SSG: Let's talk about Reaper crafting (and how to improve it)
- Thread starter TavernBrawler
- Start date
Epicsoul
Well-known member
It's no secret that most MMOs incorporate grindy systems to keep players engaged. As a min-maxing enthusiast, I find some of these systems appealing, like reincarnation. However, SSG makes several mistakes, specifically making gear maxing overly burdensome.
Achieving the optimal gear setup now demands a combination of mythic, reaper, and curse bonuses. All these bonuses are specific to a piece of gear that will likely not be used when you TR to a new class or will be replaced with more updated gear in the near future. Requiring such an extensive investment for gear that may become obsolete with each update feels like a form of player abuse.
In my view, having one of these systems would be sufficient to maintain a challenging yet rewarding gear progression, while preventing named loot from becoming trash in a chest. Whether it's curses, mythic items, or reaper bonuses, each presents its own set of challenges and accomplishments. However, the convergence of all three feels unnecessarily punitive. Pick one, and make the others easier to obtain.
I don't care what your design philosophy is. Developers should remember games are suppose to be fun and time invested rewarding, not stupidly punishing or arbitrary.
Achieving the optimal gear setup now demands a combination of mythic, reaper, and curse bonuses. All these bonuses are specific to a piece of gear that will likely not be used when you TR to a new class or will be replaced with more updated gear in the near future. Requiring such an extensive investment for gear that may become obsolete with each update feels like a form of player abuse.
In my view, having one of these systems would be sufficient to maintain a challenging yet rewarding gear progression, while preventing named loot from becoming trash in a chest. Whether it's curses, mythic items, or reaper bonuses, each presents its own set of challenges and accomplishments. However, the convergence of all three feels unnecessarily punitive. Pick one, and make the others easier to obtain.
I don't care what your design philosophy is. Developers should remember games are suppose to be fun and time invested rewarding, not stupidly punishing or arbitrary.
Ying
5000+ hours played
That's a Bingo.
The biggest gripe with reaper enchantments as they exist today: Builds and gear changes too much to invest 75 frags into anything other than a Dino raid helm. And that's only because you can re-craft that helm to be whatever you need it to be, without having to replace the underlying item. 5 MP/RP, +1 DCs, USP, etc on rings is theoretically nice but the cost of 75 frags (or the rarity in reaper items to get the frags) is simply too high.
Fisto Mk I
Well-known member
Col Kurtz
Well-known member
players can get a random cool little bonus and they revolt and protest, because they can't speed farm for it?
if perception is that reaper bonus items are making your build, or breaking your build for Not having it....there's something wrong here. Stop pushing DDO because it's inconvenient to farm for these tiny bonuses on the items. All they do is help players max out their numbers for screenshot bragging rights on a critical hit.
DDO players can sound like the most immature adolescent sometimes
the curse cards are a good example. People whined and got DDO to add more places to get the cards >SaGas. Now, its so easy to get the cards, I could pop a bonus on every item in my bank. Funny thing, is, DDO was not catering to the players! They put the reward in sagas to sell paywall blocked packs like Vecna. Without those packs, you can't make literally dozens of items with the curse bonus.Careful what you whine for playerbase... the reaper frags will be in the store soon
& maybe they should be?
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Epicsoul
Well-known member
Thank you for facilitating the conversation with your insights
. I always find labeling those with different opinions as immature and whiny is a good way to elevate my own perceived maturity amongst the masses Years eh? Not sure I believe this.
For various reasons (wife, friends, work, etc.), the amount of time I put into DDO time has been pretty low the past 2 years.
In that 2 years, my DDO time has been split between HCLs, leveling TRs, staying at cap for a couple weeks each TR to run some raids and R10s with guildies then TRing again. I'm not much of a zerger and tend to level slower than others. When leveling, I primarily solo and run R1.
I've never actively farmed for reaper bonus loot yet still have around 140 reaper frags just from playing the game normally. Thus, I find it hard to believe that anyone who regularly runs R10s for 2+ years wouldn't have at least 100 fragments by now.
I've got guildies who have 3+ reaper crafted items. One or two of them with higher amounts of game time probably have 5+.
That said, my opinion when the devs implement loot systems with stupidly rare drop chances, insanely high component requirements, or crazy time sinks is that they're not worth the time and effort. The only way to win those stupid type of games is to not play them.
Things like the reaper crafting system and the card curses are completely non-essential, optional perks. This game can easily be played even in R10s without a single reaper bonus on your gear. Ditto for good card curses, etc.
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erethizon1
Well-known member
The definition of selfish is: (of a person, action, or motive) lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure.
You don't have to put a moral judgement on it, but it is definitely selfish. We didn't used to have to pick between helping others or ourselves because helping others came at a very minor cost. Now it comes at a much greater cost. Living creatures, including humans, are naturally selfish. The game didn't need to be designed to encourage it even more. We had a system before that didn't so strongly discourage helping others because it didn't so strongly reward thinking only of one's self.
There are thousands of single-player games where players can think only of themselves. Good MMO design does not encourage selfishness above and beyond what is already natural. The game had a better system before and it can have it again without any penalty to those that want to think only of themselves. They will still get their reward, but they also will have the opportunity to help others at the same time.
erethizon1
Well-known member
The issue with reaper fragments is that they are so rare, and there is so much gear of so many levels for so many classes that we play, that reaper fragments may as well not exist. I know myself. I know the speed at which I make decisions that have an opportunity cost. And I can say, with 99.9% certainty, that I will never craft a reaper bonus on anything ever. I don't know how many thousand reaper fragments I would need to feel comfortable blowing 75 of them on an item I know I will only use for a small amount of my DDO playtime, but I am almost certain to never get to that point.players can get a random cool little bonus and they revolt and protest, because they can't speed farm for it?
if perception is that reaper bonus items are making your build, or breaking your build for Not having it....there's something wrong here. Stop pushing DDO because it's inconvenient to farm for these tiny bonuses on the items. All they do is help players max out their numbers for screenshot bragging rights on a critical hit.
DDO players can sound like the most immature adolescent sometimes
Careful what whine for playerbase... the reaper frags will be in the store soon
Thus, my displeasure that they decided to make the destruction of reaper gear the cornerstone of the system. If I am going to get a reaper bonus on an item, it is because it is going to drop in a chest. I run even heroic quests on high reaper every life because that is how reaper bonuses are going to be found on gear that we use. And it would be better for all of us if reaper crafting did not require destroying gear other people in the party would use. We all benefit from a system of reaper crafting that doesn't strongly discourage generosity. It used to be way easier to get reaper bonuses on gear, before they added reaper crafting, because people much more often passed what you were looking for.
Guntango
Well-known member
The game developers do their best to please most of the population. While you think reaper/mythic bonuses are novel and unnecessary, I farm like crazy to get them on my main gear. What’s normal to you is basic to me, and that’s ok.players can get a random cool little bonus and they revolt and protest, because they can't speed farm for it?
if perception is that reaper bonus items are making your build, or breaking your build for Not having it....there's something wrong here. Stop pushing DDO because it's inconvenient to farm for these tiny bonuses on the items. All they do is help players max out their numbers for screenshot bragging rights on a critical hit.
DDO players can sound like the most immature adolescent sometimes
Careful what whine for playerbase... the reaper frags will be in the store soon
The problem I have with the curse mechanism is the randomness of the reward for the same grind; ie, I farm cards from the quests they drop in and reroll those chests - very repeatable resources spent for a relatively reliable number of cards. Unlike yourself, however, as a player who actually cares to farm the best loot available, getting extra bard songs on my barb’s mythic 3 reaper 3 melee power ring actually devalues my gear, to me. So, for me, the devs spent (wasted) a lot of time and resources on such a random payoff for grind time spent that I’m gonna sit those cards out unless they make desired reward drops more reasonable.
Same could be said for the reaper/mythic bonuses, but since I love running reapers on multiple toons as part of my endgame, I have reaper frags that I save for a rainy day. If they made the frags easier to get, I’d use them more.
Since you and I can have vastly different opinions but still chit chat like old buds, maybe you could find a way to not call people names when they see things differently. It just undermines your position.
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_fully_carroted_
Well-known member
my thoughts on your idea are "no"