Post your Heroic XP rants here!

[Bagel99]

Just a shorty and wanna hear opinions on this but here is mine. For as many toons as we can have heroic TRs are slow. They feel slow and they are fairly grindy to me. We wont be getting account wide Past lives so why not make heroic lives a touch shorter. Bring down the 3.8m to 3m xp per life. Never would make financial sense yada yada but for weekend warriors such as myself it would make it feel alot more rewarding to play. I feel the pacing is much much slower than epics, even epics who dont have first time benefits.

Completionist folks would be able to make more alts, regular folks would be able to maybe get close to a single completionist in a couple years or so. SSG usually paces out past lives faster than most will get them so why not? For those who are concerned they usually knock out their lives almost immediately so it wouldnt change much on their end.

Idk feels like a rant in some ways, but SSG needs to realize that the cost to entry is very high, the time sink is also high for most and for as many lives as you can run on just a singular toon, speeding it up a touch wouldnt hurt. They have done some in the past to help us out but with 40 coming in the upcoming years with im sure many more TR treadmilling options, i doubt we will be hung out to dry.

Or just have an alternate VIP option that costs a lil more and gives 20-25% XP bonus. That would make me happy, happy to spend more supporting a game i enjoy. Just not the tail end of heroic lives it seems .... it feels the most grindy at that point. Farming for gear at cap, the whole epic leveling process and other things feel less grindy than quarter 4 of heroic lives.

Ok i feel somewhat better! Hope everyone is having a good day and is having fun!


*EDIT*: Post was meant more so to be just a meaningless vent originally so all thats listed up top is just slight frustration with the life im on and my general dislike for Q4 of heroic lives. I know they arent bad and there is plenty of xp! Just giving folks a heads up.

On a side note a double life for double XP seems pretty cool! Pairing Racial/Class past lives with eachother!

[Bacab]

I don't think Heroic lives feel grindy to me?

I often miss running quests I like because I outlevel them.
I generally will have to pick a chain I like and do it every third life.
Sometimes I skip Threnal.
Sometimes I skip the Desert (though I will get them on Epic).
Sometimes I skip Sorrowdusk and CO6.
Sometimes I skip "Attack on Stormreach" stuff.
Sometimes I skip Necro 1,2,3 (I always do Necro 4 and LotD)
I miss out on some of my favorite stand alone quests. Caverns of Korromar, Gwylan's Stand, Stormcleave, The Pit, Tear of Dhakaan.

I have wished that there was a "double life" option where XP was doubled and we could get a Heroic Life and a Racial Life.
But in reality, I just pick different quests/chains on each life.

My advice to anyone who is burned out on heroic leveling...quit taking the same TR route. Quit basing your route on XP/Minute. Play some quests you really enjoy even though the XP/min isn't the best.

I could get behind a bigger VIP XP bonus for sure though. Even if it just meant to me that I get to TR faster.
If they increased the VIP bonus, they would make MORE money off me.
Reason: I don't buy XP pots, but I do buy TR Hearts. I never intentionally farm Heart Seeds or Tokens of the Twelve. I also buy "Wish for Racial Memories"; Though I am getting outta my comfort zone and trying new builds, so that may stop happening.

TLDR:
My advice to anyone who is burned out on heroic leveling...quit taking the same TR route. Quit basing your route on XP/Minute. Play some quests you really enjoy even though the XP/min isn't the best.

[Enoach]

I agree with Bacab here. It is actually nice that I don't have to run the same set of quests every life.

However, I will also point out that it is more fun to do Heroic lives with a group of people as well.

I also alternate characters when I TR, so one time I do it with this character and another life will be with a different character - different goals and different priorities.

I do have a few side project characters that I also run.

I think there is a lot of emphasis on getting past lives, but there is more to the game, say having characters for running raids or Epic/Legendary content. It is one of the reason I've always played multiple characters, I like getting on and thinking what do I want to be tonight and then being able to play that.

[SisAmethyst]

I don't think Heroic lives feel grindy to me?

I often miss running quests I like because I outlevel them.
I generally will have to pick a chain I like and do it every third life.
...

I have wished that there was a "double life" option where XP was doubled and we could get a Heroic Life and a Racial Life.
...

I am in the same boat as Bacab, sometimes you even outlevel an entire chain before you can finish it at level. If you join XP leveling trains it becomes even more evident. This sometimes brakes groups apart s some keep on banking the XP while others taking the level instead, so it gets harder to group together. In fact apart from the above mentioned "double life" it would be also helpful to be able to bank more than one level to avoid being forced to take levels or wasting XP. After all this mechanism already exists. On this note it would be helpful to better see how much XP/level one has banked.

[Oxarhamar]

Just a shorty and wanna hear opinions on this but here is mine. For as many toons as we can have heroic TRs are slow. They feel slow and they are fairly grindy to me. We wont be getting account wide Past lives so why not make heroic lives a touch shorter. Bring down the 3.8m to 3m xp per life. Never would make financial sense yada yada but for weekend warriors such as myself it would make it feel alot more rewarding to play. I feel the pacing is much much slower than epics, even epics who dont have first time benefits.

Completionist folks would be able to make more alts, regular folks would be able to maybe get close to a single completionist in a year or so. SSG usually paces out past lives faster than most will get them so why not? For those who are concerned they usually knock out their lives almost immediately so it wouldnt change much on their end.

Idk feels like a rant in some ways, but SSG needs to realize that the cost to entry is very high, the time sink is also high for most and for as many lives as you can run on just a singular toon, speeding it up a touch wouldnt hurt. They have done some in the past to help us out but with 40 coming in the upcoming years with im sure many more TR treadmilling options, i doubt we will be hung out to dry.

Or just have an alternate VIP option that costs a lil more and gives 20-25% XP bonus. That would make me happy, happy to spend more supporting a game i enjoy. Just not the tail end of heroic lives it seems .... it feels the most grindy at that point. Farming for gear at cap, the whole epic leveling process and other things feel less grindy than quarter 4 of heroic lives.

Ok i feel somewhat better! Hope everyone is having a good day and is having fun!

You can go VIP & run pots

VIP already needs help not a higher price point


Have to agree with others Heroic XP is so abundant compared to before it’s already been lowered lives can be very fast if you have the free time can be done before the TR timer is up with no pots running

Epic should feel like less it’s 10 levels compared to 20

[SevenDeadlySins]

Just a shorty and wanna hear opinions on this but here is mine. For as many toons as we can have heroic TRs are slow. They feel slow and they are fairly grindy to me. We wont be getting account wide Past lives so why not make heroic lives a touch shorter. Bring down the 3.8m to 3m xp per life. Never would make financial sense yada yada but for weekend warriors such as myself it would make it feel alot more rewarding to play. I feel the pacing is much much slower than epics, even epics who dont have first time benefits.

Completionist folks would be able to make more alts, regular folks would be able to maybe get close to a single completionist in a year or so. SSG usually paces out past lives faster than most will get them so why not? For those who are concerned they usually knock out their lives almost immediately so it wouldnt change much on their end.

Idk feels like a rant in some ways, but SSG needs to realize that the cost to entry is very high, the time sink is also high for most and for as many lives as you can run on just a singular toon, speeding it up a touch wouldnt hurt. They have done some in the past to help us out but with 40 coming in the upcoming years with im sure many more TR treadmilling options, i doubt we will be hung out to dry.

Or just have an alternate VIP option that costs a lil more and gives 20-25% XP bonus. That would make me happy, happy to spend more supporting a game i enjoy. Just not the tail end of heroic lives it seems .... it feels the most grindy at that point. Farming for gear at cap, the whole epic leveling process and other things feel less grindy than quarter 4 of heroic lives.

Ok i feel somewhat better! Hope everyone is having a good day and is having fun!

So level 20 used to be 4,378,500 was reduced to 3,800,000 which is just over 13% reduction while the game has added over 30% heroic xp now lets further reduce the heroic xp by just over 21%. If anything a return to the old xp system is in order. ( oh nooooooo )

or base xp in heroic content nerfed by 20 - 25% is that going to be ok..... ( I doubt it )


Even on my multi-life character I almost never go much past a level 16 quest to cap. Now I take the xp from the quests that give it freely and easily. I do mix it up but there are just quests I do not take out of my rotation.

I am not going to put any more effort into gaining a past life than is needed.

There is more than enough heroic xp to quickly gain past lives by taking the time to learn what is needed and from where. I make it to 20 running about 100 quests


If you run all the saga quests and collect them at the end of your heroic life

Stone to level 3 run R1 all the way

Saltmarsh - 20k
Feywild - 29k
TBC - 26k
IoD - 29k
Ravenloft - 46k
GH - 46k
Sharn 1 - 46k
Sharn 2 - 46K

285K saved and ready for the taking 5% voice 5% guild that is over 300k so level cap is only 3.5mil already this does not take into account if you are burning a 5% to 50% pot and of course as new sagas are added the xp level cap keeps dropping

Drop a 50 Pot and those sagas are over 450K dropping xp cap below 3.4mil

Knowing when and where to burn a pot should not be overlooked you don't have to burn a 50 in heroics to level quickly in fact you don't need one at all even on a third plus life if you make a plan and stick to it and tweak it as quests are added in

There are two more heroic sagas available but they are a lot more work than they are worth I don't go to Estar unless it is for epics

[Diracorvus]

Just try to enjoy the game and the leveling won't feel like a grind. If you are not enjoying it take a break. There are also XP potions and Otto's Boxes if you want to skip parts of the leveling process.
If you make your hobby feel like work, you will just end up frustrated.

[kmoustakas]

I would like a mode that requires double heroic xp to level up but you get both a racial and class past life.

[Bagel99]

I would like a mode that requires double heroic xp to level up but you get both a racial and class past life.

I would actually be onboard with this ... would be amazing too cause i think it would be nice to kill two bird with one stone!

[Splunge]

I would like a mode that requires double heroic xp to level up but you get both a racial and class past life.

I feel like I'm missing something obvious here, since several people have chimed in that they like this idea (including a dev), but I don't get it. Why would this be any better than just playing the same life twice in a row and taking the heroic life the first time and the racial life the second time?

I guess you would skip having to empty your TR cache in between and you would only have to mess around with regearing, etc. half as many times, but you would also only get the first time bonus for quests once instead of twice. It seems like it would take longer than just doing the same life twice in a row. It would also cause problems for grouping. If you run a chain or two with a group that isn't doing this type of a life, they'll level past you and you'll have to find another group.

Could someone please explain what I'm missing? I don't understand why I would ever want to do this.

[Sqrlmonger]

I think the way to handle this in the modern era is account shared past lives where you have to unlock the power per character.

First life characters would get no benefit, but characters with 1 past life unlock up to 1 stack of each past life feat you have earned on the account. 2nd life characters get up to 2 stacks, 3rd life get the full 3 stacks.

Completionist feats would remain the domain of a character who actually has all the feats directly (probably reduce racial to 1x of each for racial completionist on the character so long as you still have 3 stacks total on the account).

Epic characters would still need a full set of epic completionist past lives on top of this since you need 4x to cap out ED points, but they need to offer a different epic heart that lets you reset favor/first time bonuses as well.

I think reducing XP per life is the wrong solution, but it might be better than what we have even so, and at least would represent a recognition of the problem.

I'll just say that Everquest wasn't as grindy as DDO is to fully unlock a single character. When people suggest things are A-OK as they are it makes me wonder how much of the sentiment is from people who either did quite a few lives with otto's boxes or who are perhaps subconsciously gatekeeping their achievements from the "riff raff". It makes no sense to me. And I say this as someone who has a full trio of the completionist feats on a single character, but who remembers what a grind it really was.

You can have fun playing the game and working on a character and still feel a tremendous sense of fatigue at the notion of even thinking about starting the process for a 2nd character. I feel like once someone goes through the process of accumulating all those past lives they've earned the right to dabble and play with it without having to wipe away their current build every time they want to try a different build.

They can monetize it by selling "Bloodline Character Slots/Slot Upgrades" to create or upgrade a character to be part of your "Account Bloodline" with an account surname that displays on upgraded character slots and they would be the only characters that contribute to and benefit from the bloodline (i.e. past lives).

That way all these people who don't want it don't have to use it.

[Bagel99]

Its ok everyone, just a small rant, just a touch frustrated getting the last 3 levels i need. I know well enough that the XP is there and ready for me to grab. Just find the tail end of heroics feeling slightly lackluster. I usually never play straight casters so this may be why, im almost always melee so quests take a fair bit longer than if i were a sorc, wiz, alch or druid etc.

All in all just a thread to vent to the void!

ALTHOUGH i do agree on two things IF past lives were to become account based i do think the XP a life should go up as 1 would be doing the work of many. Do i think this is the approach ... no. It would be cool to have an account based system to earn some small rewards that would follow the path style similar to how reaper is going to end up apply to your account. Would be neat to have a small headstart on alts!

[hale99]

Just a shorty and wanna hear opinions on this but here is mine. For as many toons as we can have heroic TRs are slow. They feel slow and they are fairly grindy to me. We wont be getting account wide Past lives so why not make heroic lives a touch shorter. Bring down the 3.8m to 3m xp per life. Never would make financial sense yada yada but for weekend warriors such as myself it would make it feel alot more rewarding to play. I feel the pacing is much much slower than epics, even epics who dont have first time benefits.

Completionist folks would be able to make more alts, regular folks would be able to maybe get close to a single completionist in a year or so. SSG usually paces out past lives faster than most will get them so why not? For those who are concerned they usually knock out their lives almost immediately so it wouldnt change much on their end.

Idk feels like a rant in some ways, but SSG needs to realize that the cost to entry is very high, the time sink is also high for most and for as many lives as you can run on just a singular toon, speeding it up a touch wouldnt hurt. They have done some in the past to help us out but with 40 coming in the upcoming years with im sure many more TR treadmilling options, i doubt we will be hung out to dry.

Or just have an alternate VIP option that costs a lil more and gives 20-25% XP bonus. That would make me happy, happy to spend more supporting a game i enjoy. Just not the tail end of heroic lives it seems .... it feels the most grindy at that point. Farming for gear at cap, the whole epic leveling process and other things feel less grindy than quarter 4 of heroic lives.

Ok i feel somewhat better! Hope everyone is having a good day and is having fun!

There is SO MUCH heroic XP out there. I don't understand at all how players can struggle. It's mind boggling to me.

With the new additions of IoD and other areas it's even easier to get double capped on the way up and not have to worry about XP issues.
It's literally all about the route you run.

All the time all I see are players running quests 2 levels under the normal quest level. Not even at level. That's going to cause issues for you.

Don't even get me going on 18-20. There's 2 sagas and sharn, the cogs, the sharn docs. Plus A TON MORE. So when I see players saying there no XP at lvl 18 I just scratch my head and laugh.

[Wizard1406]

Heroics mostly feel slow and boring for me since there are too many old quests that are poor- annoying mechanics or low xp, boring design - sewers, sewers everywhere. (and generic crpyts, warehouses, caves). And a good deal of quests are overplayed by me because of the bank char coinlord and house K farms.

Epics and new quests, especially expansions, feel much better in comparison.

Another problem is not enough grouping and no incentive to do challenging difficulties (and you'd want a group for that anyway) since heroic rxp is so low, especially pre lvl ~15.

[HumbleFriar]

I really like the idea of the 'double up' life. It would take some work as it's counter to our current system (as this would be something at the start of a life vs at the end). Again, not committing to anything, but I'll bring this up.

Also, when we look into the reaper changes, re-visiting the reward vs challenge, especially for pre-legendary levels will be discussed.

Keep those ideas flowing. I love reading all the feedback, especially when you all keep it in a positive light looking towards the future.


And yes, I've already thought of a way we could do the 'double life'.

[Ereshkigal]

if you lower the heroic xp required to hit level 20, it'll increase the frequency of people stuck waiting on the 3 day reincarnation timer to pass, which might decrease xp pot sales, since why pay to hurry up just so you can wait?

[GoldyGopher]

I have said this before, multiple times.

It is not an uncommon quote and one that I think applies to many of the current issues with DDO.

Reduce the XP to Level Heroically
The symptom: Casual Players, New Players, Old Players, Vets, really anyone who doesn't zerg takes to long to reach the heroic cap at level 20.

The cause: If you don't run a specific set of quests that maximize your XP or attempt to complete some/many of the optionals even in those specific quests you lower your XP per Minute so much it takes much longer to level in heroics.

Treating the Symptom: Lower XP Requirements to reach the Heroic Level Cap.

Addressing the Problem: Multiple Bloggers, Player Council Members and just plain vanilla players have done the work to identify Quests and Optionals (including Ransack and Conquest) where the XP per Minute is unacceptable (low); with the other two categories being acceptable and high. Approximately 40% of the quests fall into the unacceptable low category. I identified 153 quests in my last go around.
Free to Play Quests almost universally need an XP increase.

Running on R1 just zerging the top 3 or 4 quests at each level in terms of XP per Minute will result in greater than 80% of the XP required to reach the next level (assuming basic XP boosts). Running some popular, but lower XP per minute quests is a double whammy for players. First it takes longer to run the quests and second you have to run more quests taking even longer.

An example using Level 8 Quests, not including pots, VIP or other XP increasing bonuses (voice/tomes/shrines), run at R1.
High XP - Spies in the House, Tomb of the Shadow King, Libram of the Six, Stomrvauld's Mine. 24 Minutes Zerging earning ~100,000 XP
Unacceptable XP - Stormcleave, Haunted Library, Captives of the Cult, Thrask Arena. 45 Minutes Zerging earning ~60,000 XP

Just moving the 9 or 10 quests at Level 8 up from the unacceptable level of XP to an acceptable level increases the XP of the four quests I listed by ~45,000 XP and ~75,000 for all 9 quests and yet it doesn't change or effect the XP the hard core zergers.

The other part of the equation is looking at optionals and there added XP Value.

In Stormcleave Outpost there are 10 optional encounter varying in XP but worth 95% bonus to the base XP. How many get run by the Zergers? One maybe two on a hard core Zerg, sometime three or four because of the XP worth. The rest are not worth the zergers time. Yet how often do no zergers stick their head in to the caves to see if one of the Rare Optional Spawns, for a chance at 400 XP. To me Rare Optionals should never be worth less than the "mandatory" optionals (ones that are completed on the main path, like break the six boxes or return the 12 stolen storage boxes in Stormcleave). If something takes you off the main path of a quest, it needs to be worth the time in XP or Loot. Too many are not.

For the record I do not think there should ever be any rare optionals in quests, I have long argued against it. I think they should be more like mini quests with a decent amount of optional XP, ie at least 25%.

and I am sure I will say it again.

[Ereshkigal]

I have said this before, multiple times.

Originally Posted by GoldyGopher
It is not an uncommon quote and one that I think applies to many of the current issues with DDO.

Reduce the XP to Level Heroically
The symptom: Casual Players, New Players, Old Players, Vets, really anyone who doesn't zerg takes to long to reach the heroic cap at level 20.

The cause: If you don't run a specific set of quests that maximize your XP or attempt to complete some/many of the optionals even in those specific quests you lower your XP per Minute so much it takes much longer to level in heroics.

Treating the Symptom: Lower XP Requirements to reach the Heroic Level Cap.

Addressing the Problem: Multiple Bloggers, Player Council Members and just plain vanilla players have done the work to identify Quests and Optionals (including Ransack and Conquest) where the XP per Minute is unacceptable (low); with the other two categories being acceptable and high. Approximately 40% of the quests fall into the unacceptable low category. I identified 153 quests in my last go around.
Free to Play Quests almost universally need an XP increase.

Running on R1 just zerging the top 3 or 4 quests at each level in terms of XP per Minute will result in greater than 80% of the XP required to reach the next level (assuming basic XP boosts). Running some popular, but lower XP per minute quests is a double whammy for players. First it takes longer to run the quests and second you have to run more quests taking even longer.

An example using Level 8 Quests, not including pots, VIP or other XP increasing bonuses (voice/tomes/shrines), run at R1.
High XP - Spies in the House, Tomb of the Shadow King, Libram of the Six, Stomrvauld's Mine. 24 Minutes Zerging earning ~100,000 XP
Unacceptable XP - Stormcleave, Haunted Library, Captives of the Cult, Thrask Arena. 45 Minutes Zerging earning ~60,000 XP

Just moving the 9 or 10 quests at Level 8 up from the unacceptable level of XP to an acceptable level increases the XP of the four quests I listed by ~45,000 XP and ~75,000 for all 9 quests and yet it doesn't change or effect the XP the hard core zergers.

The other part of the equation is looking at optionals and there added XP Value.

In Stormcleave Outpost there are 10 optional encounter varying in XP but worth 95% bonus to the base XP. How many get run by the Zergers? One maybe two on a hard core Zerg, sometime three or four because of the XP worth. The rest are not worth the zergers time. Yet how often do no zergers stick their head in to the caves to see if one of the Rare Optional Spawns, for a chance at 400 XP. To me Rare Optionals should never be worth less than the "mandatory" optionals (ones that are completed on the main path, like break the six boxes or return the 12 stolen storage boxes in Stormcleave). If something takes you off the main path of a quest, it needs to be worth the time in XP or Loot. Too many are not.

For the record I do not think there should ever be any rare optionals in quests, I have long argued against it. I think they should be more like mini quests with a decent amount of optional XP, ie at least 25%.

and I am sure I will say it again.

Meh, if your goal is to just play how you want, then your goal isn't gaining past lives quickly, so there's no need to change anything. Just continue playing how you want and stop worrying about what someone else is doing.

If your goal is to gain past lives quickly then you will need to do things to optimize how quickly you gain xp.

If your goal is to just play how you want, but to also not allow anyone else to gain TRs faster than you, no matter how much they try to optimize their game play to gain past lives, then you're just being ridiculous.

[Jynxxx]

I would like a mode that requires double heroic xp to level up but you get both a racial and class past life.

I really like the idea of the 'double up' life. It would take some work as it's counter to our current system (as this would be something at the start of a life vs at the end). Again, not committing to anything, but I'll bring this up.

Also, when we look into the reaper changes, re-visiting the reward vs challenge, especially for pre-legendary levels will be discussed.

Keep those ideas flowing. I love reading all the feedback, especially when you all keep it in a positive light looking towards the future.


And yes, I've already thought of a way we could do the 'double life'.

Maybe Legendary Races that start at 20 or 25 and have to go to level 40 to obtain a racial past life and class past life might be easier than rebuilding the current system with the same racial past life and heroic class benefit?

This would also allow those who do not like heroics to enjoy epic content more

[Ereshkigal]

Maybe Legendary Races that start at 20 or 25 and have to go to level 40 to obtain a racial past life and class past life might be easier than rebuilding the current system with the same racial past life and heroic class benefit?

This would also allow those who do not like heroics to enjoy epic content more

I like it, but if Iconic races and reincarnations were for Epic, then perhaps Mythic races and reincarnations could be for Legendary?


But I would still like to see Legendary Reincarnations that take you from 40 to 30, granting you a legendary past life.

These Mythic Races could start out at 20, and Mythic Reincarnations could take you back to 20, granting you an Epic past life and a Mythic racial past life.