The Endgame, Raid Loot, and Tomes

[Lynnabel]

Hello, all! I’m here today to talk to you about the Endgame. Yes, the big E Endgame. This is going to be a lengthy post, so I’m going to preface it with a quick “tl;dr” (too long, didn’t read) to keep in mind while proceeding:

TL;DR: Raid loot min levels are going down, raid loot stats from older raids are going up. No raid loot stats go down regardless of tiers. Raid runes for all at-cap raids, distinct tiers between those raids, tome drops standardized to Ravenloft levels for each tier of raiding.

TL;DR the longer version:

We’re going to shift all level 28 and 29 raid loot into designated “tiers” for raiding by pushing their minimum levels down, and we’re going to bring their stats up for certain raids to match appropriate values. Players with current legendary raid loot will be able to turn their old raid loot into new versions with a new raiding currency - Legendary Souls. We are also going to implement Raid Runes for each raid at cap that doesn’t have them already. Finally, we are going to clean up which tomes drop from which raid, as well as bring Tome drop rates up to match Ravenloft raid levels. We are doing this to improve previous raids and provide a structure for the future, as well as to provide an incentive to run a variety of endgame content on multiple characters.

So, with that out of the way, let’s start at the beginning.

WHY?

Right now, there are 11 raids at the level cap. This is more than there has ever been! However, it has been a challenge to keep the rewards from older cap-level raids desirable while adding new cap-level raids into the mix. Recently, we’ve been working to update older gear in quests, but tackling raid items is a massive task, so we’re looking at a broader solution for the long run. After a lot of careful deliberation, we are ready to make changes to ensure players who prefer to stay at the level cap have something to explore and work toward with their their high-power and high-level characters.

Currently, if you’d like to gear appropriately for your level in epic level content, there are not a lot of options until level 28, and then level 29 has way too many items to choose from. Frankly, there isn’t enough room at level 29 for gear choices to shine, and we want to fix that sooner rather than later.

We want people to have an incentive to raid at level cap. This is something we haven’t always prioritized, but we want to make sure this design space stays relevant long into the future. Not only have you talked about this a lot on the forums, but we’ve been talking internally about it for quite some time as well.

With that out of the way, let’s dive in to what this overhaul actually entails:

GOALS

This is what we hope to accomplish:

• Create a clear and intuitive delineation between Raids at level cap based on several factors, such as:
  
  • The Minimum Level of the gear found in those Raids
  • The Tomes found in those Raids
  • The power level of the Raid Loot found in those Raids
• Establish an easier way to communicate Raid Loot balance in the future
• Incentivize a reason to run as many raids at cap as you want
• Help support players who want to maintain “alts” at the end game.
• Introduce a new legendary raid currency that we can support going forward
• Provide design space to move forward in future content without overlapping what we’ve already introduced

WHAT’S HAPPENING?

Well, a lot, but it all fits together. First thing’s first, let’s clean up something that’s relatively independent of the other changes:

All at-cap raids that previously did NOT have Raid Runes will now have Raid Runes as a reward instead of their 20th reward list. This includes the following raids:

• The Mark of Death
• Temple of the Deathwyrm
• Fire on Thunder Peak
• Defiler of the Just

Additionally, Temple of the Deathwyrm and Fire on Thunder Peak will include Thunderforged Crafting materials - such as Fire or Shadow Dragon Phlogistons - in addition to their selection of Raid Loot, and The Mark of Death will include appropriate amounts of Masterwork Tapestry Shreds. Killing Time's Raid Rune selection will also now include Schism Shards.

We are splitting up the current 11 raids into 3 “Tiers,” each containing several raids. These Tiers will be distinct from one another in several ways, which we will cover in more detail shortly.

We are going to be boosting the power level of raid loot at cap. Items will either be boosted significantly, drop several minimum levels, or (most commonly) both. Items in Tier 1 will be weaker than items in Tier 2 or 3, but will have a lower minimum level. These higher power, lower level versions of the raid loot will drop where their originals did, at the same rate as before. If you have old versions of these items, you can turn them into their newer, higher power and lower level versions, with a new ingredient called Legendary Souls that we’ll cover further in a bit.

We are going to standardize Tomes and Tome Drops between each of the raids. You can expect Tome rates to increase to Ravenloft raid levels. Furthermore, Tier 3 Raids will drop +1 Racial Action Point Tomes, identical in functionality to the tomes found in the Ultimate Fan Bundle of the Ravenloft expansion.

TIERING THE RAIDS

Raids at cap will now be divided into Tiers. Each Tier will contain gear that is more appropriately scaled to the other raids in that Tier, and each Tier will encompass an entire epic level. Tomes will now drop at Ravenloft raid drop rates according to which Tier the raid is in.



This chart looks a little complex, so...

The Dirty Details:

Legendary Greensteel is not changing as part of this. LGS items are currently level 26, and will remain level 26. In fact, none of Legendary Shroud is changing, except for the tome drops, and those tome drop rates being brought up to Ravenloft standards. We are not pushing the raid down to Tier 1 because it uses Legendary Raid Bypass Timers rather than Raid Bypass Timers, and we’d like to keep a clear distinction between the two tiers.

Thunderforged Crafting will remain entirely unchanged as part of this overhaul. The Named Raid Loot that drops out of the Thunderforged Raids - Fire on Thunder Peak and The Temple of the Deathwyrm - are what’s being changed.

Legendary Tempest’s Spine and Legendary Hound of Xoriat will not have their Tome Drops adjusted.

Tier 1

Tier 1 contains the at-cap non-Legendary Raids that do not use Legendary Raid Timer Bypasses, and as part of this overhaul, these raids will have their named Raid Loot significantly boosted to compete with other Raids’ gear. Our intention is to bring these raid items close or equal to the power level of gear from Against the Slave Lords at level 26. These overhauled items will drop where the old items did, at the same rate that they did before. If you have old versions of these Raid Items, you will be able to exchange them for new ones with Legendary Souls. These Legendary Souls will drop from all at-cap raids, and I’ll go into more detail on those later in this post.

Tier 1 will contain +6 Ability Tomes and +5 to +6 Upgrade Tomes at the frequency that the current Ravenloft raids drop tomes.

Tier 2

Tier 2 contains the pre-Ravenloft Legendary Raids. You can expect the Raid Loot in this tier to be the approximately midway in stats between Slavers and Ravenloft, only available at level 27. Items in this Tier will be boosted to compete with each other, be better than the previous tier, and drop where the old items did at the same rate they did before. If you have old versions of these Raid Items, you will be able to exchange them for new ones with Legendary Souls.

Tier 2 will contain +7 Ability Tomes and +6 to +7 Upgrade Tomes at the frequency the current Ravenloft raids drop tomes.

TIER 3

Tier 3 contains the Ravenloft Raids - The Curse of Strahd and Old Baba’s Hut - as well as Killing Time, the raid that debuted in Update 40. These items are not changing in stats or effects, but will be available one level earlier than they were before, at level 28. Level 28 versions of these items will now drop where the old ones did at the same rate that they did before. If you have old versions of these Raid Items that are still level 29, you will be able to exchange them for new ones with Legendary Souls.

Tier 3 will contain +8 Ability Tomes and +7 to +8 Upgrade Tomes at their current rates, as well the +1 Racial Action Point tome.

LEGENDARY SOULS

Similar to Commendations of Heroism and Greater Tokens of the Twelve, we’re introducing a new Endgame Raid Currency in the form of Legendary Souls. Right now, their main use is to turn old at-cap raid gear into new and improved versions. In the future, they will be used for a variety of things, such as upgrading future raid gear or acquiring raid-level items.

You can find Legendary Souls in the end chests of at-cap raids, regardless of Tier. You can also transmute them out of Raid Runes, the ratio of which will be determined by the relative difficulty and the tier of the raid.

We see Legendary Souls as a good and clean jumping off point for future Legendary content, and we hope to incentivize players to run a variety of raids at cap rather than just the few they specifically want gear from. If a player does not need gear from a specific raid, being able to get something regardless is a good step to encourage raiders at cap to run a variety of content.

We recognize that right now the rewards for enfranchised at-cap players might not completely satisfy their wishes for something to work towards, but once the framework is in place we can add more uses for Souls to encourage endgame raiders to try and collect this currency, which in turn incentivizes raid diversity at cap. Legendary Souls will be Bound to Account on Acquire.

SUMMARY

We hope this overhaul improves the gameplay environment at level cap, and encourages players to raid as often as they would like and with a wide number of raids. We also hope this provides further reasons to maintain your alts and gear them up. We know this is a lot of change in a short amount of time, so we’re hopeful that you join us as we preview this new system on Lamannia in addition to providing your feedback in this thread.

We hope these changes set the stage for long-term enjoyment of the endgame. It’s a tough task to make sure the loot in older raids remain competitive as new raids are introduced, but it’s one we think is made easier through these clear changes in this update. DDO thrives on letting its players run what they want, and we think these changes allow us to fill out new content at cap, regardless of tier, without pushing players away from older raids.

Thank you for reading, and we look forward to your feedback!

[Hoglum]

You should throw in some of this stuff as quest series end rewards too. This would allow players alternative ways to acquire nice loot.

Edit: Saga's too.

[Lord_Lambent]

Changes sound good. Looking forward to seeing further details about the implementation.

[Tilomere]

Thunderforged Crafting will remain entirely unchanged as part of this overhaul.

We hope this overhaul improves the gameplay environment at level cap, and encourages players to raid as often as they would like and with a wide number of raids.

Can phlogs be made BTA instead of BTC? LGS weapons are stronger than TF T3, and can be wholly farmed up by a different character on your account.

[HastyPudding]

I like it. Although, I'm not quite sure what more incentive you could possibly have for 'endgame'. At least 85% of the game is built around reincarnation (the journey, not the destination). This has been discussed to death, though, so I probably won't have anything new to add. At least we'll be able to get that shiny loot at level 28, now.

Also, this falls in perfectly with my plans to get people to run Defiler more often because I want that the countenance cloak to fuel my cosmetics obsession!

You should throw in some of this stuff as quest series end rewards too. This would allow players alternative ways to acquire nice loot.

Agreed. For the last few updates, the chain end rewards have been worse than the regular quest turn in rewards.

[Epicstorms]

Sounds great!

[MasterKernel]

Why skip the heroic raids ? Please, change those as well.

[Gywiden]

Nice! This might get me end-game raiding. Right now I only run ADQ and Chronoscope because you can short-man them. I hope this breathes some life into the end game.

[droid327]

I know its outside the stated scope of these changes but since you're looking at raiding...

Any chance we might get alternate pathways for non-cap raid loot? Since raiding is pretty much an endgamer...er, game...

Specifically I'm wondering about CoH (and CitW weapons could be included as well). Right now those raids are way underlevel and kinda deprecated, but they still have some relevant uses. I think the common wisdom is you can solo them with a powercreeped L30 char to farm CoH, which seems to defeat the purpose of having them be raid loot. Any chance that CoH might be added in with something like an exchange for CoV or Remnants?

[cru121]

When is this gonna happen? U41 tentatively?

[HuneyMunster]

Can phlogs be made BTA instead of BTC? LGS weapons are stronger than TF T3, and can be wholly farmed up by a different character on your account.

I would like to see this too.

[apep1412]

Will the raid item upgrades upgrade the item in-place or be a delete-and-replace system? Losing mythic and reaper bonuses is my main concern, but there's also the issue of having to unslot augments, filigrees, and sentient jewels. I assume in a delete-and-replace system, it would have a similar fail-safe as the schism upgrades, where you can't accidentally upgrade a sentient item, losing the jewel and filigrees.

[NXPlasmid]

this is a great change, but you should also consider increasing the drop rate of LGS ingredients, or lowering the recipe costs. There is no way to craft any LGS stuff now because the legendary shroud isn't really run anymore. If things didn't require 20 raids worth of ingredients, it might make that effort seem a bit more reasonable and get some interest in running it.

[Jetrule]

Do you have any hard numbers on the drop rate of legendary souls and how many it will take to upgrade a item? Also what is the time line like for the roll out?

[Thar]

Good changes,

but for those of us 1-3 completions from a 20th, how long do we have to get these done before the system changes and we lose the 20th list?? Would ravenloft quest items change to 28 too?

[Arkat]

Can phlogs be made BTA instead of BTC? LGS weapons are stronger than TF T3, and can be wholly farmed up by a different character on your account.

This.

[TitusOvid]

That looks promising. I am very pleased. This looks like a huge step in the right direction.

I got 4 questions for details.

1) What is happening with the raid completions for people who are close to their 20th list?

2) What is your time table for this? Will changes be gradualy or will it be all in one?

3) Will you take LGS and Slavelord loot into consideration for this changes? Since those are the big farming quests beside the raids.

4) Will the effects on the items stay the same? Or will they get adjusted like CC loot?

Thank you for answers in advance.

Take care,
Titus

[janave]

Two things to make this the best update ever,

1) please dont make the souls rare.
2) i would suggest to make Riding the Storm Out into a T3 raid instead ( ideally this is a lot more business at level cap, i feel that this raid reaaaally needs that extra incentive, not a bad raid at all, but most players skipped on it due to the length and weirdnes )

See you guys this is how to earn those


T
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Notes

More coming if you make this right.

[lyrecono]

indeed a long post, here's some questions;

1) will the raids themselves be scaled down to the same level as it's loot?

2) currently, hut/stradh runes drop different numbers depending on the difficulty, is that gone change?
because 20 completions now or 20 on normal, 15 on hard, 10 on elite and R1-R10, meaning the "r1 is easier then elite" crowd will coast through content even faster and will less of a reason to stay at cap and participate in the group effort. wouldn't it be healthier for endgame to make all the reward lists "20 completions", just like removing the raid timer mechanic?

3) Will the codex runes and ingredients (from leg. shroud) drop more often or allowed to be moved to other players in the chest? building a 5 piece set on multiple characters was pretty insane back in the day this gear was relevant.
Especially since you can't stick a sentient gem on a greensteel weapon.

4) Will loot be made whole again? getting essential gear set ups to work is a nightmare now basic stuff like saves (6 pieces of gear for all 3 saves), stats (2 to 4 pieces) and defenses (mrr&prr can have 3 each) have been split up.
I still know people who prefer slavelords gear for this reason over any of the new gear. things like saves, defense, fortification and main stats aren't things we can skip over in the front line.
This is why it surprises me when you say that tier 2 gear will be brought between slavelords and ravenloft gear, while slavelords gear is superior in many cases to ravenloft gear because the essential stats are covered in less item slots then it would have taken ravenloft gear, sure the stats are little lower but the difference between 45 prr&mrr and 50 prr(and no mrr) is huge for different reasons. especially since slavelords gear is far more versatile when it comes to location on the person.

5) The only draw to the 130 buck ultimate fan bundle was the 1 racial enh point tome (the rest was garbage), otherwise many would have bought a cheaper version, if they got over the Stockholm syndrome. Knowing that that main draw is now dropping in raids, what use is there in buying future ultimate fan bundles? unless these stack with the Ravenloft one.

6) wasn't there an other way to do this then to create another collectible? ddo has quite the list by now, in case no dev had ever noticed.

7) A few of these raids are horridly made (as even one of the devs mentioned), are you revisiting either drop rate, mechanics or boss stats now that you are changing the power of the items that come from them?
I mean, what draw does a doj, mod, Rots, etc have?

[GotSomeQuestions]

These are some great changes. I'm really excited for an active end game raiding scene.