Hope you have already farmed all your reaper xp

[Marshal_Lannes]

You will be fine, after changes. In all seriousness, step outside you comfort zone , transfer to Khyber send me a pm. We have a large group of end game players

I suppose we'll have to await the moment in the future when servers merge. Until that day, then.

[balvix]

They should just remove Reaper trees entirely. The bonuses are insane. What's the
point of a so called 'challenge difficulty' that gets easier the more you do it.

This is basic video game mechanics, the same way every mmo works. The game gets easier the more you do it, you gather gear, you gather experience, you gather skills, and the game gets easier. Ever hear about casual, normal, hard, elite? Why arent you complaining that after playing for a while elite got easier for you? why arent you asking for the devs to remove some of your gear or maybe all your past lives? Smh, a bunch of people on here that didnt want to bother farming any rxp complaining about those who did.

[balvix]

I believe that the changes could lead to more fun and I understand that the game can't be balanced around reaper. However, if reaper is the standard game difficulty (which any cursory view of LFMs can confirm), then how reaper interacts with grouping should be considered. There is no easy solution here. Legendary reaper runs give out far too much XP - but if you reduce that XP then it only hurts the EE/R1 player because the winged reaper players already farmed the "easy" R10 points. In my opinion, the only solution is to give all players under a set threshold X amount of reaper points to close the power gap.

Any increase to the level cap should be tied into this. If the game is going to become further stratified from 1-20 (heroic TRs) 20-30 (epic TRs) 30-40 (presumably endgame) you simply must do something to help non-professional players catch up. Ignoring the chasm only leaves the core problem tearing at the seems of the game so regardless if design philosophy is to increase fun, how can that be accomplished when the massive power gap is allowed to widen?

Thats a load of garbage. Giving out for free what some players have struggled to achieve is a really dumb idea. There is an easy way to fix the power gap. The players behind in power, need to take steps to close the gap, not by demanding to get what others have worked for. You want the power that those players in R10s have? GO GET IT!

[balvix]

The trees give the largest boost to hitpoints, so as long as it doesn't matter if you keep dying (or can compensate by other means) I guess they aren't important. I'm guessing that playing a first-life zero-RP light melee would be pretty painful though.

If you need reaper points to boost your hp just to survive, then you are doing something wrong, my lvl 30 half elf bard, has 2k hp, outside of reaper, no toughness feats taken, and nothing put in to con after creation. Everything I have can easily be obtained by playing, and nothing I wear is difficult to farm. I dont say this to brag about my hp, I say it to show that the hp from reaper points is not as important until you are doing high lvl reapers where every hp point can make a difference but doesnt always.

[balvix]

If they nerf or really touch reaper points in any significant way, it's likely that many of the people funding this game will leave.

All of the high reaper points players i know buy tons of boxes, box heroic and epic and mostly play at 28-30 with little time elsewhere at high reaper quests as they enjoy the challenge. Removing the reward will just make they leave. One guy paid over 30k. You don't think someone who has put years into that character to have it negated partially or more would say enough?

I'm a poor player and if they touch reaper along with everything else I will be done. and no you can't have my stuff. you don't put a system in place that players can't use. And the takeaways have been piling up too fast. it's almost not work farming for a new item. Next it won't be worth it or possible to farm reaper quests. TRs are next? people, stop envying what work others have done and do some yourself.

Im not sure I can +1 this enough.

[balvix]

What advice? I've already outlined my reaper play. Once you get beyond the quest meta benefits, DDO is not a skill game. The difference is stat accumulation. If I gave you my 35 reaper point character and I took your 100 point reaper character I'd be in the top 2 of kill count in R10 and you'd be at #5. It's simple math on a character sheet. DDO should be working to close the gap on those character sheets.



Yes, yes, and yes. Looking back on the reaper XP dynamic it's clear they should have tied the trees to the number of reaper quests completed and not XP which over rewards high-level legendary play. A server merge would alleviate some of the stress involved in grouping but would not close the widening power gap. Please close the power gap and help the players who will be disproportionately affected by the U50/51 equipment/ED changes!

I think you're wrong. Skill is a major component in ddo. I fully admit that im am terrible when it comes to healing classes, I couldnt heal a raid no matter how many times I try, I dont have the skill for it, I have however seen a cleric solo heal a raid easily, skill is what made the difference. Even before reaper, a guildmate of mine and myself did the exact same build, he had several more past lives than I did, and the gear to match. I outperformed him on the build in almost every situation. How do we account for this or even quantify it? Skill, I was more skillful when it came to melees, than he was. We played the build for just over a month, and nothing changed. We then swapped to sorc, and he completely crushed me. Skill plays such a major part of ddo that it has to be factored in. The numbers will only take you just so far, then everything comes down to skill.

[Kebtid]

I think you're wrong. Skill is a major component in ddo. I fully admit that im am terrible when it comes to healing classes, I couldnt heal a raid no matter how many times I try, I dont have the skill for it, I have however seen a cleric solo heal a raid easily, skill is what made the difference. Even before reaper, a guildmate of mine and myself did the exact same build, he had several more past lives than I did, and the gear to match. I outperformed him on the build in almost every situation. How do we account for this or even quantify it? Skill, I was more skillful when it came to melees, than he was. We played the build for just over a month, and nothing changed. We then swapped to sorc, and he completely crushed me. Skill plays such a major part of ddo that it has to be factored in. The numbers will only take you just so far, then everything comes down to skill.

I agree with this.
No amount of Rap can buy the skillset and mentality a reaper player has, it is not a matter of hey he is op in reaper because he has maxed out rap, its more he is strong in reaper because he has the knowledge to back him up on how to play in reaper to reach maxed trees.

That is not the case for everyone but can be used as general rule.

If he gave me his 30 ap char and i gave him my maxed rap char, i would perform better then him in any case in any scenario given the gear is equal.

[BurnerD]

All arguments aside I have a bad feeling this update is going to inadvertently break a bunch of stuff. May be a good time for a short break until everything gets un-fubared....

[PedXing20]

All arguments aside I have a bad feeling this update is going to inadvertently break a bunch of stuff. May be a good time for a short break until everything gets un-fubared....

Like ladders!

[LurkingVeteran]

I agree with this.
No amount of Rap can buy the skillset and mentality a reaper player has, it is not a matter of hey he is op in reaper because he has maxed out rap, its more he is strong in reaper because he has the knowledge to back him up on how to play in reaper to reach maxed trees.

That is not the case for everyone but can be used as general rule.

If he gave me his 30 ap char and i gave him my maxed rap char, i would perform better then him in any case in any scenario given the gear is equal.

30 RAP is almost en entire tree. I think the real problem is between new/returning players who enter a reaper PUG with 0 RAP and give up because they are so far behind on HP or DCs, not those that have already stuck out with it to get 30 RAP. It's much better since they level gated it though.

[slarden]

So again, there is a not a single legitimate player among those who have high reaper points. Not one of them actually played the content as it was meant to be played, as it was intended to be played and attained what they have.

It's probably much more of a mix than you think. I earned wings on my 3rd character back in 2018 in 3 months running solo mid skulls - mostly R4ish - there were a few safe spots and cakes used but honestly not much and it wasn't critical to earning the points. R10 was mostly charming and cheese back then - I agree with that. Obviously R10s are much easier now and my solo skulls have been upped since then.

I don't mind the cheese. The triple boxing by dupers was unfortunate. That is the only group that didn't deserve what they earned.

[balvix]

30 RAP is almost en entire tree. I think the real problem is between new/returning players who enter a reaper PUG with 0 RAP and give up because they are so far behind on HP or DCs, not those that have already stuck out with it to get 30 RAP. It's much better since they level gated it though.

I am very annoyed that ddo has willingly pushed away from gaining new players, small adjustments here and there have slowly made the game too insurmountable for new players to start unless they are joining a friend who already plays or can find a decent guild that is willing to teach. I recall when I started playing, 13 years ago now I believe, there were constant groups of multi tr's running quests with lfms out the wazoo. Without those players showing me the ropes, I probably wouldn't have stuck with it long enough to be able to figure out how it all worked. Stuff like picking up deleras pt 4 (Thrall of the necromancer) would have made almost no sense. Stat items not stacking (I cant tell you how long I wore a +4 str and a +2 str items thinking that I had a total of +6 str), other things such as potions, life, haste, curse removal and the rest, would be something I would have to figure out on my own, and so much more make things difficult for new players since these things aren't just obvious to most new players. Things like that are what stalls new players, not reaper difficulty. I am all for the devs taking steps to gain new players but I have a big problem with just giving away everyone elses hard work. The points that people have will continue to add up, and as they do the difficulty at which you will feel comfortable will go up as well. The "barrier to new players" as far as reaper goes is nonexistent. We all started out at the same place. The problem I see is the washing out of classes and the push away from group play. By washing out I mean things like doing stuff to builds under the "build diversity" tag as a catch all for making several classes useless in all but a few situations. Take rogue for example, rogue is unnecessary in all but one or two situations. Same goes for cleric, unless you are doing a high reaper, or maybe a raid, you don't need a cleric. There is more but I think you get the idea. As far as the necessity of reaper points that people keep saying is important, I think that's just players grumbling because they dont have as much time, or perhaps money as another player who bought 50% pots, to gain more rxp. I think that if they make reaper more difficult it will change nothing, the people who run R10 will continue to do so, maybe at a more subdued pace, and the people who don't, still will not, and removal of points, or rxp or anything of that sort will cause a major portion of ddo to quit. Thats not a scare tactic, but I am on Khyber and I know there are entire guilds built around high lvl reaper and raiding. You remove half of that and people will leave.