A Look Ahead - Producer's Letter January 2020

[Xanthrawl]

This has all been done already, to death.

Looking forward to pushing past 30.

It has?! Which dev took someone up on this?

[Edwinge]

I'm excited for Alchemist and Shifter. More character options are always good (even if it means more past lives to get).

I'm also excited for the new content. I ran epic Catacombs on Lam and enjoyed the refresh of it. Didn't get to Delera's but I'm optimistic for it. New pack with the Gatekeepers is intriguing. Maybe we'll get to deal with one or more of the planes that we haven't really had contact with yet (personally, I'd like to see Kythri causing some trouble).

I enjoyed season 1 of hardcore but I'm not sure I'm going to be up for another round. I'll have to wait and see how it differs from the first.

64-bit client is welcome news. Thank you.

The Feywild is really exciting to me. I like visiting otherworldly locations. Lots of stories you can tell there. I look forward to your interpretation of it. (I hope we get to meet Titania.)

I must echo the sentiment of many others. I'm not thrilled about a level cap increase. In fact, I'm pretty upset by the notion. I really hope it turns out to not be a level cap increase but some form of alternate advancement system that opens up at 30 (something akin to 5e epic boons perhaps).

I really hope one of the other surprises that you mention that you have in store for this year is at least one new volume of the Monster Manual. It's long over due. Please make it happen.

[SuperNiCd]

It has?! Which dev took someone up on this?

Perhaps one did quite a few years ago and they're still working on it.

[Kielbasa]

We are quite a ways out from being prepared to announce specifics on our plans for character progression past level 30. What we are willing to say at this point, however, is that one of our goals is to NOT increase the amount of XP required to complete an Epic Reincarnation.

Thank you for that. No increase in xp requirements is rather important.

The game really needs better progression/variety during epics before or at least when you up the level cap. With destinies being originally designed for 20-25 and a lacking diversity of epic feats or at least clear winners and losers you all have your work cut out for you. The lesser used scions could use some improvements and a challenger for dire charge such as an AoE trip would be nice. We also need some more class specific epic feats. A new expansion is always welcome. Should make for an interesting 2020.

[MeliCat]

This has all been done already, to death.

Looking forward to pushing past 30.

Spoken like someone who enjoys TRing. All power to you.

For those who enjoy end game capped content, this basically nullifies capped end game - which is a bit of a shame as we have a a little more content right now and that will all go away at the mercy of brand new content as far as capped 'end game' goes because initially there won't be a lot of it.

Although... one of the devs said that TRing *is* end game... with no particular acknowledgement of people who hate TRing and only want to play at capped end game... I am not surprised this has happened... far out... I guess it encourages us all to do ETRs now before this change comes in

[Aelonwy]

Tried out epic Catacombs it looks awesome, didn't really see any polish to E Delera's but I can hope that will change. Haven't had the time to try-out Alchemist but it looks cool, if a bit complicated. Gatekeepers sounds interesting. Really looking forward to the Feywild, please let it be as mysterious, magical, and beautiful as any little girl's dreams of a fairy realm. If ever was the time for Fairy Dragon cosmetic pets... NOW is that time. Shifters... *shrug* I don't know how to be hyped for shifters when druids only got 6 wildshapes. Don't care about HC league. Raising the level cap does not fill me with excitement or joy... dread and loathing would be more apt.

Was hoping for more Monster Manuals, Racial Variants, what happened to the previously mentioned graphics update to PDK and half elf? We now have Warlock, Artificier, and soon-to-be Alchemist without Epic Destinies that fully support or expand on their abilities.

I have hopes 64-bit will be an improvement. Thanks for all the recent Quality of Life changes.

[RTN]

Lots of interesting and ambitious plans for the year. Looking forward to it!

If someone can find the original 'level cap must remain at 30' I suspect they'll find it was a limit imposed by PnP DnD and WotC. That's my memory of it anyway and it was always going to be a long term problem for DDO and why TRing is so central to the game. It keeps the hamster wheel turning when you can't just continually add new levels like WoW, etc. can. The game would have died a long time ago with it or something similar. WotC is also why the Eveningstar Key has such a long timer and why we can't port from the ships to the FR. Either WotC agreed to loosen the limits on the level cap, they've agreed to a workaround (see: TRing), or WotC has some new plans of their own that will expand things in PnP, etc.

[DevHead]

I cannot overstate how important that 64 bit client is. 32 bit has so many inherent bottlenecks; example: I have 16GB of RAM, but that doesn't matter to a 32 bit client since it can't use more than 4GB of RAM.

I am very curious as to how much smoother the game will be (hitch reduction/removal) when the client has been de-potatoed.

It also opens up other client side performance improvements it'll be able to actually use the beefier specs that literally everyone has now.

[SirValentine]

Which 5?

Does it matter? I mostly agree with PB's list. If I spent some time on it, I could probably think of other things too that would broaden the current game with more in addition to what we have now, rather than invalidate it with some new kind of thing where we "push past" what we have now.

(Fine, if you insist...I don't think another ED sphere is a good idea. I'd rather more EDs within the current spheres. And I like the other 5 ideas on the list.)

[vryxnr]

I'm going to repeat what I said i nthe general subforum about this:

64-bit client?! YES!
Shifter race?! YES!
New quests/adventure packs?! YES!
Updating old stuff and making epic/legendary versions? YES!
All the stuff with update 45?! Mostly yes! My contentions atm are the long ass pre-animation for NHB, and worry about 2HF single target dps still falling behind, well, everything else.

HCL coming back!? Please not too soon. Having this more than once a year is not something I want. I enjoyed it, and lvoe the cosmetic rewards, but I also have friends who play softcore who are not VIP (for a variety of reasons) and friends who are VIP but do not enjoy the idea of permadeath, and I don't want to alienate/abandon them, plus I have long term goals for my softcore characters as well. I'd be happy with once every 2 years, but please no more often than once per year.

Level cap increase?! uh... not pumped about that, sorry. Obviously I will level up to the new cap and farm loot there, but meh, it's not something I'm looking forwards to (heck, I haven't even finished gearing up all my characters at level 30, let alone all the heroic, racial, iconic and epic past lives *falls farther behind*)

...now, if it's not a level cap increase, but a new form of exp that can only be gained while at cap that can be used for various other things, I can get behind that if it's done well. What that would look like though? I couldn't say at this moment.

[Vooduspyce]

Isle of Dread is not currently planned for 2020.

Sadness

[Vulkoorex]

Premium player here. Currently on a 2 month stint as a VIP. Was seriously considering 1 yr VIP but the the prosposed new grind has put me off.

[Fafnir]

The game is good at bringing previous players back after a hiatus. It's catchy when you play and hooks for a while. I've experienced it. But the mountain that is the grind to full playability is huge and only getting more huge - even as a returning completionist, the grind is huge. I think there has to be consideration of how a new player can catch up and develop within a reasonable timeframe otherwise the challenge of attracting new players is worse and worse each expansion. Noting a level increase further moves the goalposts, I would like see the devs evaluate this aspect as well.

[Deathdefy]

We are quite a ways out from being prepared to announce specifics on our plans for character progression past level 30. What we are willing to say at this point, however, is that one of our goals is to NOT increase the amount of XP required to complete an Epic Reincarnation.

This is smart and considerate!

I really wish the dev team at the time had done it back when cap was Level 25 and just said "you can always Epic TR with an Epic Heart from the point of having X epic experience points regardless of any later adjustments to level cap or experience curve across the epic levels." And then again, when the cap was Level 28.

But better late than never and not your bad!

Updating more raids to be playable at cap is also cool.

Are you menaces going to update Titan? Project Nem's laser tech reboot makes me think it's on the list. That's terrifying but I'm extremely on board and will join as many trainwreck pugs as possible.


My pitch for ads in 2020
Finally, from a totally cynical sales / marketing perspective - this is the time to advertise as you just added mounts and are about to announce another hardcore league! Hardcore leagues are great equalisers and let newbies join at an identical power level - get the date out there!

Please chuck literally like $6k USD onto youtube pre-roll ads, and whatever you have to pay to get some decent impressions on Twitch (never done it myself and I assume for games you're obliged - it must be reasonably cheap given I saw literally 20 ads for John Safran's audible podcast when watching Strimtom's Lamma preview). I wouldn't bother with Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / Tiktok / Google Ads.

I'd do the 30 second video of the below:
1. video/stills of mounted characters in pretty locations - whatever looks best,
2. somewhere crowded with many players running about (video of korthos from hardcore season 1 if it exists),
3. a voice-over about permadeath hardcore server season 2 starting X date,
4. video of a rogue sneaking up to and assassinating an iron golem, and
5. a few clicks through the character creation screen showing off ddo's insane customization with skills and feats with pretty characters in as the model (no gnomes, maybe bladeforged / female humans / male Aasimar / shadar-kai with Hunger Games photographer hair) creating an alchemist? (with some voice-over about customisation awesomeness)
6. call to action is obviously just "ddo.com" in some capacity.

Maybes:
- If there are upcoming iconic ddo mounts - and I really hope there are literally for marketing /player base growing purposes - please include these in the pretty shots and say 'new mounts'.
- Before the call to action, chuck in 3-5 seconds of a Twitch streamer playing ddo to show ideally a raid with others running about and communication. DDO's cool. It's with it. It's hip. Tak-a-tak-a-tak-a-tak-a. Make the streamer dress up and dye their hair; if you include their handle they'll probably do it free. Alternatively make a new account and have an employee do it if nothing's fitting the brief perfectly.

I know the demographics that play are older, but target gamers 18 - 29ish. There's this huge group who would love something more challenging (hardcore) and complex (ddo's building - you can't convey that in an ad I think, but the forums and wiki do that if you have a good hook in the video) but don't know DDO exists because they're stuck on WoW.

You just added some really cool stuff and have a marketable hook again that isn't just "great character customization" - though I'd flag, "over a decade fine-tuning complex character customisation based on the DnD pen and paper ruleset".

Advertising online is not insanely expensive and I don't get why we don't do it since the target audience is right there! If we're commercially not allowed to... fine... but if it's just in the too hard basket, please take it out.

Obviously in no way indicate these forums exist because they are filled with salt and madness, and are not actually representative of the overwhelmingly kind and smart people in-game.

[Thrudh]

Good point. Have to monetize the new system by selling a new type of leveling instead of just increasing the amount of leveling we can already do. Especially with the weird way that, "Feywild expansion is that you will need to learn new, powerful ways to overcome challenge, and doing so will gain you the experience necessary to push past level 30 for the first time in DDO history," was phrased

I bet you are only Level 31 (or whatever) in Feywild, and you drop back to 30 when you leave. So no old content is invalidated.

[PurpleTimb]

We are quite a ways out from being prepared to announce specifics on our plans for character progression past level 30. What we are willing to say at this point, however, is that one of our goals is to NOT increase the amount of XP required to complete an Epic Reincarnation.

While I'm happy to see this comment, I'm taking it with a grain of salt. The devs also said that raising the cap from 28 to 30 would not increase the amount of XP required to complete an epic reincarnation and later back-peddled and tacked on an extra 2 million xp per life.

[cdbd3rd]

...
Halflings must stick together.

They do when the correct BBQ sauce is used.

[DevHead]

*snip*


My pitch for ads in 2020
Finally, from a totally cynical sales / marketing perspective - this is the time to advertise as you just added mounts and are about to announce another hardcore league! Hardcore leagues are great equalisers and let newbies join at an identical power level - get the date out there!

Please chuck literally like $6k USD onto youtube pre-roll ads, and whatever you have to pay to get some decent impressions on Twitch (never done it myself and I assume for games you're obliged - it must be reasonably cheap given I saw literally 20 ads for John Safran's audible podcast when watching Strimtom's Lamma preview). I wouldn't bother with Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / Tiktok / Google Ads.
*more snipping*

I'm going to second this push for advertising - once the 64 bit client is out and lag is mostly stabilized/removed. Gotta grow that playerbase and hopefully bring back some veterans.

[noinfo]

We are quite a ways out from being prepared to announce specifics on our plans for character progression past level 30. What we are willing to say at this point, however, is that one of our goals is to NOT increase the amount of XP required to complete an Epic Reincarnation.

Then why do it?

You could flesh out the ED's to 30 or something else. Do not break what is begging to actually be an end game (in its best place since the days of level 20 epics). If you go above 30 do it with a purpose with things that do not stack with past lives or reaper stuff so that the power of those makes a difference while leveling but is not additive and new players can rival their power in these new levels.
Or even better, have it so you can just cash the sphere karma straight for a past live, end game progression without regression?

[droid327]

We now have Warlock, Artificier, and soon-to-be Alchemist without Epic Destinies that fully support or expand on their abilities.

I just want to point out something devs have said before, and that I agree with...

EDs are not tied 1:1 with classes, nor should they be. They're designed around playstyles...and playstyles can overlap between classes. Some do align very closely with a given class' skillset - GMoF and Fatesinger, for example - but they arent by any means exclusively useful to those classes.

We dont need additional EDs for every class as long as the playstyles that a class allows are all supported. E.g., Artificer can build for martial RXB damage, or caster. A martial Arti might take LD or Shiradi, while a caster might take Draconic or Magister. Those fully serve the playstyles of the class.

Likewise, Alchemist might spec more martial darts in VC, or more caster in Bomb, or more group-heal in Apoth, and might take Shiradi or Draconic or EA, respectively.

If you want to see more EDs, you'd need to delineate a unique playstyle that really isnt adequately served by any of the existing trees...e.g., maybe an Undead-themed tree that gives some of the flavor of PM to a non-PM build (Necro Cleric, Poison/Neg Alch, Sorc EK) or enhances the existing functionality of PM EKs.