Enough XP Available?

[Eelpout]

So what is organic about this? Find another buzz word.

You might though try a Perma Death group. I have not tried yet, but you might like that type of play as it seems to fit into your overall approach.

Wow. Did you have an allergic reaction to some "organic" vegetable or something? Seems a tad harsh to go after the guy over a word that fits his perseption of his experience, plus he isn't trying to change anyone else's playstyle. Poor chap just wanted a bit of advice.

[Dark_Helmet]

So, at least in theory, we should be able to make it.

Obviously, there will be some quests we have little or no chance to complete. We've tried to minimize the number of quests that are impossible for us to complete by going with a cleric, rogue, and wizard, so that we can heal, cast arcanes, and undo traps and locks. Even so, several of the raids will be beyond our abilities. And the lack of a fighter will hurt us a lot.

If there's enough XP available for us out there, it looks like our biggest problem will be properly equipping ourselves.

Collectables are the way to go. And, smash everything out there. I don't send money over to a new build, but run with what I loot (except for heirloom items such as a ring of feathers). I think you should place those items - such as arrows - on the auction house (just not BUY from the auction house).

To get the max XP from the explorer areas, you need to kill thousands of monsters. I find that having to "farm" for XP goes against one of the rules above (not re-entering your dungeons even at normal/hard/elite) - besides the boredom of actually trying to kill that many as you have to re-enter the landscape numerous times.
I think you might want to limit the explorer areas to the other goals: exploring all the areas and getting all the rares. This will allow you re-entry until you get all of the rares completed.


Are you using the static level of the dungeon or the Hard level (e.g. one level higher)?

I wouldn't level up immediately, but do all quests at that level. Once you completed all the appropriate quests, then go level up. Yeah, that will break up some of the chain series - but those chains were meant to go over a long time frame (Tangleroot has you revisit caves after they become re-occupied by other monsters).

Since you have only 3 members and the dungeons are supposed to be designed for 4, you might look at adding a party member. I think your reservations about pugging is that the PC might be twinked. So, the alternative is to pool some money and buy a hireling to help on the difficult missions. As a DM, I used to allowed hirelings... for a price.


I have more fun actually having the chance of dieing and being more careful vs. the overwhelming twinked boredom that some people run with who only die to stupidity (or lag).

[Dark_Helmet]

So what is organic about this? Find another buzz word.

Organic means not chemically treated with poisons such as hand-me-down twinking, the free, Monty-Haul, twink, starting equipment, and the DDO Store.

Makes sense to me... drink the KoolAid!

[Irinis]

Sounds like fun!

[GoldyGopher]

There's actually an absolutely immense amount of experience out in the landscapes at the higher levels.

My quick calculations indicate that if you do every quest in the game exactly once on Normal difficulty, completing all of the optionals, that'll get you around 1.1 million of the 1.9 million XP necessary to hit cap. (Hard should get you a bit more.) As there's around 1.7 million XP out in the landscapes, it shouldn't be impossible to reach the cap. These are "back of the envelope" calculations that don't include things like the Voice of the Master.

Theoretically, one could level from 1-20 without ever stepping into a dungeon, except for one gap at level 5 (after completing Sorrowdusk's landscape), when you'll need ~67k XP so you can enter the Restless Isles/Ataraxia, and you'll be around 127k short from 1.9 million when you complete the Devil Battlefield. That's also not counting any repeat rares.

Eladrin,

I would like to hit upon one of my pet peeves for the Adventure Areas. The XP is front loaded.
In each of the Adventurea areas approxiamtely 50 to 60 percent of the xp can be earned with only 20 percent of the time commitment.
Korthos Island ~30 Minutes : 3357 XP - Additional 4 Hours : Additional 4930 XP
Cerulian Hills ~ 45 Minutes : 3804 XP - Additional 3 Hours : Additional 4515 XP
...

This front loading makes it difficult to use the Adventure Areas to build XP. It would be better off if you characters got XP based on each kill rather than a total number of kills as is pervlant in other MMOs. Somewhere along the lines of 7 XP per level in the CR rating modified by the party members max Level.

[dasein18]

Wow. Did you have an allergic reaction to some "organic" vegetable or something? Seems a tad harsh to go after the guy over a word that fits his perseption of his experience, plus he isn't trying to change anyone else's playstyle. Poor chap just wanted a bit of advice.

Just been hearing this word thrown around a lot lately. Kind of like "Green Jobs", etc. Did not mean to come across harsh. Notice below my reaction to the buzz word.. actual advice?

Figured the thinking reader would realize just commenting on the buzz word and trying to give some input that may be of use.

[nurmiw71]

Collectables are the way to go. And, smash everything out there. I don't send money over to a new build, but run with what I loot (except for heirloom items such as a ring of feathers). I think you should place those items - such as arrows - on the auction house (just not BUY from the auction house).

To get the max XP from the explorer areas, you need to kill thousands of monsters. I find that having to "farm" for XP goes against one of the rules above (not re-entering your dungeons even at normal/hard/elite) - besides the boredom of actually trying to kill that many as you have to re-enter the landscape numerous times.
I think you might want to limit the explorer areas to the other goals: exploring all the areas and getting all the rares. This will allow you re-entry until you get all of the rares completed.


Are you using the static level of the dungeon or the Hard level (e.g. one level higher)?

I wouldn't level up immediately, but do all quests at that level. Once you completed all the appropriate quests, then go level up. Yeah, that will break up some of the chain series - but those chains were meant to go over a long time frame (Tangleroot has you revisit caves after they become re-occupied by other monsters).

Since you have only 3 members and the dungeons are supposed to be designed for 4, you might look at adding a party member. I think your reservations about pugging is that the PC might be twinked. So, the alternative is to pool some money and buy a hireling to help on the difficult missions. As a DM, I used to allowed hirelings... for a price.


I have more fun actually having the chance of dieing and being more careful vs. the overwhelming twinked boredom that some people run with who only die to stupidity (or lag).

I don't like the idea of maxing out the slayers, but we will probably have to in order to continue leveling. We'll wait & see how it goes before we decide for sure.

We may take on some hirelings, but (and this will sound funny to some people reading this) they are going to be EXPENSIVE, given our lack of resources (BTW...one other rule...we don't plan on spending any Turbine points on this particular group, so to take on a hireling, we've got to have the gold for it.) So we'll have to pick & choose when we use hirelings.

We'll probably do the quests in an order that "feels" as natural as we can, not worrying so much about the level of the quest.

We finished Korthos. Now we're running the quests in and around the Leaky Dingy. We just leveled up to 3rd.

We'll probably head up to the area around the harbor masters house next and do Dirk's, Butcher's path (PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE give us at least one muckbane drop!!!), Kobald assault (which will be pretty tough if we do it on HARD at this point--may have to wait for 4th level, or at least some better equipment). Then over to Garrison's pack. Then we'll probably either start on the Lobster quests (not many left there as of Release 1) and also do the Cerulian Hills. Then WW, and then finally cap off the Harbor with Irestone Inlet.

Then into the Marketplace, to do the two level 2s near the Iron Nail, STK, then Redfang and Freshen the air. Then the Catacombs. You get the idea...

So, to answer the question a different way: we're not planning on doing quests strictly in order by level, but rather in the order that we might expect to find them naturally, as if it was our very first trip to Stormreach.


I think the thing that's most exciting/interesting about this right now is that the low level rewards actually mean something. The Gnashtooth Sickle or Bloodletter's Knife wouldn't look too bad as an off-handed weapon for our rouge right now, for instance.

And, also, there is, as you point out, some real danger. Believe it or not, we came close to having a death defending the Cannith Crystal in Korthos Village. We were running it on hard at 1st level, without a fighter in the party, with nothing but our Ember weapons and masterwork armor. No one had a +1 BAB yet, so we were all super-slow with our weapon swings...thank goodness that's over!!!

[Eelpout]

Just been hearing this word thrown around a lot lately. Kind of like "Green Jobs", etc. Did not mean to come across harsh. Notice below my reaction to the buzz word.. actual advice?

Figured the thinking reader would realize just commenting on the buzz word and trying to give some input that may be of use.

Permadeath, in my opinion, is always worth a try. Even if you invest 15 minutes into it and hate.

If the OP is looking to keep just the 3 player static group, though, Permadeath would be a downer. No point to joining a guild and the rerolling on death would be a big slap.

It seems there are another group of people out there that like the no-twinking, take it slow, and not rerun quests ideas, but starting over on death is one step too far.

I had fun when I ran Permadeath, but if I did it with my current static group I would have to gouge out both my eyes with a dull skewer and go for the old icepick frontal lobotomy!

[nurmiw71]

Just been hearing this word thrown around a lot lately. Kind of like "Green Jobs", etc. Did not mean to come across harsh. Notice below my reaction to the buzz word.. actual advice?

Figured the thinking reader would realize just commenting on the buzz word and trying to give some input that may be of use.

Maybe if I'd explained my idea better, it would make more sense:

Me and two of my fellow stakeholders recently had a sit down vis a vis, regarding the go-forward plan for our next generation group effort. It was important to have buy-in from all parties involved, so that we could leverage our available resources to create a synergy that would impact our bottom line and create a win-win situation for our enterprise. After a round of brainstorming, we concluded that it was time for a much needed paradigm shift. We decided we needed to right-size our party, get back to basics, hit the ground running, and come up with a set of Best-Practices, in order to grow our enjoyment of the endeavor.



I could probably go on, but I'm already sick to my stomach. I hate buzzwords as much as the next guy...I just couldn't think of a better one or two word phrase than "organic" to describe what we're trying to do. If you have one, I'd love to hear it.

[Zenako]

I could probably go on, but I'm already sick to my stomach. I hate buzzwords as much as the next guy...I just couldn't think of a better one or two word phrase than "organic" to describe what we're trying to do. If you have one, I'd love to hear it.

How about just...

Non-twinking. In DDO twinking has come to mean handing down PLat and gear to lowbies to grease the skids and make things super easy to blow thru. That would just about cover it. Almost everything else grows out of that premise.

That is also why a virtual ton of vets went and created characters on Cannith and Orien to recapture some of that new game feel. When you simply cannot twink on another server, then those items you find or pull become significant.

[Garth_of_Sarlona]

if it helps, I did pretty much the same thing as you - I soloed my favored soul up to around 11 or 12 by just running every quest once on hard. It was possible and I don't remember having to do much many explorer areas although I think I did do a lot of the desert explorer because I love that area and it's got some good loot.

I think there were a few (very short list) that I ran more than once (on normal once or twice, then once on hard)... Those were:

Wizking (insane xp) (run 4 times on normal then once on hard)
Tear of Dhakan (run 4 times on normal then once on hard)
Infomation is key (v fast) (once on normal, once on hard)
Kobold new ringleader (once on normal, once on hard)

So this includes stuff that nobody runs like off-the-beaten track house J quests, deleras (with a hireling to open door) and some necro quests that are soloable with a hireling. I suppose I broke your rules by running a few more than once

I also did not run any quests that were a higher level than me (just because there's no XP benefit) except at low levels where you litterally run out of level 1 quests before you're high enough - so I was e.g. running e.g. level 3 quests on hard as a level 5 player for 0 XP loss.

Garth

[leowen]

Maybe if I'd explained my idea better, it would make more sense:

Me and two of my fellow stakeholders recently had a sit down vis a vis, regarding the go-forward plan for our next generation group effort. It was important to have buy-in from all parties involved, so that we could leverage our available resources to create a synergy that would impact our bottom line and create a win-win situation for our enterprise. After a round of brainstorming, we concluded that it was time for a much needed paradigm shift. We decided we needed to right-size our party, get back to basics, hit the ground running, and come up with a set of Best-Practices, in order to grow our enjoyment of the endeavor.



I could probably go on, but I'm already sick to my stomach. I hate buzzwords as much as the next guy...I just couldn't think of a better one or two word phrase than "organic" to describe what we're trying to do. If you have one, I'd love to hear it.

Ya, that all sounded exactly like what I hear everyday at work...

[Sir_Chonas]

synergy

[VonBek]

OH and on point 5...you no longer have to complete WW to get to the marketplace....Arlos can rot forever in the sewers if you want....

I rather thought they were looking to make the Harbor/Marketplace transition through WW2 for flavor?( italics mine)

4. Can't leave Korthos until we finish the dragon quest. Can't leave the harber until we finish part two of the Water Works (OLD SCHOOD DDO!!!).

The whole thing sounds neat.

[winsom]

DDO played as the OP suggests is very fun. I've been doing that for a couple months now with a static group. I have been repeating adventures though.

I've used the auction house for selling, mostly so I can afford feat re-specs and scroll/wand consumables.

I only buy from merchant and broker NPCS.

I accept item gifts from any of the similarly leveled people in my guild.

[QuantumFX]

Theoretically, one could level from 1-20 without ever stepping into a dungeon, except for one gap at level 5 (after completing Sorrowdusk's landscape), when you'll need ~67k XP so you can enter the Restless Isles/Ataraxia, and you'll be around 127k short from 1.9 million when you complete the Devil Battlefield. That's also not counting any repeat rares.

You also need to step into one of the Restless Isle quests to complete the last explorer and rare in that explorer area.