Quest XP Changes for Update 20

[Fefnir_2011]

Dreams of Insanity in a group can be done in 10 min on elite at lvl, with people splitting.
The Enemy Within takes about 20-30 min, its great xp.

I tried to elaborate above, but I was talking more about difficulty and time versus xp for the average group. I know that these quests are worthwhile for one-and-done in a good group. But a decent sized xp boost would put them both in the regularly-pugged category, and the TR-farming category possibly.

[oradafu]

And talking about Pass 2 nerfs that we might see, I want to put a preemptive opinion before it happens.

The major benefit from Shadow Crypt, Wiz-king and VoN 3 XP zergs is NOT the base quest XP. Is how the optionals can easily double/triple the already great base XP, and all optionals are in the main path, or two steps away. If those optionals were out of hand, it would not be such great XP runs. Would still be good, just not great.

The base XP for those quests are actually good for all the trouble a first time player would take to complete them. Shadow Crypt is confusing as hell if you don't use the wiki paths, Wiz-King is random enough that you don't know if your zerg will be fast enough, unless you play with two friends and split up. Von 3 final fights are brutal. The 3-bosses battle is almost a guaranteed wipe on the first time you run the quest (and if you fight in the boss rom, you might be "just away enough" to not be able to hit the rez shrine), and Marut hit like a truck, while having a non-standard DR that many characters might not bypass unless they aready knew about their DR beforehand, and on top of that, Fast Healing.

Reduce the optionals worth of XP, and those quests drop from "best XP/min in game" to reasonable levels again.

Actually, what should be happening with other quests is that their optionals should be comparable or higher than these quests. This is especially true for the optionals where the optionals are out of the way. However, many times the optionals (if available) are usually only a small 500 or less XP and/or too far away to even bother with.

[Ivan_Milic]

I tried to elaborate above, but I was talking more about difficulty and time versus xp for the average group. I know that these quests are worthwhile for one-and-done in a good group. But a decent sized xp boost would put them both in the regularly-pugged category, and the TR-farming category possibly.

I always do dreams e/h/n, but at that lvl there are a lot of quests and tr people can also farm elite von3 or crpyt with this new xp ransack.

Actually, what should be happening with other quests is that their optionals should be comparable or higher than these quests. This is especially true for the optionals where the optionals are out of the way. However, many times the optionals (if available) are usually only a small 500 or less XP and/or too far away to even bother with.

In snitch for rusty optional you get 600-700 xp, you get 800 for iron fire bomber in blown to bits which is very hard one optional(both on elite), this just shows turbines way of understanding the game.

[sephiroth1084]

Actually, what should be happening with other quests is that their optionals should be comparable or higher than these quests. This is especially true for the optionals where the optionals are out of the way. However, many times the optionals (if available) are usually only a small 500 or less XP and/or too far away to even bother with.

Yeah, I agree that the optionals in most quests are worth much too little XP, particularly those that require you to go well out of your way, take a lot of time, or are particularly difficult. And that's one place where the XP for quests can be raised without necessarily adding too much XP to zerg runs, but it would require adjustments by hand, which takes time and effort, which means it's unlikely Turbine will bother.

On the topic of Wiz-King and VoN 3, as far as I'm concerned, the design of the optionals is to slow you down a little bit, and to draw you into the areas a little off the main path. Otherwise, you could seriously blitz through VoN 3, dropping a little CC for the trash you're running by, and get right to the beholder room, and then to the rooms with the big fights and the end boss. Most groups I've been in make it a point to kill along the way, partly for Conquest, but also because it's tough working on red names when you've got red alert and a whole dungeon's worth of trash running after you. For Wiz-King, it ensures that you go hit the other tower(s) if you get Raiyum early, and also serve as sort of enticing speed bumps--as it is, most groups just ignore all the trash in there (due to Conquest being calculated base on the spawns in all the trapped-floor rooms and respawns, making hitting even the first rank almost impossible unless you take FOREVER in the quest).

[Deathdefy]

Firstly, I appreciate we really need to see the specific xp value changed to before our comments can be taken with much weight.

That will not stop me.

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

Vol - I'm in the group that hate it. I run it multiples times only if there are 2 competent casters (self included) in a group. I hate soloing it due to the end fight, and with the new ransack xp mechanic and faster drops for repetitions on the same day, it's less group farmable anyway. I'd leave it, but if it's apparently a big problem, then go for it I suppose.

Mining - Fair enough I suppose. Even on elite things are usually fine and it's quite fast. Should anything at 18-20 really be nerfed though?

Reclaiming Memories - Fair enough too I suppose from a quest v other quests of level perspective. It's not the easiest quest in the world though. Again, it's 18-20; if you universally added 3k to every base quest in that range's xp I'd think it was a better decision.

The Deadly Package - Why?! It's like what... 3k once off? Unless you have accidentally mistyped 'The Stronghold Key' or 'The Way to Zulkash'. In those cases, I'd say my posession of an invis clickie earned me that free xp for a minute of running.

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

Yes. Hooray these all could certainly use the boost. I have some issues with:

-Lord of Stone
-Partycrashers
-Bargain of Blood
-The Tide Turns
-Storm the Beaches

But, on reflection, for first time players these do need a big increase as they present a decent challenge or are very long. And frankly, that's who I think xp should revolve around.

I was going to explain how these quests could be done very quickly, but balancing xp against experienced players instead of new players (or even taking experienced players into consideration at all) sounds like a poor and disappointing model for customer retention.

So what if experienced players get back to cap faster? That makes us happier, and new players will be happier not actively frustrated if given a just reward for their efforts.

To my mind, desperately calling for a buff are at least:

-Hold for Reinforcements
-Gladewatch Outpost Defence

[Soulfurnace]

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?

Shush you. Not everyone plays that fast. (I was at 3:20 in a pug. Good times.)

Don't even need this terrain bug.. whatever that is. Nobody tells me anything fun.

[maddmatt70]

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

epic elite should give more xp then it does currently. In addition the 10 new quests released with update 19 do not give enough xp in general. Thanks.

[nibel]

Actually, what should be happening with other quests is that their optionals should be comparable or higher than these quests. This is especially true for the optionals where the optionals are out of the way. However, many times the optionals (if available) are usually only a small 500 or less XP and/or too far away to even bother with.

That would be the better approach. Any "on the path, low effort" optional should be worth a low XP bonus (5-10% base XP), and maybe a chest. This include named rares that just show up on the path (like von 3), or stuff that is just laying around in an off-way that requires no more effort than going there, like the "Find the Titan" in Reclaiming Memories, picking up the individual shards in Tear, or saving the slaves in Fathom the Depths.

Any "off the path" OR "high effort" optional should have enough XP to be worth it. One of those optionals that nailed it for me is the prisoners in New Invasion. You need to check all corners to find the entrance to the third level, but if you find them eariler, the prisoners give enough XP to be worth looking for them (~45% base XP, one or more extra chests). Things like the marut encounter in Vol (off-path, and behind a secret door and locked door), the "blow all boxes" in Blowing Bits (easy, but time-consuming), or the Dead Pikzyl fight on In The Flesh (Hard, but on the main path).

If something is "off the path" AND "high effort", it should give 80% or more than base XP and two or more chests. Things that are namely hard, and also not on the main path. Things you should go out of your way to get them. Also, it should be an optional-light quest, where the optional would be almost a quest on itself. Examples are finding the six pieces in Tear (requires a combination of stats, and most of them are out of the way), getting to the three relics in Broken Chains (two of them behind secret doors, and one heavily trapped), or the "not ring alarm bells" optionals in Frame Work and Blockade Buster (Challenging by themselves, and involves giving up on another optionals).

[Satyriasys]

It might be a good idea to have at least one super high xp quest per pack.

[Hafeal]

I would echo the welcome change for xp evaluation in quests that many others have said. I would emphasize:

1) Optionals in all quests need BIG, BIG boosts, you have the content, give more reason to enjoy it;

2) I would like to see Explorer area slayer counts divided more - seriously going from 400 to 750 or 750 to 1500 is a disincentive and disheartening for new and casual players. Give xp, not necessarily more - although more is probably warranted too - just divide it up into more frequent chunks, for example, every 50 kills. Higher end explorer areas need more xp for explorer points and rares.

3) Raid XP is generally poor - while needing a boost, perhaps add an additional mechanism so that raids always give you a the equivalent of non-decayed xp bonus = to 1st time when run at level. As raids have timers, or players need to spend to get passes, I think this would be a good incentive to reinvigorate raids, especially at level. This would be true of difficult to flag raids and raids where the loot is no longer the selling point for completion.

I was going to explain how these quests could be done very quickly, but balancing xp against experienced players instead of new players (or even taking experienced players into consideration at all) sounds like a poor and disappointing model for customer retention.

So what if experienced players get back to cap faster? That makes us happier, and new players will be happier not actively frustrated if given a just reward for their efforts.

Well said, I agree.

[Thrudh]

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.

This is very interesting... XP is a formula??? And is tied to favor and epic difficulties??

Thank for explaining why you haven't changed Amrath and Cannith XP numbers before now... I seriously thought you guys were just completely clueless. Good to know the real problem is the developers who came BEFORE you came up with a stupid way to dynamically(!!) calculate XP...

That's pretty crazy... I would definitely made it a static value in a database somewhere, easy to change at a whim... There's not THAT many dungeons. And they are all so very different, I can't believe the original developers thought a complicated formula would work to assign xp fairly to all dungeons...

I am so glad you fixed it. I'm appalled it was so messed up to begin with... I know the pain of supporting someone else's insane design decisions... Let's move forward!

[sirgog]

/signed. Get more people raiding earlier. Make Chronoscope THE killer XP for level 8 characters. VoN5 is good, but VoN6 needs love. Tempest Spine could use a boost. Twilight Forge is good XP, but Titan needs a huge boost (and maybe some gear rework, but that's a separate topic).

Twilight Forge and VON5 aren't actually overly good XP, they are close to the median XP/minute for the level range.

VON5 takes significant time due to all the running around. There is so much ground to cover - it's similar to Gianthold Tor plus dragons in that regard. All that for a base XP of 12500 (not much more than VON3) with minor optionals and only Onslaught (1875 XP), Vandal (1250), Persistence (1250) and Ingenious Debilitation (1875) bonuses likely. Additional OOB farming is better XP/minute; VON5 is done because people like to see big numbers.

The time VON5 is extraordinarily good on a TR is when you join a red carpet group that's been in 35 minutes already, spend 6 minutes inside VON5, and get all the XP except for a trivial 10000 XP penalty for late entry.

Here's the sorts of figures I'd be thinking. Remember you usually get 300-360% of base XP for a first run Elite with a maximum streak (typical PUG bonuses are 100% base, 10% persistance, 15% onslaught, 10% vandal, 80% elite, 20% bravery, 50% bravery streak, 50% XP tome = 335%; all of which is then multiplied by 1.05 for Voice, or 1.09 for Voice and 4% shrine, or 1.39 for Voice, shrine and 30% pot):


Chronoscope: Base XP 12000 (elite), optionals totalling 150% of base
Tempest's Spine: Base XP 10000 (elite), 'clear mountaintop' optional 100% of base.
VON5: Base XP 16000 (elite), optionals boosted
VON6: Base XP 10000 (elite). Yes that's exceptional XP/min, but some of this is to make up for VON5 being poor beyond a first bravery run.
Twilight Forge: Base XP 20000 (elite).
Titan Awakes: Base 10000
DQ2: This is fine as-is; it's ADQ1 that is mediocre.
Reaver's Fate: Base 15000 (this is a 15-17 minute run after all)
Abbot: Base 12000/18000/30000 (n/h/e). Reflects that heroic elite with sub-20s is fiendishly difficult.
Shroud: As Abbot. Takes longer but is much easier.
VOD: As Abbot and Shroud. Shorter but takes a while to get to.
HOX: Same as VOD, same reasons.
TOD: 15k/25k/40k (50% base XP for Suulomades)
LOB: 20k/30k/45k (higher than TOD to reflect increased time wasted getting there). 150% base XP for 'Mark 3 times' optional to reflect that since bugfixes a while back, this optional is legitimately difficult.
MA: Same as TOD. Easier than TOD and shorter, but takes longer to get to.



It's particularly grating that EN LOB gives more XP than HN LOB, despite HN being considerably more difficult. LOB hits harder on heroic normal, has more HP, and the trash are considerably more dangerous, and the Quori cast spells with higher DCs on heroic normal.

[oradafu]

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.

This is very interesting... XP is a formula??? And is tied to favor and epic difficulties??

Thank for explaining why you haven't changed Amrath and Cannith XP numbers before now... I seriously thought you guys were just completely clueless. Good to know the real problem is the developers who came BEFORE you came up with a stupid way to dynamically(!!) calculate XP...

That's pretty crazy... I would definitely made it a static value in a database somewhere, easy to change at a whim... There's not THAT many dungeons. And they are all so very different, I can't believe the original developers thought a complicated formula would work to assign xp fairly to all dungeons...

I am so glad you fixed it. I'm appalled it was so messed up to begin with... I know the pain of supporting someone else's insane design decisions... Let's move forward!

Come on. People can't be falling for this line about XP being tied to Favor so it cannot be adjusted.

Church of the Fury is 12 Favir and has heroic base XP of 1161/2038/2140/2242
Desert Caravan is 15 Favor and has heroic base XP of 1615/2980/3123/3268
Reclamation is 15 Favor and has heroic base XP of 1788/3140/3300/3459
Wrath of Flame is 18 Favor and has heroic base XP of 1345/2321/2401/2480
Shadow Crypt is 21 Favor and has heroic base XP of 5568/9820/10360/10900
Lord of Dust is 21 Favor and has heroic base XP of 2940/5100/5300/5500
Detour is 24 Favor and has a heroic base XP of 2920/5050/5233/5416
Let Sleeping Dust Lies is 24 Favor and has heroic base XP of 3900/6766/7033/7299
VOD is 27 Favor and has heroic base XP of 8200/8500/8800

The numbers are all over the place. I just randomly picked some quests. I invite others to just randomly pick some quests for yourselves to see if I'm not making things up. This whole XP is linked to Favor looks like hogwash to me.

[Charononus]

Come on. People can't be falling for this line about XP being tied to Favor so it cannot be adjusted.

Church of the Fury is 12 Favir and has heroic base XP of 1161/2038/2140/2242
Desert Caravan is 15 Favor and has heroic base XP of 1615/2980/3123/3268
Reclamation is 15 Favor and has heroic base XP of 1788/3140/3300/3459
Wrath of Flame is 18 Favor and has heroic base XP of 1345/2321/2401/2480
Shadow Crypt is 21 Favor and has heroic base XP of 5568/9820/10360/10900
Lord of Dust is 21 Favor and has heroic base XP of 2940/5100/5300/5500
Detour is 24 Favor and has a heroic base XP of 2920/5050/5233/5416
Let Sleeping Dust Lies is 24 Favor and has heroic base XP of 3900/6766/7033/7299
VOD is 27 Favor and has heroic base XP of 8200/8500/8800

The numbers are all over the place. I just randomly picked some quests. I invite others to just randomly pick some quests for yourselves to see if I'm not making things up. This whole XP is linked to Favor looks like hogwash to me.

[sirgog]

Come on. People can't be falling for this line about XP being tied to Favor so it cannot be adjusted.

Church of the Fury is 12 Favir and has heroic base XP of 1161/2038/2140/2242
Desert Caravan is 15 Favor and has heroic base XP of 1615/2980/3123/3268
Reclamation is 15 Favor and has heroic base XP of 1788/3140/3300/3459
Wrath of Flame is 18 Favor and has heroic base XP of 1345/2321/2401/2480
Shadow Crypt is 21 Favor and has heroic base XP of 5568/9820/10360/10900
Lord of Dust is 21 Favor and has heroic base XP of 2940/5100/5300/5500
Detour is 24 Favor and has a heroic base XP of 2920/5050/5233/5416
Let Sleeping Dust Lies is 24 Favor and has heroic base XP of 3900/6766/7033/7299
VOD is 27 Favor and has heroic base XP of 8200/8500/8800

The numbers are all over the place. I just randomly picked some quests. I invite others to just randomly pick some quests for yourselves to see if I'm not making things up. This whole XP is linked to Favor looks like hogwash to me.

Try seeing if there is a correlation between the following:

1) Quest Favor

and

2) (Normal XP - 500) / Quest Level

[nibel]

According to OP post, there is also a correlation with quest lenght. You know, that informative text at the quest entrance that tell you if the quest is very short, short, medium, long, or very long.

There are some non-intuitive durations there too. Hold for Reinforcements is a "Short quest", while Halls of Shan-To-Kor (part 3) is a "Very Long quest".

[maddmatt70]

According to OP post, there is also a correlation with quest lenght. You know, that informative text at the quest entrance that tell you if the quest is very short, short, medium, long, or very long.

There are some non-intuitive durations there too. Hold for Reinforcements is a "Short quest", while Halls of Shan-To-Kor (part 3) is a "Very Long quest".

If I wanted to change a quest's xp I was thinking that a good way to make an argument is either that a quest was misidentified for example something was short and should have been quantified as medium or long or I would argue that a certain CR level gives to low xp. I think that level 19 and 20 quests do not give enough xp. It is pretty obvious that a lot of quests are not quantified correctly.

[Cyr]

That would be the better approach. Any "on the path, low effort" optional should be worth a low XP bonus (5-10% base XP), and maybe a chest. .

Optional XP should not have ANY TIE to base xp of a quest. Optionals can be either long or short regardless of the quest length itself. For example, Von3 has some very 'short' optionals which are on the path. They are worth a decent amount (unlike say half the optionals in tangleroot) entirely due to the base xp of the quest which really should be irrelevant when considering optional value.

You hit on the basic right idea in post (long optionals off the beaten path worth more and tough optionals worth more while short easy on the main path optionals worth less), but then mucked the whole thing up by tying it to base xp which would then muck those values up based upon the quests length/difficulty.

[tbf78]

What I've always thought they should do is dynamically adjust quest XP based on how often quests are completed. So for example, they could run a script every couple of weeks to see how many times each quest was completed since the last time the script was run. Then based on these numbers adjust XP accordingly. Something like the 10% least run quests get a +25% XP boost, next 10% least run get a +15% boost, next 10% get a +10% boost, etc. Most run quests would get XP penalties along the same lines. In this scenario you would get some of the most heavily farmed XP quests getting big nerfs, but new good XP quests would emerge, making it much more interesting than farming VON3 for the billionth time, especially because the best quests for farming XP would be changing all the time.

[Oxarhamar]

with more quests for that range instead of adjusting the xp in the other quests it would do more good since quest xp adjustments is what they are looking at right now. more quests to run gives more options and even a low xp quest can be decent 1x through with BB and xp boosts.

90% of my TR leveling is Eberron side. I only have 1 character that has a key and she is done with her past lives. I don't want to burden a group having to log in and out to run mediocre level 15 Eveningstar quests when ive always done fine in Eberron anyways.

probably 85% of the heroic quests I 1 and done. time has no bearing on my leveling, I don't want to bore myself with running the same quests 10x each life, usually get about ~3k favor by 20 and there is enough xp in the game to not have to really start farming until level 15ish.

farming is only more efficient to the xp/min crowd that feel the need to hurry back to 20. I really hope the devs don't adjust xp in quests to this kind of crowd. they always find ways to speed run any quest and able to shave off time regardless of what kind of quest set up it is.

you know you might be right about the first time bonus being with 1&done being nice.

I don't have time for that. I have a limited number of hours a week I get to play, I'm not eating otto's stones or burning pots.

I'm grinding out my TR lifes in the most efficient way I find possible. I use both methods 1&done and farming. I farm where I can because its more efficient for me.

you certainly won't find me in any new content unless the XP is better than or equal to existing content.