Cheap, easy and massive game expansion ideas!

[FURYous]

Idea 1:
Take all the quests/raids in the game that have the lowest attendance, add 10% XP. Rinse and repeat until you have a better balance across the game.

This would also help a LOT with burnout, I for one, get tired of running the same quests over and over, but if I deviate, it takes twice as long to level. Also some of these quests are great and took a long time to create, wouldn't it be nice if more than 2 people a week did them?

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Idea two:
Give a bonus to players that spend extra time in a quest. Reward the people who take the time to enjoy the trip rather than try to get to the end ASAP. It shouldn't be too hard to make a baseline and then give a bonus based on if you were over that time. NOTE: I am a zerger and just want to get back to cap ASAP, but I want to see the role-players get rewarded for playing the game the way it was designed.

If you knew that the extra time you spent in coalescence chamber or proof is in the poison and such was going to add up to an extra 50% XP for a "smelling the flowers" bonus or what ever, wouldn't you do them?

Also it would encourage the zergers to slow down when they have non zergers in the group, lend a helping hand to teach rather than tell them to just wait for you to finish it for them.

Make it easy to see by adding it as an optional, the "smelling the flowers option"

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Idea Three:
Add a bonus for non hireling group size, it wouldn't have to be much, 5% per member added, so 25% max for a full group?. This would encourage grouping and that may lead to making friends and that may lead to more time playing the game.

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Any other ideas?

Oh wait! I just got a great self serving idea! Give an Otto's box or some other significant reward for the ideas your players come up with that you use!

[patang01]

Drop chance for heroic comms in all epic raids.

Add a new side quest feature to all current quests - roll out more and more in every update. Side quests are a number of random fairly straight forward side dungeons seeded randomly at 1 of up to 5 spots in the changed quest. It's entirely voluntary. It comes in a mega spawned, trapped or spawned flavor. The higher difficulty the greater chance that you find a side quest, that it's either mega or trapped and that it's one of the longer side quests.

Each side quest provides 1 chest per difficulty setting (no side quests spawns in casual) and the XP should be around 50% to 75% of the the regular quest. These side quests will be pre-determined as regular quests are converted to include side quests. Usually in obscure spots that will provide an incentive to explore. If no side quest spawns it's a bricked over wall. If it does (and it can spawn multiple side quests in each quest) it's a door.

Again - all voluntary, but with a decent enough XP incentive and loot thrown in for good measure. Each side quest is randomly pulled from 15-30 different dungeons of a varied amount of localities. Think those side caves from rare locations in wilderness but larger. It can be a overgrown cave, a small ruined under ground temple, man made caves or tunnels and the traps can be stuff like rocks and such falling if you make enough ruckus.

The XP target should always be so that it makes sense to explore and complete and it should be motivating enough for everyone from XP/minute players to flower sniffers. (since most side quests are fairly straight forward this should be a no brainer for people who want to get their xp per minute hats on)

And if loot strikes your fancy these could be created so the loot drop is 1 or 2 steps higher then normal, or even specific named loot only drops in these side quests. Kind of like Icy Raiment and the subt skellie.

[Havok.cry]

Idea 1:
Take all the quests/raids in the game that have the lowest attendance, add 10% XP. Rinse and repeat until you have a better balance across the game.

This would also help a LOT with burnout, I for one, get tired of running the same quests over and over, but if I deviate, it takes twice as long to level. Also some of these quests are great and took a long time to create, wouldn't it be nice if more than 2 people a week did them?

================================================== ==========================
Idea two:
Give a bonus to players that spend extra time in a quest. Reward the people who take the time to enjoy the trip rather than try to get to the end ASAP. It shouldn't be too hard to make a baseline and then give a bonus based on if you were over that time. NOTE: I am a zerger and just want to get back to cap ASAP, but I want to see the role-players get rewarded for playing the game the way it was designed.

If you knew that the extra time you spent in coalescence chamber or proof is in the poison and such was going to add up to an extra 50% XP for a "smelling the flowers" bonus or what ever, wouldn't you do them?

Also it would encourage the zergers to slow down when they have non zergers in the group, lend a helping hand to teach rather than tell them to just wait for you to finish it for them.

Make it easy to see by adding it as an optional, the "smelling the flowers option"

================================================== =========================
Idea Three:
Add a bonus for non hireling group size, it wouldn't have to be much, 5% per member added, so 25% max for a full group?. This would encourage grouping and that may lead to making friends and that may lead to more time playing the game.

================================================== =========================
Any other ideas?

Oh wait! I just got a great self serving idea! Give an Otto's box or some other significant reward for the ideas your players come up with that you use!

/signed

In addition: Change bravery bonus to be the first time you run it on that difficulty rather than just the first time you run the quest. This would releive the drive most have to run it the first time on elite and would maybe open up more lfms for all those who solo now because their non-elite lfms never fill. It would also retain the bonus for everyone one who can do everything on elite. It would be new player friendly as well as they could learn the content, then try for elite later.

[Havok.cry]

If no side quest spawns it's a bricked over wall. If it does (and it can spawn multiple side quests in each quest) it's a door.

I like your idea, and /signed to most of it. This part however I would change. It would take less resources for them to implement this into dungeons if they just drop in a portal instead of altering the architecture, so I would do this with portals. The easier it is for them to implement, the more likely it might happen. Actual doors would look better though, in most cases.

[Charononus]

Idea 1:
Take all the quests/raids in the game that have the lowest attendance, add 10% XP. Rinse and repeat until you have a better balance across the game.

This would also help a LOT with burnout, I for one, get tired of running the same quests over and over, but if I deviate, it takes twice as long to level. Also some of these quests are great and took a long time to create, wouldn't it be nice if more than 2 people a week did them?

some need a whole ________ of a lot more than 10% but it'd be a start.

Idea two:
Give a bonus to players that spend extra time in a quest. Reward the people who take the time to enjoy the trip rather than try to get to the end ASAP. It shouldn't be too hard to make a baseline and then give a bonus based on if you were over that time. NOTE: I am a zerger and just want to get back to cap ASAP, but I want to see the role-players get rewarded for playing the game the way it was designed.

If you knew that the extra time you spent in coalescence chamber or proof is in the poison and such was going to add up to an extra 50% XP for a "smelling the flowers" bonus or what ever, wouldn't you do them?

Also it would encourage the zergers to slow down when they have non zergers in the group, lend a helping hand to teach rather than tell them to just wait for you to finish it for them.

Make it easy to see by adding it as an optional, the "smelling the flowers option"

Some quests even if you add a 500% bonus wouldn't have optionals that would be worth it. Also you don't want zergers in the same group with flowersniffers, the power level difference and mindset is so different that you will never get a good interaction with the two groups. I don't think this one should be done, I think it would fix nothing and potentially cause more problems if you did manage to throw the two groups together. That leaves out the pseudo exploit of ok I'm in shadow crypt I'm going to go make a sandwhich have a smoke then start so I get the full bonus.

Idea Three:
Add a bonus for non hireling group size, it wouldn't have to be much, 5% per member added, so 25% max for a full group?. This would encourage grouping and that may lead to making friends and that may lead to more time playing the game.

================================================== =========================
Any other ideas?

Oh wait! I just got a great self serving idea! Give an Otto's box or some other significant reward for the ideas your players come up with that you use!

This would encourage multi-boxing not grouping, want to encourage grouping? Eliminate all scaling from elite and put those at a scaling of 6 people at all times.

[danotmano1998]

Idea 1:
Take all the quests/raids in the game that have the lowest attendance, add 10% XP.

Agreed!!

Idea two:
Give a bonus to players that spend extra time in a quest.

That is too easily exploitable.
You could just go into the dungeon and afk for 20 minutes.
Plus, this is already implemented in a way by completing optionals.
I would suggest just upping the optional xp in some cases, and perhaps offering a bonus optional that rewards additional xp if ALL the optionals are done in that quest.

Idea Three:
Add a bonus for non hireling group size,

You would encourage multi-boxing, so this is debatable as to it's actual worth IMO.

[FURYous]

some need a whole ________ of a lot more than 10% but it'd be a start.

The idea would be to keep adding 10% until they got used more. Just do it in passes so you don't have to keep re-balancing.

Some quests even if you add a 500% bonus wouldn't have optionals that would be worth it. Also you don't want zergers in the same group with flowersniffers, the power level difference and mindset is so different that you will never get a good interaction with the two groups. I don't think this one should be done, I think it would fix nothing and potentially cause more problems if you did manage to throw the two groups together. That leaves out the pseudo exploit of ok I'm in shadow crypt I'm going to go make a sandwhich have a smoke then start so I get the full bonus.

I have to disagree with you on this, I consider myself a zerger but there are times I want to just group and play too. I don't want to take all day in a quest but if I have someone new to the game with me, I normally slow down a bit to make sure they see how to do the quest. If there was a bonus for taking my time to show them the quest, I would do it a lot more often.

On your point of eating a sandwich, so? OK, go get your sandwich, you still have to complete the quest and you get less XP than it would take me to do it 2 or 3 times in the same amount of time it took you to do it once with a sandwich. Oh wait I see the problem, I don't get a sammich! **** it, I want a sammich!

This would encourage multi-boxing not grouping, want to encourage grouping? Eliminate all scaling from elite and put those at a scaling of 6 people at all times.

Maybe for some, but they are already multi boxing if they want to. For me at least, I play multi player games to play with other real live people, they just get in the way sometimes if I am in a hurry to get XP, if adding them to my group got me more XP, guess what?

[Charononus]

On your point of eating a sandwich, so? OK, go get your sandwich, you still have to complete the quest and you get less XP than it would take me to do it 2 or 3 times in the same amount of time it took you to do it once with a sandwich. Oh wait I see the problem, I don't get a sammich! **** it, I want a sammich!

It's more on the lines of I was going to take a break but instead of logging off I'm sitting in a quest, and if you made it big enough to be worth it as a bonus to not zerg for whatever reasons it means it'd be worth it to get that bonus to stack onto the streak run for the big xp quests.

[FURYous]

It's more on the lines of I was going to take a break but instead of logging off I'm sitting in a quest, and if you made it big enough to be worth it as a bonus to not zerg for whatever reasons it means it'd be worth it to get that bonus to stack onto the streak run for the big xp quests.

There will always be exceptions to the rule. I still don't see the problem with this but I will grant your point for the sake of argument.

Let's say they do this, they get a bonus to one quest and they still have to get back before they time out. They can't do this very many times without having to just sit and play the game for real.

I am not advocating making this an hour or longer, just long enough that if a new player were to do all the optional, they would get a bonus, it doesn't have to be 50%, how about 25%? enough that if you take your time you don't lose too much over zerging.

The up side of this, is that you reward the many people who would prefer to take their time and not be rushed by the want-to-be zergers in their group.

Also, maybe it would be nice to take a pee break once in a while without your fellow zergers complaining about how you are slowing them down maybe take a minute or three to level up? spend enhancements?
In a nutshell, make it so you don't lose too much if you do decide to slow down a bit and just enjoy the details.

[patang01]

I like your idea, and /signed to most of it. This part however I would change. It would take less resources for them to implement this into dungeons if they just drop in a portal instead of altering the architecture, so I would do this with portals. The easier it is for them to implement, the more likely it might happen. Actual doors would look better though, in most cases.

Sure - the idea with the brick wall is just to indicate for people who search for them that this is a spot where it would normally spawn. Unless there's a relatively safe way to spawn these doors anywhere - without breaking the quest progress. My idea is that you create these spots for every quests so you know they're safe and then just random whether or not they're up. But whatever works. And they should all be located outside the normal path so it provides an incentive to explore.

[redspecter23]

In terms of lowest effort to awesomeness ratio.

1. Add heroic commendations to all epic raids. Yes I know it's been mentioned already, but it's such an easy quick fix to get raids back on the map again that it needs more attention. Man hours? Probably about 10 minutes to replace the loot table data per raid and a few hours to test before it hits lam for real testing.

2. Add +5 upgrade tomes back at level 27 loot. Basically revert the tome system to that of pre U19. Add skill tomes if necessary, but make it separate so it doesn't clutter up the ability tome tables. Make augment drop rates static between levels. 5% per chest. None of this 1% nonsense for high levels chests. Adding skill augments to that pool just made it worse. Man hours? Who knows. It probably shouldn't have been tinkered with in U19 to start with. It's some number changes on loot tables. Shouldn't be too extensive.

3. Scrap the new loot gen system until it's actually finished. It's missing so many affixes it feels like bare bones alpha test mode. Give us back what we had before and if that means loot table caps at 31 until you get the new system ready, that's fine by me. I still have a feeling the loot table is capped below what's possible anyway, making gems in highest content a waste of money. Man hours? A couple hours to dig up the old code and copy/paste it onto the mess that is the new loot gen system. I'm sure it's more complicated than that, but like #2, it was better before any changes, just revert. With Turbine's version control, we might just end up getting this anyway, completely accidentally.

[hp1055cm]

Cut the subscription rate in half, cut the TP price in half at the store and get more people to play and thereby have more PUGs running PTP quests. Everybody wins.

[Forzah]

I like all those 3 ideas!

[Teh_Troll]

Give a player 5 TP for every LFM he puts up that fills (with some mechanism to prevent exploitation).

[redspecter23]

Give a player 5 TP for every LFM he puts up that fills (with some mechanism to prevent exploitation).

Turbine paying me to fill up groups? Sign me up. It would be tremendously difficult to set up in a non exploitive way, but the idea is a good one overall.

[Teh_Troll]

Turbine paying me to fill up groups? Sign me up. It would be tremendously difficult to set up in a non exploitive way, but the idea is a good one overall.

a cap of one per hour or something so you can't just break and reform every quest.

And too be even more evil . . . make it only for those inane public LFMs.

[Ashlayna]

There will always be exceptions to the rule. I still don't see the problem with this but I will grant your point for the sake of argument.

Let's say they do this, they get a bonus to one quest and they still have to get back before they time out. They can't do this very many times without having to just sit and play the game for real.

I am not advocating making this an hour or longer, just long enough that if a new player were to do all the optional, they would get a bonus, it doesn't have to be 50%, how about 25%? enough that if you take your time you don't lose too much over zerging.

The up side of this, is that you reward the many people who would prefer to take their time and not be rushed by the want-to-be zergers in their group.

Also, maybe it would be nice to take a pee break once in a while without your fellow zergers complaining about how you are slowing them down maybe take a minute or three to level up? spend enhancements?
In a nutshell, make it so you don't lose too much if you do decide to slow down a bit and just enjoy the details.

As a free player, you can afk for 30 minutes, and as a VIP, it's an hour. I can, and have afkd for both amounts of time while, quite literally running to the store. So, instead of sitting in town, I sit in a quest, come back, and zerg, and presto, the best of both worlds. That's the problem with adding something easily exploitable, it will easily be exploited. The idea of adding a bonus for completing all optionals would be better, since it would actually require playing the quest rather than sitting at the entrance for a half hour.

[Bolo_Grubb]

I like a lot of these ideas.

Some raids just need to be easier to get to after the first time there. IE the Hound and Vision of destruction. Teleport systems similar to the Stormhorn are and there quest.

Or make the subterrane more rewarding somehow. the Subterrane and the Vale are the same level range but the subterrane seem way more difficult.

[Teh_Troll]

The idea of adding a bonus for completing all optionals would be better, since it would actually require playing the quest rather than sitting at the entrance for a half hour.

Optionals should pay a lot more than they do.

And all new quests since MoTU should have their XP base doubled.

[Ashlayna]

Optionals should pay a lot more than they do.

And all new quests since MoTU should have their XP base doubled.

I don't disagree with that. My point in that post was that XP for X amount of time in a quest is a bad idea.