Is low level content balanced around/against end game content ?

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

Hello.

What I always see in discussions are remarks and tests about end game content.

Nerfs and bufs and everything else - are NEVER tested by players against low level content - and "low level" is in my definition everything below level 10 !
(Proof : When I was writing that the Alchemist was NOT AT ALL overpowered at start game on Lamannia, then everyone ignored me.)

This leads me to only one assumption That low level is balanced against end game.

Which explains why low level has become so much ridiculously easy for first-lifers that it actually and sadly is no challenge anymore.

People will now accuse me of hypocrisy, because I several times wrote that I'm playing only for story. But that doesn't mean that I don't want a challence which makes me believe that I'm playing within a living world. Immersion can also be done by making people believe that they are up against dangerous enemies & dangerous environment.

Right now I have assembled so many items from low level uests that I can almost sweep through everything - apart from traps. Quests rather feel like doing a speedrun these days for me, instead of having to cautiously stop and plan ahead ... Which is an experience only the HCL folks now receive. Not low level first-lifers.

The "power creep" has made random low level content items so powerful now, because they are balanced against end game, I fear, that I just cannot find any items anymore to gimp my characters !
To gimp my characters, to get a real challence, I must dig deeply into the character banks of characters I had played 1013 or so the last time.
(The other method would be, of course, to do "Into The Mists" with Korthos gear. I think I should actually try this out.)

Balancing against end game means that abilities are reworked so that they do more damage in end game. Players want it so.
But this means at the other end of the scale that the same aboilities buffed for end game are now vastly overpowered for start game or low level content in general.
Plus, these abilities appear through the loot lists on ALL items ! At least in one form or another.

Let's take Vorpal as an example.
Once, many yrears ago, Vorpal was so much rare that I STILL have a vorpal kama which i will NEVER use ( I think ) in one of my character's bank, simply just because it was so rare ! No other reason !

Now, Vorpal appears so often in lowest level content as random loot, even. It almost drops like candy, so to say, compared how much rare it was so many years ago !
This is an example of "the power creep" demanded by the end game crows via "we want this buffed !" getting through general, global loot tables into EVERY part of the game !

Which means nothing else than : Via their demands, the end game crowd destroys low level content - by making it too easy.

But perhaps they want it so.
Because they perhaps want to sweep through low level Reaper content
and do not want to have to do non-speedrun questing. Not wanting to have to stop and plan ahead.
Perhaps they believe that multilifers should be able to do reaper speedruns, rather than having to stop, think, and plan ahead.

My suspicion so is : Through buffing end game, start game and low level content gets heavily dumbed down.
And I believe that this is not directly visible - the lack of testing of low level content through players clearly shows me that no-one cares for looking at that anyway - but indirectly through "buffed after demand" of abilities and through global loot tables.

And I'm sure that no player cares about my posting here anyway. Everyone here has a tunnel vision towards end game. In one of two threads of my own I even got suggestions for items which are available only at mid to end game, even although in my own thread I had stated about "low level".

Alrik

[Kmnh]

Yes, 1 skull Reaper is boring and people zerg through it. Yes, power creep is real. The rings from Tower of Despair are weaker than the level 5 rings from Feywild.

But gimping your character and your fellow party members? The game already has a system for that. Raise the skulls.
Even 4 skulls will be enough to slow most parties down. You will get more like-minded people hitting the LFMs, too.

[Tilomere]

Mmm...

Why don't you try out R1 on hardcore and come back and say how easy it is.

The player half life is 3 levels, and the vast majority of them aren't even playing in reaper.

[Alfhild]

You can always research means of inducing amnesia.
After all, meta-knowledge is the biggest advantage a vet player has over someone just starting out.

[Valerianus]

i don't understand, why don't you just increase the difficulty you are playing at if you want more challenge and planning and no reckless play?

[merridyan]

You can always research means of inducing amnesia.
After all, meta-knowledge is the biggest advantage a vet player has over someone just starting out.

Yes, this, if the OP was to pound his head against his desk enough, the quests would get more challenging.

[dennisck2]

After all, meta-knowledge is the biggest advantage a vet player has over someone just starting out.

This.

i don't understand, why don't you just increase the difficulty you are playing at if you want more challenge and planning and no reckless play?

And this. Problem solved.

[Stormraiser]

People will now accuse me of hypocrisy,

Of all the things people could accuse you of, hypocrisy is definitely not in the top five, I wouldn't worry champ.

[Stormraiser]

Yes, this, if the OP was to pound his head against his desk enough, the quests would get more challenging.

Maybe the posts would get even better

A low level vorpal random spawn item is often vendor trash when you play on r1 or easy difficulties. What are you hoping to do, vorpal 75 hp kobolds and 300 hp trolls?

[Antheal]

The only problem "too easy" makes is that somewhere along your journey, instead of a difficulty curve it becomes a difficulty cliff.

Some people play games to have fun and relax, some people play games to be "challenged". Somewhere these two groups will clash.

[Pandjed]

The strange thing about low-level is, that the game feels way different than in epic levels... at least mechanically, cuz most Epic Quests you're playing are also heroic quests. o.o

That's also why I rather see a level cap decrease (as in: Put more stuff into each level) better than the inevitable level cap increase, as I just fear that it will introduce another layer on the rest, which will greatly change how each 31+ character plays and turn the game into 3 vastly different games... well, aside of content, as I really doubt that anything other than raids will be legendary-only content then...


Playing more skulls may be a solution for the boredom, but as someone who tries to use as many skulls without hindering the progress to much, I can say: As reaper-xp scale with level and playing high skulls in low heroics is much more challenging than in endgame, ypu have only the challenge with the emptiness, that something seems off with the reward.

[SheIsMiiiiiiinnnne]

...
My suspicion so is : Through buffing end game, start game and low level content gets heavily dumbed down.
And I believe that this is not directly visible - the lack of testing of low level content through players clearly shows me that no-one cares for looking at that anyway
...

If you care about low level content you can easily make some chars and do some testing and produce some conclusions. i.e. contribute rather than just chuff away in the corner making weird statements.
You could even do your testing on HCL.
All content has to try and be balanced for a wide range of player power, from first lifers to multi past life freaks.

I believe the developers do try and make content suitable for the level it is set that. However it always has to be reasonably achievable for chars without tons of past-life power, and perhaps without all the guild buffs, and perhaps only with RNG gear, and this is likely to make such content not as hard for those with the power. Catered for to a certain extent by N/H/E/R, but the diff between a fully empowered low level toon and a newish first lifer is massive for low level quests, e.g. 3 barb past lives = 30 hp, very noticeable for low level toons. Extra challenge is provided by R1-R10 if your toons are having it too easy.

I feel more recent quests are harder than old quests. e.g KOTB harder than Korthos, Gatekeepers harder than WW part 1. Not really played Fey yet at low level but suspect it is harder than legacy level 5 quests.

I believe they have made some tweaks to low level quests based on data gathering from previous hardcore seasons, where a large number of ungeared low level toons have been fed into the mixer. Especially lethal stuff may have been tuned - e.g. this time floors in Spies have been changed.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

If you care about low level content you can easily make some chars and do some testing and produce some conclusions. i.e. contribute rather than just chuff away in the corner making weird statements.
You could even do your testing on HCL.
All content has to try and be balanced for a wide range of player power, from first lifers to multi past life freaks.

What additionally disturbs me is that none of this player community does any testing on the lowest levels - but great numbers of testing with end game content. At least I read lots of threads with that on Lamannia and in General.

If no-one of the player community does testing in the low level regions, then this simply signals : "We don't care, as long as we get *our* stuff balanced."

And me, I don't think that I'm good at testing with my Dyscalculia. I don't think that I'd be able to work with damage formulas like everybody else here.

My strengths are elsewhere. I could do testing of story, whether it has logical holes or other problems. But apparingly no-one here is interested in story, so my "story testing" would be in vain. (This is what I mean with "this forum is almost exclusively filled with math people".)

[GeoffWatson]

What additionally disturbs me is that none of this player community does any testing on the lowest levels - but great numbers of testing with end game content. At least I read lots of threads with that on Lamannia and in General.

If no-one of the player community does testing in the low level regions, then this simply signals : "We don't care, as long as we get *our* stuff balanced."

And me, I don't think that I'm good at testing with my Dyscalculia. I don't think that I'd be able to work with damage formulas like everybody else here.

My strengths are elsewhere. I could do testing of story, whether it has logical holes or other problems. But apparingly no-one here is interested in story, so my "story testing" would be in vain. (This is what I mean with "this forum is almost exclusively filled with math people".)

Some people care about low-level, it's just that the end-game gets all the attenion from the devs (eg all raids are 30+).

"Math" can be clearly compared (eg 10 is higher than 7), while "story" is a matter of opinion (is "amazing" better than "incredible"?), so "math" gets discussed more.

[Valerianus]

What additionally disturbs me is that none of this player community does any testing on the lowest levels - but great numbers of testing with end game content. At least I read lots of threads with that on Lamannia and in General.

If no-one of the player community does testing in the low level regions, then this simply signals : "We don't care, as long as we get *our* stuff balanced."

And me, I don't think that I'm good at testing with my Dyscalculia. I don't think that I'd be able to work with damage formulas like everybody else here.

My strengths are elsewhere. I could do testing of story, whether it has logical holes or other problems. But apparingly no-one here is interested in story, so my "story testing" would be in vain. (This is what I mean with "this forum is almost exclusively filled with math people".)

when lamannia opens, and new content is in preview, there are specific threads to discuss it, you may test stories and discuss them in those threads

about the rest, balance is a lie, there is no balance. how are you balancing a game with multiclassing and different enhancement trees while leveling? how are you balancing all the possible combinations while leveling and considering all the possible combination about how players are going to spend their APs? and feats! race plays a role too on top. and who cares? how much time are you playing at level 3? 4? 5? seriously, do you want to balance at level 2? 4? 8? 10? a multiclass, let's say 3 classes + race tree + universal trees, all the potential combinations of all classes and all races and all trees? this is inconceivable.

it's impossible, it's an illusion. luckily! we should be really happy that ddo is allowing us to wildly mix classes and enhancements, it's imho the most attractive feature. the process of leveling, it's everchanging. you can't balance the everchanging. luckily this game is not about having trinity streamlined classes with zero customization. in such a scenario, yes, you can balance anyway anytime.

players focus on endgame discussion because the build is "done", you have so many feat and so many APs and so many pieces of gear. level cap is a sort of potential equalizer but, most of all, it's the point when you stop to advance. this is the point, since you are not advancing anymore, you are no more everchanging, you can discuss things. it makes sense.

at endgame, there could exist a sort of balance but it's futile anyway, useful, somewhat needed but in the end futile, game will change, new gear introduced, new classes, new trees. it's about meta-shift, balance is a lie. the devs must shake things up, stir em, a balanced ddo game would be a dead game, dead, when nothing ever change. the only way to balance ddo would be to balance it, then put it in maintainance mode and stop updates.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

The discussions about the new Shadar-kai and Radiant Servant adjustments exclusively contain thoughts about the "behaviour" of these 2 trees in end game. Nothing elsewhere.

Plus, there are discussion replies like "I haven't seen anyone turning undead in years".


When I read these kinds of replies, I'm always flabbergasted of how someone can focus solely on a tiny spot within a whole game and ignore the rest.
To me, this is like discussing the current Real Life gold or platinum prices, while not seeing that there are different tastes of bread ( Germany has a LOT of different kinds of bread https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von_Brotsorten ) and that even mineral water can taste differently.

When I read these kinds of replies, I still get the impression as if players want ALL of the game to be balanced against end game.

The fact that I constantly read not a single reply regarding balancing the lower and middle levels of the game always shows me that people don't give a BEEP on the rest of the game, that people are just not interested in any thing below end game.
The whole game could rot away - as long as the end game folks - and they are dominating the forums ! - are satisfied with end game and its content, they won't care.

This leaves the forum dicussions to be about nothing bit the top of the ice berg. Everything below just does not exist.

Even the Feywild Expansion discussions were exclusively about end its end game part. The rest of it simply does not exist, according to the forums.

I bet if there was a non-epicfied expansion or adventure pack - which of course will never be, because the end game crowd has to be catered with end game content - if there was an expansion or an adventure pack without epic levels, then I bet it would be silenced to death. Or badmouthed with replies like "what's the point ? The loot is outdated and obsolete".

[droid327]

What exactly is there to test about low levels?

Are they easy? Yes...its low level, its supposed to be a little more forgiving, its basically tutorial mode till L7. Few builds have access to their full suite of playstyle-defining abilities until mid levels, so the gameplay is going to be simpler. And low level quests are often old content, some of it was balanced for back when level cap was like 10, so mobs just arent as tough as they used to be.

And thats probably how it SHOULD be...there's far too much gap between new players and long term vets as it is, there's zero need to throw caltrops across Korthos and the Harbor just to make 1-10 every life a slog.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

What exactly is there to test about low levels?

I could ask it the other way round :

What is there to test about the end game levels ?

One could just accept things as they are and not try to min-max everything.



It is just my impression that end game is the preferred toy, so players spend their time there and let everything just rot away - unless it gets "epicified", of course. Then they are at those quests again.
People become vocal about their favourite toys, and at the same time try hard to look away from the fact that other people have other favourite toys.

[Seph1roth5]

They balance the game around the hardcore players who only reaper and think r10 is too easy, because these players are the most vocal/angry on the forums. They're the ones who write massive rants about losing 3% damage from changes.

I think the majority of players are more casual and run elites/low reapers. You just don't see them running their own lfgs and posting all over the forums. They're either playing w/ static groups or just solo-ing and doing their own thing. And a casual newish player is NOT going to be roaming around in r5 lol.

I wholeheartedly agree that if you want a more difficult experience, turn up the skulls, use less optimize gear, make weird builds, etc. If r10 is a cakewalk and you don't feel challenged and want to quit, c ya.

[PedXing20]

It is just my impression that end game is the preferred toy, so players spend their time there and let everything just rot away - unless it gets "epicified", of course. Then they are at those quests again.
People become vocal about their favourite toys, and at the same time try hard to look away from the fact that other people have other favourite toys.

I like end game. I don't give a rat's ass about low level. I test and give advice (freely - I'm not paid to do so) about the stuff I enjoy. You like low level - you test it.

Which means nothing else than : Via their demands, the end game crowd destroys low level content - by making it too easy.
Alrik

In looking at your posting history, I'm thinking the game isn't too easy for you.