Streaks, and breaking them.

[sirgog]

Agreed. For me, moreso than the bonuses, I illogically disregard scenarios like Sirgog mentioned earlier because I would hate to see that huge number become a small number. Something deep within me wishes to drudge through quests for a much lower xp/min ratio just to keep that pointless number ever growing. We need help.

I have done this. I'm just honest with myself that my streaking is costing me XP, especially when I do really silly things like try to flag for LOB/MA on Elite massively underlevel and solo.

But if a quest or raid comes up that I will be doing lootruns of at 20, I don't hesitate to break streak to do it immediately. Unless doing it at 20 would take appreciably less time than doing it at say 17, I'm getting some XP for no time investment at all.

One character wanted an Omniscience (and VOD elite is not really PUGgable and I don't have many guildies/friends that still need anything from there), so I broke streak to run the raid on Hard. The same toon wanted LOB completions, so again, I broke streak to knock out a Normal or Hard one, and I think they might have even done an MA for laughs.

When did hard Vod become the best xp at these levels? Yeah might only lose 7k for next so many quest, but I can get that xp just as fast or faster grinding refuge or IQ. So your right we are all fools. I really need to do another VOD and ruin my streak. Which I had more fun getting up then running the dumb VOD on hard yet again.

How much xp you will lose greatly depends on how close you are from cap, what elites you might still have to run and what xp pot you are running. Reality if it caps you, the lose will be less then 7k. Your next 2 runs lose 25% then 20%, 10% and back on streak. Running a level 1 quest I don't really think would add up to 7k, running 9k base quest it could go over 7k. The most you will lose is about 10k, the less would be around 1k for your streak bonus. I understand this, but still will not ruin my streak. I am just to foolish. 622 and still going.

VOD is extremely good XP if you were going to be running it at 20 anyway.

Running it at 18 - 20k XP award (+some negligible amount from slayer area), ~7k XP in missed bonuses on future quests = ~13k total for your ~30 min.
Running it at 20 - 0 XP for your 30 min.

So for no time investment at all (as you were going to run it at 20) you got 13k XP. In IQ, getting 13k XP takes at least 6 or 7 minutes (realistically more in most groups).

Of course if I didn't want to run VOD at 20 I wouldn't do it unless I wanted a break from the extremely boring IQ and Refuge.

[dragonofsteel]

VOD is extremely good XP if you were going to be running it at 20 anyway.

Running it at 18 - 20k XP award (+some negligible amount from slayer area), ~7k XP in missed bonuses on future quests = ~13k total for your ~30 min.
Running it at 20 - 0 XP for your 30 min.

So for no time investment at all (as you were going to run it at 20) you got 13k XP. In IQ, getting 13k XP takes at least 6 or 7 minutes (realistically more in most groups).

Of course if I didn't want to run VOD at 20 I wouldn't do it unless I wanted a break from the extremely boring IQ and Refuge.

Trying to understand when did I say running VOD on hard was a bad idea, just was pointing out to you that reason why peeps might not do it. I even help you out with showing the numbers support your argument. The only point I had no ones a FOOL if don't want to do VOD on hard. Now if you going to run VOD on hard at 20 in order not to break your streak, because it hurts your xp. (This does not include the peeps just like that big number) Then I agree you are a Fool. Because the numbers back it up, it will not help your xp by waiting to 20. I don't run things because I enjoy my streak for one and really don't need anything out of VOD anyway. Make sure you join a good pug, sure some will fail VOD on hard 0xp oh nooooooo.

[Deathdefy]

Yeah. The ability to run normal von 6 is something I miss... the last 5ish groups that have tried at level von 6 elite have failed.

I'm still happy with bravery streak though. I know it's completely irrational, but I haven't broken streak for a few lives now and it's consequently harder and harder to seriously consider sacrificing the pretty numbers next to the boxes.

[WruntJunior]

Hmmm...after thinking a while on this...

What Elite Streak really means to people (me included) is...

E-Peen

No one wants a "small number".

Heck, if Streak was available in MyDDO I would do a better job not breaking it at level 18...especially since it carries over to the next life now.

I must be very unusual...I don't streak because I want to show off...I streak because it's easy xp for me. :P (The only quest that I really hate doing for streak is elite kobold...but that's because it's one of the few quests where scroll healing almost doesn't cut it. IQ winds up being much easier because I can pull in a capped guildie or friend to help...and by the time IQ is done, I'm almost capped. )

That said, I don't break my streak because it's never necessary to me...and some quests are really fun to attempt on elite.

Edit: I would like to add that people SHOULD get over their fear of breaking streaks, though...just dropping down to a hard streak makes the quest almost as easy as normal, and still gives 25% xp bonus. (I don't do it myself...but I don't level alone, either.)

[Silverr]

Sorry but that is kind of the idea behind a streak with your way lets just give everyone the max bonus

Not at all. I don't think you read my post correctly. You'll only get the max bonus when you do it on elite for the first time, as it is now. What I was proposing was simply removing the 'breaking' mechanism.

Why wasn't the transition to elite VON6 discussed clearly before beginning VON5? Seems like if you had everyone on board when you started VON5, then it's on the cleric who recalled out instead of transitioning to VON6. I am not sure why the Elite streak is to blame for a party with a missing healer missing out on an elite dragon.

It was discussed, and advertised in the LFM. The healer dropped anyway, and once you've finished von5 you can't get anyone else in. Everyone would be happy to do von6 on normal or hard if it didn't break their streak, but it does. The idea is removing the 'breaking' mechanism from quests. Or at least raids.

[Niv-mizzet]

I agree yet again with the sentiment that streaks directly cause yet more grouping issues than we need.

My favorite example is a group of kinda-new people trying to do a mid-level quest on norm, and wanting a divine, and a divine wanting to do that quest on elite. And they literally won't budge. The kinda-new crew actually know they're not up to elite, and the divine won't break his streak to group with them. Therefore, a group of 5 and the guy they want as their 6th are both sitting around waiting for two groups to fill.

You could say 'yeah you could just break your streak mr. divine,' but what if we're literally looking at the situation where he's a TR, the quest they're wanting is von3, and the divine is planning to do von3, 4, take lv 12, then do 5 with a full streak running. Consciously choosing to miss out on streak bonus for 4, 5 and the next couple quests is a rough call. And thus like I said, two otherwise compatible groups of people sit there and wait instead of grouping up and playing the game.

To fix: Bravery should be made a larger, completely flat bonus, such as 50% (a nice middle ground between the current 20% flat bonus and the 70% for having a full streak,) and streaking should be removed. Obviously, bravery would only apply in the same way it does now, first time hard/elite etc etc.

[Silverr]

I agree yet again with the sentiment that streaks directly cause yet more grouping issues than we need.

My favorite example is a group of kinda-new people trying to do a mid-level quest on norm, and wanting a divine, and a divine wanting to do that quest on elite. And they literally won't budge. The kinda-new crew actually know they're not up to elite, and the divine won't break his streak to group with them. Therefore, a group of 5 and the guy they want as their 6th are both sitting around waiting for two groups to fill.

You could say 'yeah you could just break your streak mr. divine,' but what if we're literally looking at the situation where he's a TR, the quest they're wanting is von3, and the divine is planning to do von3, 4, take lv 12, then do 5 with a full streak running. Consciously choosing to miss out on streak bonus for 4, 5 and the next couple quests is a rough call. And thus like I said, two otherwise compatible groups of people sit there and wait instead of grouping up and playing the game.

To fix: Bravery should be made a larger, completely flat bonus, such as 50% (a nice middle ground between the current 20% flat bonus and the 70% for having a full streak,) and streaking should be removed. Obviously, bravery would only apply in the same way it does now, first time hard/elite etc etc.

Exactly. I've had this happen to me more than once, and it's a pain. As you say, it causes grouping issues, and that's something DDO really doesn't need. It can take long enough already to fill a group. So long, that I'd say about 70% of the quests I run these days are without a healer, and about 25% is just me and one other person dualling the quest with hires.

[sirgog]

I agree yet again with the sentiment that streaks directly cause yet more grouping issues than we need.

My favorite example is a group of kinda-new people trying to do a mid-level quest on norm, and wanting a divine, and a divine wanting to do that quest on elite. And they literally won't budge. The kinda-new crew actually know they're not up to elite, and the divine won't break his streak to group with them. Therefore, a group of 5 and the guy they want as their 6th are both sitting around waiting for two groups to fill.

You could say 'yeah you could just break your streak mr. divine,' but what if we're literally looking at the situation where he's a TR, the quest they're wanting is von3, and the divine is planning to do von3, 4, take lv 12, then do 5 with a full streak running. Consciously choosing to miss out on streak bonus for 4, 5 and the next couple quests is a rough call. And thus like I said, two otherwise compatible groups of people sit there and wait instead of grouping up and playing the game.

To fix: Bravery should be made a larger, completely flat bonus, such as 50% (a nice middle ground between the current 20% flat bonus and the 70% for having a full streak,) and streaking should be removed. Obviously, bravery would only apply in the same way it does now, first time hard/elite etc etc.

Before the streak, they might have done normal, and the new players would have been bored as the divine solo-zerged the quest while they tried (and failed) to meaningfully contribute. These sorts of players have never played well together and really the game should do everything it can to separate them. What a zerging TR looking to recap ASAP calls a good quest run will be a poor play experience newbies and vice versa.

As it is now, instead of 'Zerg BYOH silly death = kick' LFMs we have 'Elite streaking, speed, BYOH'. And instead of 'No zerging' LFMs we have two types of LFMs, 'Normal, no zerging' and 'Elite (or Hard), teamwork, no zerging'.

I wouldn't be opposed to changing to a flat 50% bravery instead of the 20-70% system though. Just because it would make it easier to get groups for quests that have prerequisites that are difficult or long on elite. Examples are Siegebreaker - the quest itself is totally PUGgable on Elite at a near-zerg, but Undermine is not at all doable at speed in a PUG. Likewise Crucible elite is much harder than Reaver's Fate elite and Framework elite wipes PUGs that could manage Eyes of Stone just fine.

[Brennie]

I believe that doing a raid should not break streak, no matter what difficulty it is run on.

This is the solution that i agree with most, with one caveat: I'd like to see streak bonuses accrue and apply to raids when run on hard or elite, but make raids unable to break streaks when run on normal or hard. This way players still have motivation to hit raids or pre-raids on elite, while not being unduly penalized if they wish to run them on lower difficulty settings, due to the fact that raids are usually MEANT to be incredibly difficult on elite, especially for an at-level PUG.

As per the OP, VoN5/6 would be the perfect example of why this would be a good idea. VoN5 is often run for XP on elite, and lacking bravery bonus would certianly be a shame for this quest, while VoN6 is difficult enough at-level that being able to run normal without breaking streak would be quite welcome!

[chrichton]

This is not true.

What is impacted though is that folks tend to farm one quest at a time ... Elite, Hard, Normal xSomething.

This isn't always the case though, esp. Gianthold on. In fact, tonight I plan on pugging out "Gianthold side quests on hard" followed by a round of "GH side quests on normal".

Once you do a quest on elite, what is the benefit/reason for doing it at lower difficulty levels?

[Cyr]

Once you do a quest on elite, what is the benefit/reason for doing it at lower difficulty levels?

First time bonus for hard/normal (which also let's you farm something more times for more xp if you do these at the end of elite runs) and xp/time which is generally much more favorable to run on lower difficulties if there are no extra bonuses sitting on the table.

[Brennie]

Once you do a quest on elite, what is the benefit/reason for doing it at lower difficulty levels?

First time XP bonuses still apply for lower difficulties. With a greater XP tome, you'll get the standard +40% for a hard run with 20% extra from the secondary effect of the tome. On a really great XP-per-minute quest, this can be a substantial boost, especially if you are planning on running that particular quest into the ground for XP.

My TR group often does this with Maraud the Mines, since we can split up, go 4 different ways, and have this quest done in roughly 60-90 seconds. Depending on how powerful we feel our current incarnations are, we either run this into the ground on elite, then pop in a hard, normal, and sometimes even casual run for the first time per difficulty XP bonus (which also cancels out the repetition penalty, woo!), or we bump down to hard, run hard into the ground, and round out with a normal/casual.

[Mastikator]

That would have nearly zero effect on some as their streak is over a hundred so unless they hit it with a 95-99% reduction then it would pointless

95% round down seems like an OK number to reduce the streak. It means you have to have 100 in order to break the streak ONCE without penalty, and 2 000 to break it twice without penalty (to go back to a streak of 5).

I'd be less reluctant to do normal quests with that. Dude, /signed

[Niv-mizzet]

Before the streak, they might have done normal, and the new players would have been bored as the divine solo-zerged the quest while they tried (and failed) to meaningfully contribute. These sorts of players have never played well together and really the game should do everything it can to separate them. What a zerging TR looking to recap ASAP calls a good quest run will be a poor play experience newbies and vice versa.

I see what you're saying, but I disagree that the two camps can never meet.

Sure, a lot of days I log on ready to kick it straight to 4th gear, grab a TR buddy or a hire and go try and see how breakneck fast we can get stuff knocked out on yet another life...

But I also have newbie RL friends, and some more casual types as in-game friends. In addition to them, sometimes I just let myself mind-meld with a random pug, sense they just want to enjoy the quest at a (non-elite) not-too-slow-or-too-fast pace, and go along with it. Y'know just hang around like a DMPC from pen n paper. Do my class role okay and only really step up to be awesome if it looks like my padawans are in over their heads. Maybe I'm just adaptable?

Which of course leads to my distaste of the streak. Ever since it showed up, I don't really do that second bit as much, mainly because there is now a price I would have to pay. I tell my RL friends nowadays they either gotta wait for me to do an elite run first, or be ready to ride in my backpack when their first-lifer baby's-first-build with junk for gear piloted by <50 hours of experience gets killed in 3 encounters or less.

[Ice_Bear]

What the game should do is have way to turn streak on and off and may be keep number you are at this way players who do not want streak can turn it off as well players who do not want to break it

[varusso]

The simple solution here is just to exempt all raids from streaks: you cant benefit from streaks in raids, and you cant break them.

Compared to the number of non-raid quests in DDO, the number of raids is miniscule and will have no real impact on the intent behind the streaks. It will, however, resolve the issue of doing raids on elite or waiting until you are overlevel for the raid and exempt from the streak breaking mechanic anyway.

Other than that, the mechanic is just fine. Removing it across the board would defeat the purpose of the mechanic in the first place.

[Scalion]

I kind of agree with the general concept the OP mentions. There are times when it's just not reasonable to maintain the streak, but at the same time I don't think the streak should lead to groups falling apart.

To the OP... The solution in your particular scenario would be to have someone buy a level 13 gold seal hireling from the store so the BB would have been invalidated anyway. Then you could have run VON on any difficulty you wanted without the streak mattering.

__________________________________________________ _________________________________

As far as the entire streak system I think it could be slightly modified to reduce the penalty for people who maintain a streak, but then just get into a situation where breaking the streak is the only way to keep a group going.

The BB streak should be seperated into two seperate statistics:

Statistic 1, current BB. This number would always be between 0 and 5 and would reset to 0 if a streak was broken.

Statistic 2 Quests at Max BB. This number could never go down, but in order to add to this number you have to qualify for the full 50% "current BB" bonus.

Examples:
Character 1 starts running quests on elite, after running 5 quests his current BB is 5, but his Quests at Max BB is still 0. The next quest he completes the current BB remains at 5, and his Quests at Max BB increases by 1.

Character 2 has TRed and currently has a Current BB of 5 and a Quests at Max BB of 105. He decides to run a quest on normal and loses the BB. His Current BB resets to 0, but his Quests at Max BB stays at 105. After building his Current BB streak back up to 5 the next BB quest he runs will increase his Quests at Max BB to 106.


This way if you decide to break your streak, you're not going to lose 100 or more elite completions in addition to your bonus, you just lose the bonus until you do the 5 quests to earn it back.

[Xynot2]

That would have nearly zero effect on some as their streak is over a hundred so unless they hit it with a 95-99% reduction then it would pointless

Wrong. The max streak bonus is 5. You can have a gagillion runs in your elite streak, but the bonuses max after 5 runs so what people are failing to get when they decide not to break a streak is how easy it is to max out the bonus.

[SiliconScout]

To be honest the fact that you can count the streak higher than 5 is a big part of the issue.

1. Some don't realize that it doesn't matter after 5.
2. Some like to see that big number (E-***** anyone??) and wouldn't give it up for anything.

If it capped out at 5 then I think that both of the above are mitigated.

You can't help but realize that it's pretty easy to cap the streak AND 5 is as big as it gets.

Another nice step might be to make the streak only available to TR's. I am honestly not sure I like that idea myself, but it would help with the grouping, especially for the new people and those with experience running a first life toon.

[Cauthey]

What you are suggesting is almost akin to installing an XP point "shower" in the Marketplace. Just pull the chain, and get XP.

/not signed. No challenge, no fun.