STOP making it easier!

[MeliCat]

I'm guessing that there are more truly unexceptional people who come check out DDO, discover it's easy enough and stay. This is going to be a problem until the market gets saturated enough with limited challenge games to make targeting truly excellent people more profitable than competing with other games for a share of the larger market of average players. If that market segment is even large enough to support the development of even one truly challenging game in the first place.

Well I don't know, Farmville has a fairly large playerbase. Seems unending to me = profit = DDO contiunes getting easier?


Hope not.

Part of DDO appeal for me was the depth and width and complexity of this game. Take that away and I'm gone. I still have *heaps* to understand and do here yet.

[Hoglum]

I have to agree with the Op as fae as the dungeons getting easier. Using the Int. runes in Jungle of Khyber as an example. I would like to know the reason behhind dropping them so that a 10 Int can open them. If dungeons are going to get nerfed in ways like this why have the runes at all? This is just the first example that came to mind I know there are others. I understand that this is a free to play game but please leave the challange and don't just give us easy dungeons.

I'll venture a guess here. My guess is that Turbine has some smart people working for them who have figured something out. They almost went bankrupt not too long ago and probably did some serious reflecting. They took a long, hard look at their business model and saw some flaws. One of those flaws may have been the realization that not everybody wants to play in groups. Some people out there (I bet there's a lot) like to play alone, and they can be paying customers too. If these people run into situation after situation that a single character cannot possibly overcome and they have to leave dungeons repeatedly, they will quit playing the game. The entertainment they are seeking on their leisure time will be met with frustration. When they look into the reason they cannot complete the Jungle of Khyber with their Fighter, they will feel herded into a playstyle that does not suit them. The choice they are left with is either group or don't play. Turbine, looking at the makeup of their dungeons, most likely doesn't want this to happen. They would like people to have fun while either grouping or going solo. The more, the merrier, so to speak. Then it becomes a matter of how they present the challenges with each dungeon. What's the right balance? I would think that having runes requiring an 18 intelligence in order to move on was determined to be a bit much considering there are only maybe 2 classes in the game that would care to ever take 18 as their intelligence.

[Cyr]

This is simply wrong. There are many examples of Turbine making the game more difficult: nerfing equipment, nerfing builds, and adjusting quests.

The game has clearly trended to make things easier.

There are the occasional spikes in the opposite direction, but these generally involve short term changes in difficulty due to new content being released and developers finding out something they personally designed was easier then they intended (starkest example was the Abbot).

A small list of things that have changed to make the game easier for those who have not been here long enough to know...

* AP system. This system has continued to add abilities over time including things such as the old school tempest, barbarian crit range, PrE's, and capstones. This expansion over time has in many cases noticably increased the power level of characters. PrE's are very easy to examine in this regard for example.

* Solo mode morphed into dungeon scaling the largest nerf to dungeons the game has ever seen where dungeons are sometimes scaled so much that it is easier to just solo something then have others tag along. Compared to the old days where it was rather rare to find mostly solo players at cap.

* No more XP loss at death. and no more permanent item damage on bound items made dying less important and made the game easier in the process.

* The numerous waves of monster AC reductions that have occured.

* Even epics get easier...trash mob rules were introduced in epic greatly reducing the difficulty of trash mobs.

* Basic class changes for the better. Yep we've seen those. These include rams might added for rangers (huge boost at the time) and regenerating smites to name two.

* Metamagics redone. Once upon a time using a maximized, empowered, and quickened wall of fire blew an incredible amount of SP due to how stacking metamagics SP costs were calculated. They changed this to be a straight addition which helped lead to more then the year where arcanes were kings.

* Double SP for sorcs from items. It didn't start that way. This change dramatically alters the power level of the class.

* SP pots in the store, shrines in the store, res cakes in the store....well you get my drift. For years there was no store and all the above items were in much shorter supply.

Those who have been here for a while will notice that a good amount of the list happened around EU's release while the rest was spread out throughout the game's history. It's not a new trend to make the game easier, but it has accelerated of late. I could list smaller less important changes that point one way or the other, such as the CC change or the Epic SoS nerf, but these are generally a wash in the scheme of things. Really there was one major change recently in the opposite direction...the twf nerf. This was a major nerf to players, but seems to have been accompanied by a good number of mob nerfs also so again it is an overall wash in the big picture.

[Macroscian]

I'm guessing that there are more truly unexceptional people who come check out DDO, discover it's easy enough and stay.

Yes! That is me. And it made me pay to get premium!

Apart from horrible graphics, 1001 item drops and nowhere to store it, byzantine levels of depths to plumb when it comes to exploits (read UMD), even more outrageous set of incomprehensible abbrevations and acronyms for everything from builds to leechers, gear and quests and apart from artwork making me recall the very worst of covers/illustrations for fantasy books/RPG PnP boxes, 2 years of grind before being able to make one character with as good start values as 99% of the player base gets by now, unintuitive keymapping, math freaks minmaxing all over the forums while reeking of stale pizza

and an interact button rather than a simple loot button

that aside, it's not a bad game either.

[Zilta]

I haven't found anything in this game that has been difficult.

Except when we ****ed off the devs when Abbot came out.

Fun times.

true that

[Gremmlynn]

The game has clearly trended to make things easier.

There are the occasional spikes in the opposite direction, but these generally involve short term changes in difficulty due to new content being released and developers finding out something they personally designed was easier then they intended (starkest example was the Abbot).

A small list of things that have changed to make the game easier for those who have not been here long enough to know...

* AP system. This system has continued to add abilities over time including things such as the old school tempest, barbarian crit range, PrE's, and capstones. This expansion over time has in many cases noticably increased the power level of characters. PrE's are very easy to examine in this regard for example.

* Solo mode morphed into dungeon scaling the largest nerf to dungeons the game has ever seen where dungeons are sometimes scaled so much that it is easier to just solo something then have others tag along. Compared to the old days where it was rather rare to find mostly solo players at cap.

* No more XP loss at death. and no more permanent item damage on bound items made dying less important and made the game easier in the process.

* The numerous waves of monster AC reductions that have occured.

* Even epics get easier...trash mob rules were introduced in epic greatly reducing the difficulty of trash mobs.

* Basic class changes for the better. Yep we've seen those. These include rams might added for rangers (huge boost at the time) and regenerating smites to name two.

* Metamagics redone. Once upon a time using a maximized, empowered, and quickened wall of fire blew an incredible amount of SP due to how stacking metamagics SP costs were calculated. They changed this to be a straight addition which helped lead to more then the year where arcanes were kings.

* Double SP for sorcs from items. It didn't start that way. This change dramatically alters the power level of the class.

* SP pots in the store, shrines in the store, res cakes in the store....well you get my drift. For years there was no store and all the above items were in much shorter supply.

Those who have been here for a while will notice that a good amount of the list happened around EU's release while the rest was spread out throughout the game's history. It's not a new trend to make the game easier, but it has accelerated of late. I could list smaller less important changes that point one way or the other, such as the CC change or the Epic SoS nerf, but these are generally a wash in the scheme of things. Really there was one major change recently in the opposite direction...the twf nerf. This was a major nerf to players, but seems to have been accompanied by a good number of mob nerfs also so again it is an overall wash in the big picture.

Interesting read.

Though some of the "changes" mentioned, such as the store items, are more in the line of options added. While others, such as the AP system, bring a lot of depth to the game though maybe could have had more thought put into how they effect game play.

I will have to disagree with the premise of the death penalties being eliminated making the game easier. They just removed a mechanic that promoted avoiding challenge. To my mind they just forgot to replace them with more appropriate penalties such as quest long debuffs that couldn't be removed until the quest was completed or the instance reset. Something that would make avoiding death important without also making challenging oneself foolish in the long term.

[Dirac]

The game has clearly trended to make things easier.

Of course. Personally, the decreasing difficulty in many parts of the game has decreased the fun of my gameplay. However, the OP quite specifically said they were upset about "the continuing trend of making everything easier." (emphasis added) I pointed out this is wrong, and wrong in an important way. They are quite deliberately trying to increase the range of the game to be accessible to a wider array of players. This is complicated and hard to do. Thus, I don't have much respect for the "the game is too easy!" folks. If they have an honest idea, they should share it. Take a survey of A_D's suggestion posts as a model. Honest, specific suggtions to improve the game for everyone are always welcome.

A small list of things that have changed to make the game easier for those who have not been here long enough to know... .

And the list is much longer than that, and I can easily come up with a list that long of things that made the game more difficult: web nerf, prot no longer giving elemental immunities, adding second save to PK, vorpal nerf, invis nerf, enhancement boost nerf, WoP nerf, TWF nerf, etc. For a long time, Turbine has been doing both to try to make the game better.

For years people honestly (and some disingenuously) asked for "epic" settings because "elite was soooo easy". And they did it. We asked to be able to open everything on elite. And they did it. We can create new, un-twinked characters and never run on anything but elite with more than four people. We now have the ability to play the game in such a way that it is much more difficult than it ever was. And still we have to suffer people whining about how easy the game is.

The game has enough depth now that anyone can find a challenge by setting their own rules and can stop coming here demanding Turbine change the game just for them.

[Doomcrew]

The OP's been here since Feb, 2010. Just imagine how he'd feel if his
start date was Feb2008/7/6 ........


Cheers

[MeliCat]

Of course. Personally, the decreasing difficulty in many parts of the game has decreased the fun of my gameplay. However, the OP quite specifically said they were upset about "the continuing trend of making everything easier." (emphasis added) I pointed out this is wrong, and wrong in an important way. They are quite deliberately trying to increase the range of the game to be accessible to a wider array of players. This is complicated and hard to do. Thus, I don't have much respect for the "the game is too easy!" folks. If they have an honest idea, they should share it. Take a survey of A_D's suggestion posts as a model. Honest, specific suggtions to improve the game for everyone are always welcome.



And the list is much longer than that, and I can easily come up with a list that long of things that made the game more difficult: web nerf, prot no longer giving elemental immunities, adding second save to PK, vorpal nerf, invis nerf, enhancement boost nerf, WoP nerf, TWF nerf, etc. For a long time, Turbine has been doing both to try to make the game better.

For years people honestly (and some disingenuously) asked for "epic" settings because "elite was soooo easy". And they did it. We asked to be able to open everything on elite. And they did it. We can create new, un-twinked characters and never run on anything but elite with more than four people. We now have the ability to play the game in such a way that it is much more difficult than it ever was. And still we have to suffer people whining about how easy the game is.

The game has enough depth now that anyone can find a challenge by setting their own rules and can stop coming here demanding Turbine change the game just for them.

You have some very good points here.

Listening to vets talk about how it used to be right at the beginning I think I probably would have hated that and been one of the people to quickly leave. But I also haven't been here to see these changes as they were put in that you pointed out (epic yes I guess).

Good to have the overall timeline perspective.

[knightgf]

You want a challenge? There's plenty of challenges to conquer in this game if you don't believe your own eyes. Try running a shroud pug on elite. Hit a capstone in favor. TR into a build with high offensive stats and a low con. There's plenty of challenges in this game.

I definitely support a challenging factor in this game, because without it, why would most players bother playing this game? However, there should be less challenging options for players such as myself who are not capable of handling the 'elite' difficulties of some quests or raids. A good example would be the shroud, because while I hate running the shroud(And im sure im not the only one!) at least I can still get ingredients on normal(Though not as much of a chance as say, hard or elite, if I am correct) and be provided a appropriate challenge not just for myself, but for the whole party as well.

I don't mind supporting harder difficulties for dungeons, but at the same time, I would rather see accommodations for lesser-skilled players with the ratio of challenge to reward balanced(I.E.: Playing something on normal or casual should give less rewards than playing on hard or elite.). Epic, on the other hand, is a rather interesting case, I don't quite know where to begin with it...

[pSINNa]

Checkout some of the threads by Elite mode only, no-shrine, no-AH/broker, Permadeath groups like Parvo's here...

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=283599

I'm sure they are facing quite a challenge and have to rely on strategy. If you want to play that way there are groups out there to join.

Some players just wanna twink out and solo stuff for favor or loot. DDO lets you do that too if you want.

TLR this games difficulty lvl can be whatever you want it to be imo.

This ^^, i've recently rolled out a few perma-death characters and have them in a reputable PD guild, it's challenging, it's fun, and it's extremely rewarding (getting a +2 weapon or armour, or any stat boosting item at all is exciting again, getting a good collectable is a big deal, and playing well with strategy and good build is not optional).

If you really want the challenge, join a group that sets it's own rules aimed at that, then everyone can be happy. You can have your challenge, people that don't want it can run normally without it (and lets face it, until you really know the game fairly well, builds, dungeons and raids it's still reasonably difficult), and you might be suprised at how fresh and new the game becomes again when you completely change to a way of running that includes "if i make a mistake, i die, and i have to delete the character and start from scratch again")

Coit out~

[sgtcatfish]

Please I'm begging you, stop making the dungeons easier

You are doing no justice to any of the new players either by doing stuff like making raid bosses harder(nerfing tendon slice/waves of exhaustion)

So again, please, please stop making the dungeons easier.

First off id like to say i agree lets not make things to easy leave the challenge that's the fun, but this statement is a complete 180 from the point you are making. They did not nerf Tendon slice or waves of exhaustion at all in fact they fixed both these things and they are now working as intended, I mean really raid bosses were killed so many times on all settings normal hard elite before these 2 specific things were used as easy buttons. The fact that they are now working as intended is good it brings the challenge and teamwork back to killing raid bosses instead of the Waves it and slice it method witch was by all accounts an easy button.

[Dirac]

and I can easily come up with a list that long of things that made the game more difficult: web nerf, prot no longer giving elemental immunities, adding second save to PK, vorpal nerf, invis nerf, enhancement boost nerf, WoP nerf, TWF nerf, etc.

I didn't put too much time into that. Add red-named immunities, cloudkill nerf, firewall stacking nerf, removing scrolls from vendors....

Listening to vets talk about how it used to be right at the beginning I think I probably would have hated that and been one of the people to quickly leave. But I also haven't been here to see these changes as they were put in that you pointed out (epic yes I guess).

Good to have the overall timeline perspective.

It is funny to compare the game now to the beginning. Some changes to make the game easier? Originally, there was no icon distinction between different potions and scrolls. Looking at your hotbar, you could not tell which was which. And there were no two weapon slots. Beholders could kill you behind walls, across the dungeon, and in the tavern after you recalled. That also made the game more difficult.

Some dude was bent about STK changes a while back. STK is harder now than it was originally. In the beginning, you used a couple misery's web trinkets to completely immobilize the boss.

[Talltale-Storyteller]

You've had two different posters recommend you to try PD, and have not responded to either...

So I will be the third, if you think the game is too easy try playing in a PD guild.

This game can be more than challenging enough if you have the self-discipline to play it in a way that challenges you.


...Just saying.

My 2cp.

[PNellesen]

As a new player starting with a 28pt build, no "hand-me-down" gear, limited D&D knowledge, and a penchant for NOT wanting to use spoilers on my first time through a dungeon, I can say that while some dungeons were, indeed, "easy", there were quite a few that were pretty tough going in blind. Not knowing what monsters were there (other than hints you get from the quest description), not knowing the traps, etc. As an example, my first time through "Coalescence Chamber" stands out because nobody in the group had ever done it before, and most of us were all still newish to DDO. Let me just say it was an "interesting" experience My second run, though... yeah, I would call that "easy". (And I won't talk about my first "Chains of Flame" run - on Hard - with my Cleric. That, too, was an "Experience", although we did have a person in the group had run it once before )

Anyway, point being - what's "easy" to an experienced player bears little resemblance to what's easy for a truly "new" player.

[Templarion]

First of all, do not make it harder by "any means". Because, it looks like the devs idea of "harder" is 10x more hitpoints ==> Which makes the completition only slower and more boring but not actually harder and absolutely not a bit more fun.

First we should define what is "harder" or "more difficult". In my opinion, harder quests would require more thinking in advance, more preparation and good timing in use of different maneuvers.

I think chaining the quests would be nice way to increase difficulty. With chaining I mean:
No shopping, repairing or selling between quests.

An example of specs
- If I want to play normally, its like now. But if I want challenge, I go pick up several quests and check which of them I want to do in a chain (party leader's choice).
- Order after 1st one is randomized. After completing the first quest, I enter the second quest - no shopping, repairs or anything between. Instant teleportation to the next quest.
- When I do several quests in row, I get an extra experience bonus. More quests I can do in row, higher the bonus.
- Leaving in the middle of the quest: bonuses are lost. No way to join back to the chain (like epic mode).
- After several quests, people just have to stop because:
1) their inventories are full
2) their equipment is broken
3) they are out of sp and hp (especially if the mode explained below is enabled)
4) they are out of pots

Extra: In addition, there could be a mode without rest shrines. All quests would be normal, but no rest shrines at all.

Now it is all about balancing the experience bonuses and that kind of calculation I leave to the devs.

[soulaeon]

+1
It's not Dungeons & Dragons if there is no thought in the process of completions. Also, getting sick of players entering epics and needing to be explained how to play their class, and that can be directly linked to easy questing.

[ballsz]

The OP's been here since Feb, 2010. Just imagine how he'd feel if his
start date was Feb2008/7/6 ........


Cheers

I've been on this Forum account since then yes, been around a lot longer. It never ceases to amaze me how short sited people can be, and completely ignore the topic at hand.

EDIT:
You prolly think I only have 3 characters too huh? ;p

[ballsz]

I think there are a lot of great points made here and some interesting ideas. What about making the dungeons harder and adding an options in the Turbine Store to be able to buy things like Reflex Save pots for minimal TP that say add +30 to your reflex save for an hour. Or even for your AC, attack etc...

Seems like a reasonable compromise to continue to make the game challenging and increase Turbine Profits. Don't want to wait for a rogue or ranger with that 30+ reflex save to go ahead of you and catch fire elemental agro... No problem! Buy a 25TP pot problem solved.

I mean you could do that to make tons of temporary solutions for either lack of skill or lack of build.

What do you think?

[Postumus]

Please I'm begging you, stop making the dungeons easier!


So again, please, please stop making the dungeons easier.

Play perma-death with un-twinked characters and only run at level or higher content and then come back and tell us how easy this game is.