Reducing power gap

[droid327]

Agreed, front loading is the way to go. It doesn't discourage players from doing more...because once you finish getting the low hanging fruit, what else are you going to do but start going for the middle hanging fruit? Players still grind for that last reaper point, the last filigree slot...diminishing returns don't scare players off

Strongly disagree that new players must spend exactly the same time as vets did to catch up. Almost all content was originally designed to give vets "more to do" at endgame, wherever endgame may have been at the time. There's no reason to preserve those grind walls now that a lot of that content is no longer top tier, or as big a proportion of your total efficacy. I'm perfectly fine and supportive of making older grinds cheaper so new players can catch up faster. It won't "cheapen" other players' achievements, because your enjoyment of the game shouldn't depend on other people not having stuff. Old phones go down in price when the new phone comes out - old grinds can too.

[Wizard1406]

No. Backloaded encourage players to not bother alltogether. I myself don't bother, I know people who quit over this. Racial pl design is the most toxic, grindy, and player unfriendly.

Time spent/reward for iconic + class past life in one go feels great, where in comparison racial life for 1 skill point (and no class pl with it) feels like a scam.

Yeah. I won't start racials until I have the more low-hanging fruit, but useful class/archetype, iconic, and epic PL are introduced faster than I can complete them.

Plus heroics are boring to me. You don't have many abilities and not much of a build until 12+. Quests don't have much variety (a lot of sewers and basic crypts/caves/warehouses) until you get to the expansion quests.

And most importantly, there is not enough grouping going on, so it's a lot of really boring soloing.
Merge server / cross server grouping, or at least some other grouping improvements and heroics will be more fun (again).

Imho, at much easier solution:

First 10 lives use the "1st life xp table".
Next 10 lives use the "2nd life xp table"
From 21th life use the "3rd life xp table"

Add the same lower xp benefit to epic lives and we have something real.

Much easier than redesigning the rewards and most definitely help new players catch up faster.

That would be a big improvement too! (maybe increase ability to hold levels, so <21 lifers can group with life 21+ easier, without "throwing away" xp or bravery bonuses).

[Fisto_Mk_I]

No. Backloaded encourage players to not bother alltogether. I myself don't bother, I know people who quit over this. Racial pl design is the most toxic, grindy, and player unfriendly.

Time spent/reward for iconic + class past life in one go feels great, where in comparison racial life for 1 skill point (and no class pl with it) feels like a scam.

Exactly, cannot say better myself.

[mikarddo]

No. Backloaded encourage players to not bother alltogether. I myself don't bother, I know people who quit over this. Racial pl design is the most toxic, grindy, and player unfriendly.

Time spent/reward for iconic + class past life in one go feels great, where in comparison racial life for 1 skill point (and no class pl with it) feels like a scam.

Well, its a good thing (tm) that the different system offer different rewards in different ways. Them one player can pursuit one approach while another pursuits a different approach. So, thats good.

As for that I think iconic PL are pretty lackluster and find racial + epic worth more than iconic + heroic (usually). In particular the +1 racial AP every 3 lives which adds new options to builds.

Thus I disagree and unlike you I find that a positive sign.

[ned_ellis]

I do r4's on a 1st lifer on HC at cap with gear that was farmed out in about a week's time. Knowledge of the game (quests, builds, what gear you'll want, etc.) is the biggest gap anyone faces. All the past lives are fun to have and give someone stuff to do long term, but you so don't need them to do stuff in the game (unless you're trying to push raids and that's tiny tiny tiny little percent of the player base that does that, but without game knowledge that's a wall that past lives & gear just won't get you over). I'm all for catch up mechanics for those who'd like past lives quickly, but don't assume it's a magic gap closer. All the knowledge of the game one picks up doing life after life is where you'll really close the gap.

I'm sorry but posts like these are just so unnecessary. Well done, you are indeed right that pl's are not needed to finish content. How does that pertain to any of the points of the OP or subsequent 'OP-adjacent' ones? You say you are for catch-up mechanisms but the only one that matters is game knowledge? Are you offering cliff notes of the Wiki to new players?! And where is anyone saying to remove pl's for longterm fun? They are offering suggestions on redistributing them is all.

Newer players have a hill to climb to get to play at least the LFM level (currently R1+ and yes, I know they could post lower difficulties themselves but let's be realistic) - I rmbr when I was getting over the EE hump myself! - and how does one do that? Playing and building one's toon up.
As is, how many look at the Racial pl's and decide to commit? Or more in general, how many have studied all the systems and said they will commit to the game?! How many who haven't studied the systems remain once they find out about them 'through experience'?!
Do you think any of the suggestions in this thread can help raise those numbers? If no, offer some that aren't 'just don't do it cos I don't need it'.

This is just all wrong. It absolutely 100% should be front-loaded with racial AP, then stat, and finally skill. Because grabbing the skills and finishing the triple for all races gives you the racial completionist bonus.

Encouraging players to grab the big bonuses is exactly what you want to do. Once you get those first 14 lives in and you picked up all those racial AP you've learned how to run the hamster wheel and running another round for stat bumps isn't as big of a deal as it would be at the start.

And yes, the skills actually are basically useless. It's a +1 to a single skill for an entire past life run, it's truly awful and I loath them. The best one is is UMD from gnome, but even that is strictly inferior to the class PL feat you get from artificer where you get +1 UMD on top of +1 to ALL INT skills.

Front-loading gives people good reasons to go 2/3rds of the way and then you dangle the completionist feat to encourage the full clear.

All this current system does is tell people they shouldn't bother dipping their toe in. It tells them if they aren't willing to commit to the whole thing up front it's not really worth it. That is why it is FAR better to encourage people to dabble and try something they might not otherwise. Slowly diminishing the returns before giving them a final big reward.

It is a flat out a terrible design choice to back-load the rewards to this extreme.

Exactly.

[Sqrlmonger]

Imho, at much easier solution:

First 10 lives use the "1st life xp table".
Next 10 lives use the "2nd life xp table"
From 21th life use the "3rd life xp table"

Add the same lower xp benefit to epic lives and we have something real.

Much easier than redesigning the rewards and most definitely help new players catch up faster.

I'd be fine with anything like this. Though I've always thought it should be gradual.

My approach would be to increase XP required by 10% from 1.9m to 3.8m between the 1st and 11th lives, and then slowly decrease by 2% after that until it returns to 1.9m for all subsequent lives.



This is assuming TRs remain character specific.

If they ever became account based I think the argument for reduced XP makes a lot less sense.

[cromotep]

I like the idea of front loading the class past lives. I think it would allow for newer players or those without the time to be able to contribute more in more difficult content (not particularly high reapers that should be the endgame for people that turned out the lives.) I think the racial past lives should stay as they are, the bonuses are all really good, and that ap is a pretty huge reward for sticking through the lives. I am not fond of how quickly the xp required ramps up, but there are a bunch of ways that I can never remember to increase the xp gain. I think there is a collector who gives pots for eberron shards and it would probably only take a few lives to earn enough ddo points through favor to grab the xp tome. Maybe throw in the hint section or plaster across the screen how to increase xp gain with ingame means might help. Just my 2c.

[JOTMON]

Time investment = reward.
I don't see any value to front loading reward benchmarks and degrading the value of subsequent rewards.

Options to help newbies.. sure.. pay to win.
Temporary measures to help bridge the gap between new/flower sniffing players and the 10,000+hour grinders without annoying the long term players that have toiled to get where they are.

Implement options to buy or otherwise earn potions that give temporary buffs that mirror the permanent versions of long term grinding rewards.
Drop unbound potions in chests that give the same bonus type as past lives, useless to those that have the past lives, useful to those that don't.

Could even offer options to Purchase DDO store buff clickies that give timed duration equivalent buffs until they go and grind out the past lives.
and promo these clickies to new accounts/expansion packs, events...



This is a pretty basic template.. Good, Fast, or cheap.. pick 2.



If you dont invest the time, then it should be costly or not as good.

[Oxarhamar]

I mean saying they're 'ignor-able' (taken as an individual reward at least) is sort of the same as saying they are "useless" as I defined in my last comment. So I guess I'll take that as agreement.

To the broader point of the design though, they're only truly ignore'able if you're willing to ignore +2 to all stats and +2 to all skills from racial completionist. Which certainly some people are and some aren't.

Regardless, a good design would bring you in with a tasty carrot and then diminish the returns with each life in the same race. If you were down to only 3rd lives left and they only offered skills, you would do it because you wanna go for the ultimate reward and not for the meager +1 bumps to a single skill. Consider that the last 14 racial past lives (assuming you left all 3rd lives to last) give a combined total of +14 to skills, the completionist feat alone weighs in at a combined total of +12 to stats and +42 to skills. Just the completionist feat alone is sufficient backloading. Racial AP as 3rd life benefit constitutes a complete backloading overkill.

As it sits right now, you have to suffer through the 1st life of each race knowing that it's (as discussed above) more or less a prerequisite to get to the worthwhile benefits. So if some people are willing to do it then it's fine right? Well no, not really. Lots of people simply never start because the prospect of trudging through a life for negligible benefit is unappealing. Thus, the question is one of, as usual, player retention. And this structure is terrible at enticing players to start the TR hamster wheel. And lots of players who refuse to start the TR train will inevitably grow bored of sitting at cap and find other games to occupy their time.

I don’t think it’s useless but that’s the opinion that is being used for the front load so if it’s useless then it’s ignorable if the power is front loaded

I be already come to the compromise that it might be good to reverse the order and front load the AP if Compltionist was still backloaded if not then players will most like get the big bonuses and forget the rest

[Oxarhamar]

Time investment = reward.
I don't see any value to front loading reward benchmarks and degrading the value of subsequent rewards.

Options to help newbies.. sure.. pay to win.
Temporary measures to help bridge the gap between new/flower sniffing players and the 10,000+hour grinders without annoying the long term players that have toiled to get where they are.

Implement options to buy or otherwise earn potions that give temporary buffs that mirror the permanent versions of long term grinding rewards.
Drop unbound potions in chests that give the same bonus type as past lives, useless to those that have the past lives, useful to those that don't.

Could even offer options to Purchase DDO store buff clickies that give timed duration equivalent buffs until they go and grind out the past lives.
and promo these clickies to new accounts/expansion packs, events...



This is a pretty basic template.. Good, Fast, or cheap.. pick 2.



If you dont invest the time, then it should be costly or not as good.

+1

[Fisto_Mk_I]

Time investment = reward.
I don't see any value to front loading reward benchmarks and degrading the value of subsequent rewards.

It's simple really:

Front loaded - i take some low-hanging fruit, then, when i tired from repeating, i may be ( may be not) p2w for Otto's to fast complete all other PL for minor bonuses. Good for SSG, some possibility gain money from me.

Back-loaded - i see for those useless pile of junk skillz, then say "Nah, why bother with?!" and ignore this wheel at all. Bad for SSG, no any possibility gain money from me.

Options to help newbies.. sure.. pay to win.

See above - until here no good appealing bait with low-hanging fruit from front-loading, I (and many others) will not even consider the any possibility to p2w.

if Compltionist was still backloaded if not then players will most like get the big bonuses and forget the rest

It surely must be backloaded exactly with yours designated reasons.

[Oxarhamar]

It's simple really:

Front loaded - i take some low-hanging fruit, then, when i tired from repeating, i may be ( may be not) p2w for Otto's to fast complete all other PL for minor bonuses. Good for SSG, some possibility gain money from me.

Back-loaded - i see for those useless pile of junk skillz, then say "Nah, why bother with?!" and ignore this wheel at all. Bad for SSG, no any possibility gain money from me.



See above - until here no good appealing bait with low-hanging fruit from front-loading, I (and many others) will not even consider the any possibility to p2w.



It surely must be backloaded exactly with yours designated reasons.

If you see the skills backloaded and completely ignore the entire system then it's obvious that you would get the low hanging fruit of frontloaded then ignore the rest this is exactly what my point has been

[droid327]

This is a pretty basic template.. Good, Fast, or cheap.. pick 2.

Every business in the world would provide a product that's all 3 if they could, because that would be what people want to buy the most.

SSG isnt in the business of manufacturing characters. They're in the business of getting people to want to play.

That chart represents a natural limitation, not an optimal condition. SSG can absolutely provide an experience where progress is cheap, fast, and "good", aka strong. It costs them nothing more, and increases demand - aka makes more players want to play, which is the goal.

The dichotomy for game design isnt between cost and quality, its between short and long term sustainability. Front load things too much, people have a lot of fun growing their character quickly, but then burn through the content and then have "nothing left to do" and leave for other games. Back load it too much, and people can play for a long time, but get bored with the grind and lack of satisfying progress.

DDO is a somewhat unique case, though, because it has so much content, that you dont have to worry as much about running out of things to do. Its got so many quests to play, so many different builds and playstyles to explore...the game is definitely balanced too far in the "back load" direction right now. It can well afford to shift more progression to the front, and just rely on its sheer volume of content and replayability to keep players from burning out.

Just look at how few people really play maxed out alts - that's a largely untapped realm of replay, and a strong piece of evidence that progress is too arbitrarily slow. In a well balanced game, most players should have a stable of alts.

[rabidfox]

I'm sorry but posts like these are just so unnecessary. Well done, you are indeed right that pl's are not needed to finish content. How does that pertain to any of the points of the OP or subsequent 'OP-adjacent' ones? You say you are for catch-up mechanisms but the only one that matters is game knowledge? Are you offering cliff notes of the Wiki to new players?! And where is anyone saying to remove pl's for longterm fun? They are offering suggestions on redistributing them is all.

My point was simple. You can hand someone all the past lives from the get-go and they still would be struggling in parties and not keeping with those zerging ahead with those who've been playing the same quests over and over years on end. I think it's important to tell new players that they can do all the content in the game currently without needing those lives (if they learn the quests, grab good gear, and use a nice build). Like I said, I'm entirely for catch-up mechanics for past lives so those want them can get them faster, but I think it's important for new/returning players to know that they don't NEED them and while some of these fixes are great for people who are time constrained (real life vs having game time is tricky) for getting past lives, it won't be a cure-all to the power gap that exists.

[LurkingVeteran]

While power could certainly be more front loaded in DDO (and content more accessible for a new player without buying each thing separately that has been released over the years, e.g. VIP++), it seems politically impossible to close the gap enough to entirely fix the problem on its own. However, you can also manage its bad side effects.

The biggest improvement would be a mega server with some way for people of appropriate power level to find each other and play together. They kind of have something like that by having a dedicated default server that rotates around, but I wonder if this really captures all newbies, and it ignores e.g. second lifers and slow levelers. Maybe there should be a "don't know quest well" or "no rush" preference which is defaulted to on for a new account. With a mega server there might be enough people to support it. If there was a dungeon finder like in WoW with automatic match making and teleportation into the quest, it would be pretty easy to add something like that.

I also think that part of the problem with rushing is that people are not properly incentivized to pick a difficulty where they can't solo a dungeon without risk. There is much less rushing on hardcore. Perma-death is not the only way to balance that equation, and you can use carrot as well as stick...

Finally, melee should be a bit more durable and more mobile than they currently are. Most complaints seem to come from people playing melee and joining a PUG (that often runs reaper). It makes no sense that most melee builds have to be played as melee-range glass cannons on the higher difficulties. There are ways of tying mitigation to e.g. swinging a sword - which would also better match D&D rules (flatfooted). I've mentioned this previously. Another way to go is life leech like in Diablo (vampiric in DDO has always been extremely weak), where a melee can use the leech to offset the incoming damage from fighting one monster. The classic DDO meta of melee needing CC and pocket healer to glass-cannon them down has always been very weird to me.

[jirksa]

Thanks everyone for the feedback. Yeah Gab/Gap was kinda embarrassing , thanks for pointing out.

Just reversing the order of racil PLs sounds good to me. The racial completionist should be backloaded IMO - I am nowhere near racial completionist but I still think it would be healthier for the game if it stays backloaded.

I agree that reversing racial PLs would mean more money to SSGs. I have many friends who are premium and would certainly buy all the classes for 1 AP for 1 PL (not sure about otto's boxes). It is true that all my friends are scared about the gigantic grind of 3 PLs for 1 AP and are not doing that.

About the pay to win - I personally have time consuming job, a wife and a social live, I can play a few hours a week at most. I have payd for otto's boxes before and it's an OK mechanic for me as I can somewhat exchange my time ingame for the time of me earning money or spending it with my family (I would HATE loot boxes though). But I will not pay 3 otto's boxes for 1 AP. I would probably pay 1 otto's box for 1 AP. And I would still have racial completionist to look forward to.

All in all thanks for constructive proposals. I hope this will reach SSG

[neain2008]

My point was simple. You can hand someone all the past lives from the get-go and they still would be struggling in parties and not keeping with those zerging ahead with those who've been playing the same quests over and over years on end. I think it's important to tell new players that they can do all the content in the game currently without needing those lives (if they learn the quests, grab good gear, and use a nice build). Like I said, I'm entirely for catch-up mechanics for past lives so those want them can get them faster, but I think it's important for new/returning players to know that they don't NEED them and while some of these fixes are great for people who are time constrained (real life vs having game time is tricky) for getting past lives, it won't be a cure-all to the power gap that exists.

Who said anything about handing out past lives? This entire thread is about getting people to want to do pastlives. (and the more past lives they do, the more time is spent in game, and the more that they are learning the game)
There is a large enough portion of people that look at the entire past life system and basically say "yeah... no." and end up leaving fairly quickly. If the past lives were front loaded, they might stick around a bit longer and tr a few times. yes, some will still leave, but they will take longer to leave and so have more chances of spending money on this game that we all love to love and hate.

And to the idea of them not getting a full 3 racial past lives for each race or class... Who Cares? if they aren't going to do it after getting 1/3 of the way there (or 2/3 if they decide that they want those sweet stats), then they definitely weren't going to do it with all the rewards so heavily backloaded. instead, we again, extended the time that they were willing to play ddo.

Edit: As far as I know and can tell the racial things were backloaded so that when they were introduced and all the uber completionist-type people hopped onto the wagon, you didn't immediately see what you see now. It was a slow transition from nobody having +14 (16 now), racial points, to whatever % we are at now. But that time has passed, lets swap those around and let far more people on the servers catch up with their racial points. Will this help me? nope. I have all the completionist feats already. but it will help some of my friends who don't play much/at all because of the perceived grind.

[rabidfox]

Who said anything about handing out past lives? This entire thread is about getting people to want to do pastlives. (and the more past lives they do, the more time is spent in game, and the more that they are learning the game)

<sigh> I was just using that as an example. This thread started with:

Motivation:
New Players are discourage by the amount of grind it takes to be as good as other players
Its not fun runing through dungeon at slower pace, than some completionist that as far ahead AND clearing all the mobs by himself
Its hard to play together with new players, R1 is too hard for them, Hard is too easy for veteran players

Point 1 & 3 are totally valid. I'm just pointing out that point 2's premise isn't valid (the not fun part is totally valid, just not it being about the person being a completionist). I'm entirely for past lives being obtained faster (and/or shared between alts) or any other grind reducer. I'm also going to keep pointing out that the person that they can't keep up with doesn't have to be some total completionist; a 1st life alt on someone who knows what they're doing will be zipping ahead clearing all the mobs by themselves. In conclusion, the OPs desire to be able to get lives faster, frontload stuff to encourage players to do past lives, etc. are great and would be nifty to have; but it's not the big thing that's keeping gapped from others. LurkingVeteran covered it well, where a grouping mechanic of similar capability players (knowledge, gear, etc.) would be awesome.

[Bluenoser]

At the very least, racial completionist feat should only require one of each, just like heroic class completionist. Requiring 3x each one is so far out of reach for a lot of players that they don't even bother starting. The backend reward of doing 3 of each is already so huge, in bonus AP you can spend at lvl 1 and character build options that are spectacularly better, that racial completionist doesn't need to be gated behind it too.

And, it would help offset the problem that the first tier racial reward is, if not "garbage", pretty darn underwhelming, especially compared to what you get for any single epic, iconic, or most heroic class PLs.

[JOTMON]

Every business in the world would provide a product that's all 3 if they could, because that would be what people want to buy the most.

SSG isnt in the business of manufacturing characters. They're in the business of getting people to want to play.

Every business wants to profit from the product they are selling.
SSG is selling virtual entertainment for profit... more players more opportunity to siphon money.
The challenge is to get customers to part with their money and to keep that revenue stream flowing.

That chart represents a natural limitation, not an optimal condition. SSG can absolutely provide an experience where progress is cheap, fast, and "good", aka strong. It costs them nothing more, and increases demand - aka makes more players want to play, which is the goal.

The dichotomy for game design isnt between cost and quality, its between short and long term sustainability. Front load things too much, people have a lot of fun growing their character quickly, but then burn through the content and then have "nothing left to do" and leave for other games. Back load it too much, and people can play for a long time, but get bored with the grind and lack of satisfying progress.

DDO is a somewhat unique case, though, because it has so much content, that you dont have to worry as much about running out of things to do. Its got so many quests to play, so many different builds and playstyles to explore...the game is definitely balanced too far in the "back load" direction right now. It can well afford to shift more progression to the front, and just rely on its sheer volume of content and replayability to keep players from burning out.

as I said its a basic template, but the principle still applies.
to get as much profit for the least amount of associated cost within the time available.

Is there really a dichotomy, SSG and players are not opposed...
Players are not adverse to spending money if they feel they will get value for that expenditure.
SSG wants your money and is limited by their resources as to what they can provide.
Limitations like SSG's cost and time to program content, maintain servers, pay employee's, promote the product, while staying profitable.

TR's brought a huge element of replayability and recycling continuity of characters without having to start from scratch or wait for new content to be added.
Heavy Front loaded perks take away from the retention of focus on players recycling old content
Heavy back loaded investment deters players from the long term commitment.

The challenge is to find the balance of using the challenge/reward carrot to keep players enticed.
Make the content to easy and players get bored, leave to find something challenging.
Make the content too difficult and you lose players to frustration.
Either way not everyone is ever going to be happy, keeping the majority of potential money spenders is optimal.

Just look at how few people really play maxed out alts - that's a largely untapped realm of replay, and a strong piece of evidence that progress is too arbitrarily slow. In a well balanced game, most players should have a stable of alts.

Alts have fallen by the wayside as players focus their attention on primary toons and the massive time commitment and TR perks provide for minimal SSG development cost.

We used to have a stable of alts, SSG evolved the game in a direction that mostly invalidated alts in favor of optimizing main toons.
SSG 1/account reward items, BTC, and bypass timers contributed to the downfall of alt toons in my opinion..
the cost of that was the loss of me investing money into now retired mule toon alts that I regret ever spending money into developing.
I still buy raid bypasses, otto boxs, mana pots, rez cakes, other goodies...
So ultimately SSG wins.. they still get my money and I still play the game...