Progression, now "Wide" and "Vertical" ?!

[Bagel99]

Hello all this is another look at the player base and the way a Character would progress. I have a few gripes with DDO at the moment but the one that prevents me from really sinking mucho time into the game is the now ever-growing problem of past lives (Wide progression) and level Cap + getting your 34-36pt builds (Vertical Progression). IN this post im going to breakdown a few of my concerns, ways to monetize the solutions, possible incentives and benefits of an Account Based progression system to replace our current "Wide" system, that would easily allow for Vertical Progression to continue onwards and have very few hurdles.

As many players are no longer able to sink years into each and every toon they roll but still want to have the little bonuses across them to let whacky builds be tried, you run into an issue of "Is it worth it to even run an alt or do i need to finish my current life to try a new build and hope it isn't gimpy and in need of the one Ottos box i keep in the bank for emergencies". To Solve this, I believe a system of trees similar to Reaper enhancements be account wide based on Experience would be beneficial. Maybe these trees could be called Boons or "Gifts of Power", "Gifts of Vigor" and "Gifts of Knowledge". These trees would work on Experience as the reaper ones do and provide benefits to Offense, Defense and Spells/Skills respectively. It would be an easy way to allow new toons to not be so far behind, a cool build to be tried and overall time to reach equivalent Completionist power remaining the same as the scale would be Exponential.

The monetary incentive would come with the ability to run more alts (Character Slot sales), EXP would be valuable at all levels of the game even at Cap (Reaper Folks and XP folks would both benefit from Daily PUGs and XP pots would be a hot commodity!) Ottos boxes and all would still sell, but could now be sold as Character XP or Account XP with higher costs for larger bundles etc.

Also something to note is all of the Reincarnation tiers lvl 20, level 30 and soon to be level 40 could be wiped out. Reincarnating could now also provide Points or some sort of currency that buys cosmetics, mounts, small -> Medium XP pots, Pets and whatever else they can think of. Every level would provide 1 point or currency to spend and at Cap (Whatever that may be considered provide 1.5x as many points or currency to spend) Level 30 would get 45, while level 29 would get 29 points. Now that level 32 is out but XP is saved, until it has to be earned every life it shouldn't be counted as it auto grants.

Just an idea and willing to hear yalls thoughts. Love the game but just like before i feel stuck with one or two mains i run due to the few Racial AP or benefits they provide. Really excited for all the new Archetypes and i've been trying them out with fun abound!

Lets not forget that Racial AP and more Enhancement points could be added as Cores of the new trees to allow for more diverse builds or to round off AP heavy ones *looking at warlocks or Warpriests*

[Firebreed]

Personally I would swap your definitions of vertical and wide, but that's whatever.

I'm all for Past Lives becoming account wide.

[MagicalDad]

I'm all for Past Lives becoming account wide.

1000x this. I recently figured out I have about 90 lives spread between 4 mains (I have tried *many* gimpy builds) - some have heroic completionist, some have quite a few epic PLs. Would be nice have more consistent power between all 3.

[Oliphant]

Increasing xp progression and run speed, two moves to make the game faster paced, would be wise. People want fast enjoyment. Game is overbuilt for people with endless time to burn.

[Bagel99]

Personally I would swap your definitions of vertical and wide, but that's whatever.

I'm all for Past Lives becoming account wide.

We can settle on Vast?

I agree, past lives themselves would be different BUT the same in a sense, i think its a logical step forward for QoL. To still cap out would take a similar time as before but with many more builds benefitting.

[Bagel99]

Increasing xp progression and run speed, two moves to make the game faster paced, would be wise. People want fast enjoyment. Game is overbuilt for people with endless time to burn.

If we end up with Level 40, and if we ever saw 40+ which im all for! I do think the account wide benefits are a nice compromise to keep XP super valuable and players running and trying out new toons. I do think Heroic XP could be dropped down to a set 2.25 million per life, that being said the value of reincarnations would need to be addressed somewhere to allow my extremely rough model to work. Love this game but dont have nearly as much time as id like to not play a main at this point.

I don't believe Run speed should be changed actually, i think some of our toons are super zippy as it is but id be ok with more classes being able to get to 50% increased movement speed (Maybe through a Guild Buff or something). What i think needs to be addressed is needlessly long corridors in new quest design or designs which have you double back plenty of times to build in that extra grind.

[Bagel99]

1000x this. I recently figured out I have about 90 lives spread between 4 mains (I have tried *many* gimpy builds) - some have heroic completionist, some have quite a few epic PLs. Would be nice have more consistent power between all 3.

Correct and thats the goal, it wouldn't devalue the time of other alts, just share it. at 90PLs you would be close to half done i believe? Still plenty more to do.

[Oxarhamar]

Hello all this is another look at the player base and the way a Character would progress. I have a few gripes with DDO at the moment but the one that prevents me from really sinking mucho time into the game is the now ever-growing problem of past lives (Wide progression) and level Cap + getting your 34-36pt builds (Vertical Progression). IN this post im going to breakdown a few of my concerns, ways to monetize the solutions, possible incentives and benefits of an Account Based progression system to replace our current "Wide" system, that would easily allow for Vertical Progression to continue onwards and have very few hurdles.

As many players are no longer able to sink years into each and every toon they roll but still want to have the little bonuses across them to let whacky builds be tried, you run into an issue of "Is it worth it to even run an alt or do i need to finish my current life to try a new build and hope it isn't gimpy and in need of the one Ottos box i keep in the bank for emergencies". To Solve this, I believe a system of trees similar to Reaper enhancements be account wide based on Experience would be beneficial. Maybe these trees could be called Boons or "Gifts of Power", "Gifts of Vigor" and "Gifts of Knowledge". These trees would work on Experience as the reaper ones do and provide benefits to Offense, Defense and Spells/Skills respectively. It would be an easy way to allow new toons to not be so far behind, a cool build to be tried and overall time to reach equivalent Completionist power remaining the same as the scale would be Exponential.

The monetary incentive would come with the ability to run more alts (Character Slot sales), EXP would be valuable at all levels of the game even at Cap (Reaper Folks and XP folks would both benefit from Daily PUGs and XP pots would be a hot commodity!) Ottos boxes and all would still sell, but could now be sold as Character XP or Account XP with higher costs for larger bundles etc.

Also something to note is all of the Reincarnation tiers lvl 20, level 30 and soon to be level 40 could be wiped out. Reincarnating could now also provide Points or some sort of currency that buys cosmetics, mounts, small -> Medium XP pots, Pets and whatever else they can think of. Every level would provide 1 point or currency to spend and at Cap (Whatever that may be considered provide 1.5x as many points or currency to spend) Level 30 would get 45, while level 29 would get 29 points. Now that level 32 is out but XP is saved, until it has to be earned every life it shouldn't be counted as it auto grants.

Just an idea and willing to hear yalls thoughts. Love the game but just like before i feel stuck with one or two mains i run due to the few Racial AP or benefits they provide. Really excited for all the new Archetypes and i've been trying them out with fun abound!

Lets not forget that Racial AP and more Enhancement points could be added as Cores of the new trees to allow for more diverse builds or to round off AP heavy ones *looking at warlocks or Warpriests*

My favorite thing about the game after the character building is how wide the game is

Games with vertical progression and gear chase endgame are stale in comparison

[Bagel99]

My favorite thing about the game after the character building is how wide the game is

Games with vertical progression and gear chase endgame are stale in comparison

I agree, so the idea was to simply make the "width" applicable to all alts, to allow for even more character building. I do agree though, capping and that endgame 15% power hunt in loot and farming does get stale. Kinda would need a fix or benefit to reincarnations. Maybe when you Reincarnate you get those cosmetics OR it adds 3x Total XP to your account XP progression. Would need some ideas for that. Funnily enough this is changing a long term system of the game and i find the core gameplay to be amazing, cant complain as far as actually playing!

[Bagel99]

If anyone from the game staff would consider bouncing this idea with me and its pros and cons that would be wonderful, even if you all have no intention of changing a mechanic as such. I just think it could be flushed out and more enjoyable for many to have that freedom.

[Eantarus]

The only change that's really needed is to make XP requirements go down with each past life, not up. If each PL reduced the next life's XP requirement by say 1% it would heavily incentivize TRing while also making it so much easier to "catch up" so to speak.

[gravisrs]

Nah, we have:

1. Universal Trees - so even if you gimped your toon - you can always pick a dagger/crossbow and run through this past life on Vistani/Inquisitive using your main stat whatever you picked (few points in other Universal Trees, few visits at Fred).

2. Reaper Trees - so we fill the progress apart from Past Lives Feats - and gaining something we can "configure" each life.

The only change I'd introduce would be Reaper XP account-wide (maybe server-wide like astral shards) to promote alts like ESO did. yeah, ESO is a perfect example how it should work without causing massive alt-oholism.

[ned_ellis]

Ahh, the age-old, account progression/altVs.main discussion!
I have no hope at all that they will change their stance on this; in fact, have any modifications ever been made over the history of this game?
I think the only potential upcoming one (in result, not substance) is sharing group reaper points...suppose it could help grouping. /shrug
I continue to think that build diversity is one of the main attractions of this game but reaper point 'sharing' is a simple power-equalizer.
At least let us cannibalize our abandoned alts!?! Make it a one-off event so we don't get the 'but the first 2 lives took less xp - exploit!' or 'i did it so you should too' crowds don't get too riled up.
Oh, and invert the racial pl benefit - the ONLY backloaded system in game and the BIGGEST barrier to build diversity.
God I hate that everything will reduce me to just one toon someday soon...

[LightBear]

While yes, I found that staying at end game does not provide the same level of fixes of serotonin and dopamine.

Maybe I need a rehab program, who knows...