Hope you have already farmed all your reaper xp

[Catabree]

God, I wish people would stop suggesting to dumb reaper down, make it easier.
Personally I want reaper 11 reaper 12 and more points added to trees. Wish the devs would stop catering for imaginary new players and expecting people to suddenly show interest. It's a 15 year old game, the players we have are the ones that have stuck with it for years and most of us are conplestionist. I would be interested to see how many new accounts are made compared to the amount of long term players. This isn't going to be the next World of war craft. What new player knows how long it will take to grind out all past lives and reaper points? They don't, it's a mmorpg, they just want to play dungeons and dragons in a party.

Biggest problem with this game is the inability to group, it's like a dial up mmorpg. The lfg thing is attrious. Pick a class you want, what pug has that option avaible, there is no one on.
Everyone I know doesn't even use the lfg they use discord to form groups, 3rd party software. Also to communicate because the general voice chat is terrible. Stop screwing with stuff that not vital and fix the major issues...no players. Nerfing and making the game simple isn't going to fix the root cause...being as mentioned too hard to find people to play with.

Do this;
Cross server lfg for quests and raids, then transport the players to the quest entrance, if required on a separate server. Then any dummy can login, play and join groups. The problem isn't with the game mechanics or reaper.

[slarden]

God, I wish people would stop suggesting to dumb reaper down, make it easier.

You said this, but then you said this

more points added to trees. .

Adding more points to the trees make it easier and should be avoided. The leadership idea the devs mentioned makes much more sense to me.

[Catabree]

You said this, but then you said this



Adding more points to the trees make it easier and should be avoided. The leadership idea the devs mentioned makes much more sense to me.

Not if you make reaper 11, reaper 12 anyway point being we all enjoy the game as it is. We'll I certainly do, I think new players or players that have been playing for 6 months rarely will provide feed back on Discord or the ddo forums.
It's seems all we have on these forums are people that have played for years, providing feed back on what new players need.
It's normally the thing they have struggled with, grinding past lives getting reaper points. New player don't even know what past lives are. They get of the boat from korthos and scratch their head. Even playing for 6 months if playing solo, they still might not know what past lives or reaper is about. Can't help but think the whole attract new player , by changing eoic destiny in which case it will more then likely take them year to get to 20 doesn't help. Even if they make an iconic, what are they going to do? Get lost in wheelon and lose interest? Am I wrong? I understand they changes are not just related to helping new players. But as devs, if this is the goal, you're looking at the wrong things imo.

[Amorais]

Remember when they added Reaper "for a laugh" and now its like "Well, there's Reaper mode and some other modes I forgot the name of..."

If that alone doesn't scream out the sheer level of power creep that now sits in the game I don't know what does.

[Marshal_Lannes]

There will be some push and pull in terms of speed of Reaper XP acquisition over time, and the work being done for Update 50 will have some impact in the ability of those able to do it to cruise through higher difficulty Reaper for better XP. But while that is important to consider, it can't be a key driver in preventing the game from doing what needs to be done to improve balance and general fun, right? Ultimately, if the experience needs to be adjusted in the future, it can be, but we'll be in a much better place to make those adjustments after the work for Update 50 is complete.

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?

[Tebaco]

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?

Should they add to gold rolls jackpot reward gain of reaper points? Or sell starter packs with included gain of reaper points? Or just give reaper points absolutely for free?

[slarden]

Not if you make reaper 11, reaper 12 anyway point being we all enjoy the game as it is. We'll I certainly do, I think new players or players that have been playing for 6 months rarely will provide feed back on Discord or the ddo forums.
It's seems all we have on these forums are people that have played for years, providing feed back on what new players need.
It's normally the thing they have struggled with, grinding past lives getting reaper points. New player don't even know what past lives are. They get of the boat from korthos and scratch their head. Even playing for 6 months if playing solo, they still might not know what past lives or reaper is about. Can't help but think the whole attract new player , by changing eoic destiny in which case it will more then likely take them year to get to 20 doesn't help. Even if they make an iconic, what are they going to do? Get lost in wheelon and lose interest? Am I wrong? I understand they changes are not just related to helping new players. But as devs, if this is the goal, you're looking at the wrong things imo.

We've been down the road of adding more difficulty combined with more power so I don't think the devs should repeat that unless they want the same result - people asking for even higher skulls and more rewards next summer. Adding a few more skulls with an additional reaper tree debuff where reaper tree benefits eventually scale down to 0 would appeal to me.

I think Sev's proposal about leadership sounds very interesting to me. On the surface it sounds like a great direction, but we need to hear more details before we will know.

I think the U51 changes indicate the devs learned something from the free coupon code last summer. That bridge from 19 to 20 is a tough one for many people. I don't think they should give up on making the game more accessible to new and returning players.

[fatherpirate]

I wonder when they will rename DDO to Reapers & Reincarnations

[rabidfox]

I think the U51 changes indicate the devs learned something from the free coupon code last summer. That bridge from 19 to 20 is a tough one for many people. I don't think they should give up on making the game more accessible to new and returning players.

I don't know what their sales plan is starting with u51, but one can only hope they drop epic destinies as being a sold item and that tree access is made free for everyone so those new(ish) players without them purchased can just move into epics smoothly.

[Seph1roth5]

It seems like there's the r10 crowd who thinks reaper is super easy and wants it harder, and then everyone else.

I say leave r1-4 in all the debuffs and have r5-10 as the endgame. If reaper doesn't get any debuffs, like people have mentioned, it's going to be much MUCH harder for everyone else to run reaper and get reaper points, which makes it harder to get into groups, which means they just can't do reaper.

If you include r1-4 in the global epic debuff, then people can still have a challenge (quiet you r10 people!) and then work their way up to r5+.

[songswrath]

So the devs mention in the live stream that they have noticed reapers are too easy and are thinking of not removing the mobs saves or changing anything to match the massive nerf to gear. This is awesome news up the difficulty, however it will make it even harder for for new players to farm reaper xp. Again, you all complained and reap what you sow. This is definitely a positive to all the peeps that have already maxed their reaper trees. Really going to suck if you don't have reaper points to back you up. Lol, talk about spread the gap further. Anyway agree with all the changes, it's great. It's like the reaper players have had 4 years or so farming reaper on easy mode

easy fix add new tier ultimate reaper mode self healing/buffing disabled can't target self. exp same as r10 , but reward of +5% chance of myth/reaper stat.

[rabidfox]

easy fix add new tier ultimate reaper mode self healing/buffing disabled can't target self. exp same as r10 , but reward of +5% chance of myth/reaper stat.

If you really want a cruel and mean mode, one just has to reduce the max jump/movement speed players are allowed in a harder setting and it'll crush tons of people who suddenly can't kite...

[Kza]

Thank you for the response - this is very helpful. Almost everyone I know is running content on higher skulls and still completing faster compared to a few years ago. If this is slight proxy buff for reaper enemies I don't think it's a huge issue. Most people will probably still be completing higher skulls and faster compared to a few years ago.

As others said the people most impacted would be those at low skulls so if you are looking at giving people relief that need it the most R1-R4 is probably the right place to do that. I don't think any downward stat adjustment is needed for R5+. Higher skull quests are tremendously over-rewarded relative to the additional risk and time involved and not super challenging for a full experienced group other than the occasional vengeance reaper debacles.

Well said, agree 100%

[Marshal_Lannes]

Should they add to gold rolls jackpot reward gain of reaper points? Or sell starter packs with included gain of reaper points? Or just give reaper points absolutely for free?

The latter. Reaper points should be given to players for free when the level cap increases. This isn't some radical concept. Virtually every other MMO does this when a game expands. They catch people up so there isn't an Everest-sized power gap in the gaming population.

[rabidfox]

The latter. Reaper points should be given to players for free when the level cap increases. This isn't some radical concept. Virtually every other MMO does this when a game expands. They catch people up so there isn't an Everest-sized power gap in the gaming population.

Whenever people suggest giving out free reaper points, I always wonder "What's the current level of difficulty you run? What level of difficulty do you think you should be running? What's the magic number of free reaper points that you think is needed to get you there?"

[LittleLexi]

The latter. Reaper points should be given to players for free when the level cap increases. This isn't some radical concept. Virtually every other MMO does this when a game expands. They catch people up so there isn't an Everest-sized power gap in the gaming population.

I don't think something that was intended to be a challenge mode should have points just dished out. That would make it more of a farce than it already is. But they could definitely throw a bone to the folks who play on low skulls and don't like/don't do Legendary Reaper questing. At the same time— there could be more and better cosmetic rewards at the top end for the folks who have got there, to flaunt their achievements.

[Artos_Fabril]

I don't think something that was intended to be a challenge mode should have points just dished out. That would make it more of a farce than it already is. But they could definitely throw a bone to the folks who play on low skulls and don't like/don't do Legendary Reaper questing. At the same time— there could be more and better cosmetic rewards at the top end for the folks who have got there, to flaunt their achievements.

I agree with you right up to this point:

I don't think something that was intended to be a challenge mode should have points

If you're playing Reaper for the challenge, you don't need another incentive. If you're playing because it's easier or more efficient, it isn't a challenge setting.

[LittleLexi]

I agree with you right up to this point:

I don't think something that was intended to be a challenge mode should have points

If you're playing Reaper for the challenge, you don't need another incentive. If you're playing because it's easier or more efficient, it isn't a challenge setting.

That ship has sailed. Maybe it would have been ideal for them to release it that way in the first place. At this point— they can't just take away reaper points from people. I think it's also one of the reasons the Hardcore server is as popular as it is: Some players actually enjoy the challenge, without having all the crutches.

[Arctigis]

...At this point— they can't just take away reaper points from people...

If they can nerf items from expansions that they already sold then they can
certainly take away reaper points. The ToS applies to everything - not just
the things you're comfortable with. Reaper points are ridiculous. How they
can talk about balancing loot and leave reaper as is with a straight face is
beyond me. The quickest way to catch players up was with Sharn and FW
loot. Now PLs and Reaper points are worth proportionally much more.

[Catabree]

I agree with you right up to this point:

I don't think something that was intended to be a challenge mode should have points

If you're playing Reaper for the challenge, you don't need another incentive. If you're playing because it's easier or more efficient, it isn't a challenge setting.

Has it ever occurred to you people that keep playing this card most likely 100% of end game players, although they enjoyed the challenge played reaper for the rewards. That's right, this may be a hard concept to understand. Like past lives, would you do endless past lives if there was no reward. Past lives are not challenging yet we do them. Running r6 is not challenge yet people farm it for reaper xp. Challenge is good but so are rewards, it's the core of dungeons and dragons. Slay that dragon get the treasure. Kill that higher level beast, get more xp. Now if you want a challenge do reaper on hardcore. People like to make their characters stronger. This is also another basis of dingeons and Dragons. Start at level 1 get to next level. How long do you think this game would last if the game capped at 20 still.
Reaper points are exactly the same as leveling. Kill the hard monsters finshing the quest get stronger, absolutely no difference than taking lv 2. Reapers imo are all about character progession, which I'm sure we all enjoy.