Suggestions to Balance Twinking

[uncus2]

Too bad...as an Untwinked newb, I found this interesting for a few pages. Now it's just bickering about how to run a valid experiment

In my experience in DDO, limited though it is, it is my lack of proper equipment that causes quest failure much more often than lack of knowledge of the quest. I die to trolls because of lack of a fire/acid weapon; wraiths due to lack of ghost-touched [and a death ward or death block whichever it is clicky]; etc. I may die the first time through a qust due to lack of knowledge of the quest - who knew there'd be trolls there, a wraith there, a very potent trap here, that @$%# STK Guardian; however, any failed attempts after the firsts are usually lack of gear issues.

Just giving the perspective of an untwinked newb....

[baddax]

Silence! noobs must not speak unless spokken too!
ok, who let the noob in!

[baddax]

Too bad...as an Untwinked newb, I found this interesting for a few pages. Now it's just bickering about how to run a valid experiment

In my experience in DDO, limited though it is, it is my lack of proper equipment that causes quest failure much more often than lack of knowledge of the quest. I die to trolls because of lack of a fire/acid weapon; wraiths due to lack of ghost-touched [and a death ward or death block whichever it is clicky]; etc. I may die the first time through a qust due to lack of knowledge of the quest - who knew there'd be trolls there, a wraith there, a very potent trap here, that @$%# STK Guardian; however, any failed attempts after the firsts are usually lack of gear issues.

Just giving the perspective of an untwinked newb....

You obviously have no understanding of the things you are talking about. If you did then you would no longer Be an untwinked newb.

[Borror0]

You obviously have no understanding of the things you are talking about. If you did then you would no longer Be an untwinked newb.

I truly hope that is sarcasm.

[baddax]

[Monkeytoe]

Shared bankbox oughta straighten that right out... a good indication that the rules-makers think character "hand-me-downs" are a serious problem in need of immediate solution...

Have you had any success with this approach in real life with anybody that wasn't required by other commitments to accept your decisions verbatim without debate?

KEKE!



I'm a monkey!

[Djeserit]

4. Add more static rewards to existing quests
By that I mean:

• Add more static rewards to existing quest chains
• Improve the existing one so that more are desirable
• Add static rewards for flagging for raids
• Add chain quests at high levels

Generally speaking, static rewards are enjoyed and they allow to level the field.

I count improving the current ones as adding more rewards because some of them are just useless and it is as good as if they didn't exist.

As of now, you can count the worthwhile static drops on one hand:
Bat, Visor, Cartouche, Voice...
You all know which I mean.
I like to pick up the shard/star and hobnail boots, but that's just me; it means a lot of CO6.

I would suggest inproving all the useless static drops.

Make the sword in Threnal a +5 True Law Holy Pure Good. Add a rapier and a khopesh. Add similarly good items for other classes.

Suddenly a lot of people would want to run the entire series, not just the quick XP part. It would even out the playing field and give people a reason to do all the quests nobody ever does. Then they would stop complaining that there's no content.

[Borror0]

It would even out the playing field and give people a reason to do all the quests nobody ever does. Then they would stop complaining that there's no content.

Well, to go along that goal there should be a revision of quests.

That is, they should slowly go back and try to figure out why some quests are unpopular. For many quests, the reason is that they are simply too unrewarding in terms of XP compared to many quests. For others, it is simply that they are annoying, too hard for the level or a lot of trouble to get to (Ghola-fan, for example).

It would even out the playing field and give people a reason to do all the quests nobody ever does. Then they would stop complaining that there's no content.

There would still be content issues at end game, where you only have an handful of quests to repeat.

[iconiclastic]

Look if you have tons of plat and items in your bank that you really have no use for try giving them away.I gave away a wounding of puncturing long bow,a banishing long bow,and a weakening of enfeebling long bow(I think thats what it was,been awhile).I had them on my tempest ranger and really never used them anyway.A person new to the game that was playing a ranged ranger could use them.I don't even want to get into the DDO economy,a model of a monetary system will fail as surely as the real one if plat didnt just magically appear in chests.
I tend to see things as player vs. computer,the more players aiding one another the more players can enjoy doing solo stuff and getting that "WOW I AM FINALLY UBER" feeling.Also sometimes there just isnt anything going on and soloing is pretty much the only option.
Finally if your against the give away thing you could always opt for the you owe me one,LOL become the mirt"the merciless"money lender of Stormreach.

[Scriplin]

Making twinking difficult is not going to solve any balance issues concerning quest difficulty.

Simply put, if you've beaten all of the content in the game, or have simply leveled a toon to level 20, and want to make a new toon, of course you are going to pass things on to your new toon to make life easier. If you couldn't, it would suck.

In my opinion, adding ML requirements to equipment, or potions, or consumables, etc., etc. will reduce twinking, but even if every single item in the game (and I do mean *every* item) had a ML requirement, you could still buy your new toon every ML 1 (or whatever ML you wanted to augment) item that was useful for them to have using plat from your other toons.

In this way, even with ML on every item, twinking will still be possible, and the person with the plat to spend will still be able to have an advantage over the new player.

Korthos town and island quests drop great equipment for the difficulty of the quests. If a new player was having problems learning the game, they could do every one of the Korthos quests on casual (which would be a walk in the park for even a gimped level 1 toon) and still get the exact same loot as is offered for beating these quests on elite. Also, for less than 10pp they can rent a hireling to heal them, or to DPS for them for an hour.

Also, if someone really wanted to exploit Korthos and gear themselves up in a newbie way, simply do Cannith Crystal over and over until you have 10 Bracers of Assistance (that's 11 temporary HP per bracer, for a total of 110 temporary HP per rest).

I see no problem with people gearing out their toons and conquering content via twinking. If you don't want to twink, you can still progress to level 20 without doing so, all of us did it, at least once.

The problem for new players is that they are unfamiliar with the D&D rules. For instance, in any other game, if you have two items that give +1 STR, your STR will be increased by 2, that is not true in D&D. If you want to help newbies excel at the game and perform better, they simply need to be educated better. All of the information is freely available, but consider it, how many people really go reading the rule book of a game they are downloading to play for free? As soon as it's installed and updated, they're going to login, and get to questing, learning as they go.

Really, as one person suggested, a guild to welcome newcomers is truly the best solution to this, or perhaps even making a static "Newcomer's Guild" part of the game, such that any new character created (unless reincarnating in which case you will already be a member of the guild of the toon your reincarnated from) is automatically a member of the "Newcomer's Guild." Then, new players could use items which have guild augments, and the guild level of the newcomer's guild could be set to something (again, static) that would allow usage of basic low level equipment with guild augment slots. Also, this would provide a community for them to be a part of, to find groups, help, etc. Also, perhaps a DDO GM could occasionally be online to greet new toons.

Also, since there is no guild favor needed for a static level guild, players in this guild would not be offered guild favor as rewards, not would they receive guild favor as they quest.

If you want to balance the difficulty of quests, the answer is not related to twinking in anyway at all, in my humble opinion. Someone will always find a way to get a bit of an advantage. Not only that, simply knowing the quest, and knowing what spells to memorize, what potions to bring, which type of hireling to hire, which weapons to use on which mobs, etc., *this* is the true advantage that veteran players have over newbies. This cannot be changed without randomizing the layout of quests, randomizing which mobs spawn within each quest, and doing so would basically destroy the storyline involved with each quest.

Just my 2 copper!

[KillEveryone]

This is a old thread.

This is a fresh necro.