Multi-Patch/Update Preview: XP Changes

[Silverleafeon]

There might be enough data with what you completed to figure out what is going on. At least we can compare to live and see if it's a nerf or not. If the only change actually affecting it is the daily increase then it's a buff.

Thank you.

Please tell me you had a lesser tome of learning on the garrison run... that makes it work.
4.20/1.1= 3.8
Minus base is 280. 200 first time plus 10+10+10 in quest +25 daily +25 tome adds up.
I checked against your second garrisons and it is consistent if you have the tome. Yeah, I think we have it figured out.

Well, I think my account auto grants lesser tomes to all new toons.
I cannot log on right to find out.
I don't remember if I ate thus, but it was available.
I'll create a new toon on live to make sure.
Checked on live all my toons get the lesser tome.
It was available, but I don't remember whether I used it or not.
It is possible.
The level 4 toon was new and no guild buffs.


Oh, I forgot, my level 19 toon was running with guild ship buffs = +5%

[erethizon]

This is what I mean with "nobody wants story quests anymore. People want zerg-quests.
People want quests with the highest possible amount of xp per second - and not some dialogs.

But the REAL problem here is - in my opinion - the playing style of the people. Who have become zergers.
The problem is NOT the quest !
The problem is the general playing style.
And, if you look around you, story games have died out. Kill games and shooters - fast games ! - have the highest amounts of buyers these days.
And that's partly because EVERYBODY wants to be a little powah-full Gangsta.

You didn't quote the real problem though, it is the potentially endless, group-wiping sky fight and the fact that you can fail the quest at the last minute because Brawnpits isn't immortal. They have made almost all protect-the-NPC quest have immortal NPC's. People don't like quests they can fail, especially very long quests they can fail. I've been in groups that simply couldn't kill the respawns fast enough to do the sky part and, since DDO players tend to be unwilling to deal with adversity, a group wipe is usually followed by half the group (or more) quitting. Thankfully power creep has helped with these problems, but they still can happen in weaker groups (especially if you can't fill your group).

Slow down the respawn rate (or better yet, eliminate it entirely) and make Brawnpits immortal. You will see a very different attitude toward this quest (except from those people that already decided they don't like it and are too stubborn to ever change their minds).

We can handle story quests. But, as a leader, I try very hard to make sure to avoid situations that cause failure, not because I mind failing, but because the group almost always falls apart afterwards. Just this weekend I ran a raid on Epic Elite and some of the players were saying we should just do EH instead. We wiped and decided to run EH instead, but half the group left after the wipe including several of the people that wanted to run EH to begin with. It wasn't that they were not okay with running EH, it was simply that a single failed attempted causes vast numbers of DDO players to immediately drop the group. DDO players have a very low tolerance for failure and so it must be avoided at all costs if you want to have a successful group.

[Cantor]

Well, I think my account auto grants lesser tomes to all new toons.
I cannot log on right to find out.
I don't remember if I ate thus, but it was available.
I'll create a new toon on live to make sure.
Checked on live all my toons get the lesser tome.
It was available, but I don't remember whether I used it or not.


Oh, I forgot, my level 19 toon was running with guild ship buffs = +5%

It looks like reaper has nothing to do with bravery or regular first time bonus. I'll verify on live but it looks like this update is a straight buff for reaper xp due to the daily increase and level changes.

[Potatofasf]

You didn't quote the real problem though, it is the potentially endless, group-wiping sky fight and the fact that you can fail the quest at the last minute because Brawnpits isn't immortal. They have made almost all protect-the-NPC quest have immortal NPC's. People don't like quests they can fail, especially very long quests they can fail. I've been in groups that simply couldn't kill the respawns fast enough to do the sky part and, since DDO players tend to be unwilling to deal with adversity, a group wipe is usually followed by half the group (or more) quitting. Thankfully power creep has helped with these problems, but they still can happen in weaker groups (especially if you can't fill your group).

Slow down the respawn rate (or better yet, eliminate it entirely) and make Brawnpits immortal. You will see a very different attitude toward this quest (except from those people that already decided they don't like it and are too stubborn to ever change their minds).

We can handle story quests. But, as a leader, I try very hard to make sure to avoid situations that cause failure, not because I mind failing, but because the group almost always falls apart afterwards. Just this weekend I ran a raid on Epic Elite and some of the players were saying we should just do EH instead. We wiped and decided to run EH instead, but half the group left after the wipe including several of the people that wanted to run EH to begin with. It wasn't that they were not okay with running EH, it was simply that a single failed attempted causes vast numbers of DDO players to immediately drop the group. DDO players have a very low tolerance for failure and so it must be avoided at all costs if you want to have a successful group.

It less about "low tolerance for fail"... Is more about wasted time. The feeling your are wasting time is frustrating.
For example, I have two/three hours to play a normal day, If a do a long Raid/Quest and failed, I lost my freetime and earned nothing. I just want feel my little time fullfilled and rewarding.

I think most of the players feel the same...

[mikarddo]

It looks like reaper has nothing to do with bravery or regular first time bonus. I'll verify on live but it looks like this update is a straight buff for reaper xp due to the daily increase and level changes.

But running a level 31 quest on r5 on the first run of the quest may give 5k rxp. Running the same quest the next day also on r5 yields maybe 1.5k rxp.
So rxp very, very much depends on some sort of first time bonus.

Also the 235 xp is in the windoe so it is without the vip bonus where you seem to have included vip with the 1.1 factor

[Splunge]

Quest XP used to ransack and never recover, it was horrible. Thank goodness you changed it before, this is a step backwards. Surely there are better ways to deal with whatever problem this is fixing.

That's a very good point. 6 years ago (U19), the devs thought that permanent ransack was a bad idea. I wonder if they considered those reasons now and, if so, what they think changed to make permanent ransack of optionals a good idea now.

[Splunge]

No thank you. Having 20-23 be real levels that people actually play is not a bad thing. They used to take much less XP, and people blew by them so quick they'd out-level the tons of quests in that range. Evening out the curve like they did was an improvement that I don't want reversed.

Especially since there are actually 14 non-raid quests in that level that aren't just remakes of heroic quests. The rest of the quest levels (24-32) only have 4.

[Cantor]

But running a level 31 quest on r5 on the first run of the quest may give 5k rxp. Running the same quest the next day also on r5 yields maybe 1.5k rxp.
So rxp very, very much depends on some sort of first time bonus.

Also the 235 xp is in the windoe so it is without the vip bonus where you seem to have included vip with the 1.1 factor

The 1.1 factor is the quest length modifier. If you read the rest of our exchange. Reaper has it's own independent 200% first time bonus and does not include bravery or regular quest first time. From a dev post silver quoted and the math confirms it works that way.

[erethizon]

Is it an intended result of the changes that players are heavily penalized for running quests in epics that they have already run in heroics? Shifting a large amount of xp from first-time to bravery means that content with both heroic and epic variants are much less rewarding in epics if you run them in heroics. This seems somewhat counter to the expressed goals of the changes, as running a chain once at level ~6 for bravery, then again in epics without immediate repeats or daily runs seems like the kind of pattern that is intended. There aren't that many epic quests without heroic equivalents, so as written people will need to be much more careful about what they run in heroics so as to not slow down their epic leveling.

Yes, this has always been the case. Fortunately, if you run all the heroic only quests (i.e. those quests that don't even have an epic equivalent) on R1 with BB you will get the 3.8 million experience you need to go from 1 to 20. You can save literally every quest that has an epic option for epic levels (and it actually makes the decision of what to play from 1 to 20 very easy because you know exactly which quests you will be running each life).

[Gratch]

Dear Devs,

Please, as you think about this and then redo it for a second pass of Lama changes, please include an example quest that is not changing base XP between current and U43 - one that is also both heroic and epic - say something like Multitude of Menace - a popular heroic and epic quest. This would be to give an example overlevel, bravery, FTB, daily changes.

Then show us the XP&RXP as compared currently on live and then post U43 for running this quest from a few different entry points: at base level, at +2 levels, at +4 levels, and what happens to the xp/rxp if you ran it first at heroic and then at epic. Just to illustrate how the FTB shift to bravery bonus affects xp/rxp and whether this meets your stated design goals.

[erethizon]

What about players who stay at cap and never TR? Or are done with heroic lives and want to run 20 epic lives in a row? Won't this then be a reduction in overall XP even if they switch quests as optimally as you would like?

Quest XP used to ransack and never recover, it was horrible. Thank goodness you changed it before, this is a step backwards. Surely there are better ways to deal with whatever problem this is fixing.

Players at cap will be unaffected because optionals do not affect Reaper experience. As for players running 20 epic lives in a row there soon will be 45 heroic past lives, 36 racial past lives, and 48 epic past lives so anyone that has run all of the first two categories without finishing the last category is guilty of some absolutely terrible planning (with the exception of those triple completionists who will be done with everything by the time the last 12 epic levels come out).

I know the epic past lives are tempting because they are the easiest to get (thanks to epic daily groups) and give the most power, but tossing in heroic, racial, or iconic TR's every so often will reset the experience and is good for the monotony. I don't know anyone that has run 20 epic lives in a row and not complained about how much they hate the epic TR grind. Conversely, the epic TR processes doesn't feel like much of a grind at all when you only do 1 or 2 epic lives at a time.

[erethizon]

No thank you. Having 20-23 be real levels that people actually play is not a bad thing. They used to take much less XP, and people blew by them so quick they'd out-level the tons of quests in that range. Evening out the curve like they did was an improvement that I don't want reversed.

I'd be concerned about that too, but with the increased level range for full reaper experience and BB I don't think it would be a problem for level 29 to take 4 or 5 million experience to get to level 30. We would be running them over level, but I do that now for full BB (with a massive reaper penalty).

[Potatofasf]

so anyone that has run all of the first two categories without finishing the last category is guilty of some absolutely terrible planning (with the exception of those triple completionists who will be done with everything by the time the last 12 epic levels come out)

F*ck those new and returning players!!!
Burning them off... get loose new and returning players!

This game is for veterans/elitists/last long lasting players!

[erethizon]

I haven't run Stealer of Souls in seven years, because flagging for it is burdensome. That's a shame, because I like the quest design. Change the flagging to "once and done forever" like Litany, or remove it entirely, and I'd consider running SoS each life again.

This post makes a number of good points, but this is the most important of all. I can usually pull together an epic group to run the Demon Sands chain (I even get a few people for Chains of Flame if I run the pack at a populated time of the weekend), but I almost always run Stealer of Souls alone. I like the quest, I have flagged for it many, many times, but no matter how I post the group (e.g. level 17 cap for max reaper exp, level 19 cap for max heroic exp, or level 30 cap so anyone can join) I almost always have to play it alone because almost no one is flagged for it. The flagging is too much work for people to bother. At the very least, remove the requirement for the 3 stones from explorer zones. Yes, I know 3 stones is better than the 6 it used to take but it is still so much that people just skip it rather than run it.

[erethizon]

F*ck those new and returning players!!!
Burning them off... get loose new and returning players!

This game is for veterans/elitists/last long lasting players!

Are you implying that new or returning players already have 45 heroic past lives and 36 racial past lives done on their characters? New and returning players have no problem with the system as it is (or will be) because they can easily squeeze racial, heroic, and iconic TR's between their epic TR's to reset experience. The only people being hurt by this are the people that stubbornly refuse to sprinkle in any of the other types of TR's with their epic TR's. Those players have always suffered because first time bonuses have never reset and so the epic process has been taking them far longer than it has needed to for years now simply because they wanted all their epic past lives in a row.

I get the desire to do this from a power perspective (epic past lives are amazingly powerful in heroic levels and so you are rewarded by doing all of them first), but in terms of how much time you have spend playing epic quests for experience it has never paid to do more than 2 in a row at the most.

[Lynnabel]

At the very least, remove the requirement for the 3 stones from explorer zones. Yes, I know 3 stones is better than the 6 it used to take but it is still so much that people just skip it rather than run it.

Ugh - you're preaching to the choir, here. I have a tentative "fix" that breaks the NPC's scripts to let people in the front door without the stones. Unfortunately, the intricities of this particular flagging method make it not as easy to refactor as it sounds. My "fix" is very much a "let's start deleting logic until the door just appears" thing, and it's nowhere near ready to release as-is.

I am also toying with an "Upgraded Completed Sigil" that will retain your flagging for Accursed Ascension (it'll be an upgraded Completed Sigil that holds your flagging for Litany of the Dead).

[Potatofasf]

Are you implying that new or returning players already have 45 heroic past lives and 36 racial past lives done on their characters? New and returning players have no problem with the system as it is (or will be) because they can easily squeeze racial, heroic, and iconic TR's between their epic TR's to reset experience. The only people being hurt by this are the people that stubbornly refuse to sprinkle in any of the other types of TR's with their epic TR's. Those players have always suffered because first time bonuses have never reset and so the epic process has been taking them far longer than it has needed to for years now simply because they wanted all their epic past lives in a row.

I get the desire to do this from a power perspective (epic past lives are amazingly powerful in heroic levels and so you are rewarded by doing all of them first), but in terms of how much time you have spend playing epic quests for experience it has never paid to do more than 2 in a row at the most.

I'm just saying that the new and returning players don't get to choose like we can choose now!
Stay at Cap grinding EPLs or do a Heroic/Racial PL.

This is restrict or penalize how someone choose to play the game.

Like the other post where the player is bored of playing in Heroics, many others (like me) a real bored to play Heroics. Farm Tokens and play more Heroics with classes we don't like... I want to be a Heroic/Racial Completionist, but is boriiiiiing as hell do all thoses PLs.
So, to still playing I choose to farm EPLs till I got bored from Epics. I love dailies, they let me get fast EXP, farm Tokens in a low pace and farm some itens, and still I can do regular other quest after done with the dailies.
Most of the games that dictate players experience tend to collapse.

[mikarddo]

The 1.1 factor is the quest length modifier. If you read the rest of our exchange. Reaper has it's own independent 200% first time bonus and does not include bravery or regular quest first time. From a dev post silver quoted and the math confirms it works that way.

I stand corrected, thank you.

[mikarddo]

Especially since there are actually 14 non-raid quests in that level that aren't just remakes of heroic quests. The rest of the quest levels (24-32) only have 4.

Holding levels and playing slightly over level which is made even easier it seems make than a non-issue imo. On the other hand spending far more time in 20-27 gear if you prefer 28+ gear is a major downside.

[mikarddo]

The 1.1 factor is the quest length modifier. If you read the rest of our exchange. Reaper has it's own independent 200% first time bonus and does not include bravery or regular quest first time. From a dev post silver quoted and the math confirms it works that way.

How do you make the level 19 in Rainbow line up?

I am seeing 98*3.95*1.2 which does not match fully. 4.00 seems to match through with some rounding so maybe I am overlooking something.