change the repetition XP penalty?

[BlueLightBandit]

Just so you know... you offered your suggestion to the forum as a whole... not just the devs.

And I think 99% of the population would think that your idea hurts the game more than it helps.

[Riddikulus]

And statistics?

Okay guys... here's the deal:
1. There are literally hundreds of quests to run in DDO. Yes, HUNDREDS.
2. Characters in DDO will never EVER run out of XP.
3. Even if your xp is "ransacked" on one quest, there are HUNDREDS of others to gain xp for.

Making a change like those have mentioned above would be silly. The devs want you to run OTHER quests... not just the same ones over and over and over again. Personally, I'd have no problem if you earned 0 xp for every time you repeat a quest on the same difficulty. (You get one run on normal, one run on hard, one run on elite, and if you want to gain xp from it again you have to run it on solo... otherwise, pick a new quest to run)

Of course... the Shroud is the exception... but that doesn't mean that you HAVE to run it 100% of the time

Y'know, I gotta agree with BLT on this one.
There is a TON of XP out there, because people dont want to touch those quests doesnt mean they should change the XP penalties.

Are there not enough capped characters running around?
Do we need more people playing endgame content?

OK, while I agree with you two that the XP penalty doesn't need to be changed, I disagree that there is a TON of XP out there.

As it is currently stands if you do not run the outdoor quest areas there is not enough XP to cap out a character without repeating some quests. Granted you do not need to repeat much, and if you do and do it at a different difficulty setting you are still getting 100% + difficulty% worth of XP. So you can actually run every quest 3 times and get full base XP for each run. And that is certainly plenty to cap out any character.

[Stormanne]

I agree with the OP to a degree. Normal, run of the mill quests should proceed as they currently do. Quests like those in Necropolis, Giant Hold, and the Vale on the other hand should have a different scaling for repetition penalty. These are quests that you MUST repeat several times to get either items, ingredients, or relics is larger than normal collectibles amounts to further advance the story arc. And these are items that are not guaranteed to drop in the chests for every player every time.

From my perspective, I've got a level 12 rogue that started running Giant Hold quests at level nine. He has run every quest in GH enough times on normal, hard and elite that he gets less than half the experience on the quests (except the Crucible, still gets 65%). Yet, he only has 12 elven relics and 15 giant relics. Its not like he hasn't done them more than enough to get the relics if they dropped everytime, but alas they do not. These are really fun quests and would be really good XP still, if he were getting the XP he did on his fifth, sixth or even seventh run of these quests.

Again, if these were non-story arc quests, it'd be no big deal. But these are quests that have to be repeated, so why penalize us for repeating them in order to continue the story...

[Hvymetal]

I agree with the OP to a degree. Normal, run of the mill quests should proceed as they currently do. Quests like those in Necropolis, Giant Hold, and the Vale on the other hand should have a different scaling for repetition penalty. These are quests that you MUST repeat several times to get either items, ingredients, or relics is larger than normal collectibles amounts to further advance the story arc. And these are items that are not guaranteed to drop in the chests for every player every time.

From my perspective, I've got a level 12 rogue that started running Giant Hold quests at level nine. He has run every quest in GH enough times on normal, hard and elite that he gets less than half the experience on the quests (except the Crucible, still gets 65%). Yet, he only has 12 elven relics and 15 giant relics. Its not like he hasn't done them more than enough to get the relics if they dropped everytime, but alas they do not. These are really fun quests and would be really good XP still, if he were getting the XP he did on his fifth, sixth or even seventh run of these quests.

Again, if these were non-story arc quests, it'd be no big deal. But these are quests that have to be repeated, so why penalize us for repeating them in order to continue the story...

But in reality you are not being punished for repeating them. You knew full well that there is an xp penalty, you still get loot, you still get relics ( and sometimes more than 1 drop per quest for a character ), the Reaver raid is not mandatory & I am betting there are other quests around your level range that you would still get plenty of xp for.

I for one am against this idea, nothing like seeing the same ole LFM's up except for favor, all the time 24/7 and I am afraid that if this idea was implimented it would be nearly impossible to get people together to run any other quests than the most popular (i.e. most xp for least amount of time/rescources), thus if anyone (including new people) wanted to experience any of the other content they are then forced to solo them and/or go at a much higher level than the quest.

[QuixoticDan]

I'd like to make a few comments on this from the other side of things. I'm (basically) a new player; my highest character is level 9 (a cleric who can't solo a level 3 quest), but I also enjoy playing my level 7 (a ranger who can barely solo some quests a level or two below his). There is a marked slowdown in group-based XP around level 7-9; especially if you don't want to run one of the popular mega-XP quests AGAIN. I'd like to put forth the idea that is problem is entirely player-created. There really is a ton of XP out there; plenty to get any character to any level, even running quests below his level. I only see two things lacking:

First, a lack in LFMs. I don't have much confidence in my ability to lead a party; I'm just now getting to the point where I'd be confident leading a group through the Harbor quests, and I'm a reroll freak. So, as a newer player, I'm a bit intimidated by the idea of putting up my very own LFM. This is, in fact, quite silly; a few weeks ago, I discovered that it's really, really hard to solo Irestone Inlet as a level 5 ranger. Even picking up level 6 and arcane archer (for the money savings, mostly) didn't seem to help much...but that one grey 'None' on my adventure compendium seemed to mock me amid all the 'Normal' and the occasional 'Hard.' Thus, I went out on a limb, and made a LFM for it; I added the note 'doing non-standard quests.' I could have overflowed a raid group with the number of people who wanted to do something--anything!--other than the standard level 4-6 quest chain. I'd recommend to the OP to find a quest you haven't done, or haven't done in a while, and put up the LFM for it. Then do the quest. I realize it may not be at optimal time/XP ratio...but neither is the 0 XP/min waiting for another Stormcleave to fill, or as you mention, running the XP reward for Stormcleave into the dirt.

This leads to the second point, which can be better influnced by the devs than the first: it's hard to find quests to do. Not that they're not there to be done; it's just hard to find them. I've learned a few tricks, like going into every bar and interrogating all the NPCs I can find; but, in general, once you hit around level 5 you really have to do some searching to find 'non-standard' things to do. Again, this problem is more player-created than a fault in the game or its systems; and, admittedly, trying to learn the entire set of quests as a cleric is a bad idea, since everyone wants me to come heal them on the popular quests, instead of doing weird out-of-the-way ones. What I feel the devs can do, is maybe provide just a tad more information in the Adventure Compendium; it's a great resource for figuring out that there are quests people don't do much that are close to my level, but it took me forever to find Idas (I love those two quests, mostly because at level 7 I have the 20-point fire resist and stuff didn't do much damage), and I just yesterday discovered that the Necropolis--which sounds like a very high-level area--actually has level 5 quests in it. Unfortunately, I also discovered that those level 5 quests kick my scrawny n00b level 7 butt, and I'll need to put up a LFM for them.

So, in short (now that it's too late for that), I disagree. The re-running penalties are fine; for those quests that get repeated often for reasons other than XP (mainly the Kobold Brothers in my level range, for Muckbane), the XP doesn't matter because what you really wanted was Muckbane anyway. The good news is, this whole problem can be fixed the next time you log on to DDO ('you' being anyone who reads this, not just the OP); put up a LFM for a quest not frequently completed. Help some of us new people figure out just how much there is to do in Stormreach (and surrounding territory). As far as action from the devs, it would be nice but truthfully isn't required.

As a side note, the devs have made huge strides in helping newer players with this kind of issue lately. Mostly with the shrine reset timers--these allow my casters to pretend like they can solo things, too, although I do spend a lot of the time clicking on the shrine every few minutes. I'm not sure where I read it, but someone mentioned they're thinking about implementing 'kill count' quests. At first, these seem like a bad idea; the bad taste of 'collect 60 quillboar tusks' from WoW isn't completely out of my mouth yet. But in reality, these could turn out really great. There's a similar type of quest in Asheron's Call; you're given a 'to-do' list of monsters and quantities, and when you finish any of them during your normal day-to-day activities, you go back for your reward. With a system like this, my un-solo cleric actually has a chance; it's the kind of thing that will help fill the gap in the upper end of explorer-area 'slayer' quests, and could provide some reward for all those times I fail miserably trying to solo things. I'm intrigued.

[Elthbert]

What I'm saying is the repetition penalty is not serving any purpose if someone is stuck at a level for over a month unless you are a fan of kicking people when they are down.

You can say "go do other quests" but if they were going to do that they would have already.

You can say "screw them then," and that's fine if that's what you want to say. Says more about you than them anyway.

I'm not thinking about how people *should* play I'm thinking about how people *do* play.

Also, I think it is dumb that I can still get nearly infinite top notch loot every week, but the XP is diminished forever.

Okay I don't understand how this is a problem, I have a level 16 character who has run termenated the xp for exactly 1 quest, the shortest giant cave. You do not have to run a character through the samequest over and over, and there is plenty of Xp in the Game. Heck how many xp are available just from slayer and explorer quest?

One cannot be stuck in this game. It is not possible now thatthe Xp debt is gone. Now when there was Xp debt, one could have litterally run out of Xp but not now thatthat is gone. I think the repetition penalty is a good one and should be kept.

[boldarblood]

There is so much XP in this game that this it not needed. Run something different, not the same quests over and over. 85%+ of the content you do not need a full party or a cleric to even complete it.

[Dirac]

I think this is a good idea. I don't see it taking a huge amount of dev time, and would help that small fraction of people Dariun is talking about. Obviously, as many people have mentioned, it doesn't apply to the majority. As it doesn't apply to them, why they decided to weigh in so vehemently against the idea escapes me, but that is not important.

The idea that this will seriously affect the LFM's is belayed by the facts that it won't affect many people and the observation that LFM's for other quests get huge attention. If you want to do other quests, make your own LFM! As far as I could tell, there were no other arguements that this was a bad idea.

The arguement that I find simply irrefutable is that since the loot resets, xp should as well. Several ideas have been mentioned that would keep it from being exploited by the powergamers.

Worth a look.

[Vormaerin]

Okay, I'm confused again.. What is the point of this change? As far as I can tell, it is to allow folks to run the same few quests over and over again with even less of a problem. Ransacking those quests is already the way the power levelers do things and making it better is not really in the interests of the game.

I play in a small group (4), that plays slow (4-6 quests per week), doesn't repeat quests without going to a higher difficulty (ie no quest run more than 3 times, most only once), didn't finish WW, Searing Heights, or Tangleroot explorer areas before out leveling them and I'm outleveling the quests in this game (just shy of lvl 12). Stormcleave only once (normal). Delera's on normal, then only part way through on hard. Greymoon/Co6 only on normal. Threnal mostly on normal. How can you possibly get stuck or need to run Delera's again after you've ransacked it?

I've done 25 quests on Elite (none higher than lvl 6), 58 quests on Hard, 48 on normal, and the 6 solo quests. I haven't run any quest on solo if it had a non solo mode. I'm 9k short of lvl 12 and I've still got Faithful Departed (lvl 8), Shadow Crypt (lvl 9), Reclamation (lvl 10), Ghola Fan (lvl 10), Chamber of Rahmat (lvl 10), all 16 lvl 11 quests, and all both lvl 10 raids (TS and Von5/6) without even a normal completion. I've got xp yet to gain in Ataraxia's Haven and barely touched the Desert (killed 50-200 of most types).

The ONLY problem for xp in this game is that many quests are hard to get groups for if regularly PuG. That's not going to be helped by making the favored quests pay off even more.

[Dariun]

Okay, I'm confused again.. What is the point of this change?

The point is to help the small percentage of the player population who get stuck at mid levels due to their non-standard playstyle without causing any problems for anyone else or requiring much development time. That's it.



It is NOT intended to encourage people to keep doing Stormcleave or Deleras over and over and over again. And, in fact, with a 1 month timer, I do not understand why anyone would expect it to encourage people to do Stormcleave over and over and over again. It might *allow* someone to go back to Stormcleave after a month and get some more XP, but it certainly wouldn't *encourage* anyone to do it as a power levelling strategy.

As everyone knows, the proper way to power through the mid levels is to hit the big chain quests (Deleras, CO6, Threnal, VON) and do them repeatedly (preferably using the "only 1 person advances the quest" gimmick to let the whole group do VON3 6 times in a row). These types of players would be completely unaffected by this change.



I just think this would help people who, for whatever reason, stop advancing in DDO and become very frustrated.

I also think it "makes sense" based on other game mechanics (loot ransack timers reset after a week) and recent changes (elimination of death XP penalty and development of Explorer areas) and I don't think it would take up too much developer time.


Now, is this my *preferred* way to help people advance in DDO? Nope. Not by a long shot.

Buy my preferred way is something that would not be implemented because it would require a lot of development work and changes that go against the spirit of DDO (but are in the spirit of D&D), so I tried to suggest something practical.


P.S. Those who think players stuck in the mid levels are stuck there because they avoid the "less popular" quests are wrong (those quests have lousy XP, although I find them fun to play ). They are stuck there because they are, for whatever reason, not doing multiple runs of the big chain quests and raids: Deleras, CO6, Threnal, VON, Tempest Spine.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

How about you run more than 6 quests to level yourself instead?

[Vormaerin]

The point is to help the small percentage of the player population who get stuck at mid levels due to their non-standard playstyle without causing any problems for anyone else or requiring much development time. That's it.
0

P.S. Those who think players stuck in the mid levels are stuck there because they avoid the "less popular" quests are wrong (those quests have lousy XP, although I find them fun to play ). They are stuck there because they are, for whatever reason, not doing multiple runs of the big chain quests and raids: Deleras, CO6, Threnal, VON, Tempest Spine.

What "non standard" playstyle could lead to you getting stuck? My playstyle, which I clearly explained, is pretty non standard (and pretty close to the explanation of type of player who needs this according to your earlier post) and I'm going to reach lvl 12 without even doing all the lvl 10 quests or starting any lvl 11 quests. And that's without farming any of those big chains you talk about. Delera's: 1.5 runs. Co6: Once. Threnal: Once. Von1-4: Once. VoN5/6, TS: Zero times. No tagging along on higher level quests like Gianthold.

[Xalted_Vol]

This is my new thread to tell everyone to sign the old one was a Gary monument. You will be seeing this top o the list allot now

[Frodo_Lives]

I've never understood the whole "xp slowdown" that people experience from lvl 7 - 9. I blow through those levels like it nothing. The trick is to do the harbor and maketplace quests instead of running to do WW, STK, Tangleroot. I usually don't even get out of the harbor until I'm almost level 5 and then STK a couple of times as well as quests like the depths quests and other low level house quests and I'm almost level 6. Tangleroot and a few house quests and you are 7th. Delera's, Stormcleave, Gwylans, and a few others you are 8th no problem. Go back and do Co6 on normal, as well as Delera's on elite, SC on hard and so on and so forth and you are 9th.

I currently have a Wizard who just hit 10th and has run a lot of the house quests but Co6 only once, hasn't even touched Thernal, or SC on elite. Not to mention the desert, TS, VoN, anything in GH. I have repeated a couple of quests (Delera's on normal, Tangleroot) on the same difficulty level only once or twice. There are a ton of quests out there and if you stick to level appropriate stuff there will be always be popular quests out there to get decent xp.

I will say that once you hit mid 10th or 11th there is a big drop off unless you want to go run some Gianthold stuff. I usually try to put that off as long as possible so that leveling from 12 - 15 is quick and painless and I don't waste the xp when there are still lots of other quests I can gain xp from.

Bottom line is if you burn through the "good" xp quests too early you are going to run into a big time slowdown when you are at the high end of the mid levels. Sure it's nice to get to 6th or 7th real quick but it doesn't do you much good if you stall out at 8th or 9th.

[cdbd3rd]

**** lies!

Nay. Sweet blessed lies, surrounded by butterflies. With flowery garnish.



I like the XP reset idea. Either version so far-- either a set time for a full reset, or the -1 rep per week.


edit: Reading back, I see this is becoming another debate of some folks thinking others need to play the game their way. Fact is, some folks don't like running some quests because they're NOT FUN for them. Personal preference. Let those folks have a chnce to go back to the quests they enjoy and get some XPs for them again. It's absolutely no singed hair on the folks who are nay-saying the idea. *shrug*

[Vormaerin]

Let those folks have a chnce to go back to the quests they enjoy and get some XPs for them again. It's absolutely no singed hair on the folks who are nay-saying the idea. *shrug*

That argument works for just getting rid of diminishing returns period, too. If folks have the most fun plundering Delera's over and over again, why not let them? The Devs have always wanted to discourage running the same quest over and over again; that's why they put the diminishing returns in in the first place. I really don't see the point in a half arsed move away from that. Either ditch the idea or keep it. Neutering it so it doesn't have its desired effect and still hinders "rerun fun" seems kind of silly.

Anyway, its not like you don't get rewarded for rerunning your favorite quests with loot. Just not with XP after many repetitions. The other arguments advanced besides "its fun" just don't hold water. There is no basis for claiming folks will "get stuck" at certain levels without this change, nor does it "help casuals" since very few casuals ransack quests. That's sort of the epitome of the powerleveler lifestyle.

[FluffyCalico]

I think the XP penalty for repeating a quest multiple times should be changed.

My preference would be to put it on a timer just like the chest ransack timer except with a longer duration. The ransack timer lasts a week. I would say a month would be a good time for the repetition timer.

This would be most helpful for people who get stuck in mid levels (8-12) and are finding it harder and harder to find XP.

Why a month? Because that is long enough to encourage people to go do other quests rather than just wait a week and run Stormcleave 4 more times but it is short enough to minimize the frustration felt by people who get stuck at a level.

This should not reset the bonuses for 1st time completion on Normal/Hard/Elite; just reset the penalty counter so that after a month the first time through you get no XP penalty, than 10% the next time, 20% the next, etc.

If this change doesn't seem like a good idea, I think a different approach would be to either (1) lower the penalty from 10% per repetition to 5% per repetition or (2) cap the penalty at 50%.

All in all I think this would help out players who are getting frustrated leveling up (esp. soloers and static groups that play once or twice a week) without going outside the spirit of the game.

If you haven't done the quest in a month, you can't remember it all that clearly, so there shouldn't be as much of a penalty (I could even see dropping the penalty back to 10% after a month instead of 0). Also, if it makes sense that the loot rewards get reset, I don't see why the XP rewards shouldn't as well.

I'd be curious to hear what people think.

P.S. I'd also like to see the Slayer quests reset in explorer areas, but that's probably another topic...

8-12 is good leveling. Heres how without doing anything more than 3 times. Do these on normal hard elite:
SC, Thernal west, Thernal east, Thernal South, Grey moon, Co6, gylands, vault 1-4, vault 5-6 (once only) the 3 giant hold attunement quests (just those 3 on each diff give total of 150K xp) whack a few house quests on elite and a few GH walkups and you are there. From 8-12 usually takes one of my characters about 8-12 hrs.

[Yaga_Nub]

And statistics?

Statistics don't lie. They are a carefully manipulated form of the truth though.

Sorry back from the weekend (where I actually play instead of post).

Don't know if this has been suggested but I think that xp for quests should be like the ransack timer on chest only set to one month instead of one week. Each time you do the quest you get 10% less xp down to a minimum of 20%.

Normal quests should have a penalty if anyone at least 2 levels above the quest are in the party (i.e. a level 5 quest would have a penalty if a level 7 character was in the group).

Hard quests should have a penalty if anyone at least 3 levels above the quest are in the party (i.e. a level 5 quest on hard would have a penalty if a level 8 character was in the group).

Elite quests should have a penalty if anyone at least 5 levels above the quest are in the party (i.e. a level 5 quest on elite would have a penaly if a level 10 character was in the group).

[esoitl]

no offence but what does this do for the game??

if the quest rep penalty was removed after a month would you still be at a level where the quest is of benefit to you?
if you're repeating a quest that many times to ransack XP you should level up and take a hit for your level so what benefit would it be to rerun the quest again???


i certainly try to run all my characters through each of the good XP quests NHE to get the bonus but then don't really touch it except for maybe one more run afterwards, if you do that to all of the level appropriate high XP quests you will have gotten plenty of XP

run something new for a change please and stop asking for handouts

[Yaga_Nub]

no offence but what does this do for the game??

if the quest rep penalty was removed after a month would you still be at a level where the quest is of benefit to you?
if you're repeating a quest that many times to ransack XP you should level up and take a hit for your level so what benefit would it be to rerun the quest again???


i certainly try to run all my characters through each of the good XP quests NHE to get the bonus but then don't really touch it except for maybe one more run afterwards, if you do that to all of the level appropriate high XP quests you will have gotten plenty of XP

run something new for a change please and stop asking for handouts

Well if you're asking about my post then no offense taken.

I believe (notice the word) that there are many players that don't play 24/7. In fact, I believe (notice the word again) that there are many players that don't even play X/7. I know many players that only log in once every couple of weeks so this would help them out a bit. Other than that, you're right it doesn't really matter that much for people that play a lot. In fact, the only reason I even suggested it is because I know players like that. I like to try to help casual gamers when I can.

I could really care less as I'm one of those people that can take a character to 12 to 14 in just a couple of days because I know how to maximize the xp. For instance, you'd be surprised at how many quests you can do in groups that are 3 levels under the quest. That's 30% extra xp. That starts to add up quickly. If you know how to work the system, xp flows very freely in the game.