Improve comminication about what reaper is

[stoerm]

I’m sick of people complaining about game features when they have problems on reaper. Hires, class balance, champions, healing, whatever. Most of them are soloing.

Pin a message on this board. Add a tutorial message when entering a reaper quest until explicitly disabled.

Reaper difficulty is not for soloing. It is meant to be challenge that encourages group play. When you die just accept and adjust your approach, group size or difficulty.

P.S. if you are soloing, where does the pressure come that forces you to choose reaper difficulty? Nobody knows if you are playing r10 or casual. Or if you have one or a hundred TRs. When I solo I play largely HE and EH. Big deal.

Sorry about the typo in the title

[Zaalaos]

I’m sick of people complaining about game features when they have problems on reaper. Hires, class balance, champions, healing, whatever. Most of them are soloing.

Pin a message on this board. Add a tutorial message when entering a reaper quest until explicitly disabled.

Reaper difficulty is not for soloing. It is meant to be challenge that encourages group play. When you die just accept and adjust your approach, group size or difficulty.

P.S. if you are soloing, where does the pressure come that forces you to choose reaper difficulty? Nobody knows if you are playing r10 or casual. Or if you have one or a hundred TRs. When I solo I play largely HE and EH. Big deal.

Sorry about the typo in the title

Reaper is +50% base xp compared to elite. There's your pressure and incentive to run it. After they gutted quest xp per difficulty and pumped it all into 1st time bravery bonus it's simply not worth it to run quests e/h instead of just doing reaper once. While I agree it's better to run quests in party (regardles of difficulty) you simply can not guarantee that you'll have one. What am i supposed to do when i hit 20 and see exactly 0 lfms for epics? Give up 50% base xp on everything i run next? Log in every 20 minutes for next 5 hours to see 1 LFM up at my level range? No, I go into quests on R1 and put LFM up. Most of times I'll be done with my play session long before anybody joins me. That's the sad truth of this game, it's barelly MMO anymore. Population is way too low, most of player are either at cap, or scattered at all level ranges of TR-wheel, with no level being "dense" enough to reliably sustain party play. You can't penalize your playerbase by making some classes incapable of tackling the most profitable difficulty.

Sure high reaper is one thing, you should die there while solo, or go through incredible ordeal to get through those quest, but R1 should be accessible to 1st life toons running random lootgen gear with non dps classes. Should it be trivial? No. Should it be moderately challenging? Yes.

That or elite needs to give as much xps as reaper does. This way new/returning players won't be penalized for being well... new players, and when LFM pops up for reaper they'll get a chance to try out the most challenging difficulty in the game with party ready to help them out.

[Saekee]

I think this is a fair request

there should also be a warning that this difficulty will completely destroy the lore of the dungeon, as a new set of mobs with no relationship whatsoever to the surroundings, dialogues, ecology etc will now appear and will remind you that you are just playing some video game. Champs, at least, are in the form of one of the dungeon mobs even if the crown is odd

[stoerm]

Reaper is +50% base xp compared to elite. There's your pressure and incentive to run it.

Yes, the XP bonus is the incentive for group play. Just because you cannot find a group doesn't mean you should be entitled to the rewards.

Folks should accept there is higher risk related to the higher reward. Sometimes you fail on reaper and have to re-run the quest, part of the deal. If you don't want to take that risk (I often don't), then run on elite (I often do). You earn XP, you never deserve it.

I personally don't find the XP/minute that much better on reaper when soloing.

Everything you said about low population etc. I agree with.

[FranOhmsford]

Reaper is +50% base xp compared to elite.

+50%?

I saw +95% when I ran Mystery of Delera's Tomb on R1 on my Warlock to see if I could do it {I could :)}.

It really hurt me when I realised I therefore couldn't run all the 3BC quests on Elite without hardcapping and having to take Lvl 8 to gain more xp!

[Zeleron]

there should also be a warning that this difficulty will completely destroy the lore of the dungeon, as a new set of mobs with no relationship whatsoever to the surroundings, dialogues, ecology etc will now appear and will remind you that you are just playing some video game. Champs, at least, are in the form of one of the dungeon mobs even if the crown is odd

So you're telling me, that me saying this is to easy to the DM that hosts my DnD games then he purposely kills my character in retaliation is lore breaking???

[Discpsycho]

So you're telling me, that me saying this is to easy to the DM that hosts my DnD games then he purposely kills my character in retaliation is lore breaking???

The trick is to *go along with* the lore. He can't get mad at you that way, right?

Roll up a druid, find an enchanted battleaxe that gives a bonus to your Nature skill and/or lets you cast Speak With Plants. Spend the rest of the session running around bragging about your lore axe, which speaks for the trees. Ta-da!

[rabidfox]

Reaper is +50% base xp compared to elite. There's your pressure and incentive to run it.

+50% of zero is still zero. If you can't beat it then it's worth nothing and the lower bonus w/elite is way better. XP/min also comes heavily into play for what's best between hard/elite/reaper based off what one's current setup can clear through effectively. I'll solo reapers when I want to feel an edge of danger and risk; knowing if I do something silly or manage my hireling poorly that it'll be a 'wipe and reset' makes the instance feel more meaningful. I'll solo hards when I want to just rip through things that I'm not geared for level bracket/build wise.

[palladin9479]

Sorry but OP is way out of touch with the game meta right now. Running anything other then R1 on first run is plain stupid, the XP bonus is just that big. The XP jump between Elite and Reaper is larger then the XP jump between Normal and Elite, let that sink in.

The issue is that Reaper unfairly penalizes one set of characters (melee's) while having virtually zero effect on other types (casters and shooters). Roll a pure melee character without any cheesy assimar + falconry + monk nonsense and feel how hard you are punished. TR to a silly dumb build like bard / barb / druid that alternates levels between the three while running ranged and notice how stupidly easy R1 just became. You gotta jack up the difficulty a few more notches just to get a challenge. Then TR and play a serious ranged build or fire sorc and notice how you became a wargod reincarnated. Guildie who normally plays melee in high reaper decided to roll a ranged character to see how it was, dude was soloing mid reaper while sleeping. That's not exaggeration, he was playing late one night and woke up the next day passed out at the keyboard and he didn't remember how he had soloed a whole quest chain at reaper difficulty.

That is the type of gulf that exists between melee and everything else because of the stupidity of Reaper difficulty. Honestly I wouldn't feel bad if they just deleted it from the game entirely, would actually be healthy for the community.

[palladin9479]

+50% of zero is still zero. If you can't beat it then it's worth nothing and the lower bonus w/elite is way better. XP/min also comes heavily into play for what's best between hard/elite/reaper based off what one's current setup can clear through effectively. I'll solo reapers when I want to feel an edge of danger and risk; knowing if I do something silly or manage my hireling poorly that it'll be a 'wipe and reset' makes the instance feel more meaningful. I'll solo hards when I want to just rip through things that I'm not geared for level bracket/build wise.

Sorry but unless a character is completely incapable of doing R1, it's beyond stupid to run anything other then that at first time. It's just far more frustrating to have Developer Player Characters randomly spawn in the dungeon and cheat in such a way that only one segment is effected.

[mikarddo]

+50%?

I saw +95% when I ran Mystery of Delera's Tomb on R1 on my Warlock to see if I could do it {I could :)}.

It really hurt me when I realised I therefore couldn't run all the 3BC quests on Elite without hardcapping and having to take Lvl 8 to gain more xp!

Posting such numbers without explanation (and possibly without understanding them) is very harmful as it misleads new players (and many older players).
New players will not automagically know that "to base" is extremely key in the sentence but simply read "+50%" or even "+95%".

Heroic once-and-done elite vs reaper:
Base 100%
Bravery +100%
Daily +25%
Elite +45% / Reaper +95%
Misc. (conquest, ransack, etc) +40% (very often higher than that).
Tome (I wont count tome here as new players are unlikely to have that).

Elite: 310% / Reaper 360%
Thus reaper is actually only about 16% more xp than Elite.

With a +50% tome and higher than +40% from the misc. section you are looking at a difference of roughly 12-13% (say 430% vs 380% up to 470% vs. 420%). A far cry from 50% or even 95%!

[Tscheuss]

There was a very concise and accurate description of Reaper going around.

The DM is trying to kill you.

You play reaper and survive? Bonus!

You play reaper and die? Meh.

[palladin9479]

Posting such numbers without explanation (and possibly without understanding them) is very harmful as it misleads new players (and many older players).
New players will not automagically know that "to base" is extremely key in the sentence but simply read "+50%" or even "+95%".

Heroic once-and-done elite vs reaper:
Base 100%
Bravery +100%
Daily +25%
Elite +45% / Reaper +95%
Misc. (conquest, ransack, etc) +40% (very often higher than that).
Tome (I wont count tome here as new players are unlikely to have that).

Elite: 310% / Reaper 360%
Thus reaper is actually only about 16% more xp than Elite.

With a +50% tome and higher than +40% from the misc. section you are looking at a difference of roughly 12-13% (say 430% vs 380% up to 470% vs. 420%). A far cry from 50% or even 95%!

https://ddowiki.com/page/Experience_point

First time Bonus

Normal / Hard: +20%
Elite +45%
Reaper +95%

Now that produces a subtotal with the other quest based bonus's that the Ship Bonus / Sov Pot / VIP is then multiplied with. The first time bonus XP difference between normal and elite is smaller then between elite and reaper. There is a reason we don't run quests on Normal first.

This bonus is applied to quest XP and reaper XP, meaning that the players are also getting reaper points that further enhance their character to ridiculous power levels.

Anyone not running R1 first time is being heavily penalized in the long run.

Reaper mode was one of the worst ideas the dev team ever had, it unfairly penalizes one segment while rewarding another and creates this huge rift between have's and have-not's.

[Komradkillingmachine]

Sorry but OP is way out of touch with the game meta right now. Running anything other then R1 on first run is plain stupid, the XP bonus is just that big. The XP jump between Elite and Reaper is larger then the XP jump between Normal and Elite, let that sink in.

The issue is that Reaper unfairly penalizes one set of characters (melee's) while having virtually zero effect on other types (casters and shooters). Roll a pure melee character without any cheesy assimar + falconry + monk nonsense and feel how hard you are punished. TR to a silly dumb build like bard / barb / druid that alternates levels between the three while running ranged and notice how stupidly easy R1 just became. You gotta jack up the difficulty a few more notches just to get a challenge. Then TR and play a serious ranged build or fire sorc and notice how you became a wargod reincarnated. Guildie who normally plays melee in high reaper decided to roll a ranged character to see how it was, dude was soloing mid reaper while sleeping. That's not exaggeration, he was playing late one night and woke up the next day passed out at the keyboard and he didn't remember how he had soloed a whole quest chain at reaper difficulty.

That is the type of gulf that exists between melee and everything else because of the stupidity of Reaper difficulty. Honestly I wouldn't feel bad if they just deleted it from the game entirely, would actually be healthy for the community.

Now look who's out of touch with a handle name like that. So many superb melee builds right now and you went with Monk? Do you even hear yourself? Ahahahah.
I bet you think Inquisitives weren't nerfed hard enough too right? So silly.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

Haverdasher can easily be soloed on Reaper.
Imho.