Wilderness Survival Mode

[Proton]

Adding a new mode to wilderness called survival mode would make slaying parties fun and profitable again. Since reaper came out slaying parties have almost completely vanished from all the servers, and when they do appear, they do not get a lot of traffic. Slaying was in the past a fun way to get ahead while playing more casually and often socializing. I got the idea what if slayer zones offered a reaper version?

Well what would the problems be I wondered at first. Easy reaper for pikers is my first guess.

So what if instead it was made into a reaper survival mode where you commit to 5 or 10 minutes and simply have to stay alive to earn the reward. The shrines are removed and the monsters spawn all about, much tougher since you can pick which reaper setting to run survival mode from, and popping reapers a lot along the way. Surviving would not be the aim off course, you would need to get kill counts to earn the reward, which would work like slayer except you would also gain reaper experience for the first 10, 25, 50, 100, 200 etc.

Another thing I always enjoyed about wilderness is the open combat it offers. It gives a different fighting environment and I enjoy variety instead of monologue environments of always being inside a dungeon or inside somehow.

Perhaps in survival mode there are 1 or 2 simple objectives, kill a single boss (who is at the furthest reach from entry point) and rescue some prisoners in a caravan or something. I am sure it would be easy to come up with something.

A wilderness could also be tweaked into adventure settings for this. Vale could have a seriously hardcore devil invasion and you have to fight to defend the center, up on the busted bridges as waves of the devil army arrive.

I suppose you could also call it War Mode, turning wilderness zones into all out war zones where 6 or 12 players go to serious war with the monsters and there is much less solve the dungeon stuff involved and more raw fight and survive adrenaline.

The wilderness zones use to be a lot more fun when they were A- more challenging because there wasn't all this power creep B- the reward was more meaningful, with no reaper equivalent slaying has not managed to keep up with the time.

Powercreep allows toons to make things so powerful and over the curve they can just stand there and anything that hits them dies and get slays for easy exp this way, which is also a super boring pass out method of doing it (ive done it before, you fall asleep its so boring).

And this proves the metaphoric reality of wilderness slaying these days. So much work put into making these beautiful outdoor places to see it wasted in that they offer outdated exp that takes a long time to get and is so easy there is little excitement of danger. They have so much potential, so much more can be done with them, even some of the public places such as in the quest Chrono, could be added to expand on play.

If the wilderness zone offered an up to date reward and a very exciting experience of overcoming challenge and danger, having something like a War Mode or Survival Mode for wildernesses would enrich the game, making it even more fun.

[boredGamer]

This seems at odds with the 6th thread currently ...

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/498816-wilderness-areas-why-isn-t-there-a-reset-after-you-complete-it

[AbyssalMage]

Adding a new mode to wilderness called survival mode would make slaying parties fun and profitable again. Since reaper came out slaying parties have almost completely vanished from all the servers, and when they do appear, they do not get a lot of traffic. Slaying was in the past a fun way to get ahead while playing more casually and often socializing. I got the idea what if slayer zones offered a reaper version?

Well what would the problems be I wondered at first. Easy reaper for pikers is my first guess.

So what if instead it was made into a reaper survival mode where you commit to 5 or 10 minutes and simply have to stay alive to earn the reward. The shrines are removed and the monsters spawn all about, much tougher since you can pick which reaper setting to run survival mode from, and popping reapers a lot along the way. Surviving would not be the aim off course, you would need to get kill counts to earn the reward, which would work like slayer except you would also gain reaper experience for the first 10, 25, 50, 100, 200 etc.

Another thing I always enjoyed about wilderness is the open combat it offers. It gives a different fighting environment and I enjoy variety instead of monologue environments of always being inside a dungeon or inside somehow.

Perhaps in survival mode there are 1 or 2 simple objectives, kill a single boss (who is at the furthest reach from entry point) and rescue some prisoners in a caravan or something. I am sure it would be easy to come up with something.

A wilderness could also be tweaked into adventure settings for this. Vale could have a seriously hardcore devil invasion and you have to fight to defend the center, up on the busted bridges as waves of the devil army arrive.

I suppose you could also call it War Mode, turning wilderness zones into all out war zones where 6 or 12 players go to serious war with the monsters and there is much less solve the dungeon stuff involved and more raw fight and survive adrenaline.

The wilderness zones use to be a lot more fun when they were A- more challenging because there wasn't all this power creep B- the reward was more meaningful, with no reaper equivalent slaying has not managed to keep up with the time.

Powercreep allows toons to make things so powerful and over the curve they can just stand there and anything that hits them dies and get slays for easy exp this way, which is also a super boring pass out method of doing it (ive done it before, you fall asleep its so boring).

And this proves the metaphoric reality of wilderness slaying these days. So much work put into making these beautiful outdoor places to see it wasted in that they offer outdated exp that takes a long time to get and is so easy there is little excitement of danger. They have so much potential, so much more can be done with them, even some of the public places such as in the quest Chrono, could be added to expand on play.

If the wilderness zone offered an up to date reward and a very exciting experience of overcoming challenge and danger, having something like a War Mode or Survival Mode for wildernesses would enrich the game, making it even more fun.
I do not support Reaper Mode (you can read my "tirades" about it if you want to do a search) but with that being said....

I like your idea. A. LOT.

[blerkington]

I agree that wilderness areas are underutilised at the moment. Adding mini dungeons, more complicated special encounters, or making other improvements like you've suggested could be a good change.

One thing I really like about these areas is they are a great place for people with varying character strengths to play together without all the circumstances discouraging that in dungeons. Slayer groups are very new player friendly because of the ease of the task and people generally being more relaxed in them than in other parts of the game.

Thanks.

[Tuxedoman96]

That's a great idea. It would also be interesting to see how they work with wildernesses like the stormhorns (which is one of my favorite). Having cinematic events like the devil battle you suggested, or having a ship-to-ship battle in 3BC would provide something a little more interesting than going about and just wandering around for explorer points. Bonus points if stuff done in quests/explorers influence dialogue or events in each other. :D

[Saekee]

yes, we need a buff to wilderness areas--more fun options. Sometimes when you know that RL will interrupt you at any moment, the funnest thing to kill stress is to run around a wilderness area; drop when you need to and the counter is always there the next time you play (I remember a father posting as much a long time ago here).

They are also visually more attractive in general and less claustrophobic (unless that is the point, like Thunderholme). Add a Prison Break optional in Wheloon, for example; that would be a hoot. One of the big successes in this manner was the change to epic Orchard--the concentration of the mobs makes it really fun for big groups and folks DIE.

[Ew_vastano]

I Love this idea a lot


yes, we need a buff to wilderness areas--more fun options. Sometimes when you know that RL will interrupt you at any moment, the funnest thing to kill stress is to run around a wilderness area; drop when you need to and the counter is always there the next time you play (I remember a father posting as much a long time ago here).

They are also visually more attractive in general and less claustrophobic (unless that is the point, like Thunderholme). Add a Prison Break optional in Wheloon, for example; that would be a hoot. One of the big successes in this manner was the change to epic Orchard--the concentration of the mobs makes it really fun for big groups and folks DIE.

if you do as op suggested and make them like 10 min challenges i cant see this being a problem
and for those dont like reaper there is always the normal button
personally i like reaper and this would rock

[Gregen]

I used to really enjoy doing slayers, and it's a great option for under-geared/new toons who haven't buffed themselves up with superior equipment yet. For those built up, quests are just quicker and more profitable, especially now with reaper difficulty.

I would love to see something like this. I would prefer the standard run and slay formula (just harder), so I wouldn't want to see something time-based as the OP suggested, but still a reaper based wilderness would be great.

The best way I can think to prevent piking is to have a reaper appear every so often near a random player's location so that anyone by themself will eventually have to deal with a reaper- and don't allow dead people to get slayer progression until they're raised. That way pikers will be slain and receive nothing afterwards. Might force players into sticking together instead of splitting up since not everyone can deal with a reaper on their own, but that might be good for a "survival mode".

^Just my 2 cents. However the devs ultimately would decide it should be done, I would love to see reaper wilderness.

[Stingae]

Surprised to find myself keen on this idea or something like it. Would be nice for wildernesses to be non-trivial and this is far better than just making future wildernesses harder and leaving some of the most beautiful places in DDO to rot.

[ThrakThor]

I am also in favor of something along these lines. I love the wilderness areas but find myself not as motivated to farm them due to the lack of reaper xp. The various options/themes suggested show what could be done in these wonderful areas.

[Niminae]

A part of the issues with slayer areas is the various ways in which they were implemented.

3BC and Sands can drop named items, most (all?) others do not.

The High Road recycles rares without requiring a zone reset and does not penalize XP for repeating rares, most (all?) others do not.

Some have a mechanic such as an NPC who can port you to quest locations (3BC, Wheloon (for a price!)), or to waypoints that take you deep into the area (Storm Horns). Others do not.

Some have a Heroic and an Epic version, others have just one or the other.

With all of the various ways in which the slayers were coded it might be difficult for the devs to add some new functionality to them in a blanket fashion so that it doesn't take special coding for many or most of them individually.

[droid327]

Your suggestion seems to blur the line with some quest design. There's definitely quests that are "hold the line" style quests (DA, Kobold Assault, Breaking the Ranks) where you just stay in one spot and have to kill multiple waves of enemies. There are also a lot of quests that are just straight linear murder frenzies, where you just plow through a bunch of mobs, kill a boss at the end, and collect XP, with no weird puzzles or mazes or traps or platforming or other mechanics you cant just hit with a sword (Mired in Kobolds, Into the Mists, most of Gianthold).

I think the only difference, mechanically, is that your suggestion would have you earn scaling XP as you kill rather than a single bulk XP reward when you complete. You could achieve that with optionals as well (like how Devil Assault is structured). I'd be all for having more quests like that (either hold-the-line or on-the-hunt style). I just dont think you'd need to reinvent the wheel to achieve that...you could just create a new quest for each adventure zone that would give you optional XP rewards at certain milestones, plus a completion reward for killing a boss or whatever, and then put a XX:00 timer on the quest. People could scale it to their desired difficulty, join solo or with a group, and go about killing everything for XP gains just like you're describing.

[Tricosene]

I love the wilderness zones, but they are just too easy for me.

Adding in difficultly settings - N, H, E, and even reaper for the people who run that - would make them much more enjoyable. As it is, if you are doing an elite run, the wilderness areas are much less challenging than the quests you are running, even if you go up a few levels of wilderness area. I like how champions have added some challenge to quests, and would like to see that come to wilderness areas.

I don't care about difficulty settings impacting the loot. Increasing the chance of getting the Bloodstone doesn't interest me. I don't even care if the champions drop remnants or not. I also don't care about getting more experience from a higher difficulty setting.

Little side quests, like in Threnal, could be fun, as would the OP's different ideas for mixing things up a bit in wilderness areas. I certainly enjoy some of the quest-like rares in Epic Orchard and Gianthold.

[Proton]

Using simple themes but mixing them up a bit would allow them to reuse one blanket for one set and another for another, thereby tailoring the modes while simultaneously providing that mix. In this way, some places might have a timer and others might not, and instead spawn reapers next to anyone standing idle over 10 or 20 seconds. This could end up spawning a fear reaper, which would add problems to a party spread out.

With different setting fitted to the wildernesses, in a wilderness that offers a reaper version, it could feature super bosses that the party spreads out and looks for, that are rare and would require a lot of fighting to reach the check points anyways, and if one is found, would require raid like options of quickly lfming the opportunity to fight some rare uber powerful boss and take part in the excitement. Throw in some legends like Demogorgon showing up in Shavarath as a rare super boss- I would flip in my chair on that lfm to join it and take part in such an epic battle. Throw in the chance of failure against super boss, no re-entry due to reaper, and it would get the adrenaline going.

It could be reaper mode, but what I describe would make it Boss Mode, a reaper wilderness no re-entry, perhaps if you are dead too long you get auto booted, not sure, with reapers spawning on idle toons and killing pikers and a hunt for a fight you might actually lose and will need back up for. I think Boss Mode would be an instant success with lfms and eager hunters keen on fighting whatever super bosses the devious devs can come up with.

As someone noted, since not all the wildernesses are the same, Boss mode could fit into one group while Survival Mode another, and War mode another. War mode seems like it fits nicely into vale for example, a war to defend that poor place from a mass attack from all sides - would probably be impossible to solo but if you survived and took down a lot it could be made worth while. With just a few modes all the wildernesses could be covered and variety could be supplied, updating and validating the slayer experience one way or another.

Whatever gets implicated, what does strike me, is how wonderful these places are and how outdated they feel and in particular, how it seems like with a little work, not a lot since they already exist and already know how to change settings, they could be brought up to date and made into places that attract fun experiences, team work, and a lot of excitement all at the same time.

[Alisonique]

I agree that wilderness areas are underutilised at the moment. Adding mini dungeons, more complicated special encounters, or making other improvements like you've suggested could be a good change.

One thing I really like about these areas is they are a great place for people with varying character strengths to play together without all the circumstances discouraging that in dungeons. Slayer groups are very new player friendly because of the ease of the task and people generally being more relaxed in them than in other parts of the game.

Thanks.

Make that Random mini dungeons that spawn in different places, to keep areas fresh and I am up for this.