New Hardcore League Season Ideas

[Qadashael]

Post new ideas for things that you think might be easy to implement, but would change things up for a future season of Hardcore. Bad ideas are OK.

A few from myself:


Hardcore Speedrunning: A timer ticks up when in quests. A leaderboard tracks the top players getting to 20 by time in quest. All quests lock 1 minute into the quest, preventing other players from entering for the league so that players can't just enter near-complete quests.
Item degradation. Remove the ability to repair items on server. Possibly double items from chests to compensate. Players need to constantly cycle their items and cannot easily farm gear for mains, and/or need to save their best gear for scary situations.
Forced team play - Possibly by only opening quests to groups of 3 or more, or having a stacking debuff for number of missing players.
Some use of veteran status as a means of rerolling on death to mitigate lost progress. You keep favor collected up to level 4 or level 7 based on unlock status.

[Gram]

No action points earned from experience.
If that is excessively hardcore, an alternate means of earning action points in place of experience: 1 ap/100 favor, 1 ap/faction favor reward, or 1 ap/monster manual character deed?

Everyone has permanent Epic Defensive Fighting active.

Remove all vendors, but replace gems with spell components, dissolvers, etc. And leave a torch on the floor somewhere in Rest Stop.

Reduce the overlevel entry limit from 4.

Remove the elite difficulty.

Progressive content unlocking, either over time or based on player influenced milestones. Or both? Allow platinum (or shard) "donations" to be accumulated as "votes" for the content to be unlocked the next day.

Remove all shrines, disallow quest reentry, implement a 2 minute lockout timer, and disable hirelings with divine vitality.

Disable moving forward and backward. crab people crab people

[ironmaiden-br]

1- must play quest at level on normal hard elite.
if you run R1 you can run 1 lv above , R2 2 lvs above R3, 3 levels above, R4 4 lvs above

[Memnir]

Just bring back the Mimic Invasion, or something like it. Don't need to reinvent the wheel every time - and that was honestly the most fun I've had in Hardcore. This season just felt like week-old leftovers as a result, and I didn't partake of it much.

I also don't feel like adding challenge by reductions or restrictions are going to make future seasons fun, either. Challenging, sure. Fun - hard no.
And if it's not fun* - I'm out. That's a game-wide axiom, not just for HCL, but it's been the secret to my long-term enjoyment of the game so I'm going to keep abiding by that mindset.



*for me. YMMV

[DoctorOfLiterature]

I would like to see a Lvl 30 reward. I achieved 1750 favor and reached lvl 20 and stopped. If there had been a lvl 30 reward I would have kept playing to try and reach it.

[TrinityTurtle]

Just bring back the Mimic Invasion, or something like it. Don't need to reinvent the wheel every time - and that was honestly the most fun I've had in Hardcore. This season just felt like week-old leftovers as a result, and I didn't partake of it much.

*for me. YMMV

I'm with you Memnir, I had a blast with the mimics. I got my horse with a month to go, so just kept tooling around collecting up mimic gear because it was silly fun and a good time. :) I hit this season to get the rewards, I didn't make it season one and two, had to learn to control my add behaviors in an unforgiving setting, so was happy to get them, but the minute I did I just wandered off, there wasn't anything fun to keep me goofing off on hc once I got the footprints (which look hilariously bad on a gnome, they don't scale like horses, I look like a bigfoot faker wearing big wooden foot patterns running around).

[Qadashael]

Just bring back the Mimic Invasion, or something like it. Don't need to reinvent the wheel every time - and that was honestly the most fun I've had in Hardcore.

I'm with you there - the Mimic season was probably the most fun to play. That and the one with unusual champions no one understood at first - the danger was real. Maybe let the mimics do something other than acid damage, or even a random typed elemental damage? You can still skip a chest, but if you take it and it's a mimic, it might hit hard in a way that isn't completely negligible with some acid resistance. Or maybe mimics have an element based on quest level. 1-4 acid, 5-8 fire, etc.

Reskin reapers as skeletal ghosts and make it pirate-themed, maybe. Add a few creepy sound effects, or a one-second piano rift that announces spawn of a reaper so you know that there's danger somewhere before seeing it just to heighten the tension a bit (Left4Dead did this to great effect).

[Oxarhamar]

Just bring back the Mimic Invasion, or something like it. Don't need to reinvent the wheel every time - and that was honestly the most fun I've had in Hardcore. This season just felt like week-old leftovers as a result, and I didn't partake of it much.

I also don't feel like adding challenge by reductions or restrictions are going to make future seasons fun, either. Challenging, sure. Fun - hard no.
And if it's not fun* - I'm out. That's a game-wide axiom, not just for HCL, but it's been the secret to my long-term enjoyment of the game so I'm going to keep abiding by that mindset.



*for me. YMMV


I’m with it but hopefully this time they will also bring it to live

Mimic event on live is too rare & too short

Chests should always have a chance to be a mimic if you asked me & mimic event should make the chance higher

[brian14]

I too vote to bring back Mimics! That was the most fun event.

[fatherpirate]

hmmm

I would have a season called Friends.

Besides all the usual stuff, the only (brutal) change would be ...
anyone can and will get hurt by any AOE attack (spell or otherwise)
if they are standing in the area of effect. Regardless of who throws it.
(combat areas only)
no ganking noobs in Korthos village. (sorry)

to include cleaves

That should ... encourage better teamwork :-)

oh yea, don't tell the players about it ... let them figure it out.

(insert evil laugh here)

[Cranjis]

Something to keep players going after getting their rewards. Most people on hc just show up and play until they get what they came for, then it starts to die out. Maybe if there was some reward system for people that achieve certain rewards?

[Cranjis]

How about time barriers? Sort of goes with speedrun topic, but instead, the first person/group to run a quest sets a time based on how fast they finished it. The next group to run said quest has to beat that time. If they don't the quest kills everyone in the group the moment the timer ticks over the current record. The time keeps getting shorter and shorter until everyone else is too afraid to enter it, and the current record holders get an Otto's box

[fatherpirate]

The only way I can think of to keep players for the duration is
some kind of special loot/rewards that rarely pop up only in HCL chests
but can not be had any other way.

Gold seal BTA hirelings from discontinued expansions.
Cosmetic items from discontinued expansions.
Special event promotional items.
Special HCL only rare loot drops (named items)

and so on.

Make them rare-ish items in final dungeon chests
(level appropriate) and you will see folks stick around ... :-)

[KoobTheProud]

The way you keep players for HCL is to make the server permanent and to make the counts over cumulative lives.

So you keep adding favor up over each life you do. You wipe Reaper points at the end of each life at the TR/ETR but cumulatively add them to the character's score, etc.

That would keep people playing HCL over time and it would prevent Reaper point accumulation from trivializing content over time.

The rewards would be over a set span, say 3 months, that then reset at the end of the span. This would allow the most active players in HCL to continually gain cosmetics and other things several times a year while also being in the grand chase to top the eternal leaderboard on the HCL server.

The problem with cumulative power through many past lives would resolve itself when characters died. Now that would be challenge. Keeping your character alive because when they died all the past lives went with them.

[jskinner937]

The way you keep players for HCL is to make the server permanent and to make the counts over cumulative lives.

So you keep adding favor up over each life you do. You wipe Reaper points at the end of each life at the TR/ETR but cumulatively add them to the character's score, etc.

That would keep people playing HCL over time and it would prevent Reaper point accumulation from trivializing content over time.

The rewards would be over a set span, say 3 months, that then reset at the end of the span. This would allow the most active players in HCL to continually gain cosmetics and other things several times a year while also being in the grand chase to top the eternal leaderboard on the HCL server.

The problem with cumulative power through many past lives would resolve itself when characters died. Now that would be challenge. Keeping your character alive because when they died all the past lives went with them.

I feel like hcl appeal is that you start with nothing. A perma server would be OK but do not like the idea of a running tally and protection at all. That’s not hardcore.

Personally, I would rather scrap the reaper points rewards. Favor rewards are the appeal. Maybe include some additional rewards to replace reapers. Like mysterious remnant count, kill count, mimics coins (if active). Reaper is the worst part of HCL.

Or what I would really love to see is a HCL specific currency (that drops in quests) and transfers to live with your characters to buy cosmetics and special augments or something.

[Oxarhamar]

The only way I can think of to keep players for the duration is
some kind of special loot/rewards that rarely pop up only in HCL chests
but can not be had any other way.

Gold seal BTA hirelings from discontinued expansions.
Cosmetic items from discontinued expansions.
Special event promotional items.
Special HCL only rare loot drops (named items)

and so on.

Make them rare-ish items in final dungeon chests
(level appropriate) and you will see folks stick around ... :-)

Not signed

HCL has it’s reward system

[Oxarhamar]

hmmm

I would have a season called Friends.

Besides all the usual stuff, the only (brutal) change would be ...
anyone can and will get hurt by any AOE attack (spell or otherwise)
if they are standing in the area of effect. Regardless of who throws it.
(combat areas only)
no ganking noobs in Korthos village. (sorry)

to include cleaves

That should ... encourage better teamwork :-)

oh yea, don't tell the players about it ... let them figure it out.

(insert evil laugh here)

Yeah this will never work


Players will either solo or risk being accidentally one shot by party members

Potential for griefing too high

You want PVP on HCL there is a tavern for that

[fatherpirate]

The way you keep players for HCL is to make the server permanent and to make the counts over cumulative lives.

So you keep adding favor up over each life you do. You wipe Reaper points at the end of each life at the TR/ETR but cumulatively add them to the character's score, etc.

That would keep people playing HCL over time and it would prevent Reaper point accumulation from trivializing content over time.

The rewards would be over a set span, say 3 months, that then reset at the end of the span. This would allow the most active players in HCL to continually gain cosmetics and other things several times a year while also being in the grand chase to top the eternal leaderboard on the HCL server.

The problem with cumulative power through many past lives would resolve itself when characters died. Now that would be challenge. Keeping your character alive because when they died all the past lives went with them.

===========================
the hardcore elite players
'the whales'
will never allow it or support it because it will cut into their raid population.

[fatherpirate]

Yeah this will never work


Players will either solo or risk being accidentally one shot by party members

Potential for griefing too high

You want PVP on HCL there is a tavern for that

this was never a serious suggestion ...
it would require serious recoding of the games combat system so that
is never going to happen.

[fatherpirate]

Not signed

HCL has it’s reward system

someone asked how to keep players on the HCL after it had run a while,
I gave an answer as to what would be required to entice
players to stick around.

also will never happen.

SSG will never willingly give away stuff they can
(at a later date) sell for big bucks if they have a cash
crunch issue.

My answer was more of a way to say, most players will not stick around
after they have got what they came for.

As long as that server is closed and wiped on a regular basis,
nobody will invest a lot of extra time in it.

[Oxarhamar]

someone asked how to keep players on the HCL after it had run a while,
I gave an answer as to what would be required to entice
players to stick around.

also will never happen.

SSG will never willingly give away stuff they can
(at a later date) sell for big bucks if they have a cash
crunch issue.

My answer was more of a way to say, most players will not stick around
after they have got what they came for.

As long as that server is closed and wiped on a regular basis,
nobody will invest a lot of extra time in it.

It’s good thing that it’s wiped that’s what keeps players investing time in it to earn the rewards

So suggesting things that you believe are unreasonable to begin with is your bag then

[fatherpirate]

It’s good thing that it’s wiped that’s what keeps players investing time in it to earn the rewards

So suggesting things that you believe are unreasonable to begin with is your bag then

to be fair, nobody like reasonable things either.

The game and the forum are ... heavily elitist.
So most ( not all ) players here will shoot down
ANYTHING (bad or good) that does not give them
an advantage. Even if the issue being debated
has nothing to do with any of their game play will side
against it automatically based solely on the fact it does not
personally help them so it must be a waste of time
and effort that would be better spent doing something in
game that makes 'MY" characters most powerful.

[jskinner937]

to be fair, nobody like reasonable things either.

The game and the forum are ... heavily elitist.
So most ( not all ) players here will shoot down
ANYTHING (bad or good) that does not give them
an advantage. Even if the issue being debated
has nothing to do with any of their game play will side
against it automatically based solely on the fact it does not
personally help them so it must be a waste of time
and effort that would be better spent doing something in
game that makes 'MY" characters most powerful.

Normally agree, but not on this point. HCL has appeal because it is limited. A perma HCL destroys the challenge and the fun. If anything the limited time draws players back that do not even play on live anymore. If it was permanent then those players probably would not come back. There is no advantage for SSG to only draw from live server population. It is supposed to be a spin and a new challenge to enjoy.

That all being said, as I mentioned before, if there was a special currency that only dropped in HCL that can be accumulated over all seasons and redeemed on live for stuff, that could appeal to everyone. Maybe it could be exchanged for rXP stones and/or threads of fate or raid runes. Afterall, if you are spending time on a temp server, it could be said you are spending less time gaining resources on live.

[Oxarhamar]

to be fair, nobody like reasonable things either.

The game and the forum are ... heavily elitist.
So most ( not all ) players here will shoot down
ANYTHING (bad or good) that does not give them
an advantage. Even if the issue being debated
has nothing to do with any of their game play will side
against it automatically based solely on the fact it does not
personally help them so it must be a waste of time
and effort that would be better spent doing something in
game that makes 'MY" characters most powerful.

You should speak for yourself reasonable suggestions are much better than any nonsensical ones even if players are not liking it

None of your generalization is accurate if that is the attitude that you approach to the forum that's why you get out what you expect

You are posting to the forum does that make you fit your generalization

There is plenty of improvement that comes from the more serious forums feedback as well

I for one would love to see serious suggestions for HCL



Making it permanent defeats the purpose & the server would end up as dead as the regular servers after rewards are gained seasoned players are getting rewards in 2-3 days probably less for sure

[fatherpirate]

You should speak for yourself reasonable suggestions are much better than any nonsensical ones even if players are not liking it

None of your generalization is accurate if that is the attitude that you approach to the forum that's why you get out what you expect

You are posting to the forum does that make you fit your generalization

There is plenty of improvement that comes from the more serious forums feedback as well

I for one would love to see serious suggestions for HCL



Making it permanent defeats the purpose & the server would end up as dead as the regular servers after rewards are gained seasoned players are getting rewards in 2-3 days probably less for sure

I am curious, do you actually ever have ideas yourself?
no, really. I mean you chime in to shoot down peoples posts all the time,
and I guess that is your thing but have I ever seen you post an original idea yourself?
Maybe you have and I just missed it.
Just curious.

[Artos_Fabril]

New hardcore league idea:

At the end of HCL, instead of shutting down the server, ust turn off the "permadeath" feature after the scoreboards are set, and allow all players to remain if they choose, with all achievements, guilds, etc. intact. Make the completed HCL server a new "Preferred Server", and after the end of the season, allow all players to transfer their characters (up to the per-server limit) to this server as well. Let this option remain open indefinitely, until it because a de facto Megaserver, without ever having to do something so gauche as to create a megaserver and force people to move onto it.

[jskinner937]

New hardcore league idea:

At the end of HCL, instead of shutting down the server, ust turn off the "permadeath" feature after the scoreboards are set, and allow all players to remain if they choose, with all achievements, guilds, etc. intact. Make the completed HCL server a new "Preferred Server", and after the end of the season, allow all players to transfer their characters (up to the per-server limit) to this server as well. Let this option remain open indefinitely, until it because a de facto Megaserver, without ever having to do something so gauche as to create a megaserver and force people to move onto it.

No on megaserver....will create more problems than it solves. This has been discussed many times. Not many are in favor of a mege to one server (maybe smaller merges) but what people want is cross-server groups.

[Artos_Fabril]

No on megaserver....will create more problems than it solves. This has been discussed many times. Not many are in favor of a mege to one server (maybe smaller merges) but what people want is cross-server groups.My understanding is that most people who are against a server merge don't want to lose their stuff, or get merged onto a server where they will be behind the curve (mostly in terms of guilds, but possibly also character limits, per-server unlocks, and of course first time DDO point accumulation). The beauty of this suggestion is that no one is ever forced to move, it would just become free to go where everyone else is.

[Oxarhamar]

I am curious, do you actually ever have ideas yourself?
no, really. I mean you chime in to shoot down peoples posts all the time,
and I guess that is your thing but have I ever seen you post an original idea yourself?
Maybe you have and I just missed it.
Just curious.

Guess again because I have

Thanks for asking YW

[Oxarhamar]

My understanding is that most people who are against a server merge don't want to lose their stuff, or get merged onto a server where they will be behind the curve (mostly in terms of guilds, but possibly also character limits, per-server unlocks, and of course first time DDO point accumulation). The beauty of this suggestion is that no one is ever forced to move, it would just become free to go where everyone else is.

I like this idea

Don't really care about loosing guild stuff that stuff will be back very quickly anyways

I like cross server idea also but mega server works also

[fatherpirate]

Guess again because I have

Thanks for asking YW

GREAT !
The floor is yours, what would you do for the next HCL ?
We are all ears.

[Oxarhamar]

GREAT !
The floor is yours, what would you do for the next HCL ?
We are all ears.

I don't really think that you are as I've already spoken throughout this thread on ideas that are both good & bad.

YW

[drex81]

Most likely much easier said than done, but flip all of the maps (i.e. what was on the east side is now on the west side). Break us out of autopilot for a bit in quests... see how many people continue to c&p Shadow Crypt directions from the wiki.

Could spruce up the mimic event a bit and instead of the normal looking mimics, morph them into something else. For example, a purple dinosaur or a ball of yarn to poke fun at Isle of Dread. Could also change champs into furball like oozes... named after different cat breeds.

[fatherpirate]

Serious possibilities for the next HCL
and a lot of this is dependent on what they
have already released at that point and if
they want to tie HCL to the new DLC.

(If they want to tie it to the DLC)

Expect a dino mount reward.

(If they don't want to tie it to the DLC)

maybe some kind of mixture of past HCL tricks
mimics ? or not.
some kinda HCL reaper variants?
maybe

I just don't see them doing anything ... complicated.
Now that guess I can justify, they will be up to their
eyeballs fixing the new DLC issues. I don't think
they will have the time to do anything weird.

[gravisrs]

Make HC super laggy!

[Oxarhamar]

Make HC super laggy!

Is does tend to be tye deadly bit of HCL

[fatherpirate]

Make HC super laggy!

they don't have to do anything for that ... it is built in

[Yavool]

Let's make this a Hardcore season worth remembering!

Any chest has a chance to spawn a beholder akin to the way mimics spawn. Beholders ramp with difficulty level, including appropriate N/H/E/Reaper champion possibilities. :cool:

-yav

[fatherpirate]

Just do something boring and hard.

No over leveling - your level 6 ? good,
you can no longer enter dungeons level 5.
But what about if I do it on Reapers? no
Go past the dungeon's base level and it is locked out
regardless of difficulty chosen.

and

No hirelings ... period.
Summons-yes hirelings -no


Simple - easy to implement and
hard as hell.

enjoy

[Oxarhamar]

Just do something boring and hard.

No over leveling - your level 6 ? good,
you can no longer enter dungeons level 5.
But what about if I do it on Reapers? no
Go past the dungeon's base level and it is locked out
regardless of difficulty chosen.

and

No hirelings ... period.
Summons-yes hirelings -no


Simple - easy to implement and
hard as hell.

enjoy

Doubt that they would implement the level in restriction or the hireling one

Depending on hiringlings probably makes it harder anyway they are famous for letting players die without healing or grabbing unwanted agro

While I am all for things that encourage grouping punishment for soloist is not the answer

[fatherpirate]

I doubt they look at anything we post on the forum for ideas.

At best they might check the forums for new bugs... they tend to respond to those.
But if a look at what they put out is any clue, it is mostly random stuff.
Sometimes they put out something the customer base likes in general
but that is likely just the luck of the draw.

They put out stuff from random campaigns.
I take it for what it is.

[Oxarhamar]

someone asked how to keep players on the HCL after it had run a while,
I gave an answer as to what would be required to entice
players to stick around.

also will never happen.

SSG will never willingly give away stuff they can
(at a later date) sell for big bucks if they have a cash
crunch issue.

My answer was more of a way to say, most players will not stick around
after they have got what they came for.

As long as that server is closed and wiped on a regular basis,
nobody will invest a lot of extra time in it.

You already know that you have given an unrealistic answer good on you thou it won't do what you claim as players will still get the rewards & bounce even if it was the case

The whole point of the server is to be temporary & wiped

OP was not looking for ways to keep players around but ways to make HLC fresh

Mimic HCL was still the best to date and proof mimics should be chance on chest full time on live

[fatherpirate]

You already know that you have given an unrealistic answer good on you thou it won't do what you claim as players will still get the rewards & bounce even if it was the case

The whole point of the server is to be temporary & wiped

OP was not looking for ways to keep players around but ways to make HLC fresh

Mimic HCL was still the best to date and proof mimics should be chance on chest full time on live

I will give you a head nod on the mimics, that was kinda fun.

[Oxarhamar]

I will give you a head nod on the mimics, that was kinda fun.

The beholder idea sounded pretty good though that would make things interesting

[fatherpirate]

The beholder idea sounded pretty good though that would make things interesting

Might need to limit that to a minimum level of dungeon for them to show up.
a level 2 dungeon with a beholder is pretty much a party wipe.

They could also substitute other things in as well.
Shadows ... and such

The real trick is to find a way to give good players a real challenge without
decimating the average player and still make it fun.

your guess is as good as mine ...lol

[duey]

Just a thought, to keep the leets playing in hc for the full season.

Have a theme based raid that only changes cosmetically with subsequent seasons, and offers unique cosmetic armors as 'chance' drops -not a reward. - have cloaks and hats already.

Group based difficulty - only unlocks if you have 3-5-10-15 players for norm, hard, elite, and reaper setting. And this raid only opens 4 weeks before the end of event, to keep the power gamers around helping other catch up t o qualify, and allow skilled non power gamers time to qualify as well. Kinda of a season wrap up event that I think would be a blast and offer something material(albeit virtual) as a reward.

Maybe that give the 5 reward earners something to do after earning those, but have time to kill.

Or even more crazy, and impossible to implement, allow earners of any tier to cash in their status to play monster mode, like turbines lotr.

[fatherpirate]

To be honest, I kind of wish they would have 2 HCL servers during the event.
One for the leets, it features the just reaper awards and all dungeons only open on reaper.
(minimum reaper 1 even on dungeons that normally do not offer reaper)

and the other, features all the other reward except reaper and reaper levels
are locked.

As it sits, the leet players (reaper) get all the reaper rewards and all the other
rewards by default. (since they overlap)

They should not overlap, you should be required to run 2 different toons on
2 different servers to get both.

The leet players will hate this of course.
don't care.

on the plus side, it will make SSG more money.
They would sell more buffs and tomes and etc.

[lordwyrd]

This would be hard, but any dead players are cloned and come back as handmaids to reapers... Imagine having to fight your dead toon.
They could also give a really good reward to lvl 30, and bring back the end of beta market event at the end of hardcore, let us go out with a bang.

[fatherpirate]

way beyond their ability

[Gnominal_Aphasia]

(1) Mimics... so much fun, and cooperation wins the day!
- If 4 or more players in a party, receive double tokens!!!

(2) Discourage pikers and zergers*:
- end chest only displays end loot/named items if all party members in quest are actively opening the chest together

* a full zerger party would not be penalized! But pikers are not really participting in Hardcore, and one or two zergers in a party are reducing the danger for the others.

(3) Encourage team play and fuller groups:
- named item drop rate increase = 5% x number of players actively opening chest together
- IF named loot drop then group has a 10% chance to receive an extra reward** [each player]

** extra rewards if quest on elite difficulty or higher:
- lvl 1-19 quests: 200 platinum x base quest level x number of party members
- lvl 20+ quests: 500 platinum x base quest level x number of party members
- lvl 10+ quests: additional 100 Mysterious Remnants x number of party members
- lvl 20+ quests: additional 200 Mysterious Remnants x number of party members

(4) If a toon dies, provide option to "Hardcore Resurrect" them once per week [once per seven days]:
- levels 1-9 keep items but favor and xp reset back to zero; you build a new character but with the same name.
- levels 10-19 keep items and favor, but xp reset to equivalent xp required for level 10 [400k/600k/800k]
- levels 20+ keep items and favor, but xp reset to equivalent xp required for level 20 [1.9M/2.85M/3.8M]

(5) Hardcore Item Farming; on eighth attempt [ransack], all named items are available [only one selectable].

[Jacoby]

Just bring back the Mimic Invasion, or something like it. Don't need to reinvent the wheel every time - and that was honestly the most fun I've had in Hardcore. This season just felt like week-old leftovers as a result, and I didn't partake of it much.



*for me. YMMV

Honestly, the mimic invasion is season 4 with the special crown's were the best ever. I died a lot but thoroughly enjoyed the challenge. Season 5 was dull by comparison. We did use it as an opportunity to get a couple guildies their cloaks that would not normally otherwise have tried it, but that's not the point of hardcore. It is for the challenge and it is for those players that need that edge. If it were not for harddcore I would not still be playing this game.

[Oxarhamar]

Might need to limit that to a minimum level of dungeon for them to show up.
a level 2 dungeon with a beholder is pretty much a party wipe.

They could also substitute other things in as well.
Shadows ... and such

The real trick is to find a way to give good players a real challenge without
decimating the average player and still make it fun.

your guess is as good as mine ...lol

I don’t think that it needs to be limited there are lesser beholders appropriate for lower levels & this would be the perfect time to introduce them to the game via reskinned beholder models

I might even come back to HCL for beholder themed prizes HCL 5 offered nothing new

It would take a bit of work in art dept but they could easily use a similar mechanic to spawn just like reapers

Then after that season the lesser beholders could be used in the future in new content in the regular servers so it would be a good way for HCL to bring more to the game than cosmetics

[fatherpirate]

I really don't see them testing something in HCL to be used on the regular servers.
It is usually the other way around.

Not that I have anything against the idea.
HCL is HCL after all.

I am against making HCL significantly easier
but that is not an issue with the beholder idea.

Is it me or is it getting harder to get excited about HCL?
maybe it is burn out .... oh well

[Oxarhamar]

I really don't see them testing something in HCL to be used on the regular servers.
It is usually the other way around.

Not that I have anything against the idea.
HCL is HCL after all.

I am against making HCL significantly easier
but that is not an issue with the beholder idea.

Is it me or is it getting harder to get excited about HCL?
maybe it is burn out .... oh well

Maybe you could try taking a break from worrying about HCL that might help with the burnout

As far as testing things on HC for the regular server there is nothing stopping this from happening in fact the extended mimic event should come to the live servers that was a great test season

[ekaterina]

In LOTRO they have tested quite a few things out on their legendary servers - which are not temporary officially but in practice they have been. Might as well do some of that here.

[Qadashael]

If the problem is keeping players playing after getting rewards, maybe have an NPC that gives a one-time per character ticket they can exchange for a previous year's reward.

Example:
You get 5k favor, talk to the NPC, and receive a 5K Favor ticket. You can then exchange that ticket for any of the previous season's 5K favor rewards OR take this season's rewards. Choosing any of them consumes the ticket but flags your account for that season's rewards. So a player that finishes 5K the first time might select the season 6 reward, roll a new alt, do it again and select the season 1 reward.

[Oxarhamar]

way beyond their ability

Already do this in Deathwyrm so it’s not really too much of a stretch

[Graedyn_Jaxx]

Maybe they could combine the leaderboards into one, only for favor. Reaper adds one favor per skull to the elite favor. Or if not combine them have the reaper board be for favor based on skulls only. This would keep people trying slightly higher reaper to move up right till the end I would think.

[Sir_Noob]

Have a HC season coincide with the release of the playable Kobold player race.

Both Shaman Iconic and a regular Kobold.

This particular season the only race you can play would be KOBOLDS!

Everyone forced to be a Kobold, Yay!


Prizes could include...

Shinies!

Cosmetic Dire Weasel pets!

Dire Weasel Mounts!

Cosmetic armors!

-Cloaks
-Sashes
-Special Shamanic headwear (1750)

Kobold Druid Companions could actually be Dire Weasels!

Can you imagine the hilarity of:

All Kobold Raids!
Kobolds over run the Harbor!
The Marketplace!
All of Storm Reach!
Now we really will remember Water Works.


The Champions faced could be traditional enemies of Kobolds, and Player character NPC's of different classes making up a dungeon party that encounter your party.

I can see this as being so fun...

[Phoenicis]

Have a HC season coincide with the release of the playable Kobold player race.

Both Shaman Iconic and a regular Kobold.

This particular season the only race you can play would be KOBOLDS!

Everyone forced to be a Kobold, Yay!
8<SNIP>8
I can see this as being so fun...

HARD pass.

[superevbully]

How about transfers to home servers actually being a thing

[archest]

sash with a star for each TR

Make the traps quicker to damage without evasion. not higher in dc.
lower the spot dc for seeing the trap or the disabling box
so players without evasion dont run through and set them off.
killing the rogue who follows

[monkeyluv]

Hey guys! How about everything in Reaper Mode. Yes, one can still die when running quests in Elite even when your 4 levels higher than quest. However it's still easy and most people zerg thru them in Elite.

1) VIP players can open a quest on any Reaper Difficulty and maybe f2p/premium can only open on R1 or not

2) Revamp the reward system - the highest FAvor and/or Reaper Points for EACH class. Make the reward specific for each class. Maybe it'll get more people to TR or get people to roll up a different class.

3) Since everything is in Reaper, grouping will be easier

[KoobTheProud]

The answer is still what it was a year ago.

Make the HC server a permanent entity. Keep running leaderboards for Favor, Reaper points, Quests completed. +4 is the maximum level you can enter a quest. When a character dies it can be transferred off to any other server for free. That character disappears from the HC Leaderboards upon death. Award cosmetics at various thresholds for Favor, Reaper points and Quests completed. Cosmetics only claimable by the character that earned them.

Changes from the current HC ruleset would include auto-deaths in quests not causing perma-death so The Shroud is runnable.

My guess is that the HC server would effectively become a mega-server and that it would encourage people playing on it to level and tome and equip multiple characters so that the death of a main character would not exclude them from higher level content as they leveled another character. The meta on hardcore would become slower and more evenly paced than it is on other servers as the cost of a death would factor into the risks most people were willing to take. If you know the hardcore server is permanent then you're under less pressure to PUG to do a particular instance because you can likely do it later on at a safer pace with people you trust.