Update 29: Level 30 Overview

[QuantumFX]

Personally, I’m ok with the new epic XP table. There's a lot of content in the 20-25 range that many players choose to ignore. I’m sure I will find ways to take advantage of it.

[janave]

Exp. changes are too punishing for those who ignored the epic/iconic reincarnation so far, why would you ask more work from us for the same reward? (thinking only PL feats now).

Please add some compensation (if you stick with your plan):

- Remnant vendor exp pots. 25% for 3hrs.
- Epic Inspiration Augment +10% (stacking with Heroic but only past 20 (ML20))
- Adding new quest bonuses to exp, or raising existing ones, breakables, conquest etc..
- Boost Raid exp. if done perfectly! at the recommended levels eg: Tower of Despair 20-22. Dont be shy on it, thinking of x3/x4 multiply it. Seriously, it has like 10k base exp.

I am either seeing empty LFMs 80% of the time, or just players farming exp with a to-do list on EN.
This change pulls players even more down into this "daily exp farm" spiral.

Overall, I dont see how DDO benefiting from U29 unless it comes with a'm'a'z'i'n'g content that keeps capped players engaged for many months.

[elvesunited]

Personally, I’m ok with the new epic XP table. There's a lot of content in the 20-25 range that many players choose to ignore. I’m sure I will find ways to take advantage of it.

The basic reason they skip that content is because they want to get to higher level content quicker. How will increasing the xp at lower epic levels help that? Instead of trying out less run quests for less XP and less reward they'll double down on high xp quests. It will be more unbalanced than it was before.

Improvinging the outdated "epic" gear. Doing more area balance passes like they did for gianthold, 3 barrel, and orchard. Increasing the XP for some of them. That will get people playing them again. But not this.

[Aletys]

Please reconsider this severe flattening of the curve at the lower levels. It will mean we'll be stuck grinding the lower level quests to get up to level 24 or 25 (the point at which you start getting significantly better gear). Perhaps the uber triple heroic/epic triple completionists won't have a problem, but the rest of us will. I don't play this game to grind, that is no fun. If this game becomes nothing more than an endless grind thru the same quests over and over again, then this will discourage people from playing. Right now I can run what I enjoy (at least once I have the favor I need), and there's enough content that I can skip the quests I hate. This will make that impossible.

Frankly, I think that the ER/TR point should remain at level 28, once you've got your 6 million karma in a destiny sphere. Level 29 & 30 should be optional for those who want to go there for the extra rewards it brings. Forcing the rest of the player base to go to 30 after it's been at 28 for nearly 2 years is pretty sad. Please reconsider this. I'm afraid it will discourage a lot of players & cause them to leave the game. I know that most of my guildies will simply skip the ER train entirely, and that I'll be running epics mostly by myself.

[Aletys]

Personally, I’m ok with the new epic XP table. There's a lot of content in the 20-25 range that many players choose to ignore. I’m sure I will find ways to take advantage of it.

Perhaps because they absolutely hate some of that content? CitW being a prime example. Being forced to run quests you don't like is not fun. Being forced to grind the same quests over & over because you're skipping the ones you hate is also not fun. If it's not fun, players will stop playing. Perhaps that should be considered.

[Hawkwier]

As you may know, we're planning to raise the level cap to level 30 with Update 29. Here's some initial details!

Level	Old Requirement	New Requirement
20	0	0
21	300,000	825,000
22	750,000	1,650,000
23	1,350,000	2,475,000
24	2,100,000	3,300,000
25	3,000,000	4,125,000
26	4,050,000	4,950,000
27	5,250,000	5,775,000
28	6,600,000	6,600,000
29	8,100,000 (old curve if unchanged)	7,425,000
30	9,750,000 (old curve if unchanged)	8,250,000

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We'll have some more details to share in the near future, including specifics on some feats, but please keep comments on those specifics to those threads.

Thanks for reading. If you have general thoughts on the structure of Feats with new levels, or Twists of Fate and Fate Points, or the XP curve/flat line, etc., let us know!

Thnks for the head's up Varg!

My question relates to the sale/use of Otto's Boxes and Stones, and the effect the change in the XP curve has on them.

An Epic stone will get you 2mil XP, which can be 3.3mil if you also use an XP elixir and ship buffs, etc.

As it stands 2mil will get you to just under L24, but under the new curve, you will still be 475k XP under L23.

And 3.3mil currently takes you to L25 with 300k toward L26, but under the new curve you will only just reach L24.

Both Otto's boxes and XP elixirs are expensive products in the store, so my question is: are there any plans to increase stones effectiveness, propotionately, to provide roughly the same relative starting benefit in terms of ETR levelling?

[dunklezhan]

Exp. changes are too punishing for those who ignored the epic/iconic reincarnation so far, why would you ask more work from us for the same reward? (thinking only PL feats now).

.

I have not bothered, I do not feel punished. There are other difficulties than elite. Flattening the curve means, on average, less need to farm daily quests and more opportunity to run other quests with a lower XP total without feeling like the end of the road is many miles away or without having to run Elite for extra XP. Only those folks trying to maximise their Xp will have to do the 'dailies' and they're choosing to do that. They don't have to now, and they won't at L30.

[dunklezhan]

Personally, I’m ok with the new epic XP table. There's a lot of content in the 20-25 range that many players choose to ignore. I’m sure I will find ways to take advantage of it.

Yes. I know this because the few occasions when I pay epic with my guildies, its always the same five or six quests unless I suggest something different. But once someone does suggest something else its not hard to get people to decide to run e3BC or 3GH, or eveningstar or even challenges - its like they just have a mental block when it comes to thinking of those quests.

[dunklezhan]

Interesting.

Thanks for taking notice. I suspect the lack of posts commenting on your post commenting on my post shows I am probably, as usual, alone in my opinion. Sad face.

[streep101]

if eGS has a ml of 30 many will just go *meh* and not worry about it since they will be reincarnating straight away. (Make it ml:26 so much like original GS - good for reincarnation).

Try making it ML:20.

ML: CAP or near it means devs have wasted their time for most players.

But I expect they'll be excited to release ML:30 gear, and 1% of the players will give loud golf claps about it.

[xaniri]

I think level 25 should stay where it is today, at 3 million xp, either by keeping the current xp needed for levels 21-25 or flattening the xp-curve a bit. Levels 26-30 can have a flat line of either 1050k/level for a total of 8250k at level 30 or anything between 900k/level and 1100k/level . Personally I would like to see levels 26-30 would need 1 million xp/level which would put lvl 30 at 8 million xp.
One reason is that I think there isn´t enough good gear for the lower epic levels to keep the xp-curve flat all the way.

As mentioned earlier in this thread I think the fatepoints given at levels 29 and 30 could be spread out a bit to prevent that those two levels giving a too big of increase in power

[Nyata]

really liking the changed XP curve. gives me a chance to actually do all the level 18 quests that I now mostly have to either skip or clean up later with XP penalties, since I am mostly still working on heroic TRs with the occasional epic TR thrown in. Though that probably means it is mostly attractive for the more casual players who prefer playing a diversity of quests instead of multiple TRs who are farming the perfect epic gear. Who knows, people might actually start running level 17 content (without bravery bonus, probably though) again instead of banking XP out of vale and going straight to character level 20 and epic questing.

[Ankiil]

[*]Why flatten the XP curve?

• It makes sense for characters to spend similar amounts of play time at each level, rather than new levels coming slower and slower over time. For comparison, consider the old Heroic 3rd life XP requirements and levels 18-20. While that's a different case overall (from 1-20), we want to get away from that feeling that the last few levels are just so much harder.
  

As we advance we become more powerful, can use better equipment and complete tougher quest faster and get xp faster
But the charm of D&D is also your achievements.
Building your character up to the high levels, is partly a grind to reach the power, where you can complete tough quest. I want/like to use my time in high levels to run the quests and raids where I can get nice equipment.
A progression where you use more and more effort and time to reach next level is desirable. Because you continuously use slightly more time where you are a little more powerful.

A totally flat XP curve will make us use more time on lower levels (less on higher). That brings the risk of making the grind tedious, and stopping the sense of fair progression. IE making newer and casual players switch to Fallout 4

Please reconsider the flat XP curve

[Jeromio]

I'm fine with flattening the XP cureve a bit, but why make it so extreme? Couldn't you just flat it out a bit? You don't always have to use a sledgehammer when making changes.

Also, please let us ER/ITR at lvl 28.

[BigErkyKid]

I will comment in the overview, but this concerns all the feats.

My concern is the following. These feats will greatly increase power and hence further trivialize lower level epics. This means that strong capped characters can probably expect only to be challenged in very top content. How many quests do we have in that category? How many legendary quests are there?

This is a lot of power creep guys and we don't have content to support it. Unless of course you are working from the expectation that everyone is eTRing like mad and will continue to do so.

[Silverleafeon]

Interesting.

I could go with that approach.

[Hawkwier]

Thinking about the XP curve, I wonder if it wouldn't perhaps be better leaving L20-28 as is, including allowing ETR at 28.

Then have L29 cost 1Mil XP and L30 1.5Mil XP, with the additional twist slot only becoming available at 30cap.

That way players have an interesting choice at L28 to either continue to ETR, as is, or to make the jump for the new goodies L29 and L30 bring, which are not insubstantial, with the option of ETRing all the way back to L20 at L30cap too, if they so wish.

Interesting choice is good, to paraphrase the great Sid Meier.

And you don't hit any complexities associated with changing parameters around L1-28 either.

Just a thought...

[Arkai]

Considering I was expecting that the 9,750,000 XP requirement before ITR/ER was a done deal when level 30 would come into play, colour me quite happy with the new values. Also taking into account the pain it still is to get from 19 to 20, I always found it a bit daft that one got from 20 to 21 in the time it would take to eat dinner, so the balancing of XP between the levels is logical.

From reading the thread I do think there is a lack of 'fun factor' as well as a gear issue for some people [myself included] for the levels 20 to 22/23 now that we'll be there for longer. The Eveningstar commendation gear is fine entry-level stuff but I think there is an opportunity now to address the old L20 epic gear.

This person has the measure of it:



Yes please indeed. As we'll be in the lower end of epics for longer, much of this older gear could now be more useful again. The old epic gear represented significant power back in the day but has been practically obsolete for some time. I reckon these could be used more at 20-22 now that those levels can't be 'skipped' as much. You never know - people may even have 'fun' running those quests again while waiting to get to 23.

To facilitate this further I would also call for either:
[a] a significant increase the drop rate of these old seals, shards and scrolls components, because the current drop rates are not 'fun' IMHO,
and/or
[b] guaranteed appearences of random seals, shards, scrolls in the end rewards list for the relevant associated quests or end of chains/raids.

Just my 2c.

Totally agree with this.

1. Lvls 20-22 are going to be real boring and we do need some kind of love there. Truth be told, shard-scroll-seal system has needed a trade barter or something like that for ages.

2. Please, consider to increase epic Phiarlan and Sentinels XP (and similar range stuff): I got sick of spies-von3-wizking LFMS. And I don't want to feel like a moron running Snitch or other quests I love while everyone is just interested in xp/min. I feel very stupid after realizing I have not achieved any epic completionist yet, since the xp grinders now are not in this race anymore, and the goal was set even higher.

[Vanhooger]

I kinda like the change to early epic level, this mean that min lvl 20 item are now useful a bit longer and it make sense to run older house cannith raid to get some nice weapon. At the same time this will make the stpid daily runs everywhere with just von3-spy-wizking. You guys should raise othe lvl 20 quest xp, because as it is now it's very boring running just those quest each life.

[RD2play]

Good! Like what I am seeing here.

The first few epic levels always felt to quick for me, this will increase usefulness of ml20 gear!