Scale the loot/EXP

[jaitee]

seriously, to be honest, the exp/loot for some quest is just horrible, this might not be a big issue, but if and IF it was fixed, more people would be opened minded, and not run the same content over and over, so heres my story;

me and a few guildies, decided we needed a break from gaint hold, so we said lets go do made to order!!, not sure wat ml the quest is, but i think its a ml 11 quest, very long description, lots of tough dwarfs, many traps, constructs, so this group is 10-12 grp, we get a group together and head in, starting 2.7k-3k zone for exp, for a ml 11ish quest, also remember i did this a few days ago tryin to remember things off top my head, we try to get all the bonus and ended up at about 3kish with a few deaths among everyone, so thats around 3k exp for completion and deducting the neg exp from dieing, which is also a factor to add in, no one is perfect, so we might be getting 1.5kish-2k exp
----this is a tough quest, long, and my point is, this kind of exp just doesnt scale to me, and its my opinion, and last of all, we finish the marut off, and get to the 2 end chests, and we pull ml 4-ml 6 loot
----i think some of these quests needs another scale check on the loot/exp, it would help alot with wider content that might be fun, and more exciting to do, then the constant grind of the same quest

[tihocan]

IMHO, the issue lies more in the fact that GH quests give a much higher XP/time ratio than other quests.
Though I don't remember the XP for Made to Order, so maybe it's underrated, but if they bump it (and the few other quests that do not give enough XP) they also need to seriously decrease the XP in GH.

[Gennerik]

Seriously, if they scale anything, they need to reduce the amount of XP that Gianthold quests give out. I think the reason they give so much XP is because those were the only quests that are available currently that are normally in the level 13 and 14 range, and they planned on us being able to cap ourselves off of them. They should have just kept a lower amount of XP awarded and if we didn't cap our characters without grinding the same quests over and over, then oh well. We'd be able to do it once Module 5 comes out. Gianthold currently breaks doing any other quests once you hit level 10, since none of them are nearly so rewarding for the time spent.

[Riggs]

This has been an issue since day 1 - Gianthold has nothing to do with it.

How many people run the House D Depths quests for xp? Dead Predators? Rest for the Restless...Freshen the Air, Missing in Action, The newish 'Save the friendly mummies' in House P, Made to Order, Korromar, ANY of the desert side quests. The list goes on, I could go look through the quest list and find dozens more quests people dont run more than once for favor because they give out such terrible xp for their level.

About 50% of ALL the quests in the game give horrible xp for their level.(And most quests give horrible loot since loot tables are about 4 levels beloe the quest, so even level 10 quests will drop level 6 gear - which you dont need anymore at level 10) The sad, sad fact is that you get more xp from part 3 of STK, Stormcleave, Gwylans, than you do from any other mid level quest, or even up to level 10-12 quests. When you run STK on elite and get 5k xp, then run a desert quest, that is level 10 to start, on elite is level 12, and get 3k xp...something is SERIOUSLY wrong with the balance among quests.

Some of the gianthold quests probably give a bit too much xp, but not that much really. The real problem is that because so many mid level quests give low xp, people do their best to powerlevel on good quests to get to 9 or 10, just so they can get real xp in the GH, so most players now with new characters probably ignore 80% of the content because its not worth playing anymore compared to the 'good xp quests'. (I mean players who have already played all the quests and capped out, and are starting their 4th, 5th, or 7th new character, not a brand new player who wants to experience things for the first time. Older players are not really interested in running their 7th character through 500xp quests for 'fun' when they have already done it 10 times on other characters).

If it wasnt for favor, at least 50% of the quests in the game would NEVER be run by players who are not new and doing things for the first time. All quests need to be seriously looked and and xp balanced for the level and difficulty.

*edit Oh yeah - Necropolis. Prime example.

[Solik]

I agree. How exactly did this happen? Is there no internal formula used to determine quest rewards based on length and level? It shouldn't be a hard thing. You have Short, Medium, Long, and Very Long quests and 14 levels (Hard and Elite using automatic scaling, so you don't need to consider base levels 15 and 16 right now). The combination of length and level should provide some sort of "total reward" pool. From that, you award favor, chests, and experience in some combination that eats up the full total reward pool. If you have an exceptional quest, then you break from the formula, but 95% of the game could follow something like this to the T.

It just boggles the mind how so blatantly off these quests are from each other. Of all the balance issues a game like this can have, this is honestly the easiest one to address.

[Cowdenicus]

I agree. How exactly did this happen? Is there no internal formula used to determine quest rewards based on length and level? It shouldn't be a hard thing. You have Short, Medium, Long, and Very Long quests and 14 levels (Hard and Elite using automatic scaling, so you don't need to consider base levels 15 and 16 right now). The combination of length and level should provide some sort of "total reward" pool. From that, you award favor, chests, and experience in some combination that eats up the full total reward pool. If you have an exceptional quest, then you break from the formula, but 95% of the game could follow something like this to the T.

It just boggles the mind how so blatantly off these quests are from each other. Of all the balance issues a game like this can have, this is honestly the easiest one to address.

yet wont be.

[tihocan]

You have Short, Medium, Long, and Very Long quests

And yet they don't even use these durations properly. For instance I believe all GH quests are marked as very long, even the 20 min sidequests.

I would love to see a whole rebalancing of XP/duration/favor based on data collected on the servers.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

And yet they don't even use these durations properly. For instance I believe all GH quests are marked as very long, even the 20 min sidequests.

I would love to see a whole rebalancing of XP/duration/favor based on data collected on the servers.

That's a great idea. As it is, as we all know, the current info is useless and the risk/reward is not reasonable.

It would be nice for example if instead of short/med/long/very long they gave us an estimated time based on past averages (no it doesn't have to dynamically update, lets just give is a feel for this taking 45 min fo the average group)

If they more properly balanced risk/reward/time we wouldn't have people constantly wanting to rerun the same 3 or 4 quests at each level 100 times to power level since thats where "the best" xp is for that level. We could acutally get groups together for all the content and thus, have less bored players.

I don't think favor is as out of wack as time & xp but it never hurts to look I suppose.

[GoldyGopher]

While I understand how the CR, Level and other factors all go into formulating XP for quests in DDO I do not believe the current system is extremely equitable to any player, whether they are a power player or a casual player.

Years ago, okay in the late 1980’s when I ran a long running PnP D&D campaign I used a formula to award XP that everyone loved. Later with the use of laptops, early 1990’s, it was fairly quick and I think more equitable than the published system.

What I did was determine the parties XP value and compared that to the XP value of the adventure we were running. This determined the XP multipler which I just multiplied against the XP value of the adventure. The parties XP value was based on the Characters total level, Equipment, Spells, and miscallaus details (IE done the adventure Before).

For Example using my system against the Surviving the Low Road on Elite Mode. (These numbers are completely made up as I don’t remember the XP value of anything anymore and I am at work, but it is just an example.)

Party XP
Rouge 3rd level – 200 XP (20,000 / 100)
+2 Studded Leather Armor - 46 XP
+1 Rapier – 45 XP
+1 Dagger – 20 XP
+1 Ogre Power bracers – 10 XP
+2 Puzzle Cap – 40 XP
… (Other Equipment)
XP Value Rogue 731
XP Value Wizard 719
XP Value Fighter 719
XP Value Cleric 780
Total XP Value Party 2649

Quest XP
7 Kobolds (CR 5) – 700 XP
1 Kobold Shaman (CR 5) – 437 XP
1 Lesser Grey Ooze (CR 5) – 175 XP
52 Breakables - 52 XP
Trap – 240 XP
2 Secret Doors – 300 XP
Jump – 8 XP
4 Levers – 120 XP
Underwater Swim (4 Char) – 40 XP
Treasure Chest – 24 XP
Total XP Value Quest 2096

So the XP Multiplier is 79% Take 2096 and multiple it by .79 and get 1949 and divide that by 4 and award 414 XP to each character.

Now before you start on this system rewards smaller parties, I also used the system to balance the party vs quest thing. If the quest was too difficult (greater than say 110%) I could pull out a few creatures, if it was too easy I could add in additional creatures or scale up the difficulty on a Trap or do other nasty things. Balance was a good thing and I think it helped my campaigns last years rather the two or three sessions that most peoples’ campaigns lasted.

If you found new equipment in the quest it was not counted towards the parties Base XP value, and if you changed out spells for the most part it had little effect on the XP value as well.

Jeff