Re balance Quest XP

[stille_nacht]

since the devs are trying to make magic viable (and perhaps made it overpowered), i hold hope they will turn some attention to tweaks regarding how much xp quests give.

please read the entire post (that means past the "nerf the pretty ridiculous ones" and to teh "buff the ones that are too low (by the way, the quests that are too low do not consist of all the most annoying quests in the game...)

yes yes, i loved shadow crypt xp, but i really dont think that getting 22-26k xp per ~15min run was "balanced" in any way shape or form at level 8 :/, yeah you want to get high level, but step back a second, should a quest like that seriously have that much xp? the type of xp that levels someone from 7-10 in the course of 2 days? no.
conversely, some quests just plain dont give enough xp, muuuuch to little, id point some out, but... there are a lot of them. Increase the xp on these quests so people will actually start running a larger percentage of the game's content.

i suggest that quest xp be based off of: A- the average time it takes to finish them (as generally thought out, or maybe even playtested) and B- the difficulty of the monsters, etc. in it. Rather then a seemingly arbitrary number... (for example, even though a small problem has the same difficulty monsters, its length means it should get more xp than the snitch)

add on- in accordance with the inavailability of so-called "uber xp" quests, lower the TR curve on xp

that way, running some quests wont feel like a waste of time, and people will stop skulking around inside tombs and crypts all of low-mid-possiblyhigh levels :P

To some of the TR arguments- Guys, you have to realize that there are also other quests in the game so instead of running say, delerahs x15, youd run deleras x5, redwillows x5, phiarlan thingies x5, etc. x5. Or just farm the same quest if you really prefer that....
One worry is that TRs wotn actually have enough xp to cap, hopefully, this system will result in a greater total amount of available xp, just more spread out, instead of less, with bits more concentrated in certain quests.

i also realize that there will always be an optimum path, thats fine, i just dont want one quest to be the "omg farm it for an hour to level up" quest.

also, increase optional xp, as of now, that 5 minutes for 97 xp is almost never done :/

BY SIRGOG-
Some quests have extremely hard puzzles in them (well at least for first timers), in the case of these special "puzzle quests" (crucible, shadowcrypt, etc.), first time completions will recieve an XP bonus, while subsequent completions will be back to standard. [though no one runs a puzzle quest without guides nowadays D: )

[vcntmnd]

Great idea, /signed
I would also like to see optionals worth a bit more than they currently are. A lot of them aren't worth doing, which is a shame.

[FranOhmsford]

/signed

Optional also /signed

[Metaljaw]

seriously? You realized that you are advocating for lowering xp on the main leveling quests for a bump in Pit/Hold for Reinforcement/Kobold Assault. You want leveling to be more of a grind than it already is just so come **** quests get a slight bump in XP to make them slightly more appealing???

unsigned, denied, I object, I strongly object, you messed with the wrong marine objection.

[sirgog]

Shadow Crypt kinda needs a high XP. I'm usually good at solving puzzles, but the first time I went in there, it took me around 2¼ hours to complete it. The Crucible is similar - most people that played on Gianthold release day will tell you that quest took them ~3+ hours to complete.

Perhaps an alternate solution would be to lower its base XP, but to add a once-only (per life) completion bonus for it and for other fiendishly complex puzzle quests.



Still, I can't support any reductions in XP earned while TRing requires such an obnoxious amount of XP. Being unable to play your main character (except for a low-level variant that may not even be the class you want to play) for an extended time sucks, and Shadow Crypt's ridiculous XP mitigates this. More increases to XP would make TRing less boring, and make me less of an ******* to new players while doing it (I probably make 3-4 people ragequit DDO each 36 point life and will continue to do so unless TR mechanics are changed to be less grindy and more challenging)

[PwnHammer40K]

I wish they gave out XP for kills in PvP, casting Grease/Kormor's at key moments, the most profit made on the AH during a single day, having attractive, fashionable toons, and successfully conducting romance with another player.

EDIT: OH and I really really wish they gave you XP for neg-rep'ing someone on this forum.

[stille_nacht]

Shadow Crypt kinda needs a high XP. I'm usually good at solving puzzles, but the first time I went in there, it took me around 2¼ hours to complete it. The Crucible is similar - most people that played on Gianthold release day will tell you that quest took them ~3+ hours to complete.

Perhaps an alternate solution would be to lower its base XP, but to add a once-only (per life) completion bonus for it and for other fiendishly complex puzzle quests.



Still, I can't support any reductions in XP earned while TRing requires such an obnoxious amount of XP. Being unable to play your main character (except for a low-level variant that may not even be the class you want to play) for an extended time sucks, and Shadow Crypt's ridiculous XP mitigates this. More increases to XP would make TRing less boring, and make me less of an ******* to new players while doing it (I probably make 3-4 people ragequit DDO each 36 point life and will continue to do so unless TR mechanics are changed to be less grindy and more challenging)

i realize that TRs really like shadow crypt, but also note that i also want an increase in basically every other quest, so it balances out. I hope it could work out to where before trs only run shadowcrypt, now they run redwillows, stormcleave, etc. etc. too. More fun then grinding one quest right?

adding the "hard puzzle" mechanism BTW.

seriously? You realized that you are advocating for lowering xp on the main leveling quests for a bump in Pit/Hold for Reinforcement/Kobold Assault. You want leveling to be more of a grind than it already is just so come **** quests get a slight bump in XP to make them slightly more appealing???

unsigned, denied, I object, I strongly object, you messed with the wrong marine objection.

assuming that this isnt trolling, im suggesting a bump to everything, not just the annoying quests, that seems to have too low xp. As to the nerf to "uber xp" quests, as said above, i hope thats made up for by say, the rest of the game. which you seem not to play?

there are plenty of nice quests that have bad xp, Sharn syndicate has some decent quests, bad xp, a particular quest that i thought was sort of interesting, a Small Problem, has terrible xp/min

[Ziindarax]

/signed on increasing the exp given in quests.

Farming one quest over an over again gets boring pretty fast, and since the developers are trying to force us into running chains like Threnal and Sorrowdusk (if we want some of the higher-level crafting ingredients), they might as well make the quests more attractive in terms of EXP awarded.

[Habreno]

/signed

[Seikojin]

/signed

I think I have mentioned this at least a few times in the last 5 years.

Given the ddowiki clearly shows what quests give for exp, I think it would be very easy to formulate and rebalance the rewards for the quests in the game.

Ironically, no matter how often you TR, getting to Rank 6 exp wise, is pretty much the same on each life.

What do you think the changes should be? The devs want feedback before they commit to anything like this.

[redspecter23]

No matter how often they balance the xp, there will always be an optimum path. I remember when Stormcleave was an excellent xp run. You could run it underlevel for a bonus and I believe the base was higher as well. I never missed a few trips to Stormcleave during my leveling up routine. Now I skip it unless I'm running it just for kicks. That being said, I'm not against tweaking the xp, but the most important thing right now is adding quests in the 15+ range in order to get a baseline before any tweaking begins. The amount of quests in that range is just too small and tweaking now will just lead to retweaking later as more quests in that range are released.

[Bechtinger]

/not signed. not in any way.

Lot of quests have been nerfed xp-wise and if this continues, the game just gets more of a grind.

I can understand that lots of players love all the low and mid lvl content but I'm one of those that just go through there to level up. And if that takes longer, it annoys me.

-> leave our shadowcrypt n stuff to us...
-> add content lvl 15 and higher with reasonable xp

[Templarion]

/not signed

OR lower cap of Legend TRs by 2 million.

[wolflairabyss99]

perhaps you should make a list of these quests that seem to give out an unfair amount of exp. also i would like to add time bonuses where the faster you the do the quest, the more exp you get. i been in too many groups where people sit around kicking rocks and i think a leader screaming out of fear of losing a nice bonus will motivate alot of folks. everyone loves bonuses and the completed scorecard displays the amount of time it took for completion.

[Seikojin]

Formulate!

You have a few variables to make an exp formula for...
Level of quest
Duration
Difficulty
Recommended party size

And some variables to help smooth things out...
Number of 'encounters'
Number of Traps
Number of 'puzzles'
Number of events

I can't think of the others offhand...

But if you take those variables, plug some multipliers in for them, and then add a base value to run them through, you too can recalc the exp to be progressive and worthwhile too!

[stille_nacht]

/not signed. not in any way.

Lot of quests have been nerfed xp-wise and if this continues, the game just gets more of a grind.

I can understand that lots of players love all the low and mid lvl content but I'm one of those that just go through there to level up. And if that takes longer, it annoys me.

-> leave our shadowcrypt n stuff to us...
-> add content lvl 15 and higher with reasonable xp

i assume most people arent expecting just to zerg stuff to cap :/, and while i myself am a TR, i assume that most people arent TRs. And you know what happens when a non third life TR goes to shadowcrypt? i have guildies that have first lives that have gotten from 5-10 over the course of a day, too unbalancing IMHO for the first around times :/

also, this suggestion includes a buff to all other quests, stuff like, say A Small Problem (or any other longish quest), will get a buff under my suggestion. (Small Problem should give round 10k IMO, quest takes quite a bit of time)

[vVAnjilaVv]

I'm all for a rebalance on quest XP especially to the ones that are never touched...but I don't agree with nerfing quest XP that are good XP now.

The ones that are never run are not because they are not great quests, it's because the XP/min they give is complete junk.

If this proposed idea would make TR leveling slower I am 100% against it tho.

[elixer1]

/signed

Xp vs quest balance is an ongoing struggle for the devs I'm sure. One way to compensate for the fact that people find some quests too easy for the xp and some people too hard, is to shake it up every update. Stormcleave outpost used to be the thing to run (and to an extent it still is) when level appropriate, but the xp is no where what it used to be. I don't think it is necessarily possible to get the balance right, so why not change it up? Find the quests that are being played as much, and give them an xp shot, and watch them start to get played. For instance, if you doubled all the xp in catacombs (a brutal time sink for minimal XP and loot) I might consider running it again.

[redspecter23]

One of the issues regarding xp/minute and rebalancing is travel time. For something like Catacombs, the xp isn't really all that bad, but when you factor in the running back and forth, it adds significant time onto each part. Many of those quests can be run in under a couple minutes. Under 5 minutes for some of the later ones. Adding 1-2 minutes of travel time onto each quest not only makes it a boring time sink, but lowers your xp/min.

This problem is compounded to an extreme in 3 Barrel Cove. Some of the xp is decent out there, but once you factor in the travel time, it turns to junk in most cases. You have to window farm just to make the xp decent. Whether or not travel time should be considered kind of messes up the calculations. Either you balance your xp for travel time (and make window farming so much better xp/min) or you don't consider travel time and you have nobody running it unless they can window farm it.

[bando]

What about this:

1) We give out XP bonuses for completing chains like Sorrowdusk and CO6 or for completing areas like 3BC (which I haven't touched on my last two TR lives) as a one-time thing. That might at least attract people to run the other quests once instead of grinding the single-shot ones over and over again.

2) we give a +50% "first time completing quest" bonus on top of other bonuses. I might not want to spend 40 minutes in the pit for 7k xp, but i might do it for 10k. Same with the 3bc quests or Threnal

Essentially, though, the problem is that after you've played the game a while, two things happen:

1) you feel like getting a non-TR'd character up to 20 is too fast
2) you feel like getting a multiple-TR'd character up to 20 is too slow.

I've always felt like the most natural xp progression was that first TR life up to around 3 mil xp.