The chasm between players and builds.

[krimsonrane]

Over the past couple day's I've watched videos that really highlight the difference in player power scales.
I saw one pali with 9.4k HP. 910 PRR, 560 MRR and 400+ AC. If I didn't see it with my own eyes I'd swear it was impossible. He wasn't even buffed.
I watched a few r10 solos. Then earlier today I viewed a video from someone just starting to experiment with DDO. He was so proud of his broken build. He didn't think it was broken of course. it did what he wanted it to do.
Watched some other videos with power scales between the S&B barb to the 10khp pali.

To reach those upper levels, it really is all about knowledge base, time, layers and farming.
Layers of heroic PLs, epic PLs, racial PLs, full reaper trees, farmed out crafted gear, raid gear, and all that comes with having those layers.
get gud in DDO literally translates as grind moar and farm harder.

If one plays at a rate similar to my own, we're talking about a RL decade plus of grinding to get from the bottom to the top. That's how vast the chasm is today. A lot like rl society I guess.

[eightspoons]

Hopefully someone will come along and give a breakdown of how that much PRR and MRR are possible because, even before the gear re-alignment I was under the impression that something like 600 PRR was the sort of figure that could be managed, but with massive investment. Even past lives are only good for 45(?) PRR.

Even if those sorts of defensive stats are actually attainable, surely the resulting damage has to be virtually nil.

[Artos_Fabril]

Over the past couple day's I've watched videos that really highlight the difference in player power scales.
I saw one pali with 9.4k HP. 910 PRR, 560 MRR and 400+ AC. If I didn't see it with my own eyes I'd swear it was impossible. He wasn't even buffed.
I watched a few r10 solos. Then earlier today I viewed a video from someone just starting to experiment with DDO. He was so proud of his broken build. He didn't think it was broken of course. it did what he wanted it to do.
Watched some other videos with power scales between the S&B barb to the 10khp pali.

To reach those upper levels, it really is all about knowledge base, time, layers and farming.
Layers of heroic PLs, epic PLs, racial PLs, full reaper trees, farmed out crafted gear, raid gear, and all that comes with having those layers.
get gud in DDO literally translates as grind moar and farm harder.

If one plays at a rate similar to my own, we're talking about a RL decade plus of grinding to get from the bottom to the top. That's how vast the chasm is today. A lot like rl society I guess.

Related:

[krimsonrane]

Related:

He's got a good point.

I know that when I look at my alts now, all I see are mountains of repetition to climb. Years of work, not play. And that's from a vet with 8 mules of gear. On servers where I have no main, it's not even a consideration to try and start that grind. Maybe that's why people like HCL. It may be the only way and time in which they can get that new player feel of play and reward.

In DDO, it can take longer than 100 hours to farm a single SOS. Just saying.

[krimsonrane]

Hopefully someone will come along and give a breakdown of how that much PRR and MRR are possible because, even before the gear re-alignment I was under the impression that something like 600 PRR was the sort of figure that could be managed, but with massive investment. Even past lives are only good for 45(?) PRR.

Even if those sorts of defensive stats are actually attainable, surely the resulting damage has to be virtually nil.

Here he is. In the replies he mentions that it was situational. That was a long ass situation though!
.

[krimsonrane]

I wonder... how much would it cost a single person to go from 1st life to triple completionist if you only used ottos boxes.

[Bagel99]

He's got a good point.

I know that when I look at my alts now, all I see are mountains of repetition to climb. Years of work, not play. And that's from a vet with 8 mules of gear. On servers where I have no main, it's not even a consideration to try and start that grind. Maybe that's why people like HCL. It may be the only way and time in which they can get that new player feel of play and reward.

In DDO, it can take longer than 100 hours to farm a single SOS. Just saying.

Its kind've why i wish TRs yielded points for a reincarnation enhancement tree that was account wide. All toons would benefit, everyone alt contributes etc. its honestly why i stopped playing ... so much to grind, even though i know i dont need the extra power boosts to enjoy the game, it just feels wrong when your not on your main sometimes.

[krimsonrane]

it just feels wrong when your not on your main sometimes.

I think you may have nailed it. When you know the grind is so long and the results so far way, playing another character feels like you're wasting time.

[Bagel99]

I wonder... how much would it cost a single person to go from 1st life to triple completionist if you only used ottos boxes.

Triple heroic completionist .... epic completionist .... racial completionist ? So many things, soon legendary completionist im sure. What is that like 150 lives ?

[Azoyhn]

Over the past couple day's I've watched videos that really highlight the difference in player power scales.
I saw one pali with 9.4k HP. 910 PRR, 560 MRR and 400+ AC. If I didn't see it with my own eyes I'd swear it was impossible. He wasn't even buffed.

This is inaccurate. I was almost fully buffed at the time. I didn't have PRR only filigree sets on, and I was missing bard buffs + heroic companion from either halfling or harper agent tree for roughly +40 prr.

Hopefully someone will come along and give a breakdown of how that much PRR and MRR are possible because, even before the gear re-alignment I was under the impression that something like 600 PRR was the sort of figure that could be managed, but with massive investment. Even past lives are only good for 45(?) PRR.

Even if those sorts of defensive stats are actually attainable, surely the resulting damage has to be virtually nil.

Hello sir. It is me, the guy with 919 prr. I can't actually provide a break down because there's a lot of situational scenarios that occurred. I was also missing a lot more situational buffs. I'm looking at 959 total prr at the moment with buffs that i'm missing. I can hover 700 very reliably, however. Most likely i'm hovering around 660 at the moment with everything going, with 600 being stable while blocking, with just angelskin. It wasn't easy, and there's a video on me attempting a lot of the buffs, but at the same time I was missing a lot of the buffs. The builder is inaccurate because it doesn't have all the potions or best potions buffs that I was using. Sorry about that one, but if i'm holding 700 pretty reliably, i've proc'd my PRR buffs from reaper, clickies, guardian angel, new Unyielding core 4, etc etc. A lot of those are situational buffs that aren't reliable, except favored soul buff, that ones reliable because it has an infinite number of uses, therefore, it's reliable, which is about my hovering point of 700 prr. As for the natural breakdown of that, once again, can't really provide the breakdown because even I don't understand that full breakdown for 700 freaking PRR.

Here he is. In the replies he mentions that it was situational. That was a long ass situation though!
.

Hi. Thanks for linking my video. It was a screenshot from an 8 second video of compiling a large amount of buffs, so it was very situational and can barely occur at the right time. Appreciate it!
-Kyrr

That screenshot was called photoshop and fake by a certain group of players, and referred to as 'suspicious activities' or 'sus' for short, but that is 100%, guaranteed, full buffed with an 8 second video on the buffs that I used. It is naturally taken down, and probably won't be back up-but we'll see. It's just used to block my chat logs.

[krimsonrane]

This is inaccurate. I was almost fully buffed at the time. I didn't have PRR only filigree sets on, and I was missing bard buffs + heroic companion from either halfling or harper agent tree for roughly +40 prr.


Hello sir. It is me, the guy with 919 prr. I can't actually provide a break down because there's a lot of situational scenarios that occurred. I was also missing a lot more situational buffs. I'm looking at 959 total prr at the moment with buffs that i'm missing. I can hover 700 very reliably, however. Most likely i'm hovering around 660 at the moment with everything going, with 600 being stable while blocking, with just angelskin. It wasn't easy, and there's a video on me attempting a lot of the buffs, but at the same time I was missing a lot of the buffs. The builder is inaccurate because it doesn't have all the potions or best potions buffs that I was using. Sorry about that one, but if i'm holding 700 pretty reliably, i've proc'd my PRR buffs from reaper, clickies, guardian angel, new Unyielding core 4, etc etc. A lot of those are situational buffs that aren't reliable, except favored soul buff, that ones reliable because it has an infinite number of uses, therefore, it's reliable, which is about my hovering point of 700 prr. As for the natural breakdown of that, once again, can't really provide the breakdown because even I don't understand that full breakdown for 700 freaking PRR.


Hi. Thanks for linking my video. It was a screenshot from an 8 second video of compiling a large amount of buffs, so it was very situational and can barely occur at the right time. Appreciate it!
-Kyrr

That screenshot was called photoshop and fake by a certain group of players, and referred to as 'suspicious activities' or 'sus' for short, but that is 100%, guaranteed, full buffed with an 8 second video on the buffs that I used. It is naturally taken down, and probably won't be back up-but we'll see. It's just used to block my chat logs.

Yea, I saw it in the replies when I just went back to look. Didn't realize that was a persistent screen shot.

[krimsonrane]

Triple heroic completionist .... epic completionist .... racial completionist ? So many things, soon legendary completionist im sure. What is that like 150 lives ?

Not sure. But say it is 150 lives. It takes me about a month to do a life. That adds up to a little over 11.5 years.

[Bagel99]

Not sure. But say it is 150 lives. It takes me about a month to do a life. That adds up to a little over 11.5 years.

Even more daunting is thats 11.5 years for one toon so long as no new races, classes or reincarnations are added. A huge time investment for ONE character, would be more understandable if it was for all of them.

[KoobTheProud]

I think you may have nailed it. When you know the grind is so long and the results so far way, playing another character feels like you're wasting time.

This is exactly the problem.

Then you get to the point a year or two down the road when you realize that just playing your main at your pace and not worrying about when you will be "done" is the best way to play DDO.

Then you stop spending money on the game because you've already got your main where you need them in terms of tomes and other stuff.

[krimsonrane]

Even more daunting is thats 11.5 years for one toon so long as no new races, classes or reincarnations are added. A huge time investment for ONE character, would be more understandable if it was for all of them.

I'd be happy if I could use my alts as hires. But yea. For one single character. 11.5 years at my pace of a tr a month. And that's not counting time spent at cap just playing. I usually do a month of that. Which means my 11.5 is really 23 years to get 150 lives.

[Oxarhamar]

Not sure. But say it is 150 lives. It takes me about a month to do a life. That adds up to a little over 11.5 years.

How many hours in a month thou

[Weemadarthur]

How many hours in a month thou

Tbh that doesn't really matter. If you look at 2 weeks as a global average (this includes players who can level 1-30 in hours right through to those that literally take days of continuous play) the amount of time required is still too high for an average player. For those below average there really is no hope of ever being on an equal keel.

The problem is though that account based progression won't really effect this in a significant way. If someone wants maximum power it will still be faster and easier to get with 1 character. That character will still have the best tomes (unless you make those account bound), will still have the best gear (unless that becomes unbound or account wide) and each life will still be needed to be played so the time taken will still be exactly the same. The only effect it will have is to make it easier to play alts, get out of a bad build and remove a huge portion of revenue from the game (which is why it won't happen).

Now the revenue part will probably need a little explaining so please try to understand this one concept. Most players pay a small portion of what makes this game run. In an average game 80% of the income is generated by 20% of the population. In this game that top 20% are the ones spending tens or even hundreds of thousands per year on XP pots and Ottos stones. They have multiple completed characters. Every time they finish one they start another and spend tens of thousands again leveling them. Make progress account based and the are left with nothing to do. They take their money and go.

Now I don't think everything should be made account wide but some of the oldest grinds I feel could be (eg heroic past lives and crafting). By making some account based and not all you are still keeping the interest of those famous MMO whales (some may even be more likely to spend on another character with less grind involved) while also giving the illusion of faster progress to those that are new. Add in a couple of catch up mechanisms for those account based progressions and it should make more money then rather than less.

As a side note yes you could make account based progress purely optional. Do you honestly think for a minute though that someone who spends tens or hundreds of thousands on this game to bypass playing significant portions of it will in all honesty not a) tick that box and b) complain about having nothing left to do and leave?

[krimsonrane]

How many hours in a month thou

I don't know. it varies a lot by day or week and my RL schedule. But I do know my average TR time is a month.

Even if it were half and I never stayed at cap. Just level and TR, it would still take 6 years. If I spend a couple weeks playing at cap it goes back up to 11.5 years.

[kmoustakas]

Over the past couple day's I've watched videos that really highlight the difference in player power scales.
I saw one pali with 9.4k HP. 910 PRR, 560 MRR and 400+ AC. If I didn't see it with my own eyes I'd swear it was impossible. He wasn't even buffed.
I watched a few r10 solos. Then earlier today I viewed a video from someone just starting to experiment with DDO. He was so proud of his broken build. He didn't think it was broken of course. it did what he wanted it to do.
Watched some other videos with power scales between the S&B barb to the 10khp pali.

To reach those upper levels, it really is all about knowledge base, time, layers and farming.
Layers of heroic PLs, epic PLs, racial PLs, full reaper trees, farmed out crafted gear, raid gear, and all that comes with having those layers.
get gud in DDO literally translates as grind moar and farm harder.

If one plays at a rate similar to my own, we're talking about a RL decade plus of grinding to get from the bottom to the top. That's how vast the chasm is today. A lot like rl society I guess.

Well, that's kinda the point so you can buy potions and stones in the store.

[Oxarhamar]

Tbh that doesn't really matter. If you look at 2 weeks as a global average (this includes players who can level 1-30 in hours right through to those that literally take days of continuous play) the amount of time required is still too high for an average player. For those below average there really is no hope of ever being on an equal keel.

The problem is though that account based progression won't really effect this in a significant way. If someone wants maximum power it will still be faster and easier to get with 1 character. That character will still have the best tomes (unless you make those account bound), will still have the best gear (unless that becomes unbound or account wide) and each life will still be needed to be played so the time taken will still be exactly the same. The only effect it will have is to make it easier to play alts, get out of a bad build and remove a huge portion of revenue from the game (which is why it won't happen).

Now the revenue part will probably need a little explaining so please try to understand this one concept. Most players pay a small portion of what makes this game run. In an average game 80% of the income is generated by 20% of the population. In this game that top 20% are the ones spending tens or even hundreds of thousands per year on XP pots and Ottos stones. They have multiple completed characters. Every time they finish one they start another and spend tens of thousands again leveling them. Make progress account based and the are left with nothing to do. They take their money and go.

Now I don't think everything should be made account wide but some of the oldest grinds I feel could be (eg heroic past lives and crafting). By making some account based and not all you are still keeping the interest of those famous MMO whales (some may even be more likely to spend on another character with less grind involved) while also giving the illusion of faster progress to those that are new. Add in a couple of catch up mechanisms for those account based progressions and it should make more money then rather than less.

As a side note yes you could make account based progress purely optional. Do you honestly think for a minute though that someone who spends tens or hundreds of thousands on this game to bypass playing significant portions of it will in all honesty not a) tick that box and b) complain about having nothing left to do and leave?

There are account progressions in the game thou

I disagree thou because these things just aren’t needed I run R10 with first life players

I know players are buying stones but I’ll never understand why they would pay to not play the game if that’s what they want to do go head

Based on the most recent info I’ve seen DDO makes more $$ per player that LoTRO so I’d say that attributes to the constant sales of expansions also the reason why we are getting mini expansions