Pugs are a measure of the future health of the game

[heavenandhell]

I do not complain about the pug scene because im whiny. To be honest im grinding for my 2nd Esos. shard never drops. New players depend on the pug scene and scaling. bb. and over level and.powerlevel and death penalty all work against new people playing with people who have toons over 100 hp at level 1.

I like this game but the new game mechanics are working to create a negative synergy.

We need a large party bonus for.heroic xp.to counter these forces.

[DarkForte]

You think we have a death penalty now? So spoiled...

[vegabond1969]

Death penalty? LMAO there is no death penalty in this game anymore. When you start going backwards in xp because you keep zerging ahead of your heals, then you can cry about a death penalty. Imagine running Gwylan's Stand on elite with a team and going in with 250k xp on your bar. Then when you finish your bar is in the red by four or five k and thats after you get your xp from completing the quest. Now those were the days of death penalty

[Coyopa]

Death penalty? LMAO there is no death penalty in this game anymore. When you start going backwards in xp because you keep zerging ahead of your heals, then you can cry about a death penalty. Imagine running Gwylan's Stand on elite with a team and going in with 250k xp on your bar. Then when you finish your bar is in the red by four or five k and thats after you get your xp from completing the quest. Now those were the days of death penalty

^^ This. There is no death penalty at all in this game. Death is a minor inconvenience, which is a huge advantage for this game, in my opinion. I played EverQuest back in the day. In that game, the experience you lost was gone forever - not regained over time like it was earlier in DDO. You could get some back by getting high level resurrections, but the best you could get reliably was 90% back. Also, you had to actually do a 'corpse run'. This meant running naked back into the zone where you died and actually being able to survive to get back to the part of the zone where your body was. In high level zones, if you were deep in, you were pretty much ****ed. So, quit whining about death penalty because you've no idea what a 'death penalty' actually is.

[LordMond63]

I'm going to guess that the OP never played the original Everquest...

In EQ, you actually LOST XP when you died.....a fair amount of it, in fact. If you had just gained a level and you happened to die soon afterward, you could lose the level you'd just gained- all the spells and abilities you'd just gained went Bye Bye.

The 'xp penalty' in DDO is bad only if you have no real frame of reference.

[Vint]

Death penalty? LMAO there is no death penalty in this game anymore.

Dont say that to loud. The fanboi's will pounce and tell you that the game is not easier that when it fist came out.

[bartharok]

Well, since i must be a fanboi, since i DO enjoy the game, ill call you a doomboi

[Sarnind]

the real problem of ddo is the boring and bad end game

[bartharok]

is the amount of bad and boring complaints, try to make them intresting, please

[vegabond1969]

Dont say that to loud. The fanboi's will pounce and tell you that the game is not easier that when it fist came out.

I know right? I mean what would they do if they didn't have a hireling healbot and were to lazy to put up an lfm. Not to mention having to run everything on normal from the start unless they joined a group that was on elite. Don't even get me started about the fact the only thing TR meant was Tangleroot...

[TrinityTurtle]

I do not complain about the pug scene because im whiny. To be honest im grinding for my 2nd Esos. shard never drops. New players depend on the pug scene and scaling. bb. and over level and.powerlevel and death penalty all work against new people playing with people who have toons over 100 hp at level 1.

I like this game but the new game mechanics are working to create a negative synergy.

We need a large party bonus for.heroic xp.to counter these forces.

Over level and powerlevel penalties: I cannot disagree with you more, these are what level the playing field for new players who come in and don't know anyone. Without these things it would VERY quickly become a who do you know to bring in their big toons and level you quickly, while the others are left struggling in the dust because a large part of their population will be playing with the big boys to level faster. The current set up prevents this, and encourages groups that are close in levels so that everyone can play and feel like they are participating and having fun. That is what encourages a new player to stay with the game, having fun. Removing these penalties would widen the gap between the vets and new players, not narrow it.

BB: Did not change a thing. As I stated in my post, I have been playing since long before the bravery bonus. Even back then people only wanted to run elites, and didn't want to run with newbies. This is NOT new behavior at all. And has been discussed on the forums ad naseum, first lifers don't need it. And newbies have the same option to throw up a group and learn the quest as they go now as we did when we started at any difficulty they want. The bravery bonus mechanic has not actually changed the pugs, it's just the most recent scapegoat for people not taking the initiative to run groups to learn as they go and waiting for someone else to do it for them. The mechanic here is not the bb, it's the social one. Many many vet and power players have set up their playtime for maximum gains per minute, and don't want to be slowed down. Even with a huge heroic bonus you mention for a big party, that will NOT open it up to newer players to play with the vet ones. We'll just see the vets that aren't playing with them now banding together into full groups instead of soloing and the newbies will still be in the cold.

Scaling: Has opened quests to smaller groups, so newer players who haven't started making friends yet can still do the quests and do well. I call that newbie friendly, giving them the ability to play and learn rather than sitting around waiting for a full group.

The so called Death Penalty: This is not actually a penalty. If you look at it, it's a bonus you failed to earn. You don't lost base xp, you only lose the flawless bonus. There isn't anything wrong with a group not earning a bonus not getting it. Many mmo's have real death penalties where they actually lose experience they had previously earned, even to the point of losing levels. It's very mild and VERY newbie friendly in this game. Also, with the introduction of the new bravery bonus mechanic, 90% of my groups don't give a **** anymore if someone dies, since there is so much xp out there every last point isn't crucial. More and more of my long term freinds are willing to help newbies learn because of this.

The new game mechanics are not creating the negative synergy, players are. People who aren't willing to try a quest without guides. Or start their own groups. Players who have absolute rude freakouts at newer players over everything from how they play to not having memorized a quest or just being a racist/sexist/crude/whatever jerk behavior annoys you here. Players who don't really sit down and think about what the mechanics mean hurt this game.

[Qhualor]

bravery bonus has made it so lfms are mostly elite for at level quests. hardly ever see hard or norm. not many want to run anything but elite because the BB is too good to lose. the average player can just solo, shortman or keep the group that joined for elite and farm hard while they are all right there.

it has also made it so noone will join a group that has someone in it that is 1 level above quest. that -10% is something that a lot of people dont want automatically deducted before they even start the quest. i remember before BB, it wasnt uncommon to have the level range extended to another level. i guess people figured higher level players means easier questing, but there was little drama over it and groups would still fill just as fast as if the level range wasnt extended.

[Gleep_Wurp]

Death penalty? LMAO there is no death penalty in this game anymore. When you start going backwards in xp because you keep zerging ahead of your heals, then you can cry about a death penalty. Imagine running Gwylan's Stand on elite with a team and going in with 250k xp on your bar. Then when you finish your bar is in the red by four or five k and thats after you get your xp from completing the quest. Now those were the days of death penalty

it was a better game back then too.

[Coyopa]

Over level and powerlevel penalties: I cannot disagree with you more, these are what level the playing field for new players who come in and don't know anyone. Without these things it would VERY quickly become a who do you know to bring in their big toons and level you quickly, while the others are left struggling in the dust because a large part of their population will be playing with the big boys to level faster. The current set up prevents this, and encourages groups that are close in levels so that everyone can play and feel like they are participating and having fun. That is what encourages a new player to stay with the game, having fun. Removing these penalties would widen the gap between the vets and new players, not narrow it.

^^ This is also very true. EverQuest also lacked a control to prevent power-leveling. I started playing long before my wife did. By the time she started playing, I had a level 44 druid. What did we do? Yep. We power-leveled her. She went from level 1 to level 41 in two days' time. Her casting skills sucked and she had to spend another day waiting to play while I macro'd her casting skills to the point where she could actually cast her high level spells. After that, it was all fun and games...duo quad-kiting two groups of four Frost Giants in Velious. That was made even more fun when random idiots would try to kill-steal and then discover (after having died) that what appeared to be two Frost Giants was, in fact, eight.

[axel15810]

I do think a 10% of base XP bonus for completing a quest with a full group should be put in. Would really encourage some grouping and help the game a lot I think.

[bartharok]

well.. maybe, but it would also make way for those "just stay at the beginning and ill zerg it" groups, which would detract from the fun

[vegabond1969]

it was a better game back then too.

Don't get me wrong I like a few things new in the game, but generally I try to avoid the things that make my gaming experience easier. Healbots, raid timers, loot jewels, ship buffs, all are rarely used on my toons. Maybe I'm just to involved in having fun the way I've always played. If that means I'm running a gimp drow ranger (in others' opinion) then thats my idea of a good time. At least I have fun with it.