Suggestions to Balance Twinking

[Riorik]

Lets see. Here's my original full statement.

Really? I can tell you about me and my own experience starting up a new low level character recently. Other than tomes (which were insignificant to capabilities...they were convenience because I wanted it now), I did not bother limited twinking until 4th+...and seriously doing it until 8th+.

Lets analyze...so lets say a player does exactly what you propose. Melee build that throws on a huge pile of CSW potions, +2 MFP, +2 MHS, best weapons, whatever and we go with...the quests he would run, either solo or in a group, weren't really balanced on difficulty for him. His is the extreme condition that was ALWAYS possible, just unlikely in the first week after DDO was released that one player would actually have all of that available. Perhaps unlikely is the biggest understatement of the year.

Which is actually my response to this precise quote of yours:

False. Twinked gear plays its biggest role at lower levels, and not at higher level.

The difference between a new player and a player with a stack of CSW potions and Maelstrom or a flaming longsword, a +2 Mithril FP and a +2 heavy steel shield is beyond ridiculous. At mid levels, the gap reduces slightly and then enlarges at higher level (but that is more acceptable).

Your analysis could not be more wrong. Challenge is an important of gameplay, and jealousy has nothing to do with the issue.

As you can plainly see, I used your exact example of what equipment that a character might twink with. This is a narrow focus. Both you and I are targeting the question on characters that would twink with this type of gear. Clearly, level 1-2 and NOT likely to be much higher.

To which you replied with ONLY:

That has nothing to with what I said.

I can only assume you just pulled that out of thin air since not only did you write a comment about specific equipment for twinking, I used your example and I asked a specific question about it.

You did finally answer on my second request with:

The answer is both.

I'll break it down more slowly for you. In my quote, I have four "sentences" in the second "paragraph". I use those terms loosely because it's not exactly good grammar, however, there are four periods. The first two refer to the twinking situation...the specific equipment you mentioned and I used as my specific example. The third sentence is clearly a comment on the first two and clearly refers to how in the first week after DDO went live, it's unlikely (remember that word), that any player would have capped characters, acquired that equipment, then been able to start twinking characters that soon with it. The last sentence uses a common linking word...(unlikely) to link the 3rd and 4th sentences together in concept. The 4th sentence is merely a description of the 3rd. It is not a summary for the entire paragraph or the question.

I would agree, standing alone, you never discussed that in the first week of DDO's release that it would be unlikely for any player to be able to twink in this fashion for a lot of irrelevant reasons to this discussion. That still wasn't the point.

I think your answer is embarrassing in that you seem to be more focused on not admitting even a single misstep in your argument than the actual merits and continue to shuffle & side-step to avoid it. Sir, that sailing vessel that I mentioned was sinking to the ocean floor? Apparently you just pour greek fire on it because not only is it completely submerged in the ocean, it's now burning as it continues to sink.

Answer these questions, then:

• Why do you believe game developers (of all MMOs) take the time to code lines of code against twinking and add multiple levels of difficulty?
• Why do we see complaints against "dumbing down the game"?
• Why do we see requests to make the game harder or adding new difficulty settings?
• Why do game developers (of all MMOs) take easy buttons away?
• Why do we see requests for hardcore/permadeath servers?

If I am wrong, then game developers of all MMOs are wasting their time!

I don't think these answers matter. You're asking for speculation on items that have many inputs. The mere existence of complaints doesn't merit a conclusion that it's linked to twinking. Really, none of these do. This is just an attempt to change the battle terrain...remove the factual and empirical and substitute with the subjective/anecdotal.

Well, this is your quote:

That has nothing to with what I said.

If people can't identify who is the most attractive between two guys, then I don't know why you expect them to know what is most fun to them.

This is my FULL quote:

It is incredibly disingenuous to suggest as you did in your post that individuals don't know what makes them happy but somehow you do. Can't have it both ways - either all of us know or none of us know unless you're better than the rest of us.

To which you assert just wrote:

That is not what I said.

I used the word happy. You use the word fun. Technically, I think you are correct. Happy <> Fun. They have different meanings although by use and definition these words are not exclusive. I think it would be a reasonably common English language usage to see both words in the same sentence or used together to describe a single enjoyable experience.

So lets say I replace my choice of a single word with yours and slightly alter the sentence to match while preserving the intent within [] brackets.

It is incredibly disingenuous to suggest as you did in your post that individuals don't know what [is fun for them] but somehow you do. Can't have it both ways - either all of us know or none of us know unless you're better than the rest of us.

So I would ask, do you agree, now, that this is a fair summation of your statement or did I transform the intent of your statement?

Counting on player-initiated restraints to solve an issue is setting yourself up for failure.

While some players might be inclined to not play and let the untwinked players play, it's just preposterous to assume that is sufficient. For that reason, it makes sense for game developers to alter the game's design to decrease the likelihood of these situations to happen.

Yet again, an opinion to which you are entitled, but not fact. You fail to cite any relevant supporting information such as how often this occurs. All the time? Most of the time? Some of the time? Rarely? How did you measure failure? Simple pass fail? Grading? How did you determine a cutoff?

As we do seem to be discussing the "other untwinked possibly new players" at the moment, have you surveyed them to find their reasons for leaving? Was any analysis done looking for externalities? What percentage had a combination of reasons for being disappointed? Could cost to play (for some players), teenager, lost jobs, going back to school have played a role where they decided the combination of reasons meant it was better to do something else or just not play at all?

Oh, and since I already have your answer on this, what about the twinker? You know, since you're looking to enhance the experience of the player who's sent all this wonderful low level gear to their own character...what about him or her? How does their fun or happiness factor into things? Or are they just assumed to naturally be unhappy? Is there any chance they're just unhappy that DDO never introduced a full character re-spec option and they're forced to build a new character instead of re-using an existing one?

This just doesn't hold up under scrutiny, does it? Challenging the assumptions seems to remove the foundation for the conclusion?

[Riorik]

Minority voice.

No Vorn, you're actually the majority. It's just there's an awful lot of posts by very few individuals in this thread and on the forums. Very few actually completely agree with it - several are discussing the merits of several points and just generally debating. Less than a handful or perhaps just the OP seem to have fully embraced the hypothesis as fact.

[Borror0]

The third sentence is clearly a comment on the first two and clearly refers to how in the first week after DDO went live, it's unlikely (remember that word), that any player would have capped characters, acquired that equipment, then been able to start twinking characters that soon with it.

I don't see how the first week after DDO's release is any relevant to the topic at hand.

I don't think these answers matter.

Then you are wrong and I have no interest to discuss with you.

So I would ask, do you agree, now, that this is a fair summation of your statement or did I transform the intent of your statement?

The statement was poorly worded but the three paragraphs should have help you understand the meaning.

[eonfreon]

Heya Borr,
Something you said interested me.

You said that Twinking was clearly not intended.

I just want to know where you base this from?
From a Dev I take it?

Because from my POV, joining the game about 1 year in, I have seen very little to suggest that Twinking was not part of the "original" game.

Certainly the Devs decided that certain items should be Rare and "Unique" and bound to a single character.

But since nothing else is Bound only has a ML, it would imply that it can be given to whatever character you want, yours or someone else's.

And, as someone mentioned, the very concept of Twinking has already existed in other MMO's, so I find it hard to believe that twinking blindsided the Devs.

But, maybe it did indeed catch them off-guard; I just want to know.

[Borror0]

You said that Twinking was clearly not intended.

I just want to know where you base this from?
From a Dev I take it?

To be clear, I think some twinking was intended but not the level we have.

Of the examples I can think of:

• The existence of the Threnalian War Blade
• The nerf to Star of Iran
• The recent addition of ML to tomes
• The loot found on Korthos island (especially the Ember weapons)

Because from my POV, joining the game about 1 year in, I have seen very little to suggest that Twinking was not part of the "original" game.

If WoW developers say that they don't have the ability to address everything they want each update and that a problem can live on for years because other problems are given higher priorities, it is very likely that DDO developers face similar problems given their smaller budget.

And, as someone mentioned, the very concept of Twinking has already existed in other MMO's, so I find it hard to believe that twinking blindsided the Devs.

While true, many MMOs try to reduce twinking to an acceptable level (and most MMOs are also more solo-focused, meaning that twinking has less side-effects, but they still try to limit the amount of twinking that can be done to an acceptable level).

[Riorik]

I don't see how the first week after DDO's release is any relevant to the topic at hand.

Then you are wrong.

The statement was poorly worded but the three paragraphs should have help you understand the meaning.

The first week of DDO's release is, yet again, only relevant in the context that twinking wasn't likely to occur during the first week after release. Again you fail to even bother to read more than you wanted to read.

I see I somehow ninja's your response and you've already edited the second line to read:

Then you are wrong and I have no interest to discuss with you.

Nice

The statement was poorly worded but the three paragraphs should have help you understand the meaning.

So what you're actually saying is, you have now refused for a second time to answer the question and hide behind empty statements that contain no meat.

I'll quote it again for you to remind you what you wrote.

If people can't identify who is the most attractive between two guys, then I don't know why you expect them to know what is most fun to them.

Speed, efficiency and power are very loaded choices, over fun. Furthermore when the choice is fun now or speed, efficiency, power and more fun sooner. It does not even matter if it is rational of not, humans are not rational creatures and trying to explain their behaviors or desires rationally is setting yourself up for failure.

If given the choice between speed or being challenged, people will pick speed even if they would have more fun by being challenged. When a player experiences most fun is when he can go full out and still be challenged (which is the reason there are difficulty modes in video games).

You know, you're really making this easy to refute your hypothesis by refusing to respond or explain. I don't really have to type anything other than point out the holes.

I'm asking something simple. You wrote this, not me. I think it means people do not understand what they want. Your example talks about fun but it's limited to the choices of speed, efficiency & power. You then mention speed versus challenge which I think implies that if you zerg, there is no challenge or if you're challenged (might this mean moving cautiously?) you're having fun?

What about the idea that speed is the challenge? Zerging is about a) goal focus and b) making a boring/effortless run interesting because of the additional chaos created by running through everything.

Does this mean there is only one type of challenge and that no other options are acceptable? There there is only one way to do everything and all other behavior should be modified?

Yes, the last two questions are a written trap - but they're intended to highlight and challenge the argument. Staying on topic and actually answering the question, can you refute that? Can you justify a different interpretation of your statements? How about merely going back to the original post and justifying the apparent assertion that ALL Twinking is always bad?

[Borror0]

The first week of DDO's release is, yet again, only relevant in the context that twinking wasn't likely to occur during the first week after release.

And why did you take the time to mention that exactly?

You then mention speed versus challenge which I think implies that if you zerg, there is no challenge or if you're challenged (might this mean moving cautiously?) you're having fun?

Clearly, speed was referring was referring to twinking. I am not sure of how you could have missed that.

Anyway, at this point, you're just arguing for the sake of it. If you really think the suggestions in the OP are bad for the game in any way, just go step by step and express why they are bad.

[eonfreon]

To be clear, I think some twinking was intended but not the level we have.

That's what I figured you meant.

Anyway to address your points:

1. Increase the ML of the loot dropped in each quest
Agree. So I can still mail my gear to my starting lowbee, but this increases the chance that I and others will find decent at-level gear?
Don't see any problem with this.

2. Add a ML to some potions and thieve tools
Closest to a "nerf". Makes sense (even if I personally like it as is) that it be changed as per your suggestion.

3. Implement new ways for new players to make money or find consumables
I prefer your idea of increasing the drop rate of consumables more then creating new ways to make money.

4. Add more static rewards to existing quests
Sure. Nice to know what you're "working" for.

5. Make static rewards static (like they once were) instead of semi-static
I think semi-static was for those that wanted something other than the static reward.

6. Increase the drop rate of low level named items
Yes. Please increase the drop rate.

7. Change the minimum level for newly created Green Steel items from 12 to 18
No opinion on this one. Except it sounds like a NERF!!! LOL.
With weapons this powerful I pretty much figure things will change some way or other eventually.

[Riorik]

And why did you take the time to mention that exactly?

On this point, yes, it's just an argument. You have, yet again, dodged the question.
Then again, perhaps you haven't. You won't answer.

Anyway, at this point, you're just arguing for the sake of it. If you really think the suggestions in the OP are bad for the game in any way, just go step by step and express why they are bad.

No, not for the sake of it although I really do need to stop posting and get back to working. Gotta pay that cable ISP bill .

No, it's about challenging the basic premise that a change to twinking is even desirable and/or that it's anything more than something on a "want" list.

Discussing your points is premature and implies support for the entire proposal. You have to start with a solid foundation before you build the structure.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071853/quotes
When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, Lad, the strongest castle in all of England.

I think you're on to something - why don't you start your second castle?

[Borror0]

On this point, yes, it's just an argument. You have, yet again, dodged the question.
Then again, perhaps you haven't. You won't answer.

If there was a question asked, I would have answered.

There was no point being made, with the exception of "first week of DDO" which is just nonsensical as it does not relate to anything I said.

Discussing your points is premature and implies support for the entire proposal.

False. You can disprove my points individually, if you try.

[Angelus_dead]

Heya Borr,
Something you said interested me.
You said that Twinking was clearly not intended.
I just want to know where you base this from?

The reason is game balance. One has to assume that the developers didn't want to publish a game that's completely unbalanced at levels 1-12 (or at any level).

But with twinking, that's exactly what happens. The power difference between self-funded characters and twinked ones is worth more than 1-2 levels of class advancement. So, the only way you could decide that twinking was intentional is if the developers disregarded game balance.

One might respond: "But the ability to twink has always been there, so they must have wanted it. In fact, they accelerated it with the later introduction of mailboxes and auctions". Those observations are true, but to use them as proof of developer intention would mean denying the possibility that they could have made mistakes.

As often happens in MMORPGs, the developers seriously misjudged the results of allowing player characters to exchange items with each other. Why did they even allow item trading in the first place? Verisimilitude. Real humans can pass a sword from one person to another, so the instinctive reaction is that in-game humans will feel fake unless they can do that too. But what they failed to understand is that because of how D&D parties work, level 6 PCs can't be in the same room with level 12s, or even in the same game-world. Interactions between characters of 5+ levels difference are never satisfying for those on the lower end, so it's the DM's job to prevent it from happening in the first place.

You can see that DDO had a non-D&D rule added to help a little: the minimum level to equip a magic item. That rule did in fact remove the majority of possible twinking, because otherwise level 1 characters would receive a full suite of +5 holy weapons and AC 8 bracers the first time they make it to a mailbox. But that limitation wasn't quite enough: there's still a big gap between what's allowed by minimum level and what you could actually have found on your own by the time you hit that level.

[Angelus_dead]

You know, you're really making this easy to refute your hypothesis by refusing to respond or explain. I don't really have to type anything other than point out the holes.

The position is a difficult one to explain, because it's so painfully obvious that it's hard to see how anyone could not have figured it out for himself. In fact, I've already given you the answer multiple times, but you ignored it, probably because the post itself was so short.

The answer is "game balance".

If you think game balance is valuable, then you'll see why twinking is a problem. If you don't think game balance is important, then it would take some extensive pedagogy to explain why it matters.

[eonfreon]

The reason is game balance. One has to assume that the developers didn't want to publish a game that's completely unbalanced at levels 1-12 (or at any level).

Thank you for the very complete answer.
Pretty much what I figured but I like to make certain I'm understanding the reasoning.

You can see that DDO had a non-D&D rule added to help a little: the minimum level to equip a magic item. That rule did in fact remove the majority of possible twinking, because otherwise level 1 characters would receive a full suite of +5 holy weapons and AC 8 bracers the first time they make it to a mailbox. But that limitation wasn't quite enough: there's still a big gap between what's allowed by minimum level and what you could actually have found on your own by the time you hit that level.

So let me see if I'm clear as to Borr's overall suggestion, at least the parts I'm interested in:

To even the "playing field" Twinking will be pretty much left as in, so as not to penalize older players (with perhaps some ML added to certain items- like thieves tools and CSW pots), BUT Chest and/or End Rewards would scale up higher so that it increases the chance of actually finding an "appropriate" at-level item and possibly increase certain consumable drop rates.

Thus to compensate for the increase in available power to newer players some quests will have to be made tougher.

Am I on the same page?

[Aaxeyu]

The position is a difficult one to explain, because it's so painfully obvious that it's hard to see how anyone could not have figured it out for himself. In fact, I've already given you the answer multiple times, but you ignored it, probably because the post itself was so short.

The answer is "game balance".

If you think game balance is valuable, then you'll see why twinking is a problem. If you don't think game balance is important, then it would take some extensive pedagogy to explain why it matters.

No one really cares about game balance during the leveling process, balance at endgame is all that matters imo.

Being able to twink your characters is not a bad thing imo, spending money on faster and more fun leveling is great if you ask me.
For any good player the first levels are easy as pie anyways, twinking only means some saved time. Alot of people don't even bother to twink their toons until mid levels as the low levels are over so fast anyways.

A new player with korthos gear will be waay behind a veteran in korthos gear, so it doesn't matter if CSW pots gets a min level, or if he will have 1-2 less AC due to new min levels. The new player will still be behind.

What you see as a problem is that skill and knowledge really matters in DDO, even in low levels.
Twinking is only a very small part of the problem.

[Aeyr]

Hello,
For better or for worse, I think it's unrealistic to expect a significant change to twinking as the game stands now without a major overhaul to the game.

First, Turbine obviously very carefully designed and updated the game to its current status- this includes the availability of twinkable gear. I happen to think that the power of equipment is much too high at all levels (I'm a bit old school D&D minded though), but I think its that very fact that such equipment is obtainable that motivates most of the player-base to keep playing to acquire all that top-end gear. This equipment focus is in most MMOs from what I've seen, and its apparently quite effective from a business point-of-view.

Second, all the potential character builds and the extra time we have to play provides a lot of incentive for veterans to build new characters and twink them out while they're at it since they're often motivated just to level-up as quickly as possible to fully flesh out the character they planned. This was also likely Turbine's intention as people will play the game more and will keep more low level characters around for newbies to group with.

As for the newbies' experience, its actually tough to speak for what they want really as each individual might be looking for something a little different from most others. Some might want a challenge, some a rapid-fire zerg experience, and some maybe somewhere in-between. Personally, I'm somewhere in between as I do want to experience the quests (and often only really do when I solo or duo them), but I also want to level-up quickly. I don't want to be completely impotent compared to an uber party member, but then I don't want to have to carry along a clueless group either. I must agree with some of the posters that its the experience and skills of the player that have far greater impact than does equipment on a character's effectiveness, so the 'problem' (and there might be one) might be more accurately stated as due to allowing veteran players to even play with newbies at all if we are concerned about the low-level quest play experience (after all, knowing where all the traps are, what tactics to use, and all the other things a veteran will often provide "orders" for to the newbies makes a greater impact than does their slightly higher AC, saves, etc).

However, no matter what I'd want in-game, the game has evolved (slightly) over 3 years into what it is, and I don't see it changing ever without some drastic overhaul to the entire game's structure occurring. Sure, there are some imperfections, but overall I'd say they did a pretty good job with the game as-is. Plus, "fixing" something like the availability of overpowered equipment would very likely create new problems like reducing the motivation for veterans to make new characters or even keep playing DDO thereby leaving insufficient characters available to play in low level quests with newbies (it may not, but even a 10% reduction in this would be noticeable, particularly to Turbine's account managers).

Anyway, carry-on.

-Aeyr

[Angelus_dead]

Second, all the potential character builds and the extra time we have to play provides a lot of incentive for veterans to build new characters and twink them out while they're at it since they're often motivated just to level-up as quickly as possible to fully flesh out the character they planned. This was also likely Turbine's intention as people will play the game more and will keep more low level characters around for newbies to group with.

That's implausible.

Which of these two scenarios is more likely to have happened at the design table?

Choice One
"Hey guys, I'd like to give a power boost to new alts of existing maxxed characters, to the tune of 3-4 levels worth of power. How could we do that?"
"But they already have better skills and knowledge. That's a kind of power"
"Yeah, but that's something that a new player might come close to matching just by being exceptionally studious. I want them to really fly through the dungeons and leave newbies in the dust"
"Ok, so we'll add an icon to the login screen where you can buff an alt with 'Legacy Aura: You are 20% more awesome at everything'"
"But that'll be visible on the inspection window. I want something the newbies can't really see"
"Ok, so instead we could allow high-level characters to give magic items to their alts. Magic items can contain a lot of power"
"Sounds good- but won't that go too far? A +5 greater bane can be worth more than 5 levels of DPS potential"
"True, so we can add minimum level restrictions so they can't use something TOO good until advancing more"
"So it's settled: Our objective of overpowering new alts can be achieved by transfering items from higher level characters. And make a note for the future: a mailbox or auction house would make it more convenient, reducing the need for guild membership"

Choice Two
"Hey guys, should we like make a trade window or something?"
"Yeah, every other MMORPG allows player characters to give items to each other. There must be a good reason for that. And if you can't lend a sword to a buddy, players will want to know how we justify that- is it covered in glue?"
"Ok, whatever. Just don't expect me to program a mailbox too. I got stuff to do."

This was also likely Turbine's intention as people will play the game more and will keep more low level characters around for newbies to group with.

Why would Turbine want newbies to group with characters of the same level but unreachably better numerical capabilities?

[eonfreon]

How about merely going back to the original post and justifying the apparent assertion that ALL Twinking is always bad?

That's the OP's apparent assertion?

Hmmm.

I would really like to know how you get that from the OP.

Just asking, because I don't see anywhere this particular assertion.

If that was his assertion, wouldn't it have made more sense to suggest completely restrict mailing and trading/giving (including AH of course)?

How does increasing the drop rate of items from (ML of Quest -3) to ML of Quest have any affect on Twinking other than to increase the chance of finding a more equal item to a hypothetically "Twinked" item?

Yes, there are some points made to change ML's, but this seems more of an adjustment to Twinking rather than an all-out condemnation.

Perhaps, it's something that was said later?
Because I fail to see this apparent assumption.

If you have a moment I would be interested in your reasoning.

[Aeyr]

The plausibility of my statement is sound. Turbine wants to motivate veterans to play new low-level characters because they will retain their interest, replay old content, and keep paying the subscription fees. I know most of my friends wouldn't do it all again if it were very difficult and slow to level-up. Now as for balance, yes the twinks will have more effective gear and thus a numerical advantage to the newbies' characters. However, I must reemphasize that Turbine's ultimate goal is to get all players to play the game more and thus make more money. There probably isn't a huge number of potential new players itching to play a 3-year old game (that's just a guess, but a realistic one imho), so if the existing player-base isn't interested in replaying the low-end content again, the new players (true newbies without a group of friends to join already) might have a really hard time finding enough 6-person groups to run all the low-level quests with- particularly the ones with minimal relative quest rewards.

I must also reemphasize that while the twinkage makes some difference in a character's effectiveness, its that players knowledge and skill that's FAR more valuable in simplifying quests than is their equipment, so you can only really solve the issue with balancing quest experience by not allowing vets to play with newbies at all, and I've already explained why they didn't do that. I think Turbine accepted the costs of potential quest imbalance as worth the benefit of keeping as many people playing the game as possible. Don't forget, Turbine has their own business strategists that likely thought about this a lot more than we have and had apparently concluded that this was the way to go to optimize their financial outlook, so it will probably not be changed significantly in this game.

The defense rests.
-Aeyr

[Riorik]

Because I fail to see this apparent assumption.

I see your point. I think I'm wrong by making the blanket statement and that's not what he's suggesting. Unlike the OP only, however, I tend to be willing to admit mistakes when I can be convinced they were made. It didn't take much - you're right, he's looking for a tweak.

I found the quote that changed the subject.

It is obvious that dungeons were not originally build with twinking in mind, nor was twinking intended.

This seems unambiguous and clearly says all twinking was unintended. I'm not sure unintended is equal to bad, however, if you can assume some is good while other is bad, who makes that call and under what criteria? Is it fact based or just a gut instinct?

What you see as a problem is that skill and knowledge really matters in DDO, even in low levels.
Twinking is only a very small part of the problem.

This is where I'm at on how the game really works and as specifically applies to twinking.

What many consider facts are often merely assumptions. They may be based on a lot of convincing arguments and they may finally be proven correct, but arguments and opinions do not prove almost nothing.

There are so many holes in the arguments because of those assumptions.

Why are we assuming that only experienced players that are able to twink their new character builds will have twinked character builds?

A few years ago while hanging on the Baen Books website, I read the story behind the creation of the Baen Free Library. I'll just let you read it here:
http://www.baen.com/library/

The story here is, if you're a reader, how many times have you walked up to a friend, handed them a book to read and told them it's really awful, read it versus the opposite...telling them it's really good and loaning them a copy?

Do you think there's any chance that some percentage of the newer player more or less have friend-sponsors? Might they be recipients, never having played the game, of rare equipment, expert advice, getting to run as a PUGger in elitist guild runs, etc etc. Would it matter to you if I said I've done precisely this act and outright given away permanent ridiculously good twink equipment, a variety of tomes, plus countless hours of personal time doing things that only benefited me spiritually or on a socialization basis - helping a friend.

What's being suggested is a variety of ideas which seem acceptable on the surface, to address the wrong problem and of dubious value; the impact of which would be almost impossible to measure in any meaningful manner.

As Aeyr stated, the real issue is experience in quests. Something never really intended to exist in a PnP world. The rail freight transportation industry sometimes breaks things due to handling...yes, a real world example, again...for my example, lets say super sacks of sugar. The industry standard is that railcars must be blocked & braced to handle impacts of at least 6 mph. Should a shipper not do so, the legalese is that the nature of the rail transportation is that cars move through hump yards and they will ALWAYS receive impacts of 1-6 mph during normal and expected handling - the nature of the commodity is such that if you do not secure it properly, it will break under the conditions of normal handling. A claim for loss of product in these conditions may be denied as negligence on the part of the shipper.

The nature of the MMO experience is such that given limited content that players continually re-run...given a lack of randomness and allowing for a certain predictability, it is inevitable and normal that the quests would become significantly easier to do by anybody with such experience. Equipment is purely a secondary input to the situation and not a primary cause.

Fix the right problem. If you can't, don't propose something else and pretend it's a spade.

Incidentally, I view changes of this sort as a significant issue. Isn't there a huge advantage to having any of the pre-change items? How about Rings of Spell Storing that once upon a time, you could have as many as you wished in inventory before they were retroatively changed to exclusive. I can think of one player in particular that has three in inventory right now...grandfathered in because she never moved them or put them in the bank after the change. Game breaking? No. An advantage? Yes.

Just as a simple suggestion, a full character respec that brought the high level re-roll straight back to full level would neatly bypass much of this supposed problem. Sure, I might roll up a new character...but why would I do so if I could simply re-invent an existing slot? Keep in mind, I have never re-rolled a single character beyond level 4 nor deleted any that got past that point. I'm like an off-brand power gamer in that I don't have the time or desire to do it again. So far, feat respec's & enhancement adjustments have been sufficient to "rescue" any of my characters weakened by Turbines changes in the last three years.

[stoc]

Unless I missed it, Turbine has not update their game since October (which is the reason I play LOTRO in my free time instead of DDO).
Fail.

You can't even hang with this wonderful game becuase there is no new content yet you continue to ask for more unneeded changes. I herby petition to have Borror0's forum posting ability revoked until he can play this game he has these "grand ideas" for. My feelings are if you are not a part of the community you have no say. (my definition of community is one who plays not one who posts)

I have also discovered that they are correct. Borror0 will simply attempt to outpost you so that Borror0 has a feeling that Borror0 has won the discussion. There is no getting thru this wall of Borror0's wall of denial no matter how correct you may be.


Borror0 reminds me of a very popular influential man I am sure we can all recall.

"It depends on what the meaning of the words 'is' is." –Bill Clinton, during his 1998 grand jury testimony on the Monica Lewinsky affair


"When I was in England, I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn't like it. I didn't inhale and never tried it again." –Bill Clinton