The Future Reaper Update

[DaviMOC]

Cant say much when there is only intentions and nothing shown in pratical matters.

So far I agree with most concerns except for the simplification and freedom of choice. Reaper trees are too flat and generic to have meaningful choices there. Of course when you have only a few points to spend at your current level you are presented with some kind of decision making but not that much.

Said that I'm happy with every overhaul they did since the enhancment trees to the latest imbue , health and ED changes. Even when they nerfed my playstyle in the end im pretty fine and happy with the game and its final results.
So I'm hoping the team will come with nice and fun solutions about that.

[Ereshkigal]

I really hope they abandon this stupid idea.

What makes DDO interesting is that you can pick and choose the abilities you want in different enhancement trees to get your character build the way you want. Removing that choice from reaper is the wrong way to go, if anything we should get more reaper trees.

Do not remove the option to customize the abilities we choose to gain from Reaper points.

That would be counter to everything that keeps your core coming back to DDO after all these years.

[Zites]

From the Severlin Q&A courtesy of Strimtom:

"Future reaper update is to remove reaper trees and replace with a scaling system that automatically applies bonuses based on reaper points acquired and gives bonuses at certain levels (think battle pass), that is also sharable."

So thoughts:

1) DDO updates are generally to add customization not take it away. Granted they did with pet upgrades but pets are so lackluster that a lot of people were just ignoring them anyway. This would be the first time I can think of where they take away something a lot of people use and replace it with a simplified, automatic version.

2) This potentially will badly hurt spell and tactical DC casters who rely on the extra stats and bonus DC to be effective in higher reaper content the worst. If every character gets the same bonuses it suggests those bonuses will be the generic bonuses that apply to all characters.

3) Players have put a lot of effort into their reaper points. So if this turns into a massive reaper nerf that will go over like a lead balloon with the most active players.


It's possible this could be done in a way that addresses these issues but this could also be disaster looming over the horizon.

Please read below

This seems like a good thread to repeat the same point I've made for about a year now...

The problem with DDO is not any particular build. The problem is that there is no difficulty setting that isn't easy.

Monsters need triple their current hp and all champions need deathward at a bare minimum to restore any semblance of challenge in r10.

Until that happens, everyone should just TR into an AOE build or caster if you want to participate in quests.

+1000000000000……… infinity.
This will remain true until they change it.

[Igrovin]

You dislike this update because it changes reaper
I dislike this update because they used the term "Battle Pass"

We are not the same.

[KoobTheProud]

It's really hard to respect a system enabled to add challenge when it also added +XP and trees designed to lessen that challenge.

Obviously the bottom line was enhanced but the game itself is so much less than it ought to be.

[Kelledren]

I really hope they abandon this stupid idea.

What makes DDO interesting is that you can pick and choose the abilities you want in different enhancement trees to get your character build the way you want. Removing that choice from reaper is the wrong way to go, if anything we should get more reaper trees.

Question though with reaper tree options: Is there really a choice after you have 42 points? Before 42 points you decide on whether you go Health/Hp vs melee/ranged dps or Health vs caster tree. Once you enough enough RPs to go into two trees then it’s just a matter of filling up points. Your build makes the decisions for you. Ranged then you pick Ranged power on the right, melee you pick left side. I see no real difference in picking these with points vs getting everything at gated levels (which includes the things you would pick every time anyway). If nothing else this would help hybrid builds by getting help at both ends at the same time.

Edit: second question: Is this being able to choose- or get even more choices with added reaper trees- worth the additional lag?

We all saw how much lag was induced by zoning into reaper, which was reduced with some fixes, but still has to be a drag with individual allocations.

[Oxarhamar]

kind of of takes away the choice of where your want your reaper enhancements in your build.

Sounds like it will but there really is no telling until it comes

[Baahb3]

I personally think they should remove all boni from reaper point acquisition. As stated before, why make a difficulty level with the primary function of increasing challenge, but the reward system for said level makes it easier. So backwards.

If they make the benefits ONLY apply in Reaper and give us an option to turn off the BS sharing ****, that is all I care about.

[Firebreed]

The further away we move from Reaper's current implementation, the better in my opinion.

One point I want to stress specifically though, is that removing Reaper's XP bonus over Elite will probably be very beneficial for the game's health.

[erethizon]

I personally think they should remove all boni from reaper point acquisition. As stated before, why make a difficulty level with the primary function of increasing challenge, but the reward system for said level makes it easier. So backwards.

If they make the benefits ONLY apply in Reaper and give us an option to turn off the BS sharing ****, that is all I care about.

It really isn't about challenge. DDO players talk about challenge but then do everything in their power to make the game as easy as possible. Reaper is about giving an additional form of advancement to work towards. The kind of people that stick with DDO are the kind of people that like pursing massive character growth (i.e. the past life system). The reaper point system adds an additional massive growth system into the game that can be pursued while sitting at level cap, for those that don't want to keep starting the game over at level 1. The number of people that want a challenge is so small that such a system is likely to be mostly unused. I'd enjoy finding out what would happen if they added a Reaper 11 that offered absolutely no additional rewards over R10. My guess is it would be rarely used by people after they tried it a couple times to see what it was like.

[Igrovin]

If they are going with some sort of "battle pass" thing for reaper, I suspect it would be something where you get small bonus as a free player, but for a monthly fee you get big bonus and the small bonus. But this would be a different cost than VIP.

[Jaxtan]

These actions of gross simplification and aggregation across all classes and builds are what a company would do if they were going to be putting a game in maintenance mode. Makes maintaining it a lot easier.

[misterski]

These actions of gross simplification and aggregation across all classes and builds are what a company would do if they were going to be putting a game in maintenance mode. Makes maintaining it a lot easier.

Not really, just look at WoW. They got rid of the specialization trees a very long time ago (over 10 years ago) and it never went into maintenance mode.

[Jaxtan]

Not really, just look at WoW. They got rid of the specialization trees a very long time ago (over 10 years ago) and it never went into maintenance mode.

WoW had 10 MM+ paying subscribers then, now they have less than 5 MM, a 50% decrease but is still a huge revenue stream. DDO has maybe 12,000 and shrinking? Not sure if WoW is a valid comparison.

I have no idea how DDO even makes enough money to stay afloat, but these kinds of changes are not going to reduce the decline.

[Kelledren]

WoW had 10 MM+ paying subscribers then, now they have less than 5 MM, a 50% decrease but is still a huge revenue stream. DDO has maybe 12,000 and shrinking? Not sure if WoW is a valid comparison.

I have no idea how DDO even makes enough money to stay afloat, but these kinds of changes are not going to reduce the decline.

If this change reduces lag further, then I would call it win. We all want server merges- but lag is the prime issue. If they can deliver on keeping reaper buffs (especially DC) approximately the same, allow some sharing with reaper noobs (which is meh for me- how you play and gear matters way more) I would call that a win-win. The added step would be increase reaper scaling R6-R10 to make those a bit harder, a big win-win-win, thus no decline.

Now big thing is will it occur this way… and how will the messaging be when it occurs- yeah I’ll wait and see before getting hopes too high.

[Jaxtan]

If this change reduces lag further, then I would call it win. We all want server merges- but lag is the prime issue. If they can deliver on keeping reaper buffs (especially DC) approximately the same, allow some sharing with reaper noobs (which is meh for me- how you play and gear matters way more) I would call that a win-win. The added step would be increase reaper scaling R6-R10 to make those a bit harder, a big win-win-win, thus no decline.

Now big thing is will it occur this way… and how will the messaging be when it occurs- yeah I’ll wait and see before getting hopes too high.

If it can happen that way, I agree it could be a win. If it doesn't happen that way, there is no telling the consequences.

[Mindos]

You know that anything they take away they just sell back to you? No more reaper "trees"? Say hello to Legendary Demi "trees"!

[Kelledren]

If it can happen that way, I agree it could be a win. If it doesn't happen that way, there is no telling the consequences.

Couldn’t agree more. Sometimes the change is ok but the messaging (or lack of messaging) hurts the results. Its just like my irl job lol

[Baahb3]

One point I want to stress specifically though, is that removing Reaper's XP bonus over Elite will probably be very beneficial for the game's health.

This needs to be done immediately. No waiting to figure out what they want to do with reaper points. Do this now.

[droid327]

I get why its unpopular, but I like moving away from highly selective Reaper trees towards something more like D3's Paragon system, where you just allocate small, generic incremental bonuses...

The reason being Reaper trees are particularly guilty of pigeonholing builds into a hyperspecialty, and that makes it difficult to balance things at high-tier endgame because the builds that totally specialize in something can do it so much better than those that even partly focus on it, that you're left with either making mobs so strong that only a hyperspecialist can do that thing, or making them weak enough that a hyper-specialist can do it every time without fail.

So that kinda puts the devs in the position where they're forcing everyone into a hyperspecialist build, which is bad for build diversity...or they're letting hyperspecialist builds negate the difficulty of R10 by being able to no-fail CC or IK every mob. Neither is healthy for the game.

Reaper trees are usually what makes the biggest difference between, ie, a moderate DC caster and a specialized one, so that makes the most sense for where to start trying to flatten the curve a bit.

I'd like to see Reaper move towards just a flat schedule of bonuses as you gain points, with all bonuses only applying in Reaper mode. Something like 2 HP and 1 SP for every point, and every 5th point gives 1 PRR and MRR, then like every 12th point was 1 MP/RP/2 USP, every 24th was 1 Dodge/Dodge Cap/MDB, and every 48th was 1 All Attributes