To Developers: On increasing the Dynamic Range of Quests in DDO

[Dirac]

Executive Summary (so you don’t have to read the rest of this if you don’t want to): After some preliminary definitions and context, two observations concerning the state of the game are made. This leads to two substantive proposals: to increase the difficulty difference between normal – hard and hard – elite, and to allow quests to be opened at any difficulty level.

Preliminaries
Preliminary 1. The Distribution of Player Strength (DoPS): I originally titled this “the myth of the casual-power gamer dichotomy," but this is more to the point. There is often reference to “casual” and “power” gamers. However, this is a clear over-simplification that sometimes hinders discussion. Some people play many hours every day, loot run, and raid all the time in strong guilds. Some may only play a couple hours every week or every month. Those on one extreme will have very high Player Strength primarily due to better loot, but also due to practice and build optimization. Those on the other extreme will have a low Player Strength for the reverse reasons.

However, these two extremes do not cover all, or even most, of the players. There exists a Distribution of Player Strength (DoPS). The relative strength of players cover the entire range between the two extremes. Some players play a few hours a day, loot some, raid a little. Some players play a few hours every other day, loot a little, raid never. Unfortunately, we don’t know the exact structure of the DoPS; how many players exist at very various levels of player strength. However, it is important to understand its existence, use reasonable guesses to its shape, and know one’s place in that distribution. While not a perfect measure, a simple and approximate measure of one’s position in the DoPS is number of hours played a week. On average, a person playing more will accumulate more loot, etc. and have a higher position in the DoPS. (Obviously, there are other factors, but this is a simple approximation.)

Preliminary 2. Development assumptions: I might be insulting the intelligence of the reader here, but I do want to be clear on my working assumptions: (a) The difficulty range of an individual quest should maximize the coverage of the Distribution of Player Abilities given the constraints of finite developer resources. This means that while a challenging but enjoyable gaming experience should be attempted for as many people as possible, the wings of the DoPS might never be realistically addressed by developer time. (b) Developer time on anything other than new content/features should be minimized. While there may be lots of ways to improve existing content; that is not enough of a reason. Time taken away from new content should be done only at a premium, and time-consuming changes to existing content should almost never be considered.

Preliminary 3. What is your “level”: The DoPS presumes that all the characters under consideration are at the same level; e.g. the range of player strength among all 14th level characters. One’s character level is supposed to communicate player strength. However, The fact is that the DoPS for a given level is wider than the strength difference between levels themselves! Because of its importance, I want to elaborate on this point.

Assume a 2nd level character has an amount of equipment and loot consistent with the amount of adventuring necessary to level to 2. For example, in D&D 3.5, a second level character should have about 1800 gp worth of loot and 4 2nd level characters will have the resources for about 5 EL2 battles. (I’m not trying to use the PnP definition for DDO, but showing how one can quantify the strength of a certain level of character.)

However, consider two DDO groups. In one group, four second level characters have everything they have accumulated from completing the intro quest, goodblades, low road, and the solo quests. How many cr 0.5 kobolds can such a group kill before they exhaust their resources (need to shrine)? Once this group attains level 3 (by doing 6-7 harbor quests on normal) the number of cr 0.5 kobolds the group can handle will be higher, thus representing the increased strength of the group.

Aside: Another, perhaps more appropriate measure of the strength of the group would be: on average, what level of quest can the group complete successfully using most of their resources between shrines? One problem with this definition is that quests, as opposed to straight up monster fights, have their own strategy. Once you have done the quest many times, you can complete quests much higher than your character “level” simply have knowing the optimum strategy for that quest.

Now consider another group of four second level characters that are 32pt, forum researched builds, completely tweaked by unlimited funds from multiple capped alts. The difference between this group and the above 2nd level group is so large as to render the word level meaningless as a measure of the strength of a character. However, all is not lost. We can attempt to guess the “effective level” of a character. Let us keep the “normal” definition of level as that corresponding to a group of four characters with the amount of equipment gained only through leveling each character to that level. We can compare (number of mobs to exhaust resources, level of quest doable) a level 3 normal group to the level 2 tweaked group. Then compare again with a level 4 normal group, and continue until the groups equalize. My experience with tweaked and untweaked characters leads me to think that the “effective level” at level 2 of a highly tweaked character is at least level 4 or 5.

Note that one’s “effective level” essentially never caps. As one sits at level cap, looting and raiding, the strength of the character increases and increases while the actual level does not. Also, we are all aware of level 8-10 characters going straight to GH. This is sometimes expressed as a design flaw. However, a highly-tweaked level 8 or 9 character will have an effective level 2-3(4?) levels above a normal character. Also, people will be playing even a couple levels higher in quests that they know very well. Thus, we would predict and expect such characters to be able to do level 13-14 quests. This is not a design flaw, but simply a consequence of being able to create and trade with alts (tweaking) and running quests multiple times (looting), neither of which we would want to lose.

Preliminary 4: Tactics and Strategy: Aside from loot and build, it is sometimes discussed that differences in player strength arise from (appropriate) use of tactics and strategy. This section is simply to provide useful definitions of these terms. Tactics are those generic techniques that find wide applicability in adventuring: fighting at choke points, pulling, tripping, etc. Any competent, experienced player should be aware of good tactical play. Strategies are specific plans that have been worked out ahead of time to defeat specific dungeons efficiently. Strategies would not normally come to players unless they have done the quest a number of times or were told the strategies by someone who new them.

Observations
Observation 1: The DoPS is increasing in width over time. First, this is a natural occurrence as players level. The differences between tweaked and untweaked 12th level characters will be greater than the difference between tweaked and untweaked 8th level characters which will be greater than the difference between tweaked and untweaked 2th level characters for the sole reason that there is more to tweak with at the higher levels. Second, and more importantly, as time goes on those that play more become more powerful, even with a level cap. The amount a person plays represents the rate at which their power increases. As pointed out above, even if one’s level does not increase, one’s power does through the accumulation of rare equipment, raid equipment, and more gold/plat to buy equipment. Thus the rate of power increase of those at the high end of the DoPS is larger than the rate of power increase of those at the low end of the DoPS. This leads to the natural widening of the DoPS over time.

Observation 2: The dynamic range of quest difficulty is not widening. Assuming we believe the quest level identification, this is completely by design! In all current quests, there is 1 level of difficulty between Normal-Hard and Hard-Elite. For a level two quest a simple calculation finds a 50% and 100% difficulty increase for H/E. For a level 15 quest, that corresponds to a 7% and 13% difficulty increase respectively. Now that calculation is not good, because level is not necessarily a linear function of difficulty. However, if the level assignments are even remotely close, a 1 and 2 level increase for H/E at level 2 constitute much more significant difficulty differences than at level 15.

Now three mini-observations concerning this issue. First, there continue to be a number of people expressing frustration that the game is becoming too easy. That more and more people do this is evidence that the dynamic range of quests is not covering an increasing fraction of the high end of the DoPS. However, we don’t know the “effective level” of the people making this claim or their place in the DoPS. Are they just in the top 10%? Top 1%? Top 0.1%? By necessity, the game will never be able to accommodate the extreme wing of the DoPS.

Second, seemingly paradoxically, there have been several expressing frustration that the content (even on normal) is too hard! This can be very worrisome, because there is reason to expect a strong correlation between those that play a little and those that read/post on the forum little, or not at all. However, the same problem applies without really knowing what part or how much of the DoPS these players represent.

Finally, there is no question that the Normal difficulty setting is significantly harder for level appropriate characters at higher level. The difference between level 2 characters in level 2 quests in the harbor compared to level 11 characters in level 11 quests in the desert is striking. The initial release of Proof is in the Poison shows that this “Normal setting difficulty creep” is some combination of both level and time of implementation. On its own, it doesn’t show the later quests are too hard; perhaps the earlier quests are too easy.

While it is difficult to draw conclusions from any of these mini-observations for reasons I mentioned, a little analysis reveals something remarkable. Assume that in developing new quests the development team pitches the difficulty of the quest at the middle of the DoPS (very reasonable). If the development team does a perfect job of what they say they are doing (keeping 1 level difference between N/H/E), as the DoPS gets wider and wider, all the above complaints are exactly what we would expect! If the game is being developed perfectly in the way we understand, we would absolutely predict that as time goes on, more and more people at the top end of the DoPS will find the content easier and easier, while more and more people at the bottom end will find the content harder and harder.

Proposals
Proposal 1: Keep Normal at the low end of the player distribution: Four untweaked characters played by competent adults with an amount of equipment commensurate with attaining level x should be able (on average) to successfully complete a level x quest using a majority of their resources. I have no first-hand evidence that this is not true for the quests currently in the game. However, one can easily see the development trap if this is not always kept in mind. If one is aware of the wide range of the DoPS for 14th level characters, there is an innate desire to pitch the quest at the middle of that distribution. However, this does not take into account that a significant fraction of that distribution are level 14 in name only. Their effective level is much higher. The Normal setting for level x quests should be kept for the normal characters of level x.

Proposal 2: Increase the difference in difficulty between Normal-Hard and Hard-Elite. This is where the effort should be made to cover player abilities. There is simply no reason why all increments should be one level. We all realize that in practice the increase in difficulty for many quests is more than one stated level. Often a level 4 quest on Elite will be harder than a level 6 quest on Normal. However, requiring all quests this one level increment surely limits the difficulty range that the developers have access to. It is simply absurd to have 2/3/4 N/H/E quests and then have 14/15/16 N/H/E. Proportionally, you would want more range at higher levels, and since we have seen that the DoPS increases at higher levels, it hurts the game not to have more dynamic range for Hard and Elite.

Proposal 3: Allow quests to be opened at any difficulty level. I understand there were good reasons for this originally, but I don’t believe they outweigh the disadvantages currently. If one is serious about proposal 1, we run into the difficulty that for people at the high end of the DoPS (let’s say, the “elite” players) Normal is never an appropriate difficulty setting for the later quests. You only get to run a quest the first time once. And given the large range of the DoPS, forcing the elite players to only be able to run quests the first time on the lowest setting can be a significant downer. If their “effective level” is so much higher than the actual level of the quest, a significant amount of the fun of the first time through the dungeon is lost. “Unlocking” hard and elite is an idea whose time has passed. People should be free to choose the level of quest that is appropriate for the “effective level” of their character.

Conclusion There have been other proposals out there to increase the dynamic range of DDO: a new “insane” setting, changing quest designs with randomization, etc. However, the above are proposed with the idea of minimal development time. While I am not convinced anything may need to be done with old content (though the desert and GH should at least be looked at), now that Mod five is being prepared, I hope those involved will keep this in mind

Best Regards,
Dirac

[Samadhi]

/signed

[Dharma]

/signed till my fingers fall off

So well explained. So well thought out!

Unlock all difficulties on all quests except raids. (We already can by switching toons, just save us the trouble) /sign

I would propose that:
- Normal remains the same for all content including new development.
- The loot increase on the same current set scale of 1 level per difficulty increase.
- The experience remain unchanged for the current difficulty ratings.
- The calculation for the difficulty of quest be based partially on the level of the quest. Hard 15% increase Elite 30%
Example:
Level 2 Quest
Currently Norm (Level 2) Hard (Level 3) Elite (Level 4)
Proposed
- Norm (Level 2)
- Hard (Level 3) Calc. Lvl = Lvl 2 + 1 + (Lvl 2 * 15%) = 3.3
- Elite (Level 5) Calc. Lvl = Lvl 2 + 2 + (Lvl 2 * 30%) = 4.6
Little difference than we have now except for elite being 1 level higher

Level 14 Quest
Currently Norm (Level 14) Hard (Level 15) Elite (Level 16)
Proposed
- Norm (Level 14)
- Hard (Level 17) Calc. Lvl = Lvl 14 + 1 + (Lvl 14 * 15%) = 17.1
- Elite (Level 20) Calc. Lvl = Lvl 14 + 2 + (Lvl 14 * 30%) = 20.2
Much wider difficulty option. Lets face it even the non-uberfied groups run PoP on elite without much difficulty. Would hard be that much harder? Probably not.. Would elite oh I would say so!

This would make Elite worth something again... Would slow down the ridiculous number of Elite loot runs. Well lets not kid ourselves we will find a way to overcome the challenge!

This would seriously improve the breadth of difficulty available to those that want it. The quests could still be achieved by those that are not "power/elite" gamers. If Hard and Elite were hard enough that some of those ubers couldn't farm as much as fast it would maybe slow the spread of the DoPS for those that aren't in the highest percentile.

[Dirac]

Unlock all difficulties on all quests except raids. (We already can by switching toons, just save us the trouble) /sign

I would propose that:
- Normal remains the same for all content including new development.
- The loot increase on the same current set scale of 1 level per difficulty increase.
- The calculation for the difficulty of quest be based partially on the level of the quest. Hard 15% increase Elite 30%
Example:
Level 2 Quest
Currently Norm (Level 2) Hard (Level 3) Elite (Level 4)
Proposed
- Norm (Level 2)
- Hard (Level 3) Calc. Lvl = Lvl 2 + 1 + (Lvl 2 * 15%) = 3.3
- Elite (Level 5) Calc. Lvl = Lvl 2 + 2 + (Lvl 2 * 30%) = 4.6

Level 14 Quest
Currently Norm (Level 14) Hard (Level 15) Elite (Level 16)
Proposed
- Norm (Level 14)
- Hard (Level 17) Calc. Lvl = Lvl 14 + 1 + (Lvl 14 * 15%) = 17.1
- Elite (Level 20) Calc. Lvl = Lvl 14 + 2 + (Lvl 14 * 30%) = 20.2

Thanks for the kind words, and you make excellent points. Still having to unlock raids makes sense, because these are already pitched at the upper end of the DoPS anyway. Also, I agree, there is no reason to increase the loot level with increaseing the difficulty level of Hard/Elite. It's hard to assign straight percentages for quest advancement because difficulty is not linear with level, however, percentages make more sense as guideposts than just 1+1 for Hard/Elite.

[Dharma]

If you use a percentage increase it is a linear increase in the difficulty. You are just split the lines for norm, hard, and elite. The norm difficulty would match todays environment. You are just causing the slope of the hard and elite lines to rise more sharply than norm. With elite rising the most as it should.

You could use a log increase which would taper off at higher levels. (Bad - opposite of desired effect)

You could use a discretionary increase. (Bad - for reasons you stated)

You could use a power increase. (Bad - to fast of an increase... By level 5 elite would be like 15)

You could use a exponential increase. (Bad - way to fast... By level 5 elite would be like CR30)

[Riddikulus]

I like the concept of being able to open any existing quest at any arbitrary level.

However as we have seen in Stormreaver, Elite/16 is really not that much more difficult that Normal/14, and jacking it up to 20 will probably still not make it all that much more difficult.

You'll have an issue with loot. With the anti-farmer fix in the chests you'll have people doing level 20 content and still getting only level 12-13 loot max due to being too far under the quest level. Removing that fix is probably not going to happen.

[Mercules]

[B][COLOR="Red"] Preliminary 2. Development assumptions: I might be insulting the intelligence of the reader here, but I do want to be clear on my working assumptions: (a) The difficulty range of an individual quest should maximize the coverage of the Distribution of Player Abilities given the constraints of finite developer resources. This means that while a challenging but enjoyable gaming experience should be attempted for as many people as possible, the wings of the DoPS might never be realistically addressed by developer time. (b) Developer time on anything other than new content/features should be minimized. While there may be lots of ways to improve existing content; that is not enough of a reason. Time taken away from new content should be done only at a premium, and time-consuming changes to existing content should almost never be considered.

Some very good points, some of which I have been mentioning for months. As people loot more they increase their power thus making the next "level cap" jump easier. For those that haven't had months at level 10 looting the Giant Caves, Tempest Spine, XC, and VoNs the Desert quests were more difficult. For those that didn't run the desert loot runs or Giant Caves, level 13-14 content was more difficult. PoP may have narrowed that range for many people, but new people to the game finally hitting level 11 with their first character are likely to be behind, power wise, those who have been looting PoP for months now.

I have to disagree with the quoted part above, though. If a significant older portion of the game is not being used, it should be readdressed every so often.

For example, Gems/Collectibles. This is both a NEW feature and an upgrade to an old one. Collectibles are used for the newer loot in the game but have been an old disappointment.

Ranged Combat is not new content/feature, but it does need to be addressed or else a large portion of this game is lacking. Bug fixes are not either, but need to be addressed, even if they eat into development time. Old quests being revamped can also add new life to the game making a re-roll more fun, or increasing the fun for a new player, who could be the future capped character/die hard fan.

[Dharma]

The current fix could remain the same... Loot Lvl and Difficulty Lvl don't have to remain tightly bound.

Whatever they did to tie char lvl to current difficulty level is fine. When the quest gets instanced it just up's the CR/Diffculty by a percent of the level of the quest.

For all intents and purposes the current values are fine. You are just adding the "+ (Lvl Quest * Selected Difficulty Percent)" when the quest sets up the mobs for the zone. I am sure it currently generates mob CR level based on some application of the difficulty setting.

Would this be code fix? Maybe maybe not... depends on how they are scripting the entry into a zone and its difficulty setup. If there is a OO designed call that is used to enter every quest instance, there maybe a limited number of places they would insert an additional calculation to adjust the Mobs CR.

[Dirac]

If you use a percentage increase it is a linear increase in the difficulty. You are just split the lines for norm, hard, and elite. The norm difficulty would match todays environment. You are just causing the slope of the hard and elite lines to rise more sharply than norm. With elite rising the most as it should.

You could use a log increase which would taper off at higher levels. (Bad - opposite of desired effect)

You could use a discretionary increase. (Bad - for reasons you stated)

You could use a power increase. (Bad - to fast of an increase... By level 5 elite would be like 15)

You could use a exponential increase. (Bad - way to fast... By level 5 elite would be like CR30)

I apologize, I was being confusing. I agree, the percentage approach is linear, but using it as a guide for quest difficulty assumes that the "real" difficulty of a quest in linear with quest level and thus a percentage increase would match that difficulty.

For example a linear relationship between difficulty and level would say that a level 2 quest is twice as difficult as a level 1 quest and a level 30 quest would be twice as difficult as a level 15 quest.

For a realistic approximation, let's say we want hard to be 50% harder and elite 100% harder and that a level 2 quest is 50% harder than a level 1 quest, and a level 3 quest is twice as hard. A linear/proportional relationship would then suggest that for a level 14 quest, hard should be level 21 and elite 28. I think that is too high. By that I mean, if we stick with definitions of difficulty above, a level 28 quest will be much more than twice as hard as a level 14 quest. The current implementation implies that level 15 is 50% harder and level 16 is 100% harder. I think that is too low.

So my thinking on this is that you may not be able to assign straight percentages (though that would still be better guidelines that the current system). Each quest may need to be tweaked on it's own merits to match the DoPS of the playerbase.

Also, something to consider. You may not want the same difficulty difference between N/H as you do between H/E! I can imagine that you might want at level 12 Normal quest to have a level 14 hard and level 18 elite!

Simply freeing development up from the 1+1 H/E straightjacket will create a lot for freedom to improve the matching of quest difficulty to DoPS.

[Dirac]

I have to disagree with the quoted part above, though. If a significant older portion of the game is not being used, it should be readdressed every so often.

For example, Gems/Collectibles. This is both a NEW feature and an upgrade to an old one. Collectibles are used for the newer loot in the game but have been an old disappointment.

Ranged Combat is not new content/feature, but it does need to be addressed or else a large portion of this game is lacking. Bug fixes are not either, but need to be addressed, even if they eat into development time. Old quests being revamped can also add new life to the game making a re-roll more fun, or increasing the fun for a new player, who could be the future capped character/die hard fan.

I'm not sure we disagree. I'm just saying there is a premium on suggesting revamping old content, because it takes away from new content. If there are really good reasons (I love the new collectable/gem bag idea) then go for it.

Edit: Merc, A lot of this has been floating around, and I certainly didn't make any effort to distinguish any original thinking I might have had from ideas assimilated from other posters. I did want to bring all this together in a coherent package.

[Impaqt]

SO the Jistof it is Casual Games dont have the right to gain enogh favor for their extra Slots and Tome?

As long as Favor is linked to the Difficulty of quests, I cannot sign anything like this... Well THoughtout proposal otherwise.

Of course.. Instead of rampingup Hard and Elite, I would think it would be easier fo rthe Devs to Create a difficulty Higher than Elite....

[Mercules]

Edit: Merc, A lot of this has been floating around, and I certainly didn't make any effort to distinguish any original thinking I might have had from ideas assimilated from other posters. I did want to bring all this together in a coherent package.

Oh I wasn't saying, "Hey I thought of it first!" or anything of that sort. I've just been muttering about it for months now whenever we get one of the, "Such and such is too difficult - No it isn't." threads going like the one asking why they were changing Proof is in the Poison. You presented it in a much more formal, and clearer way than I ever have. My comment on that area was more of a, "See... that's what I've been trying to say guys."

[Jaysensen]

This is the most intelligent post I have read on the forums in quite a while.

Except for the term. To pass down gear and money from one alt to another is to TWINK. Tweaking usually refers to twitching, the tactic of using twitch play while in combat.


Anyway, like the OP eloquently says, the difference in difficulties just isnt there.
To many players, its almost as if:

Normal = Easy mode
Hard = only exists to open Elite next time
Elite = default setting

There are a lot of ideas on how to do it, but there needs to be more separation. Then take a look at the favor thresholds. 1750 is quite frankly, EASY to get. It just takes effort. There are very few quests which takes a special team to do on Elite. The Elite is made more difficult, perhaps lower 1750. EVERY player deserve some reward for doing favor quests. But the reality is that people who put in more work, deserve more in return. The problem is really coming up with what is fair to the most people.

[Dirac]

SO the Jistof it is Casual Games dont have the right to gain enogh favor for their extra Slots and Tome?

As long as Favor is linked to the Difficulty of quests, I cannot sign anything like this... Well THoughtout proposal otherwise.

I'm not quite sure of your objection. I think you are saying that casual gamers will never be able to get high end favor rewards if hard and elite are out of their reach.

I think this is an important objection. However, they will be able to get the favor rewards, simply not as fast as those on the high end of the distribution. As more content comes out, more favor will be available on the normal setting. More Elite content will be accessible to everyone as the level cap is increased.

I think by far the bigger problem for those on the low end of the DoPS is the narrow width of the difficulty range of quests. If the range continues to be very narrow, but pitched at the middle of the distribution, more will have difficulty of completing quests even on normal.

Of course.. Instead of rampingup Hard and Elite, I would think it would be easier fo rthe Devs to Create a difficulty Higher than Elite....

Well, you could be right. My feeling is that it would be easier to widen the difficulty range of hard/elite than to create a whole other difficulty setting.

[Dirac]

Except for the term. To pass down gear and money from one alt to another is to TWINK.

ROFL! Of course, I know this. For some reason I had the other word in my head, and it just created a blind spot. Instead of going back and editing it everywhere, I'll just leave it and have your quite accurate correction point out I am an idiot.

[Jaysensen]

Heh sorry...I had to point that out for the people that cant read 1337sp3@k. Again, kudos for a highly insightful post.

[Impaqt]

I'm not quite sure of your objection. I think you are saying that casual gamers will never be able to get high end favor rewards if hard and elite are out of their reach.

I think this is an important objection. However, they will be able to get the favor rewards, simply not as fast as those on the high end of the distribution. As more content comes out, more favor will be available on the normal setting. More Elite content will be accessible to everyone as the level cap is increased.

I think by far the bigger problem for those on the low end of the DoPS is the narrow width of the difficulty range of quests. If the range continues to be very narrow, but pitched at the middle of the distribution, more will have difficulty of completing quests even on normal.



Well, you could be right. My feeling is that it would be easier to widen the difficulty range of hard/elite than to create a whole other difficulty setting.

Hmmm.. so right now we have what.. about 2500ish TOtal Favor? Divide that by THree..... thats 833ish favor that can be obtained on Normal......

At the Rate COntent comes out, it;ll be 2+ years before there is enough content to reach 1750 by Just using Normal settings.....

Your Proposing Changing the DIficulty on each Quest Twice.. Bumping Hard.. and then bumping Elite.....

Taking Elite, and Bumping it higher means adding one more CHeckbox to each quest and modifyng each quest Once..... That would be less work....

[djinni69]

Of course.. Instead of rampingup Hard and Elite, I would think it would be easier fo rthe Devs to Create a difficulty Higher than Elite....

I'm all for a "TPK" difficulty setting

TPK = Total Party Kill

[PurdueDave]

Hmmm.. so right now we have what.. about 2500ish TOtal Favor? Divide that by THree..... thats 833ish favor that can be obtained on Normal......

At the Rate COntent comes out, it;ll be 2+ years before there is enough content to reach 1750 by Just using Normal settings.....

Maybe give 2x current base favor on normal, 3x on hard, and 3x on elite. With elite being much higher in level than hard it might break down as hard (for favor) and elite (for loot). At those numbers you could, given mod 5 content, achieve 1750 by running everything in the game on normal.

[Dirac]

Hmmm.. so right now we have what.. about 2500ish TOtal Favor? Divide that by THree..... thats 833ish favor that can be obtained on Normal......

At the Rate COntent comes out, it;ll be 2+ years before there is enough content to reach 1750 by Just using Normal settings.....

If one never intends on doing anything on hard or elite, they can't realistically expect to get all the favor rewards. Even if what I suggest is implemented, a level 14 Normal player should surely be able to do all the level 8-9 quests all the way to elite. If they can do half the content on elite now, that's 1666. One more Mod and they are there.

If solving the problem only takes adding another setting, which would be simply bumping elite and changing its name, let's just bump elite. However, I think there are other problems, loot, what to do with favor for a new setting, etc. Honestly, I don't know, but you haven't convinced me that adding another setting really is easier.