Reaper XP

[TPICKRELL]

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Will reincarnate when Iconic Dragonborm appears, likely into a Sorcerer for variety.
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FYI, I asked about Dragonborn Iconic during the livestream a couple of weeks ago. Cordovan said that at the moment it didn't look like there was going to be a Dragonborn iconic, at least not in U35.

I'm a bit disappointed, as I have been waiting for the iconic before TRing my main so that he could get the iconic past life while working on reaper xp.

[SirShen]

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Now this i understand.

Greetings!

You've shown some deep misunderstanding how Reaper XP is currently calculated on live servers, so I wanted to post some details about how YOU award it.

Reaper Experience starts with a base formula as follows:

50 + (3 * ELITE challenge rating of the Dungeon/Raid * Number of Reaper Skulls)

This total is then modified by a whole slew of experience related adjustments as follows:

..

2.) We take the level of the highest party member and compare it to the BASE challenge rating, UNLIKE normal XP. This creates a “spread” between the difficulty of the dungeon and the highest party member. Note this uses the increased challenge rating based on NORMAL (and players hate it). As an example, a level 11 dungeon on Reaper has an effective level of 13; unfortunately we use the 11 because math is hard.

A level 20+ character SIMPLY CANNOT ENTER any heroic dungeon on reaper. Therefore any discussion about this subject can be safely pruned from the OP. Also it is a good idea not to mention the dungeon level 20, because DDO has both heroic and epic quests at this level.

Once the spread is determined we apply the following penalty:

• If there is a 1 level difference: -20% of base XP.
• If there is a 2 level difference: -50% of base XP.
• If there is a 3 level difference: -70% of base XP
• If there is a 4 level difference: -80% of base XP
• If there is a 5 level difference: -90% of base XP.
• If there is a 6 level difference: -95% of base XP.

Note that this IS a multiplier to all XP, AND NOT a penalty to total XP based on the base XP. It works DIFFERENTLY THAN the normal XP penalty.


EXAMPLE:
Ringleader (lvl 2 dungeon on normal)
LVL 2 characters get full exp on reaper
LVL 3 characters get -20% = 0.8 * base * (100+bonuses)
LVL 4 characters get -50% = 0.5 * base * (100+bonuses)
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[EllisDee37]

Totally no bashing in this post...

The over level penalty described herein works like the normal XP overlevel penalty and is based on modified level of the dungeon.

Correct. It uses the Elite level for determining the Reaper XP Penalty incurred by being over-level compared to the Elite level of the quest. For quest entry lockout/access, it uses the Normal level of the quest.

Both of you clearly thought this was how it works. That means you aren't philosophically opposed to it working this way. In other words, you would consider letting it work this way, since at the point you both made these posts, that's how you thought it worked.

Players are correct, over-level uses base XP. Modified the OP.

This is the way it actually works, but the player base almost unanimously agrees that it would be better the other way. The downsides to this current implementation are that it's confusing, contradictory, and it makes grouping more difficult. I urge you to consider changing it to the way you thought it worked.

If nothing else, just consider a level 10 running Stormcleave Outpost on reaper 1 right now. The xp report in-game actually says:

Quest is level 10, highest player is level 10

It actually says this. But this player then gets a 50% "overlevel" penalty, for being a level 10 player running a level 10 quest according to the game itself.

The way it is now is confusing, contradictory, and bad for grouping. Please, please, please change it to the way you thought it worked yesterday.

[mikarddo]

Players are correct, over-level uses base XP. Modified the OP.

(My bad, you can bash me as I gave the bad info to Cordovan. Shouldn't be multi-tasking when creating player facing posts.)

Sev~

Thats too bad. As many have posted making it fit the normal Bravery Bonus range in heroics would be so much more friendly towards making groups happen for many reasons.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

Thats too bad. As many have posted making it fit the normal Bravery Bonus range in heroics would be so much more friendly towards making groups happen for many reasons.

+1

[Nyata]

Thats too bad. As many have posted making it fit the normal Bravery Bonus range in heroics would be so much more friendly towards making groups happen for many reasons.

I can't help but agree with that. or maybe at least make the penalty a lot less steep for the first two levels.

[Kza]

Thats too bad. As many have posted making it fit the normal Bravery Bonus range in heroics would be so much more friendly towards making groups happen for many reasons.

Agreed, +1

[Kerthyn]

Thats too bad. As many have posted making it fit the normal Bravery Bonus range in heroics would be so much more friendly towards making groups happen for many reasons.

+1

[Horst-of-the-Wood]

The xp report in-game actually says:

Quest is level 10, highest player is level 10

It actually says this. But this player then gets a 50% "overlevel" penalty, for being a level 10 player running a level 10 quest according to the game itself.

The way it is now is confusing, contradictory, and bad for grouping. Please, please, please change it to the way you thought it worked yesterday.

+1

I'm one of those players who like to group up and therefore depending on lfms. I dont want to play single player on a MMO. Also I like variety and try to play each quest once each life. I bought alot of content with the goal not having to rerun quests - which is working well with Bravery. After each login first thing I do is to check lfms. Today I've seen many lfms 2 levels under BB - so they wont get the -50% rxp penalty. When trying to join them they say "We would loose rxp". Its even harder now than before to find groups on level (based on old BB System). And it wasn't for the best before... So I put my own lfm up for Reaper, but ~30min passed by without anyone joining, maybe because of the -50% rxp.

Finally for something positive: I do like the new reaper alot. It brought back group play and an excitement to the leveling process I've missed for years, doesn't feel like a boring grind anymore. THANKS for that, also thank you for your time reading this.

[SgtSarros]

Thats too bad. As many have posted making it fit the normal Bravery Bonus range in heroics would be so much more friendly towards making groups happen for many reasons.

As much as I hate +1ing posts.. I do have to here >.> It would be a little easier to understand as well if the systems were at least somewhat similar, particular for newer players that may be coming to explore this game one day.


I will also state I do not blame Sev for errors he made while reading the code. In the end when you code anything that has 100,000's of lines of code, to see how each and every thing exactly works is impossible. You need to read the comments coders are expected to put i explaining how each section works, and then additional notes for features added.

The issue is, I've seen this myself, when snippets or code are removed, it's very rare comments are edited to explain certain pieces are no longer there. So it's not all that uncommon to see a section of the code say it does A B C D E F and G... but then when you actually READ the code find out only A D and E remain.


And of course, going through each and every part of code to make sure the comments are correct would take weeks, if not more. In the end, best thing to do would be to include in every production plan for changes to a section of code would be to verify the comments in that section are right as you work. Still time consuming, and wo't fix areas that haven't been touched in 3+ years, but it can reduce situations like this happening again.

[Drwaz99]

Thats too bad. As many have posted making it fit the normal Bravery Bonus range in heroics would be so much more friendly towards making groups happen for many reasons.

Make it so!

Also, from now on, lets try to (in the Valentine's Day spirit) "K.I.S.S" more. It's almost like you went out of your way to make this the most confusing and convoluted system yet (and in this game, that says something)!

[Silverleafeon]

Totally no bashing in this post...


Both of you clearly thought this was how it works. That means you aren't philosophically opposed to it working this way. In other words, you would consider letting it work this way, since at the point you both made these posts, that's how you thought it worked.
.....ect, etc, etc,,.

+1 ~ and great points!

[Jasparion]

My head hurts. So if I want to run a Base Level 12 quest and get full Reaper XP, I will run it at:
Level 12
Level 13
Level 14
?

[zehnvhex]

My head hurts. So if I want to run a Base Level 12 quest and get full Reaper XP, I will run it at:
Level 12
Level 13
Level 14
?

If base quest level is 12 and elite is 14

- The way it is working now is you have to be 12 to get full xp
- The way Cordo/Sev BELIEVE it is working is that you can be 14 and get full xp

That's why you're getting a headache. The devs don't realize that on live it's not working the way they're describing to us here.

It's kinda like back in old school EverQuest where it took years for the developers to finally admit that Alchemy was not in fact working. They never bothered to test anything on the live servers. They simply never played on them. They'd make builds internally and on their internal builds it worked but on the live builds it did not.

Same thing going on here I imagine. The private developer build has it working properly and they just assume it's working that way on live as well.

It makes sense too because Cordovan was telling us in another thread that you can get decent reaper XP at level cap. That might be true on their internal dev build but on live you have to TR if you want to farm RxP at an efficient pace. A good group can clear 30~50k+ reaper XP a day (if not more) on a TR train. That same group at level cap might be able to get 7k or so tops.

[Cantor]

Please make it work the way you originally outlined here. I was really psyched to read the way it should be working, don't just call it wai the way it is.

[Jasparion]

If base quest level is 12 and elite is 14

- The way it is working now is you have to be 12 to get full xp
- The way Cordo/Sev BELIEVE it is working is that you can be 14 and get full xp

That's why you're getting a headache. The devs don't realize that on live it's not working the way they're describing to us here.

It's kinda like back in old school EverQuest where it took years for the developers to finally admit that Alchemy was not in fact working. They never bothered to test anything on the live servers. They simply never played on them. They'd make builds internally and on their internal builds it worked but on the live builds it did not.

Same thing going on here I imagine. The private developer build has it working properly and they just assume it's working that way on live as well.

It makes sense too because Cordovan was telling us in another thread that you can get decent reaper XP at level cap. That might be true on their internal dev build but on live you have to TR if you want to farm RxP at an efficient pace. A good group can clear 30~50k+ reaper XP a day (if not more) on a TR train. That same group at level cap might be able to get 7k or so tops.

Thanks. So when we decided to run at Level +1 thinking we would be safe, we have in fact been costing ourselves 20% Reaper XP every dungeon...

I think we will stick at Level +1 just because it is that little bit easier to complete. We are already taking a fair bit longer to do them than when we steamroll on Elite. If we run Reaper at level we will never get to level 30.

Cheers.

BTW: 30k to 50k a day? We get about 1k Reaper XP an evening, playing for about 90 minutes to 2 hours. Though we are only doing Reaper+1 because we hadnt built toons around doing Reaper content so found higher levels VERY slow.

[zehnvhex]

There's also a bit of confusion there too. Right now the overlevel penalty is penalizing your total reaper xp instead of the base.

For example (using made up numbers for easy math) with normal exp if you get conquest but are ransacked

Base quest exp = 1000
Conquest bonus = +25% of base
Ransack penalty = -20% of base

You get 1050 exp (1000 + 250 - 200)

With reaper exp if you get conquest but have 1 level overlevel

Base reaper exp = 1000
Conquest bonus = +25% of base
Reaper penalty = -20% of total

You'd get 1000 reaper exp ((1000+250)*.8))

So basically right now we're getting less exp across the board then we are supposed to and they are cutting up the player base into even smaller groups now then before.

[Krell]

Thats too bad. As many have posted making it fit the normal Bravery Bonus range in heroics would be so much more friendly towards making groups happen for many reasons.

Agreed. All calculations should assume the equivalent of elite level. Also spread out the multiplier more for short versus very long quests. Very long quests on Reaper become super long quests that require a solid time commit and can be harder to fill groups for. Make sure the rewards compensate proportionally.

[kmoustakas]

They complicated it so much not even they have a clue what is going on :/

Maybe we can add another xp system on top of bravery, epic, destiny, reaper to complicate it even further just for the laughs?

[Jasparion]

Agreed. All calculations should assume the equivalent of elite level. Also spread out the multiplier more for short versus very long quests. Very long quests on Reaper become super long quests that require a solid time commit and can be harder to fill groups for. Make sure the rewards compensate proportionally.

Agreed. The difference between a 2 minute dungeon and a 45 minute dungeon should not be 0.9 to 1.2. It should be 0.8 to 1.4 or even more.