Level 30 and your Epic TRs

[Kalaxia]

With infinite time and resources we might have done things differently. The two year gap between Epic Reincarnation and Level 30 wasn't a goal, but at the same time DDO is probably better than if Epic Reincarnation had been delayed for another two years.

Let's be honest, it's more of a formality at this point. The current 20-28 has really been the true "20-30 bracket" for 2 years. You should just rebalance the XP curve for 20-30, to be the same as 20-28 is now. Entirely too much time has passed to throw a wrench in it. There's no reason to add in a delayed penalty for reincarnations.

MMO's should be encouraging character development (for both new players and vets).. not scaring them away by telling them they need to spend more time now for the same thing. It should be the opposite of that.

The actual content itself (and difficulty modes) should be the determining factor for challenge.. not increasing the time for character development.

[phalaeo]

I like the idea of tying ETR eligibility with karma instead of level.

Right now, it feels like the right amount of time spent for benefit gained.

[Uska]

Further back, https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post5100345

I'm open to change. How about the L30 cap be scrapped altogether and leave things as they are and direct those energies to more new content?

sounds good should make both sides happy but I doubt if it would

[nibel]

This interesting, but doesn't answer any questions or calm any fears.

I still want to know how you plan to balance newer/casual players who are indirectly punished by not grinding out past lives this very moment?

As a casual player (unless I'm on vacation or a holiday, I play only saturdays) that is trying to achieve completionist since 2011 (only missing two lives now!), I'll tell you what I think about the raise on requirements for ETR/ITR:

I don't care. Casual players in general do not care that they are "losing" a race that only exist for powergamers. (BTW, "powergamer" is not being said here as a pejorative term, just the counterpoint to the casual approach)

I don't play the game as a race to get everything as fast as possible (or I would be a powergamer, regardless of my playing time). I decided to give myself the objective to have a completionist character mostly for a long-term goal. It will take me five years to reach it (doubt I'll finish two lives before january), and I don't mind. I've set my plan since U20 landed that I will end up in my final life with 3 epic PL of each sphere (so I have 4 toggles turned on, Epic Completionist was a happy coincidence), Completionist, and 3x ranger and monk (since I intend my final life to be a ranged weapon character, probably rogue or artificer). After that, I don't know if I'll push for more lives. Probably not.

I don't have a Thunderforged weapon, I ran MoD only twice up to this day, I never got any slayer above 750 (except Heroic Orchard ONCE when I tried to do once-and-done before the XP rebalance, and was having trouble in elite Amrath), I can count in the fingers the number of green steel gear I crafted, and every time there is a timed event like Crystal Cove or Mabar, I burn out of repetition before gathering enough ingredients for a single item (took me two years to craft a Glass Cannon).

So even if Turbine make level 30 requires, I don't know, 10 million epic XP, my plan will stay the same: Get to cap running each quest once (twice if I really enjoy it), doing wilderness once to gather explorers and journals (and eventual slaying and rares on the path), then ETR and HTR. Start again. Usually it takes me two to four months to make this cycle (classes I enjoy tend to go faster), and maybe that is why I don't get burned of running always the same quests. Because when I run good old Waterworks for the uptenth time, it has been 2-4 months since I ran Waterworks, so nostalgia kicks in and I can enjoy it.

[Axeyu]

Spin it however you want, if people feel the effort in TRing is too much this game dies. This is of course assuming the end-game will continue to be weak, who knows what we'll see at the 30 cap.

No. TRing used to be quite a pain, before BB and the exp curve rebelance. Yet the game did not die.

[QuantumFX]

Varguile, something you guys might want to consider: Allow us to empty out multiple spheres for multiple PL feats on a single ETR. That way the XP we need to earn from 6,000,001 thru whatever you guys choose for the new cap doesn't feel like it's wasted.

[IronClan]

No. TRing used to be quite a pain, before BB and the exp curve rebelance. Yet the game did not die.

During the time you're describing (pre BB) the game had a healthy end game raid scene, and it was commonplace to break up raiding by TR'ing and break up TR'ing by raiding. In fact more importantly when cap was raised with nothing to do it broke that forumla and DDO started a precipitous dive at a 33% attrition rate, about 22% steeper than industry average for MMO's. You're implying the TR system didn't lose any players or drive any away when they saw the only thing to do was TR and ETR and improve your character in tiny increments with nothing whatsoever to do with that TR'ed and ETR'ed character? and you're feeling confident in that assessment?

IMO the TR hamsterwheel with no end game is just like setting the leveling requirement of an MMO to 2-3 years max effort to reach cap and end game in a normal MMO.. In other words a tried and failed experiment, that lead to many an MMO shutting down or dramatically increasing it's leveling rate. DDO didn't have an end game for the last 3 years. In other words they set the bar for "finished progressing my character" so high that the inertia and friction were liable to discourage a fair percentage of players from even playing the game in the first place. Let alone continuing to TR and ETR after doing a few of them rubs your nose in just how pointless and unnecessary they are.

IMO the lack of end game coupled with this transparent hamsterwheel to no where; fooled a smaller percentage of players than the Forum intelligentsia wants to portray. True TR'ing was the only thing to do and so kept the doors from shutting completely but only having that to do, and having the bar set to 130million xp for Epic+Heroic completionist with nothing to do with such a character has resulted in the game dying a lot faster than it had to, had they maintained some form of end game reason to TR in balance with the hamsterwheel.

Together they were a great system to reduce fatigue, raiding fatigue one month, leveling fatigue the next month. When this became only TR'ing it just spun the attrition rate out of control like a tie fighter losing it's stabilizer on one side.

[jalont]

IMO the lack of end game coupled with this transparent hamsterwheel to no where; fooled a smaller percentage of players than the Forum intelligentsia wants to portray.

Mmm, you're kind of right. The transparent hamsterwheel to nowhere is the problem, but it exists because the game is too easy. It will still exist when "endgame" is created if the game is still too easy. There's no point in grinding anything when the power isn't needed to overcome challenge. Endgame. No endgame. It doesn't matter without challenge.

[IronClan]

I hope that devs read this post and think about it.

It was presented to them on the 2014 PC. Sadly the Dev's seem to think people ETR in off destinies for fun. The truth is people ETR in off destinies because they are forced to with nothing else in the game to do. This leads to EN 2X VON3/Wizking/Spies/Mirror daily LFM phenomenon where they simply log in do daily's and log out afterward as the most common way to compensate for not having fun in those destinies.

The problem has never been that those quests have great XP, the problem is that DDO is literally designed to be less fun for weeks and months at a time, and those quests are the path of least resistance in mitigating this unfun as quickly as possible with the lowest exposure time to the off destiny. The same way that standing on a bell minimized off Destiny XP exposure time, or cheezing the Drow priestess minimized it.

People do things the Dev's don't like, because the Dev's make systems the players don't enjoy so they just want to be done with it and get it out of the way.

The Dev's look at the symptoms (those quests) and say "we need to nerf that behavour" when they should be asking themselves what causes people to want to do that behavour. If the system of off destiny leveling was FUN a lot less people would be trying to mitigate it by running 4 to 8 EN's a day then logging.

[Loromir]

This interesting, but doesn't answer any questions or calm any fears.

I still want to know how you plan to balance newer/casual players who are indirectly punished by not grinding out past lives this very moment?

If you really want to consider it punishment....then consider it punishment for being late to the game. In reality, most newer players won't remember what it was like to ETR at 28...so no worries. You could say that those who Heroic TR'd before the race for Power creep began in earnest were being punished as it is now much easier to Heroic TR than it was pre-MOTU. So there is that.

I really find it amusing that people playing a game can consider it punishment. I actually dread the day when I reach ultimate completionist...I'm afraid I won't have any incentive to continue playing. So, IMO the more they can do to extend my reason to keep playing...the better.

[Jiirix]

How is it much quicker? It still has SAME 6.6 million karma requirements. It's not quicker at all.

I would be quicker because there are more and more epic quests and sagas. More epic quests = more XP form BB and first time boni.

How quick it will be to reach level 30 will not only be dependent on how many millons XP you need but on how many XP you get per new quest and saga. When epic TR was introduced in update 20 it took (me) some time to get from level 20-28 with the epic quests and sagas available back then. After that it got easier and quicker with every update. If getting from level 20 to 30 after update 29/30 would take the same time than getting from 20 to 28 took back in update 20 this would be fine with me.

My logic:

Getting from 20-28 in update 20 toke some time but people were mostly OK with it as far as I remember.
Getting from 20-28 in update 21-28 was quicker, same levels in less time - YAY
Getting from 20-30 from update 29+ takes the same time as 20-28 back in update 20 BUT you get two more level with feats and stuff in the same time - YAY again.

[Eth]

During the time you're describing (pre BB) the game had a healthy end game raid scene, and it was commonplace to break up raiding by TR'ing and break up TR'ing by raiding. In fact more importantly when cap was raised with nothing to do it broke that forumla and DDO started a precipitous dive at a 33% attrition rate, about 22% steeper than industry average for MMO's. You're implying the TR system didn't lose any players or drive any away when they saw the only thing to do was TR and ETR and improve your character in tiny increments with nothing whatsoever to do with that TR'ed and ETR'ed character? and you're feeling confident in that assessment?

IMO the TR hamsterwheel with no end game is just like setting the leveling requirement of an MMO to 2-3 years max effort to reach cap and end game in a normal MMO.. In other words a tried and failed experiment, that lead to many an MMO shutting down or dramatically increasing it's leveling rate. DDO didn't have an end game for the last 3 years. In other words they set the bar for "finished progressing my character" so high that the inertia and friction were liable to discourage a fair percentage of players from even playing the game in the first place. Let alone continuing to TR and ETR after doing a few of them rubs your nose in just how pointless and unnecessary they are.

IMO the lack of end game coupled with this transparent hamsterwheel to no where; fooled a smaller percentage of players than the Forum intelligentsia wants to portray. True TR'ing was the only thing to do and so kept the doors from shutting completely but only having that to do, and having the bar set to 130million xp for Epic+Heroic completionist with nothing to do with such a character has resulted in the game dying a lot faster than it had to, had they maintained some form of end game reason to TR in balance with the hamsterwheel.

Together they were a great system to reduce fatigue, raiding fatigue one month, leveling fatigue the next month. When this became only TR'ing it just spun the attrition rate out of control like a tie fighter losing it's stabilizer on one side.

Well said.

[IronClan]

2. Revise random loot system
Potential for incredibly powerful items (better than named items) but at incredibly low drop rates. So these items exist but can't be farmed, since they are rare and don't drop in known locations - so you might as well run your favorite quests, just run something (because no chests means no chance at awesome loot). The shock value of getting an uber item should be similar to that of getting a vorpal weapon when they were first introduced. This idea was discussed in another thread.

3. Legendary crafting recipes that are also incredibly rare and drop in any chest across range of content at endgame

I think the "introduce new content with set list of new named items with known chest locations" paradigm is a game killer.

I agree with this, the present static paradigm completely eliminates:

exploration (except the very first run without a leader who "knows it")
surprise
excitment
tension
mystery
exploration
unpredictability

All things that are synonymous with RPG's but completely non existent in DDO.

The problem is you wont find much support for these things on the DDO foums, very vocal players here do not want any excitement or unknowns or exploration they do not want unpredictable elements in their game. Just look at the backlash to champs and random affixes on named loot...

I don't understand it either but I expect it has something to do with a general lack of introspective understanding of whats fun about gaming. Predictability is comfortable, certainty of getting the exact loot you saw in the preview is comfortable and some people don't want a game that can't be memorized and made trivial through meta gaming.

There's definitely a lot of historical stuff going on here. No regrets.)

Varg I know you guys think I'm an a****** but I think you guys did the right thing under the circumstances, not having ETR would have had players leaving in droves, the heroic TR thing was played out, there was no end game. Sadly there's not enough resources for DDO to have gotten an end game area to balance out the ETR monotony and the unfun of doing off destiny ETR's is something you basically inherited from Purplefooz's Destiny system design.

Now if you could design this whole thing from the ground up would it be different? Of course, but no matter how critical I am (mostly directed as your and Sev's bosses tbh) I recognize that you guys are sometimes applying lipstick to not always the most delicate and refined of all possible recipients, and doing it under a time crunch.

[Grosbeak07]

I agree with this, the present static paradigm completely eliminates:

exploration (except the very first run without a leader who "knows it")
surprise
excitment
tension
mystery
exploration
unpredictability

All things that are synonymous with RPG's but completely non existent in DDO.

The problem is you wont find much support for these things on the DDO foums, very vocal players here do not want any excitement or unknowns or exploration they do not want unpredictable elements in their game. Just look at the backlash to champs and random affixes on named loot...

I don't understand it either but I expect it has something to do with a general lack of introspective understanding of whats fun about gaming. Predictability is comfortable, certainty of getting the exact loot you saw in the preview is comfortable and some people don't want a game that can't be memorized and made trivial through meta gaming.



Varg I know you guys think I'm an a****** but I think you guys did the right thing under the circumstances, not having ETR would have had players leaving in droves, the heroic TR thing was played out, there was no end game. Sadly there's not enough resources for DDO to have gotten an end game area to balance out the ETR monotony and the unfun of doing off destiny ETR's is something you basically inherited from Purplefooz's Destiny system design.

Now if you could design this whole thing from the ground up would it be different? Of course, but no matter how critical I am (mostly directed as your and Sev's bosses tbh) I recognize that you guys are sometimes applying lipstick to not always the most delicate and refined of all possible recipients, and doing it under a time crunch.

I think you are a bit off here. I think many, if not most players would love for more randomization in the game, however that would likely require a completely new game engine, which i doubt is in the cards. The game in its current state, likely can't support what you (and I also) would like.

Just remember that the forums are often a poor representation of "players" in the game.

[Grosbeak07]

You came late to the party suck it up and work like the rest before you did.

Ah yes.

Here is the thing. People won't and don't. They find different games and then people like you complain the servers are empty and no one is playing.

This means less money for the game.

Which in turn means less content, which in turn will lead to even less players until the game spirals to death.

So yes "just suck it up" is a recipe for success.

No one is asking (at least I'm not) for past lives to be 'given' to them as you keep saying. I just want a system that is friendlier to new and casual players and allow them to catch up and enjoy the same game experience you do, without having to 'buy' your way to the top through the store.

[IronClan]

I think you are a bit off here. I think many, if not most players would love for more randomization in the game, however that would likely require a completely new game engine, which i doubt is in the cards. The game in its current state, likely can't support what you (and I also) would like.

Just remember that the forums are often a poor representation of "players" in the game.

I am agreeing with you, I am stating that randomization is highly unpopular on the forums. Who knows what an objective in game or email survey would find. The Dev's have specifically stated that they aren't willing to do more randomization because of the hostile reactions it's gotten in the past. This was BEFORE champs btw, where again another system that was intended to add some excitement and unpredictability was shouted down on the forums, and nerfed to the point of not actually adding any real unpredictability or excitement.

eGH's loot system is arguably second only to original shroud for promoting replay, Tor is still run today because it has multiple best in slot or previously best in slot items that have variable affixes that some vocal types really hate because they prefer their game be predictable. eGH is probably the best loot system in the entire game (it is IMO, Shroud being almost entirely crafting kinda doesn't count, though it's certainly the best longevity of any loot) it could be improved on, but very vocal players don't want excitement and suspense and unpredictability, they want to log in run the quest 3 times and pull the loot and then go off and do something else for a few months before having to play DDO again.

Sad but true man, just wait until the Meta-game brigade starts trolling these pro-random loot posts. It will happen it happens every time.

[HAL]

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.

For whom besides you? Are you suggesting that they worry about 1 person?

[IronClan]

For whom besides you? Are you suggesting that they worry about 1 person?

I would expect he is referring to the massive numbers of people who have flooded out of the game over the past 3 years, which probably comprise at a guess a lot more people than are still left stubbornly hanging on to the bitter end.

The audacity of suggesting that someone unhappy about the game is the only one just floors me. What kind of personal regimen does one need to maintain a perfectly non critical view of the game when even the Dev's themselves acknowledge having made mistakes? Hows that work?

Here's the facts of the matter: most people when unhappy DON'T COME HERE AND COMPLAIN, they simply don't log in any more. A WHOLE lot of people have done this since MOTU... 22% more than industry average, 21% more than Turbines other MMO LOTRO.

LOTRO got server merges, any guess why DDO didn't?

[HAL]

im just wondering. have any of the devs done an etr? do you know how boring it is? do you know how painful it is when you are playing in a destiny that you just dont want to play in, or simply adds nothing to your build? do you know how uninteresting your 6000th en von3, wk, tbf, spies, etc is?

i get its our choice to etr, but when you offer as many big, sweet, tasty carrots as you do, you cant really blame us for playing the boring **** game. after all, its the character advancement that is appealing to us enough to make the decision to etr, not how much fun we are going to (not) have running ens til our eyes bleed.

I just don't get this. Yes you are to blame. I am not going to do something I don't like in a GAME. Games are to have FUN.

[HAL]

I would expect he is referring to the massive numbers of people who have flooded out of the game over the past 3 years, which probably comprise at a guess a lot more people than are still left stubbornly hanging on to the bitter end.

The audacity of suggesting that someone unhappy about the game is the only one just floors me. What kind of personal regimen does one need to maintain a perfectly non critical view of the game when even the Dev's themselves acknowledge having made mistakes? Hows that work?

Here's the facts of the matter: most people when unhappy DON'T COME HERE AND COMPLAIN, they simply don't log in any more. A WHOLE lot of people have done this since MOTU... 22% more than industry average, 21% more than Turbines other MMO LOTRO.

LOTRO got server merges, any guess why DDO didn't?

I'm suggesting that he only has evidence for the feelings of one person. As you have no evidence of why all the people who left DDO have left. RL (time, money, etc.), a newer, shinier game, finding a hobby they prefer more, etc. are just a few of the reasons people might leave besides because DDO "isn't fun". "Haven't logged in" /= "unhappy with DDO".