8th past life and why I quit DDO(again)

[Shear-buckler]

imo, the breaking point for a lot of new players is the harbor. the unorganized, undirected, unintuitive placement of quests, and the sameness of one sewer tunnel after another. and if you do manage to get through it, its on to the marketplace for more sewers and warehouses. This would be day 3 for a casual newbie to decide

inb4 "but borderlands!", they dont even see that

Well, if one is not into "unorganized, undirected and unintuitive" I dont think there is much hope to keep them around anyways

 

[Tumideon]

I'm on life 177 on my main, another 30 or so PLs between my 3 farmer alts, I would say that the XP cap increase for reincarnation (and the Drow 32 pt cap) is a relic of a bygone era - so that's valid criticism.

The other things like repeating content, there is SO MUCH content in this game. Not all of it is super polished, some of it is downright oppressive to run, but the DDO Wiki and PsychoBlondie maps are the best way to get through it. Hell, so much of the newer stuff from post-Sharn is linear, I've ran content I never had before like Night Brigade last life for the first time and zerged it. I'm not a ruthless xp/min person, even with 3.8M as long as I have a 30% or 50% pot (ideally) running I can get 1-20 in 3 or 4 nights of solid play for a few hours.

There is a point I think to be made about making the game more approachable. The last time the devs tried was with Korthos Island as a starter area, and then KOTB to soft-introduce quest-crafting, named items, mounts, modern wilderness, and what not. I think we're far beyond the point of a much more streamlined tutorial and starter area - perhaps consolidating some of the older quests into KOTB because at least it's a better first impression than the same 4 beta quests and the annoying ass Korthos "end mission". Add a saga, a new set, and update the Adventure Compendium. Add a "New Player" tab that walks them through and maybe bump up some F2P.

End of the day, this is a 22 year old game that has legacy codebases and tools that go back to AC2 and even before it (I mean, hell, DAT packaging is an AC1 relic). It's owned by a publisher that is in turn owned by a Swedish mega-corp who needs to profit. So yeah, there are some things that are going to force you to spend money like power creep, expansions, new loot, long runs to tick down your XP pots and the meta shifts based on what the EP and one or 2 devs feel like.

It's still a business. I still support it despite running into issues that the "Trying DDO In 20XX" newbie vids on YT and OP do, but I come back because I genuinely love the game and the chase. You're never truly "done", and I lived through DAOC, AC1 and AC2 all being shut down because no one wanted to go to the worlds anymore and I'd hate to see that happen again. So I'll keep buying Sov II's and Ultimates in a hope that I give it another few days of staying up.

That said, there really does need to be more done on the external marketing and retention story. It's one thing to get someone to not chuck themselves off a cliff running beta-era content in 2026, but it is a whole other thing to keep them engaged through the 100s of crafting systems, bonuses, trees, classes, stats, feats, and the reincarnation loop let alone the horrible Epic slog and eventually LTRs too.

If it wasn't for the "Eberron Unlimited" and F2P/"P2W" style of content today, DDO would've shutdown a long time ago. And if I gotta spend $1000 or 2 per year on DDO points for astrals, xp pots, tomes for alts and other meaningless BS well that's fine by me. It's my least expensive hobby after all. It costs me almost 6K to get a new ZCO 8-40 for my ELR rifles, those rifles cost 10-20K, and I cannot shoot all of them at once nor shoot for hours per day everyday. So cost:enjoyment ratio is still on DDO's side, even though a rifle can literally put elk on my table.

 

[The Narc2]

This game is a total trap, and based off the last posters comments, it seems it has convinced some players of delusional thoughts. I used to make cost comparisons too, for me it was VIP, i was comparing it to a night out to dinner and thinking no big deal.

The truth is about 12 years ago they started to design the game to slow player progress down in as many ways possible at the cost of fun thqt players were having, it was narrow minded and based off greed. Most of all it showed an utter disrespect for players time.

The ultimate realization that delusional players will find is when they step away from the game they will realize how much they have been slowly groomed to accept the predatory fashion of the design.

I personally tell my circle of real life friends and anybody else I talk to randomly to avoid starting to play this game at all costs, and that is mostly based off their lack of respect for their player base.

I use to invite and recommend this game to anyone and everyone I spoke to, but those days are long gone to the point I wouldnt recommend this game to my worst enemy.

 

[Buddha5440]

I dont care how people play the game. I care about the game attracting and retaining new players that are in the same audience-type group as established players. I love this game and have been playing it for 20 years. But if I found the game today there is no way I would have even given it a chance. I would have looked at the insane pay wall and the insane grind and just go "nope".
My argument is that things could easily be changed so that this hypothetical new player would go "yeah" instead of "nope" with nothing at all being lost for you or anyone else.

I am not even talking about the "pay to win" aspects.

There is NO pay wall. If you feel you need to pay for some convenience, that's on you. Nobody is forcing you to spend a dime on this game.

 

[Tumideon]

This game is a total trap, and based off the last posters comments, it seems it has convinced some players of delusional thoughts. I used to make cost comparisons too....

lol you mean me?

Far from delusional. I literally said the game is setup in such a way on purpose. Make the grind harder, longer, more min/max and you get people dumping in sums of cash for re-rolls, XP pots, Tomes, adventure packs for expansions etc. It's the cost of doing business. And I put money in, who gives a crap what I do with my money? It aint yours. There are worst hobbies out there.

 

[The Narc2]

Thats all fine and dandy until you start talking about better marketing and try to suggest spending thousands of dollars is cost enjoyment ratio in the favor of DDO.

needless to say I disagree.

 

[Shear-buckler]

There is NO pay wall. If you feel you need to pay for some convenience, that's on you. Nobody is forcing you to spend a dime on this game.

There is a paywall. That you are not literally forced to pay it is beside the point. What matters is what you get if you pay vs if you dont pay, or in other words the game you get to play if you play vs if you dont pay. There is a massive difference and I know that I would never start playing the game in the current state, and I think that it is reasonable that players like me should be part of the target audience among new players.

Please run your post through an AI before you reply, and dont bother replying if all you are going to harp on about is the semantics of the term "pay wall".

 

[Buddha5440]

There is a paywall. That you are not literally forced to pay it is beside the point. What matters is what you get if you pay vs if you dont pay, or in other words the game you get to play if you play vs if you dont pay. There is a massive difference and I know that I would never start playing the game in the current state, and I think that it is reasonable that players like me should be part of the target audience among new players.

Please run your post through an AI before you reply, and dont bother replying if all you are going to harp on about is the semantics of the term "pay wall".

If you are not forced to pay, there is No Pay Wall...What about that do you not understand?

 

[Buddha5440]

Again, that is just semantics. I explained exactly what I meant by the term and that I fully agree that there is no literal pay wall.

That you are not literally forced to pay it is beside the point. What matters is what you get if you pay vs if you dont pay, or in other words the game you get to play if you play vs if you dont pay. There is a massive difference and I know that I would never start playing the game in the current state, and I think that it is reasonable that players like me should be part of the target audience among new players.

Please run your post through an AI before you reply, and dont bother replying if all you are going to harp on about is the semantics of the term "pay wall".

So in one post you say there is a Pay Wall and in another you say there is no Pay Wall. Someone is using semantics but it is not me.

 

[Oliphant]

As a meaning enjoyer I'm a big semantics fan.

 

[erethizon1]

Unless you are dealing with caster taxes for things like spell penetration. The extra +9 from there is insane value for an otherwise super feat starved class like Dark Apostate that is absolutely on the hook for the usual caster meta feats, necromancy DC, and the new negative energy bypass feat duo. They still want to have Slay Living and Destruction usable too. But trying to lean over for spell pen feats on top of the already required stuff is a big problem.

So no, they aren't always just a bonus. They make a gigantic difference between can and cannot for certain caster or tank minimum viability cut-offs. DPS builds might treat it as just bonus gravy. Largely because they don't get absolutely slapped by requirement after requirement that are heavily based around limited feat slots. Because a martial DPS can just swap weapons and/or ammo to meet a given DR check. The poor caster or tank has an absolute minimum they MUST reach or they simply fail to perform.

You bring up the actual problem and the answer to "why do you care what other people do?" We care what other people are doing because the developers keep designing the game around those players. Content keeps getting harder and harder and it is based on the better players. Every raid comes out with almost everyone playing it on hard because the players are not good enough to do elite or R1. If the best players were as weak as the rest of us, the difficulty of new content would not be cranked up as high as it is.

Past lives are great. They are the thing that keeps me playing. But it is definitely a problem when spell penetration checks and DC's are designed to make the game challenging for people that have all past lives. The purpose of getting the +9 spell penetration from past lives should be to make it so that you go from a 50% spell penetration success rate to a 95% success rate. But that only works if they are considered a bonus and not factored into the calculations when deciding how difficult new content needs to be. Having all the past lives, especially when coupled with great gear, should simply make the game very easy, because the entire point of building up power is to circumvent challenge. If you wanted challenge you wouldn't be purposely making yourself stronger.

We have such a massive gap between the most powerful and the average player that game balance becomes impossible. Thankfully they added casual and reaper so we have 14 difficulty settings now instead of 3, but they keep making the 4 lowest difficulties way harder than they need to simply because some of the players are extremely strong. It takes way, way to long for raids to be played on elite or R1 by the majority of pick up groups. It takes literally years before the power of the average player is finally strong enough for people to be able to play on the 4th of 14 difficulty settings. That is a problem caused by designing the game around power most people don't have.

 

[Shear-buckler]

So in one post you say there is a Pay Wall and in another you say there is no Pay Wall. Someone is using semantics but it is not me.

That you are not literally forced to pay it is beside the point. What matters is what you get if you pay vs if you dont pay, or in other words the game you get to play if you play vs if you dont pay. There is a massive difference and I know that I would never start playing the game in the current state, and I think that it is reasonable that players like me should be part of the target audience among new players.

Please run your post through an AI before you reply, and dont bother replying if all you are going to harp on about is the semantics of the term "pay wall".

 

[erethizon1]

There is NO pay wall. If you feel you need to pay for some convenience, that's on you. Nobody is forcing you to spend a dime on this game.

I am also someone that doesn't think paywalls and pay to win exists in most games (they are common complaints people make that really just mean the game takes longer than they want it to), but DDO and LOTRO really do deny you access to the vast majority of the game from the beginning. You play happily until level 10 or so and then discover and almost every quest is locked. That is bad F2P design and is easily fixed by either making free code content free all the time or making quest packs cost 25 store points each, at least for content that is more than 5 or 10 years old. People really do leave when they discover there is nothing to do but repeat the same 5 quests because those are all that exist in their level range. That is the paywall.

 

[Buddha5440]

I am also someone that doesn't think paywalls and pay to win exists in most games (they are common complaints people make that really just mean the game takes longer than they want it to), but DDO and LOTRO really do deny you access to the vast majority of the game from the beginning. You play happily until level 10 or so and then discover and almost every quest is locked. That is bad F2P design and is easily fixed by either making free code content free all the time or making quest packs cost 25 store points each, at least for content that is more than 5 or 10 years old. People really do leave when they discover there is nothing to do but repeat the same 5 quests because those are all that exist in their level range. That is the paywall.

And yet they give out a free quest code every year, for the recent past, that allows you to get all but the newest content for free.

 

[Buddha5440]

That you are not literally forced to pay it is beside the point. What matters is what you get if you pay vs if you dont pay, or in other words the game you get to play if you play vs if you dont pay. There is a massive difference and I know that I would never start playing the game in the current state, and I think that it is reasonable that players like me should be part of the target audience among new players.

Please run your post through an AI before you reply, and dont bother replying if all you are going to harp on about is the semantics of the term "pay wall".

Yeah, that is called life. You get more when you pay for something. What a novel concept. If I pay $500 for a car it is likely not going to be as nice as if I pay $30,000 for it. Still, nobody is forcing me to do either.

Also, I never use AI because is is just a Xerox machine that I can find the same information it would give me.

 

[Vua]

Lay off the AI people.

 

[Jack Jarvis Esquire]

Lay off the AI people.

Wait! There are AI people already?!!?

That happened FAST!

 

[erethizon1]

If you are not forced to pay, there is No Pay Wall...What about that do you not understand?

A wall is an inconvenience. The fact that you can climb over the wall by playing the game in an incredibly unfun manner (making new characters, running quests on normal, then hard, then elite until you get 100 favor and deleting the character) as a way to circumvent the wall, doesn't mean the wall isn't there making your life miserable. I'm glad they have a way to earn free points, but this game is quite terrible if you try to pay nothing. Lord of the Rings Online is far more enjoyable when it comes to earning points as a new player. DDO is absolutely terrible until you have earned your first 5000 or so store points. There may be more than one way over the paywall, but it is a wall nonetheless and designed to be particularly miserable to make sure you realize that it is far easier to pay than to try and climb the hard way. And we lose of a lot of players because of just how miserable earning DDO points is for a new player. At the very least new people need to be able to open elite on a first life character if earning points 100 favor at a time is going to be reasonable.

I pride myself on grinding through F2P games. I purposely don't pay because I want the maximum grind. But this game doesn't have a reasonable store point grind at first. Having to run quests for one-third the favor because you are not even allowed to open elite is a real problem. The result is playing each quest 3 times each life, which makes the grind so much more boring than it needs to be. Since each run through a quest is worth only 2 or 3 favor each (4 on occasion for the best paying quests like Collaborator), it takes a massive number of quest completions to earn 25 points and then you need to do the process another 20 to 40 times to buy a single quest pack. I have earned well over 100,000 store points in LOTRO playing new characters and I enjoy it each time. Grinding new characters in DDO was absolute hell, to the point that I left the game and only came back because I started playing with someone else. This game makes it abundantly clear to any new F2P player that they are not welcome here if they don't pay money and that is how we lose so much of our potential population. Players that never pay a penny are massively valuable to F2P games because large player bases attract more people, including the people that spend the most on games.

 

[Buddha5440]

Wait! There are AI people already?!!?

That happened FAST!

Yeah, they replicate faster than humans.

 

[erethizon1]

And yet they give out a free quest code every year, for the recent past, that allows you to get all but the newest content for free.

That code is great, as long as people are playing at that time. I cannot count the number of new people I have helped through the game when the code was not around and they left before the code was ever offered. The fundamental problem with the free quest code is that it only helps the people are around at the time it is released and new players are the ones least likely to be around at that time. Most people don't stalk MMO's saying, "I am going to start playing this game sometime in the next 12 months, so I will start stalking their forums now so I can decide the best time to begin." If that were normal human behavior then sure, the quest code system would be tolerable. But as it stands, the quest code needs to be good for a year if they are only going to release it once a year. It expires way too fast leaving most new players without it and they don't last until the next time it comes around (since they would basically be required to more or less stop playing until it comes back around and by that time they will have lost interest in the game entirely).