Experience Potions.

[Cowdenicus]

I don't know what flames you speak of. So far everybody has been against his idea, that is all. I've been watching this thread the whole time, no flames.

OOOoooo

My turn my turn

Aspenor < Vanash.

[Mercules]

Rebuttal: Lots of free experience points means relatively little to the farmer as they're already running quests like mad. All it does is shorten their trip from 1 to 14... which admittedly wouldn't take that long for a team of dedicated players anyway. Nor would the accumulation of vast wealth.

I disagree. Lots of Plat means more Plat to sell. Lots of XP means the can easily level up a Mule character to the level of their playing character. One of the changes to loot recently made was so that if you are greatly below the level of a given chest your loot will be greatly reduced. This helps limit Farmers to characters they have actually leveled in looting as otherwise they would farm higher level quests with a couple characters and a bunch of low level mules that did nothing but pull items out of a chest. Being able to level those mules again would mean being able to get around that limitation again.

And again, do we want to develop the game around farmers? If so we could easily do away with them, make DDO a lootless game and the farmers will go poof over night. However, it is best to understand there are farmers, work against them, but develop the game for the players. Not the farmers.

They need to balance both. They need to make a fun game, that the farmers can not ruin the economy in. Farmers exist in every game. CoX was doing very well with it's "lootless-loot" system. Even so I can remember getting /tells for buying Influence.

I'm not advocating the removal of the shard. However, I would argue that if we're talking about gifts, and we are... the majority of players would be happier to find the XP Potion or Tome in their backpack rather than yet another shard.

I would say by the number of posts to the contrary, the "majority" of the posters that post on the forum(the only ones you will reach here) might want something else in there stocking for DDO Christmas, but it is -NOT- an XP consumable.

[Dingo123]

I disagree. Lots of Plat means more Plat to sell.

They already have lots of plat.

Lots of XP means the can easily level up a Mule character to the level of their playing character.

They can already level up their characters with amazing alacrity.

Again, I feel it's little more than a blip. They can already do everything very rapidly that Potions can.

They need to balance both. They need to make a fun game, that the farmers can not ruin the economy in. Farmers exist in every game. CoX was doing very well with it's "lootless-loot" system. Even so I can remember getting /tells for buying Influence.

You will never eliminate farmers, even if you make their lives more difficult they'll just work harder.

I would say by the number of posts to the contrary, the "majority" of the posters that post on the forum(the only ones you will reach here) might want something else in there stocking for DDO Christmas, but it is -NOT- an XP consumable.

I don't think the Forums speak for the Masses. I really don't, not anymore than Harvard or Yale could be used to define the tastes of your local McDonald's counter girl.

[Mercules]

They already have lots of plat.



They can already level up their characters with amazing alacrity.

Again, I feel it's little more than a blip. They can already do everything very rapidly that Potions can.




You will never eliminate farmers, even if you make their lives more difficult they'll just work harder.



I don't think the Forums speak for the Masses. I really don't, not anymore than Harvard or Yale could be used to define the tastes of your local McDonald's counter girl.

Ah right, the famous, "They are already doing it, so who cares if we give them another way to do it." argument. We might not eliminate farmers, but there is no reason to hand them a key. Yes, they CAN level up rather quickly, but that means running around with other people in PuGs or having sets of characters to power level them.

People WERE seeing things like 3 capped characters and 3 level 1(!) characters going into quests. Developers changed the loot system. This means the farmer had a level 14 and a level 1. They can't power-level the 1st level with a 14th level, but if they could dupe a potion for XP they could quickly have 2 level 14ths without having to run through other content. 1 week or dupe enough potions to turn it into a task for a day? Difference? A lot.

Now also think if they know an XP potion is going to be given to characters and they know how to dupe items. Fill a bunch of slots with characters and dupe the potions until they have them all at level 14. Now they can run GH with 6 characters in 6 days instead of 6 characters in 6 weeks.

All of this aside. Forum posters are a huge part of the community. We take ideas back to those we play with who do not post. We hear what they say and reiterate it here. The devs don't stop people in the marketplace and ask them questions but they do ask for feedback here and monitor our posts. Our ideas do get heard and our leanings guide the game. If you don't believe that, look at some of the changes. Even though some people think them ********, many of them came from complaints and desires forum posters presented.

Therefor, while some changes get made despite concerns from the forum posters you are a LOT more likely to get the Devs interested in an idea if the forum posters agree with it. Have any of us yet done so? I don't believe so although a few abstained from judgment.

[DesertBlue]

Don't mean to butt in here, but by that standard DDO has no actual artifacts in the game at all, which would negate the very purpose of even debating artifacts in DDO, since none can or do exist in how the game is.

Otherwise it would require a new mechanics, that some MMOs and MUDs do, allowing only one instance of an item to ever exist in a game world at one time, which could never be looted again until the original one is destroyed. I don't think Turbine has any intention or desire to ever implement that kind of item.

Actually this is incorrect. There are 2 major artifacts that I can think of in this game. But, the fact that they are in game has no bearing on the original discussion with Tanka regarding minor artifacts and xp from items.

[Dingo123]

Ah right, the famous, "They are already doing it, so who cares if we give them another way to do it." argument. We might not eliminate farmers, but there is no reason to hand them a key. Yes, they CAN level up rather quickly, but that means running around with other people in PuGs or having sets of characters to power level them.

People WERE seeing things like 3 capped characters and 3 level 1(!) characters going into quests. Developers changed the loot system. This means the farmer had a level 14 and a level 1. They can't power-level the 1st level with a 14th level, but if they could dupe a potion for XP they could quickly have 2 level 14ths without having to run through other content. 1 week or dupe enough potions to turn it into a task for a day? Difference? A lot.

Now also think if they know an XP potion is going to be given to characters and they know how to dupe items. Fill a bunch of slots with characters and dupe the potions until they have them all at level 14. Now they can run GH with 6 characters in 6 days instead of 6 characters in 6 weeks.

All of this aside. Forum posters are a huge part of the community. We take ideas back to those we play with who do not post. We hear what they say and reiterate it here. The devs don't stop people in the marketplace and ask them questions but they do ask for feedback here and monitor our posts. Our ideas do get heard and our leanings guide the game. If you don't believe that, look at some of the changes. Even though some people think them ********, many of them came from complaints and desires forum posters presented.

Therefor, while some changes get made despite concerns from the forum posters you are a LOT more likely to get the Devs interested in an idea if the forum posters agree with it. Have any of us yet done so? I don't believe so although a few abstained from judgment.

How much of the game should be altered in order to protect us from nefarious farmers?

Farmers seem to have a penchant for selling off or duping Mneumonic potions. Shall we remove them? Farmers advertise through the mail system. Shall we remove it? To what degree do we alter our gaming in order to do damage to farmers?

Getting 6 capped characters in DDO isn't really an amazing feat. They could do it faster, certainly... but even THAT could be used to track down Farmers.

If the game registers 100 XP potions being used on a character the game could flag that character.

And Voila now we have a means to CAPTURE the cheating gold farmer.

[Tanka]

Actually this is incorrect. There are 2 major artifacts that I can think of in this game. But, the fact that they are in game has no bearing on the original discussion with Tanka regarding minor artifacts and xp from items.

Oath of Drooam and Tesyus, correct?

I would consider those Major Artifacts, but we return them to their owner at the end of the quest (er, well, those who claim to be their owner), and get to use them for a minimum amount of time.

Granted, I've never seen someone use Tesyus, so... I dunno about that one. But, yes, two items in the game could be considered Major Artifacts, but we don't get to keep them or use them for any reasonable amount of time.

[Gornin]

I don't think the Forums speak for the Masses. I really don't, not anymore than Harvard or Yale could be used to define the tastes of your local McDonald's counter girl.

What is the relevance of this statement???? Elitism? If that wasn't your intent, restate it.

But over all much better posting in this thread now. I understand what you are saying Dingo, I just don't think it is necessary, as do most of us following this thread. The shards are some what necessary due to changes in game mechanics, basically nature of the beast and all that, but a XP potion really wouldn't matter in this game. The extra XP weekends accomplish that with the exception that you could save your potion. Now, if you want to give me free tome, that is a different story, and I admit more basic side of my nature says "cool", but I really wouldn't want that to happen. It would just unbalance the game more.

Again, much better and reasoned. Thanks

[Mercules]

How much of the game should be altered in order to protect us from nefarious farmers?

Ok, fine... lets ignore the farmers aspect of my post(even though it's not intelligent to add in yet another thing for them to dupe even if we shouldn't remove the items that do exist in the game).

You have yet to address my point that the forum posters give the Devs a feel for the community and NONE of them want XP consumables. There is no GOOD reason to have them and several bad ones. XP is something you EARN a respec isn't.

[RavenStormclaw]

For the record I admit I was wrong about mind flayers not being able to change someones abilties. In that regard why can't we change skills then...now that would be usefull.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

How much of the game should be altered in order to protect us from nefarious farmers?.

It shouldn't be altered for that. XP potions are still a dumb idea all on their own.

[Ganak]

Hehe, this is the same poster who posted requesting cleric's healing spells to cost no sp.

[Cinwulf]

For the record I admit I was wrong about mind flayers not being able to change someones abilties. In that regard why can't we change skills then...now that would be usefull.

That would get my vote

[DesertBlue]

Oath of Drooam and Tesyus, correct?

I would consider those Major Artifacts, but we return them to their owner at the end of the quest (er, well, those who claim to be their owner), and get to use them for a minimum amount of time.

Granted, I've never seen someone use Tesyus, so... I dunno about that one. But, yes, two items in the game could be considered Major Artifacts, but we don't get to keep them or use them for any reasonable amount of time.

Yes, exactly. And, IMO, this is actually a great implementation of major artifacts in DDO due to the fact there can be only one and that they are campaign altering. As you state we only get to use them in instance which is why they are irrelevant examples to our earlier discussion. Hence, I never brought these up until I read Blakbird's post.

[Cinwulf]

Tesyus is the one in BAM, correct? If so I've used it

[blakbyrd]

Actually this is incorrect. There are 2 major artifacts that I can think of in this game. But, the fact that they are in game has no bearing on the original discussion with Tanka regarding minor artifacts and xp from items.

Ahh fair enough then, sorry to butt in on that one, it just struck me as odd. Although to me I dont think artifacts in DDO really mean what they are intended to mean in PnP, which in your earlier discussion could be where the differences stand. Both PnP and DDO may use the term in the same sense, but to me DDO takes the term much more loosely than the intent for real PnP.

[DesertBlue]

Ahh fair enough then, sorry to butt in on that one, it just struck me as odd. Although to me I dont think artifacts in DDO really mean what they are intended to mean in PnP, which in your earlier discussion could be where the differences stand. Both PnP and DDO may use the term in the same sense, but to me DDO takes the term much more loosely than the intent for real PnP.

No worries.

The reason we are getting a high populace of "minor artifacts" is due to how sick and commonplace our "normal" magic items are. The only place to go is up with each mod. The equipment I carry on my fighter, and I assume yours and almost everyone else's would equip several parties of level 14 characters in pnp with smiles on their faces.

[Dingo123]

Ok, fine... lets ignore the farmers aspect of my post(even though it's not intelligent to add in yet another thing for them to dupe even if we shouldn't remove the items that do exist in the game).

You have yet to address my point that the forum posters give the Devs a feel for the community and NONE of them want XP consumables. There is no GOOD reason to have them and several bad ones. XP is something you EARN a respec isn't.

The Forumites are very frequently the exceptional, not the average.

The Casual Player is less likely to frequent forums than the hardcore gamer, for example.

List your reasons why you feel it is a negative. Then, do me a favor, try to list reasons why you feel it would be a positive. Don't get all exasperated. Give it a shot. Try to present my side.

[QuantumFX]

This idea would work a lot better if it was limited to eliminating XP debt. Getting a mulligan when you're trying out some (crazy) new tactic would be a nice thing to have when you're learning a new raid.

[Mercules]

The Forumites are very frequently the exceptional, not the average.

The Casual Player is less likely to frequent forums than the hardcore gamer, for example.

List your reasons why you feel it is a negative. Then, do me a favor, try to list reasons why you feel it would be a positive. Don't get all exasperated. Give it a shot. Try to present my side.

Game is designed around play through a quest=get XP for it.

Free XP for breathing = not playing through the quest.

People can already just do a certain set of quests and gain enough XP to cap their character.

Do this often enough people no longer have to play the quests much to level cap. It's a bad design for a game where multiple people have capped multiple characters and they are not even hardcore and haven't done ALL the content.

Good things. You get free XP and some people(I can only point at one so far) might like that. You don't have to pay for power-leveling(which defeats the idea of an XP game). XP games have a simple premise. You can XP for doing things. That is the simplest explanation for it. You then spend that XP to gain new abilities which lets you take on greater challenges. That is the fun of the game. Having free XP is a bit like playing pingpong and spotting everyone 5 points. That much closer to done.