Quest XP Changes for Update 20

[PurpleFooz]

Since the XP Ransack and Saga features came out in Update 19, we’ve continued to examine ways to improve our XP systems.

We took a hard look at DDO’s epic dungeons – why were some dungeons giving out less XP than we want, and others more? We’ve discovered an unintended constant in the XP formula that prevented longer quest XP from scaling up as much as desired over shorter quest XP. We removed this constant, and scaled up the quest length multiplier. So starting with Update 20, longer epic quests will be worth more XP and shorter quests will be worth less. For comparison, this is more in line with how heroic quests have always scaled their XP between shorter and longer quests.

The next issue we’ve been working on is the ability to change the base XP reward of a live dungeon without side effects. Only recently have we been able to change base XP without altering the amount of favor that players have already earned. We’ve also crossed the hurdle of being able to do it without breaking the formulas for increasing XP with higher difficulties, or with playing in Epic mode. This issue is what had prevented us from being able to address certain dungeons that were worth too little XP, as well as too much XP in a few cases. But now we’ve solved all these problems, and the first batch of dungeon base XP changes will be released in Update 20.
You’ll be able to preview this on Lamannia within the next week or two.
• 4 dungeons will have their XP decreased. These might not necessarily correspond to the high XP/min dungeons that many players run. Our intent is not to punish players who have the skill to defeat a difficult dungeon in a relatively short time - as long as no exploits are involved. Rather, these dungeons were chosen because they are a very large spike of XP compared to other dungeons of the same difficulty, standard play length, and CR.
o Desecrated Temple of Vol
o Mining for Ancient Secrets
o Reclaiming Memories
o The Deadly Package: Agent of the Darguul

• 16 dungeons are receiving an XP increase. They were chosen for similar reasons – that their base XP was too low compared to other dungeons of the same difficulty, standard play length, and CR. Not coincidentally, we’ve also received a lot of feedback from the players about many of these dungeons too. They cross a broad variety of content packs. Some are in the teen-levels like Cannith, Droaam & Xoriat. Others are in lower CRs like Carnival and Sentinels. This is only a first-phase list. We are considering other dungeons we’re looking at for a post-U20 second phase XP increase.
o Acute Delirium
o Bargain of Blood
o Bastion of Power
o Blown to Bits
o Partycrashers
o Power Play
o Schemes of the Enemy
o Spies in the House
o Storm the Beaches
o The Black Loch
o The Lord of Eyes
o The Lord of Stone
o The Tide Turns
o The Weapons Shipment
o Undermine
o Wrath of the Flame

We are setting aside time before Update 20 releases for further tuning of XP numbers. So please take a look once this Lamannia build goes up, and give us any thoughts, concerns, or praise you may have!

- PurpleFooz – Lead Designer

[Stoner81]

I see a fair number of the House C quests getting a boost which is good and one or two of the Amrath quests too! Please do all Amrath quests they suck so bad it isn't even funny in terms of XP.

Stoner81.

[Munkenmo]

Are you going to be looking into improving xp for secondary runs onwards in cannith challenges too?

Regarding the nerfs :
- really you're reducing the xp in a tangleroot quest that's run once mid chain? the sheer fact it's the first time players encounter a 100% requirement for a ranged weapon is enough reason to leave it. I recalled out the first time I ran, not even thinking to check breakables.
- how heavy are they going to be? There's a long standing perception that you'll sledge hammer these.
- The two quests you're nerfing in the Dreaming dark are fine as are. You should be trying to make these your baseline.

[Cetus]

Very interesting, longer quests should have always given more XP - and I'm stoked to see bastion of power finally in there!

[oradafu]

Nerfing IQ2 quest XP? Really?

So how much XP was taken away or given in the quests mentioned?

I'm surprised that the Shadowfell Heroic quests haven't been given an XP boost also, because the expansion has been very disappointing for its cost. And the lack of Heroic XP can be one of several shortfalls found in the expansion.

[Zirun]

Hold For Reinforcements.

Seriously.

[jalont]

This is an odd list of quests and makes me question how you're looking at them.

On the first list: Temple of Vol. There is no reason to lower its xp. It gets farmed more than the rest of Necro IV because it is the least annoying. That doesn't mean it's somewhat "shorter".

On the second list. Some of these quests take 3 or 4 minutes at most to run, such as Bargain of Blood. I wonder how you're looking at these?

[SirShen]

Hold For Reinforcements.

Seriously.

Yes this quest should get a big boost in xp its 15 mins long.

[silinteresting]

interesting but may i ask why vol decrease?
if said quest is to be decreased can i be for everyone but me
iis the only quest there i like.

your friend sil

[ZeebaNeighba]

About time

This is a good list from about a year back that contains a lot of quests that could use a bump.

• 16 dungeons are receiving an XP increase. They were chosen for similar reasons – that their base XP was too low compared to other dungeons of the same difficulty, standard play length, and CR. Not coincidentally, we’ve also received a lot of feedback from the players about many of these dungeons too. They cross a broad variety of content packs. Some are in the teen-levels like Cannith, Droaam & Xoriat. Others are in lower CRs like Carnival and Sentinels. This is only a first-phase list. We are considering other dungeons we’re looking at for a post-U20 second phase XP increase.

I would like to especially ask for a bump in the xp given in raids (especially the level 17-20 raids that used to be endgame for a long time), considering they have so much higher difficulty, so I think you should do something to compensate for the failure rate that simply isn't in a lot of 6-man quests given a similarly strong group. Also, since they are 12-man of course, and also have no scaling so shortmanning only makes it harder, getting the group for it means they ultimately take longer overall.

[xaul17]

I am very glad to hear this! Especially the Reign of Madness chain - it's one of my favorite chains, and now it's going to be even better! Thanks!

Please, for Phase 2, consider an xp increase to the quests in the Druid's Deep chain. Though they are not very long, the difficulty of these quests can be hair-pulling when run on elite (and sometimes hard) difficulty. I ran this chain on a legend, elite with full BB and a Greater Tome, came out with much struggle and didn't even receive a full rank. The xp granted as well as the loot drop chances here are both severely lacking.

[digital_terror1]

This is an odd list of quests and makes me question how you're looking at them.

On the first list: Temple of Vol. There is no reason to lower its xp. It gets farmed more than the rest of Necro IV because it is the least annoying. That doesn't mean it's somewhat "shorter".

On the second list. Some of these quests take 3 or 4 minutes at most to run, such as Bargain of Blood. I wonder how you're looking at these?

BoB only takes a few minutes as you say...if you use a terrain exploit, otherwise it takes about 2x as long as you say.

[arminius]

Definitely boost all of Amrath and Threnal East 3. And as far as I am concerned, everything with a protect mission/failure condition should get boosted, whether Bookbinder Rescue or Threnal East 3 or whatever. They end up being some of the least loved quests in the game, and for good reason.

Sorry to see you taking it out on some of the IQ quests. Those IQ quests are so heavily run only because Amrath xp is so pathetic, so we have to run SOMETHING.

[jalont]

Alright, after getting my thoughts together, I can word this better. The way you seem to be evaluating quest XP isn't correct from an actual player perspective. A lot of this doesn't make sense when compared to how the quests are actually ran. If I had to make two lists like this from the perspective of how quests are actually ran in-game, they'd look totally different. And some of it is completely off. It just sends up warning bells and makes me worry going forward. It seems like your evaluation process needs an evaluation process because it is definitely off.

[Darkrok]

Completely agree with most of the ones on the list and Hold for Reinforcements desperately needs a raise in xp...it's one of the few quests in the game with both a fixed minimum time for completion AND a quest-failure mechanism outside of a total party wipe. It should be rewarded accordingly. Vol isn't so fast that it shouldn't have some decent rewards.

Hopefully dev's look at quests from a solo or 'one group' standpoint as well. Clearly there are quests that can be completed much faster when the group splits up but I don't think xp rewards should be balanced around that.

[QuantumFX]

and give us any thoughts, concerns, or praise you may have!

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Make the base XP for the this quest 10x what it is right now:

[jalont]

BoB only takes a few minutes as you say...if you use a terrain exploit, otherwise it takes about 2x as long as you say.

You have to be joking. Going the "long" way around adds what, 20 seconds? It cuts off half an outer square of a room. lol

[Gratch]

Any update on the proposal a while ago to change the TR1 and TR2+ XP curves? They're currently exponential and where they're worst we have the fewest quests and hence the most quest repeats/grinding. At one point the Lama Devs had talked about a more linear ramp.

Also.... Hold for Reinforcements East 3 is a 15minute quest by design. How is that not in your list? 448 base XP? Really... with an auto failure mechanism and 15 minute run time.

Also on Xp optionals. Any chance you guys can have an intern run through all your quests and get 100% of possible optionals and reset the #'s required? There's a number of quests that repeat use a map and/or block off different sections of said map removing any possibility of getting the traps, monsters, breakables optional xp for said quest.

[Bogenbroom]

This is an odd list of quests and makes me question how you're looking at them.

On the first list: Temple of Vol. There is no reason to lower its xp. It gets farmed more than the rest of Necro IV because it is the least annoying. That doesn't mean it's somewhat "shorter".

On the second list. Some of these quests take 3 or 4 minutes at most to run, such as Bargain of Blood. I wonder how you're looking at these?

Yeah, I was thinking along those lines. Something like Bargain of Blood should have *major* upgrades to its optionals, but not its base. And I couldn't agree more about Temple of Vol. Frankly, those are all pretty cool quests, but the things with funky quests is that they tend not to be nearly as fun to repeat. Vol is reasonably straight forward and better for repeating.

Speaking of optionals, though, that has long been one of the shortfalls of the existing XP mech... basing the XP of optionals on the XP of the quest as a whole. That ends up meaning easy options in long quests are significantly more valuable than difficult optionals in short quests. In the end that mech just makes long quests longer (because teh optionals have value) and short quests shorter (because their is less reason to do the optionals.)

[Chaimberland]

Nerfing IQ2 quest XP? Really?

So how much XP was taken away or given in the quests mentioned?

I'm surprised that the Shadowfell Heroic quests haven't been given an XP boost also, because the expansion has been very disappointing for its cost. And the lack of Heroic XP can be one of several shortfalls found in the expansion.

Shadowfell quests might be included in the 2nd phase. Hopefully.