If you put a new body on an old car, it's still an old car. ( difficulty settings)

[Captain_Wizbang]

SSG is moving the game forward. Lots of great changes in a lot of systems and game mechanics. Except one of the biggest areas not being addressed. Difficulty settings.

It's time to address this, the system in place is stagnant and redundant. People are running and handily completing R10 in quests that should be handing their arse to them on a silver platter.

Get rid of the enhancement trees in reaper. Replace with a single universal tree.

Make a sliding scale for champions, and add even more custom champions tailored to the quest/area being run.

Add a stealth mode. Bring back the single body pull tactic to allow stealth players to play as the builds are intended.

Reconfigure the Bravery Bonus. And tie it into the difficulty more than it is now. Reward the people running R10 and casual the same relative payout.

Why hasn't any of this been addressed?

[lyrecono]

SSG is moving the game forward. Lots of great changes in a lot of systems and game mechanics. Except one of the biggest areas not being addressed. Difficulty settings.

It's time to address this, the system in place is stagnant and redundant. People are running and handily completing R10 in quests that should be handing their arse to them on a silver platter.

Get rid of the enhancement trees in reaper. Replace with a single universal tree.
delete all trees, don't introduce a uneversal one.
Reaper trees weren't needed, reaper mode was suppose to be a challenge, let it stay one, instead of a veiled attemp to sell exp pots

Make a sliding scale for champions, and add even more custom champions tailored to the quest/area being run.
put in a checkbox to remove chump, i mean champions from h& e

Add a stealth mode. Bring back the single body pull tactic to allow stealth players to play as the builds are intended.
with you all the way

Reconfigure the Bravery Bonus. And tie it into the difficulty more than it is now. Reward the people running R10 and casual the same relative payout.
no, exploit builds and early abusers of broken content shouldn't be rewarded even more for exploiting their way to a 100+ reaper points

Why hasn't any of this been addressed?

Why it hasn't been adressed? Because you have been sleeping on the forum, many have adressed this, me included, months after getting ignored by devs, we gave up on the forum, more gave up in game.
It's business as usual for turbine/ssg, it's a money making scheme that works and hasn't backfired yet, no external negative feedback, so they see no reason to change.

[HungarianRhapsody]

What happens if you put a new axe handle on an old car?

[Captain_Wizbang]

What happens if you put a new axe handle on an old car?

Thanks for participating. Some things never change on these forums.

Lyrenco. being away from here and the game made me "miss" threads about certain subject matter. It's a shame SSG hasnt answered anyone's call for a change.
EVEN if the answer was no or not now.

SSG being humble and saying you don't have the resources and/or funds to address this would not offend anyone here. In fact it would behoove you to do so.

You are NOT the old Turbine "hide your head in the sand". But it seems that some of that old stigma is still lingering?

[lyrecono]

Thanks for participating. Some things never change on these forums.

Lyrenco. being away from here and the game made me "miss" threads about certain subject matter. It's a shame SSG hasnt answered anyone's call for a change.
EVEN if the answer was no or not now.

SSG being humble and saying you don't have the resources and/or funds to address this would not offend anyone here. In fact it would behoove you to do so.

You are NOT the old Turbine "hide your head in the sand". But it seems that some of that old stigma is still lingering?

Then welcome back, i'm sorry for sounding harsh but after this long, i got burned out on the forum.
It's not an issue with resources, it's an issue of greed.
Game ballance was less of an issue and devs started to put a lot of time into classes they enjoyed, artificer and warlock and made them a lot stronger then other classes.
Then things got worse when exploit builds were destroying content, a small % of the players on the forum started claiming their triple everything toons were too strong for content, so instead of restraining themselves or ask the devs to nerf their (exploit) builds, the devs saw money.
Reaper got introduced to make things harder again, and got invalidated the same day, first by the fact people were posting r10 completions soon after, second by reaper trees, the trees seem made to make more money on exp pots. To add insult to injury, the trees were unballanced and added more power to certain playstyles then others. The same playstyles that were already breezing through thanks to the game mechanics and an ai that is dumber then a brick.
Add in a few quests that were easy to exploit (as in super easy to run fast if you knew how to) and people started raking up reaper points rapidly, though 2 quests were fixed, the rest remained unchanged.
Hence people were showing of their reaper wings on the first day the baba, 10 months after it's introduction, sometimes on multiple toons on the same account. (Thats 75 points.)

Reaper mode was incredibly unballanced and caused a shift in the classes being played, melee, who wasn't doing fine to begin with now started to getting 1-2 shot all over the place. An increased amount of incomming damage and lack of the means to self heal meant that avoiding became more usefull then absorbing damage, wich destroyed the devs hard work on the armor update. At best i see a few silvanus maul wolf barbarians (that abuse a recent change in druid that allows them to use 2hw with the wolfs attack speed,), some rouges and an extremely rare pure barb.

We fought tooth and nail over this but in the end it was the playerbase that killed it.
The countless posts claiming it was fine, the many posts claiming there were plenty of healers with more on the way after som e changes (never seen one pug since motu), the many "my pure cls X builds stomps all over reaper but i refuse to post my build" posts that popped up just got to us.
We gave up because we didn't have the community support.
And it's the avr joe that paid the price for that loud minority, server merge threads popped up more and more because lfm's no longer fill. The player base is spread not only over 30 levels and 14!!! Dificulties, there is also the issue of at level or over level.
The playerbase used third party chat and chat channels to find others but even that is slowely drying up. Because even in the "big boy scene", people are getting fed up with the grind. Knowing that falling behind means being left behind in the elitist scene, some players are sillently taking long breaks, ignoring their discord messages and cell phones.
Yeah, who knew forcing people to hand out their cell phone numbers (to be able to join an elitist raiding guild) and calling them 3 in the morning on weekdays because your raid doesn't fill would leave a bitter raste in their mouth?

But ssg must think they can spread the costs over the smaller playerbase, or have some master plan.
For now, our pleas have fallen on deaf ears and it's not just on that.
It's been weeks since we've commented on the devs prooposed changes to the epic destinies on the broken nature of 2hf, besides a vague, we are looking into it, no news or even dev participation on the subject and many threads.
And then there is the gear, the sharn gear thread saw some playstyles *cough casters, cough* suggestions reacted to within no time, while suggestions on other playstyles got ignored untill we pressed the issue, then we got dismissed and further ignored.
Even worse, we're made aware that we're on annignore list by 1 of the devs.

Tl/dr
Log story short, don't bother, the devs stopped carring and just see $$ signs, a loud part of the playerbase just wants power creep.
The devs will merely ignore you.

[Captain_Wizbang]

Then welcome back, i'm sorry for sounding harsh but after this long, i got burned out on the forum.
It's not an issue with resources, it's an issue of greed.
Game ballance was less of an issue and devs started to put a lot of time into classes they enjoyed, artificer and warlock and made them a lot stronger then other classes.
Then things got worse when exploit builds were destroying content, a small % of the players on the forum started claiming their triple everything toons were too strong for content, so instead of restraining themselves or ask the devs to nerf their (exploit) builds, the devs saw money.
Reaper got introduced to make things harder again, and got invalidated the same day, first by the fact people were posting r10 completions soon after, second by reaper trees, the trees seem made to make more money on exp pots. To add insult to injury, the trees were unballanced and added more power to certain playstyles then others. The same playstyles that were already breezing through thanks to the game mechanics and an ai that is dumber then a brick.
Add in a few quests that were easy to exploit (as in super easy to run fast if you knew how to) and people started raking up reaper points rapidly, though 2 quests were fixed, the rest remained unchanged.
Hence people were showing of their reaper wings on the first day the baba, 10 months after it's introduction, sometimes on multiple toons on the same account. (Thats 75 points.)

Reaper mode was incredibly unballanced and caused a shift in the classes being played, melee, who wasn't doing fine to begin with now started to getting 1-2 shot all over the place. An increased amount of incomming damage and lack of the means to self heal meant that avoiding became more usefull then absorbing damage, wich destroyed the devs hard work on the armor update. At best i see a few silvanus maul wolf barbarians (that abuse a recent change in druid that allows them to use 2hw with the wolfs attack speed,), some rouges and an extremely rare pure barb.

We fought tooth and nail over this but in the end it was the playerbase that killed it.
The countless posts claiming it was fine, the many posts claiming there were plenty of healers with more on the way after som e changes (never seen one pug since motu), the many "my pure cls X builds stomps all over reaper but i refuse to post my build" posts that popped up just got to us.
We gave up because we didn't have the community support.
And it's the avr joe that paid the price for that loud minority, server merge threads popped up more and more because lfm's no longer fill. The player base is spread not only over 30 levels and 14!!! Dificulties, there is also the issue of at level or over level.
The playerbase used third party chat and chat channels to find others but even that is slowely drying up. Because even in the "big boy scene", people are getting fed up with the grind. Knowing that falling behind means being left behind in the elitist scene, some players are sillently taking long breaks, ignoring their discord messages and cell phones.
Yeah, who knew forcing people to hand out their cell phone numbers (to be able to join an elitist raiding guild) and calling them 3 in the morning on weekdays because your raid doesn't fill would leave a bitter raste in their mouth?

But ssg must think they can spread the costs over the smaller playerbase, or have some master plan.
For now, our pleas have fallen on deaf ears and it's not just on that.
It's been weeks since we've commented on the devs prooposed changes to the epic destinies on the broken nature of 2hf, besides a vague, we are looking into it, no news or even dev participation on the subject and many threads.
And then there is the gear, the sharn gear thread saw some playstyles *cough casters, cough* suggestions reacted to within no time, while suggestions on other playstyles got ignored untill we pressed the issue, then we got dismissed and further ignored.
Even worse, we're made aware that we're on annignore list by 1 of the devs.

Tl/dr
Log story short, don't bother, the devs stopped carring and just see $$ signs, a loud part of the playerbase just wants power creep.
The devs will merely ignore you.

Not that long of a post when it's worth reading.

To your point.
1) ED's are getting redone, that's great.
2) Sharn gear favors a few builds/classes. (real let down IMO)
3) I keep forgetting SSG is largely the staff from Turbine, and those personalities and egos are still prevalent.
4) the PLAYERS that said everything with reaper is fine are the ones that are heavily invested in it. And voiced opinions here which were heard by staff.
5) BALANCE is a joke. How many times have we heard "it's a priority for us" only to see those words echo the average politician's jargon.
6) New player retention sucks, confusing UI set up, confusing subscription model, confusing difficulty settings/UI
7) The "new Raid Scene" is is faltering because it's more of a grind than fun.

Difficulty needs an overhaul.

Or SSG can ignore this and other pleas for a change and watch their ship wind up like Blockade Buster's ship.

I speak with my wallet. I GUARANTEE there are many other doing the same that don't post here saying so. ( I know 20 people personally that won't come back until major changes happen).

Like my title infers, changing a few trees and all the ED's is putting a new body on an old car..

[lyrecono]

Not that long of a post when it's worth reading.

To your point.
1) ED's are getting redone, that's great.a nerf in ld, a worthless boost in fury, all hinging on some kind of work on 2hf to make fury work?....wich will be comming soon(tm)? Also the new ED past lives are a joke, +6 damage vs clors of the queen or fast healing? The +6 damage should be in the arcane sphere, and turned into a +6 to hit and damage (with a 2hander, to replace the +3 that is in the arcane sphere now. But no communication on 2hf or the issues with these new past lives in weeks.
2) Sharn gear favors a few builds/classes. (real let down IMO)not just sharn, so was ravenloft, slavelords was the most complete system in recent years, it doesn't force players to equip multiple unrelated pieces to cover the basic stats they need for their playstyle
3) I keep forgetting SSG is largely the staff from Turbine, and those personalities and egos are still prevalent. no coment there.
4) the PLAYERS that said everything with reaper is fine are the ones that are heavily invested in it. And voiced opinions here which were heard by staff.
5) BALANCE is a joke. How many times have we heard "it's a priority for us" only to see those words echo the average politician's jargon.yep
6) New player retention sucks, confusing UI set up, confusing subscription model, confusing difficulty settings/UI
i recently got a friend to try it out, the ui on 4k made him laugh, i ran him through korthos and the harbor, where we picked up some other vets, when he heard how much of a grind is required to play the type of toon he usually likes to play in raids he got sad, knowing it's going to take years before he can join the community and raid, content he would need to pay money for years in advance, it was just to much and wished us goodluck, before exiting and deleting ddo
7) The "new Raid Scene" is is faltering because it's more of a grind than fun.
it's also getting smaller and smaller with every passing year. Raids are an absolute chore to fill, even if in all the channels. I personally gave up on them, it's a thankless job to be a tank at cap, sure people need your help in some raids but getting to cap on such a build is not supported, not by devs nor by other players, i spend more time in slayerzones then i'm comfortable with. As for quests, most reaper farm groups don's seem to need tanks, with the exeption of a few bosses.
Difficulty needs an overhaul.
ohhh yeah and all the classes need a ballance overhaul.
Or SSG can ignore this and other pleas for a change and watch their ship wind up like Blockade Buster's ship.

I speak with my wallet. I GUARANTEE there are many other doing the same that don't post here saying so. ( I know 20 people personally that won't come back until major changes happen).

Like my title infers, changing a few trees and all the ED's is putting a new body on an old car..

I have several players in my social network that think the same thing.
It's never going to hapen though, ssg will merely raise the prices to cover the costs.
Just look at the first and latest expansion packs, their cost and content, look at all the powercreep, the store items, etc
Voting with our wallet never did a thing.
Bad press did, remember the bridge on wayfinder?
That is what we need.