On player consolidation

[mikarddo]

In my opinion DDO has a significant issue with not funneling a high enough concentration of the small(er) playerbase into being ready to play the same content at the same time.

- Players come from different timezones
- Several servers
- Having alts is rather inefficient with the many ways of earning past lives, making playing more than 1 or a few characters much less likely to happen
- Thus players are spread out in level (and need/want to be approximately the same level to play together)
- Many difficulties (hard, elite, reaper 1-10)

Wrt consolidation I think the single most elegant solution would be pretty controversial but fairly effective.
* Make past lives of all kinds as well as reaper xp account shared on all characters *

With such a change I could have a sizeable stable of alts ready to play at just about any level at just about any time without feeling inefficient. Whenever I logged in I could check if friends were online doing something and join them nomatter the level. I could also check the LFM for raids or other interesting groups going on and join - again regardless of level. If nothing was going on I could start something at any level knowing that pretty mucn anyone online would infact be able to join in should they want to - not just the few people within level range. Concerning BtC raid loot I could and would simply use the same "main" character at level 30 running raids where I care about the loot.

I could see myself having 10-15 characters that I would be playing actively. Maybe 2-3 placed at level 30 for high end play with the rest being spread out in levels, classes, races and iconics effectively earning towards reaper xp and/or past lives on my "main(s)" nomatter which one I did play on. Compare with today where I have 1-2 characters - one in the TR hamster wheel earning past lives and one is semi-active at level 29 (should be 30 soon).

I would certainly play more, have more fun doing so, and would expect more chances of someone to group with (friends or pugs) from such a change. I guess monetization could be an issue as it would reduce the value to Ottos boxes and to a degreee xp pots as the need to get back to 30 fast again would be gone/lessened. I am certain that could be figured out though and that the increase of being able to find groups would go a good way towards compensating financially as well as more people would be playing more often. Also, the people who want many past lives fast would still need boxes and pots to do so.

I sincerely believe that such a change would be very beneficial to DDO by making grouping more viable.

[OfElectricMen]

Hi!

I have 28 alts and feel very efficient.

Are you sure this isn't a "you" problem and not a "DDO" problem?

[Memnir]

* Make past lives of all kinds as well as reaper xp account shared on all characters *

No.

[Mofus]

I would rather see them have a way to do cross server lfm's and grouping. That would allow players from all servers to join any lfm and be instanced together for the quest duration. Not sure if this is possible or not, but just a thought.

[Uska]

No.

I agree with you

[Uska]

I would rather see them have a way to do cross server lfm's and grouping. That would allow players from all servers to join any lfm and be instanced together for the quest duration. Not sure if this is possible or not, but just a thought.

I don’t see it being possible there is lots of issues when they do character transfers now

[Matuse]

Players being spread out is an unavoidable consequence of gearing the game towards mass repeated reincarnations.

But sharing past lives is a terrible idea.

[mikarddo]

Players being spread out is an unavoidable consequence of gearing the game towards mass repeated reincarnations.

But sharing past lives is a terrible idea.

I obviously respect that your opinion differs from mine. Seeing I posted the reasons why I think the idea would good - might you post your reasoning why it would not?

[Miahoo]

/Signed

[guises]

When I first started playing I had a mistaken impression of how past life feats worked. I had believed that you could choose one feat out of all of the past life feats that you had available. I think I was confused by the active feats and passive feats or something...

I really liked this though, I liked a lot of how I had believed DDO worked. I thought the idea was that the grind was really short: reaching level cap was shorter than in most MMOs and then you could play at cap or you could reincarnate and try a new character. Reincarnating gave you a small bonus, but not a big deal, and what you gained from having a lot of past lives was versatility rather than power. This meant that new players and old reincarnated players could still play effectively together, and veterans would have the fun of trying lots of new builds as a reason to keep playing, rather than a goal of amassing ever-increasing power...

Obviously, I was very wrong on this. Rather than having a short grind, DDO has the longest grind of any MMO that I've ever played. The need to have tons of past lives in order to meaningfully contribute in a veteran party means that I mostly play alone (that, and the low number of players).

I wish the real DDO was the DDO that I imagined when I first started playing. Power creep has hurt this game in a huge way, made so much worse by the fact that the D20 system was never intended to operate with bonuses this high.

So my first instinct on reading this proposal to make all past lives apply to all characters was that this represented more power creep and was therefore bad. If I view this as a reduction in grind though, you only need to grind PLs on one character instead of many, then it looks much better to me.

On the whole I think this is not a bad idea, but I would prefer what I described above: rather than increasing the past lives available to a character, reduce them down to one which is selectable at character creation.

[Lonnbeimnech]

I obviously respect that your opinion differs from mine. Seeing I posted the reasons why I think the idea would good - might you post your reasoning why it would not?

Friend joins and rolls up a 28 point toon. I want to make a new character to run with him, because if he ran with my main, he (the friend), wouldn't be able to contribute at all and would out level my character because first lifers need half the xp.

[mikarddo]

So my first instinct on reading this proposal to make all past lives apply to all characters was that this represented more power creep and was therefore bad. If I view this as a reduction in grind though, you only need to grind PLs on one character instead of many, then it looks much better to me.

Aye, thats part of the point indeed. Thanks for putting it so clearly.

[mikarddo]

Friend joins and rolls up a 28 point toon. I want to make a new character to run with him, because if he ran with my main, he (the friend), wouldn't be able to contribute at all and would out level my character because first lifers need half the xp.

A very fair point but fortunately one for which the solution isnt hard to come up with. I assumed it but should ofcourse have included it in the OP.

On the character creation screen (new char as well as reincarnation) a check box is added. By default its unchecked meaning each character only has the PL and RXP earned by that char. If checked the character has the cumulative PL and RXP earned by all chars on the account.

This should cover the case you presented as well as anyone who believes that each char should "earn its own" - both of which are definitely valid cases that need to be considered.

[Annex]

Though I am not a group player I very much want the 'I cannot find a group' problem solved. Unfortunately, I have yet to read any really good suggestion on the subject.

In my opinion, making Past Life Feats and Reaper Experience account based would not cause a significant increase in group availability and would drive some of the most active players from the game. It will not increase the number of players on a server. It will not increase the number of group leaders on a server. It will demolish a lot of work by some of the most active players. It will not help new players at all. It will not help players with one character at all. I doubt it will help casual players much.

The Past Life Feat cap suggested by another forum poster would definitely close the power gap in a hurry. Unfortunately, it would also infuriate the most active players and kill sales of Otto's Boxes, effectively sinking the game. That route leads to disaster.

Players are spread too thin. Any solution needs to drive right at the heart of the problem.

[mikarddo]

In my opinion, making Past Life Feats and Reaper Experience account based would not cause a significant increase in group availability and would drive some of the most active players from the game. It will not increase the number of players on a server.

I am curious about both statements in that sentence.

Right now I log in and because I want to advance my main in terms of PL and RXP I have to play that one character. He is currently level 12, which means I want to play level 12 quests on Reaper and nothing else. If there are groups in the LFM panel for anything else I simply wont consider them. Even if I did have alts at other levels they would be way underpowered due to lack of pl and rxp.

Now, if the rxp and pl were shared I could look at the lfm panel through the entire range and decide if I want to join the Baba raid, the R1 Epic Slavers run, the R5 at level Chronoscope raid or simply run level 12 quests. With the sharing of PL and RXP I would both earn something doing these things and have the ability to meaningfully participate as my alts for it would exist at all and have the power needed.

[blerkington]

deleted

[goldgolem]

There are only 2 lfms on Thelanis right now, so I hope they do something!

[Heathir]

Though I am not a group player I very much want the 'I cannot find a group' problem solved. Unfortunately, I have yet to read any really good suggestion on the subject.

In my opinion, making Past Life Feats and Reaper Experience account based would not cause a significant increase in group availability and would drive some of the most active players from the game. It will not increase the number of players on a server. It will not increase the number of group leaders on a server. It will demolish a lot of work by some of the most active players. It will not help new players at all. It will not help players with one character at all. I doubt it will help casual players much.

The Past Life Feat cap suggested by another forum poster would definitely close the power gap in a hurry. Unfortunately, it would also infuriate the most active players and kill sales of Otto's Boxes, effectively sinking the game. That route leads to disaster.

Players are spread too thin. Any solution needs to drive right at the heart of the problem.

You made a statement in that paragraph that has to be one of the nost elitist statements i have ever read. "It will DEMOLISH alot of work by some of the most qctivr players. Based on that statement you are saying that some ofthr most active players arent here to plah the game, but to accumulate more levels than anyone else?

Almost everyMMO is benefittef by as many players as possiblr at any time playing. The level gate in this game is absurdly high, vs the gear gate and difficulty gate isnt as high. I beleove what the 1st poater is recommending is lower thr level gate.

As gor killing ottos. Your wrong. Take a semi casual player. Tell them you only need to grind each pl once and people who would never have considered buying ottos will start considering that investment

[mikarddo]

As gor killing ottos. Your wrong. Take a semi casual player. Tell them you only need to grind each pl once and people who would never have considered buying ottos will start considering that investment

Good point. Some players will consider Otto's boxes less as they wont need them to get alts up to speed. But other players will consider them much more as their effect would apply to more than just the one character. Its hard to predict which effect would be dominant so I will refrain from guessing except to say I doubt it will reduce sales.

[Ryan220]

Restrict us to one PL?

A bit of a kick in the teeth for those people who spent a long time grinding out multiple PLs let alone triple Completionists. So a thumbs down from me.

As for the OP bit about sharing PLs? Im good with this as I already have a PL or two so it will pretty much make each of my alts extremely good - even my mules :-)