The "Slippery Slope" Argument

[GoldyGopher]

Let me tell you the story of the Halls of Shan-to-Kor. For those of you who have been around a while will remember how the adventure changed, those that haven’t here ya go.

When DDO was in closed and open Beta the STK series of quests were by far the toughest quests you could play with appropriate level characters, that and Tempest Spine. You were required, and I do mean required, to have a full group with the appropriate skill set. The traps hurt, the Kobolds could do damage, the spells were killers, and the shrines were placed strategically to force players to conserve SP. You discussed things like strategy, what you needed in your back-pack, and offered up wands to the clerics to keep the party up.
When the game was released there was a flip side to the challenge, it was great XP. However whenever Turbine made a change to the quest which made the quest easier the XP was lowered and over time the XP was lowered to be approximately 1/3 of its original total. You used to enter the series at level 3 and run it on normal hard and elite and earn approximately 100,000 XP. (In Beta the original amount was **** near 120,000 XP with all the optionals and bonuses for being under level and so on and so forth.)
In all the time that Turbine neutered, I mean made the quests more accessible to the masses, I complained it was the final change that urked me, moving the control box for the fire trap. There was no change to the XP when that was done. However by that time damage from the traps was reduced to 1/3, damage from the mobs was cut in at least half, trap locations were moved to allow clear paths, and mobs were made far easier to kill (reducing their HP, and either reducing or eliminating their DR).
Now a quest series that used to take the ‘grinders mentality’, for lack of a better term, to complete can be done by old grandmothers swinging broom sticks. But that penalty for the easy button was ripping the XP out. Now the three primary quests run on N/H/E will get you what 30,000 XP if you get all the bonuses.

And that really highlights the problem as I see it with the hypothetical items from the store and the hypothetical quests in the discussion. You have removed the difficulty but there is no penalty for doing so. You have added Casual difficulty and still had to make a couple spots so easy that any grandmother swinging broomsticks have no problem completing even on Elite or Epic settings. The hypothetical items have gone TOO FAR in their ability and the effect they have on the game, especially since they remove the threat of death and now we have a 10% bonus to XP if no deaths. That’s wrong.

If your response was true Turbine than Store Bought items would work on C/N but NOT H/E/E.

[learst]

Two - If people are willing to bypass the 'challenge' of certain encounters, and pay Turbine cash to do it...well as long as that cash is going into more content and staff - then great.

Three - The two examples given from the OP, Beholders and Mummies - are overpowered and have never been changed. Beholders do not have an 'anti magic ray' as per pnp - they have a dispelling ray, that is ALSO and anti magic ray. When a beholder turns around, your buffs or any duration spells are supposed to come back. Also - the ray is like a paladin aura - it is a timed debuff - so even if a beholder turns away - you have to WAIT to actually be able to cast spells say, which makes the AI of beholders constantly spinning in circles to coat the room in lasting, dispelling, antimagic rays extremely more powerful than they are actually supposed to be.

Mummy Rot as per pnp - yes it prevents healing until a remove curse is applied, UNLESS a caster beats the caster dc check. I am not aware of any healing curse getting a caster check to be able to override the curse, and healing curse is way overused and overpowered in high level content - like say New Invasion - making what would be a challenging encounter cause 90% of groups to wipe unless one of two specific classes go in and solo the end fight - which is totally obnoxious design.

So yeah its great you can buy items to make those encounters easier in the Store - but those examples are of encounters that are made far more dangerous than they should be. So unless you are WF, are super lucky and/or run Invasion 50000 times for an optic nerve, or grind all the Tombs quests to upgrade a trinket, and I dont know of anyone that does not hate those quests with a passion, you run into a beholder - after a couple neg levels, you die from whatever spell it throws at you next. Fun eh?

Four - A bit more Meta, and regarding Pugs.

Pugging at even high levels now is very, very painful. There are people who are even capped after a TR - that are very, very bad players, and know very little about the game - because they DONT HAVE TO to pike and cap out.

Many people want to see new players 'forced' to actually have to fight their way up like everyone else did before the game kept getting made easier at low to mid levels, and now adding in all sorts of goodies to the store that lets you just skip all sorts of 'learning experiences'.

It would be really nice to accept a level 20 into your group knowing the fact that they reached level 20 meant they had some skill in the game at least - and that is increasingly not the case - and the more easy buttons in the store just make the situation worse.
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Emphasis of your comments in bold.

Not that I'm singling out your comment, but yours is the most recent one and most relevant to what I have in mind.

Personally, I think the idea that PUG sucks and is terribble and is the stuff of nightmares etc has been driven and grounded deep into the ground. Which is suprising, since I PUG 99% of the time (had my first guildie run the other day, woohoo!) and have not encountered any of these terrible players. Not that I deny their existence, but the way it keeps being brought up it makes it seem like finding a good player when PUGing is like a finding needle in a haystack. And most of the folks here who complain loudly about PUGs are the folks who says they mostly avoid PUGs, run with guildies etc. To me, it just seems a really twisted karmic thing to belief that the few instances when these vets PUG, they inevitably meet with bad players.

I'm probably gonna get a lot of beef/flame for this, but one of the main reasons that I think that the supposed lack of skill in the new players are due to many vets/knowledgable players around. While they can guide new players, they also in a way alleviates them of the challenge and difficulties which most vets have encountered on the way up. As I was levelling up my first toon, 95% of my runs went smoothly as someone would point out the traps to avoid, shortcuts to do this, flank this room to avoid ambush etc etc.

And with vets having greensteel/unique items/ uber loots it also makes things appear so much easier. Beholder in Invaders? Some monk or a vet barbarian runs ahead and kill it without breaking a sweat, and the newbie fighter thinks, "oh ok. not that hard." So is with killing Hazadil or some bosses. Not that I'm saying the vets shouldn't help new players, but I think a lot of times these vets with knowledge/gear/skill/ indirectly takes away the challenge that a lot of these new folks are supposed to encounter. How's the newbie fighter supposed to learn to tactics against beholder if barely gets scratched before the beholder gets killed?

As for myself running some quests. i've run Hound 3 times on my bard, but all 3 times I was not the one who charmed the dogs. Everyone knew what to do and I was told to just buff the dogs. First time I said that I haven't done the quest before, "ok someone else with get the dogs". Second time, someone else picks up the stones and gets the dog charmed, "nevermind you can do it next time. We're in a rush". How's a new player supposed to learn stuff when he doesn't get the chance to try things out? not to mention the pressure of wiping on a quest with other 11 vet players who are probably rushing for loot and on to the next quest.

Back then, all the vets started on almost equal ground, "who cares if we wipe, we are all learning and trying out". But with the influx of more new players, and likely those without a background in D&D (and the understanding of its terminologies), a lot of the older players expect these new players to develop the same skill and understanding when they don't get to encounter the same difficulties and with supposedly increasing pressure to not fail when grouping with these vets (which leads back to them holding back and letting the vets take the ropes).

Sure these new players can read up and google everything on DDOwiki, but also keep in mind the concept of the "paradox of the active user". Similarly for me, I don't wanna google every map on DDO wiki when starting a new quest or area, be familiarised with it and execute it to perfection. I wanna explore, have fun, learn stuff, and well, if its' a fail too bad but I'll learn.

I'm not saying that the vets are simply at fault here, just that this whole long-winded drivel is to point out that simply blaming the DDO store for providing the easy button which leads to bad PUGs is too simplistic. A lot of factors come into play: new players for lacking incentives to learn more, game challenges being removed, Turbine's DDO store and also, the vets themselves.

As more vets leave the pugs will get worse and worse. as if that could happen

This actually isn't true. As more and more vets leave, the best players of the new generation will rise to the top and become the new 'vets'. Your prediction -- and my description of the outcome -- were both easily viewable in, for instance, WoW, where the once-ridiculed BC generation became the majority of the vets of the Wrath generation and led the way in clearing content on many/most servers. It's very shortsighted to think that all of use who joined later simply have no capacity to compete with you. Now, it IS highly likely that some nuggets of very good wisdom will be lost, only a fool would claim otherwise. Whether or not those lost nuggets are rediscovered...well, only time will tell.

I agree.

[Sirea]

DDO is meant to be a casual game people play witha few RL friends. I say this because over the years I have found Id rather solo then pug in this game when my friends where not around. Being casual means that challenge is not suppose to be there but created by the individual player.

And that's why they made Dungeon Scaling and Casual mode. Have fun!

[cforce]

We can't always please everyone, but we can please as many people as possible. By selling an item in the store rather than changing the game as a whole, we allow people to customize their experience in a way that does not directly affect other players.

Tarrant, there's a false assumption in here that adding store items as an option does not affect players who like more challenge.

Example: I buy +2 Supreme tomes for new characters, because I've got the points. If I did not, I would play along side other players who had them, and feel less potent in comparison. This is *a lot* less fun for me -- I like optimizing, and use other players as a competitive benchmark (as do we all to some degree -- that's just basic human nature.) However, now that I'm out of the gate with +2 tomes in everything, all of the old quests I used to enjoy are less challenging. This is *somewhat* less fun for me, so I choose the lesser of the two evils.

Adding this "option" through the store still leaves me with two paths, but *both* paths represent a less enjoyable play experience than I had before the option existed.

You assumption would be correct if this was a single-player experience, but it does not hold true in an MMO.

[smatt]

I think Turbine is following a very regimented, formal, root-cause-failure-analysis type of study on every player playing the game. That study does two things:

1. Determine which game obstacles cause players to quit.
2. Determine which game rewards cause players to renew/convert to VIP.

Obstacles that cause players to quit are eliminated, reduced, nerfed, or are provided with (usually store-bought) solutions. Rewards are expanded and increased.

Think of DDO as a big hamster wheel. The faster the wheel spins, the more money Turbine makes. Turbine is hovering around that hamster cage watching the wheel RPMs and noting any time it drops or speeds up. Whatever made it drop is eliminated and whatever made it speed up is increased.

Fortunately, it's still pretty fun to be the hamster.

The biggest loser in all this, in my opinion, is D&D. The more Turbine tweaks the game to speed up the wheel, the further from D&D it goes.

Draccus prety much hits it with this one.. Something I've been saying for while that no matter what the Vets think or like... Turbine has to adjust to the marketplace,. Peopel can argue all they want about why the game was failing prior to DDO-EUs release. But the fact is it's not now..... And that shows *gasp that they do infact have a clue about what they are doing.

BUT, that doesn't mean they still dont' ahve issues They done a pretty good job at creating content that the *new masses can play, content all the way to the to cap. They've created lower level content that is fresher than the old stuff using what they've learned over the last 4 years in quest design as well as the step they've taken technology wise. They'e addressed some VERY longtime complaints such as DPS lag in raids which is MUCH better now.

BUT, they've left behind or haven't addressed, at least to my satisfaction the glaring hols that are left.... The lack of timely bug fixes, the lack of proper communication with the player base as to what are and aren't bugs, LONGTIME ingame feats/items/enhancements left incompleate etc. Key spells and such left broken.... As well as addressing the cap game as a whole. We've been left with this new low level quest made epic situation, while it is interesting for some, I'm betting that it's nto being run all that much. The only thing keeping many players around longer than 6-9 months now are TR's.
For some reason they've derailed the train that wa sleading to more epic raids and areas of existing content such as Gianthold and the Titan, which would be far more appealign to the Vets than the recent releases of rather easy and craptastic style loot as of late.

Now, personally I feel they've gone a bit too far in the way of game diffiuclty.. But that's just me.. It's not my game nor is it my millions... The DDO team have done an overall great job, there' sno doubt.. But there's always room for improvement, and some of the areas could REALLY use some improvement to roudn otu the entire DDO experience.

[Brynjolf]

<snip> ... while you may find it silly that some choose to quit rather than play a game they find more challenging than desired, it's a valid opinion for those people. And we don't want to tell them to go play someplace else - they deserve to play the way they want to.

So if I threatened to quit over the existence of blanket immunities you'd make a store item that removes them?

That's it, I'm quitting!!


P.S. I do not really want to see such an item in the store. However, the fact that you make a store item to help with beholders (low complaint rate, AFAIK) while telling the player base to just deal with the arbitrary blanket immunities (high complaint rate) makes your statements on this issue seem disingenuous.

[jjflanigan]

Tarrant, there's a false assumption in here that adding store items as an option does not affect players who like more challenge.

Example: I buy +2 Supreme tomes for new characters, because I've got the points. If I did not, I would play along side other players who had them, and feel less potent in comparison. This is *a lot* less fun for me -- I like optimizing, and use other players as a competitive benchmark (as do we all to some degree -- that's just basic human nature.) However, now that I'm out of the gate with +2 tomes in everything, all of the old quests I used to enjoy are less challenging. This is *somewhat* less fun for me, so I choose the lesser of the two evils.

Adding this "option" through the store still leaves me with two paths, but *both* paths represent a less enjoyable play experience than I had before the option existed.

You assumption would be correct if this was a single-player experience, but it does not hold true in an MMO.

I don't get this one. If you are level 9 or 10 melee and run through most "normal" quests with a sorc or wizard with wall of fire, you're going to feel equally less potent. I've run many quests with my friends where-in I play the wiz/rog for the group and (on shadow crypt specifically) I have 80% of the kills and make the quest insanely faster because I can wall of fire.

If you ever compare what you can do vs. what other people can do in DDO you're going to end up very disappointed.

[Jacket]

learst +1 rep, good post!

The point I've been attempting to make (poorly?!) is that regardless of reasons, you needn't pug if you don't want to. If new players who use the store bother you, don't play with them, that simple.

Personally, I pug about half the time. My guild consists seven people, all of whom I know in real life. Myself and the two other longest running players get together Saturdays and play in the same room. Good times. Since I have more free time than they,(no kids here) I play more, pug more (as far as I know they hardly pug at all) and, since I am an altaholic, spend lots of time in lowby area's. I like to help people if I can. Now, have I run into insufferable jackwagons and then deliberately spread misinformation just to be jerk? Yup, I'm no saint! Does that happen often? I can probably count the times on both hands.

If pugging ain't your cup of tea, then find some like-minded people through the forums, through real life friends ("The game is free! You should play!") or any number of other ways. You needn't be bothered by others store purchases whatsoever.

Wholesale quest nerfs is another ball of wax. That just sucks, but it may be the new way of things. Time will tell. Until then, enjoy!

[Ragons]

If you add to many easy buttons you will kill the replayability of the game. You enter the quest, hit a difficult part, you pull up the store and hit the easy button. You move on and hit another difficult part and you pull up the store and hit the easy button.

You make it to level 20 and say 'I win'. Do you want to continue? All that you did is pull up the store and hit the easy button.

The reputation of the game will also suffer since it will become widely known for the easy buttons. You can step around any challenge by pulling up the store and hitting the easy button.

I do believe people want to play in their own style so that can enjoy the game. I also believe that Turbine has already made this possible by adding casual and dungeon scalling. But, by adding items to the store to get around difficult situations is just over the top and will harm the game in the long run.

[IronClan]

Ok, but im afraid your fuzzy little head might explode since you obviously didnt get that I was talking about items in the DDO store and not subscriptions in any form. Nice attempt at scarcasim though youll get it one of these days

It was irony.... and was perfectly correct. and now everyone mutter his last sentence... "you'll get it one of these days...." Not really trying to bust on you really...

The Diamonds are NOT "required" to buy higher level ships... they are all purchasable for platinum at least I sure recall seeing plat prices below the AD price on all the ships I bothered to look at in the showroom. If the biggest luxo-liners are Astral diamonds only then I stand corrected.

[Drakos]

I don't tend to covet my neighbors possessions. They get what they get. Really it's only a matter of someone with time vs someone with money. If you got neither well, you're kinda screwed, but really i don't care which of the two you use to get your stuff... just don't gloat over it.

This!!

I really don't think that I would leave because of something they started selling in the store. I just don't care if someone wants to buy these items rather than play the game to get them. Buy a +2 Supreme Tome rather than play ang get the individual +2 Tomes, or +3, or +4, it's no skin off my back. They are just depriving themselves of some fun while doing so. For me it is just "Keeping up with the Kundarick's" mentality. I just don't see why I should care.

[Chai]

I agree with everything you said there until the last two sentences. For better or worse, F2P and the DDO store saved this game. If neither had occurred, what happened to the European servers might well serve as a guide post. That said, it certainly would be nice if there was a new hardcore, old-school server that started up with nasty penalty's, no DDO store (save for dungeon packs and cosmetic stuff) and possibly the option to select perma-death upon creation for the truly insane. Barring that, we can only hope that any further nerfing of content occurs through store because, as I and several other people have said, you don't have to play with those people.

I agree about F2P / premium saving the game. I do not agree with the DDO store saving the game. They are 2 separate entities and should be discussed as such. If the DDO store was for purchasing content packs and reincarnations only, I think the game would still be a financial success with F2P and alot of people trying it out and staying with it.

[DocBenway]

...
The Diamonds are NOT "required" to buy higher level ships... they are all purchasable for platinum at least I sure recall seeing plat prices below the AD price on all the ships I bothered to look at in the showroom. If the biggest luxo-liners are Astral diamonds only then I stand corrected.

The Windspyre ships have gold prices, the Stormglory ships are priced in Astral Diamonds ONLY. No game currency purchase of the luxury line is possible.

[yawumpus]

1. "DDO is meant to be a casual game." I don't know about anybody else here, but I came here with the opening of f2p. In f2p you are given (can easily grind) over 1000 turbine points and can presumably hit at least level 10 without thinking of paying any money. My guess is that any truly "casual gamers" haven't put in the time to get past level 10. DDO is getting money from people who spend a noticeable chunk of their lives in Stormreach. [Note that by this logic farmville is not a casual game. I guess it isn't.]

2. "Beholders being too tough means something has to change." Yes it does. Why player tactics, character build, equipment used, or party composition are all off the table is beyond me.

3. Are they going to change the old ad?
In other f2p games: you fight traffic
In our f2p game: you fight beholders
in our p2p game: you get any easy button.

4. Supreme tome of ability doesn't drop. Are you seriously suggesting that the existence of a bulk item is somehow different from "buy all 6 for the price of 4"? Plus 1 and +2 tomes have been on the AH as long as they have been on sale, they can't be considered "raid goods".

5. New weapons. I'm surprised this hasn't shown up yet. I'd worry more about the existence of non-vendor-trash weapons showing up in the store. First acid, now shock weapons. I think the biggest issue was complaints from anybody who bought the items who swore off the store after getting ripped off buying vendor trash. Unfortunately, instead of dropping weapons altogether, they are creeping down the slope (what do you do after someone levels past his store bought weapon? Not sell him a ML-appropriate one once you've carefully taught your newb that paying to be adequate is the way to go?)

[Sirea]

If the DDO store was for purchasing content packs and reincarnations only, I think the game would still be a financial success with F2P and alot of people trying it out and staying with it.

Don't forget hair styles!

[Drakos]

Last and not least, there are things that should never be sold. For example, I'm a fat old man training for a triathlon. I suppose I could pay someone to run it for me, but then what would I gain? I think its better to work at it. Train for it. Then when I complete it, I'll have a legit sense of accomplishment, albiet a virtual one. (lol). Maybe its a generational thing...

But the issue here is that they are robbing themselves of the sense of accomplishment not you. You did it the way you wanted to and they do it the way they want to. I't not like they are robbing you of the accomplishment, so this means it would be a personal decision that should in no way mater to anyone else.

Sure they migh not have learned to play well, and it would hurt you to group with them, but only once. After the first time you now know not to group with them anymore.

[Renegade66]

I have a question about this, and I'll use a hypothetical situation to set it up:

There is a monster in DDO that can be very difficult to fight. Some players really enjoy the challenge, and the monster was designed to be challenging for those that are looking for this kind of thing. However, some players find this monster so frustrating that it causes them to either avoid that part of the game altogether, or possibly even quit to go find something less stressful.

Now under those circumstances, would you prefer that we made the monster easier for everyone, or that we sold an item in the store that would make this encounter easier for those that wanted it, but left the monster challenging for players seeking that kind of experience?

First, dumbing down monsters to a common denominator of the weakest players is not the right solution. We have Hello Kitty for that.

The rest depends on if I'm answering as a player or as a Turbine investor.

As a player, I feel the difficulty settings should handle this situation versus in game purchases. If certain players struggle to beat a certain quest even on Normal then they need to run it on Casual until they gain the skill necessary to increase the difficulty setting. There's a definite personal reward in taking out challenges without cheeseball tactics such as buying a "Holy Orb of Greater Boss Bane Aura" from the Turbine Store. Also, being able to increase the difficulty setting is direct feedback that you are getting better at the game. If you're going to create an item to ease the encounter then make it an optional objective within the quest or a reward from a different quest. The table of items in the Litany of the Dead is a good example.

As a Turbine Stockholder, I like the idea of offering the "Holy Orb of Greater Boss Bane Aura". Those that don't want it, don't buy it. Those that don't need it can choose to buy it if they want to speed things along or skip it if wanting the challenge and to save T-pts. Those that don't want to run on Casual and need the help, have an option. The players are a bit poorer, but generally happy with the cheesy option and Turbine earns more revenue. Creating the item as an optional quest objective would work too, would be free to the players and eliminate the cheese factor, but with a downside to Turbine who will miss out on the moolah.

Recommendation: If you go down this path, then do both. Meaning, give the choice of spending the time to do the optional in game to get the item or buy it through the store.

I think I remember Turbine saying they didn't intend to offer items in the store that you couldn't get by questing. Thinking of Hearts of Wood though, I could be wrong. In any event, I think this is an excellent stance and one to stick by.

[smatt]

I agree about F2P / premium saving the game. I do not agree with the DDO store saving the game. They are 2 separate entities and should be discussed as such. If the DDO store was for purchasing content packs and reincarnations only, I think the game would still be a financial success with F2P and alot of people trying it out and staying with it.

Naw man... Not enough return on investment as far as the store and the FTP model coding goes... That would be like building a 120,000 sq.ft. Home Depot and only selling duct tape and mails ....... The lexpendibles in the store are what's makign the real money.. The permanent items make a little and pay for themselves.. But the itmes people use that expire or go away are the REAL money makers..

[KoboldKiller]

Hi guys - interesting discussion here. Thank you all for keeping it civil.



I have a question about this, and I'll use a hypothetical situation to set it up:

There is a monster in DDO that can be very difficult to fight. Some players really enjoy the challenge, and the monster was designed to be challenging for those that are looking for this kind of thing. However, some players find this monster so frustrating that it causes them to either avoid that part of the game altogether, or possibly even quit to go find something less stressful.

Now under those circumstances, would you prefer that we made the monster easier for everyone, or that we sold an item in the store that would make this encounter easier for those that wanted it, but left the monster challenging for players seeking that kind of experience?

I have a little inside info for you. There are already parts of the game many people avoid and it doesn't cause them to quit. I for one have never ran the Abbot nor do I intend to. Making it easier would not change my mind. The fact is not everyone runs everything in the game for NUMEROUS reasons.

[Jacket]

I agree about F2P / premium saving the game. I do not agree with the DDO store saving the game. They are 2 separate entities and should be discussed as such. If the DDO store was for purchasing content packs and reincarnations only, I think the game would still be a financial success with F2P and alot of people trying it out and staying with it.

As to the first: we agree! Hooray!

As to the second: you may well be right. However, that isn't what happened. So, we have the store with it's shiny easy buttons and we have you (and frankly myself) who don't use them. On the other side we have the people who do use the store and that ruins them as players. That last is pretty debatable, but let us assume it is so.

Your contact with ruined players is entirely voluntary. You need not pug if you do not want to. With some effort (no easy button for this) you may use any number of different methods to find people who do not suck, either as players or as human beings. Just look at the shear number of other players who agree with you in this very thread! Some of them may be on your server! You could even play with them!

I pug some (see above) and it seems to me that the entire thing is blown totally out of proportion. Most people I run into are either component enough or are open to suggestion. Certainly, there is the occasional hopeless, abrasive, moron but such people are easily dealt with.

As more and more people join the game, the population of morons goes up, but so too does the population willing to learn. If the store indeed makes morons, you need not run with them.

Now, if direct nerfs to the CONTENT makes morons, that's a whole different thing. I would much rather have wand of dragon pwnage in the DDO store than to have turbine make all the dragons into kittens with one hit point.