Increase Reaper Experience for Lower Level Quests

[erethizon]

I just spent a life running heroic quests on R6 and I noticed a common phenomenon. Many of the better DDO players would join my LFM, discover that the quests take longer than they are used to when playing on R1, and then drop the quest.

To be clear, I am not talking about the people that struggle to play on R6 normally. I'm talking about the people that play legendary quests on R10, but won't play heroic quests on anything other than R1.

It is very common for people to say that heroic questing is so easy that is it boring, but that is simply because they refuse to raise the reaper level to the same level that they play legendary quests and they do that simply because heroic quests give terrible reaper experience. There is no reason for a level 30 quest to give 5 times as much reaper experience as a level 10 or 15 quest when they are being played on the same reaper difficulty and take the same amount of time to complete.

Reaper already has a level cap. You can't enter a heroic reaper quest more than 4 levels above the base level of the quest. That level limit already makes sure that people are not circumventing the challenge by going in way over level. Quests that take the same amount of time should give the same amount of reaper experience at any level played.

I'd really like to play all of heroic on R10, but it is so hard to find people to play with at R6 that I don't see that happening. It is no trouble to fill a legendary party for R10 questing, but heroic is a struggle simply because of the terrible reaper experience reward. Let's fix this.

[Chai]

The meta is plow R1 over and over again. This gains PLs and EPLs, and players gain the majority of their reaper xp running R10 at cap. /repeat

The people who want more xp buy it. That's how the system is designed.

What percentage of the population do you suppose plays on the correct difficulty level that actually challenges them in heroics? I'm talking about the setting which stops the zerg and makes it a dungeon crawl.

[Dandonk]

What percentage of the population do you suppose plays on the correct difficulty level that actually challenges them in heroics? I'm talking about the setting which stops the zerg and makes it a dungeon crawl.

Sadly not many. And not me, either - I usually run heroics on r4.

Would an increase in heroic rxp help get me out of my comfort zone? TBH, I'm not sure. I kind of agree with the OP that it's actually a little sad the way it's being played atm, but I'm not sure I can get even myself to change. Oh, well.

[slarden]

The devs fell for a massive con job regarding rxp at level cap which was already significantly better than heroic rxp and people were generally running higher skulls. It's unlikely they will ever fix it as it would just be viewed as a nerf at this point.

If anything I think they should boost epic rxp to 150% so that it's 100% heroic, 150% epic and 200% legendary.

I think anyone breezing through R1 on heroic levels should at least up it to R2 as it probably won't change completion time, but provide a large boost to rxp. And certainly the huge # of quests that take less than 5 min are worth pushing skulls up a bit.

The devs can never balance it perfectly.

[erethizon]

The devs fell for a massive con job regarding rxp at level cap which was already significantly better than heroic rxp and people were generally running higher skulls. It's unlikely they will ever fix it as it would just be viewed as a nerf at this point.

If anything I think they should boost epic rxp to 150% so that it's 100% heroic, 150% epic and 200% legendary.

I think anyone breezing through R1 on heroic levels should at least up it to R2 as it probably won't change completion time, but provide a large boost to rxp. And certainly the huge # of quests that take less than 5 min are worth pushing skulls up a bit.

The devs can never balance it perfectly.

The trouble is that upping a heroic quest from R1 to R4 often adds 100 RXP or less. I can't blame people for not wanting to join my R6 heroic reaper quest when the total RXP for completion is 300 to 400 RXP. The quests take a lot longer and are much more difficult, but the reaper experience increase is a joke.

As for the con job, yeah, you are right. It was an epic (or should I say legendary) whine fest that got them to double RXP on level 30+ quests. Now it's time to more than double the lower level quests. Level 10 Into the Mists doesn't take less time than level 31 Into the Mists. They are the same quest. And the quest is much easier on R10 at legendary levels because people are far better equipped to deal with the extra challenge and have epic/legendary abilities.

[slarden]

The trouble is that upping a heroic quest from R1 to R4 often adds 100 RXP or less. I can't blame people for not wanting to join my R6 heroic reaper quest when the total RXP for completion is 300 to 400 RXP. The quests take a lot longer and are much more difficult, but the reaper experience increase is a joke.

As for the con job, yeah, you are right. It was an epic (or should I say legendary) whine fest that got them to double RXP on level 30+ quests. Now it's time to more than double the lower level quests. Level 10 Into the Mists doesn't take less time than level 31 Into the Mists. They are the same quest. And the quest is much easier on R10 at legendary levels because people are far better equipped to deal with the extra challenge and have epic/legendary abilities.

If they want to give a catch-up mechanism applying the 200% xp bonus to epic and heroic levels would certainly do that. Or maybe 150% heroic, 175% epic and 200% (legendary is already 200%).

I think not wanting to push skulls in heroics also has a lot to do with having to gear up for so many different builds and at so many different level ranges. At least for me I prefer as few gear changes as possible while heroic leveling.

[erethizon]

If they want to give a catch-up mechanism applying the 200% xp bonus to epic and heroic levels would certainly do that. Or maybe 150% heroic, 175% epic and 200% (legendary is already 200%).

Unfortunately, unless they change the equation for how reaper experience is calculated, this won't help much at all. The problem is that the experience calculation includes multiplying by the level of the quest. Multiplying 50 x 3 just isn't as rewarding as 50 x 32, so running the level 3 Gatekeepers quest is a waste of time on high reaper even if they did a 150% or even 200% multiplier (like they do with legendary quests). The reaper experience calculation should factor in the length of the quest (short, medium, long, very long), but not the level. With how powerful we are in epics now, quests are not harder at higher levels. It's time to bring up the reaper experience per quest to be in line with legendary quests so that all quests are worth running for RXP instead of only level 30+ quests.

[Oliphant]

I agree with being fair at all to folks doing heroic leveling. The RXP rules are extremely unfair to heroic levelers. If you only doing heroic leveling you probably don't even know how much you are left behind, complete malpractice game design. Only problem with making RXP more valuable earlier, is you will get the difficulty partitioning earlier, more high reaper LFMs that are more choosey while you are heroic leveling.

[boredGamer]

The trouble is that upping a heroic quest from R1 to R4 often adds 100 RXP or less. I can't blame people for not wanting to join my R6 heroic reaper quest when the total RXP for completion is 300 to 400 RXP. The quests take a lot longer and are much more difficult, but the reaper experience increase is a joke.

As for the con job, yeah, you are right. It was an epic (or should I say legendary) whine fest that got them to double RXP on level 30+ quests. Now it's time to more than double the lower level quests. Level 10 Into the Mists doesn't take less time than level 31 Into the Mists. They are the same quest. And the quest is much easier on R10 at legendary levels because people are far better equipped to deal with the extra challenge and have epic/legendary abilities.

I join groups that are higher reaper in heroic, when they are up (which is rare, as you are saying)

I don’t know exactly who you are but there are certain people that post those sorts of groups and the run often takes 30+ minutes in 5 minute quests.

I don’t join those groups, they might be “pushing skulls” but they are not ready for it.

So sort of hard to say. Another common player pushes skulls and it’s challenging but still relatively fast, so a nice sweet spot.

[droid327]

Increasing RXP wont make people want to run R6 Heroic. They're there for Heroic XP, which caps out at R1, so that's what they'll run.

And no, you cant increase regular XP with higher skulls either. Reaper is supposed to be a challenge mode - and the problem is simply that you're the only one that wants that challenge. Which is fine for you, but you cant ask other players to facilitate your content if they dont want to.

[Bacab]

I have run a bunch or heroic and lower Epic quests at R3. Have pushed it higher if it's like me and 2 other good players.

Though some of those players have expressed a desire to push the skulls down for speed.

I have been told "levels 1-29 are for EXP, levels 30-32 are for RXP"

They are generally better players than I am, so I don't think the are wrong. And it does seem more efficient doing it that way.

Someone above me mentioned boosting Heroic RXP multiplier and maybe that could he a nice catch up mechanic as well?

[erethizon]

Increasing RXP wont make people want to run R6 Heroic. They're there for Heroic XP, which caps out at R1, so that's what they'll run.

And no, you cant increase regular XP with higher skulls either. Reaper is supposed to be a challenge mode - and the problem is simply that you're the only one that wants that challenge. Which is fine for you, but you cant ask other players to facilitate your content if they dont want to.

People don't want a challenge at all. That is why the cut every corner, even in R10 legendary quests, to make the game as easy as possible. They want maximum reward for minimum effort and currently that is granted only on legendary quests. If they got the same RXP per minute in heroic as they did in legendary you would see a lot more quests run on higher reaper. But when raising a skull increases your RXP by 15, it's not surprising that they don't bother to do it. People farm RXP at level 30+ simply because it is the only place to do it effectively, not because it is the only time they care about getting RXP. They race through heroic levels simply because it is not rewarding to farm RXP at those levels.

[slarden]

To put some actual #s to this.

Base XP for a level 9 quest on R10 is 50 + (3 * 9 * 10 ) = 320
Base XP for a level 34 quest on R2 is (50 + (3 * 34 * 2 )) * 2 = 508

Obviously running Jungle of Khyber on R10 at level is much harder than running a level 34 quest on R2, but less rewarding.

[erethizon]

To put some actual #s to this.

Base XP for a level 9 quest on R10 is 50 + (3 * 9 * 10 ) = 320
Base XP for a level 34 quest on R2 is (50 + (3 * 34 * 2 )) * 2 = 508

Obviously running Jungle of Khyber on R10 at level is much harder than running a level 34 quest on R2, but less rewarding.

And that is before the doubling of reaper experience for level 30+ quests. I don't think there is a single quest that is level 30+ that does not give at least 1000 RXP even on R1 (though maybe that is true for something like Tavern Brawl). Mind you, I am including first time bonus. It is not uncommon to get only a few hundred RXP when running a heroic quest on high reaper even with first time bonus.

High reaper at very low level (before you have access to raise dead) is a real challenge and there is no reason not to reward it accordingly for the few willing to accept the challenge. I'm not saying to invest serious resources into low level reaper, but at the very least they could add a x5 multiplier for R4+ for heroic quests.

[slarden]

And that is before the doubling of reaper experience for level 30+ quests. I don't think there is a single quest that is level 30+ that does not give at least 1000 RXP even on R1 (though maybe that is true for something like Tavern Brawl). Mind you, I am including first time bonus. It is not uncommon to get only a few hundred RXP when running a heroic quest on high reaper even with first time bonus.

High reaper at very low level (before you have access to raise dead) is a real challenge and there is no reason not to reward it accordingly for the few willing to accept the challenge. I'm not saying to invest serious resources into low level reaper, but at the very least they could add a x5 multiplier for R4+ for heroic quests.

The level 34 quest did include the doubling- apologies for not showing details on the math, it's the *2 with the entire calc inside parentheses.

To your point, they could easily change the heroic formula to include a conditional multiplier based on skull since they are already doing that based on level. That is a solid and simple solution the devs should consider.