Quest Ransack AKA how to kill a (part of the) game

[arkonas]

As the author of a popular speed TR guide with 88k views, I won't be TRing under the new system. The only way to win is not to play.

im sorry you feel that way about the new system. I freaking love it. i get tired of farming stuff to death. this gives me reasons to do things i've wanted to do.

I am sorry to hear you feel that way. The new system definitely works better for me and I plan to TR more.

i love the new change for me i was always worried about my xp at later levels if there was epic counterparts or something and i loved running some quests at lower level like say a small problem or partycrashers for example. now it wont matter if i run them or not. I will still have fun again. i can farm wiz king von 3 and when i hit 20 again look they are like i was never there. I love that how can anyone see this as bad i dunno know

so you dont farm things 20 times now you can move on and say hey i get to do that again whoot.

[Qhualor]

As the author of a popular speed TR guide with 88k views, I won't be TRing under the new system. The only way to win is not to play.

im sure you or someone else will come up with a new speed TR guide. every time a change is made in leveling, someone comes out with a new one. speed TRs have always adapted to the changes and found ways to still level fast.

[slarden]

EllisDee did the math a couple of pages ago. Might want to check that out. I don't need to explain my level plan, the math that EllisDee did for us very well explains the problems with this new system. If you can't understand, not my problem.

The math I've seen shows the xp loss from farming isn't all that horrible and for most people that will be more than made up for by the new daily bonus. I realize there will be winners and losers and prefer a system where everybody wins. With this system almost everybody wins since it's rare I encounter extreme xp farmers in game.

The system in place is trying to reward "one and done"s and discourage farming at the same time. I realize you don't want the latter and I am not sure why Turbine wants to shut down the farming but they do. It probably has more to do with ED xp than anything else.

As others stated, we will soon see new posts with optimal TR plans that match the old plans in terms of time but with more diversity. I don't think it is bad as people are making it out to be.

[Carpone]

With this system almost everybody wins since it's rare I encounter extreme xp farmers in game.

The solutions presented here largely ignore the fact that ED XP farming will become extinct with the repeat penalty changes. Coupled with the insane-to-me idea of nuking ED XP during a TR, the benefits of TRing quickly become liabilities.

[Dandonk]

The solutions presented here largely ignore the fact that ED XP farming will become extinct with the repeat penalty changes. Coupled with the insane-to-me idea of nuking ED XP during a TR, the benefits of TRing quickly become liabilities.

Not to mention the ED-based feats where you might want some in a different sphere than where you start. Getting xp for them will be a pain with the farm route gone.

[Gremmlynn]

Not everyone one has all those XP bonuses. Not everyone can run quests on Elite with an elite streak. Not everyone owns every pack in the game. Aren't these some of the people that the new XP reset counter is suppose to help? So why would this draconian XP penalty be lobbed in and cutdown the playtime for those players?

What makes you think it's there to help those who haven't bought there way around it? More likely it's being put in to help them figure out that they should own every pack and should buy a greater tome for every character and should be always running a 50% xp pot.

[RTFM]

We've seen a lot of changes over the years to the XP mechanic. Some bad ideas were:

3. bonus running quest below level! Yah, remember that one? did not work out so well.

2. XP penalty for dying in quests. Yah, remember that one? was probably one of the worst mechanics ever introduced.

1. XP RANSACK! Yes, this will be the number one, must hated stupid idea ever! Gratz to whoever thought of it you get the prize!

http://i.imgur.com/cigSGJy.jpg

For those who can't view it:

Quest Ransack is a stacking penalty for repeatedly playing the same quest. You may play each difficulty level once per character, per incarnation without incurring Quest Ransack penalties. After that, each playthrough will add a 30& stacking penalty to base XP, up to a maximum of -90%. Every day the penalty is reduced by 5%. Each other quest with a daily bonus played will reduce the penalty by 1%.



This is how you kill you game. Now, I'm not a guy who TRs a lot but this is totally game breaking. Who even came up with this idea? Are you going to sell "Quest ransack reducing tools" in the store? If you play a quest, you ONLY NEED TO WAIT 18 DAYS IF YOU WANNA PLAY IT AGAIN FOR XP. Does this even look normal to you?

I really don't care about this "daily bonus", whatever it is. I'm not going to run Restless Isles just because of a stupid bonus.

This is, people, how you drive people away from a game.

[Therigar]

I find this thread mildly amusing and mildly disturbing -- both at the same time.

i find it amusing to read comments that the change will cause people to play content they have wanted to play (but haven't because the XP reward isn't sufficient). I have difficulty understanding why a person wouldn't play the content they want to play or that they would be motivated to do what they want to do by reducing the reward for playing other content. To me that just seems too ironic and so is mildly amusing.

OTOH, I am disturbed that Turbine should even care what content players choose to play and that they should try to influence player choice. If I really want limited choice I'll just load an old style PC game where there is a fixed storyline that has to be strictly followed.

Now, I get that there are quests that almost never get played. Truth is that they are not very good quests, they give pitiful XP and loot rewards, and they are unpopular with players. If they were a commercial store or restaurant they would be closed down and something else would open in their place.

This is the actual solution path that Turbine should be taking. Players vote with their choice of content -- popular content gets played, unpopular content does not. I have 30+ character slots on my main account. I have 6 accounts. I currently have 20 or so characters. I've deleted at least that many more. And, in all of those, I've only run Amarath quests on 2, maybe 3, of them. I've only run Subterrane on 3 or 4 (and never run the whole explorer area or done slayers there). I hadn't run Three Barrel Cove in years until I decided to farm for some low-level gear -- and stopped when the gear never dropped.

The simple fact is that there is content I like and content I don't like. And, because I play regularly being penalized for playing what I want to play seems an ill thought out decision by Turbine. And, so I'm mildly disturbed that it might interfere with my ability to play the quests I want to play when I want to play them.

For me the great appeal of D&D has always been that it is open ended and that players were never channeled or really forced to follow a particular story line. We could always walk away from a quest or abandon a quest chain, we could always devise our own way through an encounter -- even if it wasn't what the DM had planned or anticipated.

And, the implication that this will be penalized in DDO bothers me.

The only reason it doesn't bother me more than it does -- make me really disturbed rather than only mildly so -- is because the present system also includes repetition penalties and these do not fade over time. So, I am willing to take a wait and see approach.

I tend to agree strongly with those observing that it will have a major impact on epic characters. My first life monk is currently level capped with 3 million XP. His Lamannia alter-ego level caps with 6.6 million XP. I don't think there's 3.6 million XP in 3 unpenalized runs of each quest in the new content and bonuses for existing content has long since been passed just because I've run it at cap trying to fill out epic destinies.

[Therigar]

Quest Ransack is a stacking penalty for repeatedly playing the same quest. You may play each difficulty level once per character, per incarnation without incurring Quest Ransack penalties. After that, each playthrough will add a 30& stacking penalty to base XP, up to a maximum of -90%. Every day the penalty is reduced by 5%. Each other quest with a daily bonus played will reduce the penalty by 1%.

The impact on low level characters is minimal because there are sufficient numbers of quests and, even as a multi-life TR, it is rarely necessary to repeat a quest 4 times. In addition, leveling is so fast that the quests are not returned to as the difference in character level makes the reward for running the quest again too small.

Where it becomes important is at the higher levels where XP is difficult and the number of quests is barely enough to sustain a character's continued leveling. We already know that there is a wasteland for characters at the upper mid levels (roughly 14-18) where many players get stuck for days and even weeks.

The same sort of wasteland is going to exist for those with L25 characters working towards L28. I just don't see the XP out there in epic quests for rapid, sustained character advancement.

Speaking for myself, I've been playing since '06. I don't really want to run the heroic content any more. It is a chore to get through and I have 20+ characters that I'd eventually like to get to epic levels so that I can run the newest content with them. The old content is TVLand -- nostalgic and sometimes fun, but mostly just boring. Making the journey to L20 even more difficult when the characters reach the wasteland levels is, for me, one of the greatest concerns that I have.

[redoubt]

Thanks to Ellis go the clarification in the daily bonus. For me, that takes away most of my concern for levels 1-20.

I will say that I am still concerned about how we are going to get to level 28 and then fill out our destinies. It's not that I want to farm them. Seriously, if I never hear "warriors of dunrobar attack!" ever again ill be okay with it, but I, at this point don't see how else we are supposed to get there.

[Charononus]

Seriously, if I never hear "warriors of dunrobar attack!" ever again ill be okay with it,

You haven't set it as your ringtone?

[Grubbby]

I see a lot of comments that there are not enough quests to get us from 25 to 28.

That's not true, we have a lot of base level 24 quests already in EGH and the High Road.

Even though you can't run it into the ground due to ransack changes, Impossible demands is only at a 10% penalty on Epic Hard if you hold at level 26 (the first level you should be able to hit max xp). That means that all level 22 are without a penalty until you cap on EH, and all 23/24 are without a penalty on EN... again assuming you hold levels.

I verified last night again, that my son's level 25 currently gets a 10% penalty in Impossible demands on epic normal. So a level 26 will get a 10% penalty on hard. You can even avoid part of that penalty by holding 25 until forced to 26....

Since our repeats are going away within 2 days of U19 going live at worst case, here's the quests we have available to get us to 26 holding 28 without penalties:

21: An Offering of Blood (EPIC)
21: Beyond the Rift (EPIC)
21: Devil Assault (EPIC)
21: Fathom the Depths (EPIC)
21: Impossible Demands
21: Into the Deep (EPIC)
21: Servants of the Overlord (EPIC)
21: Spies in the House (EPIC)
21: Tharask Arena (EPIC)
21: The Battle for Eveningstar
21: The Claw of Vulkoor (EPIC)
21: The Last Stand (EPIC)
21: The Lords of Dust (EPIC)
21: The Lost Thread
21: The Prisoner (EPIC)
21: The Spinner of Shadows (EPIC)
21: The Unquiet Graves
22: Against the Demon Queen (EPIC)
22: Chains of Flame (EPIC)
22: Don't Drink the Water
22: Haywire Foundry (EPIC)
22: In the Belly of the Beast
22: Plane of the Night (EPIC)
22: The Chamber of Raiyum (EPIC)
22: The House of Broken Chains
22: The House of Death Undone
22: The House of Rusted Blades
22: The Jungle of Khyber (EPIC)
22: The Lord of Blades (EPIC)
22: The Master Artificer
22: The Portal Opens
22: The Vault of the Night (EPIC)
22: Zawabi's Revenge (EPIC)
23: Outbreak
23: Overgrowth
23: Reclaiming the Rift
23: The Deal and the Demon
23: The Druid's Curse
23: Thorn and Paw
23: Trial By Fury
24: A Cabal for One (EPIC)
24: A Cry for Help (EPIC)
24: A Stay at the Inn
24: Detour
24: End of the Road
24: Feast or Famine (EPIC)
24: Foundation of Discord (EPIC)
24: Lost in the Swamp
24: Madstone Crater (EPIC)
24: POP (EPIC)
24: Rest Stop
24: The Crucible (EPIC)
24: The Maze of Madness (EPIC)
24: Tor (EPIC)
24: Trial By Fire (EPIC)
25: The Fall of Truth
26: Through the Mirror (EPIC)
26: Army of Shadow (EPIC)
26: Friends in Low Places (EPIC)
26: A Lesson in Deception (EPIC)
26: The Thrill of the Hunt (EPIC)
26: The Giant's Run (EPIC)
26: What Goes Up (EPIC)
26: A Break In the Ice (EPIC)
26: Waking the Beast (EPIC)
26: The Tracker's Trap (EPIC)

Note some of the 26's are really 25's... I haven't updated my level planning spreadsheet yet.

EDIT: I plugged in numbers for all the currently available quests (I dont have xp values in for the U19 quests yet) and assuming no optionals and not taking into account the daily first time bonus, running all these quests on Epic Hard once and Epic Normal Once is approximately 4.9 Million XP, throw in the new quests and the new slayers and we are in the 5.5 million xp range with only 1 EH and 1 EN completion.

[Satyriasys]

Another exciting change coming. I am really loving the direction this game is going! I'm sure they will tune the numbers in the future as to not make leveling too painful. Nothing is set in stone.

[Charononus]

Another exciting change coming. I am really loving the direction this game is going! I'm sure they will tune the numbers in the future as to not make leveling too painful. Nothing is set in stone.

Sort of like how they tuned challenges, amrath, and house c xp? I find your pressence of faith disturbing.

[Satyriasys]

Sort of like how they tuned challenges, amrath, and house c xp? I find your pressence of faith disturbing.

I thought they had finally fixed the xp curve in higher level quests. Or at least were talking about it on Lammania. Either way, Amrath and House C XP is ridiculously low, I have to wonder what was going through their heads when they made those..
But a system like the xp ransack affects all quests and if people are running into roadblocks and unable to level I'm pretty sure they will have to rethink the numbers.

[Therigar]

I see a lot of comments that there are not enough quests to get us from 25 to 28.

That's not true, we have a lot of base level 24 quests already in EGH and the High Road.

I don't know. I've run a lot of the quests already while level capped at 25. That means I've blown my first time bonuses. I think there might be a lot of L25 characters facing similar issues -- some in worse shape than me because they've already done most of the existing quests on EE.

A more meaningful case might be made if the XP for the quests was cross-referenced and we could see a path to 6.6 million where each of the quests was run only once at each epic difficulty level. I don't think that you can get there from where we are even with store bought XP pots, maximum ship XP shrines, first time completion bonuses, streaks and recall/death/ransack/disable bonuses fully intact.

The only way to reach L28, as far as I can tell, is to sit on your character for weeks waiting for completion penalties to go away and then repeat quests. Since the list of available L24+ quests is small enough that very active players could run them in only a couple of days I don't see this as a good strategy.

[Qhualor]

I see a lot of comments that there are not enough quests to get us from 25 to 28.

That's not true, we have a lot of base level 24 quests already in EGH and the High Road.


21: An Offering of Blood (EPIC)
21: Beyond the Rift (EPIC)
21: Devil Assault (EPIC)
21: Fathom the Depths (EPIC)
21: Impossible Demands
21: Into the Deep (EPIC)
21: Servants of the Overlord (EPIC)
21: Spies in the House (EPIC)
21: Tharask Arena (EPIC)
21: The Battle for Eveningstar
21: The Claw of Vulkoor (EPIC)
21: The Last Stand (EPIC)
21: The Lords of Dust (EPIC)
21: The Lost Thread
21: The Prisoner (EPIC)
21: The Spinner of Shadows (EPIC)
21: The Unquiet Graves
22: Against the Demon Queen (EPIC)
22: Chains of Flame (EPIC)
22: Don't Drink the Water
22: Haywire Foundry (EPIC)
22: In the Belly of the Beast
22: Plane of the Night (EPIC)
22: The Chamber of Raiyum (EPIC)
22: The House of Broken Chains
22: The House of Death Undone
22: The House of Rusted Blades
22: The Jungle of Khyber (EPIC)
22: The Lord of Blades (EPIC)
22: The Master Artificer
22: The Portal Opens
22: The Vault of the Night (EPIC)
22: Zawabi's Revenge (EPIC)
23: Outbreak
23: Overgrowth
23: Reclaiming the Rift
23: The Deal and the Demon
23: The Druid's Curse
23: Thorn and Paw
23: Trial By Fury
24: A Cabal for One (EPIC)
24: A Cry for Help (EPIC)
24: A Stay at the Inn
24: Detour
24: End of the Road
24: Feast or Famine (EPIC)
24: Foundation of Discord (EPIC)
24: Lost in the Swamp
24: Madstone Crater (EPIC)
24: POP (EPIC)
24: Rest Stop
24: The Crucible (EPIC)
24: The Maze of Madness (EPIC)
24: Tor (EPIC)
24: Trial By Fire (EPIC)
25: The Fall of Truth
26: Through the Mirror (EPIC)
26: Army of Shadow (EPIC)
26: Friends in Low Places (EPIC)
26: A Lesson in Deception (EPIC)
26: The Thrill of the Hunt (EPIC)
26: The Giant's Run (EPIC)
26: What Goes Up (EPIC)
26: A Break In the Ice (EPIC)
26: Waking the Beast (EPIC)
26: The Tracker's Trap (EPIC)

I did one and done epics on hard BB about 2 months ago. I completed every single quest except High Road, FOT, LOB, MA and CITW with mostly max xp and that got me to 25. it would seem with the new quests, plus the ones I didn't run while still earning xp, we will need that daily bonus to hit level 28.

[danotmano1998]

The only way to reach L28, as far as I can tell, is to sit on your character for weeks waiting for completion penalties to go away and then repeat quests. Since the list of available L24+ quests is small enough that very active players could run them in only a couple of days I don't see this as a good strategy.

It wouldn't be weeks, it would be 18 hours if you don't farm it too much. 36 if you farm it to extinction. So basically 2 days.
Though I have yet to see any sort of experience chart that tells us how much xp we actually need to get from lvl25 to 26, 26 to 27, etc..

[EllisDee37]

Though I have yet to see any sort of experience chart that tells us how much xp we actually need to get from lvl25 to 26, 26 to 27, etc..

The number I saw was 6.6 million to cap at 28, meaning currently capped 25s would need 3.6 million more xp.

[Gremmlynn]

Let's say I have Litany of the Dead quest. Right now, I can farm this quest E/Hx8-9-10/N and hit the cap. This farm will ensure me the level.

With this system, I can farm litany E/H/N and then Hx4 with a HUGE hit to my XP. This WILL NOT ensure me the level. I will have a +20% from first it IF and ONLY IF it has the daily bonus (that I've no idea how works). Now, I will need either to go and find other quests that I do not enjoy OR wait till the timer goes off to finish my level. In both cases, it is something that I've never done before and that I shouldn't do if I don't like it.

Is this enough? Please tell me again how I can run other quests that I do not want to just because this system rocks.

Actually, running that many times it should work better for you as it will be capping at -80% rather than -90%. Though no mention has been made about extreme repetition penalty, that could also go away. So you could likely run it E/Hx500/N without ever dropping below -80% if you wanted and get however many levels that gets you. If it takes you over 18 hours to do so, then you even get some penalty reduction while doing it.