Let's Talk About Update 21 XP Changes

[mkmcgw17]

Hello everyone! We're planning another round of quest XP adjustments for Update 21, and we'd like to get your thoughts.

We've been listening to your feedback, so this time around we're looking specifically at epic quests. The exact details are still somewhat fluid, but I can definitely say we've increased the experience for 17 quests. Those quests are:

• Chains of Flame (Epic only)
• Trial By Fury (Epic only)
• The Druid's Curse (Epic only)
• Thorn and Paw (Epic only)
• Outbreak (Epic only)
• In The Belly of the Beast (Epic only)
• The House of Death Undone (Epic only)
• The Tracker's Trap (both Epic and Heroic)
• What Goes Up (both Epic and Heroic)
• Breaking the Ranks (both Epic and Heroic)
• A Break in the Ice (both Epic and Heroic)
• Lines of Supply (both Epic and Heroic)
• Army of Shadow (both Epic and Heroic)
• Through a Mirror Darkly (both Epic and Heroic)
• The Thrill of the Hunt (both Epic and Heroic)
• Friends in Low Places (both Epic and Heroic)
• A Lesson in Deception (both Epic and Heroic)

We’re also planning to reduce the XP for one quest (on Epic only):

• Jungle of Khyber (Epic only)

Our goal is to get the XP numbers more in line with how long it takes to actually complete a quest. Some of the adjustments are minor - 6% more base XP for A Lesson in Deception, for example. Many of the changes are quite substantial. Ten of the quests have had their base XP raised by more than 20%. What Goes Up has had its base XP changed by ... Well, let's not ruin the surprise. Let's just say it's a nice, impressive number.

I don't see [insert quest name here] in this list. Does that mean that quest isn't going to be adjusted?

Just because a quest isn't listed here doesn't mean its XP won't be tweaked either up or down in a future release, or even for Update 21. We are definitely planning on more rounds of XP adjustments further on down the road.

For some quests we're just waiting for the right time to make the changes. For example, we'll be adjusting the Heroic XP in Three Barrel Cove when we add Epic mode to that area.

For other quests we're evaluating what the right fix is. Should we adjust the base XP? Change the optional XP? Alter the contents of the quest itself? Or some combination of the three? Given the sheer number of unique quests in DDO, it will be a while before can we give every one the full attention it deserves.


Why is this happening now? Why weren't these XP values changed earlier?

As PurpleFooz explained in the fall, we only recently got the ability to fine-tune XP - Epic XP in particular. We also wanted to give people time to get familiar with the Shadowfell Conspiracy quests before we started changing their XP values.


Don't you think you should change [insert quest here]?

If you have ideas for which specific quests should be adjusted (or not adjusted) and why, this thread is the perfect place to talk about it. Please use this thread to discuss!

Knockback
Senior Content Designer

Thanks for posting your plans and taking input. Do you take material submissions? I have about fifty quests on paper I created on paper for first edition DnD that i coiuld easily convert to the ddo campaign. I could change any of the elements of the quests I feel wont convert and probably come up with a three to four quest chain. I'd be willing to play test them on paper with a few friends and then submit it at no cost or obligation to you.

[wooshrow]

If you have ideas .... <snip>

Knockback
Senior Content Designer

Fix your critical bugs, such as that with (free) lesser re-incarnation token. See :

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...-reincarnation!!

[Sarzor]

Fix your critical bugs, such as that with (free) lesser re-incarnation token. See :

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...-reincarnation!!

This. OMG, this.

(p.s. - Coms)

[Valthanas]

Stop reducing exp to try and drive players to either play differently (no zerging) or play your new content. You did this with the Cannith challenges when the players weren't running around in your brand new Eveningstar. Then you reduced the exp for Rusted Blades (albeit slightly) when everyone was window farming that quest and not running your other fancy new quests. If you roll out decent content, the players will follow. Brow beating us is not the answer. You already gave Von 3 a boost in a prior update, so stop...please just stop.

Fix the bugs first (especially Endless Smiting) and then we can talk about how quest experience should be calculated.

[Icywave]

And, for god's sake, 4200 commendations is just too many to grind out for an epic TR. Cut it by half at least.

Yeah, then you would have it within one life's questing and Turbine would never sell Epic Hearts.

Simply won't happen. I don't get that people can't see that and keep on bringing this topic up.

[Krelar]

Yeah, then you would have it within one life's questing and Turbine would never sell Epic Hearts.

Simply won't happen. I don't get that people can't see that and keep on bringing this topic up.

The reason it keeps coming up is because we were explicitly told by a dev that they expected someone who leveled up running epic hard quests to have enough for a heart by the time they hit level cap. As far as I know no one has actually achieved this.

If they had said all along that they expected you to earn some while leveling and then play another 30 quests (or whatever) at cap it wouldn't have been as big a deal. Turbine didn't they set an expectation that has not been met.

[Spellburst]

VoN 3 has been coming. Hopefully it's only a small decrease.

But that's all people want to run to level. More xp in other quests, means hopefully people will be willing to run other stuff too.

My only suggestion would be to raise the xp of both House D Epics (Bargain of Blood, etc.) and Red Fens. Both those areas could use a boost (And loot overhaul, but I'll take an xp boost for now).

Completely agree. House D and Red Fens are rarely run at the moment. Any boost there would be welcome. Maybe the best way to look for quests that need a boost is to see how many times are run. Those run the least should be boosted. There is a lot of content in DDO... let's get advantage of that.

[Guanmagi-1]

Completely agree. House D and Red Fens are rarely run at the moment. Any boost there would be welcome. Maybe the best way to look for quests that need a boost is to see how many times are run. Those run the least should be boosted. There is a lot of content in DDO... let's get advantage of that.

I race through EE fens pretty often. Easy bank favor and quick xp.

[Grimlock]

Hello everyone! We're planning another round of quest XP adjustments for Update 21, and we'd like to get your thoughts.

We've been listening to your feedback, so this time around we're looking specifically at epic quests. The exact details are still somewhat fluid, but I can definitely say we've increased the experience for 17 quests. Those quests are:

• Chains of Flame (Epic only)
• Trial By Fury (Epic only)
• The Druid's Curse (Epic only)
• Thorn and Paw (Epic only)
• Outbreak (Epic only)
• In The Belly of the Beast (Epic only)
• The House of Death Undone (Epic only)
• The Tracker's Trap (both Epic and Heroic)
• What Goes Up (both Epic and Heroic)
• Breaking the Ranks (both Epic and Heroic)
• A Break in the Ice (both Epic and Heroic)
• Lines of Supply (both Epic and Heroic)
• Army of Shadow (both Epic and Heroic)
• Through a Mirror Darkly (both Epic and Heroic)
• The Thrill of the Hunt (both Epic and Heroic)
• Friends in Low Places (both Epic and Heroic)
• A Lesson in Deception (both Epic and Heroic)

We’re also planning to reduce the XP for one quest (on Epic only):

• Jungle of Khyber (Epic only)

Our goal is to get the XP numbers more in line with how long it takes to actually complete a quest. Some of the adjustments are minor - 6% more base XP for A Lesson in Deception, for example. Many of the changes are quite substantial. Ten of the quests have had their base XP raised by more than 20%. What Goes Up has had its base XP changed by ... Well, let's not ruin the surprise. Let's just say it's a nice, impressive number.

I don't see [insert quest name here] in this list. Does that mean that quest isn't going to be adjusted?

Just because a quest isn't listed here doesn't mean its XP won't be tweaked either up or down in a future release, or even for Update 21. We are definitely planning on more rounds of XP adjustments further on down the road.

For some quests we're just waiting for the right time to make the changes. For example, we'll be adjusting the Heroic XP in Three Barrel Cove when we add Epic mode to that area.

For other quests we're evaluating what the right fix is. Should we adjust the base XP? Change the optional XP? Alter the contents of the quest itself? Or some combination of the three? Given the sheer number of unique quests in DDO, it will be a while before can we give every one the full attention it deserves.


Why is this happening now? Why weren't these XP values changed earlier?

As PurpleFooz explained in the fall, we only recently got the ability to fine-tune XP - Epic XP in particular. We also wanted to give people time to get familiar with the Shadowfell Conspiracy quests before we started changing their XP values.


Don't you think you should change [insert quest here]?

If you have ideas for which specific quests should be adjusted (or not adjusted) and why, this thread is the perfect place to talk about it. Please use this thread to discuss!

Knockback
Senior Content Designer

Throwing in my 2 cents here but Turbine should realize by now taking away from the players hurts you guys more than it hurts us. Rather than fall into this standard you guys have of reinventing the wheel you still don't get that your main focus should be creating new content. Stop wasting time, man hours, and effort into finding ways to take away or tweak existing systems. Spend the resources your have available to flesh out Forgotten Realms, new Epic Destinies, and Epic Content not to mention adding new loot to the game.

[Icywave]

The reason it keeps coming up is because we were explicitly told by a dev that they expected someone who leveled up running epic hard quests to have enough for a heart by the time they hit level cap. As far as I know no one has actually achieved this.

If they had said all along that they expected you to earn some while leveling and then play another 30 quests (or whatever) at cap it wouldn't have been as big a deal. Turbine didn't they set an expectation that has not been met.

Haven't seen that post. That could explain a few things.

[ezmeweatherwax]

I still don't know why this xp was gimped to almost nothing in the first place. There is still valuable gear to be had here, but no one bothers any more. I'll skip past the issue of being unable to farm mats at L28 and go right for the xp problem.

The solution is simple: Raise it.

Challenges could be a good place to hit for L20-25 xp. True, buying time never should have been 100k, but, Rushmore? Rushmore runs so long most people absolutely refuse to run it, even when they are at a level to do so and in want of those exact mats, because the xp payout does not match the time spent in the actual challenge. Take a hard look at these challenges, devs, find your middle ground based on both difficulty and time spent, and adjust this xp back to the area of reason. Continuity guys...

There's little logic in not raising the xp here. A raise solves the issue of parsing through xp for all the traditional epics, gives more variety to people wanting to engage in an epic tr, and makes the entire area more palatable to players thus selling more packs. I can't remember the last time I've seen an LFM for House C challenges. LFMs for House C challenges have not existed for a very long time. You can post one, go AFK to clean your entire house and make dinner, come back, and not see a single hit. The xp/time ratio is a primary reason for this. At a time when more xp, not less, is needed, for both iconic and epic TRs, why not finally fix this issue?



Hold for Reinforcements is not on the list. I know it's not epic, but it needs to be on any xp modification list until it's fixed.
A forced 15min of stress over what that fool Coyle will do next, or what will jump on his head while he's knocked out, deserves more xp.


As for the rest, I think comms are more the issue, this list itself looks fine. I especially welcome druid's deep, those quests are rarely run due to the xp fail. But few will epic TR anyway until the comm situation is more palatable. Work on those numbers, raising comm numbers in relation to the xp raises you're putting on the listed quests.

[Jasparion]

And, for god's sake, 4200 commendations is just too many to grind out for an epic TR. Cut it by half at least.

Lots of good points in this post. But I wanted to respond specifically to this. At 6.2m XP I have 1,480 Comms. I have run pretty much every Epic dungeon on EH, with just Druid's Deep to go. I have done EE VoN 5 and EH VoN 6, EH FoT, EN CitW and no other raids which give XP. I have run VoN 3 maybe 3 or 4 times. I repeated a couple of quests on EN for no Comms (some of the Seal Ring dungeons were run a few times - with no drops).

I have not used XP pots, and have taken the Comms from the end reward every time except maybe 2 or 3 times when there were really good options on offer.

I will hit level 28 with maybe 2,000 Comms.

Turbine, we have shown you dozens, if not hundreds of examples where we show your maths is wrong. When will you come out and just admit that you chose a very high number because you wanted to get store sales? At least be honest.

[Icywave]

Turbine, we have shown you dozens, if not hundreds of examples where we show your maths is wrong. When will you come out and just admit that you chose a very high number because you wanted to get store sales? At least be honest.

After so many threads on the matter.. yeah, it's obvious

[Jasparion]

After so many threads on the matter.. yeah, it's obvious

Not only that, its legitimate. It is perfectly reasonable for them to say that they are a company run for profit, without which, we would have no game. I know someone who has bought 8 or 10 stones/boxes - he is one of the reasons why they havent reduced the cost yet. He is giving them extra $$$, while we are wanting to earn something with the money we have already paid.

Turbine should just be truthful about it, and not feel the need to make up stories about how the research showed that a player running EH content can get 4,200 Comms at level 28. We are running all the content on EH to get to 28 and will barely have 2,000 Comms.

The only way I can see us getting to even 3,000 in a life is if we ignore all of Eberron and run all content at 2 or 3 levels higher than us, focus only on the terrible XP dungeons, repeat them all daily but never more than once per day, and hate ourselves and everyone we've ever met in our lives.

I have absolutely no idea how we would get to 4,200 in a single life. I suspect it would involve no Ship XP buff or pots (we cant turn off our XP Tomes), deliberately dying and re-entering to reduce the XP, and also doing only the very worst XP dungeons on EH (because EN isnt far behind on XP, but can give a lot less Comms).

When they improve the XP with the FR dungeons it actually becomes even harder to get to 4,200 Comms. Yet we have had no work from any Devs on this.

[Icywave]

Yes, it is legitimate.

2,100 comms in one life, running EHs, is totally fair. That's one free heart for every 2 lives.

Personal opinion, that is.

[swadesblynx]

ty bunches for always trying to keep the game interesting and fun to play.

[MeliCat]

Thank you for bumping the xp on those Wheloon and Stormhorns quests. We were talking just recently about how lackluster they were. No surprise about von3. But hey it was getting boring. 'Daily von3!' lfms were a bit of a giveaway that this was an obvious nerfage candidate.

If you have ideas for which specific quests should be adjusted (or not adjusted) and why, this thread is the perfect place to talk about it. Please use this thread to discuss

I know it's still good xp, but doing The Pit again last night (which always takes me ages solo) I still think it's worthy of another bump in xp. It's a really hard quest on elite at level and gets ignored by a lot of people because of that. But if you made that carrot a little bit bigger I bet more people would give it a go.

There are others and other optionals were I have thought 'that's lame' but I've forgotten them... will edit when I remember...

[Jasparion]

Yes, it is legitimate.

2,100 comms in one life, running EHs, is totally fair. That's one free heart for every 2 lives.

Personal opinion, that is.

Except they said we could get it in a single life of EH.

Well, I hit 28 last night. Ran all Epic content on EH, repeated some stuff on EH, did a couple of raids, did a couple of repeats of VoN 3 and some Seal ring dungeons.

My total: 1,800 Comms.

I didnt take any Saga XP, only Skill Tomes. I didnt do any Slayer areas - where possible we zerged through on the Heroic version to save time getting to the dungeon. I didnt use any XP Pots.

I did use 5% Ship buff, I did use the Epic XP Tome. I dont believe there were any Bonus XP weekends in play during the time I did my run from 20 to 28. There were no Bonus Comms in play during this time either. And in all the dungeons I ran, I took maybe 2 or 3 rewards other than Comms.

So there you have it Turbine. 1,800 Comms doing it pretty much exactly how you said it could be done to earn 4,200 in a single life.

Now, please show your proof.

Or admit that you dont care because lots of people are still buying Hearts.

By my calculation, I need to run another 80 EH quests at level 28 in order to earn my Heart. And that is assuming I am still giving up on Renown and good loot.

Please, tell me this is how you honestly want the game to work in the long run?

Or please just tell me that its only for a little while longer, until the cashed up players stop buying Hearts - and then you will bring the number down to 2,500 or 3,000, or significantly increase the number that are in the End Reward lists - or even better, fix it so they drop in the End Dungeon chests.

[Acaios]

a bit irrelevant to the xp topic, sorry about that, but these are 2 interesting changes i`d like to see in the future:

1)ransack timer should start from the 1st completion. not the last.
i`ll give an example. i used to run daily on my sorc e/h high road,wheloon,stormhorns for xp,coms and saga. but some days, when i had a few hours extra for ddo, i ran wheloon and stormhorns once again, for their chain reward. which took me about 3.5 extra hours (1hour was only the WGU!).
the next day, when i was to run again that saga chain, i couldnt, coz i had to wait about 3.5 more hours for the ransack timer. or even more, since in between those 3.5 hours for the 2nd run in the 2 chains, an interesting raid lfm might had showed up, and that postponed the chain farming by even one or so hour.

2) /ransack should also inform about the time still left, like /quest does. and if possible, the list should be sortied by the most recent quest to be offtimer, to the later ones.

[Icywave]

Except they said we could get it in a single life of EH.

Well, I hit 28 last night. Ran all Epic content on EH, repeated some stuff on EH, did a couple of raids, did a couple of repeats of VoN 3 and some Seal ring dungeons.

My total: 1,800 Comms.

I didnt take any Saga XP, only Skill Tomes. I didnt do any Slayer areas - where possible we zerged through on the Heroic version to save time getting to the dungeon. I didnt use any XP Pots.

I did use 5% Ship buff, I did use the Epic XP Tome. I dont believe there were any Bonus XP weekends in play during the time I did my run from 20 to 28. There were no Bonus Comms in play during this time either. And in all the dungeons I ran, I took maybe 2 or 3 rewards other than Comms.

So there you have it Turbine. 1,800 Comms doing it pretty much exactly how you said it could be done to earn 4,200 in a single life.

Now, please show your proof.

Or admit that you dont care because lots of people are still buying Hearts.

By my calculation, I need to run another 80 EH quests at level 28 in order to earn my Heart. And that is assuming I am still giving up on Renown and good loot.

Please, tell me this is how you honestly want the game to work in the long run?

Or please just tell me that its only for a little while longer, until the cashed up players stop buying Hearts - and then you will bring the number down to 2,500 or 3,000, or significantly increase the number that are in the End Reward lists - or even better, fix it so they drop in the End Dungeon chests.

if EH would give 2,100, I think that's fair.

I guess SAGAs could reward you with a few hundred CoV.... that would get people to go through the various quests. Just an idea.