Criticism Of Recent Changes

[LTForge]

Hello readers,

I want to preface this by saying that the vast majority of recent changes, I've been in support of and quite happy with, if not at least found to be net-neutral overall and thus shrugged off.
There are, however two changes which I would like to state some criticism of.

First, Optional Ransack.
Funnily enough this has virtually no effect on how I play DDO, yet I still hate it on principal.
The stated design goals of the EXP changes were to encourage players to play a wider variety of quests instead of simply repeating a small selection of quests over and over until the user burns out and quits, while also fixing some loopholes in the EXP system that allowed users to farm enormous amounts of EXP without much effort.
While this certainly solves both problems in one fell swoop, this feels like burning down the house to kill a spider. Some might argue a necessity, but comes across as an irrational, short sighted attempt to solve what's not as big a problem as it seems. (As such I'll be referring to SSG as Team Jorn from here until my dying days.)

Now, this criticism has been leveled many times by many people in many ways so I don't want to stay on it too long, but I want to offer possible solutions that would make this change a little easier to swallow, at least on paper.

Alternative One: Optional objectives ransack identically, though independently of, quest completion, and reset at the same rate.
Straight forward, easy to understand, doesn't require learning an entirely new rule-set and attempting to keep track of much on the player side. Just go forth and quest without having to worry about getting massive EXP penalties disproportionate of your efforts, but prevents people from simply entering a quest, spending a minimal amount of time to complete optional objective and then bail/reset to maximize exp/m. A clean, universal solution, if nothing else.

Alternative Two: Remove optional ransack and instead make targeted changes to quests in which this was a serious problem, such as lowering optional objective rewards and "back loading" the exp onto Quest completion. I know a lot of people have jumped on SSG for not doing this initially but I get why this one's a pain in the ass. Between spaghetti code, old outdated infrastructure and the sheer number of possible ways something like this can go wrong I know why it's not an attractive solution. Still, the player-base has spoken.

As a footnote, regardless of what solution you use, please make some kind of change to alleviate the penalty this puts on Devil Assault and other "Forced Optional" quests, I've seem some of the calculations getting tossed around and the penalties are steep considering that most people aren't even farming those particular quests for exp.

Anywho,

Second, Hardcore.

This isn't actually a criticism of Hardcore league itself, put down the pitchforks and keep reading oh ye of impatience.
This is a criticism of the way it's barred for non-VIP's.
Okay NOW you can get the pitchforks.

I was excited for Hardcore when the concept was pitched, right up until the moment it was clear that it was going to require an active subscription to access it. Now don't get me wrong, I know nobody gets, nor should they expect to get, something for nothing.
One of the things I like about DDO is that you have the option of how you pay for what you play. Having the choice between buying into content piecemeal, paying for a subscription, or even grinding out favor to get it and thus spend time instead of money on the game, is a good system (Albeit I think the sheer amount of content makes the latter-most much less viable these days than it used to be, but that's not relevant at the moment, I'm just sayin')
This, however, is the first time I can think of where something was exclusive to VIP's.
Don't get me wrong I have nothing against shoveling money at the game, I pre-purchased the collectors editions of MotU and Sharn (And bought Shadowfell Conspiracy and Ravenloft in short order, though the eldritch horror known as "Life" prevented me from buying them early) in addition to points and gifts I've bought for others over the years.
This is the first time I've ever felt like I was actively being barred from content because I wasn't willing to pay a specific way though, and I don't like it.
No really that's pretty much it, I like the concept of hardcore a lot and I hope it goes well, brings in some bank, etc, I just wish I could play it, preferably with friends (even the dirty scrubs who don't throw money at SSG like they should) but I ain't buying a subscription cause I ain't about that life. If you guys are planning to run it again in the future, maybe make it open to premium players if not everyone, or allow an "opt in" for a small amount of points for non-VIP's?

I really can't stress the "everyone" enough though. I am genuinely worried that DDO's player-base is too small to be able to take much in the way of forceful division of players, even for short periods.

Anyway that's about it. Nothing in the above is going to keep me from playing the game, but I disliked them enough I felt it warranted bringing up.

Cheers, and of special note, good luck to everyone in their Hardcore endeavors. I'm hoping to see some videos of any particularly hilarious deaths in the near future.

[erethizon]

I'll leave the optional ransack issue alone since it has been discussed enough in other areas, but the issue of Hardcore for only VIP's is a good one. Some of us don't want to be VIP. Not because of the cost, but because it locks you out of buying content. Other than the 10% bonus to experience, VIP makes the game worse. Once you become a VIP you cannot purchase quest packs until you drop it. This means you will miss all the sales on content and basically have to stay VIP forever or get hit with a sudden loss of countless packs when you finally drop it. I don't want to be a VIP because I don't want the penalty of not being allowed to purchase adventure packs.

That said, if you decide the special servers like this will continue to be a thing, consider selling an account upgrade that allows premium players to participate in these events as well. For X store points a premium player will be granted access to the Hardcore server and all future special event servers (ideally the test server would be part of this as well).

[droid327]

This is the first time I've ever felt like I was actively being barred from content because I wasn't willing to pay a specific way though, and I don't like it.

I just pointed this out in the other thread too...

This is the first time there's been a major piece of temporary content. The event is 90 days, then its over forever. That's it. That makes it really hard to sell "permanent" access to it like they can for Adventure Packs or Races or Classes.

So a 3-month VIP sub is functionally the same thing as selling an a la carte Hardcore Server Access pass. You pay $30 or whatever. You access the server for 90 days. Then its gone. It works the same under either payment model.

The only difference is that VIP also comes with free points and bonus XP, so just look at it that way - the 3 month sub is Hardcore Access.

The "cant access sales during VIP" is the only real complaint with any merit...but even then, that's not exactly a huge dealbreaker for the whole idea.

[GramercyRiff]

I'll leave the optional ransack issue alone since it has been discussed enough in other areas, but the issue of Hardcore for only VIP's is a good one. Some of us don't want to be VIP. Not because of the cost, but because it locks you out of buying content. Other than the 10% bonus to experience, VIP makes the game worse. Once you become a VIP you cannot purchase quest packs until you drop it. This means you will miss all the sales on content and basically have to stay VIP forever or get hit with a sudden loss of countless packs when you finally drop it. I don't want to be a VIP because I don't want the penalty of not being allowed to purchase adventure packs.

That said, if you decide the special servers like this will continue to be a thing, consider selling an account upgrade that allows premium players to participate in these events as well. For X store points a premium player will be granted access to the Hardcore server and all future special event servers (ideally the test server would be part of this as well).

A 3 month sub IS paying for Hardcore. If you're fine with paying for Hardcore and you like the concept then get the 3 month sub.

If you want to use points, which are acquired in game then yeah I think you're SOL. They implemented Hardcore to make money. I'm a bit soured with SSG atm, but I cannot begrudge them for wanting to make money.

Your concern about buying packs though. That's something that bugs the hell out of me too so high five.

[LTForge]

I just pointed this out in the other thread too...

This is the first time there's been a major piece of temporary content. The event is 90 days, then its over forever. That's it. That makes it really hard to sell "permanent" access to it like they can for Adventure Packs or Races or Classes.

So a 3-month VIP sub is functionally the same thing as selling an a la carte Hardcore Server Access pass. You pay $30 or whatever. You access the server for 90 days. Then its gone. It works the same under either payment model.

The only difference is that VIP also comes with free points and bonus XP, so just look at it that way - the 3 month sub is Hardcore Access.

The "cant access sales during VIP" is the only real complaint with any merit...but even then, that's not exactly a huge dealbreaker for the whole idea.

The reason I level the criticism at this particular function is twofold.

1) Treating the VIP Access cost of three months as an "A La Carte" expense sets the price of Hardcore access at 59.75 CAD, that's ungodly expensive given that the only persisting rewards are a small selection of cosmetics you still have to earn on the hardcore server and 1,500 Points.

2) The iconography for Hardcore is a skull over the Roman Numeral I, which leads me to believe this won't be a one-time thing, but rather the first attempt to test the waters. With that in mind I was a little hesitant to even bring it up but I figured ultimately it doesn't warrant waiting in-case SSG decides that the lack of feedback means only those with VIP are interested and thus decides to keep it VIP only or simply doesn't do it again.
It's not the case at all. I for one am very interested but cannot justify the cost of entry as it is, I chose a long, long time ago to go the pay-as-you-go method, which has devalued VIP dramatically for me, as I already own virtually everything VIP would otherwise give me access to and thus get nothing out of. Prior to now this has never barred me access to content, which is where the majority of my distaste comes from.

A 3 month sub IS paying for Hardcore. If you're fine with paying for Hardcore and you like the concept then get the 3 month sub.

If you want to use points, which are acquired in game then yeah I think you're SOL. They implemented Hardcore to make money. I'm a bit soured with SSG atm, but I cannot begrudge them for wanting to make money.

Your concern about buying packs though. That's something that bugs the hell out of me too so high five.

Editing this in because I missed it in my initial response;

I think the biggest problem's not so much that people don't want to pay for it, it's simply that those who made the decision to go the pay-as-you-go route or true-f2p have no recourse for this one. The cost is very high if you've already spent enough time or money to eliminate most of the benefits of VIP via those routes as stated in my reply to Droid.

Also agreed on the Packs, albeit I've been playing so long it has no real effect on me one way or the other.

[Xgya]

The reason I level the criticism at this particular function is twofold.

1) Treating the VIP Access cost of three months as an "A La Carte" expense sets the price of Hardcore access at 59.75 CAD, that's ungodly expensive given that the only persisting rewards are a small selection of cosmetics you still have to earn on the hardcore server and 1,500 Points.

How does 30$ USD (there's a 3-month VIP pack already available) make it worth 60$ CAD in the store? At our current exchange rate, should be around 40$ CAD for 3 months.

That comes with 15$ USD's worth of points (if you're used to buying them 60$ at a time), making this a 15$ purchase for access to the event.

[droid327]

I think the biggest problem's not so much that people don't want to pay for it, it's simply that those who made the decision to go the pay-as-you-go route or true-f2p have no recourse for this one. The cost is very high if you've already spent enough time or money to eliminate most of the benefits of VIP via those routes as stated in my reply to Droid.

But you're not concerned about any of the "other benefits of VIP". You're only concerned with Hardcore mode for 90 days. Either its worth it for that alone, or its not. And the whole idea is a prestige event anyway, its not meant for everyone. If its too expensive, then just dont play - like you said, you're not missing out on anything meaningful, so its not like its P2W gating.

If your complaint is that its too expensive for what you think it gives you, then fine, but the option still exists. There is a price at which you can buy it, you just need to decide if you're willing to pay.

[LTForge]

How does 30$ USD (there's a 3-month VIP pack already available) make it worth 60$ CAD in the store? At our current exchange rate, should be around 40$ CAD for 3 months.

That comes with 15$ USD's worth of points (if you're used to buying them 60$ at a time), making this a 15$ purchase for access to the event.

You're correct, if you use the 3-Month VIP Pack it would sit at just a smudge under 40$ CAD. However my calculation was simply based off those who do not or cannot shoulder larger initial costs to save money in the long run and would thus need to purchase on a month by month basis for 3 months to enjoy the full duration of the event. I suppose a better way of putting it would have been to list the full possible spectrum of costs which would be a range from 33$-60$ CAD depending on how the user pays for the subscription (With adjustments for point values as needed), rather than simply stating the worst case scenario, that's my bad.

Although I suppose it's a bit more complex of an issue given how value vs cost work in this game, with content unlocked being determined by a mixture of time spent and money poured into the game, sales taken advantage of, etc. My point was meant to be a simpler way of saying that, for users who up until this point, have not used the subscription based service and instead purchased things as they play, the cost of entry is very high, and the deeper you are into True-F2P or Pay-As-You-Go the more lopsided the cost:value equation becomes, very similar to the complaints many people have about how VIP's have to purchase expansion content separately, which I also think is bad though at least VIP's have the option to save up the points they get from being a VIP to purchase that content without additional cost eventually.

There is, however, no equivalent course offered on this time limited, possibly one time only event, that many people want to play, which is why I dislike how it's been handled.

As Gramercy, I don't begrudge SSG for wanting to make money off the event they're running, and I like the idea, I'm simply stating a distaste for the "All Or Nothing" method which has been forced on this subject as it's not in line with how things are usually handled. There's no player choice in how this is paid for or bought into.

But you're not concerned about any of the "other benefits of VIP". You're only concerned with Hardcore mode for 90 days. Either its worth it for that alone, or its not. And the whole idea is a prestige event anyway, its not meant for everyone. If its too expensive, then just dont play - like you said, you're not missing out on anything meaningful, so its not like its P2W gating.

If your complaint is that its too expensive for what you think it gives you, then fine, but the option still exists. There is a price at which you can buy it, you just need to decide if you're willing to pay.

It's not that I'm not concerned with the other benefits, it's that the other benefits are much less valuable to me because of how I've been playing the game for years and there was seemingly zero ground or consideration given for that. When I made the decision to play via pay-as-you-go years ago it was because I was a kid with a paper route who couldn't justify spending money on VIP but could afford a ten dollar purchase here and there every couple months, and the occasional splash for something more when the money was there, yet now I feel like I'm being penalized for it by being denied access to a feature I want unless I pay a small but not insubstantial amount extra, which leads nicely into the next point.

In regards to "Either its worth it for that alone, or its not," that's a terrible method for determining what you spend your money on, especially if you have to be frugal. I'm not going to buy a car because I like the color, or buy a new house because I like the windows. It isn't a simple calculation of "Do I want Hardcore enough to pay for VIP?" It's "Do the total benefits of VIP offer a reasonable value for their price, despite the severe limitations in value that have been imposed by prior purchases?"

That brings me back to the point I addressed earlier in my post in response to Xgya, this is a unique circumstance as this is the only time that anything has ever been implemented in the game which explicitly bars a user from accessing it unless a specific payment model is selected, and no concession was made for those that do not or cannot use that model, which may not be a bad decision innately, depending on how the numbers stack up, but it certainly doesn't feel good to be told, even inadvertently or indirectly, that the thing I want to do "Isn't for me" because of something arbitrary like that, especially when I am willing to pay my way into it, just not at an awful value vs price point that's been shredded by years of using a different payment model.

[nokowi]

Hello readers,

I want to preface this by saying that the vast majority of recent changes, I've been in support of and quite happy with, if not at least found to be net-neutral overall and thus shrugged off.
There are, however two changes which I would like to state some criticism of.

First, Optional Ransack.
Funnily enough this has virtually no effect on how I play DDO, yet I still hate it on principal.
The stated design goals of the EXP changes were to encourage players to play a wider variety of quests instead of simply repeating a small selection of quests over and over until the user burns out and quits, while also fixing some loopholes in the EXP system that allowed users to farm enormous amounts of EXP without much effort.
While this certainly solves both problems in one fell swoop, this feels like burning down the house to kill a spider. Some might argue a necessity, but comes across as an irrational, short sighted attempt to solve what's not as big a problem as it seems. (As such I'll be referring to SSG as Team Jorn from here until my dying days.)

Now, this criticism has been leveled many times by many people in many ways so I don't want to stay on it too long, but I want to offer possible solutions that would make this change a little easier to swallow, at least on paper.

Alternative One: Optional objectives ransack identically, though independently of, quest completion, and reset at the same rate.
Straight forward, easy to understand, doesn't require learning an entirely new rule-set and attempting to keep track of much on the player side. Just go forth and quest without having to worry about getting massive EXP penalties disproportionate of your efforts, but prevents people from simply entering a quest, spending a minimal amount of time to complete optional objective and then bail/reset to maximize exp/m. A clean, universal solution, if nothing else.

Alternative Two: Remove optional ransack and instead make targeted changes to quests in which this was a serious problem, such as lowering optional objective rewards and "back loading" the exp onto Quest completion. I know a lot of people have jumped on SSG for not doing this initially but I get why this one's a pain in the ass. Between spaghetti code, old outdated infrastructure and the sheer number of possible ways something like this can go wrong I know why it's not an attractive solution. Still, the player-base has spoken.

As a footnote, regardless of what solution you use, please make some kind of change to alleviate the penalty this puts on Devil Assault and other "Forced Optional" quests, I've seem some of the calculations getting tossed around and the penalties are steep considering that most people aren't even farming those particular quests for exp.

Anywho,

Second, Hardcore.

This isn't actually a criticism of Hardcore league itself, put down the pitchforks and keep reading oh ye of impatience.
This is a criticism of the way it's barred for non-VIP's.
Okay NOW you can get the pitchforks.

I was excited for Hardcore when the concept was pitched, right up until the moment it was clear that it was going to require an active subscription to access it. Now don't get me wrong, I know nobody gets, nor should they expect to get, something for nothing.
One of the things I like about DDO is that you have the option of how you pay for what you play. Having the choice between buying into content piecemeal, paying for a subscription, or even grinding out favor to get it and thus spend time instead of money on the game, is a good system (Albeit I think the sheer amount of content makes the latter-most much less viable these days than it used to be, but that's not relevant at the moment, I'm just sayin')
This, however, is the first time I can think of where something was exclusive to VIP's.
Don't get me wrong I have nothing against shoveling money at the game, I pre-purchased the collectors editions of MotU and Sharn (And bought Shadowfell Conspiracy and Ravenloft in short order, though the eldritch horror known as "Life" prevented me from buying them early) in addition to points and gifts I've bought for others over the years.
This is the first time I've ever felt like I was actively being barred from content because I wasn't willing to pay a specific way though, and I don't like it.
No really that's pretty much it, I like the concept of hardcore a lot and I hope it goes well, brings in some bank, etc, I just wish I could play it, preferably with friends (even the dirty scrubs who don't throw money at SSG like they should) but I ain't buying a subscription cause I ain't about that life. If you guys are planning to run it again in the future, maybe make it open to premium players if not everyone, or allow an "opt in" for a small amount of points for non-VIP's?

I really can't stress the "everyone" enough though. I am genuinely worried that DDO's player-base is too small to be able to take much in the way of forceful division of players, even for short periods.

Anyway that's about it. Nothing in the above is going to keep me from playing the game, but I disliked them enough I felt it warranted bringing up.

Cheers, and of special note, good luck to everyone in their Hardcore endeavors. I'm hoping to see some videos of any particularly hilarious deaths in the near future.

I think SSG needs to learn how to be consistent in design.

Why are people encouraged to skip as much of a quest as possible with RXP design if SSG really wants people playing as much content as possible?

Doesn't optional ransack provide a barrier to ever encouraging players to run more of a quest with RXP rewards?

They used to have ransack, then they got rid of it, and then they brought it back. The pendulum swings....


There is only one consistent design reason for all the changes in the last two years - they want to remove too much reward accumulation, regardless of the source. Closing quests, adding mobs to Amber Temple, permanent optional ransack, limiting the rewards of the most popular quests - these all meet one singular goal, and the obvious answer is the answer that has been consistent in their design - that they want to limit player progression, whether an exploit or whether it is within the intended game design.


The issue with optional ransack is that it prohibits them from motivating people to run anything more than the bare minimum of a quest at cap.

Painting themselves in a corner always produces sub-optimal solutions.

The player base thinks only short term, but designers need to think long term.

Weekly optional ransack reset, on the other hand, would have allowed them to make future design changes to increase player diversity, while still meeting all of their stated goals. The player base thinks in terms of short term results (was the change overall positive or negative), but designers need to think about what works long term, and what changes will be the most flexible as the game progresses.


When was the last time you ran all of tempest spine (all optionals) at cap? I'm sure some have, but I'll bet it is rare.

[LTForge]

I think SSG needs to learn how to be consistent in design.

Why are people encouraged to skip as much of a quest as possible with RXP design if SSG really wants people playing as much content as possible?

Doesn't optional ransack provide a barrier to ever encouraging players to run more of a quest with RXP rewards?

They used to have ransack, then they got rid of it, and then they brought it back. The pendulum swings....


There is only one consistent design reason for all the changes in the last two years - they want to remove too much reward accumulation, regardless of the source. Closing quests, adding mobs to Amber Temple, permanent optional ransack - these all meet one singular goal, and the obvious answer is the answer that has been consistent in their design - that they want to limit player progression, whether an exploit or whether it is within the intended game design.


The issue with optional ransack is that it prohibits them from motivating people to run anything more than the bare minimum of a quest at cap.

Painting themselves in a corner always produces sub-optimal solutions.

The player base thinks only short term, but designers need to think long term.

Weekly optional ransack reset, on the other hand, would have allowed them to make future design changes to increase player diversity, while still meeting all of their stated goals. The player base thinks in terms of short term results (was the change overall positive or negative), but designers need to think about what works long term, and what changes will be the most flexible as the game progresses.


When was the last time you ran all of tempest spine (all optionals) at cap? I'm sure some have, but I'll bet it is rare.

Partially agree. I think there's a lot of merit in what they're trying to do, create a varied experience that isn't simply blown through with the challenging content acting more like a "minor inconvenience" on the road to reincarnation, though I think they'd solve a lot more problems with creative solutions and by rebuilding content to make it more fun and challenging along the way, rather than messing with rewards, unless that's to buff things up a bit here and there where the only thing keeping someone out is the fact that they can't justify the time spent. (For example, if I know the narrative of a quest inside and out because I've done it on fifteen different lives, as fifteen different classes, and the quest doesn't have useful drops, good exp, or a TON of a favor, is it really worth my time to do more than once in a blue moon? Answer's no, but you can fix that really easily by adjusting reward levels to make it more worth the time to LFM/Run)

I suppose that's all neither here nor there though. Still, might be worth tossing in. The road's endless, why waste time sweating how the players are trying to get furthest along as long as there's plenty of fun avenues to take?

Anywho, I do think your first point is the most poignant, though I think I'd rephrase it to "I think SSG need to be more consistent about their design goals vs implementation."

[nokowi]

Anywho, I do think your first point is the most poignant, though I think I'd rephrase it to "I think SSG need to be more consistent about their design goals vs implementation."

If one thought that their primary design goal has been limiting best rewards ex-store-purchase, they have met this goal with every design choice in the last 2 years.

I'm suggesting we should all look at all their actions, and make our own decisions based on those actions.

I'm not convinced they haven't been completely consistent with their goals, just somewhat inconsistent with their stated goals that this is all for player benefit.

My feeling is more of a bait-and-switch not-completely-honest selling of the changes than something nefarious.

Weekly (pick any time period you think best) optional ransack reset would have much better fit "player fun" if that was the true goal, and it would have been the better long term decision if they want to create as diverse of play as possible.

[Xulders]

Personally, I've always considered ransack to be a fun-killing move and one driven by a misguided notion that forcing players to play content they don't like will improve the player base, as if there was an army of players who really wanted to run poor quality dungeons, but were prevented from doing so by all the exp farmers.
And this is the issue for me, that early quests design was generally ok, but recently, other than RL, most new content has been generic, as if designed by someone who just drops groups of mobs in every thirty yards in some random mess. I go through those quests complaining loudly that it's absolutely no fun to play. Then at the end there's the final kick in the nads, with junk exp.
I can't help but feel that exp farmers are being blamed for why people don't run this content, much of it now buffed to barely worthwhile exp. They're being blamed when the real reason is that most players don't enjoy playing it.
And this is the problem. On one side we have SSG, who are trying to come up with new and innovative ways of shaking money out of players. Who make content and then fail to realize or can't admit to themselves why it doesn't get played, and who, like most game developers, fail to always get what motivates players to play a game at all.

On the other side, we have players who have a wide range of reasons why they play, and multiple often conflicting ideas about what direction the game should take. But ultimately in an MMO, I think the unifying factor is the reward concept of exp, advancement, improving gear, fun and immersion.

If a dev wants to wind up a player base then just force them to play bad content over fun content, and nerf one of the sacred cows, exp/rewards.

This is a game with so many rinse and repeat lives, that any obsession on the part of SSG with fast leveling is absurd at best. Even the most obsessive player, using all the exp farming tricks they could muster would have years of play to max out. Imo they should let players enjoy the content they like to play, even if that means they play 20 quests per life. Better that than bugging them with bad content.


As for Hardcore, as someone who isn't VIP, I agree. I buy the second tier points bundle every time it's up, which amounts to a fair amount of money compared to a sub to most other MMOs. But, apparently, that makes my an outsider. I'm not that bothered, because the concept of Hardcore doesn't appeal to me, and the rewards are ..meh. But still, it's just another poorly gauged act to nark the non VIP player base.

[Pyed-Pyper]

Personally, I've always considered ransack to be a fun-killing move and one driven by a misguided notion that forcing players to play content they don't like will improve the player base, as if there was an army of players who really wanted to run poor quality dungeons, but were prevented from doing so by all the exp farmers.
And this is the issue for me, that early quests design was generally ok, but recently, other than RL, most new content has been generic, as if designed by someone who just drops groups of mobs in every thirty yards in some random mess. I go through those quests complaining loudly that it's absolutely no fun to play. Then at the end there's the final kick in the nads, with junk exp.
I can't help but feel that exp farmers are being blamed for why people don't run this content, much of it now buffed to barely worthwhile exp. They're being blamed when the real reason is that most players don't enjoy playing it.
And this is the problem. On one side we have SSG, who are trying to come up with new and innovative ways of shaking money out of players. Who make content and then fail to realize or can't admit to themselves why it doesn't get played, and who, like most game developers, fail to always get what motivates players to play a game at all.

On the other side, we have players who have a wide range of reasons why they play, and multiple often conflicting ideas about what direction the game should take. But ultimately in an MMO, I think the unifying factor is the reward concept of exp, advancement, improving gear, fun and immersion.

If a dev wants to wind up a player base then just force them to play bad content over fun content, and nerf one of the sacred cows, exp/rewards.

This is a game with so many rinse and repeat lives, that any obsession on the part of SSG with fast leveling is absurd at best. Even the most obsessive player, using all the exp farming tricks they could muster would have years of play to max out. Imo they should let players enjoy the content they like to play, even if that means they play 20 quests per life. Better that than bugging them with bad content.


As for Hardcore, as someone who isn't VIP, I agree. I buy the second tier points bundle every time it's up, which amounts to a fair amount of money compared to a sub to most other MMOs. But, apparently, that makes my an outsider. I'm not that bothered, because the concept of Hardcore doesn't appeal to me, and the rewards are ..meh. But still, it's just another poorly gauged act to nark the non VIP player base.

word

+1

[slarden]

Hardcore.

This is a criticism of the way it's barred for non-VIP's.
.

It's not - you can pay $30 for a 90 day pass and participate

[LTForge]

It's not - you can pay $30 for a 90 day pass and participate

VIP has lost the vast majority of its value for many players due to the nature of this games payment systems and nothing was done to address this for those of us that can't or won't purchase VIP accordingly, which is a brand new phenomenon as nothing like this has ever happened before.

I've elaborated in greater depth in my other follow ups, but I reiterate, I take no issue with VIP as its own system and I take no issue with VIP advantages or the like, however I DO take issue with creating exclusive content at the explicit expense of those that don't use a specific payment model for whatever reason. A soft lockout is still a lockout, and rubs several players the wrong way. How someone pays shouldn't be a determining factor in what someone plays here. It was bad when VIP's had to make additional payments to get access to expansion content, it's bad now that Pay-As-You-Go players are forced to subscribe to gain access to a time limited event.

[Deadlock]

It's not - you can pay $30 for a 90 day pass and participate

Makes sense at the start of the event, but what about 30, or 60 days in?

A Premium 30//60/90 day should really have been added at the start.

I can only speak personally to how this would increase SSG's revenue. All of the things that I've taken for granted on Ghallanda as a result of favour unlocks, I've suddenly realised don't apply on Hardcore. I wanted a few arti levels, so what the hell, 995 points spent to buy what I'd already unlocked through House Cannith favour. I'm sure that others will have even better examples of this.

I genuinely believe that the account-wide purchases are an unintended consequence of the event, I don't see anyone inside the SSG hollowed out volcano devising such a premeditated machiavellian scheme for extracting DDO points and twisting limbs towards new DDO top-ups from the event.

[Jaxtan]

Perhaps after this big test they will come up with some kind of purchasable pass for the hardcore server that is less than VIP and does not have VIP's perks. I would guess it would be somewhere around $24 USD for a hardcore server pass.

With regard to the other changes to xp, I would guess they have all been done to align with how the hardcore server is being managed. It's all about generating favor and doing quests a little over level to lower the risk of death, but not impacting xp as much as it did in the past. Repeating optional quest objectives to zerg xp for rapid leveling without favor would have broken the hardcore server approach to leveling and rewards.

[LTForge]

Perhaps after this big test they will come up with some kind of purchasable pass for the hardcore server that is less than VIP and does not have VIP's perks. I would guess it would be somewhere around $24 USD for a hardcore server pass.

With regard to the other changes to xp, I would guess they have all been done to align with how the hardcore server is being managed. It's all about generating favor and doing quests a little over level to lower the risk of death, but not impacting xp as much as it did in the past. Repeating optional quest objectives to zerg xp for rapid leveling without favor would have broken the hardcore server approach to leveling and rewards.

This is really all I'm hoping for in regards to Hardcore. While it would have been nice to have it initially, or maybe have some kind of token system to allow access, I get why that may not be the case first time around.

[Pyed-Pyper]

Perhaps after this big test they will come up with some kind of purchasable pass for the hardcore server that is less than VIP and does not have VIP's perks. I would guess it would be somewhere around $24 USD for a hardcore server pass.

With regard to the other changes to xp, I would guess they have all been done to align with how the hardcore server is being managed. It's all about generating favor and doing quests a little over level to lower the risk of death, but not impacting xp as much as it did in the past. Repeating optional quest objectives to zerg xp for rapid leveling without favor would have broken the hardcore server approach to leveling and rewards.

I think you are imbuing the 'hard core' server with attributes from your own preconceptions.

What, exactly, is the "hardcore server approach" aside from "profit"?

[Jaxtan]

I think you are imbuing the 'hard core' server with attributes from your own preconceptions.

What, exactly, is the "hardcore server approach" aside from "profit"?

It's based on playing on the hard core server for the past two days and seeing people significantly modify their approach to playing and leveling so they can stay alive while achieving the objectives to get the cosmetics. There have been hundreds of character deaths, all of which are posted as a world event. Some after getting as high as levels 9 and 10 and then dying in difficult quests like the pit.

It makes everyone realize they have to play very differently when they have no extra PL feats, bad gear, no second chance and don't want their name blasted to the world ala hunger games that they have died. There is a lot of community interaction and communication about all these deaths, and people trying different approaches. There is a lot of frustration, but also a lot cooperation. As a result, there are hundreds of people having a lot of fun.

I like this version of DDO better versus what I have played the last year. It was designed to be played very differently than zerging past lives, so some xp rules had to change to accommodate this alternative approach.

With regard to "profits", there are two likely streams of revenue for SSG.
- players signing up for VIP to play on the server (real cash)
- DDO points (bought with real cash) to buy astral shards and other DDO store items
- astral shards (with DDO points) for guild ship items for the buffs (though no guild has likely gotten to level 10 yet to start buying the buff stations for the guild ships)
- gold seal hirelings (with DDO points or astral shards), because you really need a hireling or two to survive if you are soloing
- astral shards to buy gear on the astral shard market, since good gear is very, very hard to come by
- astral shards for loot chest rerolls if looking for specific named gear

There isn't much "profit" in this. If they got 200 players to purchase VIP for $30, and another 200 to buy more DDO points with cash, that would be ~$18000 in additional revenue. I am sure it helps, but it's less revenue than a single Starbucks store makes in a week.

The best benefit to the hardcore server is probably the excitement it generates, which hopefully translates into a player base that sticks around longer and more regularly.