New difficulty setting "Hardcore"

[Farzinz]

I like the current difficulty settings and almost always play on elite for the bravery bonus. I enjoy being able to complete every quest once on elite and reach level cap.

What I don't enjoy is farming a quest for a chance to get the named item I am looking for. Killing a dragon should give a dragonscale, that is common sense and is what any PNP game would do. Having recently started permadeath and enjoying it immensely I propose the following.

Create a new difficulty setting for every quest: "Hardcore", make it as difficult or more difficult than elite, remove Resurrection shrines (or make them unusable) and include a consequence for releasing/death equivalent to losing a level as per PNP, no reentry of course (raise dead spell or equivalent should still work however as they are part of the game and an important part of the healer role). MOST IMPORTANTLY, the rewards need to match the risk, make named loot drops a GUARANTEE at end chest or end reward list or something equivalent i.e kill epic Velah on hardcore, get a guaranteed Flawless Red Dragon scale. The harsher the penalty for failure, the greater the reward should be.

This is clearly not for everyone, but for those of us that seek an intense gaming experience with a requirement for team work, this will give us that. And for those who would prefer to risk losing a level than repeat the same quest 10 times, this will give them that option too.

I am making this suggestion as a programmer and if the codebase is well designed, this should not require much programming, especially if you keep the same difficulty as elite and simply add the consequences and rewards. But if the codebase is as such that this would be a large endeavor, probably best to stick with bug fixes and new content.

Sincerely,
Tephaz (Khyber and Thelanis)

P.S. if you think this would give out too much named loot, consider making "Hardcore" non-repeatable and all loot found in it BTC. i.e quest is accomplished and threat is gone.

[Tshober]

This would, of course, make the rare loots not rare at all but super common. Everyone would have them for every alt that wanted it with very little effort at all. Well, everyone that is not F2P anyway. I suppose that it does fit in with the general trend of trivializing the game though, so you may have a shot at getting it implemented. I think it's a very bad idea, but I gave up fighting against stuff like this long ago. So good luck, you may get your wish.

[Memnir]

and if the codebase is well designed,

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[Hafeal]

Rofl.
:d

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[akash]

/Not Signed If loots are easy achievable then people will lose interest on the raid very early. From my personal experience, after my wizard got Litany of the dead, Staff of the petitioner, and the Quiver of Alacrity it totally stopped running Abbot.

Create a new difficulty setting for every quest: "Hardcore", make it as difficult or more difficult than elite, remove Resurrection shrines (or make them unusable) and include a consequence for releasing/death equivalent to losing a level as per PNP, no reentry of course (raise dead spell or equivalent should still work however as they are part of the game and an important part of the healer role). MOST IMPORTANTLY, the rewards need to match the risk, make named loot drops a GUARANTEE at end chest or end reward list or something equivalent i.e kill epic Velah on hardcore, get a guaranteed Flawless Red Dragon scale. The harsher the penalty for failure, the greater the reward should be.

Where is resurrection/rest shrine in VON6 at current difficulty settings? Moreover entrance is also blocked after entering VON6 and thus re-entry is impossible. Ensuring guaranteed drop of named loot items will eventually kill this wonderful raid. I understand programming is not difficult about game difficulties and loot drops but that is the difference of a good programmer and great programmer. A great programmer/developer always looks for the outcome before programming anything.

[Xynot2]

Hardcore / Epic Elite.

Tomay toe / Tomah toe. Potay toe / Potah toe.

[varusso]

<snip>.

* Disable rez shrines, keep player-based rezzes: Yes.
* Unable to re-enter if release: Yes
* Additional Penalty for leaving: No. Not needed; you are already locked out of the completion unless you start over completely, thats penalty enough.
* Guaranteed drop: No. Too many quests are easily completable by too many toons. Even with an increased difficulty setting, this would just be too easy to farm the good stuff. Increased drop rate? definitely. And not by 1-2% either -- something measurable but not game-breakingly common.
* Might have to consider upper-level limits to keep lvl 25's from easy-moding Hardcore lvl 10 quests to get their shinies -- lets say 4 lvls above the base of the quest as a starting point.

* The mobs, traps, etc would need to be MUCH harder, and completing on hardcore should give the same favor as Elite.
* XP would need to be higher than Elite.
* The quests shouldnt be once per toon or once per life; not enough replay value in it. But making them once per day (as old epics) or once per 3 days (as raids) should be about right. And if the quest IS a raid, then just use the raid timer on it and leave it be.

* I know this will draw out the P2W naysayers, but it would probably be a good idea to make this a VIP perk and a DDO Store upgrade (blanket upgrade on all quests, all servers when purchased). It would give a definitive value to VIP and would probably be quite popular with the Premium crowd.

[mobrien316]

Hardcore mode, in my opinion, would be a version of the current Elite with the following changes:

1. AoE spells will damage/affect everyone (including player characters) within the area of effect.
2. Friendly fire (including ray spells and the like) will hit player characters if not aimed properly.
3. No rest shrines or resurrection shrines.
4. Any player raised or resurrected loses one point of Constitution for each raise/resurrect.

[Tshober]

* Disable rez shrines, keep player-based rezzes: Yes.

Rez shrines are a complete and total joke when you can run to a vendor and buy an unlimited supply of rez scrolls before you start.

[SilentAssassin82]

Honestly if you want hardcore mode then don't use the shrines, don't use ship buffs, don't use the OP spells and just tell yourself it's hardcore every time you enter the dungeon and be done with all these difficulty suggestion threads.

The loot itself would become meaningless also because there would be floods of it ingame.

Not everyone wants to play perma death or be HARDCORE!. Some folk just want to enjoy what they have and to be blunt all the people that do just have to ignore the stuff they don't want to use, like the shrines and so on.

So yeah.

/Not signed.

Cause i'd rather see time spent on content that dosn't just require the player to change playstyle to achieve what you suggest. Other than the loot every time and that in my eyes should never happen.

[varusso]

Rez shrines are a complete and total joke when you can run to a vendor and buy an unlimited supply of rez scrolls before you start.

And? You can bring a hireling for the same effect. Whats your point? No reason to start meddling with player-based abilities; it would only cause players to complain about it and demand it be changed back.

What would be next? Not allowing players to heal themselves so as to add more challenge? Disallow disarming of traps? Banning CC/Necros?

FYI: Not everyone can use rez scrolls, and not everyone has rez clickies.

Now, one thing that might be considered in order to prevent death-zerging: After dying, a toon might go into a penalty box for X amount of time or until some milestone is reached or objective achieved. If all toons are in the quest are in the penalty box, the quest fails. Shroud would obviously be an exception at the end of part 4

[Tshober]

And? You can bring a hireling for the same effect. Whats your point?

My point is why even list disabling rez shrines at all in a list of stuff that is supposed to make the quest "hardcore", when in reality that is at most a very minor inconvenience. If you want to make people think it is really "hardcore", list things that actually matter. You know, things that would actually make it more likely people would be unable to succeed.

[varusso]

My point is why even list disabling rez shrines at all in a list of stuff that is supposed to make the quest "hardcore", when in reality that is at most a very minor inconvenience. If you want make people think it is really "hardcore", list things that actually matter. You know, things that would actually make it more likely people would be unable to succeed.

Once again, not everyone has rez ability. If you cant rez, then it isnt just an inconvenience. It also emphasizes the necessity to bring some method of rezzing or ensuring you can do it without dying. With mobs, traps, etc being much tougher and restricting the player levels on the quest, it would be a very real possibility of player deaths on this setting.

Whats more, it seems the OP is using an extension of the PD rules (as he stated). One of the common rules is that you are not allowed to use Rez shrines, but player-rezzes are fine. Nothing wrong with adding that in.

BTW youve picked ONE thing. I DID list several things as an addendum to the OPs suggestion -- intended to be taken as a whole, not individually, to change the tone of the setting in its entirety, not picking the items a la carte.

[phillymiket]

I don't know about this.

The quest that you mentioned, VON6, has no rez shrine (until after the fight) and you can't reenter anyway.
In fact, one or both is the case for many raids that drop sought after stuff.

Just with the things you mentioned it would be absolutely no different except you could have epic scale armor in no time.

And the negative level...you mean like lose xp permanently like at launch?

While that would be a pretty big penalty while leveling when you were capped it would not be that much unless ED was lost too.

What if you DC?

If you took a hit to xp that would lead to anger and frustration.

If you didn't people would exploit.

Of course, elite guilds and channels would become more elite.
It would be no thing tho figure ways to beat Hardcore and then just fly a guildie into gear.

For example in the quest you mentioned a guild run would net 12 scales so in two runs someone would have armor with scales to spare.

3 days farm for Epic Red Scale from...what is it now?...I'd say it would take you at least TWICE that amount of time.

Going to not sign

Edit -

While I still don't sign because I don't think it would mesh with content for a new quest or two maybe something like that might be interesting.

Have a chain where the last quest lets you skip grind at some extraordinary risk.

Twists are fun.
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[Tshober]

BTW youve picked ONE thing. I DID list several things as an addendum to the OPs suggestion -- intended to be taken as a whole, not individually, to change the tone of the setting in its entirety, not picking the items a la carte.

Yeah, I think it just boils down to we have a vastly different view of what makes a quest hard to complete. At least you did not try to claim your list would justify guaranteed drops. That's something anyway.

[Thorzian]

i think a permanent level loss for death in a hardcore quest is a good idea. if dropped below 20, character is booted from an epic quest and at lvl 19+0 xp. enjoy the grind! you say that would cause anger. If you know that the level loss is a possibility and go in anyway there is nobody to be angry at but yourself.

give hardcore the same lvl reqiurements as Bravery Bonus. can't be a higher lvl then quest. E-EV6 is currently 24 i believe? so 25's dnq.

I'm for taking that even to the next level and go a diablo-style hardcore toon. permadeath, elite difficulty every quest, guarenteed named loot either in chest or end reward choice.. or both (which ever qualifies). yes that would mean 12 red scales in a run.. it would also mean that if you got to a level 24 quest you have never party wiped despite running every quest on elite from level 1. you deserve an easy 12 scale for the raid run.

[CaptainSpacePony]

While the ideas are somewhat interesting, I don't think they fit DDO.

[V_mad_jester_V]

BTW youve picked ONE thing. I DID list several things as an addendum to the OPs suggestion -- intended to be taken as a whole, not individually, to change the tone of the setting in its entirety, not picking the items a la carte.

dose this point really surprise you at all? Thats like the majority of people who has selective reading skills X-D People are always going to try and pick a single point to make an entire point invalid

[varusso]

dose this point really surprise you at all? Thats like the majority of people who has selective reading skills X-D People are always going to try and pick a single point to make an entire point invalid

Yes, but I can point back to the point at which he was pointing to make a point that his point was pointless.

[varusso]

i think a permanent level loss for death in a hardcore quest is a good idea. if dropped below 20, character is booted from an epic quest and at lvl 19+0 xp. enjoy the grind! you say that would cause anger. If you know that the level loss is a possibility and go in anyway there is nobody to be angry at but yourself.

This would virtually guarantee that the majority of players would skip the setting. If a setting will only appeal to a small fraction of the populace, then it isnt worth the time it takes to develop it. Anything major added like this would have to pay for itself in terms of player retention and enjoyment, or it has to correct some sort of game imbalance or pave the way toward making further content development much easier in some way -- otherwise it simply will not get added.

"Enter at your own risk, sucks to be you when you die" simply wont cut it in this MMO (or most for that matter). Such features were removed BECAUSE players did not like them. Any penalties incurred from running the quest have to be temporary and be removed upon exiting.

Deleveling while IN the quest? Sure, its reasonable. Making it a permanent hit even after you leave the quest? Nope, causes to many problems like no longer meeting the ML for your gear, screwing with your feats, AP, etc. Just not a good idea.