Multi-Patch/Update Preview: XP Changes

[erethizon]

First of all, it is a very good idea to encourage players, even more, to play different quests rather than repeating quests over and over again for the best exp/minute.

But a big point on my personal wishlist is that reaper experience should be consistent with the normal experience bonus system.
There is no point that you get 100% normal experience and in addition several bonuses (however you call it) and for your reaper experience you get a penalty.
Therefore if you do a quest AT the (effective) quest level you should also get also FULL reaper experience (the means at the normal quest level plus the level modification for elite and normal, that's +2).
There is no point to divide the already very small player base in DDO even more in players who want full reaper experience and players who dont care about this!

Well you will be pleased to know that #6 in the original post of this thread is fixing exactly that!

[Fedora1]

Too many numbers! Looks like an overhaul in XP to nerf XP because some nubs are farming optionals! I'm very confused. I hear the words coming out of your mouths but I don't understand them!

Agree.

Why they need to make such a confusing and difficult change is beyond me.

Increase/decrease xp per quest based on your data is fine, but there are other reasons people run certain quests while ignoring others besides the xp involved. Don't re-haul an entire system based on your interpretation of the data, it might not be what you think it is. Once you adjust the xp per quest, do another number crunch and then see if some other types of adjustments are needed. You might just find that increasing the xp per quest did not increase the number of players running the quest, and decreasing the xp on a quest may not have caused people to run that quest any less than they currently do.

What you are describing was one of the major reasons I stopped playing WoW and moved to DDO in the 1st place. WoW increasingly felt like it was more about "We know you'll enjoy all our content, so we're going to force you to do it so you can see how much you really like it".

There are really good reasons why people run the quests they run and skip others.

Agree. It's like if I frequent one restaurant over another, it's not necessarily because one is cheaper, or because they have bigger servings. Forcing me to eat at a wider variety of restaurants or at a different one every day is not necessarily going to make me happier.

[Potatofasf]

Reading all the commentaries something about the "dailies" that DEVs don't get (because they want you to TR... but you need to BUY the Hearts) is that "dailies" helps new/returning players to farm EXP, Epic Destines and TOKENS OF THE TWELVE to Reincarnate.

14 hPL = 280 Tokens (x3 840 tokens for Triple Completionist)
36 rPL = 720 Tokens (For al AC available "free")

Total of 1560 are needed. But only few quest still rewarding Tokens, most of them Fragments on EN and EH.

How DEVs will work this out? Since the objetive is to motivate players to play a "broader variety of content"... DEVs should at least make all quests flagged as EPIC/LEGENDARY reward Tokens in the End Chest and some Rare Encounter/Optionals Chests since the Optionals will be Once and Done per Life.

P.S. Farming Challenges are a way... if you have a group to speed it up... for Solo players... is a way to Quit the game at all!

[Fnordian]

To encourage more variety in the quests people play, would it perhaps be feasible to implement a special "Quest of the Day" every day that gives a hefty +50% XP bonus on first completion (in addition to any daily or other bonuses)?

If a different quest got this bonus every single day, and if it the quest was listed on the login screen, that would surely result in a wider selection of quests being run.

[Fivetigers33]

To encourage more variety in the quests people play, would it perhaps be feasible to implement a special "Quest of the Day" every day that gives a hefty +50% XP bonus on first completion (in addition to any daily or other bonuses)?

If a different quest got this bonus every single day, and if it the quest was listed on the login screen, that would surely result in a wider selection of quests being run.

I love this idea. For +50% xp I'd probably run whatever the quest of the day is every day. Except for maybe ToEE...

[nemo1375]

To encourage more variety in the quests people play, would it perhaps be feasible to implement a special "Quest of the Day" every day that gives a hefty +50% XP bonus on first completion (in addition to any daily or other bonuses)?

If a different quest got this bonus every single day, and if it the quest was listed on the login screen, that would surely result in a wider selection of quests being run.

+100 to this idea

[Silverleafeon]

My toon is on the test server at level 19 inside rainbow of the dark, receiving bravery bonus.

That is level 16 dungeon with level 19 toon.


This dungeons listed bravery base as 471 rxp for toon at character level 18 and 19.
Bug reporting.

[Grace_ana]

To encourage more variety in the quests people play, would it perhaps be feasible to implement a special "Quest of the Day" every day that gives a hefty +50% XP bonus on first completion (in addition to any daily or other bonuses)?

If a different quest got this bonus every single day, and if it the quest was listed on the login screen, that would surely result in a wider selection of quests being run.

That's actually a really good idea. Incentivize instead of limit and punish.

[SerPounce]

[only read the OP]

Would it be possible to have optional XP reset on epic reincarnation? Even better have all bonuses reset. I generally like the idea of promoting running through everything once, but as re-running is made increasingly inefficient it makes serial ER a huge slog. Which is too bad because sometimes you'd rather keep playing epics rather than going all the way back to lvl 1 (15 for iconics, but you don't always want to be an iconic).

Lot of good stuff here overall. Particularly easing the overlevel penalties for reaper. Good pro-grouping change.

Personally I don't think whatever value there is in nerfing XP on a few "daily" quests outweighs how much it's going to annoy people. None of those quests are that crazy. Is reducing the xp from spies by 10% so important to game balance that it's worth the bellyaching? And as mentioned serial ER is one of the most frustrating and inefficient grinds, is making it even more inefficient by nerfing dailies really a good idea?

[jskinner937]

I love this idea. For +50% xp I'd probably run whatever the quest of the day is every day. Except for maybe ToEE...

Problem is level range.

[therobb]

I appreciate all the work SSG is putting in to continually improve the game.

However, I don't like the reduction to Reaper XP, especially in light of the increasing Reaper difficulty going in at the same time.

[Xgya]

[only read the OP]

Would it be possible to have optional XP reset on epic reincarnation? Even better have all bonuses reset. I generally like the idea of promoting running through everything once, but as re-running is made increasingly inefficient it makes serial ER a huge slog. Which is too bad because sometimes you'd rather keep playing epics rather than going all the way back to lvl 1 (15 for iconics, but you don't always want to be an iconic).

Lot of good stuff here overall. Particularly easing the overlevel penalties for reaper. Good pro-grouping change.

Personally I don't think whatever value there is in nerfing XP on a few "daily" quests that outweighs how much it's going to annoy people. None of those quests are that crazy. Is reducing the xp from spies by 10% so important to game balance that it's the bellyaching? And as mentioned serial ER is one of the most frustrating an inefficient grinds, is making it even more inefficient by nerfing dailies really a good idea?

I'd be all for everything resetting, but I know a lot of people like doing multiple ERs in a row by farming slayers until they get very near the last tier in each high level zone, ER and then get those bonuses, along with all the saga XP stones.
If everything reset, so would those.

[mr420247]

Why i said check box option mate

U check u want u don't don't

[SpatzAI2]

I'm not going to argue against tweaking some quest XP. I will say though it is disingenuous to claim a small reduction when by killing optionals over time you are doing far far more damage to some quests. There is a reason years ago we stopped the whole permanent XP reduction garbage. I don't really want to go back to those days. It is also over complicating things unnecessarily. Don't front-load optionals, have them ransack regardless of question completion, reduce the XP if needed, just do a straight up nerf. Much cleaner. You also seem to be of the opinion that all your quests are worth running. That is true, each quest is worth running, to someone not everyone. To each individual, there are quests we hate. Not only individuals actually, in my static group, every so often we'll go, "hey I haven't run quest X on this char this life, can't remember the last time I ran it, I wonder why that is" . So we'll run it and then go "oh yeah that's why we said we'd never run it again". The other point is the Tokens. You want to encourage more variety in quest running at the epic lvl? Add tokens to more quests. How many years has it been since a quest was added that actually dropped tokens? If every Epic quest dropped tokens, or even every quest where the entrance is in Eberron, there are some quests I'd run a lot less.

[Rull]

Big Top
Enter the Kobold

How about, instead of an xp boost, you put in an alternate path. Instead of fighting every monster in the quest, you can make a skill check and if you succeed you can take a slightly shorter route (just like in the oldest quests where you could choose between the trapped hallway or the monster filled hallway).
It will be a big win for flavor, since the dumbest thing to do when an enemy expects you, is to take the exact path they planned you to take. And an even bigger win for the feeling of freedom, that the game proposes challenges and the players have to use their resourcefulness to solve them.
Think about how great it would be to find out after doing the quest a couple of times that there are other, maybe faster, ways. So you actually get better instead of just better gear.
That way the player could increases their xp/minute on those quests in another way than just upping the base xp, in a way that many would probably find more satisfying.

Sounds great?
If you want to implement it I know a spot at the very start of Big Top where you could let players climb a tree to get into the carnival unseen.

In Enter the Kobold you could make, say, a pile of rubble somewhere, that doesn't look like much at first, but can actually be scaled by an adventurer trying to get to the second floor.

[Rull]

On a more serious note:

Monastery of the Scorpion

Are you sure about increasing the xp on that one? It used to be very near the top of best xp/min in the game. Which I'm sure isn't anymore (especially given the time it takes to go to reaver's refuge), but still not one in need of a buff, I'd say.

[mr420247]

Ran it alot r3-5 pretty fast n easy w kiter

Puzzler

[Silverleafeon]

Test server bug report:

Went into dungeon base level 2 (missing in action) on reaper 1. Character level 4. Showing bravery bonus +100% Summoned level 4 hire showed same. Summoned level 5 hire showed same. Summoned level 6 hire still listing bravery bonus +100% in xp log, but now with -10% xp for over level player.


EI: Bravery showing at all sorts of levels not proper ones.

Reaper was reduced when the level 6 hire appeared by 10%

[Mofaf]

The exp changes are fine but honestly the real change that needs to be made is the named gear upgraded to comparable with newer items. There are maybe a handful of items pre-Ravenloft that are even preferable over random loot tables!!!

Greetings!

We have been analyzing our data on quests, completion times, and completion numbers, and we have put together some changes we feel will improve players game experience throughout their leveling adventures. We realize that experience points and how players earn them can greatly affect a player's game experience, so we want players to understand the changes.

First, I want to explain our goals with these changes:
~ The rate of leveling overall should not drop for an average player who is playing a lot of different quests.
~ Players should be rewarded for playing a wide variety of quests instead of repeating quests over and over.
~ Players should not be punished for breaking their regular play pattern to join a group or to help out friends and guild mates.
~ We want to close some loopholes for optional objectives.

As a result of these changes, we hope that more dungeons are viable for normal experience gains, and that playing through a wide variety of dungeons is more appealing and playing dungeons over and over is less appealing. If you are playing the quest the first time in Heroic, you should get the same experience points as before. In Epic you will have an additional 5% bonus.


1. We are going to make some XP changes to specific quests to bring them into line with their completion time and difficulty. Four quests will have their XP lowered, while many quests will have their XP raised. The exact list has been added to the bottom of this post.

Note: Not all specific dungeon XP adjustments are implemented, and not all values are final.


2. Bravery Streak for both hard and elite will change to Hard Dungeons Completed and Elite Dungeons Completed. Bravery streaks will no longer end; they won’t have a chance for ending, you won’t need to turn off your streak (or worse, mess your streak up by forgetting), and you can freely play at any difficulty without the count resetting.

The bravery streak bonus will be moved into the standard bravery bonus at its full value. We will still track how many times you finish hard and elite dungeons in the UI, but you are no longer required to playing 5 dungeons in a row at a specific difficulty to build a streak. More on this below.

Bravery Bonus will be based on the base XP for the dungeon as if you were on elite, even if you are playing on hard. Right now the Bravery streak is, at full bonus, 70% of the base XP on Elite. We are increasing that bonus to 100% so players will get more XP the first time they play each quest.

To clarify, playing a quest on Elite/Reaper will give the full 100% bonus. Playing the quest on Hard gives 50% of the Bravery bonus XP BUT you can reclaim the rest of the Bravery XP if you play it later on Elite. So the most efficient way to get the Bravery XP bonus is to play on Elite, but if you help a friend on Hard you can still get the rest of the difference on Elite/Reaper later. Yes, it is less efficient but you don’t *lose* the bonus.

To clarify how the new totals work: as previously, when you complete a Hard dungeon quest your Hard Dungeons completed total will increase. When you complete a Elite or Reaper dungeon quest your Hard and Elite totals will be increased.


3. Increase the Daily bonus.

To further encourage a diversity of dungeons, the Daily bonus will be increased from 20% to 25% for Heroic dungeons, and 30% for Epic dungeons.


4. Move some of the XP from the First time bonus, which is per difficulty, to the Bravery bonus.

It is not our goal to increase outgoing XP; to pay for the above increases we plan on lowering the First time bonus per difficulty.

Normal difficulty will decrease from 25% to 10%.
Hard difficulty will decrease from 40% to 20%.
Elite difficulty will decrease from 80% to 45%.
Reaper difficulty will decrease from 120% to 75%.

What does this mean:
~ On Normal, Hard, and Elite the first time through a Heroic dungeon including the daily bonus will be the same as it is on live. The first time through Epic dungeons will actually give slightly more XP.
~ This makes the practice of repeating dungeons on each difficulty less attractive than finding a new dungeon.


5. Optional objectives will ransack, and that ransack will not reset over time; they are essentially being changed to a play-through bonus with ransack that only resets with a Racial, True and Iconic Reincarnations. To compensate, optional objectives will ransack more slowly. With this change we can add more, or make more of them have greater rewards. Note: the reduced rate at which optional objectives ransack has not yet been changed on the test server.


6. The over and under level bonuses for Reaper will be changed to be the same as Elite. This will reduce confusion and provide a wider grouping level.

The hard stop to entering Reaper on Epic will remain as it is on live, but Heroic will prevent characters from entering Reaper dungeons in the Heroic levels if they are more than 4 levels above the base challenge rating of the quest.



THE QUEST CHANGE LIST

This list is not fully implemented on test. Values are still subject to change!

The following quests will have their XP lowered.

Grim and Barett: XP lowered by 10%
The Jungle of Khyber: XP lowered by 10% on Heroic only. Epic will remain unchanged.
Spies in the House: XP lowered by 10%.
The Litany of the Dead: XP lowered by 10%

The following quests will have a MAJOR increase (10-20%) to their XP:

Temple of Elemental Evil (both halves)

Precious Cargo

Desire in the Dark
Graveyard Shift
Records of the Past
Strike Back
Third Time’s a Charm

Black and Blue
The Newcomers

The following quests will have a MINOR increase (5-10%) to their XP:

A Small Problem
Partycrashers
The Snitch
Under the Big Top

Detour
Rest Stop
Lost in the Swamp
A Stay at the Inn
The End of the Road

Slave Pits of the Undercity
Secret of the Slavers' Stockade
Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords

Tower of Frost

Creeping Death (Monster stats will be fixed to be easier)
To Curse the Sky (Note: stating will be examined and maybe made easier)

Against the Demon Queen

Chains of Flame

The Dreaming Dark

The Portal Opens
The House of Broken Chains
The House of Death Undone
The House of Rusted Blades
The Battle of Eveningstar
The Lost Thread
The Unquiet Graves
Don’t Drink the Water
In the Belly of the Beast
The Riddle

Made to Order

The Cursed Crypt (And we want to move the failure condition to optional if we have time)

Memory Lapse
The Price of Freedom

Enter the Kobold
Monastery of the Scorpion
Prey on the Hunter
Stealer of Souls

Bargain of Blood
The Black Loch
The Tide Turns
Storm the Beaches

Archon’s Trial
Demon Assault
The Devil’s Details

The Haunted Halls of Eveningstar
The Haunted Halls of Eveningstar (extended)

Shadow of Doubt (Epic Only)
A Lesson of Deception (Epic Only)
Army of Shadow (Epic Only)
Friends in Low Places (Epic Only)
Thrill of the Hunt (Epic Only)
Through a Mirror Darkly (Epic Only)

A Break in the Ice
Breaking the Ranks
Lines of Supply
The Tracker’s Trap
What Goes Up

Fathom of the Depths
Into the Deep
The Claw of Vulkoor
The Last Stand

Acute Delirium
Terminal Delirum
Fashion Madness
The Lord of Eyes
The Palace of Stone


Feedback is welcome.

Sev~

[Shadrar]

If you are playing the quest the first time in Heroic, you should get the same experience points as before. In Epic you will have an additional 5% bonus.

3. Increase the Daily bonus.

To further encourage a diversity of dungeons, the Daily bonus will be increased from 20% to 25% for Heroic dungeons, and 30% for Epic dungeons.


4. Move some of the XP from the First time bonus, which is per difficulty, to the Bravery bonus.

It is not our goal to increase outgoing XP; to pay for the above increases we plan on lowering the First time bonus per difficulty.

Normal difficulty will decrease from 25% to 10%.
Hard difficulty will decrease from 40% to 20%.
Elite difficulty will decrease from 80% to 45%.
Reaper difficulty will decrease from 120% to 75%.

What does this mean:
~ On Normal, Hard, and Elite the first time through a Heroic dungeon including the daily bonus will be the same as it is on live. The first time through Epic dungeons will actually give slightly more XP.
~ This makes the practice of repeating dungeons on each difficulty less attractive than finding a new dungeon.


5. Optional objectives will ransack, and that ransack will not reset over time; they are essentially being changed to a play-through bonus with ransack that only resets with a Racial, True and Iconic Reincarnations. To compensate, optional objectives will ransack more slowly. With this change we can add more, or make more of them have greater rewards. Note: the reduced rate at which optional objectives ransack has not yet been changed on the test server.

Sev, your math doesn't add up.

On Hard or Elite, yes, the player ends up the same (or slightly ahead on Epic). But on Normal, they are ending up with strictly less XP. You're giving them 5% Daily Bonus and taking away 15% first time bonus.

5. Optional objectives will ransack, and that ransack will not reset over time; they are essentially being changed to a play-through bonus with ransack that only resets with a Racial, True and Iconic Reincarnations. To compensate, optional objectives will ransack more slowly. With this change we can add more, or make more of them have greater rewards. Note: the reduced rate at which optional objectives ransack has not yet been changed on the test server.

This is a bad idea for two reasons:

1. Quests like Devil Assault where a big chunk of XP is technically optional, but isn't really. This applies in less extreme degrees to a LOT of quests, especially in and around Eveningstar, which given your list of quests getting XP bumps, aren't supposed to be nerfed.
2. In groups, some people will be getting nothing from optionals, while others will be needing to get them done. This is going to split player groups again into runs of "no optionals" and "optionals".

I think a better solution would be to have these optionals ransack until completion. That leaves all quests like Devil Assault fully intact and kills the no-complete WizKing farms.

Players should be rewarded for playing a wide variety of quests instead of repeating quests over and over.

If this is your stated goal, then please revamp Token of the Twelve awards. Currently they are only available in any real quantity if you can do EE+, or from Devil Assault. And they only drop from the same set of repeating quests.

People don't just run VoN3/Spies/Wizking every day because of the XP, they also run them to reduce the number of DA runs they have to do at the end of the day. For those of us who can't consistently run EE and don't repeat quests, this has been a nightmare for a long time.