What is Reaper difficulty?

[JOTMON]

gear = carrot.

You need to have the carrot for people to care.

The "perma-n00bs" will always be terrible, just write them off.

For those who can get better, the carrot is incentive for them to do so.

Makes more sense than having a game that is nothing but a TR hamster wheel.

Agreed... shinies...

I would like to see.. Reward for challenge..

High drop rates for loot or.. extra end chests (2-3 named item drop chests with same drop rate as EE).
High rate of champions.. sure.. more remnants..(give them a better drop rate though.. 1-60ish remnants is sucky in harder content when I can get 1-60ish in level 4 heroic..
0 XP.. no XP whatsoever... This should be the be at your best in your best destiny not destiny xp piking..
0 Favor.. This should not be 'need to run for favor' quest.. you have elite for that..
Other different interesting prizes would be fine.. unique cosmetics ... Reaper style....

[knockcocker]

PL's arnt a requirement, its not just triple heroic/epic completionist that are finding no challenge

Way to miss the point entirely. The thread is titled 'What is Reaper Difficulty' therefore it should be
clear that is what is being debated. I'm saying that I think it's unreasonable to expect this
difficulty to be so hard that PLs. are pretty much required. So, my question remains how
do you challenge those completionist characters with every piece of loot in the game in a
way that doesn't break the game for everyone else?. As I said, the only idea I've seen that
really addresses that is an at-cap difficulty equivalent to old epics.

Not once have I written that I don't support the idea of adding more challenge to the game. What
I don't support is adding another reward level to the game as we end up on the same merry-go-round
we're on now. BB and tiered loot (in some packs) put elite as the default difficulty. That genie
is out of the bottle but we don't need to maintain that as the status quo going forwards.

We probably also need to consider what difficulty actually means in the context of DDO. The
devs. appear to have only limited tools in their box:

Moar immunities
Champions
Moar HP
Moar damage
Moar resists
Moar mobs
Moar saves and SR (see U27 DC debate thread - I guess it's hard if your spells don't work!)

Let's face it, the AI is ******** and most of the 'skill' in DDO is micro management and metagaming
knowledge a la Dragon's Lair.

In my opinion, difficulty needs to be engrained in quest design.

I dont like how people who have no desire to improve or to play hard content in order to get the best rewards are putting themselves in the same category as casuals or new players, its unlikely that a guy who plays the game 1-2h per week is steamrolling elite with multiple pieces of raid gear and every PL, also pretty sure these players arnt expecting new released end game content to be a walk in the park so please people like yourself and others who spend more time posting on forums than the real casual/newplayers do ingame stop putting yourself in the same category as them, your not!

I'm not putting myself in any category. You are. You know nothing about me or how
I play the game. My posting history is less than one per day; I spend a bit more time
in game than that.

[knockcocker]

Double post elided.

[salmag]

I would like to see a Reaper Difficulty with:

ALL Champion enemies (I think this is a given)

a 50%-75% increase in the number of those enemies (more enemies = PCs using more resources)

loot should just add an existing Augment slot to current loot available (if you make loot too strong, then Reaper mode will eventually become irrelevant again - just adding an augment does not make it too powerful - we already have too much power creep)

keep favor (and their rewards) based on Elite (completely revamp the reward table too BTW)

possibly randomize trap locations - keep DC's similar to Elite, however, make damage 100-200% more

that's it for now.

[GoldyGopher]

So recently I visited a doctor, I was having trouble sleeping.
The doctor was a very busy man, already running 20 minutes late and I was just the second appointment of the day. When the doctor final got into see me, he read the cliff notes version of my problem before entering the room. He proceeded to ask me like three questions about my diet and exercise and stress at work. Figuring he was going to catch up on a few minutes he was already behind the doctor than prescribed to me a sleep aid and was ready to leave when I asked the stupid question, "How is this supposed to help me sleep when I keep waking up with an intense burning sensation in my left shoulder?" It is pretty obvious where this story is headed.

I have that same frustration every time someone talks about adding another level of difficulty to the game.

How is a new level of difficulty going to address:

• The lack of challenge that some/many players express in the Elite versions of the quests we currently have in both the Heroic and Epic content.
• The widening gap in players’/characters’ ability between those that can solo EE content and those that cannot.
• The perceived increase in the number of pikers playing DDO.
• The only stats that truly increases in mobs is HP when playing Elite version of content.
• The fact that Epic Elite is all about the Melee Characters, other classes are just pikers

Severlin has stated

Elite is tied to bravery streaks (with bonuses), favor, and other rewards that current players are basing their game play and game time around. The current game demands playing through content for the very first time on elite to get these bonuses as well, thus adding to the expectation that players should be able to complete new content on elite. That's a good thing for many of our players. Making elite even more difficult is not something we want to do at this time.

There are several inherent problems to this statement and I am going to start by with Bravery Bonus.
The inference in his statement is that Bravery Bonus is considered a good thing; however in my readings on multiple forums both public and private, posts by multiple MMO bloggers, DDO specific bloggers, an my own personal opinion Bravery Bonus is not viewed favorably by a majority of those who have made their opinions known. I agree with that sentiment whole heartedly. The counter position to that I understand there are players and game styles that Bravery Bonus added a huge benefit without changing anything or at a minimum changing very little for them.

When Bravery Bonus (BB) was added to the game back in update 11 it nominally was to encourage players to play a wider variety of content; however the real mission that BB was attempting to solve was the aiding players in their second and later TR lives earn additional XP to smooth out and speed up their leveling process. More changes were made in Update 20 to rectify those complaints; yet BB was not altered.

BB has attempted to solve those two problems since it release in 2011, in all fairness BB has been fairly effective; however at a price. Just like the doctor who wanted to prescribe a sleep aid without understanding the problem BB masks the real problem in DDO at the moment. The real problem is the inequity of XP distribution amongst quests at similar levels.
I could write numerous examples of this inequity, I have done so in the past, examples of this issue exist at essentially every level of the game in both heroic and epic content. There are a few exceptions to the rule, but not many.
I have done a fairly in depth review of the amount of experience points (XP) rewarded by all quests in heroic content. It is my opinion that approximately 10% of quests reward players with far too much XP, another 15% reward players with slightly too much XP, 15% of quests reward players with approximately the right amount of XP, and the remaining 60% of quests reward players with less than the amount of XP they should; 177 out of 292 quests. That is more than half the quests in Heroic Content!
I unfortunately cannot link to my google site, but when I corrected the XP in 177 quests (out of 292) by increasing XP by 10%, 25% or 50% I added 1,081,890 XP that a character would earn, excluding rare optionals, which is approximately twice the XP earned by running every quest on HE for Bravery Bonus.
Maybe my opinion of XP awarded by completion of From Beyond the Grave differs from yours, and I totally understand that, but I have tried to set my percentage of increase based around the amount of XP awarded by other quests at level with similar levels of difficulty and risk. So with that in mind I compared From Beyond the Grave to Desert Caravan.

It goes beyond Bravery Bonus, how many times have devs stated “The expectation is that new first life characters should completing quests on Normal Difficulty.” Severlin’s statement contradicts that philosophy almost in its entirety. That’s not good IMHO either.
The game has become easier as multiple changes to the systems have been put into place, simply put a first life, 28 point build using any of the standard predefined paths can virtually solo their way to level 20 on Heroic Normal with little threat to their character before level 8 and without a couple of bad saving throws there be no risk at all.
These changes include, but not limited to, lowering of DC/Saves, changes to quests (addition of several Shrines, removal of traps, removal of locked doors, and removal of hidden doors), lowering mobs Challenge Rating, and dungeon scaling. I haven’t mentioned the Monty Hall of loot at the lowest five level of game, +2 Retribution Leather Armor of Vitality 10 – Mastercrafted Min-Level 2. As a player who has done the TR train multiple times I can tell you that the random generated loot is getting out of hand.

Well a new level of difficulty does create more challenge for players who are complaining about lack of challenge it widens the gap between those that can solo Reaper Difficulty and those that cannot. It most likely will increase the number of characters that provide little benefit in the harder difficulty (aka more pikers), and unless the devs are serious about addressing more than one or two stats on mobs it basically will just mean more HP as the only noticeable change.
Adding a new level of difficulty does not address the problems, it is merely another layer of Band-Aids on the existing Band-Aids already in place, I would rather the Devs fix the problems than apply another layer of Band-Aids.

[Vanhooger]

Moar immunities
Champions
Moar HP
Moar damage
Moar resists
Moar mobs
Moar saves and SR (see U27 DC debate thread - I guess it's hard if your spells don't work!)

You just perfectly described toee

Let's face it, the AI is ******** and most of the 'skill' in DDO is micro management and metagaming
knowledge a la Dragon's Lair.

It's quite some time I say they need a new AI or nothing they do will be challenging, but I don't see that happening.

Probably rewrite the mob AI at this point is a huge thing and they can't do it whit they're resources.

So reaper difficulty will be:

Moar immunities
Champions
Moar HP
Moar damage
Moar resists
Moar mobs
Moar saves and SR

[DagazUlf]

Adding a new level of difficulty does not address the problems, it is merely another layer of Band-Aids on the existing Band-Aids already in place, I would rather the Devs fix the problems than apply another layer of Band-Aids.

<br>

Precisely this.

[Ape_Man]

<br>

Precisely this.

Even thought you're both right I highly doubt we'll see the level of nerfage required for that to happen.

[Xionanx]

...WORDS THAT MAKE SENSE....

Adding a new level of difficulty does not address the problems, it is merely another layer of Band-Aids on the existing Band-Aids already in place, I would rather the Devs fix the problems than apply another layer of Band-Aids.

Once again, someone who takes the time and makes an effort to write up a well thought out and reasoned post about the situation at hand.

I can 100% agree with what was said here.

Personally, what I would love to see is a developer post that on the main forums for all to see that:

1. Outlines the current design philosophy when it comes to content and changes to content.
2. States their TRUE feeling towards player suggestion and feedback
3. Has goals for going forward.

You know.. a PLAN OF ACTION STATEMENT. And what would be even better, sticking to said plan of action. That way players can point to it and say.. ok, this thing you are suggesting for the devs to do contradicts X or Y design philosophy so you are wasting your time suggesting it.

Basically, I want to know if debating on the forums really is a complete waste of time like I think it is.. because if it is, then I'll just stop wasting my time here.

[Spekdah_NZ]

<br>

Precisely this.

I disagree, I don't think it's a band aid. I kind of like that it's completely new, you can leave the existing baggage behind as it's simply too hard/old to tweak now, just leave the whole C/N/H/E alone. It's just a Pandora's box of gigantic whining proportions from the forums messing with elite difficulty. If you have this new setting, you can leave bravery bonus, favour, dungeon scaling, soloing behind or involve it in a new way or on your own terms. You can involve the community in a *new thing* without messing with an entrenched system.

I can sympathise being a developer myself, on a large financial system sitting on around 36 million lines of code. As much as I would like to tweak old features from 5-10 years back, most of the time you just can't :-)

As for what I would like it to be, well it should be somewhat hardcore and involve a lot of team work to overcome. Just inflating CR's I think is the wrong direction, although I guess more champs is a given. Rather a push towards more randomness like trap placement or nasty environmental effects and of course better AI. Something that makes the group keep together and on their toes!

[PNellesen]

Basically, I want to know if debating on the forums really is a complete waste of time like I think it is..

Hint: It is.

But it does make for some entertaining reading now and then

[Silverleafeon]

Basically, I want to know if debating on the forums really is a complete waste of time like I think it is.. because if it is, then I'll just stop wasting my time here.

I can guarantee its not a waste of time, the Devs will read this thread.

I can also guarantee any post that is rude will not be read at all, regardless of who the rudeness is towards.

[Knight_slayer]

I'm saying that I think it's unreasonable to expect this
difficulty to be so hard that PLs are pretty much required

Seeing that there has never been any content released that was so difficult that it required PL's I'm not sure why you would be conserned about that becoming an issue now. It's like saying "What if the new difficulty is so tough that players start breraking fingfers because APM required is so high.". Its never been an issue before so why worry about it?

E-LoB was about the toughest content released that I can remember and that didn't rerquire PL's and it was about 10x the difficulty of any content currently in game.

[knockcocker]

Seeing that there has never been any content released that was so difficult that it required PL's I'm not sure why you would be conserned about that becoming an issue now. It's like saying "What if the new difficulty is so tough that players start breraking fingfers because APM required is so high.". Its never been an issue before so why worry about it?

Is it really like saying that? really? You've taken this part of my post somewhat out of context - the full sentenceis wrt. completionist characters - how to challenge those without breaking the game.It seems that Update 27 is already along that path with the DC and SR requirements.

[Knight_slayer]

Is it really like saying that? really? You've taken this part of my post somewhat out of context - the full sentenceis wrt. completionist characters - how to challenge those without breaking the game.It seems that Update 27 is already along that path with the DC and SR requirements.

Both examples of things that have never been an issue before so they are similar in that reguard.

I was playing a completionist during the cannith raids release and I was very challanged, so were all the non-completionists. Knowone ever mentioned or thought that PL's were required to run the content however. Still dont see why something that has never been an issue, would all of a sudden become an issue.

[RTFM]

From the Quest info box on Lamannia, concerning the Bravery Bonus:

"To qualify, you must play on Hard, Elite, or Reaper difficulty your first time through."

I don't understand why we need yet ANOTHER difficulty. I mean, should not EE be adjusted accordingly and then we are good?



And for those of you not familiar with the concept, here: https://youtu.be/4xgx4k83zzc

So why not just adjust EE to what it should be?

[GoldyGopher]

I disagree, I don't think it's a band aid. I kind of like that it's completely new, you can leave the existing baggage behind as it's simply too hard/old to tweak now, just leave the whole C/N/H/E alone. It's just a Pandora's box of gigantic whining proportions from the forums messing with elite difficulty. If you have this new setting, you can leave bravery bonus, favour, dungeon scaling, soloing behind or involve it in a new way or on your own terms. You can involve the community in a *new thing* without messing with an entrenched system.

I can sympathise being a developer myself, on a large financial system sitting on around 36 million lines of code. As much as I would like to tweak old features from 5-10 years back, most of the time you just can't :-)

As for what I would like it to be, well it should be somewhat hardcore and involve a lot of team work to overcome. Just inflating CR's I think is the wrong direction, although I guess more champs is a given. Rather a push towards more randomness like trap placement or nasty environmental effects and of course better AI. Something that makes the group keep together and on their toes!

I would like to point out the flaw in your logic.

The difficulty of quests has been modified to make them easier on multiple occasions in the last few years, so the devs have been tweaking the difficulty pretty regularly.

Depending on the age of the content, some or all of the changes have occurred:

• The Challenge Rating (CR) of the mobs have been lowered
  As the CR on mobs has decreased by default the un-scaled damage from the mobs has been reduced.
• Mob AC has been reduced
  The argument was it was not fun to swing and miss when Trash Mobs and Boss mobs had appropriate levels of AC requiring players to use Sunder, Destruction, Sap, Stun, trip and other tactics to defeat mobs.
  This has led to HP inflation on mini-bosses and higher level mobs.
• Mob modifiers to Saves have been reduced
  It is easier for characters to land tactical effects on Mobs today but less necessary.
  Not every mob has had their Saves reduced its still is hard to land some effects
• The Difficulty Checks (DC) of spot, search, and disable device (traps) have been drastically lowered
  By as DC has been lowered by as much as 1 Point per base level of the quest.
• Trap box locations have been changed to require less challenge to get to them
  Multiple Trap boxes have been moved from the far side of the traps to the near side of the trap.
• The amount of damage done by traps has been reduced by as much as 75%
  Killer Traps in Halls of Shan-to-Kor, Gwylan's Stand, and other quests now are very survivable for characters when they run through them.
• The Saves on traps have been reduced
  This is a double whammy, characters are less likely to take damage from traps and when they do they are more likely to take less damage.
• The net affect of Harmful Effects on characters has been reduced
  The length of time these effects persist on characters has been reduced, the modifiers have been reduced
  The number of characters or players that use Curse Removal Pots, Blindness Removal, Cure Disease or other similar pots has dramatically been reduced to near nothingness.
• Secret Doors have been removed or had the DC for Search and Spot lowered
  Several Shrines are now more readily accessible for players and a few optionals are now automatic success.
• The number of locked doors have been reduced and the DC for open lock has been lowered
• Additional Shrines have been added to some quests
• XP Awards have been adjusted to reduce the number of optional in several quests
• Dungeon Scaling

[Xionanx]

I would like to point out the flaw in your logic.

The difficulty of quests has been modified to make them easier on multiple occasions in the last few years, so the devs have been tweaking the difficulty pretty regularly.

Depending on the age of the content, some or all of the changes have occurred:

• The Challenge Rating (CR) of the mobs have been lowered
  As the CR on mobs has decreased by default the un-scaled damage from the mobs has been reduced.
• Mob AC has been reduced
  The argument was it was not fun to swing and miss when Trash Mobs and Boss mobs had appropriate levels of AC requiring players to use Sunder, Destruction, Sap, Stun, trip and other tactics to defeat mobs.
  This has led to HP inflation on mini-bosses and higher level mobs.
• Mob modifiers to Saves have been reduced
  It is easier for characters to land tactical effects on Mobs today but less necessary.
  Not every mob has had their Saves reduced its still is hard to land some effects
• The Difficulty Checks (DC) of spot, search, and disable device (traps) have been drastically lowered
  By as DC has been lowered by as much as 1 Point per base level of the quest.
• Trap box locations have been changed to require less challenge to get to them
  Multiple Trap boxes have been moved from the far side of the traps to the near side of the trap.
• The amount of damage done by traps has been reduced by as much as 75%
  Killer Traps in Halls of Shan-to-Kor, Gwylan's Stand, and other quests now are very survivable for characters when they run through them.
• The Saves on traps have been reduced
  This is a double whammy, characters are less likely to take damage from traps and when they do they are more likely to take less damage.
• The net affect of Harmful Effects on characters has been reduced
  The length of time these effects persist on characters has been reduced, the modifiers have been reduced
  The number of characters or players that use Curse Removal Pots, Blindness Removal, Cure Disease or other similar pots has dramatically been reduced to near nothingness.
• Secret Doors have been removed or had the DC for Search and Spot lowered
  Several Shrines are now more readily accessible for players and a few optionals are now automatic success.
• The number of locked doors have been reduced and the DC for open lock has been lowered
• Additional Shrines have been added to some quests
• XP Awards have been adjusted to reduce the number of optional in several quests
• Dungeon Scaling

Most of these changes were not done specifically to make the content easier however, there were done to address the inability to get a full, diverse, level appropriate party. IE, these changes were done not because the content was too hard, but because the content was too hard to get a group for. Its one thing when you have a rogue, healer, + 4 random DPS types to do a quest, its a lot less challenging.. then when you are FORCED TO SOLO because you put up an LFM and by the time you are done with the quest 1 guy joins just to "get the completion"..

[Lemdog]

The number of characters or players that use Curse Removal Pots, Blindness Removal, Cure Disease or other similar pots has dramatically been reduced to near nothingness.

Who are you trying to fool?

[GoldyGopher]

Most of these changes were not done specifically to make the content easier however, there were done to address the inability to get a full, diverse, level appropriate party. IE, these changes were done not because the content was too hard, but because the content was too hard to get a group for. Its one thing when you have a rogue, healer, + 4 random DPS types to do a quest, its a lot less challenging.. then when you are FORCED TO SOLO because you put up an LFM and by the time you are done with the quest 1 guy joins just to "get the completion"..

That's a chicken and the egg discussion.
For the record the Egg came first.

Who are you trying to fool?

Don't confuse the prepared player with those that aren't.
Prior to those changes every one forgot once to have the correct potion, now players be like I'll be blind for 90 seconds so what, big deal I'm cursed it will be gone in 2 minutes.