Multi-Patch/Update Preview: XP Changes

[Splunge]

I also want to point out that Sagas were introduced specifically to address this same issue - encouraging players to play a more holistic set of quests rather than just going down their list of min-max dailies. If you feel people are still not diversifying their playthroughs enough, why not boost Saga rewards or create new Sagas with existing non-Saga quests, to make it more rewarding that way? I dont think nerfing optionals long-term is going to encourage more diversity, I think its just going to be a sideways move towards a new set of dailies with higher base XP.

This seems to me like a more effective solution that would be much easier to implement. This isn't the first time that there's been an obvious, simple solution to a problem that they've chosen to fix in a more difficult, less effective way.

[Lynnabel]

This seems to me like a more effective solution that would be much easier to implement. This isn't the first time that there's been an obvious, simple solution to a problem that they've chosen to fix in a more difficult, less effective way.

Sagas are one of the most difficult things in the entire game to implement, actually.

[Lencrennis]

Sagas are one of the most difficult things in the entire game to implement, actually.

Worse than augments? I heard horror stories back in the day.

[Grace_ana]

The optional ransack seems like incredible overkill for a minor problem.

1) Lots of players don't want to play heroics. This would force them to TR more frequently. If they hate heroics, they will end up hating the game and leave. That's not good for anyone.

2) There are a lot of epic quest packs that people simply don't like. That's why they don't run them. You might want people to play a variety of quests, but it's on you guys to make those quests attractive enough to play. You need more carrots, not more sticks. My husband, for example, absolutely hates the Eveningstar quest chain. So if he has to run it because you guys have decided we should play a "wide variety," that makes the game less fun for him. When people feel forced into running stuff they dislike...they stop playing the game. And again, that's not good for anyone.

3) If you are worried about optionals like wiz king, just fix it like you fixed Crucible. You get the optional xp at completion. That was actually a perfect solution and applies here as well.

4) Why is it even a concern to you all whether people run a wide variety of quests or dailies? People play how they want to play. If you insist on locking people into the way you want them to play, you are going to lose people. A lot of people are drawn to and stay with DDO because it offers a lot of options. We aren't locked into builds, we aren't locked into heroic or epic, we aren't locked into (for the most part) who we play with. So you have a population of players that want freedom, and you are now trying to restrict that for I don't know what reason. I can't imagine that's going to end well in the player numbers game.

This is a real concern for me, since if we end up with players getting frustrated and leaving, it hurts us all. Who cares if players run sagas or dailies? Who cares if people are running one-and-done or mindlessly grinding wiz king? Not me. They are all playing, and so they are all contributing to the game with their numbers and their money.

If you are worried about promoting LFMs, this won't do it.

[Feal]

Why on earth does it matter to you how other people play the game. I understand not wanting optional farming to be far and away the best way to level, but this is a game and people play it for fun. If someone else wants to repeat the same quest over and over, or not complete it and get XP, that should be none of your concern.

True, but people jump from en/eh dailies to highskulls, with no real skills. as one of my mentor always says, dailies are the death of the game.

yes, is just a point of view, but is quite objective that this mechanic doesn't push people to develop skills in game, only powercreep

[Rull]

Nice changes! I like the objectives and the way you achieve them.

Just, please give first time hard bonus as well when you do elite. There is no point in having to run the quest again on hard if you've already proved you can do elite.

To elaborate:

One of the big issues, currently, is that if you have completed a quest on elite, then the second run would be more efficient on hard than another one on elite.
Choosing a lower difficulty should never lead to less XP... Those runs aren't any fun but sometimes way too efficient to skip.

Right now you when you do E-E-E you get (110%+80%) plus 110%, plus 110% = 400%
While if you do E-H-N, which is more boring, you get (110%+80%), plus (105%+40%) plus (100%+25%) = 460%, even though it's faster and easier.

Can you make it so that that when you do EHN you get (110%+80%+40%+25%=255%) for the elite, 105% for the hard and 100% for the normal?
For example, but I think it's clear: if, say, you do H-N-E you get (110%+40%+25%) for the hard, (100%) for the normal because you got that bonus already, and then (110%+80%) for the elite because you didn't get the 80% elite bonus yet.

[Potatofasf]

The optional ransack seems like incredible overkill for a minor problem.

1) Lots of players don't want to play heroics. This would force them to TR more frequently. If they hate heroics, they will end up hating the game and leave. That's not good for anyone.

2) There are a lot of epic quest packs that people simply don't like. That's why they don't run them. You might want people to play a variety of quests, but it's on you guys to make those quests attractive enough to play. You need more carrots, not more sticks. My husband, for example, absolutely hates the Eveningstar quest chain. So if he has to run it because you guys have decided we should play a "wide variety," that makes the game less fun for him. When people feel forced into running stuff they dislike...they stop playing the game. And again, that's not good for anyone.

3) If you are worried about optionals like wiz king, just fix it like you fixed Crucible. You get the optional xp at completion. That was actually a perfect solution and applies here as well.

4) Why is it even a concern to you all whether people run a wide variety of quests or dailies? People play how they want to play. If you insist on locking people into the way you want them to play, you are going to lose people. A lot of people are drawn to and stay with DDO because it offers a lot of options. We aren't locked into builds, we aren't locked into heroic or epic, we aren't locked into (for the most part) who we play with. So you have a population of players that want freedom, and you are now trying to restrict that for I don't know what reason. I can't imagine that's going to end well in the player numbers game.

This is a real concern for me, since if we end up with players getting frustrated and leaving, it hurts us all. Who cares if players run sagas or dailies? Who cares if people are running one-and-done or mindlessly grinding wiz king? Not me. They are all playing, and so they are all contributing to the game with their numbers and their money.

If you are worried about promoting LFMs, this won't do it.

+1 Kudos

Sometimes I think DDO Devs are tired and prone to shutdown the game. They find ways to force people out the game.

[TPICKRELL]

Since Epic Reincarnates do not reset first time bonuses and slayer zone counts, this change will make consecutive ER's even more tedious since each life will use up more first time quest bonuses. Making these changes in conjunction with adding 12 more Epic past lives isn't nice.

I do fully support the elimination of the bravery bonus hassles.

If I had my wish, it would be to cause ER's to reset slayer zones and first time quest bonuses as part of these broader xp changes.

[apep1412]

I created a level 7 character to test the rxp overlevel penalties. This is a first life level 7 character on a non-vip account. No xp tomes, pots, equipment, ship buffs.

Kobold's New Ringleader (level 2 quest, long duration)
56 base rxp = 180 awarded on completion
100% bravery, 75% first time, 10% kill bonus, 10% flawless, 10% persistence, 25% daily, -25% overlevel

The Stormreaver Fresco (level 4 quest, short duration)
62 base rxp = 167 awarded on completion
100% bravery, 75% first time, 10% flawless, 10% persistence, 25% daily

Repossession (level 4 quest, short duration)
62 base rxp = 171 awarded on completion
100% bravery, 75% first time, 10% kill bonus, 10% flawless, 10% persistence, 25% daily

Stealthy Repossession (level 2 quest, medium duration)
56 base rxp = 146 awarded on completion
100% bravery, 75% first time, 10% flawless, 10% persistence, 25% daily, -25% overlevel

Gladewatch Outpost Defence (level 6 quest, medium duration)
68 base rxp = 239 awarded on completion
100% bravery, 75% first time, 10% kill bonus, 10% flawless, 10% persistence, 25% daily

Gladewatch Outpost Defence (level 6 quest, medium duration, repeated)
68 base rxp = 80 awarded on completion
10% flawless, 10% persistence
Note: daily bonus was showing up during the quest, but was removed from the xp sheet on completion. Display issue only, was showing 97 rxp during the quest. The -20% repeat penalty only showed up on the third run, the daily bonus was correctly not visible during that run.

Dead Predators (level 6, medium duration, first reaper run after an elite)
68 base rxp = 210 awarded on completion
75% first time, 10% persistence

• From the notably small difference between the first Gladewatch run and the Dead Predators run, it looks like Bravery Bonus is still not applying to reaper xp. It is unclear how other bonuses are affecting rxp exactly, though.
• The difference in the Dead Predators run and first Gladewatch run when compared to the second Gladewatch run seems to indicate that the first time bonus applies more to reaper xp than it does normal xp. (This is mentioned with regard to live reaper xp, but not quantified)
• There appears to be some rounding issues. This is evident in the second Gladewatch run. In that case, it seems like the extra rxp from bonuses are calculated separately and floored before adding to the total.
• The overlevel penalty for reaper seems to match the displayed overlevel penalty on the xp sheet, though this is hard to verify with the duration modifier and bonus first time bonus being hidden.
• The new bravery bonus does not seem to have the same base level + 2 restriction that it used to have. This makes (base level + 3) the highest level with no penalty for heroic elite/reaper content again.

[Yamani]

Why is Tower of Frost on the minor xp increase list and not the major? I know its a F2P quest but it's xp/min ratio is by far one of the worst in game. Comparing it to other quests around it's level it gives 1/2 up to 1/4(WGU) the xp they do(not many lvl 28s as is).

[Grace_ana]

True, but people jump from en/eh dailies to highskulls, with no real skills. as one of my mentor always says, dailies are the death of the game.

yes, is just a point of view, but is quite objective that this mechanic doesn't push people to develop skills in game, only powercreep

This is often not true. A lot of us use dailies to level our underpowered alts, even though we have the skills from our main toons. This just hurts new players and alts more...again...

But mostly I'm concerned that people feeling forced to play a certain way or certain things they don't like will just leave the game.

[nemo1375]

True, but people jump from en/eh dailies to highskulls, with no real skills. as one of my mentor always says, dailies are the death of the game.

yes, is just a point of view, but is quite objective that this mechanic doesn't push people to develop skills in game, only powercreep

I can understand the frustration of getting into a high reaper group with people that can't play their characters. Unfortunately, I don't think the optional ransacking will help that.

I mostly solo and found groups, not even high reaper groups, to be very frustrating because people were slow and died a lot. I have since found a group of people in game that play at about the same skill level/speed as me (by no means elite). There are just a lot of people that don't particularly care about getting better. For that in particular, I think finding a consistent group or guild would be most helpful. Additionally, I can't speak highly enough about soloing

Edited with below

This is often not true. A lot of us use dailies to level our underpowered alts, even though we have the skills from our main toons

That is 100% how I am leveling my monstrosity cleric ranger fighter that was supposed to be a monkcher, but I forgot to make lawful. Without dailies I would never be able to "rescue" him with an eTR to get back to a reasonable character.

[Rull]

Since Epic Reincarnates do not reset first time bonuses and slayer zone counts, this change will make consecutive ER's even more tedious since each life will use up more first time quest bonuses. Making these changes in conjunction with adding 12 more Epic past lives isn't nice.

I do fully support the elimination of the bravery bonus hassles.

If I had my wish, it would be to cause ER's to reset slayer zones and first time quest bonuses as part of these broader xp changes.

Lol they don't? Better fix that first then, yes.

[HastyPudding]

Too many numbers! Looks like an overhaul in XP to nerf XP because some nubs are farming optionals! I'm very confused. I hear the words coming out of your mouths but I don't understand them!

[Rull]

The optional ransack seems like incredible overkill for a minor problem.

The quests currently best for daily repeating are the quests with a lot of their XP in optionals. Since the base XP gets multiplied by about 10 with all the bonuses, optional XP is not that significant the first run. But they matter much more, relatively, in daily quest. You can see that in the selection of quests being run.
This change allows SSG to increase the optional XP, making them relevant for the first time, without them dominating the dailies. There is certainly some sense to this.

[AdamPM]

The optional ransack seems like incredible overkill for a minor problem.

1) Lots of players don't want to play heroics. This would force them to TR more frequently. If they hate heroics, they will end up hating the game and leave. That's not good for anyone.

2) There are a lot of epic quest packs that people simply don't like. That's why they don't run them. You might want people to play a variety of quests, but it's on you guys to make those quests attractive enough to play. You need more carrots, not more sticks. My husband, for example, absolutely hates the Eveningstar quest chain. So if he has to run it because you guys have decided we should play a "wide variety," that makes the game less fun for him. When people feel forced into running stuff they dislike...they stop playing the game. And again, that's not good for anyone.

3) If you are worried about optionals like wiz king, just fix it like you fixed Crucible. You get the optional xp at completion. That was actually a perfect solution and applies here as well.

4) Why is it even a concern to you all whether people run a wide variety of quests or dailies? People play how they want to play. If you insist on locking people into the way you want them to play, you are going to lose people. A lot of people are drawn to and stay with DDO because it offers a lot of options. We aren't locked into builds, we aren't locked into heroic or epic, we aren't locked into (for the most part) who we play with. So you have a population of players that want freedom, and you are now trying to restrict that for I don't know what reason. I can't imagine that's going to end well in the player numbers game.

This is a real concern for me, since if we end up with players getting frustrated and leaving, it hurts us all. Who cares if players run sagas or dailies? Who cares if people are running one-and-done or mindlessly grinding wiz king? Not me. They are all playing, and so they are all contributing to the game with their numbers and their money.

If you are worried about promoting LFMs, this won't do it.

What you are describing was one of the major reasons I stopped playing WoW and moved to DDO in the 1st place. WoW increasingly felt like it was more about "We know you'll enjoy all our content, so we're going to force you to do it so you can see how much you really like it".

There are really good reasons why people run the quests they run and skip others. Epic xp is going to be a concern and how this is going to impact the running of dailies will be interesting.

[gravisrs]

Perma-ransack of optionals and faster quest repeat xp degradation is a huge kick in the balls for two very significant groups:
- new players who can't afford vip and bases on free packs - they will have harder times to hit their first TR (even including those new f2p quests appearing from time to time)
- (less impact but still) Epic destiny exping (staying at cap or while epic TRing) - most of new quests are lvl 28+ and aren't much xp-profitable (being twice harder than old packs), plus lack of quests within range 20-28 for everyone who wants to ETR and fulfill their ED trees meanwhile. You've already made it harder increasing xp cap, now you takes xp from quest repeating. Also you mitigate usefullness of that Call of Destiny Elixir you introduced just a while ago.

Dang I wish I had all my ETR's done at old good times... poor new players, you'll never catch up with old dudes.

[erethizon]

might be too much, but is an idea to keep in mind.

RXP SAGA

for example places with low rxp with or without 1st time bonus, having a saga reward, according to the skulls you completed those quests on

I do love the idea of a Reaper experience saga reward. I don't ever use the saga rewards for experience if I am just doing one epic past life per racial past life but extra reaper experience would be valuable.

[JQP]

Generally, I think the changes look fine with these exceptions:

I would increase the xp for the Motu quests--increasing them by 10% will not make it any more likely that I will run them. Unless I am flagging for CitW, I skip those quests now most of the time and will continue to do so. If you want more people to run them, make them easier to get to, and make them more fun to play.

It seems to me (and some of the other posters seem to agree) that reaper xp will drop on first time completions after this. That seems like a bad idea to me. On thinly populated servers, it is hard enough to get any way (very few if any groups running heroic or early epic reaper at level) and seeing a drop seems to only unfairly penalize those who 1) are on sparsely populated servers; 2) have progressed through the game at a slower rate; or 3) have only recently started to play the game and are trying to "catch-up".

Why does everyone get so worked up about "dailys"? I tend to run quests once or twice (only if there is an epic version) during a 1-30 life, but if other folks are having fun running Wiz King (which I seldom run) every day, why not let them? This is a game and it is supposed to be fun.

I think the devs are doing a great job with the game. Most of this update looks great, but I would strongly recommend that they consider finding ways to address these issues.

[Elharith]

5. Optional objectives will ransack, and that ransack will not reset over time; they are essentially being changed to a play-through bonus with ransack that only resets with a Racial, True and Iconic Reincarnations. To compensate, optional objectives will ransack more slowly. With this change we can add more, or make more of them have greater rewards. Note: the reduced rate at which optional objectives ransack has not yet been changed on the test server.

Sev~

I will add my voice to the chorus of "Bad Idea."

Here is my perspective:

1. I have friends who play one or two or three lives and that's ALL they want to play for that alt. They like having a toon at cap and do not intend to TR or ER or anything related to starting a new life once they hit that point; they just want a viable character to play at cap. Ransacking optional objectives would take away at least half, maybe more than half, of the enjoyment they gain from doing a quest from start to finish with everything in that quest included. They don't do dailies, they don't zerg, they just decide what they want to play that day and do the entire thing. And they offer to help others get to cap. Since they are playing at cap, xp is irrelevant to them, BUT what if someone who isn't at cap joins the party? If the optional is ransacked for one person in the party, is it ransacked for everyone? It's completely different than ransacking a chest which is a personal ransack counter. If it isn't ransacked for everyone, but half the party does dailies and has their optionals ransacked are they going to be willing to run the entirety of the quest or just want to zerg through to the end? This could potentially ruin many party dynamics because people are going to start asking if you've ransacked your optionals before letting you into the party.

2. SEE point 1. NOT EVERYONE wants to TR. Some people I know prefer to cycle through a series of epic lives before completing a TR. Many of those players do a variety of quests getting to cap, and then when they ER since they already have the favor from the variety of quests, they just run through the highest-xp-granting quests to get through the ER. Usually slayers and explorers are capped, so dailies, and repeating sagas, rule the day. Ransacking optionals is going to discourage every one of those players because it will reduce the xp they get permanently. The suggestion to reset the ransack at ER too is a good one, but, again, SEE Point 1, with respect to party dynamics.

3. The points made by others about newer and f2p players are good ones. It is difficult to learn everything in the game all at once. So new players tend to repeat quests they know while they slowly add to their knowledge base. F2P players are limited by default to a group of quests that they have to repeat in order to earn xp. The game needs new and f2p players (many new players start out f2p as a test to whether they will like it well enough to spend money on) and alienating them from the get-go is a bad idea.

I understand the impetus behind the idea--get players playing more quests more--but this isn't the way to do that. Other suggestions have been made that would work much better such as increasing xp and/or favor for some low-favor-low played quests, creating new sagas from some of the related-but-less-played quest chains, and, at the very least, having the optional ransack reset for ERs as well as TR.