An alternative way of making reaper viable to new players

[Weemadarthur]

OK bear with me on this as it may seem a bit out of character for me to start pushing reaper play for new players but as the devs seem dead set on making reaper the defacto normal difficulty setting that everyone has to run I thought I would put forth this suggestion to see what everyone thought.

1st up get rid of normal hard and elite completely. The game will now just use the skull setting to show difficulty and all quests will reward reaper xp. Then set 1 skull as the current normal setting. In this difficulty no reapers or champs will spawn and mobs will be as easy to kill as they are on normal currently. XP will stay the same as the current normal setting but players will gain 50% of the rxp that they would on the current R1 setting. In short 1 skull would replace normal.

2 skulls would be the equivalent of the current elite difficulty. Champs would spawn the same as they do on elite but still no reapers. XP would be the same as current elite and rxp would be 75% of current R1 value.

3 skull would be the equivalent of the current R1 and give max regular xp (same as R1 does now) and the same rxp as current R1.

4 skull would be the same as current R3 and reward the same rxp as R3 does currently.

5,6 & 7 skulls would equate to current R5, R7 & R10. These would award the same rxp as their current counterparts.

The devs can then release higher skulls as they see fit going onward.

I feel this setup would remove the biggest barrier to reaper entry as in its **** hard for new players to run reaper without reaper points but you cant currently get reaper points without running reaper. It would still keep the current highest difficulty for those that want to run the hardest difficulty and still give the best rxp at that setting so it wont harm anyones gameplay (reaper enthusiasts will still have their challenge setting and non reaper players will still have 2 of the current difficulty settings to play in without reapers but would now be able to slowly accumulate the rxp that would eventually enable them to progress to higher skulls if they chose to).

So what do you guys think?

[MasterKernel]

So what do you guys think?
I'm an old player and I don't care about that Reaper thingy ! It shouldn't be in the game in the first place.

If they'll gonna get rid of Normal/Hard/Elite - I'll quit.

[Marshal_Lannes]

I like reapers in reaper - that's what makes it reaper for me. I think DDO is on the right track with reaper power-sharing. I'm not sure how hard it is to code, but when someone has 100 reaper points and someone has 10 maybe the 10 point character has no penalties to healing/damage.

[Hawkwier]

Worth considering imo. Anything that promotes grouping and inclusiveness is good for the game, and having the option of greater difficulty at the.high end could also be useful.

[SoulDustar]

I feel this setup would remove the biggest barrier to reaper entry as in its **** hard for new players to run reaper without reaper points but you cant currently get reaper points without running reaper. It would still keep the current highest difficulty for those that want to run the hardest difficulty and still give the best rxp at that setting so it wont harm anyones gameplay (reaper enthusiasts will still have their challenge setting and non reaper players will still have 2 of the current difficulty settings to play in without reapers but would now be able to slowly accumulate the rxp that would eventually enable them to progress to higher skulls if they chose to).

Completely untrue my son and four of his friends all on new accounts with the freequest coupon began playing DDO recently I explained classes, enhancement trees, feats, weapons, builds, forums, ddowiki, and shared my reaper experiences with them. Playing with them for a few hours getting them into reaper 1 and showing them a few solid tactics and wishing them well as I left to run errands. Upon my return some 3 hours later my son and his friends were running 3 levels over on reaper 5 on first life characters doing exceedingly well and just smashing it. They all play multiple tactic based games and understand how to fill a role and support one another as a group and understand the goal is to learn to succeed by failing. They are nearing level 20 and have gained nearly 15 reaper points by running every quest on reaper 5 on first life new accounts as players who never played DDO previously. The sixth slot filled in their group was held by my opener account so they bypass the N/H/E lockout and since it is a level 30 they were certainly not using it to do the work for them.



1st up get rid of normal hard and elite completely. The game will now just use the skull setting to show difficulty and all quests will reward reaper xp. Then set 1 skull as the current normal setting. In this difficulty no reapers or champs will spawn and mobs will be as easy to kill as they are on normal currently. XP will stay the same as the current normal setting but players will gain 50% of the rxp that they would on the current R1 setting. In short 1 skull would replace normal.

2 skulls would be the equivalent of the current elite difficulty. Champs would spawn the same as they do on elite but still no reapers. XP would be the same as current elite and rxp would be 75% of current R1 value.

From the looks of the rest of your post you want to award people rxp for running quests with no reaper, no champs, for no challenge and award them rxp. That's seems laughable at best.

Perhaps the thing for new players to do is learn how to play the game put forth some effort and learn their classes, roles, and quests before entering into reaper. It seems like a pretty novel idea but it did only take a few hours for my son's crew to get the basics and then far exceed my expectations of what they would be capable of. They of course used the knowledge I imparted to them, scoured youtube, forums, and all the other resources available to any player and are doing very well all on their own.

[Oxarhamar]

Completely untrue my son and four of his friends all on new accounts with the freequest coupon began playing DDO recently I explained classes, enhancement trees, feats, weapons, builds, forums, ddowiki, and shared my reaper experiences with them. Playing with them for a few hours getting them into reaper 1 and showing them a few solid tactics and wishing them well as I left to run errands. Upon my return some 3 hours later my son and his friends were running 3 levels over on reaper 5 on first life characters doing exceedingly well and just smashing it. They all play multiple tactic based games and understand how to fill a role and support one another as a group and understand the goal is to learn to succeed by failing. They are nearing level 20 and have gained nearly 15 reaper points by running every quest on reaper 5 on first life new accounts as players who never played DDO previously. The sixth slot filled in their group was held by my opener account so they bypass the N/H/E lockout and since it is a level 30 they were certainly not using it to do the work for the.....snip~


This

I let my nephew try & he soloed his first Reaper 1 quest at lvl 5 first life only using items that he found in chests or end rewards.

With me offering advice and guidance if he got lost in a quest or what item effects were better than others for him fighter.

[Annex]

All of DDO is easy if you play certain Character configurations and do not care about death.

All of DDO is _way_ easier if you play in a full group. If even one Character survives, the whole group continues forward with a slight delay.

I am not here for that experience.

Please, please leave the Normal/Hard/Elite and Epic Normal/Epic Hard/Epic Elite difficulty progression in place.

[rabidfox]

Completely untrue my son and four of his friends all on new accounts with the freequest coupon began playing DDO recently I explained classes, enhancement trees, feats, weapons, builds, forums, ddowiki, and shared my reaper experiences with them. Playing with them for a few hours getting them into reaper 1 and showing them a few solid tactics and wishing them well as I left to run errands. Upon my return some 3 hours later my son and his friends were running 3 levels over on reaper 5 on first life characters doing exceedingly well and just smashing it. They all play multiple tactic based games and understand how to fill a role and support one another as a group and understand the goal is to learn to succeed by failing. They are nearing level 20 and have gained nearly 15 reaper points by running every quest on reaper 5 on first life new accounts as players who never played DDO previously. The sixth slot filled in their group was held by my opener account so they bypass the N/H/E lockout and since it is a level 30 they were certainly not using it to do the work for them.
When I came back 2 (3?) years ago, I had zero reaper points as I had stopped playing before reapers existed. I sucked two other friends into the game and we took on r1's. Our builds weren't great and we didn't have maxed gear but we made our way thru them by using good tactics and accepting the occasional horrible wipe. New players may not be able to zerg reapers but it is doable by taking one's time and using the same kind of playstyles that they'll eventually want to be using in high skull reapers down the line. It's actually pretty good training for new players to learn non-nuke everything zergy zergy play.

[tinyelvis]

Reaper 1 should only include reapers, no health, hit, defense, or damage adjustment to mobs or characters. Reaper play should be available to all. Past 1 skull do what you will.

Honestly though, a system that is made harder by blanket reductions in characters and/or increases in mob ability is a poor system. It may satisfy the difficulty bar, but it does not really satisfy gamers. It is a dull and unfulfilling way to make something more difficult.

Of course, a much better approach would be to script in better mob AI at higher play levels. However, this approach would be too cost intensive to do for every quest at every level of play. Maybe the thing to do is invest in some real AI or access to AI technology and let the AI simulate its way to challenging questing that does not involve player character self ability mutilation. There would be much less player dissatisfaction to reaper then.

[kanordog]

Join a group, go to cap, stay at cap until about 20-25 reaper points, ETR, TR, easymode.

[Nandos]

I like the idea of removing casual/normal/hard/elite/reaper settings from the game and changing quest difficulty to a # of skulls setting instead. Something like 1-15 skulls. One skull could be slightly harder than current normal and go up from there. Any player could set their quest to the # of skulls they were comfortable playing with. This would also remove that awful quest opening restriction that non-vip 1st and 2nd lifers face that causes a lot of frustration.

[droid327]

Dont make it more accessible for new players. Make it more unnecessary for them.

Reaper should be a challenge mode, and that means it has a higher barrier of entry than the rest of the game. That's as it should be.

But if the game stopped pressuring/incentivizing players to play Reaper for non-Reaper reasons, then that wouldnt be an issue anymore, because no one is "missing out" on anything if they're not able to run Reaper properly yet. Remove all RXP benefits outside actual Reaper quests. Remove non-RXP exp bonuses. Let Reaper be its own self-contained, standalone game mode, where you start at 0XP just like the regular game and work your way up.

[Weemadarthur]

Dont make it more accessible for new players. Make it more unnecessary for them.

Reaper should be a challenge mode, and that means it has a higher barrier of entry than the rest of the game. That's as it should be.

But if the game stopped pressuring/incentivizing players to play Reaper for non-Reaper reasons, then that wouldnt be an issue anymore, because no one is "missing out" on anything if they're not able to run Reaper properly yet. Remove all RXP benefits outside actual Reaper quests. Remove non-RXP exp bonuses. Let Reaper be its own self-contained, standalone game mode, where you start at 0XP just like the regular game and work your way up.

I agree totally but unfortunately that isn't the direction SSG are taking. As reaper is here to stay for better or worse and that's the difficulty they want people playing on though I think its time they started making 1 game for everyone rather than 2 games for 2 different playstyles. By bringing the norm to elite difficulty into the fold and replacing that with the bottom end of the skull ratings reaper just becomes an increase in difficulty rather than a seperate entity entirely. Norm hard and elite can still exist as 1-3 skull difficulty it would just mean that everyone can reap the benefits rather than only those that are "uber" enough.

If however SSG want to make elite and reaper equal xp and remove all reaper bonuses from non reaper play I would fully support that direction aswell.

[donblas]

I don't like reaper because there are the reapers in all the quests (usually) - how boring is that?

Why no better idea for a harder difficulty than a bunch of nasty floaty guys turning up all the time?

[Wizard1406]

Agree... lorewise the reapers make no sense in most quests.

"The DM wants to kill you" Ok, but having outsiders spawn randomly in *every* quest was maybe not the best way to go about it. Self healing penalty starting at 60% (!) is also punishing some builds far more than others.

I would have prefered a scaling CR system for difficulties that go beyond elite.

[Cavalier]

The problem I see with reaper and people only wanting to run R1 is the extra XP that it gives over Elite.

R1 is not all that much harder than Elite, especially in Heroics. The only thing is that XP bonus.

Once you get 21 reaper points, you've reached the "critical" number in that you are able to get the 4th core in Grim Barricade which gives +100 HP and +1 Saves in everything, not just reaper. Combined with cores 3 and 2, you have +1 CON, + 120 HP and + 2 saves at level 21.

I'm currently going for 42 points as my short term goal so I can do the same in the Reaper Dread Adversary tree. +3 ToHit and Damage and +1 STR or DEX at level 21.

More than those points, it is really for people who are looking to do R8 - R10 content at end game.

Either remove the bonus XP from reaper 1st time run or add it to elite as well at the same level as reaper, make the current hard bonus that of the current elite and normal gets the current hard. No need to touch casual.

[fatherpirate]

I'm an old player and I don't care about that Reaper thingy ! It shouldn't be in the game in the first place.

If they'll gonna get rid of Normal/Hard/Elite - I'll quit.

There are so many things wrong with the OP that I felt compelled to say something,
but I will limit it to ^ What this dude said.

[Captain_Wizbang]

I like reapers in reaper - that's what makes it reaper for me. I think DDO is on the right track with reaper power-sharing. I'm not sure how hard it is to code, but when someone has 100 reaper points and someone has 10 maybe the 10 point character has no penalties to healing/damage.


seriously? that entire concept is wrong and shows how much damage reaper enhancement trees and perks have destroyed this game.

Power sharing is a copout for solving the real issue. Sev said they are removing those trees later this year. to be replaced with power sharing?

Get rid of ALL PERKS, BUFFS & AND ENHANCEMENTS then we'll have a chance to bring this power creep under control (kind of)

Power Sharing shows me how messed up this games code is, and how scared the devs are to make a stand and save this game.

[TedSandyman]

This

I let my nephew try & he soloed his first Reaper 1 quest at lvl 5 first life only using items that he found in chests or end rewards.

With me offering advice and guidance if he got lost in a quest or what item effects were better than others for him fighter.

The issue is that "With you offering advice". There are 1000 ways do do things wrong in this game and only a few ways to do things correctly. If you can eliminate the wrong ways that is a tremendous advantage. And it is an advantage that others may not have.

If you luck through a dungeon with no carnage reapers, yeah, you can run them. The problem that I see in reaper is that some dungeons are ridiculously easy, then some will have a mob spawn with 3 champs and 2 reapers.

And the issue isn't just reaper, it is that the game is ridiculously easy on the lower levels, then gets very hard for new players at about level 15. And all of the newer stuff on R1 is harder than the old stuff.

New players come in, maybe they can run a few reaper levels, but as they progress they get very frustrated and quit.

I would be surprised if your nephew kept at the game for any length of time. Because, yeah, a new player can finish a reaper every now and then, but far more often the dungeon will end in death. And it gets worse as they progress.

I don't consider "my kid can do reaper" as any kind of proof that the current system works. "My kid loves the game after one year of playing reaper" would be more convincing.

Do new players enjoy the game with reaper or are new players frustrated with reaper and give up because they have to repeat dungeons several times.

And lets admit it, reaper is all that matters. No new player is going to come to this game and decide to run normal-hard-elite solo for a few years until they can do reaper. And there aren't many groups for NHE anyway. (There aren't many groups for R1 anymore.) And if a new player opens a group on NHE, they wont be joined very often.

So I think, yeah, Reaper needs to be rethought. And the suggestions here are good suggestions. Get rid of the words "Normal Hard Elite". Not the difficulties, just the words.

Rename Normal to R1, rename hard to R2, rename elite to R3. Give a small percentage of RXP to those levels so that new players can play them and still progress in reaper. The current R1 level becomes R3. Current R2 becomes R4. All the way up to R10 which becomes R13.

Nothing really changes in the game except for renaming the levels and the fact that new players can still earn some RXP without actually having the added difficulty on top of the levels until they get used to the game.

[TedSandyman]

seriously? that entire concept is wrong and shows how much damage reaper enhancement trees and perks have destroyed this game.

Power sharing is a copout for solving the real issue. Sev said they are removing those trees later this year. to be replaced with power sharing?

Get rid of ALL PERKS, BUFFS & AND ENHANCEMENTS then we'll have a chance to bring this power creep under control (kind of)

Power Sharing shows me how messed up this games code is, and how scared the devs are to make a stand and save this game.

Agree 100% with the sentiment. I wish every class was nerfed until Elite was hard to do again and reaper wasn't needed.

The fact that reapers and champs had to be added is proof that the game has gone off the rails.

The game is too easy so ... lets add a new class of super charged monsters that pop out of the woodwork for no really good reason. That sounds reasonable?

Give players more power, game is hard, give players more power game is OK, give players more power, game is too easy, so .... take away some power, game is OK. (Reasonable)

Give players more power, game is hard, give players more power game is OK, give players more power, game is too easy, so .... create two new classes of super monster that just pop up for no real reason other than to make the game playable again. (Reasonable?)

[SpittingCobra]

I don't like reaper because there are the reapers in all the quests (usually) - how boring is that?

Why no better idea for a harder difficulty than a bunch of nasty floaty guys turning up all the time?

+++

This has been one of my thoughts for a long time.

I think it could be better than just reapers over and over.

More unpredicability. It actually is very easy to program, and easy to control if you are careful about putting it together. So many possible ways to just mix it up in the first place, you can even mix up the mixing up method to produce something truly unpredictable and totally fun!

[Ode1st]

Did my first R1 last night on a whim while trying to grind out gear for my first past life. I was excited that I found a quest I could do on reaper. Didn't take too long, but didn't get anything out of the chest and didn't get a reaper point. It left me 25 reaper xp away from my first reaper point, so I pulled up the reaper enhancements to see if I should do the quest again, and man, I lost all interest in reaper after being excited about it for the first time. The reaper enhancements aren't cool skills or anything, they're just number upgrades. Pretty boring.

[Oxarhamar]

+++

This has been one of my thoughts for a long time.

I think it could be better than just reapers over and over.

More unpredicability. It actually is very easy to program, and easy to control if you are careful about putting it together. So many possible ways to just mix it up in the first place, you can even mix up the mixing up method to produce something truly unpredictable and totally fun!

Yeah they tried that & called it champians those are random.

The game isn't designed for randomness like this.

Keep it the worst quests are the quests with more of what DDO calls random.

Tangleroot should have Reaper.

[Oxarhamar]

There are so many things wrong with the OP that I felt compelled to say something,
but I will limit it to ^ What this dude said.

Back already that was fast

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

One of the problems consists of the fact that at least for lower Reaper difficulties, everything becomes easier the more points are spent in the Reaper trees ...
And I very much doubt that ANYONE is freely willing to play let's say R10 with NO points set into any of the Reaper trees ...

[Bjond]

Progression and challenge are essential. People start leaving in droves when either one of those is curtailed.

I used to agree about sub-Elite difficulties in Heroics. When I was a brand new player on a bad build without guild buffs, tomes, or gear, I thought Heroic Elite was the perfect difficulty for SOLO play. However, I've since rethought that. I've run into a fair number that group as families with their kids -- sometimes very young kids ~8yrs-old. Lower difficulties make that fun for them. I don't think HE would be fun for a kid that young.

I would love to see a more linear and universal scaling, though. Challenge in DDO doesn't compare across quests and especially raids. Just because you can do R1 Baba doesn't mean you're ready for R1 Strahd or even LN 2H2H. It's like ski runs on different resorts. A double diamond in Northstar is like a blue at Squaw. You just have to know (in advance).

[Weemadarthur]

There are so many things wrong with the OP that I felt compelled to say something,
but I will limit it to ^ What this dude said.

Would you mind expanding on this a bit as the idea I proposed could still contain norm hard elite (I just picked norm and elite as 2 options to minimise the amount of skulls used but it could just as easily start with 1 skull being casual and go up to 50 skulls if need be). So no one is actually advocating removing norm hard elite play just "rebranding it" as it were.

Now as you are a steadfast anti reaper player I would genuinely like to know what other issues you would have with this concept. Just for the record I am not saying this is the best way going forward or that its even a good idea it is just an idea that came to being when I was having a discussion with a few friends in game about how and why reaper is so new player unfriendly.

Lastly and for the record I personally absolutely detest how reaper was implemented into the game (and I was one of those who was asking for it). IMO it should have been a challenge setting only and given cosmetic rewards only. Reaper enhancements completely defy the point of reaper in the 1st place. My personal opinions though are kind of beside the point and when dealing with reaper (or any other gameplay issue) I do my best to put my personal feelings aside and look at what is best for the game overall (not always 100% successfully I will admit but at least I try lol).

So please expand on your post as I really am interested in your opinion (and those from others who disagree from either side of the argument) and if you (or anyone else) have any alternative ideas I would like to hear those also. I promise I wont be upset if you tell me my idea is stupid and/or wont work but I would appreciate it if you could say why.

[Tsutti]

I'm an old player and I don't care about that Reaper thingy ! It shouldn't be in the game in the first place.

If they'll gonna get rid of Normal/Hard/Elite - I'll quit.

Debatable whether it should be in the game as it's been implemented, but it definitely belongs in the game in some form. Afaik people were quitting the game before it came out bc there was no point in playing for them due to how easy it was, and they struggled with reaper at first.



I like reapers in reaper - that's what makes it reaper for me. I think DDO is on the right track with reaper power-sharing. I'm not sure how hard it is to code, but when someone has 100 reaper points and someone has 10 maybe the 10 point character has no penalties to healing/damage.

I know that was probably an example of a way power may be "shared" but this specific idea would probably be abused hard by uber players bc they could create a new character and level them without reaper so they get no reaper points and no damage penalty, farm all the gear they want, and bam they've got a significantly squishier character than they'd normally be on but also stupidly high dps for completing raids on r10 fairly easily by just nuking the boss in 30 seconds so the group doesn't have to worry about being worn down. Probably takes the challenge and some of the fun out of seeing these crazy groups achieve such things.

sorry about the ginormous sentence lol

[rabidfox]

Agree... lorewise the reapers make no sense in most quests.
I always think of it as a Final Destination/Groundhog Day kind of situation. We keep waking back up to the same point in time on Korthos island next to Jeets waving and saying hello, and then we run the same quests over again life after life; almost like we're in a time loop... the reapers are there to kill us because we broke things by looping the same sequence of days over and over.

[SoulDustar]

The issue is that "With you offering advice". There are 1000 ways do do things wrong in this game and only a few ways to do things correctly. If you can eliminate the wrong ways that is a tremendous advantage. And it is an advantage that others may not have.

If you luck through a dungeon with no carnage reapers, yeah, you can run them. The problem that I see in reaper is that some dungeons are ridiculously easy, then some will have a mob spawn with 3 champs and 2 reapers.

And the issue isn't just reaper, it is that the game is ridiculously easy on the lower levels, then gets very hard for new players at about level 15. And all of the newer stuff on R1 is harder than the old stuff.

New players come in, maybe they can run a few reaper levels, but as they progress they get very frustrated and quit.

I would be surprised if your nephew kept at the game for any length of time. Because, yeah, a new player can finish a reaper every now and then, but far more often the dungeon will end in death. And it gets worse as they progress.

I don't consider "my kid can do reaper" as any kind of proof that the current system works. "My kid loves the game after one year of playing reaper" would be more convincing.

Do new players enjoy the game with reaper or are new players frustrated with reaper and give up because they have to repeat dungeons several times.

And lets admit it, reaper is all that matters. No new player is going to come to this game and decide to run normal-hard-elite solo for a few years until they can do reaper. And there aren't many groups for NHE anyway. (There aren't many groups for R1 anymore.) And if a new player opens a group on NHE, they wont be joined very often.

So I think, yeah, Reaper needs to be rethought. And the suggestions here are good suggestions. Get rid of the words "Normal Hard Elite". Not the difficulties, just the words.

Rename Normal to R1, rename hard to R2, rename elite to R3. Give a small percentage of RXP to those levels so that new players can play them and still progress in reaper. The current R1 level becomes R3. Current R2 becomes R4. All the way up to R10 which becomes R13.

Nothing really changes in the game except for renaming the levels and the fact that new players can still earn some RXP without actually having the added difficulty on top of the levels until they get used to the game.

Every new player has the same exact access to ddowiki, the fourms, youtube and countless other locations to gain knowledge about builds, quests, gear, I gave my son and his friends not one plat, nothing, save a small amount of basic ideas and let them run with it. They listened, failed and learned, and exceeded any expectations I had for what they could do. They are hooked and have a blast playing a game that is 15 years old and they are already planning their next lives and and working out what they need to farm out accordingly. They have worked out how to farm favor and purchased epic destines, ravenloft, sharn, except for Feywild, they each have 30 shared bank and I had nothing at all to do with those decisions. They make their own choices good or bad.

My son and his crew have completed every quest save some raids on R5 on first life characters that has nothing to do with me. They pushed it. They planned out to pull a new character each life with them for cap raiding and maxing out rxp on each on the way up and have a solid farming group at cap for the characters they are planning to reincarnate on.

With the gear, stats, builds, and information available to all new players there is no reason they can't come in and run reaper 1 on first life characters if they are willing to put some effort and be willing to fail miserably just like everyone before them has done.

No one needs a single past life to contribute and complete every quest in DDO hardcore proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt. DDO is just like WoW cap and play is all you really need everything else is just a distraction.

The best way anyone could help new players learn the game is to put together a comprehensive tutorial starting with basics and up to R10 but this would of course require a player or players to come together and get it done right. The funny thing is I have an alt account I pike on korthos when I play with a lot of info on their bio and have a lot of quick tells I send out randomly across general chat for new players and old about current sales, coupon codes, and other pertinent information as I play. I have had a lot of positive feedback even from veteran players thanking me for the sales and codes and new players asking me advice. This is what I chose to do instead of coming to the forums to make thousands of posts on how to make it easier for new players and not really doing anything about it myself.


I like reapers in reaper - that's what makes it reaper for me. I think DDO is on the right track with reaper power-sharing. I'm not sure how hard it is to code, but when someone has 100 reaper points and someone has 10 maybe the 10 point character has no penalties to healing/damage.

Unfortunately power sharing will only ensure that a 100+ point build is piked at the entrance of a quest while guild mates or friends run the quest and gain the bonus from said high reaper point character. This is already being done in reverse and there is no real way to stop it from happening in epics unless a lockout, exp penalty, and rxp penalty is introduced into epics which should be the case once level cap is increased after all SSG will doubtlessly not let a level 40 character run level 30+ for double base rxp that would be foolish beyond all reason.

[Weemadarthur]

Every new player has the same exact access to ddowiki, the fourms, youtube and countless other locations to gain knowledge about builds, quests, gear, I gave my son and his friends not one plat, nothing, save a small amount of basic ideas and let them run with it. They listened, failed and learned, and exceeded any expectations I had for what they could do. They are hooked and have a blast playing a game that is 15 years old and they are already planning their next lives and and working out what they need to farm out accordingly. They have worked out how to farm favor and purchased epic destines, ravenloft, sharn, except for Feywild, they each have 30 shared bank and I had nothing at all to do with those decisions. They make their own choices good or bad.

Sorry but I am starting to disbelieve a bit here. If what you are saying is true then you should get your son and his friends into professional gaming as I haven't met anyone to date that has been able to take 1st life characters into R5's and have any modicum of success within 3 hours of gaming. If true then great for them but all things aside this is definitely not normal for new players. Maybe your son and his friends are the best DDO players the world has ever known, maybe they really worked out how to farm enough favor in one life to obtain Ravenloft, Sharn and ED's (that equates to about 7k in DDO points so around 10k favor if they are VIP and saved their free points for 6 months). Maybe they achieved this truly herculean task without any help from you at all. Unfortunately all this means is that your son and his friends are truly exceptional players and realistically should not be used as any kind of bench mark for the average new player.

Average new players spend most of their time solo or dying in groups running low reaper. Average new players don't get a huge amount of help or advice at the start (and most likely wouldn't even consider that they need to look at 3rd party sites just to be able to play at the most basic level). Average new players generally start with the pre made builds at creation (and we all know how stupidly out of date and useless those are). An average new player generally struggles until they meet someone nice enough to explain what they are doing wrong. This has been my experience with new players over the last 10 years and I have spent a lot of time helping new players get into the game.

[Annex]

My objection to the idea expressed in the first post of this thread stems from the elimination of Hard and Epic Hard Difficulty. Since returning to DDO 6 weeks ago, I ran most quests at Hard or Epic Hard because they represent the limit of my ability using my Avatar and other Characters. I wish it were different. I have no objection to Reaper Mode and never have. Very simply, I cannot survive there because damage comes in too fast given the Characters and Equipment at my disposal.

Quest Difficulty in DDO varies wildly even without accounting for Character power. Mines of Tethyamar quests pose far more challenge than others at Level 15. The Keep on the Borderlands quests offer less challenge at Level 21 than Sentinels of Stormreach at Level 20. Normal/Hard/Elite and Epic Normal/Epic Hard/Epic Elite allow me to compensate for the inability of the developers to get a handle on difficulty. The game will become super boring if I lose that middle step.

Recently, enemy Spell Casters seem to have received a fairly large power increase. Perhaps I am doing something wrong, but I am experiencing very large damage spikes at all Difficulty levels. I am compensating as best I may with Spell Absorption, Protection from Energy, Resist Energy, and by lowering the Difficulty. Again, that extra Difficulty Level matters.

.....

In my opinion, power players will not accept the distribution of "free handouts" to new and less time invested players. "If you want Reaper Experience, play in Reaper Mode." "Join a Reaper Group." "Learn to build a better Character." "Learn to play." The responses are very predictable.

.....

A large number of factors contribute to the Grouping Problem. Quest Difficulty varies wildly. Character Class Power varies wildly. Character Power from Past Life Feats, Racial Enhancement Points, Reaper Enhancement Points, and Tomes vary wildly. Equipment Power varies wildly depending on what Expansions and Quests Packs a player owns. Power from Enhancement Trees varies wildly depending on which ones a Player owns. Player knowledge varies wildly.

I am of the opinion that the thing that most keeps a given Character out of Reaper Mode is sufficient defenses. A Character at any Difficulty needs to survive long enough for the Player to react to damage. The Grim Barricade Tree provides the defenses many Characters need to flourish in Reaper Mode. Unfortunately, only Characters able to survive in Reaper Mode without any Reaper Enhancement Points can initially earn Reaper Experience. (Exception: Many players pike for Reaper Experience until they earn enough to pull their weight. I refuse to play in that way. I suspect many players trying to break into Reaper Mode share my feelings.) This prevents the vast majority of possible Character configurations (including Equipment and Past Life Feats) from initially entering Reaper Mode.

Your suggestion deals with the problem described above by funneling Reaper Experience to Characters not ready for Reaper Mode. Eventually, such a Character will gain enough Reaper Points to fill out part of the Grim Barricade Tree, gain defenses thereby, and become strong enough to take on a higher difficulty. Unfortunately, as I stated above, existing Reaper Mode players will resist the idea.

You asked for alternate suggestions.

The Wizards of The Twelve, having detected the presence of Grim Reapers all across Eberron and beyond, have formulated a powerful magical ward to protect defenders against them. They call this ward a Potion of Grim Tidings. Consuming a Potion of Grim Tidings provides a Character with 10 Reaper Enhancement Points for a period of three hours. Upon expiration of this Potion, all Reaper trees immediately reset and all extra Reaper Enhancement Points disappear. Potions of Grim Tidings are available at The Tower of the Twelve and from the Mysterious Remnants Trader. At the Tower of the Twelve, each Potion of Grim Tidings costs one Token of the Twelve. At the Mysterious Remnants Trader, each Potion of Grim Tidings costs 100 Mysterious Remnants.

Potions of Grim Tidings essentially allow a much wider swath of Characters to immediately enter Reaper Mode and start earning Reaper Experience withouy having to rework a bunch of Character Classes and Enhancement Trees and Reaper Mode itself. Since Potions of Grim Tidings come from killing Monster Champions or completing Epic Quests, no one can complain that they are unearned. This system provides zero benefit to Power Players. All benefits are channeled one hundred percent to the Players that most need it.

There. That is my latest dumb idea.

[Weemadarthur]

The Wizards of The Twelve, having detected the presence of Grim Reapers all across Eberron and beyond, have formulated a powerful magical ward to protect defenders against them. They call this ward a Potion of Grim Tidings. Consuming a Potion of Grim Tidings provides a Character with 10 Reaper Enhancement Points for a period of three hours. Upon expiration of this Potion, all Reaper trees immediately reset and all extra Reaper Enhancement Points disappear. Potions of Grim Tidings are available at The Tower of the Twelve and from the Mysterious Remnants Trader. At the Tower of the Twelve, each Potion of Grim Tidings costs one Token of the Twelve. At the Mysterious Remnants Trader, each Potion of Grim Tidings costs 100 Mysterious Remnants.

Potions of Grim Tidings essentially allow a much wider swath of Characters to immediately enter Reaper Mode and start earning Reaper Experience withouy having to rework a bunch of Character Classes and Enhancement Trees and Reaper Mode itself. Since Potions of Grim Tidings come from killing Monster Champions or completing Epic Quests, no one can complain that they are unearned. This system provides zero benefit to Power Players. All benefits are channeled one hundred percent to the Players that most need it.

There. That is my latest dumb idea.

Thanks for the response and clarification of your concerns. With my initial post I was a bit rushed for time so was just looking for a quick way to put the idea forward and steamline it as much as possible. I appreciate that there are characters that find elite a little too challenging and in hindsight should probably not have attempted to remove the hard difficulty from the equation.

As for your idea I cant see any downside to it and quite like it myself. The other thing I was trying to do with the original OP though was to remove the "reaper" stigma that is associated with reaper play. By making all difficulty representation use a skull setting then reaper, rather than seeming like a separate entity, would become just an increased difficulty setting. This was based off of a comment made to me by a new player who said he would have felt more comfortable going from a 3 skull to 4 skull setting than going from elite to reaper 1. We all know it would be exactly the same it was just his perception that as it was separate it must be a huge difficulty jump.

[Tilomere]

Mmm, how about just reaper BTA xp codes, $50 per million in DDO store, not increased by any % increases to XP?

[Weemadarthur]

Mmm, how about just reaper BTA xp codes, $50 per million in DDO store, not increased by any % increases to XP?

Sorry but definite hard no there. A cash grab that blatant would probably cause the internet to crash due to the amount of complaints. That wouldn't just nail the coffin shut on DDO but would wrap it in chains and bury it under a ton of concrete at the bottom of the deepest part of the ocean.

[ggmarquez]

Mmm, how about just reaper BTA xp codes, $50 per million in DDO store, not increased by any % increases to XP?

this is a really good idea. essentially it is identical to otto's boxes and tensers trunks. and while they're at it, they should start selling extra lives on each new hardcore server. +1

[Tilomere]

Sorry but definite hard no there.

Maybe have the codes only work for first X million RXP on a character. It's not any net different effect than selling boxes to level people up to cap to pug pike first time rxp since they also lack gear and skill and build, or selling XP/slayers potions so they can do same. I don't see why they should give weaker players RXP in a leadership bonus when they can sell it to them.

Beginner RXP Box:

1 BTC Code for 1M RXP, does not increase total RXP over 6 Million, 1 BTC +5 Tome of Choice, $50

This lets someone buy a set for $300 and have a decent starting RXP and set of Tomes.

[Annex]

As for your idea I cant see any downside to it and quite like it myself. The other thing I was trying to do with the original OP though was to remove the "reaper" stigma that is associated with reaper play. By making all difficulty representation use a skull setting then reaper, rather than seeming like a separate entity, would become just an increased difficulty setting. This was based off of a comment made to me by a new player who said he would have felt more comfortable going from a 3 skull to 4 skull setting than going from elite to reaper 1. We all know it would be exactly the same it was just his perception that as it was separate it must be a huge difficulty jump.

Player psychology definitely matters. However, the jump in experience that occurs at Reaper Mode 1 is inescapable. The kind of people who lead groups are the kind of people who chase power over all else. If extra experience kicks in at Reaper Mode 4, the vast majority of group leaders will play at Reaper Mode 4 or higher. They will dismiss Reaper Mode 1, 2, and 3, and their disdain will once again root in player psychology. "I do not want to play Reaper Mode 1, 2, or 3 because I do not want to be perceived as weak." You can change the name but you cannot change human nature.

These very same discussions about Reaper Mode have occurred for 4 years. Only now, after all that time, has Darth Severlin decided to change Reaper Trees and Reaper Enhancement Points into Reaper Levels. Only now has he decided to introduce a power sharing mechanic. Developers have already begun work on the project. (Edit: No, they have not! I misremembered what Darth Severlin said. My apologies. If you view the DDO Live Stream with Darth Severlin (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/926836782), he comments on Reaper Mode at approximately 29:20.) At this point, further discussion is very probably pointless. Having taken so long to move on the problem, they are unlikely to change course now with deadlines set. (Edit: Again, this is incorrect. My bad.) We will all need to wait and see what happens. Even if the new system sucks, it will take them years to realize this and act. Molasses moves faster than Standing Stone Games.

Having watched the two recent Developer Live Streams, I have no hope for the future. If implemented as described, Reaper Levels will make my life worse. Again. So it goes with DDO. I truly hope the new system helps someone. Meanwhile, I will continue playing by myself and deal with it. Where there is no hope, acceptance is the only option.

[FranOhmsford]

Player psychology definitely matters. However, the jump in experience that occurs at Reaper Mode 1 is inescapable. The kind of people who lead groups are the kind of people who chase power over all else. If extra experience kicks in at Reaper Mode 4, the vast majority of group leaders will play at Reaper Mode 4 or higher. They will dismiss Reaper Mode 1, 2, and 3, and their disdain will once again root in player psychology. "I do not want to play Reaper Mode 1, 2, or 3 because I do not want to be perceived as weak." You can change the name but you cannot change human nature.

Agreed!

From the moment I found out that Elite gave the most Favour I only wanted to run Elite!

I didn't want to have to run every quest 3 times to get my Favour!

I spent years talking about Favour on these forums!

It was the MAIN REASON I went VIP!

HOWEVER...

When players wanted to run Shadow Crypt E/H/N/N/N/N/N ad infinitum I'd do the Elite run and Leave Group!

I Don't care about gaining XP super fast BUT I do care about getting XP at a viable rate!

In Epics running exclusively EN is NOT VIABLE! It's too SLOW!

Especially once Quest Ransack penalties start kicking in and I don't know why but I had a 20% quest ransack penalty on EN VoN 3 today despite it being the first time I'd run EN VoN 3 on that character in WEEKS and only having done one EH VoN 3 beforehand today!

If I wanted the fastest possible XP I'd join those Reaper Groups and PIKE!

But I prefer to actually be able to PLAY THE GAME!


These very same discussions about Reaper Mode have occurred for 4 years. Only now, after all that time, has Darth Severlin decided to change Reaper Trees and Reaper Enhancement Points into Reaper Levels. Only now has he decided to introduce a power sharing mechanic. Developers have already begun work on the project. At this point, further discussion is very probably pointless. Having taken so long to move on the problem, they are unlikely to change course now with deadlines set. We will all need to wait and see what happens. Even if the new system sucks, it will take them years to realize this and act. Molasses moves faster than Standing Stone Games.

Having watched the two recent Developer Live Streams, I have no hope for the future. If implemented as described, Reaper Levels will make my life worse. Again. So it goes with DDO. I truly hope the new system helps someone. Meanwhile, I will continue playing by myself and deal with it. Where there is no hope, acceptance is the only option.

OH DEAR LORD!

So rather than accepting that Reaper was a Mistake they're DOUBLING DOWN!

Reaper Levels is even worse than Reaper Enhancement Trees!

It's just MORE Rewards!

AND MORE GRIND!

[Captain_Wizbang]

So rather than accepting that Reaper was a Mistake they're DOUBLING DOWN!

Reaper Levels is even worse than Reaper Enhancement Trees!

It's just MORE POWER CREEP

AND MORE GRIND!


https://media.giphy.com/media/RNfBBJzMCJuSUs7nWz/giphy.gif

[SpittingCobra]

https://media.giphy.com/media/RNfBBJzMCJuSUs7nWz/giphy.gif

***!!!

Reaper levels??? >< ???

This is got to be the worse idea I have ever seen!

Please do NOT degrade this game with reaper levels!

PLEASE!!!

[Iriale]

Player psychology definitely matters. However, the jump in experience that occurs at Reaper Mode 1 is inescapable. The kind of people who lead groups are the kind of people who chase power over all else. If extra experience kicks in at Reaper Mode 4, the vast majority of group leaders will play at Reaper Mode 4 or higher. They will dismiss Reaper Mode 1, 2, and 3, and their disdain will once again root in player psychology. "I do not want to play Reaper Mode 1, 2, or 3 because I do not want to be perceived as weak." You can change the name but you cannot change human nature.

These very same discussions about Reaper Mode have occurred for 4 years. Only now, after all that time, has Darth Severlin decided to change Reaper Trees and Reaper Enhancement Points into Reaper Levels. Only now has he decided to introduce a power sharing mechanic. Developers have already begun work on the project. At this point, further discussion is very probably pointless. Having taken so long to move on the problem, they are unlikely to change course now with deadlines set. We will all need to wait and see what happens. Even if the new system sucks, it will take them years to realize this and act. Molasses moves faster than Standing Stone Games.

Having watched the two recent Developer Live Streams, I have no hope for the future. If implemented as described, Reaper Levels will make my life worse. Again. So it goes with DDO. I truly hope the new system helps someone. Meanwhile, I will continue playing by myself and deal with it. Where there is no hope, acceptance is the only option.
Can you explain reaper levels to those of us who don't understand spoken English well?

although only the name gives me the fear that it will be something very bad for the game.

[Tilomere]

Can you explain reaper levels to those of us who don't understand spoken English well?


My guess:

Instead of hundreds of individually assigned points taking long periods of time to calculate, they will be grouped into levels. For example, Tier 1 of Dread Adversary and Core One will all become Martial Reaper Level 1, a single buff.

This will speed the game up, and allow cleanly calculated power leadership bonuses. For example, if a group leader has Martial Reaper Level 4, then everyone else could be granted Martial Reaper Level 2, or half the level of the leader.

[Captain_Wizbang]

This will speed the game up, and allow cleanly calculated power leadership bonuses. For example, if a leader has Martial Reaper Level 4, then everyone else could be granted Martial Reaper Level 2, or half the level of the leader.

And given the way the player base reacts to LFM's with "screening" (link your DR breaker :rolleyes:) players will "shop" lfm's for the highest rating on the highest skull, thus slowing down the groups start. It might be small to begin with, but we've already seen over the years how LFM's can affect newer players wanting to group and learn.

The ENTIRE SCENARIO of re-rewarding a difficulty setting is absurd.

[Captain_Wizbang]

https://media.giphy.com/media/Yl9EahwFIZWpTT949p/giphy.gif

[Iriale]

And given the way the player base reacts to LFM's with "screening" (link your DR breaker :rolleyes:) players will "shop" lfm's for the highest rating on the highest skull, thus slowing down the groups start. It might be small to begin with, but we've already seen over the years how LFM's can affect newer players wanting to group and learn.

The ENTIRE SCENARIO of re-rewarding a difficulty setting is absurd.
slowing down the formation of groups is the least of it. Many people will not want to group with people who have low reaper points, and there will be strong pressure for those with low points to give up the leadership to others. Do you know when here in the forums new ones are advised to put their own lfm saying "no zerg" etc? Well, there will be strong pressure so that this does not happen and the new ones give up the star. And if currently newcomers already have the impression that this game is only geared towards veterans, imagine after this implementation.

It is an entirely stupid idea that will create tensions among the population. Great job from SSG.

[Justicesfury]

OK bear with me on this as it may seem a bit out of character for me to start pushing reaper play for new players but as the devs seem dead set on making reaper the defacto normal difficulty setting that everyone has to run I thought I would put forth this suggestion to see what everyone thought.

1st up get rid of normal hard and elite completely. The game will now just use the skull setting to show difficulty and all quests will reward reaper xp. Then set 1 skull as the current normal setting. In this difficulty no reapers or champs will spawn and mobs will be as easy to kill as they are on normal currently. XP will stay the same as the current normal setting but players will gain 50% of the rxp that they would on the current R1 setting. In short 1 skull would replace normal.

2 skulls would be the equivalent of the current elite difficulty. Champs would spawn the same as they do on elite but still no reapers. XP would be the same as current elite and rxp would be 75% of current R1 value.

3 skull would be the equivalent of the current R1 and give max regular xp (same as R1 does now) and the same rxp as current R1.

4 skull would be the same as current R3 and reward the same rxp as R3 does currently.

5,6 & 7 skulls would equate to current R5, R7 & R10. These would award the same rxp as their current counterparts.

The devs can then release higher skulls as they see fit going onward.

I feel this setup would remove the biggest barrier to reaper entry as in its **** hard for new players to run reaper without reaper points but you cant currently get reaper points without running reaper. It would still keep the current highest difficulty for those that want to run the hardest difficulty and still give the best rxp at that setting so it wont harm anyones gameplay (reaper enthusiasts will still have their challenge setting and non reaper players will still have 2 of the current difficulty settings to play in without reapers but would now be able to slowly accumulate the rxp that would eventually enable them to progress to higher skulls if they chose to).

So what do you guys think?

OK, we have no marketing, you can't create a new account and the game is essentially broken do to lag and animation issues. Who are these new players? Please focus on more constructive posts that are more relevant to the current state of the game...

[SpittingCobra]

I thought about reaper levels more. If it means I don't have to do reaper and can have reaper, but can now ignore it because I no longer really need to get it...

hmmm??

yes, hmmm????

This is sheer unpredictability. My instincts feel off though, me thinks it won't end well.

[Captain_Wizbang]

slowing down the formation of groups is the least of it. Many people will not want to group with people who have low reaper points, and there will be strong pressure for those with low points to give up the leadership to others. Do you know when here in the forums new ones are advised to put their own lfm saying "no zerg" etc? Well, there will be strong pressure so that this does not happen and the new ones give up the star. And if currently newcomers already have the impression that this game is only geared towards veterans, imagine after this implementation.

It is an entirely stupid idea that will create tensions among the population. Great job from SSG.


+1

[Telekinesis]

OK bear with me on this as it may seem a bit out of character for me to start pushing reaper play for new players but as the devs seem dead set on making reaper the defacto normal difficulty setting that everyone has to run I thought I would put forth this suggestion to see what everyone thought.

1st up get rid of normal hard and elite completely. The game will now just use the skull setting to show difficulty and all quests will reward reaper xp. Then set 1 skull as the current normal setting. In this difficulty no reapers or champs will spawn and mobs will be as easy to kill as they are on normal currently. XP will stay the same as the current normal setting but players will gain 50% of the rxp that they would on the current R1 setting. In short 1 skull would replace normal.

2 skulls would be the equivalent of the current elite difficulty. Champs would spawn the same as they do on elite but still no reapers. XP would be the same as current elite and rxp would be 75% of current R1 value.

3 skull would be the equivalent of the current R1 and give max regular xp (same as R1 does now) and the same rxp as current R1.

4 skull would be the same as current R3 and reward the same rxp as R3 does currently.

5,6 & 7 skulls would equate to current R5, R7 & R10. These would award the same rxp as their current counterparts.

The devs can then release higher skulls as they see fit going onward.

I feel this setup would remove the biggest barrier to reaper entry as in its **** hard for new players to run reaper without reaper points but you cant currently get reaper points without running reaper. It would still keep the current highest difficulty for those that want to run the hardest difficulty and still give the best rxp at that setting so it wont harm anyones gameplay (reaper enthusiasts will still have their challenge setting and non reaper players will still have 2 of the current difficulty settings to play in without reapers but would now be able to slowly accumulate the rxp that would eventually enable them to progress to higher skulls if they chose to).

So what do you guys think?

Why do you assume new player are terrible? I'm a new player and cannot say there is a massive barrier. I worked hard over the past 5 month, got my wings and having a great time running r10s with my friends. For someone that being playing along time you seem to assumptions alot about the new player base. I'm not sure where you draw these assumptions however they are entirely false. This game is so much easy to play then many others even on reaper.

[Annex]

Can you explain reaper levels to those of us who don't understand spoken English well?

although only the name gives me the fear that it will be something very bad for the game.

Hello, Iriale. First off, my apologies. I misremembered what Darth Severlin said with regards Reaper Mode. They have _not_ begun work.

Darth Severlin's comments concerning Reaper Mode occur at approximately 29:20 in the Live Stream (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/926836782) from February 24(25?), 2021.

[fatherpirate]

The flaw in the OP

There are 3 basic groups of players when it comes to reapers.

1. Never play it, don't like it
2. Sometimes play it
3 Play it exclusively.

If you implemented the OP plan
you would lose all of group 1. and a few of group 2.

Last time I checked, reducing the player base is ... bad.
Simple enough.

[Weemadarthur]

The flaw in the OP

There are 3 basic groups of players when it comes to reapers.

1. Never play it, don't like it
2. Sometimes play it
3 Play it exclusively.

If you implemented the OP plan
you would lose all of group 1. and a few of group 2.

Last time I checked, reducing the player base is ... bad.
Simple enough.

So why would you lose group 1 when norm hard and elite would still be in game (functioning exactly the same) but just called 1,2 & 3 skull difficulty?

I'm not sure whether you don't understand what was proposed or are just looking to object as the title of the OP had reaper in it. I wasn't proposing removing norm, hard and elite and starting with 1 skull reaper (which is how I interpret your reaction) but just unifying the 2 into 1 selection as it were.

[Weemadarthur]

Why do you assume new player are terrible? I'm a new player and cannot say there is a massive barrier. I worked hard over the past 5 month, got my wings and having a great time running r10s with my friends. For someone that being playing along time you seem to assumptions alot about the new player base. I'm not sure where you draw these assumptions however they are entirely false. This game is so much easy to play then many others even on reaper.

KK I wasnt going to respond to this initially as this sounds like a sock account at a glance trying to prove a point but on the off-chance you are genuine then well done and good for you (not being sarcastic here btw this is genuine).

Now to retort. Over the last 10 years I have been running a newbie friendly guild that exists solely to help new players getting started on G-Land. I spend a lot of my time in game doing TR's and helping new or returning players of all skills and abilities get started and offer build advice (specifically aimed at 1st life easy to play characters), help gear farming, explaining in game mechanics and guided tours of some of the more difficult quests. In that time I have met some truly exceptional players that have gone on to become top end R10 players, some that were pretty good and were able to run and survive in low reapers off the bat and others that were truly awful with a whole spectrum in between.

Now in my posts at no point have I said new players are terrible but due to the amount of them I have met and interacted with I can say for the most part around 80% of them either struggle in R1 initially (not to say they don't improve over time) or more commonly wont even enter reaper due to thinking they wont be able to handle it. The actual idea I proposed in the OP was based on feedback from a group of new/returning players I was actually running with a couple of weeks ago who when they joined my group and started running reapers for the 1st time were actually surprised that it wasn't much harder than elite. This started a discussion on why there were 2 different difficulty rankings rather than 1 unified one. Off the back of that I thought I would make this post and see what others thought whilst incorporating all of the concerns raised in that same discussion and working a solution into them.

Now as I said before I am not saying this is the best solution, I am not even claiming its a great idea, its just the best I could come up with on short notice before going to work one evening. If you like it fine, if you don't great, if you have better ideas please feel free to post them.

[Thrudh]

OK, we have no marketing, you can't create a new account and the game is essentially broken do to lag and animation issues. Who are these new players? Please focus on more constructive posts that are more relevant to the current state of the game...

There is no lag for new players.

It appears to be a problem for the power-users only. They are doing something that the game can't handle... It might be something the devs didn't plan for (like breaking attack animations) or it might just be they have so much stuff going at the same time from being the best (and the devs should fix that).

But the new players and the middle-of-the-road players are not experiencing the same lag that the high-end players are experiencing.

That's a clue to fix the lag for the devs at least.

[fatherpirate]

So why would you lose group 1 when norm hard and elite would still be in game (functioning exactly the same) but just called 1,2 & 3 skull difficulty?

I'm not sure whether you don't understand what was proposed or are just looking to object as the title of the OP had reaper in it. I wasn't proposing removing norm, hard and elite and starting with 1 skull reaper (which is how I interpret your reaction) but just unifying the 2 into 1 selection as it were.

Most of the people who are in group 1 want no part of Reapers and would be happy
if it was removed (won't happen)
So taking Normal, Hard, Elite and turning that into just part of the Reaper system is
a spit in the face. Don't care if it is 'the same'.

Hope that clarified it.
Just because you love something does not mean everyone likes it.
Some people hate what you love.

[TekkenDevil]

How to make Reaper viable for new players in ONE easy step!

1. Return public grouping incentives and revive playing with randoms instead of just resting easy with DDO being played Solo and Private groups until the end of time.

[timmy9999]

there is no lag for new players.

It appears to be a problem for the power-users only. They are doing something that the game can't handle... It might be something the devs didn't plan for (like breaking attack animations) or it might just be they have so much stuff going at the same time from being the best (and the devs should fix that).

But the new players and the middle-of-the-road players are not experiencing the same lag that the high-end players are experiencing.

That's a clue to fix the lag for the devs at least.
lol

[timmy9999]

Why is it that you hardly ever see new players complain about reaper or difficulty settings in this game. The only people that raise these issues constantly are long time players. If this was a major issue, don't you think the forums would be full of new players complaining. But it's not is it.....what's this telling us? Like seriously....

[timmy9999]

Double posted, post deleted.

[donblas]

Why is it that you hardly ever see new players complain about reaper or difficulty settings in this game. The only people that raise these issues constantly are long time players. If this was a major issue, don't you think the forums would be full of new players complaining. But it's not is it.....what's this telling us? Like seriously....

That most new players find reaper irrelevant, or don't play reaper and so don't find reaper to be a problem?

But I haven't done a comprehensive survey and won't draw any unwarranted conclusions from a lack of evidence.

[KBBQ]

Completely untrue my son and four of his friends all on new accounts with the freequest coupon began playing DDO recently I explained classes, enhancement trees, feats, weapons, builds, forums, ddowiki, and shared my reaper experiences with them. Playing with them for a few hours getting them into reaper 1 and showing them a few solid tactics and wishing them well as I left to run errands. Upon my return some 3 hours later my son and his friends were running 3 levels over on reaper 5 on first life characters doing exceedingly well and just smashing it. They all play multiple tactic based games and understand how to fill a role and support one another as a group and understand the goal is to learn to succeed by failing. They are nearing level 20 and have gained nearly 15 reaper points by running every quest on reaper 5 on first life new accounts as players who never played DDO previously. The sixth slot filled in their group was held by my opener account so they bypass the N/H/E lockout and since it is a level 30 they were certainly not using it to do the work for them.



From the looks of the rest of your post you want to award people rxp for running quests with no reaper, no champs, for no challenge and award them rxp. That's seems laughable at best.

Perhaps the thing for new players to do is learn how to play the game put forth some effort and learn their classes, roles, and quests before entering into reaper. It seems like a pretty novel idea but it did only take a few hours for my son's crew to get the basics and then far exceed my expectations of what they would be capable of. They of course used the knowledge I imparted to them, scoured youtube, forums, and all the other resources available to any player and are doing very well all on their own.

In your very own post you highlight several extremely important factors of this new player experience for them that simply aren't naturally available to most new players just checking out the game.
(1) Community/people to play and grow with: your son and his 4 gamer friends who by all accounts are similar types of tryhard gamers in whatever they do
(2) Instruction and teaching: you being a critical resource as well as being able to show them where to find more, versus a fresh player literally taking a college course on this game on his own through scouring the wiki or forums or praying someone will spend time showing them the ropes
(3) Immediate paywall advantages: you got them the free coupon which was only available to VIPs and then opened the quest doors for them, which normal new players can't do without having already paid or invested in the game.

[FranOhmsford]

Why is it that you hardly ever see new players complain about reaper or difficulty settings in this game. The only people that raise these issues constantly are long time players. If this was a major issue, don't you think the forums would be full of new players complaining. But it's not is it.....what's this telling us? Like seriously....

1. Most new players don't come straight to the DDOForums!

2. Unless they've gone VIP or already run N/H/E the only way they get into Reaper is in a low level group where they're easily powered through by the rest of the group!

3. New players don't mind dying in game so much - They expect it as they're new! If they die a couple of times in low level Reaper so what, they're probably dying quite a bit in N/H/E when soloing!

4. New players don't mind being weak compared to long time players - Again they expect this as they're new and haven't spent time and money building up their characters!

5. New players are spending most of their time in Lvl 1-10 quests - Especially if building up a stable of alts {I rarely see any with just one character!}.

6. Most new players leave the game within a couple weeks to a month - Over 90% of them if my experience with new players in Guild is any use!

7. Returning Casual Players likewise! They'll join the guild with their stable of low level alts, play for about a month then disappear again!

[fatherpirate]

You can lump players in 2 Generic groups
------------------------------
Hardcore/multi-life/endgame raid/Reaper player

and

Everyone else
-------------------------------

Both groups have completely different goals and game preferences.
Both are usually at opposite ends on any debate (except lag, nobody likes that).
Both consider their preferences better than the other side.
Both get upset when they think too many developer resources are being wasted on the other group.

I don't really see a way to change this, it seems to be inevitable in any MMORPG that has been around
for a number of years.

[Oxarhamar]

You can lump players in 2 Generic groups
------------------------------
Hardcore/multi-life/endgame raid/Reaper player

and

Everyone else
-------------------------------

Both groups have completely different goals and game preferences.
Both are usually at opposite ends on any debate (except lag, nobody likes that).
Both consider their preferences better than the other side.
Both get upset when they think too many developer resources are being wasted on the other group.

I don't really see a way to change this, it seems to be inevitable in any MMORPG that has been around
for a number of years.


Maybe try not lump players and you will not have such tunnel vision.

[SoulDustar]

In your very own post you highlight several extremely important factors of this new player experience for them that simply aren't naturally available to most new players just checking out the game.
(1) Community/people to play and grow with: your son and his 4 gamer friends who by all accounts are similar types of tryhard gamers in whatever they do
(2) Instruction and teaching: you being a critical resource as well as being able to show them where to find more, versus a fresh player literally taking a college course on this game on his own through scouring the wiki or forums or praying someone will spend time showing them the ropes
(3) Immediate paywall advantages: you got them the free coupon which was only available to VIPs and then opened the quest doors for them, which normal new players can't do without having already paid or invested in the game.

So what you are saying is that a population of around 50k players https://www.mmocult.com/eg7s-acquisition-of-daybreak/ spread across 8 servers with tools like https://www.playeraudit.com/ means there plenty of times for a grouping experience.... Argue it anyway you want a new player not grouping is their own choice they have the same opportunity as everyone else to group.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massively_multiplayer_online_game DDO is after all

1 - fact remains other than playing other MMO games my son and his friends had zero experience playing DDO. They are new players not noobs that is the difference. Trophies for all. Even the last one across the finish line 3 hours later gets a trophy. Second place is just the first place loser.

DDO is a static game, the mobs spawn it the same locations, cast the same spells, mobs don't work together like players can, they don't adjust at all. It's like playing checkers against a child once you know the game.

Hardcore proved it once and for all DDO is not hard at all it's just like WoW run to cap gear up and play if that is what you want. Everything else is just a distraction.

2 - A critical resource me explaining to them the same information that is readily available in more locations than I care to list found easily enough using google. The game is fifteen years old how many resources does anyone need.

3 - Everyone, everyone, everyone had the same access to the free coupon code. Plain and simple. I open quests for all kinds of people and could care less if they are new players, returning players, or vet players on new characters, The opener I utilize is a first lifer with over 6600 favor so it's not like anyone else can't do the same. I pike my opener in groups for hours if a group is using it. A zero level investment for a huge return.

https://www.ddo.com/en/news/free-questing-coupon-and-vip-update-%E2%80%93-thank-you-standing-stone-games

Anyone can see the code was available for anyone not VIP only. Come up with a better story.

I made more than 2 dozen free accounts using the code gave them all away had 2 returned to me and will give them away in the future. All of those accounts are still active and enjoying the game and no they are all not on my home server either because I am not about to carry 2 dozen new players. From your forum join date which really means nothing but you could have done the same and so could have hundreds of other long time or short time players.

[boredGamer]

Hardcore proved it once and for all DDO is not hard at all it's just like WoW run to cap gear up and play if that is what you want. Everything else is just a distraction.

2 - A critical resource me explaining to them the same information that is readily available in more locations than I care to list found easily enough using google. The game is fifteen years old how many resources does anyone need.

3 - Everyone, everyone, everyone had the same access to the free coupon code. Plain and simple. I open quests for all kinds of people and could care less if they are new players, returning players, or vet players on new characters, The opener I utilize is a first lifer with over 6600 favor so it's not like anyone else can't do the same. I pike my opener in groups for hours if a group is using it. A zero level investment for a huge return.

Anyone can see the code was available for anyone not VIP only. Come up with a better story.

I made more than 2 dozen free accounts using the code gave them all away had 2 returned to me and will give them away in the future. All of those accounts are still active and enjoying the game and no they are all not on my home server either because I am not about to carry 2 dozen new players. From your forum join date which really means nothing but you could have done the same and so could have hundreds of other long time or short time players.

It's shocking what a twist of reality this whole section is. Also, isn't the last line a massive violation ?

[Annex]

A group of people I know accomplished something therefore any group of people can accomplish the same thing represents an Argumentative Fallacy called Hasty Generalization. Since the forums see a steady flow of players reporting both success and failure in Reaper Mode, solo and in groups, we can easily demonstrate that the argument is incorrect.

The more common argument seen in these forums goes something like: People failing in Reaper Mode are ignorant, lazy, poorly skilled, stupid, and/or unwilling to accept help, therefore changes to Reaper Mode are unnecessary. I call this the, 'let the weaklings fail', argument. A counter argument might go something like this: People who are ignorant, lazy, poorly skilled, stupid, and/or unwilling to accept help fail in Reaper Mode and often leave DDO. Players who leave DDO do not provide additional net profit to Standing Stone Games. The people at Standing Stone Games wish to generate as much net profit as possible. Changes to Reaper Mode would cause some players who leave to stay. Changes to Reaper Mode would cause some players who stay to leave. Therefore, the people at Standing Stone Games should adjust Reaper Mode in such a way as to retain the maximum number of players and thus maximize net profit.

Most people respond to the argument above with, "it is impossible', 'no better system exists', 'let the weaklings fail', or 'any change to Reaper Mode will make it worse for me'.

I am of the opinion that the Idea Space for DDO is vast, on the order of an infinite number of infinities. Given that vast Idea Space, a better version of DDO than the current one, with regards Reaper Mode, seeking the greatest good for the greatest number, must exist. In fact, I believe that Idea Space of better versions of DDO is, itself, infinite. I do not accept any argument in the form, 'I cannot imagine a better version of DDO, therefore it must not exist and we should maintain the status quo'. I do not accept this argument with regards Reaper Mode, the Cosmetics System, Hire Behavior, Lag, Storage, and many other problems that plague DDO.

So, going back to the original premise of this thread, seeking ideas to improve Reaper Mode for players who currently avoid it, does anyone have any new ones? Perhaps it makes sense to collect the ideas suggested thus far for review.

[harmlesslarry]

I think were seeing a new slew of posts about reaper because of all the new players that came last year. I hate to tell you, but this is how the game runs. You have to suck it up and play reaper to get points. Most groups dont mind if youre useless or near useless in reaper, just try to keep up and throw heals and reses when you can.

[Wizard1406]

Players who leave DDO do not provide additional net profit to Standing Stone Games. The people at Standing Stone Games wish to generate as much net profit as possible. Changes to Reaper Mode would cause some players who leave to stay. Changes to Reaper Mode would cause some players who stay to leave. Therefore, the people at Standing Stone Games should adjust Reaper Mode in such a way as to retain the maximum number of players and thus maximize net profit.

So, going back to the original premise of this thread, seeking ideas to improve Reaper Mode for players who currently avoid it, does anyone have any new ones? Perhaps it makes sense to collect the ideas suggested thus far for review.

Yes, I don't quite understand why SSG doesn't try to also appeal to casual players. They make up the majority of MMO players these days, so lots of potential for higher population and money earning. They spend money mostly on cosmetics/fun stuff or utility rather than "pay to advance faster" stuff.

My idea about easier reaper entry are automatic "Reaper Durability" feats, similar to "heroic durability feats" that were introduced because enemies come in much larger packs and many more fights between shrines, than in PnP. These reaper durability feats would not be active on hardcore or any new server (as everyone starts with 0 reaper points and there is no catch-up needed). They would give HP, MRR, PRR and saves in reaper mode and deactivate once a character has earned a certain amount of Rxp.

Reaper leadership was introduced as an idea by the devs, but I don't like this being tied to party leadership. This could lead to pressure to give up the star if you have low RP. Or LFMs from low reaper point people being ignored. I think it should rather be an aura that a player with high RP could activate to help party members.