Minor balance suggestions to make the game more newbie friendly

[sirgog]

Just a couple of ideas, from my experience running a couple of lowbie quests with total newbies (newbies, not noobs) recently.

1) Newbies are often frustrated that they can't seem to contribute due to the level of twinking amongst experienced players they PUG with. It's humiliating to the newbie Barbarian to find that they are doing less damage in melee than the highly twinked bard with the ML2, RR +1 acid rapier of pure good (not to mention when they encounter someone with a ML2 Maelstrom, RR +3 Mithril Fullplate and a stack of Heroism, Barkskin and Haste potions so large they need an entire inventory tab for them)

Proposed Solution:
First, add some +1 energy weapons as bound end rewards to the most popular lowbie quest chains (perhaps a +1 flaming sickle to Waterworks, a +1 greatsword of pure good to Tangleroot, a +1 acid battleaxe to STK, a +1 holy handwraps to Delara's and a +1 frost rapier to the Catacombs). New players will appreciate it, and it will help them close the gap on twinkers, experienced players will not notice it at all.
Secondly, award more potions of useful spells as end rewards for low-level quests - particularly useful potions newbies can't really afford to buy themselves like Heroism, Haste and Barkskin, plus the essentials (Curse Removal, Blindness Removal, et al). In particular, I'd change the quests in the Harbor that currently award a small amount of GP as an end reward to instead award three or five of these potions.


2) STK is a quest many newbies get frustrated with. Parts 1 and 2 are perfectly balanced, just the right difficulty that a level 4 party with no foreknowledge and no twinking will tromp through part 1 with ease and beat part 2 but find it a challenge in parts.
Part 3 is ridiculous, however, due to two encounters which will almost always wipe a level 5 party with no foreknowledge of the quest: the fire trap room, and the final boss. (I've known a player, in fact the person who first told me about DDO before it was released, that chose not to upgrade their trial of the game after being frustrated by these encounters and thinking that the whole game would be like that). Even experienced players almost always choose to use tactics that exploit weak AI rather than fight the Guardian straight up - as straight-up, he's tough even for a twinked level 5 party on normal, and two untimely crits could see such a party get wiped.


Suggestions:
1) Add some warnings about the fire trap room to Wayfinder Dael's initial dialogue when she gives the quest. Perhaps have her say that the Seal of Shan-to-Kar was forged in a fiery inferno inside the Halls, and that no record of this fiery forge being destroyed has ever been made - and that the players should take something to provide magical protection from fire before they undertake their quest, as it may take them through this forge.
2) On normal only, reduce the DR on the Guardian of Shan-to-Kar to 5/adamantine, reduce his AC to something newbies can hit without needing a lucky roll, and remove his ability to land a critical hit at all. Keep him exactly as he currently is on hard and elite - newbies usually have a level of respect for those settings that we veterans don't have.
3) Reduce the base XP of STK part 3 by 5% to compensate for the quest being easier.

[Angelus_dead]

1) Newbies are often frustrated that they can't seem to contribute due to the level of twinking amongst experienced players they PUG with. It's humiliating to the newbie Barbarian to find that they are doing less damage in melee than the highly twinked bard with the ML2, RR +1 acid rapier

That's a serious flaw in the fundamental game design, and not one that can be really fixed with a series of small changes.

The core gameplay of an RPG is that you face challenges to gain rewards, which help you face tougher challenges. The rewards come in the form of XP and loot. XP is stuck to the character who earned it, but loot usually is not. That means that unless a character is either (a) intentionally nerfing himself or (b) has both no high-level characters and no high-level friends, then at any level less than 2-3 below cap his own loot drops are irrelevant because he's wielding twinked stuff.

DDO includes two mechanics to avoid that problem, minimum level to equip an item and binding named items, but they don't really go far enough. The min lev puts an important limit on how far off an item can be, and prevents someone from beating STK with +4 transmuting dagger of greater construct bane. But still, most characters mostly use items matching their min lev (+3 shield at level 4, +5 shield at level 8, etc), which is 2-3 levels before they'd be likely to pull that item level on their own, and 4-5 levels before they'd likely pull one with the right random properties to make it worthwhile to keep.

The only real way to fix that problem would have been to be much more harsh with item binding from the beginning, such as basically making ALL random items bind-on-acquire. (Exceptions could be allowed so that you can temporarily loan items to members of your current party, or permanently give them to characters who were in your party when it was acquired). Obviously, such a huge change is no longer plausible for DDO.

So we're left with trying to invent specific fixes to work around the main problem, such as adding named items that'll render twinking meaningless, because the lowbie character can already get a similar item on his own. Of course, that brings in all the troubles associated with Power Creep. Mainly, the random weapons that low-level characters find are no longer a meaningful reward except as vendor trash. (They're not a meaningful reward for twinked characters currently, but previously they were useful to untwinked). And it also creates a discontinuity point at whatever level the developers stopped pumping in high-power named items, because that's where the untwinked hit a wall and can no longer keep pace with the crowd.

[theblaz]

I wouldn't have minded if they made all loot bind on acquire, provided they also had the option to transfer items still inside a chest, like a wizard who opens a chest and sees his name next to a bastard sword. He should be able to just transfer it over to the ranger or whatever.

But you're right, it's not really plausible anymore. I can't even think of a fair way to phase into something like that which would avoid mass cancellations as a result.

[Arianrhod]

Just a couple of ideas, from my experience running a couple of lowbie quests with total newbies (newbies, not noobs) recently.

2) STK is a quest many newbies get frustrated with. Parts 1 and 2 are perfectly balanced, just the right difficulty that a level 4 party with no foreknowledge and no twinking will tromp through part 1 with ease and beat part 2 but find it a challenge in parts.
Part 3 is ridiculous, however, due to two encounters which will almost always wipe a level 5 party with no foreknowledge of the quest: the fire trap room, and the final boss. (I've known a player, in fact the person who first told me about DDO before it was released, that chose not to upgrade their trial of the game after being frustrated by these encounters and thinking that the whole game would be like that). Even experienced players almost always choose to use tactics that exploit weak AI rather than fight the Guardian straight up - as straight-up, he's tough even for a twinked level 5 party on normal, and two untimely crits could see such a party get wiped.


Suggestions:
2) On normal only, reduce the DR on the Guardian of Shan-to-Kar to 5/adamantine, reduce his AC to something newbies can hit without needing a lucky roll, and remove his ability to land a critical hit at all. Keep him exactly as he currently is on hard and elite - newbies usually have a level of respect for those settings that we veterans don't have.
3) Reduce the base XP of STK part 3 by 5% to compensate for the quest being easier.

Unfortunately, STK follows a pattern that a great many quests in DDO have (of having an end fight significantly more difficult than the whole rest of the quest). While I wouldn't mind seeing ALL quests with this pattern altered as suggested (on normal difficulty only), altering just STK in this way would simply put off the discouragement factor till some later quest (such as Church and the Cult, or Caverns of Korromar). If all such quests aren't going to be changed in this way, it might be better to leave STK as it is, so as to give new players an accurate taste of what they're in for as they continue through the game.

[Shagn]

I politely disagree on both parts.

1) There are more than enough twink weapons out there that just about anybody can acquire them easily. The new player needs to earn them. Should everybody get twink weapons so they can just fly through the lowbie quests without a challenge? I would hope not. Giving them all flaming of pure good weapons would make it much less likely for plat farmers to get money from new people to buy stuff on the AH though... I would rather choose to get rid of the farmers ruining the game and harassing players.

2a) The fire trap room is ridiculous since they shot the trap damage through the roof. Even a lvl16 rogue can get toasted by those traps on elite, which is really really sad and has broken many quests.

2b) STK boss can easily be beaten. There are a few techniques that work really well on him. Newbie players need to learn that melee isn't always the best choice, just as casters learn the opposite in such things as Shroud. This knowledge they will carry with them for future quests. My first couple of experiences were with a group that did not know how to do it properly, and I learned a valuable lesson.

I guess my question to you is: Do you want newbies to be able to complete every quest their first time through?

It also goes for end game content such as Shroud. Should everybody be handed a Mineral II weapon their first time through? Many newbies are "untwinked" to run it through (as we still witness in PUGs), and I know many out there don't have or use a transmuter. Learning from your experience and asking questions to be effective in a game is part of the fun. When I returned to the game, I quickly learned that my old dusty Sword of Shadow was not that great to use on the pit fiend...

[Borror0]

[...] because that's where the untwinked hit a wall and can no longer keep pace with the crowd.

Heh.

The best example we can give of that is AC. A new player most likely doesn't have a Chaosgarde, even less a Chattering Ring nor will he have +4 Heighten Awareness weapon for a long while. He will, most likely, not have a +5 Mithril Tower Shield nor a Mithril Fullplate. Of course, those drops from Vision/Hound but he needs to run these before getting access to it! The ingredients for the Shield ritual are not that easy to get either and most people are not very keen on the idea of binding their own +5 MTS/MFP.

So, you're witnessing a gap of 9-13 AC. That's a huge drop in effectiveness in a d20 system!! That's about 50% less performant!! (You can argue that the Chaosgarde are easy to get, even for a newcomer, so you may lower it to 7.) Then, consider that some builds can get even higher AC than that, that's ridiculous.

Oh, and it adds up to any 'weaker' gear HP, saves, DPs, etc. Like it wasn't enough.

[sirgog]

I politely disagree on both parts.

1) There are more than enough twink weapons out there that just about anybody can acquire them easily. The new player needs to earn them. Should everybody get twink weapons so they can just fly through the lowbie quests without a challenge? I would hope not. Giving them all flaming of pure good weapons would make it much less likely for plat farmers to get money from new people to buy stuff on the AH though... I would rather choose to get rid of the farmers ruining the game and harassing players.

My suggestion would make sure that new characters have an ability to earn reasonable twink weapons, rather than relying on sugar daddy alts as most lowbies do. By your argument, we should remove other good bind-on-acquire items such as the Black Widow Bracers, and force players that want such an item to 'earn' it by looting enough high-level chests that they find a +4 AC bracers.

2b) STK boss can easily be beaten. There are a few techniques that work really well on him. Newbie players need to learn that melee isn't always the best choice, just as casters learn the opposite in such things as Shroud. This knowledge they will carry with them for future quests. My first couple of experiences were with a group that did not know how to do it properly, and I learned a valuable lesson.

I guess my question to you is: Do you want newbies to be able to complete every quest their first time through?

I'm aware that there are tactics that beat the STK boss, but the ones used in every PUG you'll ever see run it are either abusing bad AI at best, or blatant exploits at worst. That's because the encounter is far too hard for the quest level (just as the aforementioned Church and the Cult is for a group without Firewall).

The main problems are that nearly every non-melee toon that isn't twinked is able to be one-shot by a crit from the giant, and melee toons cannot deal much damage to the giant without twinking - so the party must protect the casters long enough to kill him, which normally means cheesy tactics.

Besides, this is about preventing new players leaving, which is something that the poor design and lack of balance of the STK boss encounter causes. The Guardian of Shan-to-Kar is harder than any of the bosses in Tangleroot or Delara's, for instance - one of which finishes with a level 7 quest, the other level 8.