How to fix the immersion breaking nature of reaper difficulty.

[Jetrule]

There are several fine things being done in reaper development. To me the lore breaking and immersion breaking of reaper difficulty are the biggest problem with it. I know many players do not care about that aspect of the game. Many others however do. I like many players began playing DDO because I enjoyed D&D not because I loved video games. The lore of a quest is important to me and the problems of chohesive logic being thrown out the window in some quests by odd monster types cooperating has long bothered me but reaper makes it every quest.

To that end I would like to suggest that the new innovative Champion system changes recently previewed be expanded to include a reaper champion buff package being applied to existing monsters in a given quest rather than spawning these creatures universally in every quest. Thus in water works for example we would see some champion kobolds with champion buffs as previewed but for every 10 monsters one would be spawned with the reaper champion buff package effectively making them a reaper type with the same mechanics. Thus keeping the same or close to the same difficulty that reaper currently has without spoiling the flavor.

[BigErkyKid]

I am with you. Sadly, I don't think this iteration it will matter. Aside, for whatever reason reaper attracts the most hardcore gamers. Typically though don't give a **** about lore. Or builds making sense, or anything.

[Tahlee]

I like this idea very much, the different reaper packages been given to various monsters in quests would keep immersion. Maybe they could have a floating skull icon ( instead of a crown) and keep the reapers for quests where it makes sense to see them ( Delera's etc)

[Sam-u-r-eye]

+1 OP

I am with you. Sadly, I don't think this iteration it will matter. Aside, for whatever reason reaper attracts the most hardcore gamers. Typically though don't give a **** about lore. Or builds making sense, or anything.

I think you are in a way wrong and right. Many of the more sociopathic powergamers I know care about immersion. I haven't heard one of them ever dispute that adrenaline + slayer arrow on a GxB isn't stupid.

Many of them will choose power and cheese over immersion though if given an either or.
IF the only way to get lots of power IS to break immersion then they'll do that. (Even though it might be regretable to them.)
IF the only way to get difficulty is to introduce ONE-SHOTTING, then they'll deal with that. (Even though the mechanic is stupid.)
IF reaper is the difficulty given to us to spice it up then we'll do and deal. (Even though we don't want to be playing Ghostbusters Online.)

What can be done easily is a good idea in my book, but difficult things need to be done too.

If reaper is the new difficulty then it solves a difficult problem.
Its not my place to call out how difficult it would be to solve the immersion problem though. Our digital world isn't always ideal.
But thank god my footsteps won't cause mobs to keel over anymore.

[Wizza]

I think you are in a way wrong and right. Many of the more sociopathic powergamers I know care about immersion. I haven't heard one of them ever dispute that adrenaline + slayer arrow on a GxB isn't stupid.

That has nothing to do with breaking immersion and we all know it.

[BigErkyKid]

I think you are in a way wrong and right. Many of the more sociopathic powergamers I know care about immersion.[...]
Many of them will choose power and cheese over immersion though if given an either or.
IF the only way to get lots of power IS to break immersion then they'll do that. (Even though it might be regretable to them.)
IF the only way to get difficulty is to introduce ONE-SHOTTING, then they'll deal with that. (Even though the mechanic is stupid.)
IF reaper is the difficulty given to us to spice it up then we'll do and deal. (Even though we don't want to be playing Ghostbusters Online.)

For me the sad part is that I see a lot of power gamers in DDO more interested in their own competitions than in contributing to the game development.

Powergamers are the best suited to give feedback overall (even tough rookie feedback has a role too) since they are the ones with the spreadsheets and the hundreds of hours of testing. However, I barely see them in lama when classes are balanced. For the most part they take the game as a given, and maximize around that. I have yet to see a known power gamer mention anything lore wise.

PS - As an example of what I think is disservice to the game we have the elite melee players that have moved to fighters and so on claiming that barbs are "fine" and not inferior. This coming from a bunch of players that know that NO ONE plays barbs in elite raiding contexts anymore. And sometimes this is people who freaking TRed OUT of barbs. Seriously, too much fight club. The game suffers because of it.

If reaper is the new difficulty then it solves a difficult problem.
Its not my place to call out how difficult it would be to solve the immersion problem though. Our digital world isn't always ideal.
But thank god my footsteps won't cause mobs to keel over anymore.

You are right that reaper is meant to address that one issue. And in doing so, while minimizing the cost of developing reaper, they have completely given up on a whole bunch of things.

i) lore? abandoned
ii) balance between archetypes? not a thought (melee vs ranged, shiradi vs traditional caster, self healing classes vs others)

Would it have been so difficult to create a lore-coherent template of champions? Brute mobs are more likely to have damage boosts, etc. That way simply by density of those kind of mobs we would have had lore coherent champs overall.

In the same way, reapers could have been balanced around that, and starting from a base mob that is not always a wraith.

Anyway, doesn't really matter, immersion is almost non existent in content for the most part by now.

[Misri_Halek]

http://ddowiki.com/page/Inevitable_race

But ofc, wraiths surely do better. *sigh*