Bonus for Bonusses

[Deadlock]

Now I'll start by saying that there is plenty of XP in the game. Without a single XP pot you can easily cap doing all quests one and done on Elite and Epic Elite.

So this proposal which has come up a few times isn't to fix the problem of XP. It is however intended to help address the XP/min for those that want to explore every nook and cranny of a full dungeon.

Prompted by the discussion on why we have breakable bonusses, I'd like to offer an additional "Bonus Completion" reward at the end of a quest for those parties that took the time to kill their way to Conquest, smash their way to Ransack, disable their way to Ingenious, search their way to Vigilant on a Persistent run. I would include without deaths, but only on the condition that Death Penalties are personal and not party wide as we currently have to endure.

Hand-in-hand with this would be a tweak to any dungeon where you smash every breakable, kill every mob, do every trap, secret etc and are not awarded the maximum bonus. Stupidly low XP Optionals should also have their XP boosted to make them worth the time, again I can provide a full list, no need for devs to spend weeks researching these.

Insidious Cunning bonus would count in the same way as Conquest and should award the same 25% XP bonus. While not every quest will be stealthable, I'd happily see some quests revisited and tweaked so they can be.

I'm in two minds whether this additional bonus should be a first-time bonus or not, either way is fine for me.

The "Bonus Completion" award would be an additional 10% bonus added to the existing (XP POT + Guild + VOM + VIP + Completion) bonus, so potentially 50% + 5% + 5% + 10% + 10%.

Obviously the people who will benefit the most from this are those who want to spend some time enjoying the dungeons, which may be mostly new players. It may or may not encourage grouping if people have another reason on top of the 30% Ingenious bonus to tentatively welcome the low HP rogue death-magnet to the party. Either way, those that never pug won't care so it won't disadvantage them.

It's not anti-zerger, as those that zerg already tell us the game is too easy and their XP/min isn't worth any distractions - including those who won't stop to open a chest never mind watch a trap being disabled or swing at a breakable. They don't care, so this is irrelevant to them.

Not the first time this has been mentioned. I suspect it won't be the last. The dev schedule is already set for the next couple of updates so even if this was welcomed by Sev and Co. it wouldn't happen soon. The reason I think this is worth bringing up again, is that there's a hint of a change of direction with Sev now officially at the helm and old decisions like "no more Monster Manual volumes" are rumoured to be reversed.

[slarden]

They just need to replace bravery bonus with a grouping bonus based on avg # of people when 1st objective was met and last objective.

I would love an option that if all other party members unanimously agreed - to give a player -50% to a person with bad behavior. Unfortunately I am sure it would be mis-used so it would never happen.

[Deadlock]

They just need to replace bravery bonus with a grouping bonus based on avg # of people when 1st objective was met and last objective.

I would love an option that if all other party members unanimously agreed - to give a player -50% to a person with bad behavior. Unfortunately I am sure it would be mis-used so it would never happen.

The players raised the Bravery Bonus as a discussion point on the Player Council last year, and the proposal changed shape a few times. The best solution that I could see was one that finally emerged where we view the Bravery Bonus as a one-time bonus which it basically is, we then tweak the Base XP on the historically lousy XP/min quests to address that issue, and inflate the First Time Bonus so there is no actual loss of XP by eliminating this anti-grouping, anti-anything-but-Elite bonus.

Introducing nominated penalties would be used for griefing without question and would be viewed as anti-grouping. I'd happily make the loss of the no-death Bonus personal, and would introduce a pop-up that requires the person with the star to accept someone who has left a dungeon back in to eliminate re-entry griefing.

It would be nice, if somewhat naively optimistic, to think that this alone would cure the "Elite default" mentality, but if we can reduce the disincentives to running anything but Elite then we create the possibility that Elite can be made harder to differentiate it from the other difficulties which people seem to refuse to use (e.g. much higher chance of difficult named mobs and champions).

[IronClan]

/signed I will throw my 2c in as totally agreeing with you on this concept. And can confirm that when the subject of "dungeon completion bonus" (bonus for getting all the bonuses, finding all the stuff, doing all the optionals) came up on the PC I think almost everyone thought it was a good idea.

Also agree that the proposed is an excellent way to remove Bravery Bonus while not losing the XP, because lets face it, no chance in hell anyone will agree to anything that loses them XP, even if it improves the game and allows new players to find and fill some heroic LFM's that aren't E for BB. Agree that it would not "cause" non elite LFM's but it would increase their likelihood and numbers and the ease of getting anyone to join because they would not be breaking streak by helping.

Personally I think nothing Turbine could possible spend their time on right now after Lag reduction would be more important than changing the suffocating "E for BB" Nothing I can imagine would result in more new players quitting, than being the "stupid noob" who gets -10% for the 30 time TR veteran who's LFM he joined, because it was the only LFM in the new players level range.

Mixing Multi TR players and newbies is a HUGE mistake caused by the emphasis on TR's and the lack of Endgame (which almost forces Elitist mentalities that tend to congregate at Cap to interact with new players). It is further worsened by making the only LFM's one is likely to find at any level range E for BB.

[Vizar]

Being a bit of a flower sniffer myself I would love to get a bit more XP / min than we do at present.

In 4 years I'm on my 3rd life (admittedly this is on my most advanced of 14 characters). I don't really care a huge amount that I may never reach completionist, but it would kinda be nice to have an increased chance, lol.

It would be very cool to get additional XP boosts for breaking "every" box, finding "every" last door/trap/mob/optional.

I probably spend 3 or 4 (or even 10) times as long in a quest than some xp/min zergers, because, ... well, ... someone has to break the boxes!!!

If it easier to implement, perhaps an alternative thought would be to add "level" based Saga rewards, you completed all the level X quests, however there should be many kinds of limitation on that thought, needs to be completed at/near level, rewards would scale with level. Or it would be "far" too rewarding.

[slarden]

The players raised the Bravery Bonus as a discussion point on the Player Council last year, and the proposal changed shape a few times. The best solution that I could see was one that finally emerged where we view the Bravery Bonus as a one-time bonus which it basically is, we then tweak the Base XP on the historically lousy XP/min quests to address that issue, and inflate the First Time Bonus so there is no actual loss of XP by eliminating this anti-grouping, anti-anything-but-Elite bonus.

Introducing nominated penalties would be used for griefing without question and would be viewed as anti-grouping. I'd happily make the loss of the no-death Bonus personal, and would introduce a pop-up that requires the person with the star to accept someone who has left a dungeon back in to eliminate re-entry griefing.

It would be nice, if somewhat naively optimistic, to think that this alone would cure the "Elite default" mentality, but if we can reduce the disincentives to running anything but Elite then we create the possibility that Elite can be made harder to differentiate it from the other difficulties which people seem to refuse to use (e.g. much higher chance of difficult named mobs and champions).

These are excellent points, but what I learned in other games is that they have a concept of extremely diminishing returns. They have a carrot for grinding out those last few items but they add little power and aren't needed to run the most difficult content (as evidenced by the fact that you have to run the most difficult content repeatedly to grind it out). DDO reward for elite has increased significantly from the older days which pushes everyone to elite. The rewards are much greater for the highest difficulty content compared to the other 2 games I am familiar with.

Jibbers and mythic helm ideas were excellent itemization concepts as evidenced by the fact that self-proclaimed power gamers say it is too hard to get and casual players aren't complaining about the lower drop rates. So Turbine is on the right track - now they just need to fix xp rewards and fine-tune raid rewards.

[slarden]

Being a bit of a flower sniffer myself I would love to get a bit more XP / min than we do at present.

While I like the concept, it seems very abusable. Just afk a bit in a high xp quest for more xp.

[IronClan]

While I like the concept, it seems very abusable. Just afk a bit in a high xp quest for more xp.

Are you assuming someone else is breaking everything, searching every Secret door, and killing every mob and doing every optional while you AFK? How is this different from any other Piker who awaits completion? Except that they have to wait a lot longer, and become even more conspicuous for not doing anything?

You can pike quests currently this doesn't change anything about that, the same rules apply... and the same reasons it's probably a bad idea apply (reputation, guild, getting declined).

Note the proposal is not intended to net higher XP/min than Zerging, that is carefully laid out in Deadlocks OP. It is required because Zergers would naturally oppose the suggestion on the grounds of "you're trying to force me to slow down with better XP for flower sniffing" So the "complete bonus piker" would still be getting less XP/min than the "Zerg completion piker"... if anything that makes it less attractive.

[Dandonk]

I definitely wouldn't mind seeing a bonus for exploring the entire quest instance and doing everything in there, as an off-set to the max xp/min zerging. I actually do a lot of that (zerging) myself, but rewarding people more appropriately (with regards to time spent) for doing everything in a dungeon would be a good thing, IMO.

As for streak... well, we've been there in the Council, last year.

[nokowi]

The issue is to allow all play style to succeed in a somewhat similar manner. Encouraging flower sniffing for everyone does not solve that problem.

Have flower sniffing work like Bravery Bonus with some slight modifications.

How about improving flower sniffing for flower sniffers with a personal bonus that replace bravery if greater?

Flower sniffing bonus does not stack with bravery bonus (you get the greater of the two).

Completing all optionals gives an additional stacking 1?% XP bonus per quest. Doing this for two quests gives 2?%. Completing a slayer area adds another 1?%. You may enter a quest multiple times to get the Flower Sniffer Bonus, but you can only get it one time per quest. The XP bonus stacks up to the total number of quests+slayer areas (around 200?%).

Flower Sniffing Bonus does not go away except on true/epic reincarnation. Someone completing early will not drop your bonus to 0, you just don't get it for that run. You could still rerun the quest to get sniffer bonus for that quest.

Flower sniffing should not produce more XP than other methods, but it should be increased from current levels to reward those that enjoy this play style. The exact numbers can be tweaked to make this happen.

Stealthy completion might also give the same one time bonus (+1?%) if desired.

The idea is to reward other play styles than zerging, not force everyone to a specific play style. This proposal rewards (but does not require) grouping, and encourages players to play levels 1-20. Some thought might be needed to prevent level 20 characters from running level 1 quests to increase the sniffer bonus.

[Qhualor]

How about first the bonuses are actually fixed. Not every quest awards ransack, conquest or ingenious. Take Missing for example. You can't get max xp for exploring the entire dungeon. Litany is another good one. I suspect the optional sides affect conquest. There are also some quests that you have to kill respawns just to get conquest.

[nokowi]

How about first the bonuses are actually fixed. Not every quest awards ransack, conquest or ingenious. Take Missing for example. You can't get max xp for exploring the entire dungeon. Litany is another good one. I suspect the optional sides affect conquest. There are also some quests that you have to kill respawns just to get conquest.

I would say this is a low priority issue, unless you did add a flower sniffer bonus. I'm not sure if you are advocating both, or just that some quests don't have an ingenious/conquest/ransack bonus.

If there was a sniffer bonus, completing all possible objectives would still give you your sniffer bonus.

I personally am fine with waiting for respawns to get sniffer bonus. There may be a couple of quests where conquest is possible but unreasonably long. They would need to have a modified conquest number.

[slarden]

Are you assuming someone else is breaking everything, searching every Secret door, and killing every mob and doing every optional while you AFK? How is this different from any other Piker who awaits completion? Except that they have to wait a lot longer, and become even more conspicuous for not doing anything?

You can pike quests currently this doesn't change anything about that, the same rules apply... and the same reasons it's probably a bad idea apply (reputation, guild, getting declined).

Note the proposal is not intended to net higher XP/min than Zerging, that is carefully laid out in Deadlocks OP. It is required because Zergers would naturally oppose the suggestion on the grounds of "you're trying to force me to slow down with better XP for flower sniffing" So the "complete bonus piker" would still be getting less XP/min than the "Zerg completion piker"... if anything that makes it less attractive.

I just know this player base and if they can abuse something they will. I see alot of ways to abuse it.

[Deadlock]

How about first the bonuses are actually fixed. Not every quest awards ransack, conquest or ingenious. Take Missing for example. You can't get max xp for exploring the entire dungeon. Litany is another good one. I suspect the optional sides affect conquest. There are also some quests that you have to kill respawns just to get conquest.

That would be addressed at the same time and is already covered by my OP. There's a formula used to award these based on X% percent of the maximum in a dungeon - one of the devs discussed this with us on the PC. You can see this with quests like Siegebreaker where you have Ingenious until the next "round" of traps spawns and you lose Ingenious until you've done the traps again.

I can't remember the exact formula off the top of my head, and if I could it would be covered by the NDA. But the formula is there. I agree that if it's counting all of the sides in Litany then this number cannot be automatically calculated for those quests (I'm not convinced it is as I don't think those areas spawn until after completion - and if they do then they shouldn't!) - luckily we can provide a simple list of the quests where the maximum bonus is not achievable and these can be dealt with as exceptions, leaving the majority covered adequately by the current rules.

All that needs changed in those quests where for whatever reason the maximum bonus is not achievable is for the "maximum" number to be explicitly defined at the start of the quest. This is exactly the sort of remedial work you would ask an intern to do, so it's not using up experienced developer resource to revisit existing content.

[Deadlock]

I would say this is a low priority issue, unless you did add a flower sniffer bonus. I'm not sure if you are advocating both, or just that some quests don't have an ingenious/conquest/ransack bonus.

If there was a sniffer bonus, completing all possible objectives would still give you your sniffer bonus.

I personally am fine with waiting for respawns to get sniffer bonus. There may be a couple of quests where conquest is possible but unreasonably long. They would need to have a modified conquest number.

Is this your phrase of the day? So far, your input to this thread has been pointless or convoluted when the actual proposal is very straight forward. If you disagree with it, then that's all fine, say so and move on without the need to try and interject with what I'm assuming is a derogatory term aimed at players who choose not to play as you do?

[Oxarhamar]

/signed

[nokowi]

Is this your phrase of the day? So far, your input to this thread has been pointless or convoluted when the actual proposal is very straight forward. If you disagree with it, then that's all fine, say so and move on without the need to try and interject with what I'm assuming is a derogatory term aimed at players who choose not to play as you do?

People who take the time to explore all of the dungeon are commonly called Flower Sniffers. If you are offended by this, propose an alternate term. This is common usage on the DDO forums.

I provided an alternate to your proposal. I feel it is better for several reasons. If anyone is interested in discussion (the point of the forums), I would be happy to discuss these. You do not seem to be that person at this time, so I will save my words for those willing to have an intelligent discussion.

[Algreg]

I´d rather like to see optionals giving reasonable xp instead of introducing yet another xp bonus category - not that I have any issue with things as they are now.

[nokowi]

I´d rather like to see optionals giving reasonable xp instead of introducing yet another xp bonus category - not that I have any issue with things as they are now.

The issue is an unhappy mix of flower sniffers and power gamers going after that same objective. These are very different types of players and do not mix well. A little foresight can go a long way into making a game that works for everyone.

My proposal separated these players by design.

[Qhualor]

I would say this is a low priority issue, unless you did add a flower sniffer bonus. I'm not sure if you are advocating both, or just that some quests don't have an ingenious/conquest/ransack bonus.

If there was a sniffer bonus, completing all possible objectives would still give you your sniffer bonus.

I personally am fine with waiting for respawns to get sniffer bonus. There may be a couple of quests where conquest is possible but unreasonably long. They would need to have a modified conquest number.

because I cant get conquest in Missing, its actually more xp if I invis/zerg for devious xp. I always try to maximize my xp in every quest, but if its not going to reward me to run through the entire dungeon to maximize xp, than im not going to bother doing it as xp/min. if all quests gave its proper ransack/conquest/ingenious bonus than I would be less likely to speed run quests and want to run the entire quest.