"Past-Life Grind" Solution that makes (almost) everyone happy

[Drachmoril]

Elaboration of a post on this thread: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/508353-Underpowered-a-Feedback-only-thread

TL;DR at bottom. Please help me develop the pros and cons of this solution.

We like playing DDO (that's why we're here), But we aren't having the same fun that we used to. That's not a bad thing, as a game invariably changes with more knowledge of its mechanics. But a lot of that fun is bogged down by the desire to make a single character stronger. To be fair, the two shouldn't be separated; if everyone wants to both "have fun" AND "get stronger," we need to reach a compromise. After all, getting stronger IS fun, and feeling weak may not be. Credit where credit's due: Ravenloft/recent gearing has done a lot to decrease this gap.

Others (myself, previously) tackle the problem like so: "Grinding past lives is a GRIND. I don't WANT to want past life perfection, but I do. I'm never going to get where others are, I'm living in the future far more than I am in the moment. My solution is to make the grind easier; xp should be earned faster, Epics should go faster, Heroics should go faster."

Rather than hasten the individual life, I propose we make the individual life more significant. My solution is this: Consolidate 3 stacking past life feats into 1. One cleric past life grants full 3-life cleric benefits. I know that seems extreme, but we've been conditioned to accept a decade-long grind; the full past-life path was originally far shorter. A system that was originally designed to encourage replay-ability and class experimentation has become anything but.

Pros:
-A new player will feel noticeably stronger after one reincarnation. Each reincarnation is tangible.
-PL finish-lines will be reached much faster. Even "I just want to be the best *melee* character I can be" can take a casual player many years.
-From this ^ --> Alt specialization
-New content can remain thoughtful. Not every next thing has to be efficient enough to be "worth it." Take how fun Hardcore is, with old content being sincerely explored.
-This ^ makes room for future, engaging content, but it still for allows cruising through content efficiently (which can also be very fun!)
-A lot more players will play on classes they want to play. Current past lives can be an obstacle to enjoying DDO.

Cons:
-Logistically. What do we do with all those past lives others have already gotten? A superior system should be favored regardless, but it'd be a kick in the balls for past years to feel "wasted." (rebuttal: but everyone would be happy to get stronger, faster, after that. More would join the ranks few currently touch.)
-People will become stronger, faster than they're used to. More than a handful of players may actually "finish" their beneficial past lives, or ALL past lives! I've seen two people in Cannith do it already. It sounds silly, but would reaching "Past-Life comfort" terminate the game for some people? Is reincarnation the only objective to play? (rebuttal: I don't think so, as additional past-life-continuous objectives like reaper hold fast.)
-How would SSG feel about these changes? What's more enjoyable for the player isn't necessarily economic for the developer.

I could go on about counter-arguments, and counter-counter-arguments, but I'd like not to monopolize the discussion. What do you think? I am incredibly interested in a developer response.

TL;DR: The Past-Life problem is reaching its boiling point. By consolidating 3 past-life feats into every 1, individual past lives remain unchanged (new, thoughtful content can be added without being brushed aside for efficiency), while Past-Life "finish-lines" become as plausible now as they may have been 10 years ago.

[Bacab]

If this was implemented, a lot of people would quit because they would not have anything to do.

The "end game" of DDO is some sort of TRing.

If you removed that, it would end the game.

I have been playing off and on since beta. I have "Completionist" and it was a goal and a grind for me. But when I completed it, I felt really good about my character.

Now "Triple Heroic Completionist" is a thing, as is "Epic Completionist". I am almost an "Epic Completionist". But triple or quadruple is a thing now (with new epic past lives).

Somewhat recently (unsure, within a year?) Racial TRs became a thing. I have 1 race done (human), and soon I will have Warforged done.

I play the following builds more than once, Warforged Arcane (Sorc, Wizard, Artificer) and Human Cleric and Bard.

I look forward to trying new race and class combinations because I like having fun from levels 1-20 or 1-30 or even 1-30-20-30

Your idea would destabilize the DDO economy and structure rather quickly.

The thing most people don't want to admit...first life characters can complete high reaper content on Reaper. It just gets easier, the more reaper and more past lives you have.

The journey is the game. The journey should be fun.

If you are getting worn out, try staying at cap a bit. Try getting an alt character to cap for Heart Seeds and Tokens.

Anyway, this game only burns you out if you do crazy repetitive things (like Sorceror or Inquisitor 36 lives in a row).

Anyway, I agree that new players should be able to join in on the fun.

They can, they just have to be a good teammate and not buy into the "Power Fantasy" of carrying the people who have paid their dues.

[Avocado]

Elaboration of a post on this thread: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/508353-Underpowered-a-Feedback-only-thread

TL;DR at bottom. Please help me develop the pros and cons of this solution.

We like playing DDO (that's why we're here), But we aren't having the same fun that we used to. That's not a bad thing, as a game invariably changes with more knowledge of its mechanics. But a lot of that fun is bogged down by the desire to make a single character stronger. To be fair, the two shouldn't be separated; if everyone wants to both "have fun" AND "get stronger," we need to reach a compromise. After all, getting stronger IS fun, and feeling weak may not be. Credit where credit's due: Ravenloft/recent gearing has done a lot to decrease this gap.

Others (myself, previously) tackle the problem like so: "Grinding past lives is a GRIND. I don't WANT to want past life perfection, but I do. I'm never going to get where others are, I'm living in the future far more than I am in the moment. My solution is to make the grind easier; xp should be earned faster, Epics should go faster, Heroics should go faster."

Rather than hasten the individual life, I propose we make the individual life more significant. My solution is this: Consolidate 3 stacking past life feats into 1. One cleric past life grants full 3-life cleric benefits. I know that seems extreme, but we've been conditioned to accept a decade-long grind; the full past-life path was originally far shorter. A system that was originally designed to encourage replay-ability and class experimentation has become anything but.

Pros:
-A new player will feel noticeably stronger after one reincarnation. Each reincarnation is tangible.
-PL finish-lines will be reached much faster. Even "I just want to be the best *melee* character I can be" can take a casual player many years.
-From this ^ --> Alt specialization
-New content can remain thoughtful. Not every next thing has to be efficient enough to be "worth it." Take how fun Hardcore is, with old content being sincerely explored.
-This ^ makes room for future, engaging content, but it still for allows cruising through content efficiently (which can also be very fun!)
-A lot more players will play on classes they want to play. Current past lives can be an obstacle to enjoying DDO.

Cons:
-Logistically. What do we do with all those past lives others have already gotten? A superior system should be favored regardless, but it'd be a kick in the balls for past years to feel "wasted." (rebuttal: but everyone would be happy to get stronger, faster, after that. More would join the ranks few currently touch.)
-People will become stronger, faster than they're used to. More than a handful of players may actually "finish" their beneficial past lives, or ALL past lives! I've seen two people in Cannith do it already. It sounds silly, but would reaching "Past-Life comfort" terminate the game for some people? Is reincarnation the only objective to play? (rebuttal: I don't think so, as additional past-life-continuous objectives like reaper hold fast.)
-How would SSG feel about these changes? What's more enjoyable for the player isn't necessarily economic for the developer.

I could go on about counter-arguments, and counter-counter-arguments, but I'd like not to monopolize the discussion. What do you think? I am incredibly interested in a developer response.

TL;DR: The Past-Life problem is reaching its boiling point. By consolidating 3 past-life feats into every 1, individual past lives remain unchanged (new, thoughtful content can be added without being brushed aside for efficiency), while Past-Life "finish-lines" become as plausible now as they may have been 10 years ago.

All i read was the TL;DR. But the best solution is to make the first 50 lives or something take less xp to do and then after that they require more. This is how the game has been dealing with old stuff for awhile now, once it becomes less relevant, the requirements are laxed. I honeslty couldnt see them implementing people getting 3 pl for 1 life, it just doesnt make sense logically.

[Maldorin]

All i read was the TL;DR. But the best solution is to make the first 50 lives or something take less xp to do and then after that they require more. This is how the game has been dealing with old stuff for awhile now, once it becomes less relevant, the requirements are laxed. I honeslty couldnt see them implementing people getting 3 pl for 1 life, it just doesnt make sense logically.

I still like the idea that has been suggested before. Every 3 lives reset the reincarnation xp requirement to same as first life.

It seems a very reasonable idea.

I mean when that was implemented there were what, like 12 past lives? lol.

[erethizon]

All i read was the TL;DR. But the best solution is to make the first 50 lives or something take less xp to do and then after that they require more. This is how the game has been dealing with old stuff for awhile now, once it becomes less relevant, the requirements are laxed. I honeslty couldnt see them implementing people getting 3 pl for 1 life, it just doesnt make sense logically.


I still like the idea that has been suggested before. Every 3 lives reset the reincarnation xp requirement to same as first life.

It seems a very reasonable idea.

I mean when that was implemented there were what, like 12 past lives? lol.

Any solution that encourages people to skip even more of the quests than they already do isn't something I can get behind. I like the idea of giving multiple past lives, but I would prefer it with a favor requirement (like 5000 or 5500 favor).

We already get both an iconic and heroic past life just for playing 15 levels (from 15 to 30). Giving us both a heroic and racial for going from 1 to 20 with a certain amount of favor required seems like a fair solution. Allowing people to get more than one epic destiny at a time (at least two but maybe even up to 4), by draining 6 million karma from each sphere selected, also seems like a fair solution. If you get to 30 and choose to get a past life from all 4 spheres it would drain 24 million karma (6 million from each) and leave you with zero is each sphere. If you wanted to do that again you would need 24 million more experience (6 million in each sphere) before you could get 4 past lives again (though up to 16 million of it could be acquired at cap so people that want to stay level 30 would have the option to do so at least for a while).

[Maldorin]

Any solution that encourages people to skip even more of the quests than they already do isn't something I can get behind.

I take it you're not a fan of the otto's box ;)

[SoVeryBelgian]

WORDS WORDS WORDS I like the idea of giving multiple past lives, but I would prefer it with a favor requirement (like 5000 or 5500 favor). WORDS WORDS WORDS


I agree with this idea a lot. X Favor (Which would ideally scale with availability since 1st lifer newbies DONT HAVE PACKS to farm TP with but, ok maybe not) would grant a True Heart of Battle Mastery or smth.

Grants the following:

1. Racial
2. Current Class

Makes sense, and since you're not epic, epic still remains as a thing you do to really amp up your power.

The SHEER AMOUNT of Heroic TR lives is hardly fair for newbies. I've played since 2009 and I'm nowhere close to being "Overpowered" or a Probro. But I know people who got all their reaper points in a flash.

I'd also give one of these True Hearts to 1st life newbies for free, so they can TR immediately at 20 and gain SOME power to compete.

[acemonkey]

There's people doing TRs at the moment, while you claim it's just too much. You just aren't the customer SSG is looking for, with your lack of interest in grinding.. or spending money... or grinding while spending money.

[SirValentine]

...Past-Life "finish-lines" become as plausible now as they may have been 10 years ago.

I don't see how getting to what you think is the finish line faster at all addresses the moving-goalposts approach Turbine/SSG has taken. They won't let you have a finish line. They seem to hate the idea of end game, and are only interested in players who want to eternally TR.

Personally, what I wanted, and for a long time expected to achieve, was to get my required PL grind done, then enjoy my final build. But the devs have repeatedly crushed that dream, which is one of the two reasons I'm now only a casual free-to-play player instead of a dedicated substantial money-spending player.

[Targal]

Hmm how about this way?
Normal 20 TR/RR: gives you 1 stack of the past life
TR/RR with 5000 favor(or higher): gives you 3 stacks of the past life
It will attract people to run most of quests.


I put the resistriction is 5000 favor, but We can have a once-life allowed saga... for example
A npc will request you to do most of quests in the game with saying prove yourself something. He is like a Saga NPC.
When you return to him with 99% completion of the Qs in the game(like over the some point... or he only accepts true elite), He will reward you with something special that you can take 3 stacks of the PL which you want. This bonus can be applied to ER, but this bonus is only one time reward like that you earn 5+ tome at 5k favor. You will 3 stacks of PL in one of ER, TR, RR, IR, but TR/RR/IR will reset the saga because you restart your character.


Will it work to you?

--------------------------------------------------
EDIT: gonna put more restriction because you can abuse this(like you hit 30 level and do a favor run)

If you talk with the NPC(you must talk with this guy until lvl 3 or he refuses to talk), He will give you the special saga and a curse on you: you can't enter any dungeon lower than -2/4 level from your level(2 is more challenging and reasonable I guess?)
If you want to give ip this journey, talk to the guy then he will get the curse away.

And... if we use Elite streak system on this or something system for this, we can prevent 30 lvl chsracter comes to help your favor earning.

[Drachmoril]

I don't see how getting to what you think is the finish line faster at all addresses the moving-goalposts approach Turbine/SSG has taken. They won't let you have a finish line. They seem to hate the idea of end game, and are only interested in players who want to eternally TR.

Personally, what I wanted, and for a long time expected to achieve, was to get my required PL grind done, then enjoy my final build. But the devs have repeatedly crushed that dream, which is one of the two reasons I'm now only a casual free-to-play player instead of a dedicated substantial money-spending player.

It seems you're burnt out in the same way that I am. I agree, it feels like the problem IS the ever-receding finish line, but I'd argue the actual problem is the pace of getting there. Halting that progression - the addition of new classes and races - isn't realistic. But if I only needed to give the new class 1 go to get the full benefits from it, if I only needed to try a race once, I see that as a reasonable compromise if I really just wanted to get back to my main class without missing PL benefits.

[Opener]

There's people doing TRs at the moment, while you claim it's just too much. You just aren't the customer SSG is looking for, with your lack of interest in grinding.. or spending money... or grinding while spending money.

Unlucky to SSG... while has one player paying grinding the game, has ten leaving.

Few players are into the p2w Hamster Wheel

[Potatofasf]

Personally, what I wanted, and for a long time expected to achieve, was to get my required PL grind done, then enjoy my final build. But the devs have repeatedly crushed that dream, which is one of the two reasons I'm now only a casual free-to-play player instead of a dedicated substantial money-spending player.

Same as you, I just want finish my PLs and enjoy the build I was looking for... but the continuous grind enforced to not run solo is massive.




It seems you're burnt out in the same way that I am. I agree, it feels like the problem IS the ever-receding finish line, but I'd argue the actual problem is the pace of getting there. Halting that progression - the addition of new classes and races - isn't realistic. But if I only needed to give the new class 1 go to get the full benefits from it, if I only needed to try a race once, I see that as a reasonable compromise if I really just wanted to get back to my main class without missing PL benefits.

Make it three. Playing three times the same race, the same class, the same iconic is somewhat a PITA. Just makes us burnt out faster.
Now farming for Tokens is even worse.

[acemonkey]

Unlucky to SSG... while has one player paying grinding the game, has ten leaving.

Few players are into the p2w Hamster Wheel

Ten leaving who don't want to pay, one staying who does, VS ten staying who don't pay and one leaving who used to, but just saw everything he paid for given away free.

One way kills the SSG, one way maintains revenue. You want to consolidate the grind? Explain how it's profitable. We know the current system is working, it just isn't working for YOU.

[Chai]

First 10 PLs are at 1.9M XP

Next 10 PLs are at 2.85M XP

All after that are 3.8M XP

This would incentivize alt play, and people who want to farm the rest of the power can still do so at the same rate they do today.

[Potatofasf]

Ten leaving who don't want to pay, one staying who does, VS ten staying who don't pay and one leaving who used to, but just saw everything he paid for given away free.

One way kills the SSG, one way maintains revenue. You want to consolidate the grind? Explain how it's profitable. We know the current system is working, it just isn't working for YOU.

Yeah, because the amount of players in each server is showing how the game is blooming and in-game population is flourishing.

Each day the game has less and less players. All the big whales seems to have moved to the Hardcore Server and who left are the Premium Players that bought everything.
If it is "working" ok then!

IF the game content was good as six-seven years ago... the game wouldn't need rely on Past Life grind.

WoW - don't have and is blooming
ESO - don't have and is blooming
PoE - don't have and somehow is ok
DDO - has so much grind that is stumbling on their on legs.

[Drachmoril]

If this was implemented, a lot of people would quit because they would not have anything to do.

The "end game" of DDO is some sort of TRing.

If you removed that, it would end the game.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

I have been playing off and on since beta. I have "Completionist" and it was a goal and a grind for me. But when I completed it, I felt really good about my character.

Now "Triple Heroic Completionist" is a thing, as is "Epic Completionist". I am almost an "Epic Completionist". But triple or quadruple is a thing now (with new epic past lives).

Somewhat recently (unsure, within a year?) Racial TRs became a thing. I have 1 race done (human), and soon I will have Warforged done.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

I look forward to trying new race and class combinations because I like having fun from levels 1-20 or 1-30 or even 1-30-20-30

Your idea would destabilize the DDO economy and structure rather quickly.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

The journey is the game. The journey should be fun.

Addressing your points in order: I agree that reincarnating is crucial to the play of DDO. You've been casually playing since beta, and in that time it sounds like you've played 20 lives or thereabouts. This isn't even 15% of the current "max" past lives, and you'd still be roughly 40% of the way to completion if the max was divided by three. Few people will ever reach the current max, and new players don't stand a chance.
__________________________________________________ _
You felt good about getting completionist. Of course that wasn't the sole objective of your play - it's about having fun and trying new classes. But getting stronger and reaching some finish line, can make you "feel really good" about your character. Completionist still exists as an objective, but it's now the bottom rung of an unreachable ladder. Especially for players who haven't been on since beta. A past life should carry you farther than it does; thrice as far might not be the right balance, maybe it should require more favor as others suggest, but the current ladder is unscalable.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
As do I! Playing and experimenting is the fun part, and this is unchanged by making past life benefits easier to obtain. If anything, it improves it. They certainly don't affect your ability to try new race and class combinations. I'm not sure how this would destabilize the DDO economy.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Agreed! I'm trying to have more fun with my journey. As nice as it would be to have more by wanting less, ignoring the mechanic of Past Life benefits in DDO is hard to do. After all, getting stronger over the course of past lives is part of the fun. I can choose to settle somewhere, but I'd be lying if I said that wasn't a little disappointing. I see "the journey is the game" as a valid argument, but it can coexist with arguments regarding past-life improvement.

[Chai]

Ten leaving who don't want to pay, one staying who does, VS ten staying who don't pay and one leaving who used to, but just saw everything he paid for given away free.

One way kills the SSG, one way maintains revenue. You want to consolidate the grind? Explain how it's profitable. We know the current system is working, it just isn't working for YOU.

The current system is not working. If it was server concurrency would not have dropped to the point where people demand merges twice a week. Im seriously surprised anyone left still shills for this. I figured most just went away when the grind increased past the amount their disposable time allowed them to keep up with.

The claim of people not paying at all simply because they dont p2w, is a nonsense claim. It contradicts and refutes itself when we observe how many people subscribed to play on HC for 3 months, and how quickly the season pass sold out. Its profitable to incentivize paying for the game itself, rather than the game merely being the environment in which the real product is bought and used in.

[acemonkey]

Im seriously surprised anyone left still shills for this.


an accomplice of a hawker, gambler, or swindler who acts as an enthusiastic customer to entice or encourage others.

Were you aiming to insult me or SSG there?

[Zuldar]

What about an option when you TR where you pick how much xp you want to grind and that determines how many ranks of the past life you get. If you select first life xp you get one rank, second life xp gets you two ranks, and selecting the full third+ life xp gets you all 3 ranks. This way anyone who has done just one or two lives can still see a small benefit from the changes as well.

[TedSandyman]

Elaboration of a post on this thread: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/508353-Underpowered-a-Feedback-only-thread

TL;DR at bottom. Please help me develop the pros and cons of this solution.

We like playing DDO (that's why we're here), But we aren't having the same fun that we used to. That's not a bad thing, as a game invariably changes with more knowledge of its mechanics. But a lot of that fun is bogged down by the desire to make a single character stronger. To be fair, the two shouldn't be separated; if everyone wants to both "have fun" AND "get stronger," we need to reach a compromise. After all, getting stronger IS fun, and feeling weak may not be. Credit where credit's due: Ravenloft/recent gearing has done a lot to decrease this gap.

Others (myself, previously) tackle the problem like so: "Grinding past lives is a GRIND. I don't WANT to want past life perfection, but I do. I'm never going to get where others are, I'm living in the future far more than I am in the moment. My solution is to make the grind easier; xp should be earned faster, Epics should go faster, Heroics should go faster."

Rather than hasten the individual life, I propose we make the individual life more significant. My solution is this: Consolidate 3 stacking past life feats into 1. One cleric past life grants full 3-life cleric benefits. I know that seems extreme, but we've been conditioned to accept a decade-long grind; the full past-life path was originally far shorter. A system that was originally designed to encourage replay-ability and class experimentation has become anything but.

Pros:
-A new player will feel noticeably stronger after one reincarnation. Each reincarnation is tangible.
-PL finish-lines will be reached much faster. Even "I just want to be the best *melee* character I can be" can take a casual player many years.
-From this ^ --> Alt specialization
-New content can remain thoughtful. Not every next thing has to be efficient enough to be "worth it." Take how fun Hardcore is, with old content being sincerely explored.
-This ^ makes room for future, engaging content, but it still for allows cruising through content efficiently (which can also be very fun!)
-A lot more players will play on classes they want to play. Current past lives can be an obstacle to enjoying DDO.

Cons:
-Logistically. What do we do with all those past lives others have already gotten? A superior system should be favored regardless, but it'd be a kick in the balls for past years to feel "wasted." (rebuttal: but everyone would be happy to get stronger, faster, after that. More would join the ranks few currently touch.)
-People will become stronger, faster than they're used to. More than a handful of players may actually "finish" their beneficial past lives, or ALL past lives! I've seen two people in Cannith do it already. It sounds silly, but would reaching "Past-Life comfort" terminate the game for some people? Is reincarnation the only objective to play? (rebuttal: I don't think so, as additional past-life-continuous objectives like reaper hold fast.)
-How would SSG feel about these changes? What's more enjoyable for the player isn't necessarily economic for the developer.

I could go on about counter-arguments, and counter-counter-arguments, but I'd like not to monopolize the discussion. What do you think? I am incredibly interested in a developer response.

TL;DR: The Past-Life problem is reaching its boiling point. By consolidating 3 past-life feats into every 1, individual past lives remain unchanged (new, thoughtful content can be added without being brushed aside for efficiency), while Past-Life "finish-lines" become as plausible now as they may have been 10 years ago.

Why do you HAVE to have all the past lives? Why cant you just live without them? If you don't like the grind, then don't grind. It isn't a right to have all the best of everything all at once. I like having a multi-year goal to work towards and you are trying to take that away from me. It SHOULD take years to attain some things in this game. You SHOULD NOT be able to attain godhood in a single year, or even two. You want all the past lives, then work for them and stick it out for the long haul like I plan on doing. If it isn't worth the grind to you, then simply don't do it. You can play the game without them. You can enjoy this game without them. Play it like you have been and eventually you will get there without grinding. You choose to grind then you complain about grinding. JUST DON'T DO IT. It really is up to you.

[mikarddo]

First, you dont need every single past life. Once you accept that and play the game based on that most of your issues seem to go away.

That said, new players (and alts) could use a leg up. Having the first 10 heroic lives be 1.9m, then 10 lives at 2nd life xp and only from the 21th live 3.8m would be good both for new players and for alts. With 20 "cheaper" lives you can develop quite a strong character.

Last - adding a reason to play a wider range of quests would be good. Unfortunately, favor does not at all accomplice that - as favor is easily farmed at high level rather than by actually playing the quests. But say 5k favor all done within BB range gives 2 past lives and 6k favor all done within BB range gives 3 past lives and I think we have something that would be more reasonable. To monetize this you would have add a store bought type of heart though - not something you can farm tokens for. It also means more reason to be vip or to buy all content.

[Kakow]

First off, announcing a personal issue, even one you share with all your friends or a handful of like-minded people as a "problem reaching a boiling point" is hyperbolic and rather presumptuous. The fact you're asking for other opinions is great though so good on you. Just don't give yourself the vapors declaring DDO is about to cause widespread public panic and civil disruption.

Add one more vote for the journey being the point. I started playing in 2009 and have a single main hero I've developed over the years and now have triple completionist and triple epic completionist. I'm currently on the racial hamster wheel, and still enjoying the grind. I'm not a masochist though and when I burn out I take breaks from the game. I could have gotten the lives I wanted (not needed) long ago, but that perk isn't why I play DDO. DDO was designed generally to offer a niche audience of DnD tabletop gamers to have a video game equivalent as closely matching the tabletop as possible while making allowances for it to work as an MMO. This is not WoW. Or ESO. Or some isometric top down perspective action RPG, and why it's being compared to those games is confusing to me. What works for those games, and more to the point, those audiences is not what DDO is or should be. If you want this game to be generic fantasy MMORPG #137, I'm sorry but I can't get behind that.

We've long ago left behind the tabletop matching focus, and I feel, for the detriment of the game. Folks mention the game hemorrhaging players all the time, and I have eyes, I see it too. But I feel that's because the devs are making it less like what it was supposed to be and more like what the short-attention span customer base wants. Arguments for the easy button or diluting what makes this game different to make it more like something else... well, that just makes it less and less like DDO. If you want a different experience, play a different game. If the grind is too much, don't grind. If it hurts you to get +2 spell penetration on your dream fighter "endgame" build, then don't do it.

DDO has lost players BECAUSE of the changes in direction, not because they're not pushing fast enough to water it down into a click to win game. They already reduced the amount of XP required to get 3rd lives and beyond. And you guys weren't happy. They reduced the huge ramp up right at the end of 18 to 20, and you weren't happy. They reduced it even further by offering a TON more xp across the board via bravery bonus, and you weren't happy. They literally give free XP away every single day, albeit admittedly a small amount, and you're not happy. They offer a skip 15 levels of the game, and you're not happy. They offer Otto Box easy win buttons, and you're not happy. They ramped up bravery bonus even more and you're not happy. They offer reaper bonus xp and you're not happy. Perhaps, just perhaps, you're just not happy with DDO.

AND THAT IS FINE. Nobody is forcing you to stay doing something you're unhappy with. Go play some other generic fantasy game, maybe once you see that leveling up to "endgame" and staying at that level forever with zero progression except to repeat the same newest raids over and over to increase your gearscore so maybe other players will deign to allow you to grind with them for a chance to watch someone else roll on the Newest Shiny, maybe once you see that (perhaps again), you'll be reminded why the slower approach and guaranteed progression of DDO appeals to so many of us. The moving goalposts fallacy mentioned is rose-tinted goggles evaluation of those other games. If you think that any of those triple A tier MMORPGs who have been around for more than a review cycle or two do not ever keep moving the goalposts also, you're deluding yourselves. That's basic MMO 101. Hell, that's basic video game marketing 101.

DDO is far, far from perfect. Lots of these folks, including yourself have issues that should be addressed as a customer base. Any game that stagnates fails, on that we agree I hope. But introducing easy button instant gratitude is in my opinion exactly the opposite direction I hope the devs take. And before someone gets all verklempt about the easy button, I know nobody has specifically called for instant all lives, instant top level. Yet. But this is the beginning of THAT slope in my opinion, and we need to stay well away from diluting even more the journey for the customers who come to this game FOR THAT JOURNEY, to please the vocal group who wants faster, faster, faster.

[Maldorin]

DDO has lost players BECAUSE of the changes in direction, not because they're not pushing fast enough to water it down into a click to win game.

DDO has lost players. The exact why is debatable, no doubt caused by many factors.

I don't care personally if they change TR requirements, xp or whatever. Been playing off and on since 2010 and have not one single completionist character. I don't care for heroic levels and have more fun at cap and epics.

I do like playing reaper and I do feel like the gap in power pigeon holes me into certain builds that work better without all the past life benefits cough cough inquisitive..

But it's ok I accept it. DDO chose to go all in on the TR thing. For better or worse. I do think it stands apart in that (not necessarily good) way. I mean who plays the same MMO for 13 years without getting bored and moving on to something else? Most games old timers quit and get replaced with new players. The current DDO seems to be focused on retaining vets, multiplying hamster wheels and enabling whales to divest themselves of their cash.

We'll see how lunch longer it lasts. There are varying opinions.

Personally I don't think the game is in a healthy state, I'm certain the developers have internal data and spreadsheets that show exactly what state the game is in.

Both TR and Reaper help and hurt I think.

But freemium micro transaction pay to win etc.... When that became the model, I feel a sort of life was sucked out of the game.

Uh oh. I'm drifting into a doom rant. Disregard. That is all. :D

[Komradkillingmachine]

1) Shared XP bank that gets filled when some XP spills over doublecap limit and when playing lvl30 at cap.
*Allow any epic level character 20-30 to withdraw that XP at full rate.
*Allow any heroic level character 1-20 to withdraw that XP at 1/2 rate.

2) Account based RXP using similar technology as Shared XP bank that updates in Reaper Tree window.

That way, progressing alts becomes finally fun again.


Since the devs would never implement that b/c they think they can force me to buy more Otto boxes (shame on them),
I have another proposal:


3) "Merge my alt with my main" token. Completely destroy and delete my alt character and have his PLs, RXP, and everything else merge with my main.
There, alt problem solved.

No alts, no probem!

[locus]

I'd rather TRing award X amount of TR currency/account points to distribute to alts, either for xp bumps or TR lives or other stuff. Also Id be fine with lower xp reqs :P

[Miahoo]

I'll put here the solution I've been screaming in the past year (or two).

Let us get new past life while playing at cap (every X amount of xp will give you a past life of your choice: Heoric/Racial/Iconic/Epic [you'll have to LR in order to get any Completionist benefits]).

[LightBear]

If you want to go faster you have a couple of options:
- use a stone;
- use XP pots (House D - Tara Wightraven: 3 Medium Eberron Dragonshard Fragments = 1 Major Experience Elixir (https://ddowiki.com/page/Major_Experience_Elixir)) ;
- make a spreadsheet and log how long it takes to complete a quest and set it off to the xp gained;


Also, if the HC League has shown us anything it is that this whole minor boosts have near zero impact on character survivalbillity.
It is all the player.

[SirValentine]

It seems you're burnt out in the same way that I am. I agree, it feels like the problem IS the ever-receding finish line, but I'd argue the actual problem is the pace of getting there.


No, wrong. I was already there. The pace of getting there was not my problem. I won't tell you what your problem is if you do the same for me.



But if I only needed to give the new class 1 go to get the full benefits from it, if I only needed to try a race once, I see that as a reasonable compromise if I really just wanted to get back to my main class without missing PL benefits.


1 or 3 doesn't matter at all to me. What matters is having to delete my character progress to do it.



Halting that progression - the addition of new classes and races - isn't realistic.


You're equating two things that, while currently the same, don't have to be the same. There's lots of ways they could change the system to fix the problem without necessarily stopping adding races or classes.

(Though from what we've seen lately, they are already scraping the bottom of the barrel for what they can think of, so stopping might not be a bad idea anyway.)

[Beelzebjorn]

I don't know about you guys, but I'm seeing a bunch of people running around all green and new on my home server Cannith, since I'm very much part of the grind, and tend to run around with PUGs some when I get tired of soloing. One of the perks of having a godly toon is you can help new people out, show them the potential of the game and then inevitably get asked "wait, it took you how long to get your toon there?"

Yeeeeah that...

Now I like running different builds back and forth through heroic content, and getting the whole triple completionist thing done kinda came as a consequence of that, rather than being the stated goal from the start. What's cool about this game is that you pretty much NEVER run out of new variants of characters to run, with every class having a multitude of abilities that combine in interesting ways. The reincarnation thing is a way of letting me be more relaxed about what to play, since I will never be stuck with my toon playing one race and class, and I also reap some rewards out of every life that carry over to the next one.

Awesome.

However, I'd lie if I said that I can't physically feel how hope and enthusiasm drain from the new players when I tell them just how long it will take, and this is a problem. I want to keep them around, see the player base grow and make sure my game will be around longer.

Sooo to the point then: I like that we're having a discussion about the grind having turned into something that it probably never was intended to be back when there were fewer past lives. You can argue that you don't "have to" grind past lives, but if you want the full experience of DDO you sort of do, or you will only participate in some of the content as a soulstone in someone's inventory.

And the focus on the grind has had some negative effects for all of us, seeing as the devs are caught playing whack-a-mole trying to catch up with players who find exploits that allow them to grind faster - as ANYONE understandably will - and in the process, they have introduced measures that make life a living hell for people who like to play, say stealth based toons, who no longer can sneak past guards since the devs decided locks are tied to said guard's pulse to prevent invis-zergers.

Wow that's a long sentence.

As for "pay to win"...?

I don't care. I really don't. I spent many years grinding through 70+ lives and I'm still not seeing an end to it, but I can't see why I'd be angry if new arrivals had it a little easier. I don't even care if someone gets to BUY their completionist status from the store for a couple of thousand bucks, as is already partly the case with Otto-boxes and people investing their kid's college funds into gold rolls. If the fun I had playing this game over the last I-don't-even-know-how-many years would somehow be tarnished by that, well maybe it wasn't about fun in the first place and I should've been doing something else? Just my personal feelings on that matter, though.

I really liked that about the store items that let you get a dwarf life or whatever even when running some other race, for example. There are a bunch of people on here who really just want to fine tune the same build to perfection, and has no interest in playing a Dwarf Barbarian just to get to completionist. If they want to pay to be able to do ALL their lives as a Warforged Sorcerer, then fine by me. Hopefully, that'll help keeping the dev-team fed, clothed and in a good enough mood to keep working on making more stuff for us, and to me that trumps any feelings of "buuut it's PAY TO WIN" I may have nurtured.

I mean, let's face it: pre-nerf Warlock was an over-powered class you could buy as a new player to be able to keep up with veteran players in a pug on a new toon. That was "pay to win" in a way too. I hear Inquisitive is the new black now, and you know what? That's totally fine. I don't care if some other build is more "viable" than my stealthy single weapon fighting dark monk halfling-build. It's obviously true, but I'm not doing DDO Olympics here, and I'll get reaper points on the next life if I feel the need.

Anyway in the comments above, I see what I consider a pretty elegant solution to the dilemma, which is connecting it all to favor. Benefits like 2 or even 3 for 1 past lives when TR:ing with 5000 total favor or so COULD be a way of having people actually RUN more varied content. In Epics, letting people reincarnate and re-earn the xp without resetting their toon is also a pretty cool idea, and I mean, why the hell not? You'd see people actually staying at cap doing raids and whatnot at a higher frequency, so that's positive.

It would also encourage people to get VIP, seeing as 5000 favor isn't something you can accumulate on a F2P-account, and it would take owning a LOT of packs to do it as premium (I'm premium, by the way).

Since we're talking: if devs want to combat speed running and stuff, the xp-revision we got recently should've been done by increasing rewards for optionals rather than make them subject to ransack. Make the optionals a large piece of the pie to encourage people to run ALL of the quest, and - as with the social opts in Crucible - make it so that opts only get rewarded upon finishing the main quest. Then re-scale xp for quests so that a grind like Slavers and TOEE actually pay a corresponding amount of XP to the time you spend in there (and having to listen to Will Wheaton should yield another 25k).

Sorry for the wall of text.

[SuperNiCd]

Personally I don't think the game is in a healthy state, I'm certain the developers have internal data and spreadsheets that show exactly what state the game is in.

Both TR and Reaper help and hurt I think.

But freemium micro transaction pay to win etc.... When that became the model, I feel a sort of life was sucked out of the game.

Uh oh. I'm drifting into a doom rant. Disregard. That is all. :D

Yep, personally I think we (and SSG) are really starting to see the f2p/p2w model start to unravel. It might have saved the game at one point but that business model does have a shelf life after which the milk sours. It has culminated in quite the mad rat race with too high a barrier of entry to attract and retain new players in much quantity. I don't think it necessarily spells doom though. There are some smart people at SSG, and I think (hope) they will figure out a solution.

To me it seems like they are trying to get people to voluntarily to convert to subs by making VIP more attractive. I think this is the right direction. Granted, they enticed season pass sales by including p2w type items. And HCL, even though it requires a sub to play, includes the store. If they are in fact trying to move to a subscription model, I'm sure it can't be done all at once. It would be culture shock, and disrupt the revenue stream too much. Baby steps. There's a lot more to do and it'll probably take years, if the intention is to move DDO back to a p2p, integrity based game. I hope this is the direction and wish SSG success. I do think we'd see players return, and new ones come on if DDO can reinvent itself again and get back to its roots.

[Chai]

Were you aiming to insult me or SSG there?

The truth isnt an insult. You are defending the current system even claiming it works, when its clearly demonstrated through population decline, to the tune of people demanding merges twice a week, that it doesnt.

It is also clearly demonstrated that they can charge for the game itself, as demonstrated by how quickly season pass sold out, and how many people subbed up to play on HC. When the game itself is engaging, none of this artificial grind inflation in order to sell grind mitigation is needed.

[Renvar]

The truth isnt an insult.

Unless you have proof that the poster was paid by(or receives some benefit from) SSG to post the things they posted, it isn't the "truth". It is just baseless accusation of fraud.

[salmag]

Hmm how about this way?
Normal 20 TR/RR: gives you 1 stack of the past life
TR/RR with 5000 favor(or higher): gives you 3 stacks of the past life
It will attract people to run most of quests.


I put the resistriction is 5000 favor, but We can have a once-life allowed saga... for example
A npc will request you to do most of quests in the game with saying prove yourself something. He is like a Saga NPC.
When you return to him with 99% completion of the Qs in the game(like over the some point... or he only accepts true elite), He will reward you with something special that you can take 3 stacks of the PL which you want. This bonus can be applied to ER, but this bonus is only one time reward like that you earn 5+ tome at 5k favor. You will 3 stacks of PL in one of ER, TR, RR, IR, but TR/RR/IR will reset the saga because you restart your character.


Will it work to you?

I like this idea.

It promotes doing all the content and rewards accordingly.

[acemonkey]

Unless you have proof that the poster was paid by(or receives some benefit from) SSG to post the things they posted, it isn't the "truth". It is just baseless accusation of fraud.

On top of that for it to be true DDO in general has to be a con. It's set in certain people's minds that they're victims because they can't have it all without paying or earning it in game, this is false. SSG/Turbine never pretended or hid how this system worked, or that you'd have to either grind or pay to achieve.

I'd love for DDO to be able to go back to VIP, close down the in game store, and make the game smoother with better QOL obtainable without microtransactions. That would be fraud, against all the people who chose to buy packs and purchase the game through the DDO points system. It would also be fraudulent imo to charge 10,000 people, and then not refund them when you begin handing it out free/cheap to everyone else. At the least you could expect all your customers to give you the stinkeye whenever you offer anything new for sale. The #1 question would be, how long till this power goes to 1/4 price or w/e, just as the question now is how long till I can buy this content with points.

[Pyed-Pyper]

1) Shared XP bank that gets filled when some XP spills over doublecap limit and when playing lvl30 at cap.
*Allow any epic level character 20-30 to withdraw that XP at full rate.
*Allow any heroic level character 1-20 to withdraw that XP at 1/2 rate.

2) Account based RXP using similar technology as Shared XP bank that updates in Reaper Tree window.

That way, progressing alts becomes finally fun again.


Since the devs would never implement that b/c they think they can force me to buy more Otto boxes (shame on them),
I have another proposal:


3) "Merge my alt with my main" token. Completely destroy and delete my alt character and have his PLs, RXP, and everything else merge with my main.
There, alt problem solved.

No alts, no probem!

Someone could grind out all their heroic past lives in, what, a week? Two? lol

[Beelzebjorn]

Hmm how about this way?
Normal 20 TR/RR: gives you 1 stack of the past life
TR/RR with 5000 favor(or higher): gives you 3 stacks of the past life
It will attract people to run most of quests.

Yeah, this.

And add some options to choose between, such ass being able to pick:
3 stacks of a Heroic or Racial life or one of each at 4000, or a free heart of wood of your choosing as a favor reward, thus eliminating token-grinding should one want to.

Allow epics to "cash in" lives at level 30 without reverting back to 20 unless they want to Heroic TR too.
Iconics already get the benefit of double Past Lives when they reincarnate so they should probably be exempt from the favor thing, but still should be able to grind epic PL:s at cap as above.

[bls904c2]

man the xp in this game is easier to get then it has ever been. lives are faster to get then when i went for completionist.

we have the guild xp shrines now with other buffs
we have the daily xp bonus
we have bravery bonus
we have the first time bonuses
we have the voice of master, cloak, heroic inspiration trinket

the power creep that has made over half of this game a joke

it is so much faster to get a life than it has ever been

enjoy the journey forget about the destination. once you get there at the finish line your destination would you really stick around. its a usually what next.

[Chai]

Unless you have proof that the poster was paid by(or receives some benefit from) SSG to post the things they posted, it isn't the "truth". It is just baseless accusation of fraud.

He would in turn need to prove his claim of non p2w customers not paying anything. Something Ive pointed out the fallacy in twice now, but that part seems to get conveniently glossed over in favor of the usual lawyering definitions of terms...

Seems to me that company has proven this claim that grind mitigation revenue is the only way to survive to be incorrect, in how many people subbed up to play HC, as well as how fast the season pass sold out. This demonstrably shows a significant pool of customers willing to pay for the game itself. This is before we discuss the significant percentage of DDO players who own the expansions.

[Chai]

On top of that for it to be true DDO in general has to be a con. It's set in certain people's minds that they're victims because they can't have it all without paying or earning it in game, this is false. SSG/Turbine never pretended or hid how this system worked, or that you'd have to either grind or pay to achieve.

I'd love for DDO to be able to go back to VIP, close down the in game store, and make the game smoother with better QOL obtainable without microtransactions. That would be fraud, against all the people who chose to buy packs and purchase the game through the DDO points system. It would also be fraudulent imo to charge 10,000 people, and then not refund them when you begin handing it out free/cheap to everyone else. At the least you could expect all your customers to give you the stinkeye whenever you offer anything new for sale. The #1 question would be, how long till this power goes to 1/4 price or w/e, just as the question now is how long till I can buy this content with points.

No one is suggesting DDO be VIP **only** this is a (likely on purpose) conflation of the position - due to having no answer for actual point made.

What people ARE suggesting is to ween it off p2w and ween it back onto people paying for the game itself rather than paying to bypass hilarious amounts of arbitrary grind.

People paying for content premium style = paying for the game itself
People paying for the content VIP style = paying for the game itself
People buying expansions = paying for the game itself

People buying character power or faster tracks to character power is what you are arguing needs to stay in place for the game to stay alive, and the counter point to this (which you are sidestepping each time) is DDO has demonstrably shown through how fast season pass sold out, as well as how many people subbed up to play HC, that there is a significant pool of customers willing to pay for the game itself - thus refuting your assertion that the only people paying are those p2w customers buying grind mitigation.

And before you deny that assertion, here it is:

Ten leaving who don't want to pay, one staying who does, VS ten staying who don't pay and one leaving who used to, but just saw everything he paid for given away free.

One way kills the SSG, one way maintains revenue. You want to consolidate the grind? Explain how it's profitable. We know the current system is working, it just isn't working for YOU.

The current system is working alright, if you count population attrition to the point where two merge threads per week are started as "working."

[Potatofasf]

No one is suggesting DDO by VIP **only** this is a (likely on purpose) conflation of the position - due to having no answer for actual point made.

What people ARE suggesting is to ween it off p2w and ween it back onto people paying for the game itself rather than paying to bypass hilarious amounts of arbitrary grind.

People paying for content premium style = paying for the game itself
People paying for the content VIP style = paying for the game itself

People buying character power or faster tracks to character power is what you are arguing needs to stay in place for the game to stay alive, and the counter point to this (which you are sidestepping each time) is DDO has demonstrably shown through how fast season pass sold out, as well as how many people subbed up to play HC, that there is a significant pool of customers willing to pay for the game itself - thus refuting your assertion that the only people paying are those p2w customers buying grind mitigation.

And before you deny that assertion, here it is:


The current system is working alright, if you count population attrition to the point where two merge threads per week are started as "working."

Agreed.
People that don't see it are blind or don't want give in that the game is going on a downhill ride to oblivion.

The problem isn't buy/pay the game content, is buy/pay the progression. Which is totally fine if it is a choice, not the rule.
In the actual state of the game the rule is play Reaper or Slog through everything alone.
In the actual state of the game the rule is pay to bypass grind or Slog through the hamster wheel.
In the actual state of the game the rule is pay to reroll itens or Slog ad infinitude to loot the item you need to compose that build.

In the actual state of the game the most of the content is worthless or uninteresting or plain bad - means bugged, lagged and unplayable.

[acemonkey]

He would in turn need to prove his claim of non p2w customers not paying anything.

That's not how it works. You're the one who wants to change the status quo with suppositions and unfounded insults. When I say non p2w customers aren't paying, it should be patently obvious that I mean they aren't paying for the p2w, which you seem to agree with. Non p2w revenue that already exists isn't going to replace p2w revenue that suddenly gets axed due to popular forum demand (not that I think SSG really cares if you wail like a siren on the forum about how rough life is without them forgoing sales to give away all their nice things).

If you're arguing for a return to subscription based, that's great, I'd love it, but the premium players are going to feel ripped off. If you're arguing that there's sufficient revenue from HC and season pass, by all means show your numbers, but if it's all based around 2 very temporary surges in spending that would be foolish in the extreme and entirely discount your argument. Season pass more likely than not was mostly already VIP subscribers so gutted 2 years of revenue for immediate payout, and HC will be done very soon, and more than likely they made more on ptw sales on HC than they did on new HC subs.

In general though, there's a huge difference between opposing positions in a discussion and insults. The sad thing is that you're trying to sway SSG's opinion by calling them con men though. Besides being a poor tactic if untrue, it's a nonsensical angle to pursue if you truly believe it. Kinda makes you the sucker here, either way.


The current system is working alright, if you count population attrition to the point where two merge threads per week are started as "working."

So you're saying maybe HC was a mistake and yet it's proof it's fine to give up a major revenue stream, gotcha.

[Renvar]

He would in turn need to prove his claim of non p2w customers not paying anything. Something Ive pointed out the fallacy in twice now, but that part seems to get conveniently glossed over in favor of the usual lawyering definitions of terms...

Seems to me that company has proven this claim that grind mitigation revenue is the only way to survive to be incorrect, in how many people subbed up to play HC, as well as how fast the season pass sold out. This demonstrably shows a significant pool of customers willing to pay for the game itself. This is before we discuss the significant percentage of DDO players who own the expansions.

Nope. That's a discussion about the validity of the argument around p2win and grind. I was only talking about your use of the word "shill" Which is a baseless (unless you can produce proof) accusation that the poster is a paid SSG plant pretending to be a paying customer and intentionally saying false things to trick actual customers into spending money. If you are going to use a word with such a specific and negative definiton, then the burden is on you to justify the usage.

Disagreeing with the poster does not give you the right to label them as an SSG employee masquerading as a customer. Or maybe you don't know what the definition of a "shill" actually is. Maybe you thought it just meant "somebody who agrees strongly with the company selling the goods. A raving fan who is not objective." But that's not what a "shill" is.

[Chai]

Nope. That's a discussion about the validity of the argument around p2win and grind.

Yeah I know right, the actual topic. :p


I was only talking about your use of the word "shill" Which is a baseless (unless you can produce proof) accusation that the poster is a paid SSG plant pretending to be a paying customer and intentionally saying false things to trick actual customers into spending money. If you are going to use a word with such a specific and negative definiton, then the burden is on you to justify the usage.

Disagreeing with the poster does not give you the right to label them as an SSG employee masquerading as a customer. Or maybe you don't know what the definition of a "shill" actually is. Maybe you thought it just meant "somebody who agrees strongly with the company selling the goods. A raving fan who is not objective." But that's not what a "shill" is.

Im here to participate in the actual thread topic discussion and have no interest in parsing words and lawyering terms.

You guys are doing just this,and I suspect its smoke and mirrors due to not being able to address the valid on topic points made.

If you quote me again, please address the specific points made.

Please address the following:

Seems to me that company has proven this claim that grind mitigation revenue is the only way to survive to be incorrect, in how many people subbed up to play HC, as well as how fast the season pass sold out. This demonstrably shows a significant pool of customers willing to pay for the game itself. This is before we discuss the significant percentage of DDO players who own the expansions.

[hit_fido]

we have the guild xp shrines now with other buffs
we have the daily xp bonus
we have bravery bonus
we have the first time bonuses
we have the voice of master, cloak, heroic inspiration trinket


Add saga experience awards.

If you have them, add in monster manuals which is also a not insignificant extra boost. Those little bumps add up.

Also, if you're vip you can easily collect enough daily dice stones over a few weeks to get a life started out at level 3 or even 4. It's defacto veteran status for a reincarnation.

[Chai]

That's not how it works.

Its precisely and exactly how it works.


You're the one who wants to change the status quo with suppositions and unfounded insults. When I say non p2w customers aren't paying, it should be patently obvious that I mean they aren't paying for the p2w, which you seem to agree with. Non p2w revenue that already exists isn't going to replace p2w revenue that suddenly gets axed due to popular forum demand (not that I think SSG really cares if you wail like a siren on the forum about how rough life is without them forgoing sales to give away all their nice things).

If you're arguing for a return to subscription based, that's great, I'd love it, but the premium players are going to feel ripped off. If you're arguing that there's sufficient revenue from HC and season pass, by all means show your numbers, but if it's all based around 2 very temporary surges in spending that would be foolish in the extreme and entirely discount your argument. Season pass more likely than not was mostly already VIP subscribers so gutted 2 years of revenue for immediate payout, and HC will be done very soon, and more than likely they made more on ptw sales on HC than they did on new HC subs.

In general though, there's a huge difference between opposing positions in a discussion and insults. The sad thing is that you're trying to sway SSG's opinion by calling them con men though. Besides being a poor tactic if untrue, it's a nonsensical angle to pursue if you truly believe it. Kinda makes you the sucker here, either way.


If you want to challenge claims made youll need to also respond to challenges made, such as your claim of non-p2w customers not paying anything. You continue to gloss over this. I'll discuss this with you, but that discussion will be on equal footing. Since I asked this question before you asked yours I expect you to show your proof. Once you do, I'll show mine.


So you're saying maybe HC was a mistake and yet it's proof it's fine to give up a major revenue stream, gotcha.

Please quote where I stated HC was a mistake. No need to misrepresent the point made with a "so youre saying" statement - just address whats actually there rather than making things up I never said.


If you're arguing for a return to subscription based,

How do you quote a post that states no one is asking for the game to be VIP only and state the poster is arguing for a return to subscription based?


No one is suggesting DDO be VIP **only** ...

Le sigh...

Furthermore, any objective observer who cares to do two minutes of research on my VIP vs Premium position simply needs to take a gander at the threads discussing how HC is for subscription only, and how I specifically state its easy to understand how premium players who already paid for content can be disappointed that they have to double dip just to get onto the HC server.

There is no possible way anyone being objective here can misrepresent my point of wanting to get the game off p2w and back onto a p2p model as wanting to make it VIP only. Only people who need to address a misrepresentation of the position need to do this, as there is no addressing my ACTUAL position without the attempted counterpoint being lifted out of the water and leaking like a sieve.

[acemonkey]

Its precisely and exactly how it works.

No, it really isn't. You're shifting the argument to an absurdity. The idea is "benevolent freemium" and increased subscriptions won't likely counter loss of ptw player revenue, and you're making it out to be something it's not, that everyone ever who doesn't buy p2w is a completely free to play. I'm not gonna try to prove that because I never said it and don't believe it. I don't believe freemium is even 1/5th of VIP, ptw, and cash expansion sales, but I'd love to be proven wrong, go ahead.

Now that that's settled, I'm sure you're ready to explain why everyone who disagrees with you is a shill for a corrupt ripoff company... that you for some reason are pleased to do business with.

As for you saying HC is a mistake, we had rare server merge threads forever before it, and as soon as it pulled the player base away from the normal servers we got the new 2 threads a week you're pointing to as proof the sky is falling. At the same time you're saying HC subs and revenue is proof we don't need ptw. That's something that needs to be resolved one way or the other before your claims could be taken seriously. Do you think HC is 100% new/returning players or something? Do you think they're gonna be able to launch a HC or equivalent every quarter to keep those new/returning players?

Rest of your post is meaningless complaints that people don't feel the need to research your history before responding to a post you made, which is absurd and disregarded.

[Komradkillingmachine]

Someone could grind out all their heroic past lives in, what, a week? Two? lol

How tho? Did you forget about a 3 day timer?
Or are you against meaningful progression at cap to promote endgame content?
No one friggin' stays at cap for more than 1 or 2 days to grab all the 1st time RXP bonuses and immediately TR again b/c staying at cap is a waste of time and XP.
I want more people staying at cap to run endgame content with, can you fix that for me?

P.S.: Same deal with EPLs, tie that strictly to Karma ED XP and don't force us to re-level 20->30 everytime, plus an option to LR if some want to fix something.

[Kakow]

DDO has lost players. The exact why is debatable, no doubt caused by many factors.

Sorry I didn't preface that statment of my own opinion as my own opinion. I agree with you as to our situation being caused by many factors.

This next wall o text will seem like a rant, but it's not. I'm just trying to explain my opinions regarding the original post in as much "why I feel this way"-level detail as I can. I hope we can use this post to find a common-ground solution the devs can take to the table and discuss implementing. So far I really like the banked XP ideas mentioned (you earned it right? let you decide where/how to spend it), and the favor rewards system being expanded to include reincarnation credits. Even better both these ideas are already mechanically in game and in store (favor tiers in game, "wishes" options in the store), and would just need some more tweaking and expanding.

I do prefer solutions that help as many folks out as possible. I dislike easy button solutions that reward financially well-off players with lots of disposable income over less affluent ones. Does having the option for full completionist in store hurt my own play-time personally? Directly in my own parties with my fellow veteran players no, but it does in public random groups, where I experience the game with these easy button heroes who have more cash to throw around than I. I end up spening my time carrying them because they have no clue what the hell they're doing. In the last two weeks for example I've met seven rogues/arties or rogue arties who did not know how to do traps. This was in level range 7 and 15. Coincidence that these are the levels you can buy for money? Maybe, but my gut tells me unlikely. I helped them all I could, and honestly I love teaching new players. But if I want to run reaper, a difficulty setting designed by the devs to challenge the most experienced players the game has, should I really have to be teaching trappers that maybe trapping is a good thing? Or can I reasonably expect them to know it by these levels? And yes, I mean by level 4 or 7 or 15, I should reasonably expect a player to know the basics of his class. But that's just it. I can't because money skips all that if you have the means. How does this tie-in to the original post you ask, well, if we slow down the teaching and learning process the players will (probably) be better, they will (probably) feel emotionally more invested and (probably) increasing new player retention as they feel greater and greater reward for their effort. By enabling faster and faster leveling/grinding waters down the learning process, leading to generally less invested players because nothing matters. Why care about gaining a past life if you can just buy veteran 7 status, then buy an otto box (I know the lore behind this name and it's funny how it's so close to "AUTO box" now), do one or two quests and you're suddenly a guy with wings around your name, something that back when I started meant you knew the game and were someone to ask for help and advice from. Now it might mean that, but more often than not, it just means you have money.

New players who just installed any game should not expect to perform at the level of a multi-year experienced veteran player, again, of any game. Selling veteran status (and I'm lumping iconics into this because it's mechanically the same thing) to those who can afford it was and and continues to be (in my opinion) a mistake. Does it sell? You betcha. Does it keep a new players around. I'd be willing to concede yes. Some. But I bet some of those new players get disillusioned and disappointed that characters they paid good money for underperform compared to the public groups they're running in when they first start, at whatever powered-up level they paid to enter the game at beyond level 1. Honestly, as a veteran player I have no clue what today's new player community at large feels as I am not them, so these are all just my opinions. Perhaps some new folks can pipe in here.

As for my opinions on the proposed solutions so far, I'm all about the ones that reward effort and time playing the game over ones that reward the rich folks. I have nothing against the rich folks paying for cosmetics and the like, but they shouldn't expect to play at veteran levels simply because they have the money to afford skipping half or most of the learning by leveling experience. These are generally the same folks that say bootstraps and other nonsense...well...get on your DDO bootstraps and get to work. Stop whining that veterans who have been grinding for years are more powerful than you and you think you earned the same power level because your bank account is bigger, or you have a life that's more fulfilling than theirs and thus need to spend the smallest amount of time at the keyboard to get the same rewards.

[Forzah]

Only people who need to address a misrepresentation of the position need to do this, as there is no addressing my ACTUAL position without the attempted counterpoint being lifted out of the water and leaking like a sieve.

When this happens time and again, maybe it is not clear to others what the "actual position" is.

In order to not distract someone from your "actual position", maybe a start is not to call them shills, not to accuse them of "word lawyering", and not to question their objectivity by bringing in the "objective observer". It's offensive and not necessary to make your point.

[Forzah]

I am not opposed to the idea of tripling past lifes. I'd probably prefer to combine different types of reincarnation, so that you reincarnate, you automatically get all past lifes you are eligible for (heroic, epic, and racial). Or maybe if you multiclass, you can get multiple past lifes. I think those ideas make a bit more sense storywise.

[Kakow]

...so that you reincarnate, you automatically get all past lifes you are eligible for (heroic, epic, and racial).

As I've stated I am against easy button winning multiple lives at once, but honestly though, this statement right here just makes sense. If I'm Iconic, and in an Epic Destiny, there is no reason I should not earn both lives at one reincarnation. 20 to 30 is all the same XP if you're either Iconic Epic or Non-iconic Epic. It just makes no dang sense whatsoever to NOT earn an EPL simply because in heroics you skipped 14 levels of heroic grind. You did NOT skip the Epic XP, why don't you get credit for it? You buy the Iconic Heart or Epic Heart with same exact Heart Seeds, but yet you can't get both at once. Just bad. All bad. I might be confused here as I haven't done an iconic since they first came out, they just weren't exciting to me, and still aren't. I've reread the Reincarnation wiki and I think you have to choose either Iconic or Epic PL, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

As for the tripling...kinda on the fence here. On one hand, I think you should have both Iconic/Epic PLs if you go back to 15 from 30. But say you've just completed the last Iconic PL you want. Now what? Do you go back to 15 (and earn Iconic/EPL credit) or back to 1 and get the same thing? What about same situation, but you're in the first iconic life...do you get all 3 at once? I dunno for sure here. I think if you went back to 1, yes. Definitely. I'm not so sure about earning the heroic credit if you were only heroic for 5 levels.

What do you think about Iconic/EPL for reincarnating back to 15? And Heroic/Iconic/EPL for reincarnating back to 1? Would that be a fairer reward for the time investment? Add to this template someone else's idea about banking Karma for Epics, and the already-in-DDO store items that let you earn Destiny/Karma XP in a different sphere and we have a system that rewards both those who can invest the time, and those who can invest the cash, as well as those who can balance both. We also already have Wishes for (Racial) Past Lives in store so you could change that heroic to racial on the way back to 1. Seems like a win for everyone, including SSG.

[Pyed-Pyper]

How tho? Did you forget about a 3 day timer?
Or are you against meaningful progression at cap to promote endgame content?
No one friggin' stays at cap for more than 1 or 2 days to grab all the 1st time RXP bonuses and immediately TR again b/c staying at cap is a waste of time and XP.
I want more people staying at cap to run endgame content with, can you fix that for me?

P.S.: Same deal with EPLs, tie that strictly to Karma ED XP and don't force us to re-level 20->30 everytime, plus an option to LR if some want to fix something.

Oh sorry, since you were giving away the store, I figured something trivial like TR timers would get thrown out as well. I'll ammend my comment thusly "You can grind all the XP for every PL you'll ever need in a week or two."

One could certainly TR every 3 days with your plan. Grind some first time bonuses at cap along with an XP pot going, that would trivialize the grind. It would also make heroics a wasteland. Bonus!


Hello new player. Your welcome to DDO has for several years been a cold shoulder of indifference but now(!) we're going to actively discourage you from even considering DDO a MMO.


-----

OP,

I've suggested a solution to closing the power gap between new characters and multi-life vets - a 'completionist' feat, available to any character. It would grant PL bonuses (e.g. all, 75% 50%, whatever works), bonuses of the same type as provided by PLs, so they would not stack with PLs. That way a newly created character would not face all the ever widening chasm separating new toons from vets.

Is this a good idea? Probably not. But I think it is better than anything else suggested so far. The real solution is for SSG to fix the power creep escalation, but they won't do that because (I think) they think that's the only way to make money.

They had better do something. Otherwise ol' whats-his-name that 'buys subscriptions' in reaction to people quitting, will be buying subscriptions all by himself. SSG solely supported by the single subscriber. lol

[Forzah]

As I've stated I am against easy button winning multiple lives at once, but honestly though, this statement right here just makes sense. If I'm Iconic, and in an Epic Destiny, there is no reason I should not earn both lives at one reincarnation. 20 to 30 is all the same XP if you're either Iconic Epic or Non-iconic Epic. It just makes no dang sense whatsoever to NOT earn an EPL simply because in heroics you skipped 14 levels of heroic grind. You did NOT skip the Epic XP, why don't you get credit for it? You buy the Iconic Heart or Epic Heart with same exact Heart Seeds, but yet you can't get both at once. Just bad. All bad. I might be confused here as I haven't done an iconic since they first came out, they just weren't exciting to me, and still aren't. I've reread the Reincarnation wiki and I think you have to choose either Iconic or Epic PL, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

As for the tripling...kinda on the fence here. On one hand, I think you should have both Iconic/Epic PLs if you go back to 15 from 30. But say you've just completed the last Iconic PL you want. Now what? Do you go back to 15 (and earn Iconic/EPL credit) or back to 1 and get the same thing? What about same situation, but you're in the first iconic life...do you get all 3 at once? I dunno for sure here. I think if you went back to 1, yes. Definitely. I'm not so sure about earning the heroic credit if you were only heroic for 5 levels.

What do you think about Iconic/EPL for reincarnating back to 15? And Heroic/Iconic/EPL for reincarnating back to 1? Would that be a fairer reward for the time investment? Add to this template someone else's idea about banking Karma for Epics, and the already-in-DDO store items that let you earn Destiny/Karma XP in a different sphere and we have a system that rewards both those who can invest the time, and those who can invest the cash, as well as those who can balance both. We also already have Wishes for (Racial) Past Lives in store so you could change that heroic to racial on the way back to 1. Seems like a win for everyone, including SSG.

I haven't put too much thought into this, but I think the most streamlined solution is for Iconic heroes also start at level 1, and allow them to reincarnate at 20. Then everything works the same for every type of character and the system becomes easier to explain to other people.

[Komradkillingmachine]

Oh sorry, since you were giving away the store, I figured something trivial like TR timers would get thrown out as well. I'll ammend my comment thusly "You can grind all the XP for every PL you'll ever need in a week or two."

One could certainly TR every 3 days with your plan. Grind some first time bonuses at cap along with an XP pot going, that would trivialize the grind. It would also make heroics a wasteland. Bonus!


Hello new player. Your welcome to DDO has for several years been a cold shoulder of indifference but now(!) we're going to actively discourage you from even considering DDO a MMO.


LOL, what new players? Are you on Cannith or something?

In case you didn't notice heroics and epics are already a wasteland, I'd be lucky if I get 2-3 players to join my LFMs at any level.
And no, I wasn't giving away the store, Shared XP bank could be implemented in multiple logical ways that doesn't trivialize the grind, like having a set hard cap, or epic xp working only for epic level characters since you're so worried about carrying newbies in heroics.

[BigErkyKid]

The only real solution I can see is the following:

Remove passive benefits from PLs (all of them), allow only active benefits.

Think of the epic past live toggles, and expand this concept to heroic and racial PLs. Thus, allow one class PL toggle, 3 epic PL toggles, 1 iconic PL toggle, and 1 racial PL toggle (the last two could be combined).

This allows for people gaining meaningful PLs in terms of allowing build flexibility, but also greatly diminishes the power needed to have an effective character. TRing is not pointless, but the "end line" for an effective build is not eons away.

[Chai]

When this happens time and again, maybe it is not clear to others what the "actual position" is.



I posted it 5 times, he quoted it all 5. Its clear to anyone who is objectively discussing the topic. It far easier to bluff in this fashion in a verbal conversation where people can deny ever having heard someone make their point even after its repeated 5+ times, but in a written forum we can just read the entire thread objectively, see the point made over and over again and never addressed once.


In order to not distract someone from your "actual position", maybe a start is not to call them shills, not to accuse them of "word lawyering", and not to question their objectivity by bringing in the "objective observer". It's offensive and not necessary to make your point.

I'm not interested in discussing posting habits as this is against the forum rules - something I'm positive you are well aware of at this point, and have been well aware of for years now. The issue here is that quoting my posts but addressing nothing in them demonstrates the lack of objectivity I am continuing to point out. Dont worry, I'll post it a 6th time, but you see, you shouldnt need this, as it is in the post you snipped what you quoted out of. Ill post it anyhow, so objective lurkers can see what is not being addressed.


Seems to me that company has proven this claim that grind mitigation revenue is the only way to survive to be incorrect, in how many people subbed up to play HC, as well as how fast the season pass sold out. This demonstrably shows a significant pool of customers willing to pay for the game itself. This is before we discuss the significant percentage of DDO players who own the expansions.

There it is, a 6th time.

His claim was that non-p2w customers do not pay anything, and the implication is their lack of revenue spent is not missed when they attrite. Its one of the lowest forms of counter argument lumping everyone who agrees with me as the big spenders and lumping those who disagree with me as the freeloaders.

**me** being used in the royal sense and not the personal sense. The implication that everyone who agrees are somehow the important ones using a (false) measuring stick of them *only* paying into the game while those who disagree are all freeloaders is objectively false, as shown in my statement. Company was able to generate 300k USD in a matter of days by selling out a season pass VIP package. This shows people are willing to pay for the game itself, and the revenue stream is not exclusively tethered to p2w.

It also shows how quickly people jumped to pay 300 dollars by simply adding a few minor benefits to VIP. Hmmmm, what else could they add some minor benefits to in order to incentivize paying for the actual game?

If you quote and reply to me please state a specific premise, then address and discuss this very point. The more people continue to gloss over it, the more I will call this lack of objectivity out.

Feel free to let me know if you need this posted a 7th time. :p

[Chai]

No, it really isn't.

Yes, it really is. :p

[SuperNiCd]

The only real solution I can see is the following:

Remove passive benefits from PLs (all of them), allow only active benefits.

Think of the epic past live toggles, and expand this concept to heroic and racial PLs. Thus, allow one class PL toggle, 3 epic PL toggles, 1 iconic PL toggle, and 1 racial PL toggle (the last two could be combined).

This allows for people gaining meaningful PLs in terms of allowing build flexibility, but also greatly diminishes the power needed to have an effective character. TRing is not pointless, but the "end line" for an effective build is not eons away.

I think this is a great idea. I made a similar suggestion to limit the number that could be active at a given time (to which I was told to "git gud") but I like your implementation better.


It removes a game-breaking amount of power creep
It doesn't really take away anything from people who have ground out PLs - they can still use and benefit from any of them
People who love running PLs still have incentive to do so because it gives them more flexibility. They can switch out what's active per level, or even per quest to give them the greatest edge. So SSG will probably still get sales of xp pots and boxes if that's what's really needed to keep the game going
It greatly reduces power level gaps between characters, reduces the grind for newer/casual players to be competitive

[Komradkillingmachine]

I think this is a great idea. I made a similar suggestion to limit the number that could be active at a given time (to which I was told to "git gud") but I like your implementation better.


It removes a game-breaking amount of power creep
It doesn't really take away anything from people who have ground out PLs - they can still use and benefit from any of them
People who love running PLs still have incentive to do so because it gives them more flexibility. They can switch out what's active per level, or even per quest to give them the greatest edge. So SSG will probably still get sales of xp pots and boxes if that's what's really needed to keep the game going
It greatly reduces power level gaps between characters, reduces the grind for newer/casual players to be competitive


The only thing this proposal would reduce is the number of paying customers. If you think otherwise, you're delusional.

[acemonkey]

I think this is a great idea. I made a similar suggestion to limit the number that could be active at a given time (to which I was told to "git gud") but I like your implementation better.


It removes a game-breaking amount of power creep
It doesn't really take away anything from people who have ground out PLs - they can still use and benefit from any of them
People who love running PLs still have incentive to do so because it gives them more flexibility. They can switch out what's active per level, or even per quest to give them the greatest edge. So SSG will probably still get sales of xp pots and boxes if that's what's really needed to keep the game going
It greatly reduces power level gaps between characters, reduces the grind for newer/casual players to be competitive


Removes a game breaking amount of player accomplishments and goals.
It takes away ~ 90% of class and race tr value. How fun, I can choose between failing SR pen roll or having my spell resisted, meanwhile I can't ever use my 6 resist, mana, hp, trap saves etc because I need my dcs and spell pen. Really flexible there.
People who love running PLS would have no incentive to do so because all the value and flexibility has been stripped out and replaced with a pittance, and requiring micromanagement. Noone would pay $50 for an Otto's for a pl that will be active 1/100 of the time, and only if they remember to switch when needed. Example, for ranged triple ranger will be only option, and left on 100%. No need to grind anything else.

You don't need PLs to play the game. If your ego demands you be top player, go work as hard as the other guy (or spend more money, but more fun to run the lives imo)

[SuperNiCd]

I can choose between failing SR pen roll or having my spell resisted, meanwhile I can't ever use my 6 resist, mana, hp, trap saves etc because I need my dcs and spell pen.



You don't need PLs to play the game.

At a glance, these statements seem to contradict each other. Can you reconcile them for me?

[BigErkyKid]

How fun, I can choose between failing SR pen roll or having my spell resisted, meanwhile I can't ever use my 6 resist, mana, hp, trap saves etc because I need my dcs and spell pen. [...]

You don't need PLs to play the game.)

Make up you mind. Do you need them or not?

[Loromir]

Any solution that encourages people to skip even more of the quests than they already do isn't something I can get behind. I like the idea of giving multiple past lives, but I would prefer it with a favor requirement (like 5000 or 5500 favor).

We already get both an iconic and heroic past life just for playing 15 levels (from 15 to 30). Giving us both a heroic and racial for going from 1 to 20 with a certain amount of favor required seems like a fair solution. Allowing people to get more than one epic destiny at a time (at least two but maybe even up to 4), by draining 6 million karma from each sphere selected, also seems like a fair solution. If you get to 30 and choose to get a past life from all 4 spheres it would drain 24 million karma (6 million from each) and leave you with zero is each sphere. If you wanted to do that again you would need 24 million more experience (6 million in each sphere) before you could get 4 past lives again (though up to 16 million of it could be acquired at cap so people that want to stay level 30 would have the option to do so at least for a while).

How about this: Get max favor and get one extra past life of your choice that gets applied at your next reincarnation.

[Chai]

Removes a game breaking amount of player accomplishments and goals.
It takes away ~ 90% of class and race tr value. How fun, I can choose between failing SR pen roll or having my spell resisted, meanwhile I can't ever use my 6 resist, mana, hp, trap saves etc because I need my dcs and spell pen. Really flexible there.
People who love running PLS would have no incentive to do so because all the value and flexibility has been stripped out and replaced with a pittance, and requiring micromanagement. Noone would pay $50 for an Otto's for a pl that will be active 1/100 of the time, and only if they remember to switch when needed. Example, for ranged triple ranger will be only option, and left on 100%. No need to grind anything else.

You don't need PLs to play the game. If your ego demands you be top player, go work as hard as the other guy (or spend more money, but more fun to run the lives imo)

You need that spell pen from those PLs, because without it you fail the rolls.

But you dont need those PLS?


If your ego demands you be top player, go work as hard as the other guy (or spend more money, but more fun to run the lives imo)

Youre telling a game full of (in a genre full of) min maxers that they dont need the character power. Its like telling a fish it doesnt need water.

Its also necessary to point out that turning the game into work is what people are trying to avoid here. Thats before we discuss the monetization model of paying to not turn the game into work being purposely designed this way. Yet when people work as hard as the other guy on XP farms they nerf it. /shrug.

I guess its waffles for breakfast on a Thursday morning.

[Opener]

How about this: Get max favor and get one extra past life of your choice that gets applied at your next reincarnation.

With the Favor grind to get that extra past life, one can TR three or four times.

Let's get real!
Make heroic and racial reincarnation together. Give a Heart of Wood and a Heart of Blood and get two PLs.
Only grind Will be tokensofthe12, those that feel skiping It, can buy the Hearts in the store.

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy

[droid327]

I think its simpler than that - the goal should be that each consecutive life is slightly easier than the one before. That way, your grind accelerates rather than just slogs along, and new players can catch up faster as they continue to invest in the game.

I think just a stacking 2% XP bonus per TR, up to 100%.

[acemonkey]

At a glance, these statements seem to contradict each other. Can you reconcile them for me?

R10 isn't for newbies, happy to help.

[Loromir]

With the Favor grind to get that extra past life, one can TR three or four times.

Let's get real!
Make heroic and racial reincarnation together. Give a Heart of Wood and a Heart of Blood and get two PLs.
Only grind Will be tokensofthe12, those that feel skiping It, can buy the Hearts in the store.

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy

The whole purpose of past lives is to make money for SSG. Plain and simple. You can pay money to skip a life (Ottos boxes) or you can play through the content (and theoretically spend money as you play). The only way SSG can make money on the product is to keep people playing the game. Giving away free past lives would shorten the amount of time people will play the game (you may disagree...but it is no less true).

When someone reaches the pinnacle of power (all past lives and fully optimum gear set)...they loose the incentive to play the game. I know this because I see it all the time.
We have some players on the Cannith server who only show up when a new past life is introduced. The zerg through the lives until they make "total" completionist again....then disappear. They've re-acquired their completionist status and lose interest and stop playing. When they stop playing...they stop spending money on the game. SSG would be foolish to accelerate this grind. This grind is honestly probably why this game has lasted as long as it has.

[acemonkey]

You need that spell pen from those PLs, because without it you fail the rolls.

But you dont need those PLS?

I need them for what I'm doing, why I went and got them. I didn't need them for what I was doing while I earned them. See how that works? No, you probably don't, but then you're being intentionally obtuse.


Its also necessary to point out that turning the game into work is what people are trying to avoid here. Thats before we discuss the monetization model of paying to not turn the game into work being purposely designed this way.

If playing the tr game isn't fun for you, then don't, but don't expect a free ride while others are paying and playing. You're tilting at windmills telling SSG if they'd just listen and gut their revenue stream they surely won't go bankrupt because you have a feeling. Good luck with that.


Yet when people work as hard as the other guy on XP farms they nerf it. /shrug.

I don't see how running wizking casual or Amber Temple was working as hard as the other guy. Working, yeah, but absolutely avoiding any real effort. Also, them nerfing xp farms is a pretty good argument for the idea SSG plans to keep the grind around, so good point there.


I think its simpler than that - the goal should be that each consecutive life is slightly easier than the one before. That way, your grind accelerates rather than just slogs along, and new players can catch up faster as they continue to invest in the game.

I think just a stacking 2% XP bonus per TR, up to 100%.

This is already the case, TRing is far easier the more pls you have.

[Potatofasf]

The whole purpose of past lives is to make money for SSG. Plain and simple. You can pay money to skip a life (Ottos boxes) or you can play through the content (and theoretically spend money as you play). The only way SSG can make money on the product is to keep people playing the game. Giving away free past lives would shorten the amount of time people will play the game (you may disagree...but it is no less true).

When someone reaches the pinnacle of power (all past lives and fully optimum gear set)...they loose the incentive to play the game. I know this because I see it all the time.
We have some players on the Cannith server who only show up when a new past life is introduced. The zerg through the lives until they make "total" completionist again....then disappear. They've re-acquired their completionist status and lose interest and stop playing. When they stop playing...they stop spending money on the game. SSG would be foolish to accelerate this grind. This grind is honestly probably why this game has lasted as long as it has.

Is because that kind of thinking that new players don't tag along and the player base is decaying.
Games like WoW, Diablo, Baldur's Gate, Elders Scrolls are far older than DDO, but still having a large player base and getting new blood from new players.
Surprise Surprise they can release crappy content and the revenue will come.

If the only appeal on DDO is the Hamster Wheel, is just bad design for a niche clique.

[Talon_Dragonsbane]

I like the idea of adding the ability to get racial and heroic when reaching 5000 favor. Have it as a turn-in option so that it becomes a choice between +5 tomes or dual past lives.

It will provide incentive for varied quest play. Getting to 5K favor will take approximately the same time to run 1-20 twice.

[SuperNiCd]

The whole purpose of past lives is to make money for SSG. Plain and simple. You can pay money to skip a life (Ottos boxes) or you can play through the content (and theoretically spend money as you play). The only way SSG can make money on the product is to keep people playing the game. Giving away free past lives would shorten the amount of time people will play the game (you may disagree...but it is no less true).

When someone reaches the pinnacle of power (all past lives and fully optimum gear set)...they loose the incentive to play the game. I know this because I see it all the time.
We have some players on the Cannith server who only show up when a new past life is introduced. The zerg through the lives until they make "total" completionist again....then disappear. They've re-acquired their completionist status and lose interest and stop playing. When they stop playing...they stop spending money on the game. SSG would be foolish to accelerate this grind. This grind is honestly probably why this game has lasted as long as it has.

I don't play on Cannith. Has there been a huge spike in server population as players flood in to get the 12 new epic PLs and U43 loot? Is Cannith boomin'? Or are we just talking about a couple of people?

Also not really understanding the mentality here. Are they just keeping their characters up to date on the meta on the off chance the game becomes fun for them at some point so they'll be ready to jump back in if that happens?

I get what you're saying. SSG sells character power directly and in the form of grind bypass. That's obvious to all but the newest players. I (and apparently others) feel like this has culminated after many years in an unhealthy game, and think it would be a lot better if they found another way to monetize it. Is that possible? I guess no one really knows the answer yet (including probably SSG). But it's worth pointing out that at least for some players, the ever growing grindy meta game is losing its appeal, if it ever had any to begin with.

Server populations on live seem to empirically support that. They're certainly a lot lower than when I started playing. Since that time they have introduced 30+ PL RTR, more epic PLs, and reaper xp grind. Direct correlation? I have no data to say that there is, but I suspect it.

Meanwhile HCL requires you to pay a subscription, and also requires walking away from all accumulated power and gear just to play. It's the busiest server by a large margin, and the only thing you can "earn" from it is a couple cosmetics. Food for thought.

[Chai]

The whole purpose of past lives is to make money for SSG. Plain and simple. You can pay money to skip a life (Ottos boxes) or you can play through the content (and theoretically spend money as you play). The only way SSG can make money on the product is to keep people playing the game. Giving away free past lives would shorten the amount of time people will play the game (you may disagree...but it is no less true).

When someone reaches the pinnacle of power (all past lives and fully optimum gear set)...they loose the incentive to play the game. I know this because I see it all the time.
We have some players on the Cannith server who only show up when a new past life is introduced. The zerg through the lives until they make "total" completionist again....then disappear. They've re-acquired their completionist status and lose interest and stop playing. When they stop playing...they stop spending money on the game. SSG would be foolish to accelerate this grind. This grind is honestly probably why this game has lasted as long as it has.

Incentivizing alts would fix that. To do this the grind needs to be reduced, unless someone has the secret sauce for convincing people who run r8-10 on mains to accept running r1-3 on alts. In a sea of min maxers, highly doubtful - meaning youre more likely to win the lotto twice in the same week than convince people to take a step back in progression simply due to logging on a new character.

If they cut the grind literally in half, and everyone who plays one main (like the people you describe who only come back to re-gain triple completionist again) suddenly play 3 characters, thats a win for SSG and a win for the players when paying to mitigate grind is concerned. Those players now stay around longer due to playing one main and two alts rather than only one main. They get less bored as playing different characters is a different experience. This is before we discuss how the big spenders also pay to tome out each new character, bank space on each, etc...

[Chai]

If playing the tr game isn't fun for you, then don't, but don't expect a free ride while others are paying and playing. You're tilting at windmills telling SSG if they'd just listen and gut their revenue stream they surely won't go bankrupt because you have a feeling. Good luck with that.

Again with the "free ride" fallacy. Your assumption that those who dont pay to mitigate the grind dont pay at all, is simply a myth.

Also: too many people already took your cliche advice of "if you dont like it, leave" - what we have left here in DDO are those who are passionate enough to stay and provide feedback for what would keep them here longer.



I don't see how running wizking casual or Amber Temple was working as hard as the other guy. Working, yeah, but absolutely avoiding any real effort. Also, them nerfing xp farms is a pretty good argument for the idea SSG plans to keep the grind around, so good point there.

Time consumption = time consumption. Turning the game into work is why people leave. People dont come home from work and log into DDO to "put in real effort" while grinding until their eyelids bleed.

Also address this when attempting to invoke the fallacy of how this much grind is needed:

...a previous post of mine:

Incentivizing alts would fix that. To do this the grind needs to be reduced, unless someone has the secret sauce for convincing people who run r8-10 on mains to accept running r1-3 on alts. In a sea of min maxers, highly doubtful - meaning youre more likely to win the lotto twice in the same week than convince people to take a step back in progression simply due to logging on a new character.

If they cut the grind literally in half, and everyone who plays one main (like the people you describe who only come back to re-gain triple completionist again) suddenly play 3 characters, thats a win for SSG and a win for the players when paying to mitigate grind is concerned. Those players now stay around longer due to playing one main and two alts rather than only one main. They get less bored as playing different characters is a different experience. This is before we discuss how the big spenders also pay to tome out each new character, bank space on each, etc...

If your opinion is correct, and p2w is keeping this thing propped up, show us how p2w on one character is better than p2w on multiple characters.

[Potatofasf]

If they cut the grind literally in half, and everyone who plays one main (like the people you describe who only come back to re-gain triple completionist again) suddenly play 3 characters, thats a win for SSG and a win for the players when paying to mitigate grind is concerned. Those players now stay around longer due to playing one main and two alts rather than only one main. They get less bored as playing different characters is a different experience. This is before we discuss how the big spenders also pay to tome out each new character, bank space on each, etc...

Right, right, right!

Back in the day, before the increased Grind, I used to run three toon (Melee, Healer and Caster)... now I roll just one and have made the other two glorified Mules. Yet, the main is gimped as hell since no time available to play 8 hours a day.

[Pyed-Pyper]

LOL, what new players? Are you on Cannith or something?

In case you didn't notice heroics and epics are already a wasteland, I'd be lucky if I get 2-3 players to join my LFMs at any level.
And no, I wasn't giving away the store, Shared XP bank could be implemented in multiple logical ways that doesn't trivialize the grind, like having a set hard cap, or epic xp working only for epic level characters since you're so worried about carrying newbies in heroics.


I wasn't giving away the store
Yes you were. Now if you want to propose a different, fully fleshed out system, do that. But your own words were:


1) Shared XP bank that gets filled when some XP spills over doublecap limit and when playing lvl30 at cap.
*Allow any epic level character 20-30 to withdraw that XP at full rate.
*Allow any heroic level character 1-20 to withdraw that XP at 1/2 rate.

Let's see, Epic WGU without a pot, first time bonus is ... 150K? 300K? I don't remember. With your proposal, one quest, no XP pot, gets you close to either level 4 or 8 on a new 3rd life. One quest. "Bu-bu-bu-but WGU is an outlier" arguments won't get far. I'll bet the newest quests' 1st times are worth in the range of 100-200k each without pots.


what new players?

Ah, now you are getting closer to it.

No new players. What does that mean? That means over time the gaming population is shrinking, not growing. That means as time progresses the number of players drops. That means the amount of money generated drops. But don't worry, I have it on good authority that some generous people are buying extra subs to compensate for player attrition. Or more likely, some new grind will be added to squeeze additional $/player (e.g. the grind one destiny in place of another option available in the store). Things like an XP bank where someone can grind at cap for future, but it won't be a 1:1 ratio or even a .5:1, more like $.01/xp point.

So aside from hastening the end-times and being otherwise generally destructive and misapplying game mechanics, your plan to 'help' alts won't. "Grow your alt by playing your main, eventually your alt that you never play will almost be as good as your main." lol

tldr; if you don't want to 'waste' XP, there's already ways to do that. It involves visiting the Grove and talking to a ball of light.

[LurkingVeteran]

I suspect the past-life and RP system at this point is a significant reason that new/returning players don't stay, it's just too much work. This is ignoring the f2p people who realize that they need a metric ton of points for content to be able to join the rare LFMs they can find. On the other hand many grinding vets might quit if anything was changed w.r.t. this disparity, so it's a difficult problem. DDO at this point in time is a super steep and complicated climb. Just reading up on all the crafting systems they may encounter is a full time job.

[CSQ]

I think the answer is to get rid of the 2+ life experience scaling for subsequent incarnations.

There are way more than double the heroic reincarnation cycles compared to when the system was originally implemented. This has made the heroic treadmill incredibly long, while the epic treadmill hasn't really increased except for the recent addition of twelve more lives (I suspect, however, that epic lives are not the treadmill part- epic lives, even though they require 8.25 million experience, go pretty quickly compared to heroic lives, which unfortunately have several places where runs can slow down if you're not really experienced and know the optimal farming methods).

Not only does this mean that heroic lives don't force you to slog through as many filler quests, it also means that lower experience quests would be decent options again, since you would still level at a decent rate, so you could play whatever quests you want instead of just optimal experience per minute and still TR at a reasonable rate.

[Chai]

Right, right, right!

Back in the day, before the increased Grind, I used to run three toon (Melee, Healer and Caster)... now I roll just one and have made the other two glorified Mules. Yet, the main is gimped as hell since no time available to play 8 hours a day.

Yeah and more alts = easier time playing with friends. More reason to log into DDO. If I have one main and the rest mules, then if my friend(s) are not within the 3 level spread I cant group with them.

I also had:
----------------
1 main TR train
1 melee raid character
1 caster raid character (usually arcane)
1 healer (people in our guild all had a raid healer character)

I also had some alts I tested new builds on. When arty came out I rolled up a new character, same with druid - some of these became mules. Nowdays theyre all mules save for the main.

[SuperNiCd]

If playing the tr game isn't fun for you, then don't, but don't expect a free ride while others are paying and playing. You're tilting at windmills telling SSG if they'd just listen and gut their revenue stream they surely won't go bankrupt because you have a feeling. Good luck with that.


I have been a VIP since I started playing, and am currently a season pass holder, so I pay to have all the content unlocked every month whether it's worth running or not.
I've purchased all of the expansions - most higher than the base package.
I also purchase a healthy stack of DDO points once or twice a year, most of which is spent on xp and slayer pots that I have running continuously - I guess just to give myself the ongoing delusion that I might someday "catch up".

It's actually quite a bit of money to spend on a video game, IMO. I don't mind - I can afford it. I'm probably not what you'd call a whale, but definitely not a "freeloader." I'm paying and playing.

AND, the opinion of this non freeloader is:

I would feel much better spending the same amount of money on an integrity based game that is active and healthy, and encouraged new players and casual players to come to the table and play along with us, and feel like they can hang and contribute without any "work" other than learning how to play whatever build they think sounds like fun. I would like to support the game in a way that feels less, frankly, dirty. I hope SSG looks into it.

[erethizon]

Why do you HAVE to have all the past lives? Why cant you just live without them? If you don't like the grind, then don't grind. It isn't a right to have all the best of everything all at once. I like having a multi-year goal to work towards and you are trying to take that away from me.

This is a good point. The feeling that there is no point in logging in because my character is no longer capable of improvement is a terrible one. I have left every game I ever reached the level cap in, never to return. I don't actually want to cap my character...ever.

That said, I have accepted the "reduced grind" appeals both because I know that a lot of people seem to expect to be the best (they don't think a game starts until their character has no more growth to achieve) and the amount of character advancement in this game is so great that I am confident in saying I will never finish (which is good). With that in mind, reducing the "grind" (not that I view it as a grind myself) is acceptable since even a reduced grind is enough that I will never finish (as long as they don't reduce it by as much as some people are asking).

[Saekee]

They would need to make PL stuff selective like toggles for epics in whoch you choose which you have as active. It won’t be popular though but then a veteran toon has flexibility and new toons can just specialize.

For example, you select one of four types of heroic passive PL toggles to have active and that is it


edit: well this was already suggested...

[Loromir]

I don't play on Cannith. Has there been a huge spike in server population as players flood in to get the 12 new epic PLs and U43 loot? Is Cannith boomin'? Or are we just talking about a couple of people?



It's just a few players...but those few are top end players. If SSG hands players free past lives...that group will grow from a few to...well...more than a few. They will get their past lives...get their max loot...then what? Why keep playing? Like it or not....this game does not live off of new blood...it lives on the grinders who stick around for awhile.

DDO should never be compared to the likes of WOW.

[acemonkey]

I have been a VIP since I started playing, and am currently a season pass holder, so I pay to have all the content unlocked every month whether it's worth running or not.
I've purchased all of the expansions - most higher than the base package.
I also purchase a healthy stack of DDO points once or twice a year, most of which is spent on xp and slayer pots that I have running continuously - I guess just to give myself the ongoing delusion that I might someday "catch up".

It's actually quite a bit of money to spend on a video game, IMO. I don't mind - I can afford it. I'm probably not what you'd call a whale, but definitely not a "freeloader." I'm paying and playing.

AND, the opinion of this non freeloader is:

I would feel much better spending the same amount of money on an integrity based game that is active and healthy, and encouraged new players and casual players to come to the table and play along with us, and feel like they can hang and contribute without any "work" other than learning how to play whatever build they think sounds like fun. I would like to support the game in a way that feels less, frankly, dirty. I hope SSG looks into it.

You said: I'm gonna give you money no matter what.
SSG heard: I'm buying xp and slayer pots but I'd rather not.

Businesses aren't typically built on charity or altruism, it's the tragedy of the commons.

[drwho1985]

At 5000 favor, just give me a 1 million XP stone. Happy Happy Joy Joy

[Saekee]

The whole purpose of past lives is to make money for SSG. Plain and simple. You can pay money to skip a life (Ottos boxes) or you can play through the content (and theoretically spend money as you play). The only way SSG can make money on the product is to keep people playing the game. Giving away free past lives would shorten the amount of time people will play the game (you may disagree...but it is no less true).

When someone reaches the pinnacle of power (all past lives and fully optimum gear set)...they loose the incentive to play the game. I know this because I see it all the time.
We have some players on the Cannith server who only show up when a new past life is introduced. The zerg through the lives until they make "total" completionist again....then disappear. They've re-acquired their completionist status and lose interest and stop playing. When they stop playing...they stop spending money on the game. SSG would be foolish to accelerate this grind. This grind is honestly probably why this game has lasted as long as it has.

I somewhat agree but that is not a healthy model and SSG would do well not to focus on it. At some point it will implode. Ravenloft and Racial PLs were the tipping point; a massive boost to gear and character power. That small group that keeps playing and pushes through to a little more character power also dwindles.

This game has so much content and years of development as well as a very fun character design system. That is its strength. It doesn't even need new content. If it developed new player retention, it would cultivate a new base of players and make everyone happier. Vets like to show off to newbies, no? Masculinity is inherently performative.

We have given a GAZILLION easy-to-implement suggestions to help new players and I have note seen ONE implemented. So if SSG implodes, I can fingerpoint.

[Potatofasf]

Yeah and more alts = easier time playing with friends. More reason to log into DDO. If I have one main and the rest mules, then if my friend(s) are not within the 3 level spread I cant group with them.

I also had:
----------------
1 main TR train
1 melee raid character
1 caster raid character (usually arcane)
1 healer (people in our guild all had a raid healer character)

I also had some alts I tested new builds on. When arty came out I rolled up a new character, same with druid - some of these became mules. Nowdays theyre all mules save for the main.

I feel you!
Back in the day my guild had 24 to 30 active players, everyone of us had our main to run wild, doing whatever fitted the time, and two or three dedicated alts in some specific Raid role. Now we are three running in One main toon just for the sake of pilling Past Lifes.


I have been a VIP since I started playing, and am currently a season pass holder, so I pay to have all the content unlocked every month whether it's worth running or not.
I've purchased all of the expansions - most higher than the base package.
I also purchase a healthy stack of DDO points once or twice a year, most of which is spent on xp and slayer pots that I have running continuously - I guess just to give myself the ongoing delusion that I might someday "catch up".

It's actually quite a bit of money to spend on a video game, IMO. I don't mind - I can afford it. I'm probably not what you'd call a whale, but definitely not a "freeloader." I'm paying and playing.

AND, the opinion of this non freeloader is:

I would feel much better spending the same amount of money on an integrity based game that is active and healthy, and encouraged new players and casual players to come to the table and play along with us, and feel like they can hang and contribute without any "work" other than learning how to play whatever build they think sounds like fun. I would like to support the game in a way that feels less, frankly, dirty. I hope SSG looks into it.

I'm in same position as you (just don't have Masterminds of Sharn... my PS4 needs love too!!!).
Why would someone still supporting a unhealthy game?
Better spending my money where I can have joy instead of work.