Criticism Of Recent Changes

[nokowi]

It's also important to note that quests used to have unique mob mechanics coded into them, and now halls of mobs react in the same way every time. It might be time for some work on more interesting agro mechanics, or at least a way to code in more quest specific variations.

[erethizon]

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.

It used to annoy me greatly how little care people had in the game for their lives and the lives of others. I do my best to avoid dying in real life so naturally I did everything I could to avoid dying in the game as well. Once reaper and champions came about even I stopped caring as much as I used to because sudden deaths seemed to come out of nowhere. That said, it would be very nice to finally play in an environment where people act like life actually matters and don't take needless risks.

[slarden]

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.

Nobody is forced to do anything. There is no new content here there is a chance to earn cosmetic rewards running the same content.

You made a decision that premium was a better financial deal than VIP and just about any way you look at the numbers it is. There is no problem at all with SSG attaching more value to VIP as people have been complaining for years that they were dropping VIP because there is not enough value. Non-VIPs have the option to subscribe for just the 90 day period if they want to participate and the total cost of ownership is still less than VIP.

Support the game or don't - it's your choice. I would like to see SSG continue to include more value with VIP.

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.

$30 for 3 months seems reasonable enough to me. VIPs are paying around $100 or sometimes more per year already. If people aren't willing to spend $30 they probably wouldn't spend anything else except maybe used accumulated favor points. The server is quite full and the death announcement stream is very continual.

Personally I would like to see more benefits like this for VIP going forward. It's a definite motivator to keep my subscription.

[slarden]

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"?

The unique thing about this server is death is permanent. There isn't much from the store that can prevent death. Spell point pots, tomes, healing potions, xp pots? Everything you spent and everything in your inventory is gone as soon as you die. I haven't died yet but I assume there is no chance to transfer inventory to the bank. Buying your way to the top of the leader boards seems highly unlikely to me. I see death announcements constantly and many of those deaths are between level 2 and 5. If they bought tomes, etc. that would really suck.

The absolute best method to prevent death is run with a full group on a difficulty where death is unlikely. The plat AH is quite robust on the hardcore server. Gearing up isn't as challenging as it would be on the regular servers.

I hope SSG does make some profit from this event because I would like to see more things like this. Personally I would have preferred something like a special cake you received when the character was created that gave you 10 uses and all other ways to raise you didn't work. It would allow people to up the difficulty a bit until they got closer to running out of charges, but I love this event just the way it is also.

[erethizon]

The unique thing about this server is death is permanent. There isn't much from the store that can prevent death. Spell point pots, tomes, healing potions, xp pots? Everything you spent and everything in your inventory is gone as soon as you die. I haven't died yet but I assume there is no chance to transfer inventory to the bank. Buying your way to the top of the leader boards seems highly unlikely to me. I see death announcements constantly and many of those deaths are between level 2 and 5. If they bought tomes, etc. that would really suck.

The absolute best method to prevent death is run with a full group on a difficulty where death is unlikely. The plat AH is quite robust on the hardcore server. Gearing up isn't as challenging as it would be on the regular servers.

I hope SSG does make some profit from this event because I would like to see more things like this. Personally I would have preferred something like a special cake you received when the character was created that gave you 10 uses and all other ways to raise you didn't work. It would allow people to up the difficulty a bit until they got closer to running out of charges, but I love this event just the way it is also.

The one reward I would like to see would be for you to have the option to either transfer the character (which is the only option you do have now) or to move all his stuff and money to the shared bank and then turn the character into an experience stone and reaper experience stone equal to the amount of experience and reaper experience you earned on the server. We all know alts are not the focus of the game nearly as much anymore. Allowing the time people spend on the hardcore server to be transferred to their main character (in the form of an experience and reaper experience stone) would enable people to play on the hardcore server without the time being fully lost on their main character. For the time being I will continue to play on my main character and just read about the hardcore server on the forums.

[Emerge2012]

Hardcore server is simply a cash grab aimed at people that were already spending. The people that aren't spending on the normal servers clearly wouldn't be spending in the HC. But others will be dumb enough to raid the store for every advantage they could get.

I'd much rather have a new expansion, that everyone would again pay for, that fixes everything Sharn broke. Maybe even put some effort into the new one.

[Pyed-Pyper]

The unique thing about this server is death is permanent. There isn't much from the store that can prevent death. Spell point pots, tomes, healing potions, xp pots? Everything you spent and everything in your inventory is gone as soon as you die. I haven't died yet but I assume there is no chance to transfer inventory to the bank. Buying your way to the top of the leader boards seems highly unlikely to me. I see death announcements constantly and many of those deaths are between level 2 and 5. If they bought tomes, etc. that would really suck.

The absolute best method to prevent death is run with a full group on a difficulty where death is unlikely. The plat AH is quite robust on the hardcore server. Gearing up isn't as challenging as it would be on the regular servers.

I hope SSG does make some profit from this event because I would like to see more things like this. Personally I would have preferred something like a special cake you received when the character was created that gave you 10 uses and all other ways to raise you didn't work. It would allow people to up the difficulty a bit until they got closer to running out of charges, but I love this event just the way it is also.

There's something else too, a "leaderboard". Any such ranking implies competition. Any competition with a ranking system implies a 'fair' playing field. In any kind of competition that isn't level, spending taints the results.

Hardcore server is simply a cash grab aimed at people that were already spending. The people that aren't spending on the normal servers clearly wouldn't be spending in the HC. But others will be dumb enough to raid the store for every advantage they could get.

I'd much rather have a new expansion, that everyone would again pay for, that fixes everything Sharn broke. Maybe even put some effort into the new one.

this is the correct analysis

[slarden]

There's something else too, a "leaderboard". Any such ranking implies competition. Any competition with a ranking system implies a 'fair' playing field. In any kind of competition that isn't level, spending taints the results.

Hardcore server is simply a cash grab aimed at people that were already spending. The people that aren't spending on the normal servers clearly wouldn't be spending in the HC. But others will be dumb enough to raid the store for every advantage they could get.

I haven't seen any store item that will help prevent death which is the main feature of this server. Death instantly nullifies anything spent on that character. How would any of the big money items - tomes, xp pots. Rhetorical question - none of those items will prevent death.

And while I can't see buying these things preventing death at all - I am certain a coordinated group of players that are used to running higher difficulties can achieve higher results by running the same content at lower difficulties than normal with a high degree of certainly they can avoid dying. I believe the leader boards will be dominated by coordinated groups of players in 6-person high achieving teams running at safe difficulties. I think attempts such as this to dismiss the results is just sour grapes.

I never set out to make the leader boards and am running with 2 friends with difficult schedules - 3 manning low skull reaper and below. On live we run 7 skull. So far we managed to get to level 6 and not to die but it would be a lot easier with 3 more peeps. We've played just a few hours due to tough schedule - one had a D&D game today and the other went fishing tonight and I worked part of the day - so 0 hours on the hardcore or regular server today. We're just going for 1750 favor this life and some reaper xp and will dial it up next life when everyone jumps up to a 34 pt build.

Based on the constant death train of level 2-5 characters we saw yesterday I think we can safely dismiss complaints the game is too easy. Those are the easiest levels in the game.

Anyone that attempted to buy their way to the top probably already figured out that won't work.

I'd much rather have a new expansion, that everyone would again pay for, that fixes everything Sharn broke. Maybe even put some effort into the new one.

I can't speak for everyone but we are having a boatload of fun even if our journey ends in a world wide announcement that we perished. I am sure many people will get frustrated and give up - I heard there are some griefers on the server joining pugs to get people killed which is unfortunate. We won't be opening up any lfms as a result even though we can use 3 more people.

[Chacka_DDO]

I think it is ok that you pay a fee for the hardcore server e.g. as a bonus for subscribers (aka VIP).

BUT I think ideally the DDO Store should be completely disabled there or at least it should be not possible to buy DDO Points on this server for money.
Then you can still earn DDO Points with favor and make smart use of the few items you can afford because you played for them (no pay to win)

I dont claim to be more holy than the pope but to call a server hardcore league and then have so many pay to win options makes not much sense to me, you can barely compare a player who paid a lot money in the DOO store with one who payed nothing on a leaderboard in my opinion.
btw I also bought a few rogue gold seal hirelings for DDO Points to help me out so as i said before I'm also not purely hardcore here (even if I spend less DDO Ponts than I earned on this server for favor)

I know now some folks start to defend this by telling me that this kind of fund is needed to keep the servers up but I think that's debatable!
e.g. you could also raise an extra fee for Harcore server access for everyone.

Anyway, I just assume the majority would at least agree that it is just lame if someone stands around in the pubic area and get level 20 with zero risks to die by gold rolling.
IDK if there is anyone who would call this hardcore, besides you consider it hardcore if you hardcore smashing the gold roll button

[Pyed-Pyper]

I think it is ok that you pay a fee for the hardcore server e.g. as a bonus for subscribers (aka VIP).

BUT I think ideally the DDO Store should be completely disabled there or at least it should be not possible to buy DDO Points on this server for money.
Then you can still earn DDO Points with favor and make smart use of the few items you can afford because you played for them (no pay to win)

I dont claim to be more holy than the pope but to call a server hardcore league and then have so many pay to win options makes not much sense to me, you can barely compare a player who paid a lot money in the DOO store with one who payed nothing on a leaderboard in my opinion.
btw I also bought a few rogue gold seal hirelings for DDO Points to help me out so as i said before I'm also not purely hardcore here (even if I spend less DDO Ponts than I earned on this server for favor)

I know now some folks start to defend this by telling me that this kind of fund is needed to keep the servers up but I think that's debatable!
e.g. you could also raise an extra fee for Harcore server access for everyone.

Anyway, I just assume the majority would at least agree that it is just lame if someone stands around in the pubic area and get level 20 with zero risks to die by gold rolling.
IDK if there is anyone who would call this hardcore, besides you consider it hardcore if you hardcore smashing the gold roll button

+1

I haven't seen any store item that will help prevent death which is the main feature of this server. Death instantly nullifies anything spent on that character. How would any of the big money items - tomes, xp pots. Rhetorical question - none of those items will prevent death.

And while I can't see buying these things preventing death at all - I am certain a coordinated group of players that are used to running higher difficulties can achieve higher results by running the same content at lower difficulties than normal with a high degree of certainly they can avoid dying. I believe the leader boards will be dominated by coordinated groups of players in 6-person high achieving teams running at safe difficulties. I think attempts such as this to dismiss the results is just sour grapes.

I never set out to make the leader boards and am running with 2 friends with difficult schedules - 3 manning low skull reaper and below. On live we run 7 skull. So far we managed to get to level 6 and not to die but it would be a lot easier with 3 more peeps. We've played just a few hours due to tough schedule - one had a D&D game today and the other went fishing tonight and I worked part of the day - so 0 hours on the hardcore or regular server today. We're just going for 1750 favor this life and some reaper xp and will dial it up next life when everyone jumps up to a 34 pt build.

Based on the constant death train of level 2-5 characters we saw yesterday I think we can safely dismiss complaints the game is too easy. Those are the easiest levels in the game.

Anyone that attempted to buy their way to the top probably already figured out that won't work.


I can't speak for everyone but we are having a boatload of fun even if our journey ends in a world wide announcement that we perished. I am sure many people will get frustrated and give up - I heard there are some griefers on the server joining pugs to get people killed which is unfortunate. We won't be opening up any lfms as a result even though we can use 3 more people.

I'm not going to bother unpacking all the misrepresentations here..

The presence of the store taints the concept and corrupts the results. I'm happy you're having fun, but - news flash! - it isn't always about you.

[slarden]

I'm not going to bother unpacking all the misrepresentations here..

The presence of the store taints the concept and corrupts the results. I'm happy you're having fun, but - news flash! - it isn't always about you.

sour grapes as usual. What store items will keep from dying? If you think it takes money probably stick to your regular server - you don't get it.

[Maldorin]

There's something else too, a "leaderboard". Any such ranking implies competition. Any competition with a ranking system implies a 'fair' playing field. In any kind of competition that isn't level, spending taints the results.

Really in the leaderboard they should also post how much money was spent in the ddo store.

[Maldorin]

What store items will keep from dying? If you think it takes money probably stick to your regular server - you don't get it.

Can't you just buy shards and buy gold rolls and level up with xp and have platinum? And stat tomes, skill tomes... XP pots and tomes. All help a character level I think. And the competition is based on leveling I think?

Personally I think having the store available makes it more "storecore"

Just my opinion.

[nokowi]

The success of hardcore should be based on
- did people have fun?
- is this something worth repeating or building on for SSG?
- what were the effects on the non hardcore servers?

Having something new that does not meet your own preferences is not something to complain about. If you have other preferences, please make them known and hopefully SSG will start listening to preferences rather than like vs dislike debates. Making it a like vs dislike debate is a loosing argument if the server is popular.

We all win the more preferences that are met. When everything is a popularity contest, SSG will simply design for 70% of 70% of 70% and eventually the game is really only meet the main preferences of 1/3 of the player base. In each case, it is the 30% not met that really need to be listened to for inclusive design.

I'm still looking for real time decision making instead of more redundant build options, but that is not a majority preference or need for a casual player base or for a rewards per time player base.

[slarden]

Can't you just buy shards and buy gold rolls and level up with xp and have platinum? And stat tomes, skill tomes... XP pots and tomes. All help a character level I think. And the competition is based on leveling I think?

Personally I think having the store available makes it more "storecore"

Just my opinion.

Leveling to 20 is the participation prize not the main prize which is reaper and favor. None of those things prevents death which is the key aspect of this event. ANYONE can get to 20 for the participation prize by running casual. Rolling dice to get there is a nonsensical argument.

[Pyed-Pyper]

sour grapes as usual. What store items will keep from dying? If you think it takes money probably stick to your regular server - you don't get it.

personal attacks? I'll take that as you being unable to refute my points.

[slarden]

personal attacks? I'll take that as you being unable to refute my points.

The points you are making are beyond ridiculous. You as a person I am not attacking - just refuting your ridiculous arguments.

[erethizon]

As is all too often the case in life, what should be a fun place that people can test their abilities is soured by people's inane obsession with competition. The leaderboard is the least important part of the hardcore serer. It is for people that suffer from the mental disease of competition and are incapable of having fun unless they are comparing themselves to others. It really doesn't matter whether there is DDO store access or not because the leaderboard is just to give competitive people something to focus on and look at. The hardcore server is about testing your ability to take your character's life seriously (as you would if it were your own life) and it rewards you with some nice cosmetics if you succeed. The rest of the game has the DDO store. There is no reason to exclude it from the hardcore server. Rather than the leaderboard being a list of people that did the best without spending money it will be a list of people that did the best while possibly spending money. Either way it serves the same purpose and has just as much meaning.

[Josielynn]

... I can't speak for everyone but we are having a boatload of fun even if our journey ends in a world wide announcement that we perished. I am sure many people will get frustrated and give up - I heard there are some griefers on the server joining pugs to get people killed which is unfortunate. We won't be opening up any lfms as a result even though we can use 3 more people.

Because I was on a pvp server in a different game for 6 years, I was wondering when the griefing would start. We are also a 3 person team, and one of the players has different character he pugs with when he feels the need for speed (plus his hours are way different than us). I think I already mentioned it to him as a possibility, but I'll make sure to bring it up again since it's a known thing now. It's sad people are like that, trying to ruin the fun (and rewards!) for others.

But yeah, we are having fun feeling our heart rates rise a little when things get dicey. On a funny note, some of the comments when the death notifications broadcast have been hilarious: One character was named Cookie-something and someone in chat says, "that's the way the cookie crumbles." Many say "rip" or "ouch" when they see a higher level perish, so you know they empathize. And when you see a bunch of deaths zoom by, you are pretty safe assuming it was a whole party wipe.

[LucidLTS]

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.

+1, well said!

I don't run the dailies either (I've run WizKing maybe twice this year) but I do run Devil Assault often because I like it, the XP wasn't great but it was enough that it felt worthwhile, and taking that away from me because somebody else farmed a quest until their eyes bled is just a slap in the face. DA is the worst that I play regularly, but in general I hate being told how to have fun, and that's exactly what this is, no disguising it. I'm reminded of that and have a visceral reaction every time I enter the Marketplace now, it is a serious and persistent wet blanket on my fun.

What I don't like about the hardcore server is the double dipping - they are making money from the store, and money from the VIP subscription. To be clear, I dislike it, I don't object to it. I simply have no desire to play if the store is active. I'm not VIP, but I toyed with the idea of subscribing if they hadn't allowed pay to win.