Feelings about current challenge system

[Vanquishedfo]

When I first heard about the new challenges being tested I was excited. I as always waited till they where live and I happily bought the pack to show my support for turbine and begane to explore them. Sadly I have had to accept solo is the only real option atm as it seems interest from the population in running them is low. Alot of vets dont see the items as better then thier hard earned ones and casual new comers even VIPs dont seem to inclined to explore them over sticking with the vets running raids and epics.

I was very hopeful the system like in CC would allow for fun casual solo play with decent earnings. Even my worst builds could get completion and a few extra during CC but here some of these challenges especially the high lvl ones just seem very unfriendly to solo play and thats making me once again feel why bother even playing if my time always ends up being waisted here. Im not saying even the 2nd star should be without some effort but basic compeltion for a few in some cases is still much greater effort then the reward you recieve.

For example CCrystal. Solo just getting down to the big crystal finding the needed crests and protecting that kobold is all a single players full time under best cases let alone someone scouting, guarding the line, and keeping the kobolds safe up top.

Now I know some say they where not made to be solo well waht was the point then because the last thing we needed was more force you to team with people you dont ever get along with content.

Now some are more solo friendly then others and some are more friendly to certain classes and thats fine. EXCEPT for the fact we got like 20 more kinds of collectables added to the game. WHY? To sale more ing bags sadly and thats it. Any sane game dev would of gone the route of other better MMOs and done a simple reward token system where we would be free to choose which ones to run with which toons we felt like playing at any level and then pool them up to buy what ever items we wanted.

For example the many Lifetime completionist on his last life might not have any interest in alot of the lower to mid lvl gear. Why cant he just save up challenge reward tokens and when he finally has enough to buy one of the high end items he may actually one day have real need of he can, and he can enjoy playing any of the challenges while he works towards it.

Currently for example you cant get me to bother teaming with my cleric in any challenge. the few items he can use come from challenges that are so solo unfriendly I just accept I wont ever get them and thus wont use my cleric to help others get the items they want when I am denied earning the ones I want the way I want. Spite is a dangerous feeling to create in players at as always turbine seems to like to do just that. Its why clerics dont help on alot of raids especially if they will be denied the right to roll on items they may use in an upcoming TR on the path to completionist. You want to create a strong sense of wanting to help others stop making it so we grow so embittered we dont want to help anyone right up until we leave this game for others.

Top it of with the possibly worse exploit in history of DD bringing about a feeling of why even play a game that only rewards those who abuse it and those trying to enjoy it the WAI to play. I mean even some of the worst MMO out there still will ban and ban permamently anyone who uses an exploit in a repeat way even if it wasnt stated to be an exploit. Its allowed under the ToS they can cancel an account any time for any reason and should in this case let it be known they did ban a huge chunk of accounts.

Its btw BS if they say they cant. Ive seen MMO over the years post things annually like the amount of accunts banned for illegaly gold selling, harrasment, etc as a way to show players that things are being done without pointing fingers at any individual.

Sorry ranted there abit at the end. Over all I wanted to love the new challenges but as a mainly casual and oft times solo player they are really not feeling like a good value for my money atm and that makes me feel like i wasted money. I dont like to keep putting money into something that makes me feel like I waste it.

[Saaluta]

Hey Vanquishedfo,

According to Genasi, the pieces are going to be bound to account, so you can farm on your cleric and transfer them to other characters on your account as long as you have the shared bank. Or you can farm on your other characters for your cleric. Here is the post where she says this:

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...62#post4176262

Saal

[Vanquishedfo]

yes I read that and its a small step but not really what i would like to see.

For example even with the promised change its pretty silly for lvl 8 items to require ings from lvl 10 or 12+ min req to enter quests. Its pretty much saying they are not for first time through pkayers who bought the pack but for guys who already got a capped toon to twink with. Poor show if u ask me. If I was a brand new player who bought the pack and relized this Id be ****ed.

What would solve it all would be replace all the ingrediants with Challenge Reward Tokens. And instead of needing 400 of 3 different kinds youd just need 1200 reward tokens. this way you can run any challenges with any of your characters at any lvl and be working towards a singular goal. THis I believe would increase teaming and people playing the challenges more in general.

[Rizzia]

What would solve it all would be replace all the ingrediants with Challenge Reward Tokens. And instead of needing 400 of 3 different kinds youd just need 1200 reward tokens. this way you can run any challenges with any of your characters at any lvl and be working towards a singular goal. THis I believe would increase teaming and people playing the challenges more in general.

Not sure about that, people would end up running the most rewarding challenge constantly, which will remove the challenge. Heck my toons arent exactly well geared but I would be able to make a tier 3 epic item per day (epic tokens may be an issue tho) if the rewards were standardised.

[mystafyi]

Top it of with the possibly worse exploit in history of DD

Not even close. there have been a half dozen exploits that were far worse. I cant name them here though

Its btw BS if they say they cant. Ive seen MMO over the years post things annually like the amount of accunts banned for illegaly gold selling, harrasment, etc as a way to show players that things are being done without pointing fingers at any individual.

DDO cant afford to lose any accounts now. Its already in serious trouble and with Diablo3 and Starwars Tor out within a month or 2, its going to get worse.

[Vanquishedfo]

Not sure about that, people would end up running the most rewarding challenge constantly, which will remove the challenge. Heck my toons arent exactly well geared but I would be able to make a tier 3 epic item per day (epic tokens may be an issue tho) if the rewards were standardised.

Well I dont want to say something like trust me, but ive seen the evolution of systems like this on other MMO and that they only INCREASE the amount of players playing the content.

For example in city of heroes an mmo older then wow that has survived, over come near total failure,a nd come to thrive evenw ith competition from a newer rival made by the same original dev team taht created it.

For example in first year city of heroes thier tasks forces( similar to longer mission series arcs and raids) awarded a random SO, dont worry what an SO is just assume it was for the time the best thing to earn. However the task forces could be incredibly long and difficult to complete. I recall my first one back in 04 running over 6 hours. of the starting 8 players only 3 lasted to the end.

Such extreme challenge largely based on time, kept them from being to popular and as the game developed and more where added the player base of subbers rightly asked why are you making these if so few of us even play them?

So they had to rethink it, first they upped rewards by creating new more powerful enhancments for powers. Now instead of SOs we where after IOs, these would be comparable to the more modern set based loot of DDO. The IO rewards where very random though and the best ones still remained so rare those few who did have them had a cler and significant advantage over other players and all it really resulted from was pure luck. This turned off even more players to the point in this stage that it was more common to find people to play filler to start a TF then solo it after then left so few wanted to run them.

finally came the age of reward merits about 2 years ago in COH. Since then when I do choose to play there it takes me less then 15 minutes to start anf form ANY of the task forces in the game be they long hard ones or short quick fun runs people are always ready and eager to pocket a few more reward merits because sooner or later they add up to enough to buy something they need for one of thier many alts. Typically 200 is the golden number for reward merits and for me an experiance TF leader on COH can earn more then double that in a casual day of play on a weekend. with the profits that come from selling those items I buy with my merits that I dont need on the AH I pocket enough to after a few sales buy ANYTHING now matter how rare and special from the AH.

This system has lead to a much more active and fun community that is easy for newcomers to join in and catch up once they learn the tricks while still needing years to really master the art of building a character even with forums build guides, because much like here in DDO, having the perfect meta gamed build is only like owning a magical sword but means nothing until you lern how to wield it.

[Vanquishedfo]

Not even close. there have been a half dozen exploits that were far worse. I cant name them here though

DDO cant afford to lose any accounts now. Its already in serious trouble and with Diablo3 and Starwars Tor out within a month or 2, its going to get worse.

ddo isnt on the ropes at all and can always afford to lose those kinds of players who revel in abusing exploits.

And no there havent been worse exploits. The fact is some where not even true exploits but just creative and clever ways to use tactics and spells that the dim witted and clearly non DM experianced DEVs never saw coming.

For example back in first year DDO when VoN was first added and all the hooplah over who would kill her and how meant a big deal a story and vid of 3 rangers beating her after the rest of thier party was tkaen out knocked off the platform in the first wing flap. the 3 rangers then used what in PnP would of been clever hit and run tactics using the cover of the stones and each takinga turn using many shot to eat in to her then get a breather to heal and buff while another would do the same.

A similar thing occurred with a handful of arcanes after thier party got taken out the same way.

In a PnP campaign altough the tactics likely woulf of been abit more involved would of effectively been the same and I as a dm would of been very happy to seey a party on the brink of failure overcome such things.

Not the DDO devs though, no that was not WAI and was a hoorible exploit. so they made it so stupid that all u can do now is tank and spank and they keep upping her stats to compensate for the fact lvl 20s with epic gear will run a normal and still expect challenge.

This current exploit is purely that and did something far worse then even the other worse one prior imo which was the one years ago that let many players fully outfit in cleansed GS gear so easily, and was back when the gear was lvl 8 min, and some guild websites still say not all was changed and still posses complete sets of grandfathered lvl 8 req cleansed GS gear for thier TRs. at least that is bound to one toon.

[Ziindarax]

From the looks of it, they really made the challenges more barable! I love the ingredient exchange they're doing!