Hardcore League Season One - Final Standings and the After Party!

[Aftergod]

Thank you to everyone who participated in our first Hardcore League! We've now published the final standings for Reaper XP and Total Favor here. Congratulations to everyone on the list! This list will be published in the Hall of Heroes in the future as well.

There were more than 6,000 characters who made it to at least level 5 and survived, so next week's DDO Chronicle will be a special edition featuring everyone who survived at 5+.

We are also pleased to announce that the after party has begun! We have now re-opened the Hardcore League server for players to get their things in order and transfer their character to another server. Make sure to read our FAQ here to get more information about the Character Transfer process.

Character transfers from the Hardcore League to another live server can be done through the regular DDO game launcher. The timing is this: We will be keeping the Hardcore League server open through December 2nd, after which time the Hardcore server will close for a while pending some wider server work we are planning. Once that server work is complete, we will work to get character copies re-enabled for both the Hardcore League and the other servers as well. It is not expected that Character Transfers will be re-enabled following December 2nd until probably early next year.

Taking part and watching this first Hardcore League has been great, and we hope you've had a good time too. Stay tuned for more information about Season Two of the Hardcore League in early 2020!

hope season1 hardcore let ssg make enough money to change their dam lagg old servers,or more ppl will lose their faith

[rarothrock]

I believe that early 2020 is too soon.

I agree wholeheartedly.
Ratyr

[Afrosaxon]

I can't seem to log into my characters in the land of lost souls. They're all stuck in loading screen, eventually it times out and says connection to server lost. I was able to successfully log into my last "living" character.

[Cordovan]

no man .. stop playing 15 days before the server ending...

last days i was just entering to check the top charts

We will look into it on Monday. Just keep that character on the Hardcore server for now please.

[YUGWEN]

I heard a lot of people on the HC server and forums complaining about player density on the other servers. I don't get that at all. Player density and participation has been dropping for a long time. The increase in level cap means that even if the raw number of players was the same as it was when level cap was 20, there are half again as many levels and that ties up a lot of characters in the level 19+ range until they TR again. Quests that used to fill in seconds are now lucky to see one or two join - including raids. The main servers are flooded with multi-TR characters and people who solo everything.

I am not a permadeath or HC fan, but I had a blast on the HC server because it forced people to work together and fill up parties like the good old days. Everyone started with nothing, and no one could really level up high enough to farm low level gear without getting creative because of the level limitations of quests. Teamwork had to become a real thing again and I have had more fun than I have had in years because of it.

My only issue with the event was crossing over other events. I missed out on night revels entirely, and I love that thing. That, the anniversary event, and Crystal Cove are my favorites. I think this was a great event, and I think keeping it exclusive to VIP also helps keep some of the F2P and gen chat spamming drama off of the server. It takes a lot of time and effort to make a new server spin up along with HC changes happen. I think reserving it for paying players is fine.

Good job Devs, thanks for leveling the playing field and mixing things up!

(FePyrite on HC, Yugweno on Khyber)

[ironmaiden-br]

We will look into it on Monday. Just keep that character on the Hardcore server for now please.

ok tks

[Brutuscass]

Stay tuned for more information about Season Two of the Hardcore League in early 2020!

Just for clarity. Is that stay tuned for more information which will be given in early 2020. Or do you mean you will soon give more information on Season Two of the Hardcore League which will take place in early 2020?

[TheMaxpower]

Based on my observations and discussions with other players, the HC Server killed the populations on many of the live servers. There were few people to run with, and raids became difficult to fill. Many of my friends left the game because of this, and they have not returned. I advise SSG not to do another HC Server until they merge some of the live servers or otherwise deal with the low population issues. Why intentionally drive veterans away from the game?

[Amorais]

I read it as they will give more info early next year on season 2. Not that season 2 starts early next year.

One thing - dont forget to do a gold roll on the HC server before transferring your last toon over...its effectively a free roll.

Also, if your the last one in the guild and its leader you'll need to disband it before transferring otherwise it wont appear on the available characters list.

[Kabaon]

My suggestion for making it open to Premium players would be to let you buy a token on the DDO store for X number of points that lets you create ONE Permadeath character. (Basically, when you finish character creation, you talk to Mortality, and if you're not VIP you have to turn in a token in order to start questing.) Around 500-700 points each seems like a good number to me.

I think this would be on the easy side to implement, and I think that'd be a good option all around.

Not for one character. I refuse to spend 10 dollars an attempt thanks (20 if my wife plays). Not unless all the bugs/lag were fixed before hand so I don't die to some random non-sense. I get that this is something the devs made to make money, and have some fun and try something new with the game. I also know it wasn't an easy decision from the devs to make it ViP only, but as it was a test to see if it was worth doing again I also get why it was stuck behind a paywall.

The reason I don't want to sub is that I'll get VERY little value out of it. I know I've earned my fair share of the content over the years, but aside from Keep on the Borderlands and one of the madness packs (you know the ones with terminal delirium or whatever) I have access to all the content on my account, with all the races unlocked aside from wood elf. My wife is a in a similar situation. I'm very certain that we have purchased enough content to match a good number of years of sub money. Expansions not included in those costs as everyone has to buy them if they want to play the content regardless of account status.

But hey, maybe I'm in the minority as a Premium for paying for as much content as I do on my account. And most premiums aren't in my situation. The devs would have the data and would make a call based off that. But they could also use it as a way to sell content to those players by making everyone able to play on the server, full access, and show that either ViP is worth it, or that some packs are really fun and those players purchase the pack on live servers. But I'm just throwing ideas out there.

[Fedora1]

The reason I don't want to sub is that I'll get VERY little value out of it. I know I've earned my fair share of the content over the years, but aside from Keep on the Borderlands and one of the madness packs (you know the ones with terminal delirium or whatever) I have access to all the content on my account, with all the races unlocked aside from wood elf. My wife is a in a similar situation. I'm very certain that we have purchased enough content to match a good number of years of sub money. Expansions not included in those costs as everyone has to buy them if they want to play the content regardless of account status.

One thing to keep in mind that you won't have on the HC server if you are not VIP is the ability to open your first quests on elite. You won't already have a third life toon to do it, and this could potentially handicap you being able to get the xp/favor/reaper rewards because you would have to run the quests 3 times. Obviously not an issue if you're into pug'ing, but beware there were "some" instances of player griefing where 4-5 players would intentionally get other member(s) of the party killed. It wasn't widespread, but it did happen.

[Zargarx]

I believe that early 2020 is too soon.

Yeah, early 2020 is fine for an announcement but not to have another hard core league event. But perhaps around the summer?

Also, not sure if others felt this way, I found it was perhaps 1 month too long? I think 60 days would be better. And to further stress the time element, maybe have a countdown timer in the hall of heroes or perhaps an hourly announcement (that can be turned off in the options settings); e.g. There is 35 days and 16 hours remaining.

Last comment - I found it strange to be on a "hardcore" server and having the option to pick lower difficulties. For quests that support Hard (and higher), I would have expected that the lower settings (normal/casual) would have been grayed out or have a snarky comment!

[Sarkastik]

We will look into it on Monday. Just keep that character on the Hardcore server for now please.

Would you also please take a pass through the list and remove any remaining dead characters? I assume that is the intention, not to leave them on.

[hit_fido]

Couple observations:

- The fact that SSG plans a season 2 probably means concerns over people quitting because of low population are overblown. Not to say some people didn't quit, but it may have ended up being well within their usual churn of inactive accounts versus new or reactivated accounts.

- They must have made a chunk of money. If it was merely break even I wouldn't see a strong business case for a repeat.

Couple suggestions:

- Meet complaining players a little toward the middle by making the next season two months instead of three.

- Keep the reward system strictly for bragging rights and eye candy (if this was a financial success I guess there will be pressure to make the rewards more attractive).

Disclaimer: I had a lot of fun and would play it again.

[hit_fido]

Last comment - I found it strange to be on a "hardcore" server and having the option to pick lower difficulties. For quests that support Hard (and higher), I would have expected that the lower settings (normal/casual) would have been grayed out or have a snarky comment!

The enforced permadeath aspect was the core of the event, and still inviting players of whatever skill level to play at a difficulty appropriate for them didn't diminish that or the added excitement. They made the real prestige rewards contingent on playing harder difficulties. To me that was smart, more players could/would participate in the event but the top "skilled" players could still earn whatever recognition motivated them.

[Zeklijan]

Please consider letting non VIP players login to their characters to switch out their banks too.

Thanks,
Zek

[cerocruz]

The sooner the better, hardcore was a lot of fun.

[GeneralDiomedes]

It would be nice if some of the rewards were non - cosmetic such as a reaper point tome. That would motivate me.

[Sevans]

Hey,

Is there any way non-VIP players might be allowed to join in the Hardcore fun?
1) I really want to try hardcore!
2) I miss being able to find parties for harder content on the main servers while hardcore is up!

Thanks!

[shawnvw]

This is not a PvP game, why should you or I be concerned with the rewards others get?

Well, if the reward is an item that makes some other, non-hardcore content easier - a powerful weapon, say - then it wouldn't seem fair that only VIPs had a chance to get it. Indirectly, it would be paying for a combat advantage. Pay-to-win.

It's true, it doesn't directly affect other characters, but you could say the same thing about someone who hacks the code and makes an unbeatable PC.