Multi-Patch/Update Preview: XP Changes

[Rob_65270]

I can understand the wish to encourage players to play different quests instead of farming the same over and over.

However, we need to look into WHY we farm quests over and over.

I can only speak for myself, but one reason is that some quests are easily accessible and others take a long time to get to. E. g. you need to walk quite a bit to get to the quests in the Menechtarun desert. Wizking is not too far into the area, but e. g. Chains of Flame and Offering of Blood take a long time getting to. Combine that with late entries into the group, new players who don't know where the quests are and you see that people are reluctant to run such quests. This can be fixed by having a person in the bar who can send you to the different quests in that area. This works so well for Ravenloft and other areas.

The XP you get from a quest is important to evaluate if it's worth the effort for the life you're doing. Right now there are more quests than what you need to get to 20 (or 30) so you will have to pick which you prefer. Some quests are more fun than others so you skip those that can be frustrating (lots of traps, group splitting mechanisms (E. g. Xorian Cipher), nasty monsters (Legendary Shroud flaggers) etc.).

In quests with many traps you might skip them if you're not lucky enough to get a trapper PC in the group. Heroic trapper hirelings are not free to purchase and the epic ones can't find any traps on elite++. Maybe you should offer free trapper hirelings who can find traps both on heroic and epic even on elite and low skull reaper.

Some quests have splitting mechanisms so they are much harder to short man. E. g. one of the Necro 1 quests and Xorian cipher need 4 people. Hirelings can be used for some, but still. The same with one Delera quest. Maybe it would be better to not have group splitting mandatory for quest completion.

Protection quests are particularly frustrating. It's not fun failing Let Sleeping Dust Lie just because a PC you accepted killed too many spiders. Coyle in Threnal was renowned for failing quests. The first quest in the Sharn chain in the Marketplace is just as frustrating if you have to short man. Change the protection quests where protecting the particular person is linked to an optional bonus and not quest completion.

Some quests are run because of favor regardless of how frustrating they are. The most typical favor quests are Coin Lords and House Kundarak for the inventory and bank space. Why not look at the favor rewards again and ensure all different ones give bonuses players would really want to have. Some bonuses are linked to just being useful for a small group of players like arrows / bolts. Add favor bonuses for all tiers that players can possibly reach.

I think a good way of dealing with favor is to grant small toon bonuses similar to what we get from past lives. E. g. bonuses to skills or stats. That would be a way for players with not many lives to boost their toon. The goal should be to let favor grinding be an easy alternative way for players to become a bit stronger. The people on the TR train will usually get to 20 asap and start over so they won't spend the time to get favor from many different sources. However, those who advance at a more casual rate and won't TR at the first opportunity might get bonuses via favor instead.

Maybe you can link some nice bonuses to players who get to the highest tier of a favor patron. Now you usually unlock a enhancement tree at the highest tier. That is needed just once. Maybe you in addition could get a character bonus you only have while you have the favor.

More quest areas should have saga rewards. It would be nice to have a saga in the Desert of Menechtarun, Necropolis, Vale, Amrath and even other places. There should be enough quests in these areas to award sagas.

I would also look into what you're offered as Saga rewards. Now you get skill tomes, XP, guild favor etc. Maybe you can offer a random stat tome as reward for true elite? Maybe reaper XP or Sentient XP? Make the variety bigger so players can use Saga collecting as a way to build power to their toon.

Another area that will determine which quests to run is what kind of loot you can get. Many quests have obsolete loot. E. g. raid loot. For the shard, seal, scroll kind of epic loot I would skip those and instead introduce new epic loot that will drop directly. So you introduce an epic Sword of Shadows which can drop in the epic Plane of Night instead of having to hope for the seal, scroll and shard to drop.

Loot from quests should at least be as powerful as what you can farm at the same level. It doesn't make sense that you can only get +7 gear and insightful +2 with comms from King's Forest for level 21 while you can craft +8 gear and insightful +3 gear at level 15.

I would also make some special gear that are not necessarily directly powerful, but very handy for players. The Jibber's Blade is a very good example of such gear. For that item I would make it drop as a saga reward from Epic Three Barrel Cove in addition to just Two Toed Tobias. This way you get get a chance at the item via running all quests in the area and not repeating the same over and over.

Other items that should be able to get via saga rewards are Teleport items like the Key to Eveningstar, Bottle of Mist to Ravenloft and Boarding Pass to Sharn. Maybe you can introduce items who can summon rest or repair shrines etc. Such items now can only be purchased from the DDO store or drop as a dice roll. It would be nice to have a chance to get them in a saga reward list too. Not every time, but a chance for them.

The point is to encourage players to finish Sagas and get the highest tiers of favor. That means running all quests in an area instead of just the ones with the most XP.

I see your point(s) & I agree & disagree. I however don't think, (just speaking for myself mind), that I should forced to run quests that 1. I hate. 2. I don't know. And 3. That I have never had an interest in running ever. Though seeing your ideas would be very much intriguing however.

[nokowi]

Greetings! Thanks for the feedback. Some notes:

~ It is not our intention to reduce the rate at which characters gain Reaper XP. We intend to boost Reaper XP to make up for the loss of the Reaper XP gained from the old Bravery Streak bonus. We are looking at the best way to do that.

~ We have looked at the feedback on optional objectives and how they affect the Epic reincarnation process. On live Epic reincarnation doesn't clear out quest flags so players don't have to re-flag for quests. There is no reason that we need to retain quest flagging for optional objectives, however. With the XP changes we will also reset optional objective flags (and only those flags) when you do an Epic reincarnation. This will give characters a fresh set of optional objectives for each Epic life while keeping their flagging for quests intact.

~ We do not intend players to get full Bravery Bonus if they are over level. Like on live, if the player is more than 2 levels above the base CR of the quest they will get less Bravery Bonus and their Dungeons Completed count will not be incremented. The reduction - 25% on Hard and 50% on Elite/Reaper - will be the same as on live.

~ There seems to be some confusion on Reaper XP over level penalties. The XP penalty for characters being over level will match the way it works on Elite. This helps things stay consistent. Characters who are too high level are still prevented from entering quests on Reaper difficulty. In the Epic levels this will work as it does on live; players are prevented from entering a Reaper dungeon if they are more than 6 levels above the base CR of the dungeons. In the heroic levels we have reduced this range to 4 levels.

Example:

You are running a level 10 dungeon on Reaper. The modified challenge rating is 12 - since Reaper uses the CR for Elite. If your character is level 13 or lower there is no penalty. Level 14 would give a reduction of -10% of base XP. Level 15 would give a reduction of -25% of base XP. Level 16 would give a reduction of -50% of base XP. Level 17 would give a reduction of -75% of base XP. Level 18 would give a reduction of -99% of base XP. Higher levels would reduce the XP to zero.

As an aside, I apologize for the delay in response. Any plans for changes that involve tech require some research before we can comment on a definitive plan.

Sev~

PS: While I would love nothing better than to burn the XP system to the ground and re-implement an easier to understand system - maybe with, I don't know, one way to reward first time play and one system to penalize playing over level, we are trying to maintain parity so players don't feel we are trying to take away their XP.

Your remaining few LFM's need to pool players together, not spread them out further.

Those good XP dailies are all that are keeping some still here, because you made the game entirely about rewards per time.

Focus on making the game fun, and stop trying to tell your players how to play.

[mikarddo]

Greetings! Thanks for the feedback. Some notes:

~ It is not our intention to reduce the rate at which characters gain Reaper XP. We intend to boost Reaper XP to make up for the loss of the Reaper XP gained from the old Bravery Streak bonus. We are looking at the best way to do that.

~ We have looked at the feedback on optional objectives and how they affect the Epic reincarnation process. On live Epic reincarnation doesn't clear out quest flags so players don't have to re-flag for quests. There is no reason that we need to retain quest flagging for optional objectives, however. With the XP changes we will also reset optional objective flags (and only those flags) when you do an Epic reincarnation. This will give characters a fresh set of optional objectives for each Epic life while keeping their flagging for quests intact.

~ We do not intend players to get full Bravery Bonus if they are over level. Like on live, if the player is more than 2 levels above the base CR of the quest they will get less Bravery Bonus and their Dungeons Completed count will not be incremented. The reduction - 25% on Hard and 50% on Elite/Reaper - will be the same as on live.

~ There seems to be some confusion on Reaper XP over level penalties. The XP penalty for characters being over level will match the way it works on Elite. This helps things stay consistent. Characters who are too high level are still prevented from entering quests on Reaper difficulty. In the Epic levels this will work as it does on live; players are prevented from entering a Reaper dungeon if they are more than 6 levels above the base CR of the dungeons. In the heroic levels we have reduced this range to 4 levels.

Example:

You are running a level 10 dungeon on Reaper. The modified challenge rating is 12 - since Reaper uses the CR for Elite. If your character is level 13 or lower there is no penalty. Level 14 would give a reduction of -10% of base XP. Level 15 would give a reduction of -25% of base XP. Level 16 would give a reduction of -50% of base XP. Level 17 would give a reduction of -75% of base XP. Level 18 would give a reduction of -99% of base XP. Higher levels would reduce the XP to zero.

As an aside, I apologize for the delay in response. Any plans for changes that involve tech require some research before we can comment on a definitive plan.

Sev~

PS: While I would love nothing better than to burn the XP system to the ground and re-implement an easier to understand system - maybe with, I don't know, one way to reward first time play and one system to penalize playing over level, we are trying to maintain parity so players don't feel we are trying to take away their XP.

Thank you for trying to clarify. Unfortunately, you dont nearly go into enough detail to actually explain things properly.

1) Is it intended that regular xp will be down by 10 when running each quest once on reaper? 120 down to 75, 70 up to 100 and 20 up to 25 is a net loss of 10.
2) Does your explanation mean that Lamania is bugged when BB is given at base+3 on Lam yet you claim it should only be at +2?
3) You mention BB adding to rxp but both earlier explanations and Lam as well as Live data show that BB doesnit affect rxp. Are you sure you have the facts straight?

[Grace_ana]

~ We have looked at the feedback on optional objectives and how they affect the Epic reincarnation process. On live Epic reincarnation doesn't clear out quest flags so players don't have to re-flag for quests. There is no reason that we need to retain quest flagging for optional objectives, however. With the XP changes we will also reset optional objective flags (and only those flags) when you do an Epic reincarnation. This will give characters a fresh set of optional objectives for each Epic life while keeping their flagging for quests intact.

This is better, but it still doesn't address the fact that it's a huge shoehorned xp hit for things that aren't actually optional. While I still really, really dislike the "let me tell you how you should be having fun" procedures here, I think more people would get on board IF the multiple optionals in most quests were actually optional. If they aren't actually optional, they should be marked simply as required, and their optional xp should then be rolled in its entirety into the quest xp.

Let's take Devil Assault as an example. Make all the "defeat the X wave" optionals actual quest objectives. Remove the optional xp. Make the base xp the total of the current base and the objective xp. In this case, epic normal xp would go from 9881 to 24,702.

I will, however, say that I don't think you guys are actually understanding the full consequences of the optional ransack. What will actually happen is that instead of doing optionals and experiencing the entire story and all the little stuff you guys take the time to put in the quests, people will pretty much always zerg right past those things and ignore them now. I'm not sure that cutting out sections of quests is what you actually want.

[Lynnabel]

2) Does your explanation mean that Lamania is bugged when BB is given at base+3 on Lam yet you claim it should only be at +2?

For this question specifically - this particular change did not make it to Lamannia in time for the preview, and therefore players on Lamannia would have experienced a and not-yet-completed version of this particular subset of experience mechanics.

[Silverleafeon]

For this question specifically - this particular change did not make it to Lamannia in time for the preview, and therefore players on Lamannia would have experienced a and not-yet-completed version of this particular subset of experience mechanics.

Thank you for your reply.

[Lynnabel]

I think a good way of dealing with favor is to grant small toon bonuses similar to what we get from past lives. E. g. bonuses to skills or stats. That would be a way for players with not many lives to boost their toon. The goal should be to let favor grinding be an easy alternative way for players to become a bit stronger. The people on the TR train will usually get to 20 asap and start over so they won't spend the time to get favor from many different sources. However, those who advance at a more casual rate and won't TR at the first opportunity might get bonuses via favor instead.

Maybe you can link some nice bonuses to players who get to the highest tier of a favor patron. Now you usually unlock a enhancement tree at the highest tier. That is needed just once. Maybe you in addition could get a character bonus you only have while you have the favor.

This entire feature, as written, was implemented and released in Update 41 :)

[Grace_ana]

Also, not for nothing, but had you guys actually stepped into this thread days ago and reassured people that you were listening and considering their feedback, you probably would have gotten a more favorable response to the adjustment. But if you leave everyone to feel angry, disillusioned, and frustrated for almost a week, there's really no putting that toothpaste back in the tube. I realize you guys don't have time to comment constantly, but you REALLY don't understand how important it is to communicate more frequently or even occasionally, even if that communication is just that you are listening and considering. Radio silence is never good.

[Lynnabel]

Also, not for nothing, but had you guys actually stepped into this thread days ago and reassured people that you were listening and considering their feedback, you probably would have gotten a more favorable response to the adjustment.

As Sev said, for stuff like this we take the time to kick the tires to avoid promising things that are not technically feasible. Plus, if we had stepped in and reassured you folks without something concrete, everyone would be here telling us to not waste time by replying without something to say :P Us reading and responding to feedback is the default, not the exception - we're always listening :)

[Grace_ana]

As Sev said, for stuff like this we take the time to kick the tires to avoid promising things that are not technically feasible. Plus, if we had stepped in and reassured you folks without something concrete, everyone would be here telling us to not waste time by replying without something to say :P Us reading and responding to feedback is the default, not the exception - we're always listening

No offense, but you could not be more completely wrong. I'm not saying you need to step in and immediately promise things. But had someone stepped in and said, "This looks to be an issue on which a lot of people have provided significant feedback, so we are taking it to the group to discuss. Thanks!" people would have felt a million times better.

You can say all you want about how you guys are always reading. It doesn't matter. Saying that and expecting it to just be okay misunderstands the entirety of human beings and the way they communicate. Let's say you had no face-to-face interactions with your boss and only communicated with him/her by email. Your boss sends out an email about changes to your benefits. You frantically send an email back advising that it isn't going to work the way he/she thinks, and please consider X, Y, and Z. You know he/she read the email. But unless you get SOME response back, you will be super anxious. You will start to feel like you haven't been heard. You will feel frustrated. And if your boss waits almost a week to respond, you're going to feel like you aren't actually important, nor is your feedback.

You guys aren't our bosses, and we aren't talking about anything as significant as benefits, but the principle remains the same. Please stop making excuses for the lack of communication by blaming players for something they haven't even been given the opportunity to do. I can't guarantee that literally no one would be a jerk, but most people would not be. Most people would get it and feel better that they had been recognized.

Seriously. Stop with the silence, guys. It makes more of a mess of everything literally every single time you all do it.

[karatemack]

Greetings! Thanks for the feedback. Some notes:

~ It is not our intention to reduce the rate at which characters gain Reaper XP. We intend to boost Reaper XP to make up for the loss of the Reaper XP gained from the old Bravery Streak bonus. We are looking at the best way to do that.

The best way would be to add a bonus to RXP for the first time the character completes the quest on Reaper. This would have to distinguish between heroic/epic/legendary and should also reset on any TR (including ETR).

~ We have looked at the feedback on optional objectives and how they affect the Epic reincarnation process. On live Epic reincarnation doesn't clear out quest flags so players don't have to re-flag for quests. There is no reason that we need to retain quest flagging for optional objectives, however. With the XP changes we will also reset optional objective flags (and only those flags) when you do an Epic reincarnation. This will give characters a fresh set of optional objectives for each Epic life while keeping their flagging for quests intact.

Why reduce it at all? Why not simply grant it at the end of the quest? Does it matter if someone levels from 20-30 by exclusively running spies in the house? If so, why? What is the appropriate # of quests to level then? The appropriate amount of times to run a single quest?

I understand wanting to eliminate exploits, but given that this could be accomplished by moving optional XP to be granted upon quest completion (IE: crucible) it really seems as though you are attempting to force players who enjoy dailies to change their behavior. Why?

This will negatively affect new players and folks with limited funds who aren't VIP and can't afford more packs.

~ There seems to be some confusion on Reaper XP over level penalties. The XP penalty for characters being over level will match the way it works on Elite. This helps things stay consistent. Characters who are too high level are still prevented from entering quests on Reaper difficulty. In the Epic levels this will work as it does on live; players are prevented from entering a Reaper dungeon if they are more than 6 levels above the base CR of the dungeons. In the heroic levels we have reduced this range to 4 levels.

Example:

You are running a level 10 dungeon on Reaper. The modified challenge rating is 12 - since Reaper uses the CR for Elite. If your character is level 13 or lower there is no penalty. Level 14 would give a reduction of -10% of base XP. Level 15 would give a reduction of -25% of base XP. Level 16 would give a reduction of -50% of base XP. Level 17 would give a reduction of -75% of base XP. Level 18 would give a reduction of -99% of base XP. Higher levels would reduce the XP to zero.

I thought that running a level 10 quest on ELITE meant no penalty if 12 or lower... -10% at 13, -25% at 14 and -50% at 15. Was this a typo, or have I been living my life wrong?

PS: While I would love nothing better than to burn the XP system to the ground and re-implement an easier to understand system - maybe with, I don't know, one way to reward first time play and one system to penalize playing over level, we are trying to maintain parity so players don't feel we are trying to take away their XP.

Is this something you've put significant thought into? Depending on what you're thinking of doing... it might be worth considering honestly.

[HedgeHogShadow]

As Sev said, for stuff like this we take the time to kick the tires to avoid promising things that are not technically feasible. Plus, if we had stepped in and reassured you folks without something concrete, everyone would be here telling us to not waste time by replying without something to say :P Us reading and responding to feedback is the default, not the exception - we're always listening

Since you're listening Why on earth isn't Search & Rescue Heroic on the list for more XP? It's listed as a level 15 quest, but plays like an epic. I threw it in the mix the other day when I was cruising thru some level 16 quests (I was 18) and it was like whiskey tango double-foxtrot! It felt like a raid! Maybe the devs should go back and play this at level on elite or R1; they'll understand why not many would do this quest twice (btw, the dragon may be tougher than Vela).

EDIT: I should say that I stumbled on an optional to stop some Drow ritual; which was some kind of sick joke to call it an optional as felt longer than VON5 but certainly was longer than the main quest objectives. So that could have clouded my judgement on this, but I don't think so.

[Silverleafeon]

I thought that running a level 10 quest on ELITE meant no penalty if 12 or lower... -10% at 13, -25% at 14 and -50% at 15. Was this a typo, or have I been living my life wrong?

You are close, and bravery has covered up this for years.

https://ddowiki.com/page/Experience

Level of quest vs level of highest character in quest: (Party) Compare the quest's equivalent level* to the level of the highest-level character to have entered the quest (even if they left after entering!). If that character's level is...
...below, equal to, or +1 level above the quest's level*, there is no adjustment.
...+2, there's a -10% penalty.
...+3 = -25%
...+4 = -50%
...+5 = -75%
...+6 = -99%
...+7 or higher there is no XP regardless of any bonuses.
This over-level penalty does not apply to epic quests.

: * For purposes of determining equivalent level of a quest for XP penalty, take the base ("Normal") level of the quest and adjust as follows...
Casual subtracts -2 (to a minimum adjusted Lvl 1)
Normal = basic quest level; Solo difficulty also.
Hard adds +1
Elite adds +2
Note: Bravery Bonus does not use these modifiers! BB is determined based solely off the "Normal" level of the quest!

[Potatofasf]

Too late. How about those of us that don't really feel the need to be shoehorned AGAIN into the devs playstyle instead of our own?

This is not a positive change and will not make players stay or spend more money in the long run. This is going to make a lot of people quit. Most of my guild stopped running TRs and hasnt logged on since
this announcement because they've finally had enough.


The TR grind is already bad enough, please do not make it worse.

I'm one of those, since I read the future changes I log in just to collect daily dice and log out, cutting short my comeback.
Good luck acquiring or retaining players.

[Mindos]

Seriously. Stop with the silence, guys. It makes more of a mess of everything literally every single time you all do it.

It makes things so much better! Think about it, a general, sort of haggard sign post, vaguely pointing over the ridge, near the woods. What does it mean? What does it read? Has the wind buffeted its direction? Is there even a road yet alone a path?

When the devs are curious, or at least want confirmation, they tend to post an outline of changes- with some brief reasoning. But there had to be so much more, don't you think? Especially in a complex intertwined game as DDO, where a misplaced alteration could derail, or amplify, so much else.

I imagine a very large wooden table, that the devs gather around, discuss, write down, and banter back and forth. A full on cacophony of outcomes, deadends, and wishes all wrapped into one. Then I think they come here and watch and wait, just to see if our forum thoughts ever so slightly parrellel theirs. Or maybe we even suprise them once in a while! It's sort of a catch-22. The players tell the devs: Just tell us whats happening, so we can deal with it. The devs tell the players: Just tell us what you think, so we can deal with it.

[Shadow_Jumper]

Given that literally every experience I have had with this quest and every experience everyone I know has had with it says otherwise, I honestly don't believe you. You need to kill around 45 or so wolves, and then she spawns. The only exception is when she randomly spawns in the NE corner of the map, which is buggy.

To spawn the ghost you have to kill a mob on the right side of the map near the windmill (first mob across the river, level with the shrine) I don’t think there’s any other requirement to spawn her.

I would recommend however that on higher difficulties you kill the rednamed werewolf before starting the endfight. We tried to really skimp the killing once and ended up with 3 r10 rednamed bosses when the werewolf decided to spawn while we were doing the endfight. It didn’t really end well.

We usually go across the bridge, grab the corpse/teeth, then trigger enough wolves to get to the red named. Once we kill him we circle back around to the other side, kill that pack and find the ghost.

The time you are referring to, where she ‘bugs’ and spawns in the NE corner of the map is probably when you kill that mob sooner than you usually do and she spawns.

[Whaldorf]

Also, not for nothing, but had you guys actually stepped into this thread days ago and reassured people that you were listening and considering their feedback, you probably would have gotten a more favorable response to the adjustment. But if you leave everyone to feel angry, disillusioned, and frustrated for almost a week, there's really no putting that toothpaste back in the tube. I realize you guys don't have time to comment constantly, but you REALLY don't understand how important it is to communicate more frequently or even occasionally, even if that communication is just that you are listening and considering. Radio silence is never good.

+1

They were monitoring - case in point - I got a threat of a ban from cordovan for some simple posts... clearly the team is a little disorganized ... and disempowered. Agree that a “thanks for the feedback” post would have gone MILES.

[SirValentine]

~ It is not our intention to reduce the rate at which characters gain Reaper XP.

Is it to increase it?

Example:

You are running a level 10 dungeon on Reaper. The modified challenge rating is 12 - since Reaper uses the CR for Elite. If your character is level 13 or lower there is no penalty. Level 14 would give a reduction of -10% of base XP.

So right now, if a level 10 character runs a level 10 quest on Reaper, then get 100%. If they run at level 13, get get 30%. You're planning to more than triple what someone gets for running what was supposed to be a challenge difficulty when they are 3 levels higher than the quest level?

I could be misinterpreting what you're saying, but if so, it's because you're being very unclear. That example was useless. Are you talking about Reaper XP, or normal XP? Are you talking about live now, on Lama now, or some proposed future change?

How about we get a detailed breakdown of "current vs. proposed" for both Reaper XP and normal XP?

~ We do not intend players to get full Bravery Bonus if they are over level. Like on live, if the player is more than 2 levels above the base CR of the quest they will get less Bravery Bonus and their Dungeons Completed count will not be incremented. The reduction - 25% on Hard and 50% on Elite/Reaper - will be the same as on live.

You're going to start rewarding people with more XP for running stuff over-level? Because right now, you get 0% of Bravery bonus if you're over the Bravery level. You're proposing changing that to 75% and 50% instead of the current 0%? Why do you want to reward people for running over-level?

We intend to boost Reaper XP to make up for the loss of the Reaper XP gained from the old Bravery Streak bonus.

Do you know how your own game mechanics work? No need to answer that; based on your statement, you don't. You really should try to understand how it works now before you try to modify it.

Your whole post has clarified nothing and muddied the waters more.

[Shadow_Jumper]

You're going to start rewarding people with more XP for running stuff over-level? Because right now, you get 0% of Bravery bonus if you're over the Bravery level. You're proposing changing that to 75% and 50% instead of the current 0%? Why do you want to reward people for running over-level?

I’m guessing here, but there’s a difference of groups running TRs.

There’s people like me, who zerg r1 +2 levels and don’t care about the lost rxp, because I’d rather level quicker and get my toon to cap where there is more rxp/min.

Then there are people that run r2-4 at level for the rxp bonus.

My guess is that they want to combine the BB/Reaper bonus levels to consolidate the groups and make it easier for people to find groups of players to run with.

Do you know how your own game mechanics work? No need to answer that; based on your statement, you don't. You really should try to understand how it works now before you try to modify it.

Rumor I heard was that they were unaware that BB doesn’t affect rxp when the came up with these changes now they’re trying to figure out a way where they won’t nerf everyone’s ftb.

[lyrecono]

I can understand the wish to encourage players to play different quests instead of farming the same over and over.

However, we need to look into WHY we farm quests over and over.

I can only speak for myself, but one reason is that some quests are easily accessible and others take a long time to get to. E. g. you need to walk quite a bit to get to the quests in the Menechtarun desert. Wizking is not too far into the area, but e. g. Chains of Flame and Offering of Blood take a long time getting to. Combine that with late entries into the group, new players who don't know where the quests are and you see that people are reluctant to run such quests. This can be fixed by having a person in the bar who can send you to the different quests in that area. This works so well for Ravenloft and other areas.

The XP you get from a quest is important to evaluate if it's worth the effort for the life you're doing. Right now there are more quests than what you need to get to 20 (or 30) so you will have to pick which you prefer. Some quests are more fun than others so you skip those that can be frustrating (lots of traps, group splitting mechanisms (E. g. Xorian Cipher), nasty monsters (Legendary Shroud flaggers) etc.).

In quests with many traps you might skip them if you're not lucky enough to get a trapper PC in the group. Heroic trapper hirelings are not free to purchase and the epic ones can't find any traps on elite++. Maybe you should offer free trapper hirelings who can find traps both on heroic and epic even on elite and low skull reaper.

Some quests have splitting mechanisms so they are much harder to short man. E. g. one of the Necro 1 quests and Xorian cipher need 4 people. Hirelings can be used for some, but still. The same with one Delera quest. Maybe it would be better to not have group splitting mandatory for quest completion.

Protection quests are particularly frustrating. It's not fun failing Let Sleeping Dust Lie just because a PC you accepted killed too many spiders. Coyle in Threnal was renowned for failing quests. The first quest in the Sharn chain in the Marketplace is just as frustrating if you have to short man. Change the protection quests where protecting the particular person is linked to an optional bonus and not quest completion.

Some quests are run because of favor regardless of how frustrating they are. The most typical favor quests are Coin Lords and House Kundarak for the inventory and bank space. Why not look at the favor rewards again and ensure all different ones give bonuses players would really want to have. Some bonuses are linked to just being useful for a small group of players like arrows / bolts. Add favor bonuses for all tiers that players can possibly reach.

I think a good way of dealing with favor is to grant small toon bonuses similar to what we get from past lives. E. g. bonuses to skills or stats. That would be a way for players with not many lives to boost their toon. The goal should be to let favor grinding be an easy alternative way for players to become a bit stronger. The people on the TR train will usually get to 20 asap and start over so they won't spend the time to get favor from many different sources. However, those who advance at a more casual rate and won't TR at the first opportunity might get bonuses via favor instead.

Maybe you can link some nice bonuses to players who get to the highest tier of a favor patron. Now you usually unlock a enhancement tree at the highest tier. That is needed just once. Maybe you in addition could get a character bonus you only have while you have the favor.

More quest areas should have saga rewards. It would be nice to have a saga in the Desert of Menechtarun, Necropolis, Vale, Amrath and even other places. There should be enough quests in these areas to award sagas.

I would also look into what you're offered as Saga rewards. Now you get skill tomes, XP, guild favor etc. Maybe you can offer a random stat tome as reward for true elite? Maybe reaper XP or Sentient XP? Make the variety bigger so players can use Saga collecting as a way to build power to their toon.

Another area that will determine which quests to run is what kind of loot you can get. Many quests have obsolete loot. E. g. raid loot. For the shard, seal, scroll kind of epic loot I would skip those and instead introduce new epic loot that will drop directly. So you introduce an epic Sword of Shadows which can drop in the epic Plane of Night instead of having to hope for the seal, scroll and shard to drop.

Loot from quests should at least be as powerful as what you can farm at the same level. It doesn't make sense that you can only get +7 gear and insightful +2 with comms from King's Forest for level 21 while you can craft +8 gear and insightful +3 gear at level 15.

I would also make some special gear that are not necessarily directly powerful, but very handy for players. The Jibber's Blade is a very good example of such gear. For that item I would make it drop as a saga reward from Epic Three Barrel Cove in addition to just Two Toed Tobias. This way you get get a chance at the item via running all quests in the area and not repeating the same over and over.

Other items that should be able to get via saga rewards are Teleport items like the Key to Eveningstar, Bottle of Mist to Ravenloft and Boarding Pass to Sharn. Maybe you can introduce items who can summon rest or repair shrines etc. Such items now can only be purchased from the DDO store or drop as a dice roll. It would be nice to have a chance to get them in a saga reward list too. Not every time, but a chance for them.

The point is to encourage players to finish Sagas and get the highest tiers of favor. That means running all quests in an area instead of just the ones with the most XP.

+1, good post
As for"However, we need to look into WHY we farm quests over and over.".
For me it's the difficulty. Ee&eh zergs first, followed up by 2X eh or eh and en later were a perfect difficulty for dailies, it made sure you had people in your party at all times.
On a real melee (not a dodgy light skirmisher), doing EE at lv 20-23 was not a nice thing to do, even with a party. Dailies helped with that, the quests were fun, doable and could be shortmanned if needed for a decent exp per minute.
Reaper (1-5) is something i hate on low epics on a melee, the mob dps output on EE wasn't reasenable, on reaper it's just bad.
Now, that so many people have left, i find myself lucky if i can even get 2 party members, having 35 other people online, spread over this many levels, doesn't help the issue.

If the devs want us to run more content *cough* buy more content *cough* they should take a good hard look at why a part of the population is avoiding evening star quests (and saga's) like the plague.
Many of them are down right tedious to play, not every one has a full party in their timezone or plays the latest exploit build.

Edit: lately, a lot of players noticed a trend, a pack comes out(yeah, wheloon and stormhorns are considered packs for this), 4 ok-ish, often mediocre exp quests, followed up by a fifth big exp quest that has a bad endfight. I know plenty some that will avoid those, they are unplayeble for a myriad of reasons;
Mirror/wgu, to much purple light, endfight is poorly done, mob dps is insane,
Duel of the underdark (this is getting changed i think but that endfigh, those no save succubi, those boss hp, it just makes it tedious to having to solo this.
Age of rage, now there is a seriously f-ed up enfight in the last quest.

All of these poorly done endquests make eveningstar sagas useless to those players outside of the US prime time, it just keeps on hanging on 1 quest, so they're better of to avoid them entirely, that includes buying them.
It's not like we need them for loot, KT showed us loot doesn't last more then a month afte grinding it.

Well that is only part of it. You need 3 stones and 3 essences, one of them (the essences I think) open the slayer area, the other allows you into the actual quest (as I recall it cannot be red doored even if you get access to the slayer area). So whatever prevents people from entering the actual quest as well also needs to be removed.

Then remove those stones and flagging mechanic too.

As Sev said, for stuff like this we take the time to kick the tires to avoid promising things that are not technically feasible. Plus, if we had stepped in and reassured you folks without something concrete, everyone would be here telling us to not waste time by replying without something to say :P Us reading and responding to feedback is the default, not the exception - we're always listening

Listening but hardly doing anything about it?
How did the sharn loot threads go? How many changes for certain playstyles over others were made?
What happenend to the first round of feedback on ED changes?
Like some of us said earlier, don't ask for our oppinion if you're mostly gone ignore it anyway.

Since you're listening Why on earth isn't Search & Rescue Heroic on the list for more XP? It's listed as a level 15 quest, but plays like an epic. I threw it in the mix the other day when I was cruising thru some level 16 quests (I was 18) and it was like whiskey tango double-foxtrot! It felt like a raid! Maybe the devs should go back and play this at level on elite or R1; they'll understand why not many would do this quest twice (btw, the dragon may be tougher than Vela).

EDIT: I should say that I stumbled on an optional to stop some Drow ritual; which was some kind of sick joke to call it an optional as felt longer than VON5 but certainly was longer than the main quest objectives. So that could have clouded my judgement on this, but I don't think so.

I haven't played this one in a while due to the broken difficulty. Did they ever fix the collectebles in there?

I'm one of those, since I read the future changes I log in just to collect daily dice and log out, cutting short my comeback.
Good luck acquiring or retaining players.

These changes are discussed in channels and parties a lot. People seem to hate them, a lot.

Greetings! Thanks for the feedback. Some notes:

~ It is not our intention to reduce the rate at which characters gain Reaper XP. We intend to boost Reaper XP to make up for the loss of the Reaper XP gained from the old Bravery Streak bonus. We are looking at the best way to do that.

~ We have looked at the feedback on optional objectives and how they affect the Epic reincarnation process. On live Epic reincarnation doesn't clear out quest flags so players don't have to re-flag for quests. There is no reason that we need to retain quest flagging for optional objectives, however. With the XP changes we will also reset optional objective flags (and only those flags) when you do an Epic reincarnation. This will give characters a fresh set of optional objectives for each Epic life while keeping their flagging for quests intact.

~ We do not intend players to get full Bravery Bonus if they are over level. Like on live, if the player is more than 2 levels above the base CR of the quest they will get less Bravery Bonus and their Dungeons Completed count will not be incremented. The reduction - 25% on Hard and 50% on Elite/Reaper - will be the same as on live.

~ There seems to be some confusion on Reaper XP over level penalties. The XP penalty for characters being over level will match the way it works on Elite. This helps things stay consistent. Characters who are too high level are still prevented from entering quests on Reaper difficulty. In the Epic levels this will work as it does on live; players are prevented from entering a Reaper dungeon if they are more than 6 levels above the base CR of the dungeons. In the heroic levels we have reduced this range to 4 levels.

Example:

You are running a level 10 dungeon on Reaper. The modified challenge rating is 12 - since Reaper uses the CR for Elite. If your character is level 13 or lower there is no penalty. Level 14 would give a reduction of -10% of base XP. Level 15 would give a reduction of -25% of base XP. Level 16 would give a reduction of -50% of base XP. Level 17 would give a reduction of -75% of base XP. Level 18 would give a reduction of -99% of base XP. Higher levels would reduce the XP to zero.

As an aside, I apologize for the delay in response. Any plans for changes that involve tech require some research before we can comment on a definitive plan.

Sev~

PS: While I would love nothing better than to burn the XP system to the ground and re-implement an easier to understand system - maybe with, I don't know, one way to reward first time play and one system to penalize playing over level, we are trying to maintain parity so players don't feel we are trying to take away their XP.

From our stand point, you're arguing from greed.
We ask if epic exp requirement could be lightened, they became more
We ask if the epic exp stonecould get more exp, due to the raised exp bar, you introduce another, stacking exp stone, costing even more (instead of making 1exp stone for epics that maybe cost a tener more)

We complain about the difficulty, you introduce op classe, races and trees, for more cash ofcourse.
Some very imporfant elements of the game are broken, has been for years now, making your recent ed changes moot.
It chassed people of in my timezone, i rarely have someone to play with in my level range and during my time to play.
In light of all these issues, many people, including me, will stick to our dailies and quests we can actually play.

Maybe if the difficulty wasn't scaled so badly towards certain playstyles, maybe if some of these playstyles got repaired, supported (gear!!!!) and cared for, the incentive would be there to run these again, untill that time, no thank, you can keep your changes, or implement them, it makes no difference to us.