A Look Ahead - Producer's Letter January 2020

[DaviMOC]

About the level cap, I wont lie, I like it even not knowing what it offer to us beyond more XP to farm. My main concern is at least in PnP and also other D&D eletronics games i've played from heroics to epic and than to legendary levels the adventures get a bit annoying with all those resistances and immunity that monster gets. Hope we get in the mood of legendary adventures , time for plane and time travels as also meeting some other famous guys such as elminster.

Getting into the hamster wheel is a option and TRing is not so different than sitting on level cap and repeat same raids every weeks. Personally I do prefer leveling again slightly stronger but thats because i do it with no rush =p.

I'm on a ryzen 5 3600 + a gtx 1070 card and I'm having some random crashes and frezees on ddo. It used to happen on My 4th gen i5 too(but less frequent). Have no problems playing other new and supposed more hardware intensive games at all , also no issues working on blender ( a hardware intensive application) so i guess its an ddo issue but i did everything in my power to solve the problem( reinstal, move to SSD, read forums) without any success so I hope 64bits client can solve it .

[GeoffWatson]

Hope we get in the mood of legendary adventures , time for plane and time travels as also meeting some other famous guys such as elminster.

Maybe the legendary adventures will be cool like you say.
They'll probably be the same as low-level adventures, except that each kobold and rat has a million hit points.

[DaviMOC]

Maybe the legendary adventures will be cool like you say.
They'll probably be the same as low-level adventures, except that each kobold and rat has a million hit points.

Sad, right? Thats why I would love to seen an introduction to legendary levels. When epic levels first came we was fighting one of the six and a multi realm demon goddess alongside no one less than elminster, we walked the demon web and met the new mystra that was cool XD. At least when it arrives I hope that would be in the same tone or even greater.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

Maybe the legendary adventures will be cool like you say.
They'll probably be the same as low-level adventures, except that each kobold and rat has a million hit points.

This shows very much the real hate people have against low-level adventures. No wonder, then, that people don't plax them and trying to get developers to exclusively do adventures for high-level characters.

Sad, right? Thats why I would love to seen an introduction to legendary levels.

Again, this clearly shhows the hate.

[DaviMOC]

Again, this clearly shhows the hate.

Nahhh. I love low level ones, I love harbor and i Love they're adding more such as borderlands . It's just not so epic or legendary to be fighting kobolds and rats after you kicked the ass of both Arraetrikos and Lolth =p.

[DRoark]

Yeah, I was hoping they weren't lying awhile back when they said the cap was going to stay at 30, and they would just work on content, but here we are.

There's so much more they can do with the game, that doesn't involve nerfing playstyles (like non-INQ ranged) or adding more levels that literally noone needs. They could
do an "alternate" XP progression (like every whatever-million XP, you get a point to put in an Alternate Experience tree).

Not Reaper XP, a passive tree with SMALL bonuses, but it resets to ZERO if you TR. That would actually give incentive for players that want to remain at cap, but still have "something" to work on.
Many people don't want to work on your Quad-Hamster-Wheels-of-Death, and sure as (verb) don't want you to add a FIFTH wheel by even suggesting Legendary Reincarnations.

EQ back in the day, had an alternate advancement system, and it worked very, very well. No level raising, no crazy skills, just small bonuses to make things more interesting.

[Kaytis]

No, sorry. The 64 bit client is not related to MacOS compatibility following the decision by Apple to no longer support Wine client functionality.

I got the 64-bit client completely working in macOS 10.15 on an older machine. I also got it "working" in macOS 10.16 (yes, Catalina) on a 16" MacBook Pro except that the graphics are horribly messed up on that machine (I think it’s using the integrated card as opposed to the discrete AMD card). I had to copy the installed folder by hand to Catalina, and launch the client from a script because the Installer doesn't work, and the Launcher is still 32-bits. But it can clearly work.

I have not heard that Apple cares one way or the other about the Wine client. I seriously doubt they do. The issue is that Wine cannot run 32-bit Windows apps terribly well on 64-bit only machines. However 64-bit Windows apps are well-supported. DDO in fact works for the most part. If the Installer and Launcher were made 64-bits, and whatever that glitch is that everyone is seeing (including Windows users) were fixed, Catalina / Wine / DDO would work just fine.

[Jhishma]

...it can clearly work... 64-bit Windows apps are well-supported. DDO in fact works for the most part. If the Installer and Launcher were made 64-bits... DDO would work just fine.

Yes! That's what I'm hoping for this year with their announcement of moving to 64 bit. Fingers crossed...

[liron24]

When are we getting new enhamcement trees instad of the old ones?
We'v been rocking this enhancements for a few years now and thy are getting pretty dull, especially barbarian tree.

[Kutalp]

When are we getting new enhamcement trees instad of the old ones?
We'v been rocking this enhancements for a few years now and thy are getting pretty dull, especially barbarian tree.

Agreed.

[Uska]

I keep watching to see a reason to come back keep getting disappointed but at least some threads are mildly entertaining

[mpetrarca]

D&D is a party/group game, however with 30 character levels, 14 quest difficulties and a much smaller player base then back when the level cap was 20, it can be hard to find a group to run with far too often. How about SSG work on increasing the player base instead of spreading the player base even more thinner.

[Igognito]

Dear all,

In case no one mentioned it pnp d&d has levels above 30.

Depending the edition it changed a bit but for 3.5 which ddo is based out was divine ranks!
And yeah, you become a god.

Pretty tough to achieve though.

I'm not super excited for more progression, I barely have 4 reincarnations my self. But assuming it will start as only divine rank 0 and slowly progress to the rest it might be interesting.
Let's leave the devs to show us what they are preparing.

I have one point that I would like to make.
Epic levels should never ever have been about fighting rats, spiders, scorpions etc...

Please stop scaling monsters for epic content and just introduce new ones. Where is that Tarrasque to slay? Giant hold even if very old it has more epic feeling than newer packs!
Also planescape concepts could work well... Send us in fernia where we constantly take fire and suffocation damage. Make the environment our enemy. Etc...

Great work with new gatekeeper area and stories. And yes the last quest does have an epic feeling!

[DRoark]

If they do up the cap, I forsee alot of people just not continuing. There's already too many wheels in the game.

[Tist]

If they do up the cap

Why are you saying "if" ?

[FlameDiablo]

Oh my, not more levels. That is a bad idea indeed.

Very bad idea: What's the point of more levels? You are stronger, but monsters too so just more XP grind

[KoobTheProud]

Very bad idea: What's the point of more levels? You are stronger, but monsters too so just more XP grind

I don't think SSG really has a strong grasp on the motivations of game players in general and their DDO customer base in particular at this point.

My game plan prior to the level cap raise announcement was to keep grinding at my own pace, with a break off at cap as usual for several epic lives and potentially my first real stab at high reaper endgame.

My game plan now is to find a new game.

Nothing has changed other than SSG deciding to move the cheese. For somebody who worked for professional cheese movers for several decades that decision is worth quitting over.

[slarden]

Very bad idea: What's the point of more levels? You are stronger, but monsters too so just more XP grind

I don't think SSG really has a strong grasp on the motivations of game players in general and their DDO customer base in particular at this point.

My game plan prior to the level cap raise announcement was to keep grinding at my own pace, with a break off at cap as usual for several epic lives and potentially my first real stab at high reaper endgame.

My game plan now is to find a new game.

Nothing has changed other than SSG deciding to move the cheese. For somebody who worked for professional cheese movers for several decades that decision is worth quitting over.

I agree with this. I also decided to stop playing and it was a combination the exponential movement of the goal post for a completed character which has negatively impacted alt play and the direction they've gone with raiding as evidenced by too hot to handle. The change to raiding gives me nothing to look forward to when at cap.

I've been in a small guild started by a real life friend since level 1 and will never leave it. Since my first character I've been joining PUG raids and it worked out great. Most were completions and once in a while the group would fail. Now I look at too hot too handle and although my character is strong enough for this raid the average player and character is going to struggle with contributing to that raid effectively on normal difficulty. As a result it's mostly run by coordinated groups either exclusively or with a core that might accept a few pugs. Very few pug raiders will stick with a group that doesn't complete the first time so getting pugs passed that learning curve is a challenge esp with low populations that we have currently. Normal used to be that setting that pug groups could learn the raid on and still get a completion with lower rewards - it might take a little longer while learning but the group would complete.

My personal style is I don't want to the jerk that is picky and booting people from groups or declining people because they aren't experienced or strong enough so I will never try and lead a pug group through that raid. I find it disappointing that a raid was designed in such a way that a huge # of people are liabilities for a raid on normal difficulty even if I am able to contribute myself. The treadmill is alot less appealing knowing that without joining a raiding a guild I will probably have trouble finding enough people to raid with on a regular basis without joining a raiding guild or discord (discord I've avoided for several years due to past cheating discussions and other toxic discussions on discord several years ago - I quit joining discords before the last big ban a while back). To me this ruined a very good social dynamic that existed in the game since I started - I would run quests with my friends or solo mostly and pug raids. No thanks SSG.

[Captain_Wizbang]

I don't think SSG really has a strong grasp on the motivations of game players in general and their DDO customer base in particular at this point.
Nothing has changed other than SSG deciding to move the cheese. For somebody who worked for professional cheese movers for several decades that decision is worth quitting over.

I agree with this. I also decided to stop playing and it was a combination the exponential movement of the goal post for a completed character which has negatively impacted alt play and the direction they've gone with raiding as evidenced by too hot to handle. The change to raiding gives me nothing to look forward to when at cap..

My OPINION is that "Sev & the Devs" (new band name) are on board with most of the player base. It's the "other" departments that 100% influence where this game is heading. That podcast of the Meet-up a few months ago gave some valuable insight to that premise, when RedPanda from marketing made some comments and chimed in on replies. And that is just ONE staff member from ONE department.

This game need much more than just moving the goal posts. I'm not on the TR/completionist train, so it really won't affect me personally from that perspective, but MOST of the player base is. And by just raising the cap and forcing players to keep chasing that carrot is not going to fly.

I LOVE what SSG has done for the game since they took over, but it appears that some that old "Turbine corporate mentality" is in play.

NO to raising the cap, we need lateral development not vertical.

[Gniewomir]

I'm not on the TR/completionist train, so it really won't affect me personally from that perspective

Sadly, if new reincarnations/grind systems will be introduced, and i'm pretty sure sooner or later they'll, it might affect you. At some point power creep avialable for character will be so enormous that new/not interested in grind players might not be able to complete content at all, cause available character power will force devs to design much harder/demanding content. You know, for example 1prr from past life change nothing when 30 are available, but when amount of them will reach 1k - mobs will have to hit for 10k.