.78 years becomes more like 22 years of actual calendar time.

If you're someone who plays closer to 10 hours a week than 40, quadruple that again...not far short of a century.

[Blastyswa]

I think that estimate is over-optimistic, but let's go with it.



As you pointed out, that's "in-quest" time. Let me extrapolate a bit further to put it more into perspective.:

Assume you play DDO 42 hours a week (similar to a full-time job), and spend half that, 21 hours a week, actively running Reaper quests (as opposed to gearing/buffing/selling, maintenance, flagging, running non-Reaper raids, socializing with friends, whatever). That's only 1/8 as much as the hypothetical no-sleeping-no-eating-no-bathing-no-working Reaper-24/7.

So, even doing DDO as a full-time job, 2.78 years becomes more like 22 years of actual calendar time.

If you're someone who plays closer to 10 hours a week than 40, quadruple that again...not far short of a century.
I actually intentionally went for a little over-optimistic, because the number is still so silly. Even going with 1000 average xp in 20 minutes like another response asked me to the time is absolutely insane. Realistically, someone playing on reaper 1-3 will never get many points whatsoever.

[Blastyswa]

You had me with
Your face is dumb

This is my reaper experience
With numbers
Reaper +120
Elite +80
So that's +200
Run em back to back, double dip
And you're tr in half the time
So maybe a year takes 6 months
So reaper just halved our playing time
Pretty nice bonus huh?

I wouldn't cry over how much xp this will take
We just got handed a golden egg
Don't break it...

I didn't really look into normal xp gains, they seem fine to me. The only thing I'm terribly concerned with in this thread is reaper experience, not normal experience on reaper difficulty. I honestly don't care what difference is made to normal experience, and I imagine devs won't mess with it to much.

[Blastyswa]

1/2 a year at 8 hrs in quest a day is a year and a half. More like 2 + for even harecore players.

OP does assume that points continue to increase in cost linearly. God I hope not that kind of progression is insane and not fun or rewarding. I had assumed it would cap at some point.OP does make a good point if we can go over 80 and if cost is uncapped.

If there's a cap, that'll change the number some, but it still isn't the best solution. Personally I like having the uncapped formula provided that scales and starts a little slower and lower, because it makes it relatively easy (2-3 months, or basically until the next update, for most people) to get the first tree maxed out. The second tree then takes closer to a year, and the third tree is over the course of a few years. With a cap on the bigger formula, players will get a points until they hit the cap, which presumably is rather high if no one has found it yet, and then has to continue running on that cap. With that method, the first tree is a little easier, and then the second and third trees take the same time (Assuming the cap occurs before the second tree).

[nokowi]

I will bet the someone could get all the reaper rewards in the cumulative amount of time players will spend posting about how difficult it is to get.

If RXP is not enough to make you want to run reaper, that is at least a partial design success. (You said it was for challenge, right?)

The moment one player wants the curve adjusted so they can reach it with their play style, someone else comes along that wants to do 10% less, and on, and on, and on.

I guarantee you their will be players that get all the rewards, and they will deserve those rewards (absent the appearance of any exploits).

Someone that played in 2006 needs to compare time to completionist (@20 cap) with time to all reaper XP (@2017).

[Blastyswa]

Maxing one tree seeing doable for those that grind quite a bit (years).
Maxing all 3 trees seem practially impossible though not theoretically so.
I dont see a problem here - only in the expectation that maxing all 3 trees should be doable which I dont share.

The timeframe for three trees has been shown to be about 20 years for players who play around 40 hours a week and devote half that time just to reaper xp grinding. Not even just running R1 or rerunning reaper stuff for loot, but running quests that give 500 reaper xp/30 minutes (1000 xp/hour). In 20 years the game won't be around. Even with the time roughly cut by 75%, 5 years is a significant grind, particularly for a single character, and by that point reaper trees will very likely not be the top power-booster around; compare the power levels in the game right now to 5 years ago. We have +17 stat items, DCs over 100, HP of 2000 on non tank toons and 4000 on tanks... By the time reaper enhancements would actually have a chance of becoming an issue, we'll all be rocking +34 stat items and 12k HP.

[Blastyswa]

I will bet the someone could get all the reaper rewards in the cumulative amount of time players will spend posting about how difficult it is to get.

If RXP is not enough to make you want to run reaper, that is at least a partial design success. (You said it was for challenge, right?)

The moment one player wants the curve adjusted so they can reach it with their play style, someone else comes along that wants to do 10% less, and on, and on, and on.

I guarantee you their will be players that get all the rewards, and they will deserve those rewards (absent the appearance of any exploits).

Someone that played in 2006 needs to compare time to completionist (@20 cap) with time to all reaper XP (@2017).

There is no play style that can compensate for the insane xp requirements. My "reaching it with my play style" is changing it from something that would require 160 hours a week for 5 years to something that requires 40 hours a week for 5 years. N one is going to get all the reaper rewards likely within the next 15 years, and I doubt I've posted more than an hour or two on this topic.

[SirValentine]

I guarantee you their will be players that get all the rewards, and they will deserve those rewards (absent the appearance of any exploits).


If current mechanics are unchanged, I rather doubt it.



Someone that played in 2006 needs to compare time to completionist (@20 cap) with time to all reaper XP (@2017).


That's quite a fair comparison. And it seems like there's an order-of-magnitude difference.

[nokowi]

If current mechanics are unchanged, I rather doubt it.

That's quite a fair comparison. And it seems like there's an order-of-magnitude difference.

Show your assumptions if you have this comparison.

[nokowi]

If current mechanics are unchanged, I rather doubt it.

It's the usual - extending your experiences onto everyone else.

There are players with over 200 lives, and I doubt obtaining all of reaper is more effort than this.

My bio says I have 86 lives, and I played actively for 5 years, without ever being a hard core XP/min player (probably 1/2 the efficiency of the min/maxers). Heck, my entire first year was only one of those lives.

[Blastyswa]

Your math seems a bit off to me based on the numbers shown (you didnt actually show the math as I wish you had).

The current 1,3, 5, 7, 9 etc means a cumulative of 1, 4, 9, 16, 25 etc which are exactly the square numbers.
Thus 52 points would be 52*52=2704 meaning 2.704 mill, but you have listed it as 2.601 mill. which is actually 51 points (51^2 *1000)

If instead of base=1000 and inc=2000 you take base and inc as unknown you get the following formulae for the cumulative xp (where n is total number of points).

f(n) = (inc*(n-1)+2*base)*n/2 (finite series theory slightly modifying the formulae (n+1)*n/2)

With base=1000 and inc=2000 an example is f(3) = (2000*2+2*1000)*3/2 = 9000 as it should be.

If you want f(52)=625000 and f(157)=5625000 to calibrate with the 1st and 3rd cosmetic vendor you solve the two equations with two unknown (base and inc) and get base = 455.0 and inc=453.5 (rounded numbers).

I cannot explain the numbers (700 and 450) you are getting though solving f(51)=625000 and f(155)=5625000 does come close at 699 and 462.

Not that any of this changes the gist of your post but it does bother my math brain. The above took 10 mins so I have a feeling you may have crossed quite a few bridges to get water if your calculations took alot of time :)

Edit: I think I see it now, the 3000 for the 2nd point is not in addition to the 1000 for the 1st point, but 3000 is the total for both points). I that case our numbers nearly agree though you seem to have rounded 462 down to 450 which is alot of rounding down, and to have used 156 total points rather than 157).

Ouch, that's embarrassing... I'll link where my math was done (http://bit.ly/2lnmdYE) so you can see what I messed up. My column started on 2, and I did the math as if it started on 1, so whoops, a few of the numbers are slightly off. With that said, I do stand by the basic premise of "Reaper xp is too much". The reason I went with 700 and 450 is because of some pretty big rounding, because a formula with base 728 and increment whatever it was before I rounded is unlikely to make its way in just because of being bad looking. In any case, it doesn't change the end result much, as the cosmetics still roughly align. The goal was a formula with a slightly higher starting point, so while going base 455 with inc 453.5 would have matched it a little closer, this proposed method keeps the initial requirement a little higher so that the first points aren't as easy to get.

[Blastyswa]

Show your assumptions if you have this comparison.

The numbers for that are in the OP.

[Blastyswa]

It's the usual - extending your experiences onto everyone else.

There are players with over 200 lives, and I doubt obtaining all of reaper is more effort than this.

My bio says I have 86 lives, and I played actively for 5 years, without ever being a hard core XP/min player (probably 1/2 the efficiency of the min/maxers). Heck, my entire first year was only one of those lives.

200 past lives at 24 hours of actual time in quest.

200 * 24, 4800 hours

So around 1/6th of the time maxing out reaper enhancements would take (24,336). The reason people are getting so confused on this is that the formula gets more and more punishing as you get more points.

[nokowi]

200 past lives at 24 hours of actual time in quest.

200 * 24, 4800 hours

So around 1/6th of the time maxing out reaper enhancements would take (24,336). The reason people are getting so confused on this is that the formula gets more and more punishing as you get more points.

I'm only confused because I have no interest in crunching the formula and your wall of text was too much for me.

There are tables you can create to summarize key results --> I do appreciate the comments being there as well

The second you put a value on RXP/min, you have defeated the purpose for reaper.

I do appreciate the repeat of info in the OP for me (TLDR).


Have you considered that a player might have to choose only 2 of the 3 trees most important to them, by design?

Or that RXP could be further incentivised in the future (group bonus, RXP weekend, added to VIP rewards, etc)?

Maybe there is a reaper Monster Manual coming out that offers additional RXP?


One thing I would bet $ on, 3 years from now what it takes to get all RXP will be less than time than it is today, without them changing the formula.

[Ellihor]

There is no play style that can compensate for the insane xp requirements. [...]N one is going to get all the reaper rewards likely within the next 15 years

Come on, Daz. What do you mean with "requirements"? Ok, for higehr skulls shroud and HoX you'll need them, but for the rest of content, there's no need for the trees. I'm glad they're unreachable, and I'm also glad the xp requirement goes exponential. This helps to lessen the gap between new people and vets, and also between people who play to much and others.

Now, I'd like to talk about the real problem here.


The timeframe for three trees has been shown to be about 20 years for players who play around 40 hours a week and devote half that time just to reaper xp grinding. Not even just running R1 or rerunning reaper stuff for loot, but running quests that give 500 reaper xp/30 minutes (1000 xp/hour).

Actually, 500 reaper xp per 30 mins is terribly bad. R1 quests at base lv +1 are paying over 300. That's about it for heroics (only checked low heoics, but the xp seems to be a little higher every lv, not an issue since the quests are also longer), and the time you take to complete on R1 is very close to elite, if not the same if you have a party. So, this is the real problem: it's more rewarding to run lower skulls than to run higher skulls. So everyone just run R1, and nobody is intrested in doing higher skulls, because the time is not worth for the extra reaper xp you get, and the normal xp is the same for all skulls.

So for the majority of the time reaper failed to be a challenging enviroment where you need teamwork, roles, strategy, etc, for the people who were looking for it. That happens because it is very hard to get a party for higher skulls, so that in the majority of the time you just can't play it. This problem is a direct consequence of what I wrote above.

The rewards for higher skulls should scale like the difficulty scales with skulls. In fact, they should scale better than that, to compensate the fact you need very focused builds that suck in general content, time to get a party, resources consumed, and untimately because the game should favor challenge over safe grind.

The current system does exaclty the opposite: it favors easy dumb repetitive grind. This problem would not exist if there were no trees to begin with, like we asked on lama forums.

[Sam1313]

Incorrect.



Correct.

Thats neat. I wasn't aware folks could change what others have said? But isn't that like a digital forgery?

[Faltout]

I think that estimate is over-optimistic, but let's go with it.
500 reaper xp per 30 minutes is optimistic?

Has anyone checked how much reaper xp they get for completing a quest? I just joined a party that did the following quests in reaper 2:
- Feast or Famine
- Trial by Fire
- Maze of Madness
- Foundation of Discord
- A Cry for Help
- Assault on Summerfield
- Blockade Buster
- Undermine
- Siegebreaker
= 9 lvl 13 quests on reaper 2
The leader was a warlock aura build that was just blasting through the whole dungeon without a care in the world. I mean, monsters would just take 2 bursts to kill compared to elite that would take 1. Reapers weren't even touching him (I remember a carnage reaper trying to kill him and I saw his hit points only drop to their initial value of 500 from 800/500 that they were). We took about 10 minutes tops to finish each quest, with the exception of undermine.

I got 3600 reaper xp out of this. And I don't even have any boosts to reaper xp. I mean, no VIP and no xp tome (which have already been reported to provide boosts to reaper xp).
Let's divide those 3600 / 90 minutes = 40 xp per minute = 1200 xp per 30 minutes.

Now, the leader was doing everything by himself and he wasn't even a top notch player that can do a TR in 24 hours of questing. Imagine having a group of 6 equally capable players. They could easily do reaper 5 at the exact same pace (10 minutes per quest) and they would get double the xp.
Now, imagine those players doing the same in higher level quests, where reaper xp is substantially more.

Did I say 1000 xp per 20 minutes before? After today's experience with reaper xp, I think I need to triple my guess.

[SirValentine]

Or that RXP could be further incentivised in the future (group bonus, RXP weekend, added to VIP rewards, etc)?

Maybe there is a reaper Monster Manual coming out that offers additional RXP?


Yes, obviously they can change the game mechanics. They, in later years, made multiple changes to game mechanics that made getting PLs vastly quicker & easier.



Show your assumptions if you have this comparison.


It took about 10 months for the most dedicated TR-grinding world-first Completionist; 2-3 years was a more typical expected time-frame for a fairly heavy-duty TR-grinder.

The assumptions for Reaper are in this thread. If some super-grinder is on track to cap Reaper XP in only 8 or 10 years instead of 20-30 years, I won't be that surprised. And it's still an order-of-magnitude difference. But I don't expect that DDO will be around another full decade with zero changes to the Reaper XP mechanics. Do you?

[mikarddo]

Ouch, that's embarrassing... I'll link where my math was done (http://bit.ly/2lnmdYE) so you can see what I messed up. My column started on 2, and I did the math as if it started on 1, so whoops, a few of the numbers are slightly off. With that said, I do stand by the basic premise of "Reaper xp is too much". The reason I went with 700 and 450 is because of some pretty big rounding, because a formula with base 728 and increment whatever it was before I rounded is unlikely to make its way in just because of being bad looking. In any case, it doesn't change the end result much, as the cosmetics still roughly align. The goal was a formula with a slightly higher starting point, so while going base 455 with inc 453.5 would have matched it a little closer, this proposed method keeps the initial requirement a little higher so that the first points aren't as easy to get.

Hehe, figures :)

[Jetrule]

Your face is dumb! :D I expect a lowering of the experience point requirements for the reaper tree. As to your larger philosophical questions raised.. Great points why dont we spend our time more constructively?

[psykopeta]

Doing heroic reaper (which is as nice for our current firepower) we get 600 per quest

W/o hardcore playing my math says that while doing lots of quests (no need to do quests on epic, nor raids, just run everything, if hard capped don't lvl past +1 lvl over base quest) we would get 1 tr per month at around 150k reaper xp each time

So in the end will take aprox the same time it took me to be triple everything(not counting 2 awesome long breaks lol)

We will see it soon

[nokowi]

The assumptions for Reaper are in this thread. If some super-grinder is on track to cap Reaper XP in only 8 or 10 years instead of 20-30 years, I won't be that surprised. And it's still an order-of-magnitude difference. But I don't expect that DDO will be around another full decade with zero changes to the Reaper XP mechanics. Do you?

Thanks.

Once they add additional ways to get RXP, I think 3-4 years for all three trees will be the golden standard. (Yes, some players play 60 hours a week, and as we learn where best RXP/min is, it may take "only" 40 hours a week to accomplish this in 3-4 years)

I see it as:
1 tree: active player that plays some reaper
2 trees: super grind
3 trees: nearly impossible, but don't underestimate DDO players ability to maximize rewards.

The mistake comes with players that think they deserve to have all three trees, instead of using their own ability/interest in grinding to judge how many of the rewards they will get. Pay to win may or may not give players the third tree. 50% Reaper XP Tome, anyone?

Player's focus has been on getting all 3 trees, instead of the more appropriate "What does it take to get the one tree I really want?"

[Blastyswa]

Have you considered that a player might have to choose only 2 of the 3 trees most important to them, by design?


Well that's the thing; even with my formula, which is much less punishing, the first tree is shown to take the course of months to unlock, that second tree close to or more than a year, and the third tree takes several years. It's not that I'm trying to push through a formula that has everyone running around with 3/3 trees by the next update on four characters, it would still be a grind on par with getting every single past life. It's just that the time investment for the current challenge is equivalent to a player saying "Hey, I'm going to get triple triple completionist on all 13 of my characters".

[Blastyswa]

Come on, Daz. What do you mean with "requirements"? Ok, for higehr skulls shroud and HoX you'll need them, but for the rest of content, there's no need for the trees. I'm glad they're unreachable, and I'm also glad the xp requirement goes exponential. This helps to lessen the gap between new people and vets, and also between people who play to much and others.

I'm not recommending the xp requirement to not be incredibly high; I've pointed out a few times in the thread so far that the formula still has the first tree taking about an update, the second tree taking a year, and the third tree taking multiple years. I'm all for hovering a carrot on a stick, but when you're on a motorboat with a carrot on a stick and I'm trying to swim after you it's not particularly enjoyable. Honestly if a developer were to respond to this thread with "We have no plans, nor will we ever have plans, to change the experience requirements or the experience gains for reaper experience" then my new argument would be remove reaper trees, because it's just insulting to give us a goal with a 20 year time commitment per character.


Actually, 500 reaper xp per 30 mins is terribly bad. R1 quests at base lv +1 are paying over 300. That's about it for heroics (only checked low heoics, but the xp seems to be a little higher every lv, not an issue since the quests are also longer), and the time you take to complete on R1 is very close to elite, if not the same if you have a party. So, this is the real problem: it's more rewarding to run lower skulls than to run higher skulls. So everyone just run R1, and nobody is intrested in doing higher skulls, because the time is not worth for the extra reaper xp you get, and the normal xp is the same for all skulls.

Actually just ran heroic madstone on r2; was giving 300. When you go up to r5 that amount gets up around 500-600. If players were to run r1's only, in my experience they don't give anywhere near over 300, expect for first time bonuses for high epic level quests or for raids. I would also love for reaper experience per skull to be rebalanced, but I consider that a separate issue to the rebalancing of the experience scale. Realistically, even if players were getting 500 reaper xp per 15 minutes, the requirement for three trees is 10 years.


The rewards for higher skulls should scale like the difficulty scales with skulls. In fact, they should scale better than that, to compensate the fact you need very focused builds that suck in general content, time to get a party, resources consumed, and untimately because the game should favor challenge over safe grind.

The current system does exaclty the opposite: it favors easy dumb repetitive grind. This problem would not exist if there were no trees to begin with, like we asked on lama forums.
Yes to rewards should scale with difficulty, no to removing the trees, and not just because the devs said no to it as well. Without the reaper xp, there really isn't rewards to scale. Normal experience? Doesn't matter if you're capped. Reaper Bonuses? Once people get +2 Pansophic Circlets and Legendary Executioners Helms (And Hardened Hide Helmets apparently, I'm surprised how many people use that) the tiny +'s to PRR or MP/RP/SP is nothing. Cosmetics? Not everyone likes cosmetics. Personally I bought a single piece of armor, two mirrors of glamering for my weapons, and a top hat years ago and I've stuck with the same look since then (Well i dropped the top hat, but still, I'm the dark leaf clawed pauldrons guy).

[Blastyswa]

Thanks.

Once they add additional ways to get RXP, I think 3-4 years for all three trees will be the golden standard. (Yes, some players play 60 hours a week, and as we learn where best RXP/min is, it may take "only" 40 hours a week to accomplish this in 3-4 years)

I see it as:
1 tree: active player that plays some reaper
2 trees: super grind
3 trees: nearly impossible, but don't underestimate DDO players ability to maximize rewards.

The mistake comes with players that think they deserve to have all three trees, instead of using their own ability/interest in grinding to judge how many of the rewards they will get. Pay to win may or may not give players the third tree. 50% Reaper XP Tome, anyone?

Player's focus has been on getting all 3 trees, instead of the more appropriate "What does it take to get the one tree I really want?"

Actually, I mostly plan to get 1 tree on alts if the reaper xp is made more reasonable, and do a long grind towards triple trees on my triple completionist, which likely will be mostly in the course of normal gameplay. I'm completely fine with the 3 trees being defined in the way you just said, that's been my own design intent this whole time. The issue is that currently the three trees are:

1 tree. Nearly impossible, but don't underestimate DDO players ability to maximize rewards.
2 tree. Wait, there's a second tree? I just finished spending 2 years getting the first one, and the xp requirements keep going up!
3 tree. What the fudge?

[Blastyswa]

500 reaper xp per 30 minutes is optimistic?

Has anyone checked how much reaper xp they get for completing a quest? I just joined a party that did the following quests in reaper 2:
- Feast or Famine
- Trial by Fire
- Maze of Madness
- Foundation of Discord
- A Cry for Help
- Assault on Summerfield
- Blockade Buster
- Undermine
- Siegebreaker
= 9 lvl 13 quests on reaper 2
The leader was a warlock aura build that was just blasting through the whole dungeon without a care in the world. I mean, monsters would just take 2 bursts to kill compared to elite that would take 1. Reapers weren't even touching him (I remember a carnage reaper trying to kill him and I saw his hit points only drop to their initial value of 500 from 800/500 that they were). We took about 10 minutes tops to finish each quest, with the exception of undermine.

I got 3600 reaper xp out of this. And I don't even have any boosts to reaper xp. I mean, no VIP and no xp tome (which have already been reported to provide boosts to reaper xp).
Let's divide those 3600 / 90 minutes = 40 xp per minute = 1200 xp per 30 minutes.

Now, the leader was doing everything by himself and he wasn't even a top notch player that can do a TR in 24 hours of questing. Imagine having a group of 6 equally capable players. They could easily do reaper 5 at the exact same pace (10 minutes per quest) and they would get double the xp.
Now, imagine those players doing the same in higher level quests, where reaper xp is substantially more.

Did I say 1000 xp per 20 minutes before? After today's experience with reaper xp, I think I need to triple my guess.

Just took my 12/2 warlock/barbarian through a few of those quests on reaper 2. around 200-250 per quest, 2000 xp total. Fairly certain your 3600 includes the 1,600 you had before doing these quests.

As a sidenote, VIP and xp tomes do not affect reaper xp gain. I have tested this at cap quite a bit, using my old gimp alt account without VIP as well as comparing xp gains between characters with and without xp tomes. Again, neither one affects reaper xp.

at 2000 xp/100 minutes (Lets be realistic, undermine took a decent bit over 10 minutes, and siegebreaker likely was a little over as well) you're looking at 600 xp per 30 minutes. Which brings us back slightly above 500/30 minutes.

[Blastyswa]

Doing heroic reaper (which is as nice for our current firepower) we get 600 per quest

W/o hardcore playing my math says that while doing lots of quests (no need to do quests on epic, nor raids, just run everything, if hard capped don't lvl past +1 lvl over base quest) we would get 1 tr per month at around 150k reaper xp each time

So in the end will take aprox the same time it took me to be triple everything(not counting 2 awesome long breaks lol)

We will see it soon

Well, if you're getting 150k reaper xp per month, that's 24,336,000 reaper xp divided by 150,000 reaper xp, giving you 162.24 months, which translates to 13.5 years. These are numbers I pulled directly from your post. The game hasn't even been around 13.5 years, and that number is with, as you stated, ignoring quests on epics and raids that would have lower xp/minute, hard capping to stay at base quest level +1, and running very little but reaper.

[PsychoBlonde]

I'm not going to argue over the math, I'd just like to point out that when the new crafting came out, there were people "proving" that it was "impossible" for "casuals" to EVER get max crafting. They were equally wrong.

Same dealio over Mysterious Remnants.

[Elfishski]

I'm not going to argue over the math, I'd just like to point out that when the new crafting came out, there were people "proving" that it was "impossible" for "casuals" to EVER get max crafting. They were equally wrong.

Same dealio over Mysterious Remnants.

Yep, this.

I don't like the trees, and would still prefer they were just deleted, but having xp requirements scale in such a way that people have a lifetime-of-game goal to fill them in is appropriate.

a) there's no reason that people should be able to achieve them any time soon, and the next single pip will never be so far away that it's absolutely out of sight, so it will still be motivating.

b) why does anyone want to make this another thing that's ground out in a couple of weeks? Geeze.

c) it limits the huge power creep I and many others are concerned about to being slightly more organic, although it will be an insurmountable difference in power between newbies and vets in a couple of years that means they'll never enjoy questing together in reaper even if the newbie is skilled. At least enormous xp requirements give us a delay before that happens.

d) it leaves room for future rewards that shorten the time to get reaper xp, when a new reward is needed for something

e) as PsychoBlonde said just before, and as others have already found - if you blast through quests on reaper 2 you're already getting an order of magnitude more xp than the OP assumed. With a bit more power creep, a very solid group and a few points already in reaper, then you'll be doubling or tripling that again. For the powergamers it's nowhere near the grind you're estimating once you figure it out.

Summary: no reduction in xp requirement necessary, give it a few months and then can consider adding in more ways to gain reaper xp if it's really necessary

[Eth]

10,800 hours is actually 5.4 work years (a work year is basically 2000 hours) so assuming your numbers are accurate (lot of assumptions) tier one is, at US Minimum wage, more like $90,000.


Hm, they could add an option to unlock the whole tree for 12000000 DDO points.

[Ellihor]

Actually just ran heroic madstone on r2; was giving 300.

My bad. Yes it was R2 that seems to be paying 300, not 1. Doesn't vary a lot from quest to quest, what makes no sense, because some quests are very longer. But the XP rewards in DDO never made any sense anyways.


I've pointed out a few times in the thread so far that the formula still has the first tree taking about an update, the second tree taking a year, and the third tree taking multiple years.[...]

it's just insulting to give us a goal with a 20 year time commitment per character.

Well, I'm good with that. Make the goal unrealistic so people stop caring about really farming reaper xp as a goal, like people do with past lives and gear, but still want to do the quests on reaper to get the XP. It's almost perfect, actually. The only mistake is the higher skulls not scaling the xp very well, if they did than we would see more runs on higher skulls.

Yes, that's what I mean: I don't want that the reaper trees become a reachable goal. I like it how it is unrealistic. We don't need another grind goal to get. The way it is now, is perfect, just have to adjust the incentive for higher skulls.

Oh and there's another thing: make the xp BTA but remove the first time bonus (because people would exploit the bonus doing quests on alts). But that would require too much coding, don't except this from SSG, but I'd love to see it.

[Faltout]

Just took my 12/2 warlock/barbarian through a few of those quests on reaper 2. around 200-250 per quest, 2000 xp total. Fairly certain your 3600 includes the 1,600 you had before doing these quests.

As a sidenote, VIP and xp tomes do not affect reaper xp gain. I have tested this at cap quite a bit, using my old gimp alt account without VIP as well as comparing xp gains between characters with and without xp tomes. Again, neither one affects reaper xp.

at 2000 xp/100 minutes (Lets be realistic, undermine took a decent bit over 10 minutes, and siegebreaker likely was a little over as well) you're looking at 600 xp per 30 minutes. Which brings us back slightly above 500/30 minutes.
1. I did not have any reaper xp before doing those quests. I was playing a favor character (ranger tempest) at level 11 that I hadn't played in months (11 months to be exact). I just weren't finding groups my level on Khyber or Sarlona so I went to the next server, Ghallanda and the only group I saw was doing those quests. So, no reaper xp before that and I was left with 400xp left to point 2.

2. I don't know what you were doing wrong with your reaper xp. Did you kill most monsters? Did you break all breakables? Did you complete optionals that give a substantial amount of RXP? Did you kill 10 monsters in Blockade Buster? We invised 2 ships but killed the last one to get 10 kills.

3. After finishing shan-to-kor part 1 on reaper 2 with my monk and a party, I looked at the xp. I was getting 350 xp. Another player said that he was getting 402. What difference did we have? He had an experience tome. We had both died, so there wasn't any bonus we were getting from flawless run. Perhaps it was the ratio of monsters each of us killed, but I doubt it. Base quest xp was 104 and he was getting a 50% xp bonus from tome. So I guessed that those 52 more xp were from 50% of 104 base xp. All guesswork, but people getting different amounts of reaper xp in the same quest have been reported numerous times.

So how did I get 350 out of a 104 base xp quest you ask? Well, did I mention we completed all the optionals?

[Blastyswa]

Yep, this.

I don't like the trees, and would still prefer they were just deleted, but having xp requirements scale in such a way that people have a lifetime-of-game goal to fill them in is appropriate.

a) there's no reason that people should be able to achieve them any time soon, and the next single pip will never be so far away that it's absolutely out of sight, so it will still be motivating.

b) why does anyone want to make this another thing that's ground out in a couple of weeks? Geeze.

c) it limits the huge power creep I and many others are concerned about to being slightly more organic, although it will be an insurmountable difference in power between newbies and vets in a couple of years that means they'll never enjoy questing together in reaper even if the newbie is skilled. At least enormous xp requirements give us a delay before that happens.

d) it leaves room for future rewards that shorten the time to get reaper xp, when a new reward is needed for something

e) as PsychoBlonde said just before, and as others have already found - if you blast through quests on reaper 2 you're already getting an order of magnitude more xp than the OP assumed. With a bit more power creep, a very solid group and a few points already in reaper, then you'll be doubling or tripling that again. For the powergamers it's nowhere near the grind you're estimating once you figure it out.

Summary: no reduction in xp requirement necessary, give it a few months and then can consider adding in more ways to gain reaper xp if it's really necessary

Well the issue is that it's not (Responding mostly to line b at the moment) a couple of weeks, it's reducing the time commitment from 20 years to 5 years. The new formula (now I'm on c) would actually help reduce the gap between newbs and vets; both newbs and vets could get the first tree fairly quickly, which is the one that has the most importance to a build, and the second/third trees (Less importance) would take significantly more time. Instead of having all vet casters in a year or two having thaumaturge maxed out running around with 500 more spellpoints, 5 more spell pen, 4 more DC, and 5 more casting stat than newbs that never have a chance of getting all that, you'd have vet casters and newb casters running around with thaumaturge maxed out, and the vet casters would also have a few points in the tank tree that don't affect their damage output abilities.

[Blastyswa]

Oh and there's another thing: make the xp BTA but remove the first time bonus (because people would exploit the bonus doing quests on alts). But that would require too much coding, don't except this from SSG, but I'd love to see it.

I would love the xp BTA, and the first time bonus removed personally. As a bone to SSG, it would more closely mirror Diablo 3 more, with Reaper Experience (http://diablo.wikia.com/wiki/Paragon), Champions (http://diablo.wikia.com/wiki/Champion_monsters), and Reaper ("http://diablo.wikia.com/wiki/Torment_(difficulty)) all being taken directly from their Diablo 3 counterparts.

[Cantor]

I would love the xp BTA, and the first time bonus removed personally. As a bone to SSG, it would more closely mirror Diablo 3 more, with Reaper Experience (http://diablo.wikia.com/wiki/Paragon), Champions (http://diablo.wikia.com/wiki/Champion_monsters), and Reaper ("http://diablo.wikia.com/wiki/Torment_(difficulty)) all being taken directly from their Diablo 3 counterparts.

I really think you need first time bonuses, without those it's epic dailies all over. Just run the same quests over and over for best xp/min. And tr and stop at the level the has the optimal xp/min.

I would rather feel compelled to tr than to farm the same content.

[Chimmy]

50% Reaper XP Tome, anyone?

Mmmmmmmmm, so true.

Legendary XP tomes, Epic XP tomes, Reaper XP tomes, it would be par for the course I guess :rolleyes:

At times I think XP tomes were one of the alternate bravery bonus ideas posited, but because of fear of lashback from BB removal, or them being happy with it or whatever reason, we just ended up with both.

[Ellihor]

I really think you need first time bonuses, without those it's epic dailies all over. Just run the same quests over and over for best xp/min. And tr and stop at the level the has the optimal xp/min.

I would rather feel compelled to tr than to farm the same content.

The problem is that some people have alts... and the current system does no good for those people

[Silverleafeon]

Firstly, I'm going to have to extrapolate a little here, because for some reason I haven't yet maxed out reaper experience. I have however gotten one character to reaper points 6, and the assumption I'll be making is that the formula for reaper xp/rank is 2000 * (level-1) +1000. Meaning, the first point is 1k, second point is 3k, third point is 5k, and it goes up from there.

One has to ask, does the formula has a cap on it?
In other words will there be a time when the cost for reaper action point x = cost for reaper action point x+1 ?



The problem is that some people have alts... and the current system does no good for those people

+1

Definitely a strong point to consider, which is why I wonder if the formula has a cap or will be given a cap?

I tend to think of Reaper like an Eternal XP bar, giving one rewards at level cap, more than a mountain that needs to be climbed.
But whatever, its certainly making CC and Healers important again.

[Blastyswa]

I really think you need first time bonuses, without those it's epic dailies all over. Just run the same quests over and over for best xp/min. And tr and stop at the level the has the optimal xp/min.

I would rather feel compelled to tr than to farm the same content.

Well personally I wish reaper had been designed to scale all quests and raids to a higher difficulty (Like above LE Shroud difficulty) so that we could have capped groups of toons trying to run extreme difficulty Titan Awakes and Ascension Chamber. Since we didn't end up getting that, I'd prefer not to have a requirement to jump back on the TR train. Honestly I'd likely use one of my alts as a main so that I could get reaper xp and past lives simultaneously, and just leave my actual main parked at cap. At the very least I'd love for the level gating to be removed or reduced further, so that players can at least do all epic quests at cap without -95% xp or not even being able to step in them. I already have the compulsion to TR personally whenever I think about past lives (Mmm my wizard could get more spell pen, my archer could get +6 damage, I could get +6 saves against illusion/enchantment, I could get +3 tactics, I could get +30 hamp, etc.) so my personal preference for reaper xp would be for it to be more attainable by staying at cap. This has the added effect of not making TRing doubly desirable on non PL maxed toons (Run a character from level 1-30, get lots of reaper xp, a heroic past life, and an epic past life, or do 15-30 on an iconic and get reaper xp, iconic past life, and a heroic past life; it really loads everything into serial TRing).

[Elfishski]

I tend to think of Reaper like an Eternal XP bar, giving one rewards at level cap, more than a mountain that needs to be climbed.

I think this is a really healthy attitude and should be taken up as an explicit goal of the system.

Other suggestion I have:

Eliminate the first time bonus for reaper
Raise the XP to match what would have been first time bonus
Add a more punishing xp ransack after a single run on a 1-3 day timer


This wouldn't make much/any difference to people doing heroic TR reapers, it would just help the people who want to stay at cap enjoy their quests without feeling like they're missing out. The harsher xp ransack would strongly encourage people at cap to do a wide variety of whatever is available to them rather than whatever single quest gives the best reaper xp/minute, which I think is a healthy incentive.


And one more suggestion:
After it becomes common at endgame for people to have a maxed out tree, change the curve to make that first tree much easier for new players in the future to acquire, but note in public that you're going to do that so nobody complains about their wasted effort when you do it (and it will help people who grind despite hating grinding justify to themselves that they should just play what they enjoy more and wait for it to get cheaper).

[Blastyswa]

One has to ask, does the formula has a cap on it?
In other words will there be a time when the cost for reaper action point x = cost for reaper action point x+1 ?

Actually, I hope it doesn't, and that it gets scaled down. While the xp for a less rapidly scaling formula and a rapidly scaling but capping formula can end up being the same, what they actually mean is different.

Formula that starts at a low value and constantly increases through all 157 enhancement points:

This formula constantly requires more and more experience. This means that every point costs more than the one before, so that you're constantly sinking in a little more time to get that next point. Advantages of this system are more front-loaded enhancements, with the first tree being fairly attainable (In the case of my formula the first tree would be attainable for a single character for reaper xp grinders likely by this summer) the second tree being fairly unattainable (In the case of my formula, likely not until next summer or autumn) and the third tree being incredibly difficult to get (In the case of my formula, probably sometime in 2022). This allows normal players to stand a chance of getting the most relevant enhancements for their build, while min/maxers require much much more experience to max out all their trees.

Formula that starts at a higher value, increases sharply for the first 50 points, and then levels out through to 157:

This formula requires more experience at the start, and then hits a cap. This means that players will need more experience to get the first tree, but that the additional requirement to get past the first tree doesn't increase as much as the first formula. So new players will have to sink much more time in to get the first tree, as will min/maxers. After the first tree the xp requirement doesn't increase much though, meaning that new players have a harder time getting to the first tree, even if the total xp for min/maxers remains the same.

To illustrate this point, lets run a simple simulation to show capping with a fast start compared to a slow start with no capping. The min-maxer will be assumed to go all the way to the end of the sequence, while the normal player who is only getting one tree will be assumed to stop at the 5th value on each.

Scaling Formula (n ** 2):

1-4-9-16-25-36-49-64-81-100

In the scaling formula, the min/maxer went through 10 benchmarks, while the casual player went through 5; the min/maxer ended up at 100, while the casual is at 25.

Fast Capping Formula: (n ** 3, n - (n-1) <= 11.5)

1-8-19.5-31-42.5-54-65.5-77-88.5-100

As you can see, the second formula scales faster (n ** 3) but has the absolute cap of an increase of 11.5. With that formula, the min/maxer goes through the same 10 benchmarks, ending up at the same 100. The casual went through the same 5 benchmarks, but this time ends up at 42.5, a 50% increase (If this were the capping formula for reaper experience, that would mean the casual needs 50% more experience than the min/maxer to get the first tree, although the min/maxer needs the same amount of experience either way.

Linear Formula: (Just for fun, n*10)

10-20-30-40-50-60-70-80-90-100

Now if you thought the fast capping formula was bad, this one's even worse. A linear formula for a system with such high requirements means that the casual ends up at 50 on mark 5, which is double the investment of the scaling formula, and still significantly more than the fast capping formula.


Above was my math: this next part is my opinion based partially on assumptions, which in turn come from my own play. (THESE NUMBERS ARE ASSUMING A SCALING FORMULA) The assumption I'm making with this opinion is that players realistically will only "need" (Want for direct effect on their build) one of the three trees; most of my characters fall into the basic categories of "physical damage", "spellcaster", or "defense/support oriented". My physical characters will be wanting to max out the adversary reaper tree for maximum DPS, my spellcasters will want to be maxing out the thaumaturge tree for maximum DCs, DPS, and spell pen, and my defense/support oriented characters will be maxing out the barricade tree to stay alive longer. While my physical/defense could benefit from the extra stats, spellpower, and spellpoints of thaumaturge, my spellcaster/physical could benefit from the extra survivability of barricade, and my spellcaster/tank could benefit from the stat increases and possibly some of the other bonuses of adversary, each build has one tree that is most important to it. In the case of a typically DPS thrower build, adversary will likely be the most important, for +5 dexterity, lots of ranged power, and extra damage/to hit, as well as the +30% doubleshot clicky. This tree under a scaling formula would be more accessible to alts and casuals. The tank tree is also very nice for that build, with significant defensive upgrades, but damage tends to be the most important thing. The tank tree in addition to adversary would be possible for one-toon wonders or after significant passage of time, but would be pretty difficult to get for casuals and alts. Thaumaturge would be nice for the spellpoints for casting things and the stats for +5 wisdom on 10k, as well as spellpower for healing, but it's the least important of the trees. A player who gets thaumaturge as well as adversary and tank would have to be a 1-toon wonder spending multiple years on that character.

I know this is a really long response for a short query, but I wanted to show why if there is a cap that doesn't mean that a scaling progression like the one I've thrown into the ring is no longer a decent option; a scaling progression is much kinder to casual players, alts, and new players to bridge the gap that otherwise would form if the most important tree to a build was only available after years of grinding.

[Blastyswa]

And one more suggestion:
After it becomes common at endgame for people to have a maxed out tree, change the curve to make that first tree much easier for new players in the future to acquire, but note in public that you're going to do that so nobody complains about their wasted effort when you do it (and it will help people who grind despite hating grinding justify to themselves that they should just play what they enjoy more and wait for it to get cheaper).

A harshly scaling formula that's backloaded solves this problem already; the first maxed out tree becomes fairly reasonable to get, with grinding it out possible in the course of a few months, while the additional trees that have less impact on a build take much more experience. As a little example, here's a few comparisons:

DC Caster Build:

Backloaded Formula with accessible first tree within a few months:
Casual/Newb Player within a few months: Has Thaumaturge maxed out for +5 casting stat, +4 DC, +5 spell penetration, other goodies
TRist zerg player in same time frame: Has Thaumaturge maxed out, is partially through tank tree. Offensive output is the same as casual player, but can take hits a little bit better.

Current Formula:
TRist zerg player in 2 years: Has Thaumaturge maxed out, just starting on tank.
Casual/Newb in same time-frame: Has a few points in thaumaturge. Offensive output is less than the TRist zerg player, as well as being less capable of taking hits.

As you can see from that simulation, a more backloaded formula allows casual/veteran players to be equal on offense if they both go all in on their offense tree, with the veteran's gains being in defense. Here's an example of the difference between builds that really only need one tree:

No DPS No/Low Casting Tank Build:

Backloaded Formula:
Casual Newb Player: Has Tank maxed out
TRist zerg player: Has Tank maxed out, has started going into adversary or thaumaturge. Has made some small defensive gains and a little offense, but nothing overwhelming.

Current Formula:
TRist zerg player: Has Tank maxed out, starting on another tree. Is at near (90%+) tanking efficiency.
Casual/Newb Player: Has a few points in tank. Is at significantly reduced tanking efficiency (Missing 500+ HP from tank tree, as well as PRR/Saves/Dodge).

Again, this shows that the backloaded formula actually ends up being better for the new player than a capped formula, or even worse the current formula if uncapped.

The uncapped scaling system actually allows for much more balance between new players and grinders, because the most important tree to the build can be maxed out relatively quickly for both, while the chaser trees with less offensive benefit takes significantly more time. The end result is that the three 3 maxed out character who spent 3-5 years grinding every day and the 1 maxed out character who spent 3 months grinding fairly fast, or a year grinding at a medium pace, end up having around the same offensive output. The difference ends up being in survivability, which a player can compensate for through gearing or through tactics and playstyle.

[Robbenklopper]

... 50% Reaper XP Tome, anyone? ...

This idea isn´t way beyond, especially coz of the low RXP granted to us.

My Suggestion is to let us earn Lesser and Greater Tomes of Reaper Learning by trading in Mysterious Remnants.

Lesser Tome for 25.000
Greater Tome for 50.000 (or +25.000 upgrade)

Or imagine a raid giving lesser by 20 and greater by 40 for bait. Reaper diff exclusive ofc. Could be ran a lot for a time ...

[nokowi]

Actually, I mostly plan to get 1 tree on alts if the reaper xp is made more reasonable, and do a long grind towards triple trees on my triple completionist, which likely will be mostly in the course of normal gameplay. I'm completely fine with the 3 trees being defined in the way you just said, that's been my own design intent this whole time. The issue is that currently the three trees are:

1 tree. Nearly impossible, but don't underestimate DDO players ability to maximize rewards.
2 tree. Wait, there's a second tree? I just finished spending 2 years getting the first one, and the xp requirements keep going up!
3 tree. What the fudge?

Can I quote this and post it when the first players get their first tree?