Update 29: Level 30 Overview

[Silverleafeon]

So I've always felt a heroic box gives you the heroic benefits + the equivalent xp of an epic box over time by resetting wilderness and first time bonuses. Just my opinion though.

Interesting point of view.
I would like to see the Devs sit down and discuss thus points, but if they don't create a legendary xp stone, I am not going to be upset.

More concerned about a lot of other things.

[nokowi]

Here's a modified Epic XP curve that we're considering. Instead of incrementing 150,000 XP extra per level as is currently live, it's only 50,000 (but not so far as 0).

Level	Total XP	XP Per Level
20	-
21	600,000	600,000
22	1,250,000	650,000
23	1,950,000	700,000
24	2,700,000	750,000
25	3,500,000	800,000
26	4,350,000	850,000
27	5,250,000	900,000
28	6,200,000	950,000
29	7,200,000	1,000,000
30	8,250,000	1,050,000

A basic design philosophy should be to make things easier to obtain over time, not harder. This allows newer players to catch up to older players. I'm a 3x completionist, Iconic, Epic, and I want more players with this same status so that there is a rich endgame.

1. Nobody is going to be pleased about 25% more grind, with no additional reward.
2. Most players don't want the extra grind at level 20-23

I don't mind if you make 25% extra grind if you at least give players an option to avoid the extra grind. This means putting a new Epic XP tome on sale that adds 25% to XP. If you are not going to do this, drop the XP total to 7.5 million and decrease the level 20-23 XP further.

Epic Ottos box should be 2.5 million base XP. I want players spending money on this game.

[Cetus]

It also invalidates every piece of level 28 gear we have spent the last few years getting.

ETR at 28 is a horrible idea. The negatives are far greater than the positives.

It is possible to make many other changes (bravery reset, different XP curve than that proposed, permanent grouping bonus, ???) that wouldn't require 20% more grind without having level 28 be the ER point. This is the place to make an argument for change that will reduce grind with some chance of success. Doing otherwise, without admitting the negatives, just sounds like a temper tantrum to me.

Its interesting that you indirectly described my remarks as "temper tantrums" while completely neglecting to provide any of these so-called "negatives".

The only reason being echoed here is this "division" it would create. This will be up to the players - you can just flip at 28 - and let the other poeple who are ready to actually play endgame dwell exactly there - in the endgame. Stop telling me how to play the game and forcing me to either mingle or play on my own, we can all decide that for ourselves. Even worse, stop telling me to play the game like crazy NOW just to avoid this impending grind increase.

So, go ahead, lets hear all of these overwhelming negatives. I'm pretty skeptical of your ability to produce any real response, because by the looks of it, they just don't exist. Everything would exactly be as it is now, except players will have the option* to continue advancing an extra two levels.

Notice, I said option, rather than being forced to do 20% extra work for the exact same benefit. I'm not interested in a hamster wheel with a 20% larger circumference.

[droid327]

OK, here's a revolutionary thought...

Have you considered making *all* Epic gear ML20?

Hear me out...with the flattening of the curve, Epic levels are becoming less of a hierarchical progression (like Heroic) and moreso just "prestige ranks", with the intention that you hit 30, maybe cap out a Destiny, and then quickly lock in for another reincarnation cycle. There still is some hierarchical progression through Feats, but what purpose does it serve having gear MLs scattered up the ladder too? It just forces people to keep a sequence of items in their banks, and reduces overall flexibility to incorporate new items into their gear loadouts.

I think having your gear stay equippable throughout your entire ETR cycle would help make it feel more monotonically progressive, and encourage people to ETR more aggressively. It would also help to better unify the "epic experience", since Epic is kinda becoming a monolithic endgame mode of play (ie its not broken into level bands nearly as strongly as Heroic).

[Iriale]

I don't understand why to do long the low levels. High levels are better and we are raiding in them. Low levels don't help to raiding. It's enough hard to fill a raid party now...

[Fluffib]

Here's a modified Epic XP curve that we're considering. Instead of incrementing 150,000 XP extra per level as is currently live, it's only 50,000 (but not so far as 0).

Level	Total XP	XP Per Level
20	-
21	600,000	600,000
22	1,250,000	650,000
23	1,950,000	700,000
24	2,700,000	750,000
25	3,500,000	800,000
26	4,350,000	850,000
27	5,250,000	900,000
28	6,200,000	950,000
29	7,200,000	1,000,000
30	8,250,000	1,050,000

Vargouille, thanks for the compromise suggestion, and for being willing to negotiate on this. But understand, that's how I see this - trying to meet us halfway. This suggestion is better than the original suggestion, but worse that what we currently have.

I guess the question I have is, why make any changes if nothing is broken? The current xp curve for epics has worked for years without a complaint. The reason is that most people want to progress quickly through the early levels so they can use their higher ML epic gear. Why, suddenly, is there pressure to make a change? I still don't understand the rationale behind this change. We were told "to flatten out the epic xp curve" - but why? Why does it matter if the curve is flat or circular? Why break low level epics when it was working fine?

Another point I'd like to make is, typically games that have been around for awhile make it easier for new players to catch up to veterans. This change only makes it harder as there is now more experience needed to catch up to the past lives that veterans have already accumulated. I hope you take into consideration how this change may hinder retention of newer players.

[brzytki]

Vargouille, thanks for the compromise suggestion, and for being willing to negotiate on this. But understand, that's how I see this - trying to meet us halfway. This suggestion is better than the original suggestion, but worse that what we currently have.

I guess the question I have is, why make any changes if nothing is broken? The current xp curve for epics has worked for years without a complaint. The reason is that most people want to progress quickly through the early levels so they can use their higher ML epic gear. Why, suddenly, is there pressure to make a change? I still don't understand the rationale behind this change. We were told "to flatten out the epic xp curve" - but why? Why does it matter if the curve is flat or circular? Why break low level epics when it was working fine?

I'll answer this question then. If Devs let the current xp curve go w/o any changes then you'll need 1,5 mil xp to go 28->29 and another 1,65 mil xp to go 29->30, bringing total xp to get to lvl 30 to 9,75 mil. And if they want to introduce next levels, it's gonna take another 1,8 mil to go 30->31. See the trend here? Now look at the quests, their lvl, xp they give and tell me getting ~1,5 mil xp at current cap (28) won't be a slog through repeating the same "10" quests. That's why the flattened (not flat, like the first proposal) xp curve is better.

Oh, and i like the new xp curve. I can live with 300k xp more to get to lvl 21 and 500k xp more to get to lvl 25. I'm of the opinion that it will encourage playing lvl 18-20 heroic quests if you bump their xp.

[maddong]

Could we have an option in the adventure compendium to "hide heroic content".

That way we could organize the quests by level and have them start at the level 20 epic quests. This would be helpful to those of us that want to run the quests in order but have trouble finding one epic under heroic level 9, one epic under heroic level 16, etc.

[RobbinB]

OK, here's a revolutionary thought...

Have you considered making *all* Epic gear ML20?

Hear me out...with the flattening of the curve, Epic levels are becoming less of a hierarchical progression (like Heroic) and moreso just "prestige ranks", with the intention that you hit 30, maybe cap out a Destiny, and then quickly lock in for another reincarnation cycle. There still is some hierarchical progression through Feats, but what purpose does it serve having gear MLs scattered up the ladder too? It just forces people to keep a sequence of items in their banks, and reduces overall flexibility to incorporate new items into their gear loadouts.

I think having your gear stay equippable throughout your entire ETR cycle would help make it feel more monotonically progressive, and encourage people to ETR more aggressively. It would also help to better unify the "epic experience", since Epic is kinda becoming a monolithic endgame mode of play (ie its not broken into level bands nearly as strongly as Heroic).

I also really dislike the inventory aspect of ETR. In fact, I would say the least pleasant thing about ETR has nothing to do with having to regain xp, but rather first having to reroll and reequip a toon (with level 20 gear to start) even if you just want pretty much the same exact feats, etc...

The only problem with your suggestion would be that it would immediately obsolete pretty much all old s/s/s gear and motu gear, as the stat/loot-flation has made the recent gear straight up better than almost everything. However, for legendary levels I would hope they would just let us get to endgame and then pretty much stop with level requirements and reincarnations altogether.

One thing they should definitely do is reduce the ML of named items with normal/hard/elite versions to the same ML (as the normal version). Once you pull a hard or elite version you should just be able to toss the weaker version, but due to ETR the normal or hard version can actually sometimes be more desirable and it's just a peta to even think about.

Could I also take this time to re-suggest that if they ever want to resurrect the s/s/s system for gear that they first get the shards and seals out of inventory and into a general account-wide tab somewhere. What a pain to track all those things, especially considering that even if you finally manage to figure out that you do have the 3 pieces need to make one of items it won't be that impressive anyway.

[ed_slaying]

What about change iconics to start at lvl20 instead lvl15?? Is there even a thing devs have ever considered to introduce with u29 release?

I kinda feel there are now many options in game for ppl who are interested in playing only heroics so this change would be a nice way to please that part of the community that only wants to play epics..

[Cetus]

Could we have an option in the adventure compendium to "hide heroic content".

That way we could organize the quests by level and have them start at the level 20 epic quests. This would be helpful to those of us that want to run the quests in order but have trouble finding one epic under heroic level 9, one epic under heroic level 16, etc.

I completely support this, long overdue.

[silinteresting]

Could we have an option in the adventure compendium to "hide heroic content".

That way we could organize the quests by level and have them start at the level 20 epic quests. This would be helpful to those of us that want to run the quests in order but have trouble finding one epic under heroic level 9, one epic under heroic level 16, etc.

devs please think on this its a good idea.

your friend sil

[1Soulless1]

Could we have an option in the adventure compendium to "hide heroic content".

That way we could organize the quests by level and have them start at the level 20 epic quests. This would be helpful to those of us that want to run the quests in order but have trouble finding one epic under heroic level 9, one epic under heroic level 16, etc.

100% agree and support this. As Cetus said its long overdue.

[jalont]

Its interesting that you indirectly described my remarks as "temper tantrums" while completely neglecting to provide any of these so-called "negatives".

The only reason being echoed here is this "division" it would create. This will be up to the players - you can just flip at 28 - and let the other poeple who are ready to actually play endgame dwell exactly there - in the endgame. Stop telling me how to play the game and forcing me to either mingle or play on my own, we can all decide that for ourselves. Even worse, stop telling me to play the game like crazy NOW just to avoid this impending grind increase.

So, go ahead, lets hear all of these overwhelming negatives. I'm pretty skeptical of your ability to produce any real response, because by the looks of it, they just don't exist. Everything would exactly be as it is now, except players will have the option* to continue advancing an extra two levels.

Notice, I said option, rather than being forced to do 20% extra work for the exact same benefit. I'm not interested in a hamster wheel with a 20% larger circumference.

It isn't that we care how you play the game. It's that it makes no sense for the devs to create content just for you unless you pay several thousand dollars for it. Obviously that's a bit of hyperbole, but a level 28 eTR and a level 30 endgame means only a handful of people will ever go to level 30. A part of me wants the devs to design is this way just so we can get a better picture of just how little interest there is in grinding a couple raids. If it's part of actual everyday play, then sure, but a level 28 eTR means you're penalized by running endgame.

[nokowi]

Its interesting that you indirectly described my remarks as "temper tantrums" while completely neglecting to provide any of these so-called "negatives".

The only reason being echoed here is this "division" it would create. This will be up to the players - you can just flip at 28 - and let the other poeple who are ready to actually play endgame dwell exactly there - in the endgame. Stop telling me how to play the game and forcing me to either mingle or play on my own, we can all decide that for ourselves. Even worse, stop telling me to play the game like crazy NOW just to avoid this impending grind increase.

So, go ahead, lets hear all of these overwhelming negatives. I'm pretty skeptical of your ability to produce any real response, because by the looks of it, they just don't exist. Everything would exactly be as it is now, except players will have the option* to continue advancing an extra two levels.

Notice, I said option, rather than being forced to do 20% extra work for the exact same benefit. I'm not interested in a hamster wheel with a 20% larger circumference.

They are in your quote.

1)
ALL LEVEL 28 GEAR WILL BE GARBAGE.
ALL LEVEL 28 GEAR WILL BE GARBAGE.
ALL LEVEL 28 GEAR WILL BE GARBAGE.

Maybe you will hear this one.

Level cap needs to be at 30 so that we can use level 28 gear from 28-30 while Er'ing.

2) By making level cap 28, you would force players to choose between ER'ing and running Legendary content. You just cut the number of available End Game (Level 30) players by a HUGE margin.


If you care to disagree with either of these 2 points, please do so. So far you have simply ignored these points in your quest for keeping ER at level 28.

I have argued for not increasing grind (same as you), but without keeping ER at 28. I have given specific implementations to do so (change in XP curve below 8.25 million for cap, resetting quest and/or slayer XP, 25% XP tome).

So far you haven't considered any other option besides having ER remain at level 28 (or negatives of doing so), which is why you have little chance of success. If you really want less grind, drop the idea of ER at level 28 and focus on asking for less grind, and in specific ways to do this.

[Cetus]

They are in your quote.

1)
ALL LEVEL 28 GEAR WILL BE GARBAGE.
ALL LEVEL 28 GEAR WILL BE GARBAGE.
ALL LEVEL 28 GEAR WILL BE GARBAGE.

Maybe you will hear this one.

On your path from 28 to 29, guess what? You're wearing level 28 gear. And it won't happen once. Level 30's will eventually feel like TR'ing and the 28 gear will come around again, just like any other gear that is sup max level in all of DDO history. What's your obsession with level 28 gear as opposed to any other level gear?

What about when a non-iconic character hits level 20? They have a choice to heroic TR, or keep going into epic levels. Surely the world imploded and level 20 gear became garbage and ddo died.

But hey, lets just grind another 1.5 million xp "just because". Those people who enjoy the TR process get to keep it, why PENALIZE those of us who don't enjoy the grind? Because that's the way this is coming out. Does nobody see this goddamn point?

Level cap needs to be at 30 so that we can use level 28 gear from 28-30 while Er'ing.

Like I said, level 28 gear will be used by those going from 28-30. Just because you stop the TR process at 28 doesn't mean that people won't be traversing the 28-30 gap. They'll just be doing because they decided to, not because they're FORCED to

2) By making level cap 28, you would force players to choose between ER'ing and running Legendary content. You just cut the number of available End Game (Level 30) players by a HUGE margin.

What if someones doing a crappy iconic life and wants to get it over with? You think they'll contribute to endgame as a result of being forced to grind 1.5 million extra xp for the same exact benefit?

If you care to disagree with either of these 2 points, please do so. So far you have simply ignored these points in your quest for keeping ER at level 28.

There, I addressed them directly. You can stop saying that now.

So far you haven't considered any other option besides having ER remain at level 28 (or negatives of doing so), which is why you have little chance of success. If you really want less grind, drop the idea of ER at level 28 and focus on asking for less grind, and in specific ways to do this.

Just because I haven't presented any, doesn't mean they weren't considered. My point here is to show that this system has incredibly damaging aspects to it from where I see it. Solutions to it are a separate topic. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

[ransuh]

Flattening the curve for levels 20-25 is flat out (pun intended) a mistake.

Most players have already played the lower level epic quests hundreds of times and have no desire to play them much more. Most would rather be playing the newer and higher level quests more. Also, most players have more fun when they get to use ML23 or ML25 gear than having to use ML21 gear. (when I write most players I am basing my claim on an assumption, not a fact)

As far as I am concerned there is nothing positive gained from flattening the curve for 20-25.
Instead, as posted by someone else, keep the exact curve for 20-25 that we have now and make each level above 25 cost 1mill xp.
So,
Level 21 300k xp
Level 22 750k xp
Level 23 1350k xp
Level 24 2100k xp
Level 25 3m xp
Level 26 4m xp
Level 27 5m xp
Level 28 6m xp
Level 29 7m xp
Level 30 8m xp

Nice and easy - and none of the annoyance of having to spend more time using below ML23 / ML25 gear which noone really wants. We already did that countless times doing past lives, dont make it worse now, please.

+1

[nokowi]

On your path from 28 to 29, guess what? You're wearing level 28 gear. And it won't happen once. Level 30's will eventually feel like TR'ing and the 28 gear will come around again, just like any other gear that is sup max level in all of DDO history. What's your obsession with level 28 gear as opposed to any other level gear?

What about when a non-iconic character hits level 20? They have a choice to heroic TR, or keep going into epic levels. Surely the world imploded and level 20 gear became garbage and ddo died.

But hey, lets just grind another 1.5 million xp "just because". Those people who enjoy the TR process get to keep it, why PENALIZE those of us who don't enjoy the grind? Because that's the way this is coming out. Does nobody see this goddamn point?



Like I said, level 28 gear will be used by those going from 28-30. Just because you stop the TR process at 28 doesn't mean that people won't be traversing the 28-30 gap. They'll just be doing because they decided to, not because they're FORCED to



What if someones doing a crappy iconic life and wants to get it over with? You think they'll contribute to endgame as a result of being forced to grind 1.5 million extra xp for the same exact benefit?



There, I addressed them directly. You can stop saying that now.



Just because I haven't presented any, doesn't mean they weren't considered. My point here is to show that this system has incredibly damaging aspects to it from where I see it. Solutions to it are a separate topic. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

All your arguments are based on reducing the 25% extra grind, but you have equated Level 28 ER as the only way to reduce grind. In my opinion, your chance of getting ER at level 28 is 0%. This was a design decision made 2 years ago, whether you can read the writing on the wall or not.

You don't have to convince me of anything. It's fine if you disagree with me. ER at 28 doesn't have widespread player or dev support, and it's just not going to happen. The success of DDO depends on having players buy and play the latest content. It would be a terrible business decision to provide a gate (choice of ER at 28 or going to 30 for Legendary content) that keeps players from spending money on the game. Getting players to level 30 so that they can try out Legendary content should be a priority.

You can have a choice of additional grind or not in the solutions I mentioned (25% Epic XP tome, Quest/Slayer reset), and these options to reduce grind could even generate $ to keep this game going, depending on the specific implementation. The choice is not level 28 ER or additional grind even though you keep equating these two things. They are separate things.

Adding 25% grind is also contrary to getting people to level 30 to purchase the latest content. Dev's should think carefully about changing their decision because 8.25 million XP is too much. This is not something worth losing any players over. The max XP has no effect on me (I'm done ER/TRing), and I am making a purely business argument for not adding additional grind.

I provided a formula 500K +50k/level that minimizes the objections of all players.
1. Doesn't dramatically increase the time from 20-23 (300k more)
2. Doesn't increase the time to 25 at all (0k more).
3. Flattens the curve some (stated desire of Dev's)
4. Reduces extra grind to 10% (instead of 25%) with a cap at 7.25 million
5. Provides more time at level 28-30 where players can use the level 28 gear they have been farming.

I would encourage devs to offer an Epic XP tome that increases XP% by at least whatever the additional grind is. We currently have a 10% Epic XP Tome, so I would offer a 20% or 25% Epic XP tome with my implementation) to reduce grind to 0% or even 5% LESS grind.

Quest and slayer reset is a great way to generate more $. I would sell a special heart that lets you ER with these options (because the option to continually reset these could be abused). Track this item so that any duping results in an immediate and permanent ban from the game.

Dev's please forward this post to your business decision makers.

[Axeyu]

As mentioned before, give bonus exp for doing epic content that is not below your level and the problem is pretty much solved. At the same time players are incentivized to play a greater variety of quests instead of running the same few quests over and over all the way to through the epic levels.

[Faltout]

But hey, lets just grind another 1.5 million xp "just because". Those people who enjoy the TR process get to keep it, why PENALIZE those of us who don't enjoy the grind? Because that's the way this is coming out. Does nobody see this goddamn point?

Why not ER/IR at 25? What's so special about 28? Why not even lower at 21? Why not also ignore the 6 mil karma requirement? The ONLY thing those restrictions add per your approach is grind. And you would be correct (if we view playing as grinding). So, in this case I can say that those that ERed/IRed at 28 did so with less grind than originally designed. Now this is finally getting fixed.

Why do we need the grind you ask? Because the more the grind, the more important the reward becomes.

Please replace "grind" with "playing", because that's what most people do while TRing/ERing.

Now that I've gotten that out of my chest, let's also talk about TR vs. ER. People that TR a lot do so at level 20. They do not play epic content or raids. People that ER, do so at 28 as soon as they reach it, but those raid often. People that ER+TR, do so at 28 and raid as long as they can. People that don't TR, stay at cap bored (raiding).
Now if you keep ER at 28, people will ER at this point leaving out any raiding that will happen after those levels. The crappy Iconic life you mentioned is not the norm so you can't use that to counter the argument that people at cap would be severely less.

Like I said, level 28 gear will be used by those going from 28-30. Just because you stop the TR process at 28 doesn't mean that people won't be traversing the 28-30 gap. They'll just be doing because they decided to, not because they're FORCED to

You're wrong. And for future reference, when most people are not FORCED to (or at least properly incentivized), they DON'T do it. Even if not doing it will destroy them. Know this for real life as well.