Level 30 and your Epic TRs

[Blastyswa]

To recap, the "punishment argument" goes like this: Veterans were able to gain epic past lives for 6.6 million xp each for two years. If that's now raised to 10+ million, the only result is a punishment to newer and casual players who now have to grind almost twice as much for the same result.

In response, you said:
Which is just wrong on so many levels.

First, nobody ever said that when the level cap was raised from 20 to 25. I can't believe you cited that. There was no epic xp at all when the level cap was 20. Epic xp was first introduced when the cap went to 25. I can't figure out why you think people made this argument when the cap went to 25.

When the cap was 25, there was no point in gaining epic levels. Nobody felt they had to grind epic levels. The grind was for fate points. The problem was that epic levels were largely pointless. A level 20 with destinies and twists squared away was far mor powerful than a 25 without them.

When the cap was raised to 28, they added ETR for the first time. Now, finally, we had a reason to level to cap.

Now with the raise to 30, for the first time ever, we're having to run more xp for the same past life benefits than we used to. That's never happened before, not even for heroic TR. Past life requirements have gone down, but they've never gone up.

EDIT: I only joined the game in 2011, so if we could TR when the cap was 12 or 16, I stand corrected. That was before my time.

Nice points; you have my agreement on all counts.

[Uska]

(Last two paragraphs are my suggestions if in a rush, everything before it is support)
I very much hope the xp needed, at least for Epic Reincarnation, stays at 6.6m. As it is, I can take a character from level 20-28 with about 30 hours of gameplay at my best judgement. That's with ENx2 Von 3, 4, Spies, Wiz-King, OoB, WGU, Mirror, an EE GH Pass, and some other eveningstar saga questing typically. While I don't think it is particularly difficult to get to that amount of xp, it is also not very fun. I'm actually leaving my mega completionist character (3x heroic/iconic, 1x epic) at only one epic completionist pass through ETRs, just because of how utterly boring it is. It's not much fun, nor is it practical, to run more difficult content for far less xp/min when the sole purpose of leveling is just to repeat the process, and I still have a dozen alts that need epic completionist.

When the level cap is raised, which I very much look forward to, I hope that Epic Reincarnation is not killed in the process. There simply is not enough xp in the game as is to make it fun to go from 20-28, much less 20-30. Let me emphasize the word fun in that statement. It is certainly possible to put in 3 hours a day for about a week doing ENx2 quests, and reincarnate fairly often. At that rate it would take approximately 3 months to get epic completionist, about the same time it takes to make a Mortal Fear item without raid timers/friends passing ingredients. That time table is perfectly acceptable; however, keep in mind that at this point the game becomes less of "Can't wait to go play some DDO" and more like "Sorry, I need to get my 3 hours in for a past life". I personally am not a fan at all of the second scenario.

I would hope that when the level cap rises, which it most certainly will and which is most certainly welcomed, it will be accompanied by one of three things. One way to make/keep epic reincarnation reasonable would be simply to rebalance the currently needed xp all the way to level 30, and perhaps make it a little less curved. This would make epic reincarnations essentially take the same time, operating under the assumption that most players can complete menial xp grinding quests in similar times even with suboptimal gearing (being lower level). A second way, one which I consider preferable to the first, would be keep epic reincarnation at 28 and increase the level cap to 30. This would keep epic reincarnation completely unchanged, and make levels 29-30 the levels of the endgamer; I would even be in favor of then making those levels either take quite a bit more experience (less preferable) or do something like make each quest only count for experience once per day, or once period, in those levels. This would help to make level 30 mean more that the character at that level is parked, and didn't just run the xp train a few extra days.

The other option, which has likely been stated before and that I believe would be the optimal solution, in addition to being able to be implemented alongside another change, would be to raise the experience of other quests. The nerfing of the current xp farm quests would not be an acceptable solution; questing is done on these quests primarily because the xp for time from then vastly exceeds that from many other quests. Increasing experience on other quests would be a good way to make epic reincarnations have more than one good way to do them; instead of everyone running variations on the same 10-20 quests, other quests could be ran as well. To accomplish proper xp scaling, I would take a sampling of several thousand random players from the active playerbase from levels 20-28 (Not from the forums, and not volunteers) give them a special login key to Lammania while it is down for everyone else, and give them a week or so with the request that they try and run as many different quests as they can. Characters from the live server would be copied over for them to use; after the end of the week, if they ran on the server, offer something along the lines of an epic experience stone as recompense for doing so. Basically, give the testers a free ETR for running all the quests. Then, using the information from the completion times of quests, which would range from short to long due to the random sampling method getting semi-casuals, forum paladins, and average players alike, determine xp amounts for each quest that would give them all similar xp/minute. This is not reducing quests to all being the same or anything silly like that; instead, what it does is makes running the snitch just as good on xp (typically) as running devil assault, or chains of flame, or Tomb of the Wizard King. In the end, that leads to more options in questing, as people can run other quests without feeling a sense of "wastage" because they aren't maximizing the xp they get in that time.

That's my two cents on this matter.

Its going to increase Sev already said so

[phalaeo]

Why don't we just let people still epic TR at level 28?

Exactly. It's worked up until this point, why change it?

Allow people to TR at 28.

[Uska]

Exactly. It's worked up until this point, why change it?

Allow people to TR at 28.

You can TR at any point after 20 as to ETR it is supposed to be cap and that shouldn't change and why change the cap is changing

[Grosbeak07]

Well add me to the list of people concerned with this post.

i don't want to see a significant amount of xp added to the game for level 30. i'd rather see things 'rounded off' and then scaled, but another million xp would be too much.

Level 25 to 28 already drag (and i have not, nor never will use stones, so i'm always leveling up the old way). I find the TR/ ETR grind very boring and feel that if you don't have these your characters start to fall very far behind (not true I know, but it does feel that way). While Level 30 is important from a character development point, I'd rather they make things easier and make it so that it is faster to ETR at level 30 then it is now and spend more time concentrating on making challenging content for level 30.

No more artificial grinds. Reduce heroic xp requirements as well for TR's. Let new and casual players who want to build characters to play end game the ability to without the need to spend $50 each life to try and catch up.

more fun, less grind.

[Rasputin]

If I were the devs at this point, I would be more worried about why the game has had the fun sucked out of it.

My main toon, Wickedsmurf on Sarlona, has ground out all the heroic past lives that I care to get and ~30-some-odd epic past lives as well.

The TR-bank awfulness made sure that each and every heroic TR sucked so so much. I dreaded doing it every time.

The epic past lives weren't that bad to churn out, but I wouldn't call them fun in any way. If I hadn't been able to watch Netflix on my second monitor the entire time I would never have been able to make them happen.

I would get more heroic past lives, enough to get completionist (I am only lacking a few classes) but why would I bother? My build is so tight for feats that I simply cannot spare one for the completionist feat, NOR SHOULD I HAVE TO. At cap, +2 to all stats is not nearly the slice of awesomeness that it was at level 20.

Fix the TR bank situation. Memory storage space is dirt cheap these days. I'd suggest getting rid of the requirement to have to empty it every time. I would also recommend that the TR Bank be sortable by level, at a minimum.

With all the toons and treasure going on these days, we need the ability to see and sort our inventory for all our characters on our account, including banks, including TR banks, including containers. Seriously.


There's just no reason to play any more. We've played the same, old, tired dungeons over and over and over again, with and without our friends. We have all the gear we care to grind for.

You need to come up with something radical, something new, something special, to make us want to continue to play this game. Something that doesn't ruin the existing game for everyone else, but adds to it in such a way that makes it fun again.

Compared to that, what happens to level 28-30 is a drop in the bucket.

[PsychoBlonde]

Good to know it's gonna be next update for sure. I might take all my current level 28's and go ahead and reinc them so I don't have to level them further. I think that's like 2 characters tops tho.

I do hope you all do something reasonable with the epic xp curve so I won't be looking at something like 12M xp to 30 tho. That would be too much--have to get enough xp to cap 2 spheres to reinc? Cmon.

[PsychoBlonde]

You need to come up with something radical, something new, something special, to make us want to continue to play this game. Something that doesn't ruin the existing game for everyone else, but adds to it in such a way that makes it fun again.

If you're not a reigning monarch is is HIGHLY inappropriate to use the words "us" and "we" to describe YOUR PERSONAL opinion. Speak for yourself and ONLY for yourself.

[Jasparion]

~ Just a reminder that epic levels are increasing to level 30 with Update 29, so if you are working on an Epic character for the purpose of a true reincarnation you might want to level before update 29 as it will be take more XP when you can go to level 30.

~ Yes, we have read the question about what happens when a level 28 character starts a reincarnation and then the level is increased. We are discussing that internally.

Sev~

Having just returned after 6 months off, this would be a great way for me to leave again.

A large part of the game is people TRing, whether at 20 or 28. Shifting it from 28 to 30 and massively increasing the XP required makes the game worse in every conceivable way. I baffles me that for a game which has been slowly dying for years that you would be eagerly introducing a way to speed up that death.

[Uska]

Having just returned after 6 months off, this would be a great way for me to leave again.

A large part of the game is people TRing, whether at 20 or 28. Shifting it from 28 to 30 and massively increasing the XP required makes the game worse in every conceivable way. I baffles me that for a game which has been slowly dying for years that you would be eagerly introducing a way to speed up that death.

While it shouldnt take a massive amount it should take more xp to gain 2 more levels

[Gljosh]

I have some issues with raising the Level Cap.

1) I have been in groups that with little difficulty rolling through the latest content (level 30 quests) on EE. So adding more character power will make these easier.
2) ETR/ITR-IF we hit 10 mil to cap, that is 3.4 mil more then what we need now. So we can run quite a bit more quests for the same benefit.
3) WE need a large amount of new quests to fill the been there done that void.
4) IF 20~30 is rebalanced to be a small difference...why even do it? It would make most quests significantly easier AND add to the ETR/ITR grind.

A while back some people discussed having 29 and 30 be a different classification (the Mythic idea), that way people that want End Game can run up to 30 Mythic TR for a more power, and the ETR/ITR people don't have to get more XP for the same benefit.

[Blaze-Of-Glory]

For those that use them....
Heroic XP Stone (Otto's box) + XP Potion + XP weekend [+ other xp boosts] = Level 20 and Heroic TR in a Box
Epic XP Stone (Otto's Box) + XP Potion + XP weekend [+ other xp boosts] = a complete waste of money

[Shoemaker]

I have some issues with raising the Level Cap.

1) I have been in groups that with little difficulty rolling through the latest content (level 30 quests) on EE. So adding more character power will make these easier.

You seem to be overlooking the new 31+ legendary content and possibly reaper mode. Have faith that there is a master plan that will make it okay.

2) ETR/ITR-IF we hit 10 mil to cap, that is 3.4 mil more then what we need now. So we can run quite a bit more quests for the same benefit.

I agree that 3.3m more is to much for 2 levels. See my post for a counter proposal to that.

3) WE need a large amount of new quests to fill the been there done that void.

I do believe they're incoming.

4) IF 20~30 is rebalanced to be a small difference...why even do it? It would make most quests significantly easier AND add to the ETR/ITR grind.

Make up your mind. 3.3m is too much but my proposal of 1.6m isn't enough? Now you're arguing semantics...

A while back some people discussed having 29 and 30 be a different classification (the Mythic idea), that way people that want End Game can run up to 30 Mythic TR for a more power, and the ETR/ITR people don't have to get more XP for the same benefit.

Don't think this is on the agenda.

[Gljosh]

You seem to be overlooking the new 31+ legendary content and possibly reaper mode. Have faith that there is a master plan that will make it okay.



I agree that 3.3m more is to much for 2 levels. See my post for a counter proposal to that.



I do believe they're incoming.



Make up your mind. 3.3m is too much but my proposal of 1.6m isn't enough? Now you're arguing semantics...



Don't think this is on the agenda.

Issues 2 and 4 have a large IF, in front of them. I have read both statements.

IF the reason to increase the levels IS create a more end game feel, 1.6 mil will not be enough BUT is fine for the ITR/ETR crowd.

IF the amount of needed xp is 4 mil, could be enough for the end game crowd BUT too much for the ITR/ETR crowd.

New content is great (NEW actually NEW-re using art assets are fine), but I don't care about Reaper mode, if I have already run the quest a tremendous amount of times taking the same quest and making is uber hard won't change the fact that I have already run the quest to exhaustion (I have run about 28 ETRs so I am getting tired of the current Epic quests). I have often felt that some earlier quest packs could use some Epicifying, they are under run and that could breathe some life into them, it works(ed) well for 3BC.

[Engoril]

I agree with those who are questioning why we cannot continue to ETR at level 28 when the cap goes up.

Though to qualify, I don't actually care about the number for the level or the XP.

What I care about is the time to level up to it. I most certainly will resent it if the time to ETR increases significantly. I've only done 4 since they were introduced, because I don't play often. Increasing the time it takes to do will make me more reluctant to start one than I already am. It will increase the probability of me getting bored with the game and moving on sooner than I might otherwise do. The more stuff that is added that makes me ask "why am I bothering to do this" the sooner I reach the conclusion "I can't be bothered to do any of it".

Qualification for an ETR should actually only be based on Epic Destiny sphere XP. If you have it maxed in one then you should be able to do it in that sphere. Why does it need to be tied to Epic Level at all?

[jalont]

If you still allow people to etr at 28, then don't even bother creating "endgame" content. No one is going to the new content, and no one is going to ever take levels 29 and 30.

[Grosbeak07]

If you still allow people to etr at 28, then don't even bother creating "endgame" content. No one is going to the new content, and no one is going to ever take levels 29 and 30.

Spot on. For this reason, you won't be able to ETR/ITR at level 28 once the cap goes up.

To compromise, they really need to rethink the amount of xp needed at epic levels.

I've mentioned this before, but leveling should be a fun by-product of playing the game and running content.

Remove the grind, add challenging new content, raids and other ideas to keep us occupied and let the leveling process go by quickly.

[Engoril]

If you still allow people to etr at 28, then don't even bother creating "endgame" content. No one is going to the new content, and no one is going to ever take levels 29 and 30.

The level of content people do has very little to do with the level of character. We already have level 28 characters doing level 30+ content. I regularly see even lower level epic characters being below the level of the content they are trying to do.

Also we already have the case that people who ETR don't spend any time at level 28. Changing the requirement to be level 30 would simply mean those people would spend no time at level 30 either. The benefits of levels 29 and 30 are kinda pointless if you're immediately dumping them at level 30.

Those who hold off ETRing, of which in my experience there are many, will benefit from being level 30.

[Engoril]

To compromise, they really need to rethink the amount of xp needed at epic levels.

Its not so much the XP as the rate of XP acquisition to reach that cap that they need to think about.

[psykopeta]

Raising xp cap 3m? Lol? Lemme explain how it should be:

Lvl/xp per lvl/total

21/120k/120k
22/240k/360k
23/360k/720k
24/480k/1200k
25/600k/1800k
26/720k/2520k
27/840k/3360k
28/960k/4320k
29/1080k/5400k
30/1200k/6600k

Xp is the same because ddo is boring enough with that xp

What's the purpose of pushing the xp cap to such amounts? DDO won't be harder

Nor will sell more epic xp stones

However, more vips will cancel subscription and less players will return

What for? Spinning the wheel stops being funny at certain point, and turbine changes were being to make it less boring

And noe they come with that genious idea...if that was the case, they shouldn't have touched the xp curve, tr'ing is optional and ddo offers msny options to keep playing, isn't it?

Cya again in few months... Or not