Reaper.. not what I anticipated..

[JOTMON]

So..
Reaper at level.. scaled challenges for non-over level and non-capped toons who don't want to run higher level content.
Reaper rewards and enhancement tree for levelling toons...

Not even close to what I thought we were getting..
not the challenge content for capped toons to keep them engaged for endgame focussed players.


Problems I see..

1. Further dividing the TR hardcore players from the general population.

2. More bank space required.. TR reaper gear vs multi-range ideal gear...
TR players tended to run 4-8 levels before swapping out gear items.. Reaper will likely tighten this range.
What is the binding status of Reaper bonus gear.. BTA.. BTC... does it have craftable base potential..

3. Reaper XP does it reset on TR's?
TR lifers wont bother with Reaper if they are recycling TR lives.. instead opting for the zerg levelling elites and dailies which have no over level lockout.

4. lockout issues.. normal/hard/elite doesn't lockout over level players.. but Reaper does.... and we have 10 levels of reaper..
Harmful to pugging... Reaper is going to be selective 1-10... thinning the player groups..

5. Capped players... do I really need to say much here..
We were already bored and annoyed with lack of high level content waiting with their tweaked and optimized endgame toons...
Many of these optimized builds are multi-class tweaked making them unsuitable for levelling reaper content.. so alts for levelling reaper??? or re-roll to suit reaper content..

6. 2 level lockout.. Dev's want to restrict low level farming due to reaper bonuses..
is this the intent.. Get good at level or don't get the reward...
Does the lockout make sense?
Its low level stuff that perhaps these players cant or don't care about running at level.
What does locking out over level players accomplish? relative to the entire player base experience...
The you cant get that loot because you are not reaper good enough..
Why wasn't this implemented for all content, not just Reaper..

[Cantor]

I understand your pain about not being for at cap, but it was never presented that it would be.

There are various opinions on it. I'll enjoy it as is seeing how different things perform at different levels. But I'm not a sit at cap kinda person, I TR a lot. I can see how at cap players feel let down. I suspect most (or all) new content will continue to be at cap with heroic versions. That is where at cap play will continue to grow. Reaper provides something for all players looking for a challenge and I can get behind that. Anyone who hits 30 and itches to TR would get nothing from at cap only.

[Cantor]

2 level lockout.. Dev's want to restrict low level farming due to reaper bonuses..
is this the intent.. Get good at level or don't get the reward...
Does the lockout make sense?
Its low level stuff that perhaps these players cant or don't care about running at level.
What does locking out over level players accomplish? relative to the entire player base experience...
The you cant get that loot because you are not reaper good enough..
Why wasn't this implemented for all content, not just Reaper..

I've played games where running stuff over level reduced drop rates, I'd be behind that in all content. Say the same % as running overlevel exp penalty.

[Vexious]

I've played games where running stuff over level reduced drop rates, I'd be behind that in all content. Say the same % as running overlevel exp penalty.

Personally I'd be fine with something like this. At least there would be more content for end game players to run.

[JOTMON]

I understand your pain about not being for at cap, but it was never presented that it would be.

There are various opinions on it. I'll enjoy it as is seeing how different things perform at different levels. But I'm not a sit at cap kinda person, I TR a lot. I can see how at cap players feel let down. I suspect most (or all) new content will continue to be at cap with heroic versions. That is where at cap play will continue to grow. Reaper provides something for all players looking for a challenge and I can get behind that. Anyone who hits 30 and itches to TR would get nothing from at cap only.

Its just a matter of time.. eventually players will cap out all the TR life benefits..
one of my main toons is already a near triple/triple/triple compeletionists (have a few lives that did nothing for me or I didn't care about so never topped them all out)
a second toon is close behind.. several others have TR lives or are parked for various reasons..

My capped toons are idealy suited for the Legendary current endgame to play as I designed them for their roles..
for some of these toons TR lives were brutal.. especially the multi-class builds.. wouldn't even consider them to run Reaper levelling since their optimal zone is endgame.

We already have a lot of veteran players in the same situation... at some point more players will be done with TR/ITR/ER lives as they cap all the benefit from them, and roll up alts....

When players start hitting that wall of no further benefit from TR's then they become stagnant..

Sure we can roll up alts.. but we wanted our mains to run and challenge the highest level harder content.. that is what we spent years building them to do..

Many of us have rolled up farming toons/openers for certain levels/content.. but these are limited use alts... not our main toons..
At level reaper toons from my perspective is a different breed of toons.. toons designed to be optimal for those levels..


While I will play the reaper once it does hit live in its finished form, I don't anticipate these are going to be desirable for ongoing play.
Seems to me the focus point was wrong.. harder levelling isn't what I was looking for.. I wanted more variety and difficulty at cap level.

[TPICKRELL]

...
3. Reaper XP does it reset on TR's?
TR lifers wont bother with Reaper if they are recycling TR lives.. instead opting for the zerg levelling elites and dailies which have no over level lockout.

...

First a note, Cordovan said on the live stream yesterday that Reaper XP would not expire, and the reaper flagging that you achieved will not reset either. Flagging are things like achieving enough Reaper xp that you are allowed to open the reaper trees, the right to buy with plat the reaper cosmetics, the right to use the reaper vendors.

The cosmetic wings and eyes are unlocked by reaper XP, so the unlock stays. But they are granted by drinking a potion that grants a feat. The feat will be removed by a TR and you will have to purchase the potion again with plat to get the wings feat back.

In general I agree with you, the lockout is a poor decision because it unnecessarily limits content to solve different problem(s). I'd much rather the stuck with the plan they described in the Dev U34 preview video where each level over reduced the reaper xp by 25% or some such scheme.

If they insist on a lockout, I think it should be scaled by quest level and skull level. Something like if you are 3 over the normal level of the quest you have to run 2 skulls at a minimum, OR some progression where the quest isn't entirely locked out but you have to run it at a skull level that would maintain the minimum challenge level they are looking for. Surely a 6 or 7 skull TOR is at least as difficult as a 1 skull tavern brawl.

[CaptainPurge]

Its just a matter of time.. eventually players will cap out all the TR life benefits..
one of my main toons is already a near triple/triple/triple compeletionists (have a few lives that did nothing for me or I didn't care about so never topped them all out)
a second toon is close behind.. several others have TR lives or are parked for various reasons..

My capped toons are idealy suited for the Legendary current endgame to play as I designed them for their roles..
for some of these toons TR lives were brutal.. especially the multi-class builds.. wouldn't even consider them to run Reaper levelling since their optimal zone is endgame.

We already have a lot of veteran players in the same situation... at some point more players will be done with TR/ITR/ER lives as they cap all the benefit from them, and roll up alts....

When players start hitting that wall of no further benefit from TR's then they become stagnant..

Sure we can roll up alts.. but we wanted our mains to run and challenge the highest level harder content.. that is what we spent years building them to do..

Many of us have rolled up farming toons/openers for certain levels/content.. but these are limited use alts... not our main toons..
At level reaper toons from my perspective is a different breed of toons.. toons designed to be optimal for those levels..


While I will play the reaper once it does hit live in its finished form, I don't anticipate these are going to be desirable for ongoing play.
Seems to me the focus point was wrong.. harder levelling isn't what I was looking for.. I wanted more variety and difficulty at cap level.

It's a system years overdue. They f'd up in timing big time. Let's acknowledge this is the failed Reaper pass and move with it. Personally I'm out until Dragonborn, and many of you have said the same.

[Feralthyrtiaq]

Even considering leveling through heroics in Reaper mode dungeons is ridiculous JMO.

Some pre-made toons or lives planned just for Reaper could be fun. Imagine a toon set up with gearing @ level 15 for farming Memoirs of an Illusory Larcener on Reaper for the Panasophic Circlet helm.

Could make a static group just around that one dungeon with capabilities to do other Reaper dungeons as well in that level range.

[JOTMON]

Even considering leveling through heroics in Reaper mode dungeons is ridiculous JMO.

Some pre-made toons or lives planned just for Reaper could be fun. Imagine a toon set up with gearing @ level 15 for farming Memoirs of an Illusory Larcener on Reaper for the Panasophic Circlet helm.

Could make a static group just around that one dungeon with capabilities to do other Reaper dungeons as well in that level range.

This is more of what I would expect to see for heroics..
Custom tweaked toons running a specific set of Reaper content and only that content.
Then wen they cap all the best farmable XP.. speed level non-reaper to TR into something else.

[Hoglum]

Does the lockout make sense?

I believe so. If you look around in game you'll notice people have a fairly strong tendency to "farm" for rewards in the easiest way possible. I've seen lv 30 characters running Heroic Shroud just to rack up green steel.

The norm in game is to run 2 levels over base to max out xp & favor in the easiest way possible. Many people have run through dungeons the fastest, most efficient way to pile up past lives. I saw one person who said he/she never set foot in EE until he/she was an epic completionist then turn around and say EE wasn't all that hard.

Now, Reaper has rewards that look like they'll contribute significant power to characters. I don't think the devs want to see the same grind grind grind for the power then overwhelm the content once the power is achieved. The purpose of the lockout seems to be to force people to earn the power through challenge rather than grind farming, which I agree with.

Many people will run a quest on easy mode 100 times to get what they want & if Reaper allows overleveled, overpowered folks the chance at the rewards then the whole purpose is defeated.

It sounds like the devs have already allowed 6 levels over content which would indicate, like Chai is so fond of saying, that Reaper is being defeated on the forums rather than in game.

Concerning end-game, Reaper was never advertised as such but Reaper will certainly be on max level dungeons. I think most people who play a lot are feeling content starved but luckily they seem to be putting resources into content now so there's hope. Sev posted a list of dungeons that max level characters can enter and it doesn't look too bad to me for a start. We can all collectively sit tight on that one.

[JOTMON]

I believe so. If you look around in game you'll notice people have a fairly strong tendency to "farm" for rewards in the easiest way possible. I've seen lv 30 characters running Heroic Shroud just to rack up green steel.

The norm in game is to run 2 levels over base to max out xp & favor in the easiest way possible. Many people have run through dungeons the fastest, most efficient way to pile up past lives. I saw one person who said he/she never set foot in EE until he/she was an epic completionist then turn around and say EE wasn't all that hard.

Now, Reaper has rewards that look like they'll contribute significant power to characters. I don't think the devs want to see the same grind grind grind for the power then overwhelm the content once the power is achieved. The purpose of the lockout seems to be to force people to earn the power through challenge rather than grind farming, which I agree with.

Many people will run a quest on easy mode 100 times to get what they want & if Reaper allows overleveled, overpowered folks the chance at the rewards then the whole purpose is defeated.

It sounds like the devs have already allowed 6 levels over content which would indicate, like Chai is so fond of saying, that Reaper is being defeated on the forums rather than in game.

Concerning end-game, Reaper was never advertised as such but Reaper will certainly be on max level dungeons. I think most people who play a lot are feeling content starved but luckily they seem to be putting resources into content now so there's hope. Sev posted a list of dungeons that max level characters can enter and it doesn't look too bad to me for a start. We can all collectively sit tight on that one.

So why not over level lockout on all content, not just Reaper.
This would force players to stay at level longer.

[Qhualor]

So why not over level lockout on all content, not just Reaper.
This would force players to stay at level longer.

Because it's better to put the restriction in now than to wait years later. Look at what happened when it was announced for Reaper before it went live.

[Hoglum]

So why not over level lockout on all content, not just Reaper.
This would force players to stay at level longer.

Heck I'd support that but I doubt the devs could stomach the storm they'd face telling people they can't enter shroud over lv19. Sounds like they already have their hands full as we speak.

[RydeaNikkna]

I honestly thought reaper was going to be capped toon content. Many uber leetz capped toons are horrendous while leveling in heroic content and require a (static?) group to pull them to epics. So I can't see them wanting an extra challenge from 1-15. I mean how many options do you really have to make an uber leet level 4 caster? "I cast magic missile, look I'm helping, please don't let me die...."

I was expecting Haverdasher to be scaled to a lvl 30 quest with all the new extra reaper debuffs/mobs, Von3 to be scaled to lvl 40, and slavers to be an insane lvl 60 quest. With the hopes they would actually scale the range to 30 - 40+-ish, and put in the same kind of logic as the epic quest, i.e. can't be entered until level x. (20, 28, 30? whatever seems right)

I honestly do not know if it is even possible to set parameters on a dungeon to scale it all the way to 30+, I just kind of assumed that is what they did from casual to elite. I suppose the dungeons could be hand crafted for each level of difficulty. If each difficulty is hand crafted, I understand why they choose to add debuffs/mobs to the current elite version, and let the new stuff scale by skull.

I am looking forward to the update, it might be fun to try a few reaper quests along the way, but it won't be an every day kind of thing while leveling. I would like to put in a suggestion for the next go around to be the scaling of the dungeons to uber leetz capped toon level 30+. This would give the capped toons more to do, and give the TR crowd reason to pause at 30 and play with the capped crowd.

[kemetka]

I honestly thought reaper was going to be capped toon content. Many uber leetz capped toons are horrendous while leveling in heroic content and require a (static?) group to pull them to epics. So I can't see them wanting an extra challenge from 1-15. I mean how many options do you really have to make an uber leet level 4 caster? "I cast magic missile, look I'm helping, please don't let me die...."

I was expecting Haverdasher to be scaled to a lvl 30 quest with all the new extra reaper debuffs/mobs, Von3 to be scaled to lvl 40, and slavers to be an insane lvl 60 quest. With the hopes they would actually scale the range to 30 - 40+-ish, and put in the same kind of logic as the epic quest, i.e. can't be entered until level x. (20, 28, 30? whatever seems right)

I honestly do not know if it is even possible to set parameters on a dungeon to scale it all the way to 30+, I just kind of assumed that is what they did from casual to elite. I suppose the dungeons could be hand crafted for each level of difficulty. If each difficulty is hand crafted, I understand why they choose to add debuffs/mobs to the current elite version, and let the new stuff scale by skull.

I am looking forward to the update, it might be fun to try a few reaper quests along the way, but it won't be an every day kind of thing while leveling. I would like to put in a suggestion for the next go around to be the scaling of the dungeons to uber leetz capped toon level 30+. This would give the capped toons more to do, and give the TR crowd reason to pause at 30 and play with the capped crowd.

paragraph 1 : rogues have the best spell DCs in the game but people overlook that, this starts at level 4
paragraph 2 : they stated from the initial confirmed announcement it was going to be a new difficulty system, and not end level content.
paragraph 3 : yes they can, look at devil's assault

as an aside, your "uber leetz capped toons" that have a terrible time leveling through heroics are probably using corss class synergy gimmics like the shiradi zombie. any pure 20 class can perform well in end game content, its the player that has the potential to fail to meet the challenge.

reaper will be the new elite, with only a small amount of the population routinely running 5 skull - at least in the beginning.
I had no difficulty soloing heroics in reaper - once it was available - at 3 skulls. 5 skull reaper started to get my attention as being marginally difficult, but mostly time consuming, at least in solo play. but everyone's experience is different.