So I heard there were some XP changes...

[Potatofasf]

Truly just curious. If it was fun to run the quest and you didn't need the tokens at all, why would it stop being fun if the tokens don't drop?

You misunderstood him.
Tokens still dropping... but, there is no more XP from optionals (that aren't optionals in DA, they are mandatory phases of the quest, we can't skip it).
So, for Tokens farm is okay... but for those that had fun running the quest to help others and earn some XP while doing it, the quest is broken.

[Chai]

Truly just curious. If it was fun to run the quest and you didn't need the tokens at all, why would it stop being fun if the tokens don't drop?

People repeat quests they like to gain more to avoid the quests they deem unfun while still making up for the xp loss of avoiding those quests.

same with any other currency of progress, including but not limited to tokens.

The company couches their moves in terms of removing something that is not fun, but the reality is its each individual player who determines what is fun for them. Changing the mechanic will not turn a farmer into a flower sniffer. If they have fun farming, thats what they will do.

They already have found a new way to farm it, in fact.

[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.

[sabella]

You misunderstood him.

Yes, I did. Thank you!

[Requiro]

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.

Thanks for sharing.
One question: Is there any time for sleep and eat something? Because I don’t think that you can do all these quest and sagas with 16 hours… But maybe I'm wrong…

And what dailies you have in mind in 8 day ER? "EN Amber, Spies, TTT, VoN 3, Grim, Mirror, Wiz King, WGU, Invitation to Dinner." only?

[cru121]

in theory, if you're interested in rxp while leveling in epics, you could spend 20-25 on sagas/slayers/N/H/E. At 26, gear up and run high reaper if you can, starting with level 20 quests, with first-time-on-reaper bonus.

[Anuulified]

Thanks for sharing.
One question: Is there any time for sleep and eat something? Because I don’t think that you can do all these quest and sagas with 16 hours… But maybe I'm wrong…

And what dailies you have in mind in 8 day ER? "EN Amber, Spies, TTT, VoN 3, Grim, Mirror, Wiz King, WGU, Invitation to Dinner." only?

6 to 7 hour days for quick leveling and yes those dailies, sometime throw in other quests like von4 and such. Doesnt really matter though.

[CSQ]

So, the majority of reaction to the changes is doom and gloom, when really it's not as awful as people say on the forum. Most of the changes are fine, nothing (negative, at least) that most players will notice unless they're power grinding optionals or running a few quests. There have been some changes to reaper and bravery, but if you ran quests once on R1 per life previously, there's really not much of a change. If you run quests once a day at certain levels, you might actually get more experience as long as the quest doesn't use optionals for a significant part of the experience payout. But, yeah, there are a few things to get upset with.

1. Optionals ransack to 0% experience. Should be 20% at least, to match ordinary ransack and because they don't ever reset. Draining to 0 makes certain quests almost worthless, such as Devil Assault, which is a token farmer.

2. Token farming is punished with experience penalties. Yes, ERs do reset the penalty, but if you're just running the three dozen or so quests that give tokens (and probably not all of them, since a bunch are low value in terms of both tokens and experience) you're going to hit optional ransack. The increased epic daily experience bonus helps, but not in this particular case.

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.

I think there are pretty easy ways to fix all of these issues- like I said, cap optional ransack at 20% instead of 0%, do some more buffing for "undesirable" quests. Additionally, actually having Tokens of the Twelve drop in all reasonable epic quests (or, heck, move them back to being dungeon tokens and make them drop in every quest) or tweaking the economy to make farming for hearts for TRs less prohibitive. But, without addressing 1 and 2, I think epic lives are going to be a bit more miserable for people, especially players who don't have access to expansion content/adventure packs.

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).

Either the devs need to add some older content to the F2P list or make optional ransack less painful or you're never going to get F2P players to 20. And, yeah, I think it's unlikely that someone will hit level 20 off F2P quests alone- even just the free favor would give them a decent pack on sale. However, we often think that the play experience is centered around VIP/premium players with years of expansion and adventure packs. When we ask why DDO has such a low population, maybe it's because people can't give it a try for free like other F2P MMOs? Even FFXIV, a subscription only MMO, has a free trial that gives access to a good chunk of the game. Warframe, which rakes in money left and right, doesn't have any content locks for F2P players. Not to mention true F2P MMOs where the only content for sale are boosters/cosmetics. I think that DDO could really benefit from adding a significant portion of its older content to the F2P list, while keeping expansions and some newer adventure packs premium- perhaps make content F2P after three or five years or something like that? I hate trying to introduce someone to the game, hitting level 4, and then being like, "Oh, yeah, you can't do that because you're not VIP/spending money on the game" and having them leave. I've purchased packs for people- I've given away the Catacombs pack several times, grabbed a few of the expansion packs on sale to give to friends, etc. But DDO has an unsustainable monetization that splits the player base and drives away new players. You could even do a soft "F2P Relaunch" with a bunch of older content going free. I don't mean to trash the devs on this entirely- they do add some content for free, but its so scarce that it really makes it hard to recommend DDO to anyone who can't drop $60 on a game that they've barely tried and may not like. A lot of my friends are students who can't really drop that kind of money on a game out of the blue, and if you're pitting yourself against all these other F2P games, then I'd much rather play something with them that we can both actually enjoy instead of me gifting adventure passes (for real money, which adds up if you have a full group of people). It's a hard sell in this day and age. We've talked about why the player base is shrinking. It's not because the game is old- look at WoW Classic getting flooded with players. It's not because the player base is toxic- that's mostly just the forums (yeah, you get a few, but a few, not a lot). It's because when you compare the time and money investment in DDO versus the time and money investment for more modern F2P games, the low money investment is almost always better anywhere else. Now, I love DDO, and if you're willing to spend money on VIP and expansion packs, it's a great game. But it's a hard sell when your friends have 30k+ in student loan debt and can barely afford rent.

[Chilldude]

So, the majority of reaction to the changes is doom and gloom, when really it's not as awful as people say on the forum. Most of the changes are fine, nothing (negative, at least) that most players will notice unless they're power grinding optionals or running a few quests.

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:

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.

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.

[Requiro]

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

[Chai]

We are seeing even more repetitive farming now than before.

Before: When farming, do optionals, quest takes longer, but more XP.

Now: First few runs do optionals, every run after that, run straight to the quest completion objective. Takes far less time, causing more repetitions.

[Chai]

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.

Yeap, the "time vs money" crowd won. But that win, was paid for in full.

If you want your former rate of XP back, you can buy a potion in the store which does this. If too many people are satisfied with their XP rate where it affects store sales, the nerfing will continue until store sales pick up again.

It sounds like tinfoil hattery until we comb through all the receipts to witness the pattern.

You see kids, it all began with 10% XP potions we could trade challenge mats for....

[Potatofasf]

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

[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

[kathy1234]

It looks more like some tricked DVs into making optional ransacked permanently to encourage zerging through quest.

Because Zerging through quest can give best cost-revenue for XP potion drinker.

Usually if you do optional you get average 50% xp boosts but you take 2 or 3 times of time spending on running for optional. By encouraging Zerging you cut the time wasting on running around and get better xp rewards.

Not to mention those who exploit on potion timer bugs so they can complete 36 TRs by 1 sovereign potion, encouraging Zerging can significantly reduce their time spending on lvling up.

(Dont ask me about the bug, I dont know how to exploit it I just know someone can do it)

Yeap, the "time vs money" crowd won. But that win, was paid for in full.

If you want your former rate of XP back, you can buy a potion in the store which does this. If too many people are satisfied with their XP rate where it affects store sales, the nerfing will continue until store sales pick up again.

It sounds like tinfoil hattery until we comb through all the receipts to witness the pattern.

You see kids, it all began with 10% XP potions we could trade challenge mats for....

[AbyssalMage]

It looks more like some tricked DVs into making optional ransacked permanently to encourage zerging through quest.

Because Zerging through quest can give best cost-revenue for XP potion drinker.

Usually if you do optional you get average 50% xp boosts but you take 2 or 3 times of time spending on running for optional. By encouraging Zerging you cut the time wasting on running around and get better xp rewards.

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.

Still not a fan of the nerf. It's made Reaper the standard in Heroics for 3rd+ lives. It has disenfranchised the premium player base. It has, as discussed above, made zerging more prevalent, which alienates players in Epics.

[Oliphant]

Whoever came up with permanent optional ransack has issues.

[capsela]

Whoever came up with permanent optional ransack has issues.

King Rayum invented it.

[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