2020 Producer's Letter Has Arrived

[MaeveTuohy]

https://www.ddo.com/en/news/look-ahe...r-january-2020

There is much to be excited about in this.

Thanks, Severlin, for getting it out earlier, rather than later.

Going to have to read up about the Feywild as I am unfamiliar with it.

New versions of old raids? Bring it.

[FlavoredSoul]

Looks really good and im pretty exci...

wait a second...

doing so will gain you the experience necessary to push past level 30 for the first time in DDO history.

past level 30

How about we don't increase the level cap? Unless they find a creative way to do this it's going to invalidate a ton of content.

[AlmGhandi]

https://www.ddo.com/en/news/look-ahe...r-january-2020

There is much to be excited about in this.

and if not excited... at least much to distract people from the "don't take away mai easy-buffs" stuff....
It is a new era of forum posting.

[MaeveTuohy]

How about we don't increase the level cap? Unless they find a creative way to do this it's going to invalidate a ton of content.

Yes, not very keen on that either, but it is clearly a done deal.

Maybe its a good thing I have only had the chance to do Too Hot to Handle twice and Project Nemesis never.

[J1NG]

Whilst I'm not overly hot on the idea of 30+, I'm not against it either. I have far too many capped toons on hand that need something to do at "cap". So I'm cautiously going to wait and see what happens there.

J1NG

[AlmGhandi]

Whilst I'm not overly hot on the idea of 30+, I'm not against it either. I have far too many capped toons on hand that need something to do at "cap". So I'm cautiously going to wait and see what happens there.

And then they came for the bards...

[vryxnr]

64-bit client?! YES!
Shifter race?! YES!
New quests/adventure packs?! YES!
Updating old stuff and making epic/legendary versions? YES!
All the stuff with update 45?! Mostly yes! My contentions atm are the long ass pre-animation for NHB, and worry about 2HF single target dps still falling behind, well, everything else.

HCL coming back!? Please not too soon. Having this more than once a year is not something I want. I enjoyed it, and lvoe the cosmetic rewards, but I also have friends who play softcore who are not VIP (for a variety of reasons) and friends who are VIP but do not enjoy the idea of permadeath, and I don't want to alienate/abandon them, plus I have long term goals for my softcore characters as well. I'd be happy with once every 2 years, but please no more often than once per year.

Level cap increase?! uh... not pumped about that, sorry. Obviously I will level up to the new cap and farm loot there, but meh, it's not something I'm looking forwards to (heck, I haven't even finished gearing up all my characters at level 30, let alone all the heroic, racial, iconic and epic past lives *falls farther behind*)

edit: now, if it's not a level cap increase, but a new form of exp that can only be gained while at cap that can be used for various other things, I can get behind that if it's done well. What that would look like though? I couldn't say at this moment.

[AlmGhandi]

Shifter race?! YES!

Im too old to get excited about the new-fangled stuff.

[Clemeit]

The 64-bit client can improve the overall performance of the game for many

Faster engine and more RAM utilization is good, but does this also mean multi-core support?

[J1NG]

Does this mean multi-core support?

At the very least, larger memory allocation involved to the client, so hopefully less choppy with certain things inside DDO. Multi-Core itself probably wouldn't have much impact on stuff anyway.

J1NG

[Clemeit]

Multi-Core itself probably wouldn't have much impact on stuff anyway.

J1NG

Multi-core support would actually have a huge impact on performance in public areas such as Eveningstar and slayer areas such as The Land of Barovia where single-core limitations are the main reason for lower frame rates. Rendering that many objects maxes out a single core and caps frame rates way lower than they otherwise would be, causing CPU bottlenecks even on modern machines.

DDO maxing a single core, limiting FPS:

The Land of Barovia, all settings maxed.

[J1NG]

Multi-core support would actually have a huge impact on performance in public areas such as Eveningstar and slayer areas such as The Land of Barovia where single-core limitations are the main reason for lower frame rates. Rendering that many objects maxes out a single core and caps frame rates way lower than they otherwise would be, causing CPU bottlenecks even on modern machines.

Wait... I run those areas all the time and never experience any issues that you're describing. Do you have a clip/video captured of this? Because (as said) I'm not seeing the same thing on my rigs. Would like to see if there's something else that might be of help in those places when players experience those issues.

:: edit ::

What are the rest of those specs and settings you're using? Resolution? Mine also hits 100% one core, but I don't experience the issues you have described. Mind we share notes?

J1NG

[Clemeit]

Wait... I run those areas all the time and never experience any issues that you're describing. Do you have a clip/video captured of this? Because (as said) I'm not seeing the same thing on my rigs. Would like to see if there's something else that might be of help in those places when players experience those issues.

:: edit ::

What are the rest of those specs and settings you're using? Resolution? Mine also hits 100% one core, but I don't experience the issues you have described. Mind we share notes?

J1NG

Hmm... that is interesting. Here's the build:
CPU: i7-6700k
GPU: GTX 1080ti
SSD: 960 Evo M.2 (tried installing DDO on different drives. No effect)

Game resolution: 3440x1440 (tried 2560x1440. No effect)
Game settings: Maxed

I could take a screen recording, but this is what's happening:

• Normally stable FPS capped at 100 (to match monitor's refresh rate)
• Drops to ~50 in Eveningstar, and ~60 in The Land of Barovia
• Reducing Object Draw Distance significantly improves performance (+25 FPS)
• Reducing Landscape Draw Distance marginally improves performance (+10 FPS)

Other observations:
Inside of other city wards and quests, FPS stable/capped at 100. No cores maxed. That drop in FPS happens exclusively when the core DDO is running on maxes out.

Here's House J under identical settings for comparison:

[Kaboom2112]

Just saying, if they add more XP to Epic TRing expect a bunch of people going to Boston with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch.

[Clemeit]

Just saying, if they add more XP to Epic TRing expect a bunch of people going to Boston with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch.

What they should really do is scale the current level cap up to a new one, keeping the same amount of required XP to reach it. That way players would obtain awards at a slightly quicker pace and have access to a bunch of new content without raising the amount of required experience.

[Anuulified]

Looks really good and im pretty exci...

wait a second...





How about we don't increase the level cap? Unless they find a creative way to do this it's going to invalidate a ton of content.

How about we DO pass that level cap, like we have done many times before, and get to where we need to be. You dont invalidate content, you simply make it part of leveling in ddo, but for your sake, DOOM!

[DRoark]

Horrible idea on the level cap, probably the #1 bad idea, the #2 one being Inquisitor, and you KNOW what that did. There's no reason at all to have more than 10 epic levels.
You have to adjust/add more loot (and you ALWAYS complain about balance). This will lead to more creep, more nerfs, and a headache we don't need.

Focus on the new races, content, and fixing OLD problems. Don't screw up the game even more. Seriously. I know you want to add another hamster wheel... just... don't.

[Blase]

Hmm... that is interesting. Here's the build:
CPU: i7-6700k
GPU: GTX 1080ti
SSD: 960 Evo M.2 (tried installing DDO on different drives. No effect)

Game resolution: 3440x1440 (tried 2560x1440. No effect)
Game settings: Maxed

I could take a screen recording, but this is what's happening:

• Normally stable FPS capped at 100 (to match monitor's refresh rate)
• Drops to ~50 in Eveningstar, and ~60 in The Land of Barovia
• Reducing Object Draw Distance significantly improves performance (+25 FPS)
• Reducing Landscape Draw Distance marginally improves performance (+10 FPS)

There with ya brother. Xeon, six cores, twelve threads, 3.6ghz, 32gb of ram, GTX1080TI running to a 4k screen. I have the exact same experience.

[fatherpirate]

I would not worry too deeply into any of the letter.

It was very general and we really have no info on how it will be implemented
except it a few mentioned items.

Level cap raise and hinting it might be tied to 'something'
no clue ... am sure we will get more later

Feywild, cool

HCL is now got a new infernal bossman and
will be a regular event.

Unless they shorten it (they might) I will
guess twice a year. He did not say annual event.
If it got dropped to 2 months or less, might go three times but
my best guess is twice.

well stuff to look forward to.

PEACE

[karatemack]

How about we DO pass that level cap, like we have done many times before, and get to where we need to be. You dont invalidate content, you simply make it part of leveling in ddo, but for your sake, DOOM!

To be fair... MoTU (and afterwards) caused many players to leave the game. It may not have meant the game shutting down, but there was definitely a shift in active users which was distinct enough for veteran players to distinguish the pre-MoTU game from post-MoTU game.

While we don't have the details on what is being planned, it is still valid to raise concerns about adding additional levels to the game based on current/past experiences:

1. We've seen this movie before. If a level increase IS deployed the same way as the last time, it will lead to large pockets of player frustration.
2. There's already too much grind (especially for alts/new/returning players). Without mitigating the outstanding PL issues, upward expansion could be very bad depending on their specific plans (IE: another Reaper).
3. Power creep has a history of seeping into the old content in the game. Epic PLs do far more to minimize Heroic content than cargohold buffs ever did.
4. People call for server merges constantly... while easy to dismiss as "forum whining" these are players with real feelings of frustration over having difficulty finding groups. Spreading the playerbase over another layer of content to grind through likely won't help this. So... IF the plan is level 30-40... and IF there are level restrictions on new raids/content, then this will divide a playerbase which is already spread thin.

Here's hoping SSG has a solid plan to address these concerns and that we can all enjoy running through new content... together!