Is there dungeon scaling in reaper?

[guitrdave1]

99% of reaper lfm's are r1 which is too easy for me. I seldom get any response when I post higher. Players with literally hundreds more PL's than me group r1. Those groups face zero challenge and I need to be challenged. I understand they are racing to the finish line of DDO and it's there choice. A reputable source said there isn't scaling in reaper. If this is true it stinks for solo players like myself. Either way I'd like to know .

[Swimms]

If this is true it stinks for solo players like myself. Either way I'd like to know .

If you play solo then just challenge yourself at the highest reaper level you are comfortable with. What does it matter whether or not people join if you play solo?

[Buddha5440]

If you play solo then just challenge yourself at the highest reaper level you are comfortable with. What does it matter whether or not people join if you play solo?

Agreed, if you solo, scaling wouldn't apply anyway.

As for reaper scaling... based on the reason reaper was implemented it MOST DEFINITELY should scale.

[Bjond]

I absolutely understand what you mean about challenge. The most typical LFMs I see are for EN/EH repeats, which is just a horror-show of boredom for me. So, I end up solo'ing most of the time with an LFM up. Usually r1 for my melee and r3~r6 for my ranged. Got tired of solo'ing and essentially half-punted DDO. I only come back for guild raids now and check the LFMs when here to see if there's some interesting reaper groups forming. So far there haven't been any, but I keep hoping that will change.

IMHO, this is entirely because the risk:reward ratio for reaper is too low. What SSG doesn't seem to get is that people want a non-linear reward for increased risk; ie. if you spend 50% more time doing harder content they don't want 50% more XP. They want 2~4x more XP. Why? They put in a lot more effort during that time and risked getting nothing (reaper swarm spawned, party wipes & doesn't reform, etc).

Oh, btw, to the OP's original scaling question: yes, reaper scales. From what I've seen, the random mob packs gain more spawns the more you have in your group. I don't know if individual NPCs gain power. I think not or if so, not enough to feel a difference. NPC power seems to scale only by reaper level.

[mikarddo]

I dont know about scaling - but I do understand what you mean about at least a small measure of challenge.

In heroics I often run (as leader) on R3 from level 12 and up. On Ghallanda during Euro hours I quite often have someone join and not rarely the group fills.
In epics I prefer to run R1 until I am level 28 or even 29 though and then run R4.
I find this to pose a good balance between some challenge yet good efficiency as well as getting more rxp with acceptable risk. Others mileage may very of course.

[Enoach]

My opinion is that giving Reaper difficulty an XP advantage over Elite was a mistake, as Reaper XP should have been the additional reward.

I feel it was doing this that made running R1 the preferred as it generally gave a bonus to XP/MIN especially after you have several Reaper AP to spend.

I still enjoy running at higher Reaper Skulls and am always looking out for those LFMs or Channel Groups.

[C-Dog]

I am under the impression that it does scale, just not very much, i.e. 2 players and 2 hires is not 2x tougher than true solo. Tbh, I don't even notice the scaling often, but I don't look over the numbers to analyze them.

Re LFM's, I find that it depends how I phrase it. If I put "all welcome" then I get more of those on the fence, b/c it implies I can solo and they can tag along and are NOT expected to pull their weight.

I find that R2 is just a little tougher than R1, so still attractive, but R3 is a noticeable jump in challenge. And another big jump w/ R5 -> 6, as the new reapers come out then. Scary stuff.

[Bjond]

I find that R2 is just a little tougher than R1, so still attractive, but R3 is a noticeable jump in challenge. And another big jump w/ R5 -> 6, as the new reapers come out then. Scary stuff.

I adore R5~R7 and jump on those when I can. I've run 1st Life zero PL chars in that (even a holder Sorc 1st Life can work if you pushed the DCs). That's where the true teamworks starts, IMHO. A strong build can make a big difference, but it's never enough to carry. Stuff slips the hold and has to be distracted/killed before eating the holder, all need to help to stack stuff up, gotta keep an eye on party and spot heal at need, CC or one-shot tough/dangerous (Reapers, unpullable ranged), etc. etc..

Unfortunately, those do take recruit time and the willingness to hang out while building a group. I'm usually too impatient to do that myself and just leap in on low reaper with an LFM. I figure peeps seeing me solo inside will indicate it's OK to ride along. Then I'll ramp up the skulls if we start steamrolling stuff. This works well for me in well-known spots like RL and Sharn, but I have a lot more difficulty finding peeps L20~28 and usually solo that range. ; ;

[Pilgrim1]

Get a twisted talisman. The amount of damage you take is affected by scaling. Also if you have a monster manual, the monsters hp will show. That is also effected by scaleing. I dont know the answer to your question but that would be how i would test it.

[timmy9999]

I adore R5~R7 and jump on those when I can. I've run 1st Life zero PL chars in that (even a holder Sorc 1st Life can work if you pushed the DCs). That's where the true teamworks starts, IMHO. A strong build can make a big difference, but it's never enough to carry. Stuff slips the hold and has to be distracted/killed before eating the holder, all need to help to stack stuff up, gotta keep an eye on party and spot heal at need, CC or one-shot tough/dangerous (Reapers, unpullable ranged), etc. etc..

Unfortunately, those do take recruit time and the willingness to hang out while building a group. I'm usually too impatient to do that myself and just leap in on low reaper with an LFM. I figure peeps seeing me solo inside will indicate it's OK to ride along. Then I'll ramp up the skulls if we start steamrolling stuff. This works well for me in well-known spots like RL and Sharn, but I have a lot more difficulty finding peeps L20~28 and usually solo that range. ; ;

Reaper XP from level 1 to 28 is terrible. They need to fix reaper in epics 20-28 quests because it not worth the time or effort to run. Castle ravensloft at cap with a 50% pot 18k reaper point in 18 mins. R7-r10 at level 12 maybe 2-3 k and a **** of an effort. You wanna run reaper and have the challenges plus get the point. Take your toon to cap every few lifes. We used to run giant hold r10 heroic while people were farming Amber temple...I think maze we got around 3 k max. Waste of time. It wasn’t so bad until they nerfed charm which pretty much destroyed the fun of r10 heroics. So now a carnage reaper can smash for full damage but when it’s charmed it hit like a fairy. I never understood that nerf...anyway is what it is.

[palladin9479]

People run R1 because it's the highest XP you can get from a first time quest on those doing a TR train, which is basically everyone. Reaper XP is terrible and not worth it on any quest under level 28. Level 28 quests get elevated to 30 at reaper which kicks in the x2 rXP bonus which in turn makes it actually worth running. That is why we see people running r1 from 3-28 then switching to mid / high reaper past that.

As for "challenge", none of you actually want that, otherwise you'd create your own challenge by limiting your gear selection to Korthos weapons. You can't use broken optimized builds with 100+ reaper points then complain about "challenge". The developers job isn't to individually analyze each player and develop a customized difficulty for them, it's to build content / systems that target the ~95% of the player base that isn't running hyper optimized builds with 100+ RP. If you want "challenge", either run a vanilla unoptimized / fun build or refuse to spend your RP and play the same game as the majority of players.

[Verlok_the_Red]

Reaper XP from level 1 to 28 is terrible. They need to fix reaper in epics 20-28 quests because it not worth the time or effort to run. Castle ravensloft at cap with a 50% pot 18k reaper point in 18 mins. R7-r10 at level 12 maybe 2-3 k and a **** of an effort. You wanna run reaper and have the challenges plus get the point. Take your toon to cap every few lifes. We used to run giant hold r10 heroic while people were farming Amber temple...I think maze we got around 3 k max. Waste of time. It wasn’t so bad until they nerfed charm which pretty much destroyed the fun of r10 heroics. So now a carnage reaper can smash for full damage but when it’s charmed it hit like a fairy. I never understood that nerf...anyway is what it is.

yes your right.. for example waterworks on r1 is about 120 base rxp at level 4 .. likewise on r10 its about 600 .. doesn’t really add up..

throw in the fact that a level 6 doom reaper hits for 1200 .. a level 4 char with the beast gear, all pl's and every enchantment you can have at level 4 .. maxes out at about 400 hp .. the scaling gap is so bad .. its not really playable.

reaper as is is designed as a time waster .. it promotes a slightly harder difficulty with the sole purpose of trying to add sales to the ddo store .. trying to r10 heroics is just not a priority for them .. because its not "socially acceptable"

the truth of the matter is.. all these people running r1 will never understand this concept until they finish all 200+ trs on r1 only to realize they need another 200 tr's to even come close to 125+ reaper points.

ideally one should always play the hardest difficulty on each tr/pl to maximize the amount of reaper xp you gain.. so when your done tr's your done reaper xp as well..

that is why realer xp is broken and has been broken since day 1.. it was designed to fail and provide nothing more than a time waster... otherwise they would have fixed it long ago.

sadly the only thing I have left is reaper xp.. and b/c reaper xp is so broken and scaling is totally broken (especially during the 9/11 and 19/20 level jumps).. your just stuck soloing r10's from 1-20 because no one will join r10's until 24.

so reaper as a whole is broken end to end .. even iof they fix it.. the fix wont be geared towards the entire problem .. my guess is they will only consider 20+ quests.. with a focus on the 24-27's

[h46av8r]

So back to the gist of the original post - ddowiki indicates there is no dungeon scaling in reaper, i.e. mob HP, saves, etc. are the same solo or full party in reaper, correct? But what about numbers of mobs in reaper? If I am soloing, am I hurting myself pulling out a couple hirelings or not? Forums seems to be all over the map on this. Best I can tell some quests will increase numbers of mobs based on party size and others not but, again, forums are full of "I think" and "not sure but". Question is about reaper not normal/hard/elite.

[Verlok_the_Red]

So back to the gist of the original post - ddowiki indicates there is no dungeon scaling in reaper, i.e. mob HP, saves, etc. are the same solo or full party in reaper, correct?

correct

but here is a better way to explain it..

there are only 4 base levels for reapers .. levels 1/11/21/31 ...

example 1.
take a level 6 quest ... it may have a number of monsters from level 4 to 6.. when you run it on hard, it scales them all up 1 level.. or elite or reaper up 2 base levels. (this type of scaling is more like.. insted of the mob hitting for 10, it hits for 12 or insted of 100 hp it has 120.. or a save of 5 becomes 6)... but in the case of reapers scaling is quite a bit harder.. it takes a base tier 1 reaper and scales it directly to level 8.. resulting in a much harder mob becasue its a factoral scale from level 1 vs a regular mob that is a specific level already bumped to a higher level.


example 2.
now take a level 9 quest.. scaled to reaper now becomes level 11... again you scale level 7, 8, and 9 mobs to level 11.. without problem ..

but as i said before .. becasue there are only 4 base levels for reapers.. your no longer scaling a tier 1 reaper to level 11.. but starting with a tier 2 reaper directly in a level 11 quest... that is also the same base reaper in a level 14, 16 or 18 quest ..

this makes those base levels MUCH harder in respect to reapers..

thus, as a general rule, I run quests level 4-8 on R10 .. 9's and 10's on R4 .. then back to R10 for 11's-18's .. back to R4 for 19's-23's and r10 for 24+

But what about numbers of mobs in reaper? If I am soloing, am I hurting myself pulling out a couple hirelings or not? Forums seems to be all over the map on this. Best I can tell some quests will increase numbers of mobs based on party size and others not but, again, forums are full of "I think" and "not sure but". Question is about reaper not normal/hard/elite.

"trash/normal" mobs in quests appear at the exact same spot and qty on every difficulty above normal, half the number on solo

so a quest with 100 mobs on normal will have exactly 100 mobs on hard, elite or reaper.. but 50 on solo .. every mob will appear in the same position.

the only exception for reaper mode is .. a few reapers will spawn outside of the normal trash spawns .. (so if there is a room where trash spawns .. you may see a lone reaper before the trash spawns)

the other exception is in slayer/wilderness zones .. thunderholdem, orchard, barovia .. etc ..
the number of mobs/lag will increase in direct correlation to the number of people in the group/raid .. IE .. soloing the orchard will yield about 500 mobs.. but with a full group there are about 2000

mercs don’t count as people.

[Arctigis]

As for "challenge", none of you actually want that, otherwise you'd create your own challenge by limiting your gear selection to Korthos weapons. You can't use broken optimized builds with 100+ reaper points then complain about "challenge".

QFT

IME, when players ask for more challenge what they really mean is more rewards and more challenge for others.
If Reaper is really about challenge then get rid of the XP bonus and Reaper Points. Keep the +% to named loot.
Of course, this will never happen as players need an "incentive" to run Reaper because it's not about more challenge
at all. The developers knew this when they implemented it.

[sigtrent]

99% of reaper lfm's are r1 which is too easy for me. I seldom get any response when I post higher. Players with literally hundreds more PL's than me group r1. Those groups face zero challenge and I need to be challenged. I understand they are racing to the finish line of DDO and it's there choice. A reputable source said there isn't scaling in reaper. If this is true it stinks for solo players like myself. Either way I'd like to know .

Reaper doesn't scale based on party strength like other modes do. It wasn't designed for solo players (much like raids). That's one reason reaper has reduced self healing, to make it really harder to solo.

Your best bet in this situation is to find like minded people on your server and put them on your friends list so you can find others that want to run content for challenge rather than for expediency.

What confuse me a bit in your post is that you identify as a solo player, you want challenge, but you think R1 is unfair because it doesn't reduce the challenge for you being only one character. While reaper isn't designed for solo play, it is quite a challenge to get to where you can solo them, so I'd imagine you would be into that.

[h46av8r]

correct

but here is a better way to explain it..

there are only 4 base levels for reapers .. levels 1/11/21/31 ...

example 1.
take a level 6 quest ... it may have a number of monsters from level 4 to 6.. when you run it on hard, it scales them all up 1 level.. or elite or reaper up 2 base levels. (this type of scaling is more like.. insted of the mob hitting for 10, it hits for 12 or insted of 100 hp it has 120.. or a save of 5 becomes 6)... but in the case of reapers scaling is quite a bit harder.. it takes a base tier 1 reaper and scales it directly to level 8.. resulting in a much harder mob becasue its a factoral scale from level 1 vs a regular mob that is a specific level already bumped to a higher level.


example 2.
now take a level 9 quest.. scaled to reaper now becomes level 11... again you scale level 7, 8, and 9 mobs to level 11.. without problem ..

but as i said before .. becasue there are only 4 base levels for reapers.. your no longer scaling a tier 1 reaper to level 11.. but starting with a tier 2 reaper directly in a level 11 quest... that is also the same base reaper in a level 14, 16 or 18 quest ..

this makes those base levels MUCH harder in respect to reapers..

thus, as a general rule, I run quests level 4-8 on R10 .. 9's and 10's on R4 .. then back to R10 for 11's-18's .. back to R4 for 19's-23's and r10 for 24+



"trash/normal" mobs in quests appear at the exact same spot and qty on every difficulty above normal, half the number on solo

so a quest with 100 mobs on normal will have exactly 100 mobs on hard, elite or reaper.. but 50 on solo .. every mob will appear in the same position.

the only exception for reaper mode is .. a few reapers will spawn outside of the normal trash spawns .. (so if there is a room where trash spawns .. you may see a lone reaper before the trash spawns)

the other exception is in slayer/wilderness zones .. thunderholdem, orchard, barovia .. etc ..
the number of mobs/lag will increase in direct correlation to the number of people in the group/raid .. IE .. soloing the orchard will yield about 500 mobs.. but with a full group there are about 2000

mercs don’t count as people.

So I asked Cordovan today during the Weekly Wednesday Lunchtime Stream (in last 10-15 minutes or so of the show if folks want to hear it) if number of mobs/monsters changes if you pull out hirelings (since he was solo + 3 hirelings) and he essentially said no, number of mobs does not increase with party size. He went a little further saying they could have a bit of an effect via dungeon scaling which we knew (and as discussed in recent release notes).

Where does your info on reaper tiers and soloing having half the number of mobs come from? I can't find that corroborated anywhere?

[Arctigis]

So I asked Cordovan today during the Weekly Wednesday Lunchtime Stream (in last 10-15 minutes or so of the show if folks want to hear it) if number of mobs/monsters changes if you pull out hirelings (since he was solo + 3 hirelings) and he essentially said no, number of mobs does not increase with party size. He went a little further saying they could have a bit of an effect via dungeon scaling which we knew (and as discussed in recent release notes).

Where does your info on reaper tiers and soloing having half the number of mobs come from? I can't find that corroborated anywhere?

No disrespect to Cordovan but what he actually knows about the mechanics of the game could be
written on the back of a postage stamp. In crayon.

[Verlok_the_Red]

So I asked Cordovan today during the Weekly Wednesday Lunchtime Stream (in last 10-15 minutes or so of the show if folks want to hear it) if number of mobs/monsters changes if you pull out hirelings (since he was solo + 3 hirelings) and he essentially said no, number of mobs does not increase with party size. He went a little further saying they could have a bit of an effect via dungeon scaling which we knew (and as discussed in recent release notes).

https://ddowiki.com/page/Difficulty

your thought is referring to solo mode.. but your example is referring to casual mode (they are TOTALLY different)

example .https://ddowiki.com/page/Arachnophobia you cant summon hires in a "solo" quest.

Where does your info on reaper tiers and soloing having half the number of mobs come from? I can't find that corroborated anywhere?

my reference to "half" the monsters is based on the set of 4 level 1 quest revamps spanning back to the days when the level 1 quests were all in the IQ area (there was no korthos) and then those 4 were specifically converted from regular quests to "solo" quests.. based on the original quests from 10-12 years ago .. they now have about half the mobs from the original.

so .. no.. wont find written documentation saying the number of mobs (in any quest) is ever changed.. and solo quests are written from the ground up as such.

my reference was directly referring to solo mode not a regular quest

No disrespect to Cordovan but what he actually knows about the mechanics of the game could be
written on the back of a postage stamp. In crayon.

lol.. wouldn’t surprise me, you could include the knowledge transfer between Turbine and SSG on the same stamp .. heck SSG cant even find and update the landing screen copyright date and update it from 2017 to 2021...