Make Alts Great Again!

[Iriale]

it doesn't have to be all or nothing, all exclusive to the toon or all shared PLs. The problem is that the current grind per character is insanely long, so the problem would be solved if the devs shortened it to a reasonable length. Setting some PLs to be shared and others exclusive toon reduces grind without eliminating an individual progression per character, helping both to maintain the sanity of those who feel saturated by the current situation and to please those who like to feel that each character must have an individual progression.

Let's be honest, the current grind is irrational and should never have existed. Reducing it is a good thing, but it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing thing.

Personally, I have abandoned all but one of my alts until SSG reverses the current situation of hate and penalty alts. That is reflected in my purchases, yes. Less to buy :P

[KoobTheProud]

*All of your counter-arguments are based around the "I'm a super-elitist who can do a life in a day so everyone else just needs to get good" mentality, which is toxic to the game. You are in a minority and need to stop ruining things for the rest of us.

There are important caveats here.

1. Many multi-life players aren't that good at the game. They've gotten there the old-fashioned way by plugging along for eons to finally get some real power in the game. They've learned a few tips and tricks along the way and they've gained some survivability from the reaper trees but really they're not that good at the game.

You see this in many of the streams, where one or two players are carrying a raid or party through content that most couldn't even enter without the main player and a buddy or two. Lots of reaper wings on folks who couldn't do r1 alone but are getting carried through r6+ by the team.

This type of player is not going to give up anything to anyone at this stage. They've worked hard and lived through hundreds of hours being carried as a stone and they're not going to let new players enter on an even footing.

I first saw this quite a long time ago in WoW when the PvP gear was first rolled out. A lot of the raiders in my tier 1 guild were outraged that top out PvP gear was going to be as good as top out raid gear. They'd worked long and hard to get their gear from MC and BWL and having a good PvP player come in and get similar gear in less than 6 months of BG's just enraged them. More than a few were open to discussing how badly they were going to get owned in world PvP once the BG gear began to hit the field, which it did and they were.

2. Many multi-life players are good at the game however they've also spent thousands of dollars to get where they are, using Otto's boxes and continuous XP and slayer pots etc. They've got a huge investment in their power and anything that removes that advantage is going to absolutely infuriate them.

Part of DDO's Faustian deal is that the store produces real benefits not just cosmetic ones. This was a huge miscalculation in the initial setup of the store, however it is a vested error at this point and it is not going to be possible to change course at this point without a major marketing plan in place to replace the Methuselahs that real change will drive out of the meta.

My opinion is that the solution is to open new servers with a largely cosmetically-oriented store and no past-lives. The store could still sell all the goodies, they'd just be of much less value to single life characters, and they wouldn't drive the population into increasingly smaller play groups over time. It's quite possible that alt-play would actually sell more boxes and stuff than the hamster-wheel does. This would be a function of how many people bought into the new DDO and played for awhile.

The idea that super-elitists are the ones trying to keep DDO from changing is likely incorrect. It is far more likely that it is average players afraid of losing their edge and unsure how to play in a normal MMO meta because they've been riding the TR-train for so long.

[smokejumper89]

2. Many multi-life players are good at the game however they've also spent thousands of dollars to get where they are, using Otto's boxes and continuous XP and slayer pots etc. They've got a huge investment in their power and anything that removes that advantage is going to absolutely infuriate them.

Thing is though giving an XP bonus to alts is the opposite of removing those benefits - its giving them greater valuer. All the ottos you bought on your main now give a small but signficant boost to your alts. I fail to see how this could do anything but boost sales.

Again: I highly doubt there are people buying 10-20 boxes to use on their alts, but there's plenty of players who've eaten 50+ on their main.


So you said this:

Part of DDO's Faustian deal is that the store produces real benefits not just cosmetic ones. This was a huge miscalculation in the initial setup of the store, however it is a vested error at this point and it is not going to be possible to change course at this point without a major marketing plan in place to replace the Methuselahs that real change will drive out of the meta.

Then followed up with this:

My opinion is that the solution is to open new servers with a largely cosmetically-oriented store and no past-lives.

So your argument is that we can't take away things from the Methuselahs but that we should take away things from the methuselahs?


If you've got all that time, energy, and money invested in a character with 100+ PLs, tomes, etc, why are you going to start over on a new server? I know I wouldn't. At best, your suggestion would further fracture the already splintered player base. At worst it would be a game-killer, as all the old-time whales quite because there's not enough people to play with since half the population has gone to the "fresh start" server, gotten bored, and quit because there's nothing to do after they hit 30.

Given the games current state, there is no problem where the correct solution is "create another server".

[Mglaxix]

This is patently incorrect.

Since you can never level fast enough, XP potions will always be purchased, and its easy to see how something like this could improve sales as it would add more value.

So your telling me the your idea of a max 160% xp bonus would increase xp pot sales.......... who's buying that

Doubtful as I have capped to 30 in 22 hours of play time within a 36 hour window utilizing a vip 10% bonus a bonus weekend vip 10% bonus that was on using my voice 5% and ship buff 5% and burning a 20% pot.

I don't run opts, don't run low paying quests, don't wait for my lfm to fill, don't waste my time raiding at cap, only farm gear when it is something that will benefit me and that is becoming less and less important for me. I put a plan together to acquire what I wanted I never needed it I wanted it so I took what I wanted vs what I needed.

Consider:
*Most players do not have a triple uber-completionist, ergo most will not get max possible bonus

I know well over 50 players on one server that have not just one but two or more characters that are or are very close to uber-completionist. There is no real need for it anymore it is much better to concentrate on what you need vs what you want.

*Only the alts get the bonus. This means advancing your main becomes more important, ergo people who do not usually buy potions would start buying them

Just handing the haves more and leaving the have not in the same place as always.

*Ottos boxes become worth a lot more valuable. Using a box on your main translates into a permanent XP bonus for the rest of your alts. It is a very, very very tiny percentage of players who buy multiple ottos for their alts and an even tinier number who buy more than 15 for their main. With something like this, there's suddenly a very good reason to buy 160 boxes.

39 Race lives with upcoming shifter
21 Iconic lives covering 21 heroic class lives if your not double dipping your doing it wrong.
24 Class lives
48 ETR

That's 132 past lives at most....... why would anyone need to buy 160 boxes for 132 max past lives. At $50 a box even at 100 past lives that is $5k for a game when there is no need if you build a plan and execute it. Poor Management of a Poor Plan will always give Poor results.

*All of your counter-arguments are based around the "I'm a super-elitist who can do a life in a day so everyone else just needs to get good" mentality, which is toxic to the game. You are in a minority and need to stop ruining things for the rest of us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeFy...youtu.be&t=339

Up to this point SSG said forget it not me.

I actually liked your base idea I just realize it is was over powered and would definitely hurt xp pot sales and I am open to SSG at a later point adjusting the required xp up if it did hurt sales to much. But hey I am toxic.

I simply tried to balance the your idea out for everyone's benefit after all why would all the haves need any of the have not when they would instantly have every character maxed out we need a rogue well we could post nah forget the have not I can hop to mine, same goes for any class with the your suggestion but hey that won't lead to even more selective grouping will it. Want to join the guild question 1 - do you have all past lives if not sorry rejected you can run regular quests if guild members are not on but if so we break and reform for guild member since they have more than you and it benefits our guild more. I have already seen this in certain guilds where they break and reform for guild members.

I also did my race lives in 3 years covering 36 race lives to level 30 to maximize my rxp payout per life so your argument that I expect anyone to do what I have done is a nice pipe dream. A month to gain 3.8mil xp is 126k per day in a 30 day month. I did over 12 mil in that time breaking down to 400k per day. If I was an elitist I would have boxed them all and have nothing more than yet another past life feat and nothing more to show for my time.

I merely point out what many of us who have played DDO for many years are capable of and thus any new player is and can become capable of as they progress in the game of course this requires a level of player skill that must be balanced with quest knowledge, game mechanics, gear, build, most of which is acquired through playing not handing them a silver spoon with all the goodies.

The funny thing is past lives are not required at all to contribute, compete, and complete quests in DDO. I run with plenty of first lifers on R8+ that do more than just fine. The fact that many players seem to think they cannot do the same tells me most of what I need to know about them.

I have never told anyone to do what I did, I see no reason for a triple completionist at all anymore. I have shared my system with more players than I can count.

Play your races learning the classes gaining the best heroic past life benefits and gear.

+1 str
+2 dex
+2 con
+2 int
+2 wis
+3 cha

+12 racial ap

some bonuses to skills

36 etrs no reason to run a race and not gain the epic past life. You don't even have to step into an epic quest to cap level 30 for an etr.

All available at level one. Giving you a 36 point build with an 24 extra points already banked in. Making you a 60 point build and lets not discount those racial AP's either.

as you finish your races up and have a solid idea of your end class you should have already built up a solid tr set may as well double dip the Iconic next since that gives you 21 heroic past life feats which can cover almost any end game build. uber-completionist simply gives a player the ability to run any class, any build, anytime, only needing proper gear to make it OP if they are a good player.

Melee past lives differ from caster past lives and specialist past lives differ as well a wizard saying 30 hp from a barbarian past life is only deluding themselves those 30hp are not going to save you in most cases at cap. A melee acting like +9 spell pen is of any benefit is doing the same thing.


The single best thing SSG ever did was to make all the quests free and put two expansions on sale for 99 points each. If anyone does not see an immediate way to solve your alts are to weak problem with this opportunity your not looking at it the right way at all.

[Drunkendex]

I don't run opts, don't run low paying quests, don't wait for my lfm to fill, don't waste my time raiding at cap, only farm gear when it is something that will benefit me and that is becoming less and less important for me. I put a plan together to acquire what I wanted I never needed it I wanted it so I took what I wanted vs what I needed.


The funny thing is past lives are not required at all to contribute, compete, and complete quests in DDO. I run with plenty of first lifers on R8+ that do more than just fine. The fact that many players seem to think they cannot do the same tells me most of what I need to know about them.


The single best thing SSG ever did was to make all the quests free and put two expansions on sale for 99 points each. If anyone does not see an immediate way to solve your alts are to weak problem with this opportunity your not looking at it the right way at all.

So...

You're telling me that in order to get ANY completionist, I need to forget fun part of game, and play only GG XP/min stuff.

Not happening.

Since SSG stated that PL are not gonna be acc based (which is actually good IMHO) it leaves that they need to make PL grind something what sane person can actually accomplish (much to chagrin of "OH I'm so elite I have something mere mortals don't" players).

132 PL's, that's something that only whales and no life players can accomplish.

And locking one of main features of this game behind paywall and/or no fun/no life playstyle is NOT good for game's longevity.

Yes PL are not needed to contribute (until you get kicked from group for playing DC caster without wiz PL's).

Does not mean they should be "teh l33t" crowd exclusive.

I have a life, family and full time job, I'm not gonna forget all those just because someone does not wanna lose his "teh l33t" status.

[smokejumper89]

So...

You're telling me that in order to get ANY completionist, I need to forget fun part of game, and play only GG XP/min stuff.

Not happening.

This is, sadly, what the sort of player who goes from 1-30 in 22 hours things. It's a huge problem, and I wish people would get this:

I have a life, family and full time job, I'm not gonna forget all those just because someone does not wanna lose his "teh l33t" status.

Through their thick skulls.

132 PL's, that's something that only whales and no life players can accomplish.

This. Just absolutely this.

And locking one of main features of this game behind paywall and/or no fun/no life playstyle is NOT good for game's longevity.

It definitely keeps a lot of players out. I know I look at my main and think about TRing again, and the sheer amount of grind is soul-crushing just to get 1 more life. After all the fun of playing through the different classes once each with my greensteels its just lost the alure.

Yes PL are not needed to contribute (until you get kicked from group for playing DC caster without wiz PL's).

This.

Does not mean they should be "teh l33t" crowd exclusive.

I have a life, family and full time job, I'm not gonna forget all those just because someone does not wanna lose his "teh l33t" status.

"teh l33t" crowd is an unfortunate toxic element of every MMO, and one the developers need to identify and tune out to a degree. Its ok to create little carrots for them, that's healthy, but they can't build the whole game around a small minority of players and expect a healthy playerbase.

[hit_fido]

I know I look at my main and think about TRing again, and the sheer amount of grind is soul-crushing just to get 1 more life.

Can you quantify how much content you would prefer to play for another past life so that wouldn't be soul-crushing? Like how many quests should you need to complete to get from 1-20 and/or from 20-30 for whatever kind of past life you want?

[mikarddo]

132 PL's, that's something that only whales and no life players can accomplish.

And locking one of main features of this game behind paywall and/or no fun/no life playstyle is NOT good for game's longevity.

If you focus on getting 132 PL and feel you need those - yet dont want to play ALOT - then you are being unrealistic in your goals.

Getting all past lives is NOT one of the main features of the game. It is specifically something for those that either want to pay or play ALOT but not in any way needed or meant for everyone.

Posting otherwise simply makes the the input meaningless to the debate at hand, infact, it hurts any chance to gain some reasonable measure of chance due to being unrealistic.

[smokejumper89]

Can you quantify how much content you would prefer to play for another past life so that wouldn't be soul-crushing? Like how many quests should you need to complete to get from 1-20 and/or from 20-30 for whatever kind of past life you want?

The thread is about improving alts. My idea/suggestion is that by earning PLs on your main "the hard way" earning PLs on your alts becomes VASTLY easier. This both improves the value of PLs on the main while also making alts practical.

[smokejumper89]

If you focus on getting 132 PL and feel you need those - yet dont want to play ALOT - then you are being unrealistic in your goals.

Yes but the thread here about how to make alts viable.

[yfernbottom]

I don't know what the perfect solution is, but most posters seem to agree that having the XP penalties kick in more slowly is a good idea.

The exact number that gets thrown around varies. But does anyone honestly think it would break the game if it took ten lives to get up to the XP penalty we have on life three right now?

My inclination would be to do that first, see how it plays out and then consider more extreme solutions.

At least let a new players and alts quickly get through the lives that it takes to 1. get full stats on character creation, 2. open quests on elite (if premium). If the first three lives all cost the same, it would help a ton.

[hit_fido]

The thread is about improving alts. My idea/suggestion is that by earning PLs on your main "the hard way" earning PLs on your alts becomes VASTLY easier. This both improves the value of PLs on the main while also making alts practical.

How much content should you need to play through or how many quests should you need to complete to get from 1-20 and/or from 20-30 on an alt character such that you'd consider this desire fulfilled by SSG - that it would be vastly easier to get the past life on the alt?

[Yamani]

Yes but the thread here about how to make alts viable.

How to make them viable: play them.

[slarden]

With that setup, however, you cannot share BtA gear, threads, runes etc. which to me makes it much less interesting.
Also, I find it rather boring running 2+ accounts at the same time even if it is very effective.

Gear can be passed in-chest for quests. The big time sinks in the game are past lifes and reaper xp not raiding. I wish raiding was a bigger thing, but it's been something that's declined significantly over the past few years once racial lifes and reaper xp were introduced.

I think wipey's description is a good summary of the state of the game

There are about 300 people on per server. THREE HUNDRED.

Mostly 50 or 100 lives toons obsessively running r1 on SINGLE toon. For more past lives. Hundreds or thousands hours on single character.
The "grind" is completely out of touch with "reality" or what most people / players would consider "acceptable" for rusty old game. Turbine / SSG killed economy. And alt gameplay. And grouping. You know, what any "mmo" would be.

And the population really reflects that.

As for raids, it will be interesting to see if the new raids are too hot too handle disasters - that seems to be their direction with raiding which makes raiding entirely uninteresting since so few people are able to handle that raid on normal which means I can only run raids with a very small core of people which are mostly in raiding guilds. I was going to raid tonight and checked the calendar of the one open raiding community running too hot to handle and noticed too hot too handle is off the calendar again - not open to public.

A few years ago I was raiding several times a week - and that was all pug raiding. Pug raiding is way down compared to then and it's trending in the wrong direction.

So Cordovan didn't honor his charitable drive commitment from a few years ago - and finally agreed to honor it last year - so I asked him to host a too hot to handle raid for first-timers on Sarlona and lead it to completion. He agreed over one year ago and of course never honored it - I think he knows and SSG knows what a disaster that will be.

[Drunkendex]

If you focus on getting 132 PL and feel you need those - yet dont want to play ALOT - then you are being unrealistic in your goals.

OH, but I DO play a lot, 90% of my free time is spent playing DDO.

And comparing notes I see it means I would still need to double that playtime to have a chance at ONE completionist before final server shutdown.

And one of my longterm goals IS getting uber.

But as PL grind state is today, either I'm gonna have to scrap that plan or go whale route (and I can't become whale, since I do have more important expenses than a videogame).

Heck, just getting those few PL I want for my barb alt is out of question if I wanna get anywhere with my main.

AND THAT is issue here.

That you have to avoid playing alts to get something done on main.

My barb alt is parked at 30, and I only log on him to do couple raids per week, and I suck at that since he still misses some gear, and farming that gear means I'm not leveling my main.

See the issue.

Playing alts means "you waste time".

SSG needs to address that.

Noone asks for free PL's, but throw us a 'fricking bone SSG!

One good part was raid runes (you can play alt and farm raid gear for main)

something similar for alt leveling would be nice.

An example has WAKFU game: your main gets XP at normal rate, first 2 alts (closest in level to main) get 2x XP, next alts get 3x.
That system would not exactly work in DDO(TOTALY different level systems, WAKFU has no reincarnation and max level is 215 IIRC), but is an example on how to address alt leveling issue.

[smokejumper89]

How much content should you need to play through or how many quests should you need to complete to get from 1-20 and/or from 20-30 on an alt character such that you'd consider this desire fulfilled by SSG - that it would be vastly easier to get the past life on the alt?

I don't see it as an "amount of content" number.

The OP presented a problem, I offered a solution. My solution, in simplest terms is "the more PLs one character has, the faster the other characters earn XP". I do think it should be VASTLY faster because making alts should be a lot easier.

How to make them viable: play them.

Unless you're interested in playing a pure healbot or an inquisitive, your first-life-no-tomes alt is getting a backpack ride through higher diffs.

[smokejumper89]

An example has WAKFU game: your main gets XP at normal rate, first 2 alts (closest in level to main) get 2x XP, next alts get 3x.
That system would not exactly work in DDO(TOTALY different level systems, WAKFU has no reincarnation and max level is 215 IIRC), but is an example on how to address alt leveling issue.

WAKFU is far from the only game to have a system like that. Its how you encourage more play, which in a game as far past it's prime as DDO is VERY important.

[Yamani]

Unless you're interested in playing a pure healbot or an inquisitive, your first-life-no-tomes alt is getting a backpack ride through higher diffs.

So you are openly choosing to play in a difficulty you know you aren't ready for? I have no sympathy then.

[hit_fido]

The OP presented a problem, I offered a solution. My solution, in simplest terms is "the more PLs one character has, the faster the other characters earn XP". I do think it should be VASTLY faster because making alts should be a lot easier.

I'd be thrilled if Turbine put a new past life vendor in Marketplace and I could talk to him and then keep pushing a button to instantly get new past lives. That's VASTLY faster than now - a lot easier too.

Somewhere between my example of "VASTLY faster" and the current "soul-crushing" grind, there's some definable quantity/range in terms of actually playing the game, working through content, completing quests. What I'm trying to do is understand what you (or any player that would like to see easier TR/past life system) see as a reasonable range or amount of game play. I get that you want it to be easier. It'd help to put it into more actionable feedback. "I think I should have to run any 5 quests to get one level and therefore any 100 quests to reach level 20" would be a way of quantifying the game play/effort that you think should equate to earning a past life. "I think I should have to accumulate 760,000 xp to reach level 20 and earn a past life" would be another.

General feedback (too much grind) is fine but nothing new; the only really productive outcome here is someone floats an actionable idea that SSG sees and says ok, that's within a range of possibilities we think is reasonable and financially compatible, and so maybe we'll move on it in some way.

[Drunkendex]

WAKFU is far from the only game to have a system like that. Its how you encourage more play, which in a game as far past it's prime as DDO is VERY important.

I forgot to mention that WAKFU has another alt friendly part, if you're subscriber (VIP equivalent) you can have main + 2 alts in party, playing all 3 at same time (WAKFU system is similar to Final Fantasy Tactics) so you essentially level 3 toons at same time.

I'd say I'd love something like that in DDO, but with hires/pets borked beyond all repair, I shudder to think how that would work with alts instead of hires.