Do we really need a new Difficulty?

[mrfantastic1]

I have seen a number of posts, asking for server merges, free transfers, and updates to reaper mode. I also noticed many posts about running static group, running a slower dungeon crawl group, and one thread requesting a turn based difficulty.

There seems to be a trend that players want more options and opportunity to engage with one another. Is there a way to accomplish this by tweaking the system we already have?

I remember reading a suggestion to get rid of the hard XP cap. This would allow anyone to rain playing without their "static' group and could promote more of these smaller parties forming. Friendships forming, and overall a stronger community.

What else could help facilitate the type of camaraderie that players seem to desperately desire?

[EdsanDarkbane]

I would like my VIP status to serve as a permanent guest pass to players in my party. Hope this helps.

[Monkey_Archer]

I have seen a number of posts, asking for server merges, free transfers, and updates to reaper mode. I also noticed many posts about running static group, running a slower dungeon crawl group, and one thread requesting a turn based difficulty.

There seems to be a trend that players want more options and opportunity to engage with one another. Is there a way to accomplish this by tweaking the system we already have?

I remember reading a suggestion to get rid of the hard XP cap. This would allow anyone to rain playing without their "static' group and could promote more of these smaller parties forming. Friendships forming, and overall a stronger community.

What else could help facilitate the type of camaraderie that players seem to desperately desire?

Hamsters do not develop friendships or camaraderie while running on their wheel. They eventually have stop and look around first.

Translated to DDO, this generally occurs when there an interesting and engaging endgame, which we do not have right now. Most raids are becoming obsolete, and the reaper system has been mostly played out. R10 questing is currently balanced to provide only a slight challenge for 1-3 player groups, depending on build/skill level. The only real challenge left is r10 raid pushing, but good luck getting a group for that if you aren't on the right server with the right connections.

So many players like myself just play solo for the most part. Its the only way to actually play the game that doesn't feel inconsequential. I would much rather play with friends, but are we really playing together or are we just in the same location while the strongest build solos the quest?

But to answer the question: build a new endgame. (or many many widespread systematic nerfs to everything... but we all know how popular that would be)

[EdsanDarkbane]

I was once an endgame player. I am no longer and have not been for many years. However during my time at the end game, we always busied ourselves with new builds. Roleplay ones, niche ones, OP ones. That was always the real endgame. This new system of grinding mats and reaper points, holds no appeal to me. I find it anathema to the very idea of DnD.

That being said. I know I run a lot of TRs and I always leave an lfm up. I love meeting and playing with others, it is a bummer when you make a friend but in the course of two or three days the lvl gap is so great you cannot group together.

I think that's the OPs intent. Building on that with my post I think granting vip players the ability to guest pass all players (maybe on a cooldown) in the group would be in line with the OP post. Keeping new friends, until they become old friends.

What would be a good thought for a good endgame?

[EdsanDarkbane]

Hamsters do not develop friendships or camaraderie while running on their wheel. They eventually have stop and look around first.

Translated to DDO, this generally occurs when there an interesting and engaging endgame, which we do not have right now. Most raids are becoming obsolete, and the reaper system has been mostly played out. R10 questing is currently balanced to provide only a slight challenge for 1-3 player groups, depending on build/skill level. The only real challenge left is r10 raid pushing, but good luck getting a group for that if you aren't on the right server with the right connections.

So many players like myself just play solo for the most part. Its the only way to actually play the game that doesn't feel inconsequential. I would much rather play with friends, but are we really playing together or are we just in the same location while the strongest build solos the quest?

But to answer the question: build a new endgame. (or many many widespread systematic nerfs to everything... but we all know how popular that would be)

Apologies, I meant to quote you!

[Igrovin]

Well for me, I had been looking around for players to play with, but there are so many hoops to jump through to get with players.

1) If you're more than 3 levels in differences from the highest player to you, XP drops off dramatically.
2) Lot of quests are set up that you have to go through a lot of other quests to get the quests to get the quests to do the quest people actually want to do. Couldn't jump into Vault of the Night for example without first completing all the other quests before it.
3) Free players have access to only certain parts of the game, and so people who have it, have to purchase a guest pass to get those people access to other parts of the game. edsandarkbane has a fairly good idea there. Adventure with someone who has a VIP and have them open the doors as a guest pass. Course not even VIPs have access to everything now with all the expansions that came out.
4) Dead Weight effect - As a new player with everyone playing on R1-10, you are often dead weight. You do not have the reaper xp, favor bonuses, equipment, past lives that other players do. Try as I might, I had hard times keeping up with some players who'd just charge through everything in reaper with little to no consequences for them, but instant death for me.

[Monkey_Archer]

Well for me, I had been looking around for players to play with, but there are so many hoops to jump through to get with players.

1) If you're more than 3 levels in differences from the highest player to you, XP drops off dramatically.
2) Lot of quests are set up that you have to go through a lot of other quests to get the quests to get the quests to do the quest people actually want to do. Couldn't jump into Vault of the Night for example without first completing all the other quests before it.
3) Free players have access to only certain parts of the game, and so people who have it, have to purchase a guest pass to get those people access to other parts of the game. edsandarkbane has a fairly good idea there. Adventure with someone who has a VIP and have them open the doors as a guest pass. Course not even VIPs have access to everything now with all the expansions that came out.
4) Dead Weight effect - As a new player with everyone playing on R1-10, you are often dead weight. You do not have the reaper xp, favor bonuses, equipment, past lives that other players do. Try as I might, I had hard times keeping up with some players who'd just charge through everything in reaper with little to no consequences for them, but instant death for me.

1) This is what endgame is intended to be (or was). A place where everyone can play at the same level. Unfortunately SSG decided to heavily monetize the TR grind and abandon endgame development.
2) Flagging is an outdated concept IMO. You should be able to open a quest window directly from the quest journal if you already have the quest.
3) Very good suggestion for adding value to VIP.
4) There is no solution for differences in player skill, but the solution otherwise is game balance. In pre-expansion DDO the best characters were only around twice as strong as the weakest. This allowed the entire player base (for the most part) to play endgame without massive gaps in player contribution. Now the difference is 10x or more due to power creep so the playerbase is segregated into many different groups of varying levels of progress in the game.

[Pandjed]

What else could help facilitate the type of camaraderie that players seem to desperately desire?

Going against what the devs are currently heading to: Level squish.

Instead of raising the level cap, lowering the level cap and make each level bigger, so that the progression doesn't feel sluggish. There are several ways, starting with more AP every level, make several feats stronger so that getting them feels more of an accomplishment, adding special feats that classes gets in-between level or allow at every feat-less level a minor feat, etc.

If we could squish the entirety of the heroic levels into 1-10, and the 12 epic levels into maybe 4, then we would have it easier to quest while being on the hamster wheel, as the level difference becomes smaller by a noticeable margin.

But to make it halfway decent, there would be a need of a lot of rebalancing quests. To make it good, there had to be some work done to the classes as well. To make it great, the whole epic destiny system would need another rehaul. So wouldn't hold my breath for it.

[EdsanDarkbane]

Going against what the devs are currently heading to: Level squish.

Instead of raising the level cap, lowering the level cap and make each level bigger, so that the progression doesn't feel sluggish. There are several ways, starting with more AP every level, make several feats stronger so that getting them feels more of an accomplishment, adding special feats that classes gets in-between level or allow at every feat-less level a minor feat, etc.

If we could squish the entirety of the heroic levels into 1-10, and the 12 epic levels into maybe 4, then we would have it easier to quest while being on the hamster wheel, as the level difference becomes smaller by a noticeable margin.

But to make it halfway decent, there would be a need of a lot of rebalancing quests. To make it good, there had to be some work done to the classes as well. To make it great, the whole epic destiny system would need another rehaul. So wouldn't hold my breath for it.

This is an avenue I never thought of...a level squish. Do you have an idea that is less intense? The OP mentioned dropping the hard XP cap. That seems like a simple fix to try. I think giving VIPs a 12hr cooldown for a party wide expansion pass for their party could help, and also is less intrusive into development time.

Thank you ,and I am interested in your thoughts.

[Wizard1406]

1) This is what endgame is intended to be (or was). A place where everyone can play at the same level. Unfortunately SSG decided to heavily monetize the TR grind and abandon endgame development.
2) Flagging is an outdated concept IMO. You should be able to open a quest window directly from the quest journal if you already have the quest.

1) Yes it's sad that staying at cap is so poorly supported. You're gimping yourself if you stay at cap very long and don't TR regularily. No new DP, half reaper xp. For long time players: little power gain anymore once you have high rp (only 4 hp when you could work on PL with bigger bonuses and none at all at 156 RP.

Not much to do when all raids are on timer and good farm chests ransacked and all first time reaper xp done.

I'd suggest a way to reset favor and first time bonuses. And shorter raid timers for VIP.

2) Absolutely, flagging must go

[EdsanDarkbane]

1) Yes it's sad that staying at cap is so poorly supported. You're gimping yourself if you stay at cap very long and don't TR regularily. No new DP, half reaper xp. For long time players: little power gain anymore once you have high rp (only 4 hp when you could work on PL with bigger bonuses and none at all at 156 RP.

Not much to do when all raids are on timer and good farm chests ransacked and all first time reaper xp done.

I'd suggest a way to reset favor and first time bonuses. And shorter raid timers for VIP.

2) Absolutely, flagging must go

Prior to TR it was pretty standard to just roll a new toon and experiment with builds. TR is awesome but needs to be addressed so we can leave toons at cap and on raid timers, I would rather that than be forced to play in a way I do not enjoy....maybe I am salty about The Letter. I empathize!

[Wizard1406]

Indeed. When there is nothing much to do at cap for your main, playing alts (or changing jobs in FFXIV) usually works great in MMOs.

Not so much in DDO..... getting an alt up to speed with basic TRs and RPs takes ages and until then you'll be much weaker than almost anybody on their main.

In other games you only have to gear up to have fully viable alts.

Too bad TR is not account wide (and maybe RPs too).

[EdsanDarkbane]

Indeed. When there is nothing much to do at cap for your main, playing alts (or changing jobs in FFXIV) usually works great in MMOs.

Not so much in DDO..... getting an alt up to speed with basic TRs and RPs takes ages and until then you'll be much weaker than almost anybody on their main.

In other games you only have to gear up to have fully viable alts.

Too bad TR is not account wide (and maybe RPs too).

There was a thread that suggested this, I think alot players agree with you there.

[Monkey_Archer]

Indeed. When there is nothing much to do at cap for your main, playing alts (or changing jobs in FFXIV) usually works great in MMOs.

Not so much in DDO..... getting an alt up to speed with basic TRs and RPs takes ages and until then you'll be much weaker than almost anybody on their main.

In other games you only have to gear up to have fully viable alts.

Too bad TR is not account wide (and maybe RPs too).

I'm not a fan of account wide TRs. If would be difficult to implement properly, specifically how to consolidate identical past lives on multiple characters.

Account wide RP is a no-brainer and should have happened yesterday.

As for endgame, I think 3 things:

1) Higher difficulty settings for questing. R11+ with raid rules (no reentry, lockout, no cakes/shrines, timer, etc...)
2) Infinite, but nerfed reaper points. Remove the hp per point spent so it doesn't get absurd, but add more trees to spend points in. (and return some of the hp lost in the trees themselves)
3) Endgame xp bank for capped characters, probably set at about 10% of xp earned, that can be converted to an xp stone for TRs.

[Wizard1406]

Higher difficulty, R11, why not.

Don't nerf the RP until 156, but small bonuses and more trees for above, sure

Banking endgame xp would be awesome. It lowers participation during leveling, but people staying at endgame are not gonna run that many lives in the the current system anyway. For higher participation and more grouping for the 32 different levels, we really need server merges.