So I heard there were some XP changes...

[Chilldude]

A friend was telling me that they were overhauling the quest XP in DDO because they realized a lot of quests had too little XP and people weren't running them. This didn't make sense to me because how the heck would Standing Still Games do something right... just didn't compute. So I went to check out what the deal was and I saw...

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%

LOL!!! OK, they made me look! They got me. I admit it. For a second I actually thought that maybe, just maybe they pulled their head out of the rock. So all this XP overhaul nonsense was just an excuse to nerf the XP of the best XP quests. Now THAT makes more sense.

This gave me a pretty good chuckle though...

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

Major increase? 10-20% increase? Major? I know of several dozen quests that a 300% increase would only be minor, and still might not be enough to make them playable.

Oh man, I sure did get a chuckle though. They nerfed jungle, spies and litany! LOL!

[cru121]

*shrug*

the changes to bravery bonus and relaxing of reaper overlevel penalties is much bigger deal than few percents up or down on a few quests

mho

[Quikster]

*shrug*

the changes to bravery bonus and relaxing of reaper overlevel penalties is much bigger deal than few percents up or down on a few quests

mho

Honestly the only thing I have really noticed is guildies grouping together more because their heroic reaper xp is no longer getting "killed" due to someone being a level higher. Other than that it has been business as usually for leveling as far as I can tell. But tbh, I don't pay a ton of attention to it anywho.

[Drunkendex]

*shrug*

the changes to bravery bonus and relaxing of reaper overlevel penalties is much bigger deal than few percents up or down on a few quests

mho

Also discourage of running elite or lower compared to reaper due to first time bonus nerfs.


EDIT:

People like you helped Turblind and Standing Still Games kill DDO. Your constant apologizing for the horrible decisions they've made over the years, most notably in their ceaseless addition of more and more grind to the game. I cried foul with ED grinding, players like you played it off like it was nothing. At the time there were major exploits players could use to quickly grind ED XP so they would cite how you could max all your destinies in just a couple days. Of course when those exploits were removed you could not longer stand on a bell or bug out a boss over and over for hours on end grinding EDs. Epic reincarnation, fate points, iconic reincarnation, racial reincarnation, and now reaper... they keep adding the grind and when anyone tries to instill some sanity in the conversation they are drowned out by apologists saying how fine it all is.

Well it might be fine for people who play DDO from the moment they wake up until they pass out on the basement floor at night, but for thousands... tens of thousands of players it turned out the massive grind wasn't fine after all. Now population numbers are barely getting into triple digits... at peak playing times! What does Standing Still do to encourage player retention? NERF XP!?

It's all spelled out in their very own words:



Their first goal is for rate of leveling to not drop for average players who play a lot of different quests! THEIR GOAL IS THAT RATE OF LEVELING DOES DROP FOR PLAYERS WHO PLAY THE SAME QUESTS REPEATEDLY FOR OPTIMAL LEVELING RATE! THEIR GOAL IS TO NERF!

Their number one goal should have been to dramatically increase the XP granted to bring all quests in line with those handful of (formerly) decent XP quests that players gravitate toward. For that matter, their goal should have been to increase the rate of leveling by at least double! Awhile back I did a mathematical breakdown of how long it would take "the average player" to obtain all the powerful perks afforded, it was like 10 years or something crazy like that. TEN FREAKIN' YEARS MAN!


Players: Something needs to be done about XP! We shouldn't have to run the same 5 quests over and over again because the XP sucks in everything else.

Standing Still: We hear you. You are right. We will fix the problem.

Players: Really? Wow! Cool. Can't wait to hear about it.

Standing Still: OK, we've found a solution. We're nerfing those good XP quests so they suck just as bad as everything else.

Players: What the...???

Standing Still: You're welcome.

+1

[SpartanKiller13]

1) There are very few dailies groups posted anymore.

There's been one up every time I've gotten on in the last week? That's higher than it was a few months ago lol. Also HC is still up so that probably doesn't help.

Again! Once they realize the new "exploit" other than run optional in Wizking (alas wasn't an exploit, just a game mechanic, named "Doing Optionals" that now is broken by permanent ransack in the WHOLE game).

Doing WK wasn't an exploit, but repeating without completion so the optionals didn't ransack was. They could have fixed that part though instead lol.

3. Certain quests got nerfed (and, to be fair, they probably were higher experience per minute and getting run much more than other quests, but that doesn't mean the solution is to nerf the good quests necessarily as much as it should be to help underperformers) and too many quests either didn't get buffed or got buffed far too little to be worthwhile.

Not saying they couldn't have buffed more, but they did give out quite a few buffs that were a LOT larger than their original 5-10% as shown in this handy-dandy chart I scribbled:

The real victims of this change are F2P players- if you only have F2P quests, your options are pretty bad and now with optional ransack it's even worse. If you're stuck, you're going to have to run the same things over and over, and ransacking optionals makes things hard. There's only one level 9 quest for F2P in the game right now, for example. There are only three F2P quests for both 13 and 14 (and one of them is Tower of Frost, so...) and only one quest between 18-20 (and it's In the Demon's Den, a level 18 that is pretty despised if I'm remembering correctly- at least, I hate that quest).

You get a bunch of free DDO points as a player which you can use to purchase additional packs. There's a reason stuff like GH/Vale are among the top recommendations to new players lol. Also it is a game that costs money to maintain, so I'm alright with the devs wanting people to spend a little money; if you play a bunch (bringing activity to the game) you can do it entirely for free if you want. Also Tower of Frost got a 114% XP buff, so it's pretty hard to complain the devs ignored it lol.

I don't disagree that a few more F2P quests would help out a bunch, but frankly I'd prefer discounts for stuff the older it gets (like 10% per year past year 2 or something, to a minimum of say 20% - so anything 10+ years is 80% off).

I actually noticed this when running VoN3. The other 5 PUG players were on ransack so they had no reason to do optionals. We cleared the dungeon almost 2 minutes faster than pre-nerf.

Is VoN3 still decent XP/minute without opts? I feel like there's gotta be better alternatives; just because of the length of quest + intro quest lol. You waste a lot of time walking XD

[Potatofasf]

Not saying they couldn't have buffed more, but they did give out quite a few buffs that were a LOT larger than their original 5-10% as shown in this handy-dandy chart I scribbled:

Buffing XP on bad/boring/not cool designed quests don't make them Good or Doable. Nerfing XP on good/fun/well designed quests don't make them less repeatable.
The daillies and farmable quests still going on, and their "hard data" will show it.

ToEE - SL - ToF - still being PITA quests on level. Waste of time and effort 80% of the time.

[Thrudh]

*shrug*

the changes to bravery bonus and relaxing of reaper overlevel penalties is much bigger deal than few percents up or down on a few quests

mho

This. The change was a BUFF, not a nerf. Reaper xp is far easier to get, and normal xp is just as easy.

[Chai]

This. The change was a BUFF, not a nerf. Reaper xp is far easier to get, and normal xp is just as easy.

It also didnt stop the zergers from zerging or repeating ad nauseum (which was claimed was causing higher rates of burn out). All it did was cause them to run straight to the completion objective rather than do the entire quest.

Wiz king daily nowdays after the opts ransack kicks in is: first player to find rayium kill it and recall out. Is this really better than it was before where we waited to kill it until all the optional mobs were killed?

Yeah I know there were some folks not getting the end XP which allowed them to farm opts ad nauseum, but that could have been fixed by not rewarding opt xp until the end objective was completed.

This is another classic example of claiming something is an issue then "fixing" it in a way which didnt address the issue.

[Chai]

*shrug*

the changes to bravery bonus and relaxing of reaper overlevel penalties is much bigger deal than few percents up or down on a few quests

mho

Its not simply "few percents up or down on a few quests" as claimed, its optional XP permanent ransack until TR.

[LucidLTS]

A friend was telling me that they were overhauling the quest XP in DDO because they realized a lot of quests had too little XP and people weren't running them. This didn't make sense to me because how the heck would Standing Still Games do something right... just didn't compute. So I went to check out what the deal was and I saw...



LOL!!! OK, they made me look! They got me. I admit it. For a second I actually thought that maybe, just maybe they pulled their head out of the rock. So all this XP overhaul nonsense was just an excuse to nerf the XP of the best XP quests. Now THAT makes more sense.

This gave me a pretty good chuckle though...



Major increase? 10-20% increase? Major? I know of several dozen quests that a 300% increase would only be minor, and still might not be enough to make them playable.

Oh man, I sure did get a chuckle though. They nerfed jungle, spies and litany! LOL!

Oh, but wait, it gets even better. Optionals now ransack PERMANENTLY per life! You can't wait a week or even a month, you have to reincarnate to reset it! So Devil Assault, already not great XP/min by anybody's standard, has effectively had it's XP cut 70% after the first few runs per life.

They made a few feeble attempts to justify it, but about the best they could do was the lame "repeating a quest too many times makes people quit" (without increasing the drop rate of loot or reducing completions required for a full list), but nobody bought it. So they gave up and just rammed it down our throats regardless.

Fernando would have been proud.

[Potatofasf]

*shrug*

the changes to bravery bonus and relaxing of reaper overlevel penalties is much bigger deal than few percents up or down on a few quests

mho

yeah, a forced way to make Reaper mandatory and not an option. Leveling on Elite turned to become way slow than R1. The leveling curve on R1 is like running a second life toon.

Oh, but wait, it gets even better. Optionals now ransack PERMANENTLY per life! You can't wait a week or even a month, you have to reincarnate to reset it! So Devil Assault, already not great XP/min by anybody's standard, has effectively had it's XP cut 70% after the first few runs per life.

They made a few feeble attempts to justify it, but about the best they could do was the lame "repeating a quest too many times makes people quit" (without increasing the drop rate of loot or reducing completions required for a full list), but nobody bought it. So they gave up and just rammed it down our throats regardless.

Fernando would have been proud.

I still farming the same dailies, still more charming than slog through content that are tedious or plain bad (i.e. Tower of Frost, Slaver series and ToEE).

[FlavoredSoul]

I still farming the same dailies, still more charming than slog through content that are tedious or plain bad (i.e. Tower of Frost, Slaver series and ToEE).

SSG fails to realize that there are three reasons people run content 1. high exp, 2. good loot, 3. it doesn't mentally torture players who run it.

The buffs to tower of frost and toee exp alone were pretty massive (toee got like a 35% boost and is still worse exp/min than most stuff but whatever) but even if toee or tower of frsot got a 200% exp boost they'd still be unpopular because A. a 200% boost would put them pretty close to but not surpassing the post-nerf dailies, and B. nobody except a tiny minority like the design of those quests.

SSG doesn't get that even if they cut the exp in spies down by 50% it's still 100 times more fun than running tethymar, toee, or tower of frost.

[Cantor]

SSG doesn't get that even if they cut the exp in spies down by 50% it's still 100 times more fun than running tethymar, toee, or tower of frost.

Totally disagree, spies is worn out. I would one it once a life at most, sometimes I dont run it at all. Would be way off the radar if the exp was average, hated if it was bad.

[Uska]

SSG fails to realize that there are three reasons people run content 1. high exp, 2. good loot, 3. it doesn't mentally torture players who run it.

The buffs to tower of frost and toee exp alone were pretty massive (toee got like a 35% boost and is still worse exp/min than most stuff but whatever) but even if toee or tower of frsot got a 200% exp boost they'd still be unpopular because A. a 200% boost would put them pretty close to but not surpassing the post-nerf dailies, and B. nobody except a tiny minority like the design of those quests.

SSG doesn't get that even if they cut the exp in spies down by 50% it's still 100 times more fun than running tethymar, toee, or tower of frost.

The number 1 reason to run a quest should be it’s fun but sadly that vanished long ago

[Veltamore]

Oh, but wait, it gets even better. Optionals now ransack PERMANENTLY per life! You can't wait a week or even a month, you have to reincarnate to reset it! So Devil Assault, already not great XP/min by anybody's standard, has effectively had it's XP cut 70% after the first few runs per life.

They made a few feeble attempts to justify it, but about the best they could do was the lame "repeating a quest too many times makes people quit" (without increasing the drop rate of loot or reducing completions required for a full list), but nobody bought it. So they gave up and just rammed it down our throats regardless.

Fernando would have been proud.

Devil Assault is one of the quest where the optional xp should not ransack. BECAUSE they are not optional you have to do them to complete quest.

[Requiro]

Devil Assault is one of the quest where the optional xp should not ransack. BECAUSE they are not optional you have to do them to complete quest.

IMO: Developers are fully aware of this.
They also know that Devil Assault is one of the most played quest because of Token of the Twelve.

And the more we gain Tokens for free, the less we buy Hearts from Store.

Do I have to say more?

[erethizon]

IMO: Developers are fully aware of this.
They also know that Devil Assault is one of the most played quest because of Token of the Twelve.

And the more we gain Tokens for free, the less we buy Hearts from Store.

Do I have to say more?

Even less conspiracy-theory than that, it could be that they want to encourage a variety of play like they said. There are a number of quests that drop tokens. If you run all of them you will likely get your 20 tokens without repeating anything at all. People that once-and-done their way though the game rarely complain about grind. People that repeat the same things over and over are the ones most outspoken about the terrible grind this game has. Encouraging a variety of play was likely a good move.

[Potatofasf]

Even less conspiracy-theory than that, it could be that they want to encourage a variety of play like they said. There are a number of quests that drop tokens. If you run all of them you will likely get your 20 tokens without repeating anything at all. People that once-and-done their way though the game rarely complain about grind. People that repeat the same things over and over are the ones most outspoken about the terrible grind this game has. Encouraging a variety of play was likely a good move.

In theory it is a "good move". Because as you stated it is good for a type of player, but way bad for another.
It was a enforce situation to "run a variety" of quests, not a choice situation.
As always, good intentions, very very bad implementation.

[Talam]

Devil Assault is one of the quest where the optional xp should not ransack. BECAUSE they are not optional you have to do them to complete quest.

100% Agree.

[Anuulified]

Keep in mind I said with effort, aka playtime and willingness to play.

Day 1 - ER. Turn in Sagas and get close to level 23. Dailies, even after nerf. EN Amber, Spies, TTT, VoN3, Grim, Mirror, Wiz King, WGU, Invitation to Dinner. Sagas EE, LOD, ES 1 - 3, DDTW and In the Belly, Druids, High Road, Wheelon. Filler quests/Raids, VoN5, VoN4, Tempest Spine, Haunted Halls, Mask, anything with 50k exp after bonus' that doesnt take forever.

Day2 - Dailies, see above on EN. Sagas EE, Storm Horns, Ravenloft, Sharn, no Cogs. Back to filler quests. If you really have to, do dailies on day 3, which still leaves you an entire 24 hours before you can ER again.

8 day ER little effort - Play 1 to 1.5 hours a day, blitz dailies above, ER day 8.