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

[Phoenicis]

What happens at 8th past life? I didn't know they changed it from the 3rd past life.

Lives 1-4 are now base XP.
Lives 5-7 are now 1.5 times base XP
Lives 8+ are now 2 times base XP

 

[Ptalon]

I wish I could just quit my job and play videos games all day every day. instead, I pay less than what the average person spends on coffee, every month, to just come home too tired to completely enjoy my VIP status and latest expansion pack.

 

[Baconator]

I wish I could just quit my job and play videos games all day every day. instead, I pay less than what the average person spends on coffee, every month, to just come home too tired to completely enjoy my VIP status and latest expansion pack.

Im retired,(not by choice) trust me, keep working. don't ever stop. Having all this free time isn't what you think it might be.

 

[TedSandyman]

You can afford $600 over three years? That is $200 per year. The low tier on the newest update is $39. Lamorida is $39. Myth drannor is $39. It isn't crazy expensive. I never get anything but the lowest tier. The game is the fun, everything else is just fluff.

 

[Ahser]

I always thought that increasing XP needed to level up during subsequent TRs is ridiculous, even with recent changes. There are so many lives, the grind seems insurmountable.

 

[Gimp]

Lagin, this is sage advise.

 

[Guntango]

Hello,

The exp on heroic is complete garbage logic. I just wanted to say that really lol. I can't tell you how much fun I've had on DDO but having to repeat sagas because I don't own all of them and forced to deal with this clear pay wall after I've spent well over $600 now on my account and my wife's ($1,200) dollars mind you. So as someone who very much enjoyed DDO love the game the 100% increase in heroic exp is the worst MMO design logic I have ever seen in my entire life. At first I didn't care too much and it didn't really bother me. But now honestly redoing sagas right after I did them because I haven't bought the new ones man it's worse than a dumpster fire. I have played through the game 8 times now and repeated sagas in the past on legendary which is fine, but doing it in heroics is pure torture. So yeah, I dropped the game my wife and I really just are so bored of trying to find exp from quest and being under leveled because we don't have isle of dread, limbordia, or any of the newer stuff.

I get if you already have 100 past life's or something but as someone who just hit 8... Yeah I can tell you something, as a normal person with a life working 8-5 every m-f with church, and other things going on ain't no way. I can see why people quit after 8 past life's, I didn't think it was that big of a wall but it's bigger than the great wall of China...

Now I know a lot of elitist here will say I'm wrong because it's so "fun" but man... If it was actually fun to be put through a meat grinder of sagas again and again, well I think the player count speaks for itself on that concept. But I look at the game as a casual person playing an MMO and I feel like DDO has no casual players anymore. Because anyone that's stayed on DDO is people who fought through the lag. We need more casual people to rise up because I get it, you have 100 past lives and perfect gear and every DLC, I get it I know you played since 2006 or 2008 whenever. But dude... I started in 2023. I only have 700 hours almost.

Moral of the story too long didn't read: HTR 100% increase in exp is horrible. Game needs to be more accessible to casual people. On my 8th past life got to 15 this crap is boring, not fun, many reasons why.

How long did it take you to get to 8 past lives (no, not a full 3 years, because you probably are just getting used to the grind, now realizing the hill you have left to climb, hence the 2026 post). If it takes you a month per past life, you're at 12 PLs a year. In 16 years or so you'll be triple uber compleesh. EZMODETM

 

[Bravgji]

tbh yeah to spend $1200 and not have every DLC class and race you must've bought hundreds of copies of every cosmetic on the store or something.

 

[Bravgji]

agree with the EXP requirement increases though, idk why they exist.

 

[in4theride75]

tbh yeah to spend $1200 and not have every DLC class and race you must've bought hundreds of copies of every cosmetic on the store or something.

He stated he bought multiple ultimate collector bundles for 2 accounts. Those add up REALLY fast.

 

[Oliphant]

Can attest I've been playing old low life toons recently and heroics are actually fun without the contrived inconvenience XP that eventually sets down upon you.

 

[Bravgji]

He stated he bought multiple ultimate collector bundles for 2 accounts. Those add up REALLY fast.

okay but those bundles are not necessary to play the game (which he is saying is the problem), the "play the game part" is the basic edition or store-brought. if he brought the basic version of each expansion he'd have plenty of money left

 

[Rusty_helmet]

Oh jeez. You think the game should be free? The entitlement of people. “I had to spend money to play a fame!!” No you didn’t you are an adult. Make your own decisions and if you can’t handle spending some money on this hobby then this hobby isn’t for you.

You should check out golf or firearms as a hobby and get back to me on cost. This game is one of the cheapest hobbies you can have.

 

[unbongwah]

If you are no longer having fun, then quitting the game is the correct response. I've done so several times over the years, then come back when there's enough new content to try or I'm simply in the mood to play again.

But just because the grind exists doesn't mean you have to farm all of it. There are threads devoted to making endgame-viable first-life builds. The Reincarnation Train is a prison of one's own making.

 

[warioman91]

Also the annual code fives you all of that stuff but the tomes for free...

I will point out here that you are likely a seasoned player based on how you are speaking of your pure FTP experience, which means you are patient and good at looking for/waiting for sales, know what is most efficient, have already planned things out for efficiency, and are willing to do the grind for the experience of doing the grind. The average new player is nothing like that, and WILL find the game inconvenient.

Bottom line, DDO is a pay for convenience game. You can play for free. You can, with certain delays in content access, get the entire game for free. (though, if you don't have a good idea of what you're doing and/or don't have much patience, that certainly is difficult!). But the devs gotta eat, and server space costs money, as does buying 4 new servers and setting them up and organizing a massive transfer of characters with banked items and stuff in their TR caches and on and on and on, and keeping customer support up (I have actually gotten timely responses from customer support, they do exist and do do their jobs), and fixing bugs, and running preview streams and a beta test server and so on.

IG my position is that I don't necessarily object to the increasing grind once you're committed to the game. By 8th life you should either have figured out what you need to speed up leveling, and bought it with favor DDO points, or shelled out for a few purchases. Maybe you even whaled on an expac ultimate edition, or bought a sub. All of that WILL increase your convenience, of course. But at the same time, you don't technically HAVE to buy anything with real money, and the absolute most the average player should be shelling out is 40 bucks every 6-9 months for a new expansion pack, maybe 20 bucks or so to get a tome of learning and some other goodies if you can't stand grinding content or are new enough to the game that you aren't able to grind it efficiently.

tl;dr I think it's unfair to expect a new player to know and have patience for the optimal way to grind favor for maximum DDO point gains, but also OP has clearly missed some really obvious ways to make his experience more convenient and probably even missed some flat out handouts from the devs. 600 bucks per account and not having all the content after multiple years of all non-expac content being handed out for free, and sales with the expacs being discounted heavily, just does not compute to me. Much less having so little content that he has to repeat sagas multiple times to level. The math just isn't mathing.

I wouldn't call myself a seasoned player. I've only ever played a toon through a single reincarnation---I just take the time to understand the systems(wiki). I don't think OP is doing that.

Actively avoiding the coupon quest pack code on this account for the purpose of showing what the reality of a f2p account pure would be like. It's not the same as it once was. There's a few more quests available right away to free accounts. Most importantly the 200% xp required is now backloaded to life 8, not life 3.

 

[axemania]

How long did it take you to get to 8 past lives (no, not a full 3 years, because you probably are just getting used to the grind, now realizing the hill you have left to climb, hence the 2026 post). If it takes you a month per past life, you're at 12 PLs a year. In 16 years or so you'll be triple uber compleesh. EZMODETM

current total PL cap is (75 heroic inc. archetypes + 51 racial + 54 epic + 36 iconic of which 33 can be used to double as class PLs given stock builds) = about 183 lives.

Epic and iconic lives are faster so if you double up the epic lives with racials and heroics, and you run pdk or mindcleaver as something other than fighter/LR into dragonlord, that's 180-54=126

Even at a month per PL that's 10.5 years to be godmode supercompletionist roflstomper with 15% energy absorption 17 RAP 45 PRR +30 AC +66 HP +21 MRR +180 SP +6 to attack +6 to melee damage +9 to ranged damage +18 universal spellpower +30 heailng amp +2 STR +5 DEX +3 CON +2 INT +2 WIS +3 CHA +3 Fort saves +3 will saves +3 reflex saves +15% fortification +3% dodge and a whole lot of other **** I can't be bothered to remember as a NAKED FRESH LEVEL 1.

Having +30 AC alone basically makes you immune to melee and ranged attacks for the first few levels. Add in dodge and fortification and you're unlikely to ever dip below 20 hp unless you're doing upper reapers at low levels.
+66 hp means you only need to worry about your hp for the first like 5 levels if a reaper shows up.
+6 attack +6 melee +9 ranged damage means you barely have to worry about hitting or damaging enemies.
+30 healing amp means a starter potion of heal light wounds will easily counter for any HP you lose to a reaper.
The RAP mean you'll have half your racial tree filled out immediately which means if you picked Dwarf you're basically invincible and if you picked Eladrin congratulations you have all the sneak attack dice ever
+180 SP and +18 universal SP plus the other random SP buffs means you essentially don't need to shrine until like level 5 or 6.

I think it's totally fair to expect people to play the game a few years to be THAT powerful!

 

[axemania]

I wouldn't call myself a seasoned player. I've only ever played a toon through a single reincarnation---I just take the time to understand the systems(wiki). I don't think OP is doing that.

Actively avoiding the coupon quest pack code on this account for the purpose of showing what the reality of a f2p account pure would be like. It's not the same as it once was. There's a few more quests available right away to free accounts. Most importantly the 200% xp required is now backloaded to life 8, not life 3.

Fair enough, though I would counter that since it seems the coupon code is going to be regularly available every year for a month at a time it SHOULD be considered a basic part of a FTP experience.

 

[Phaedra]

My biggest question is why spend $600 in 3 years when you could go VIP for half that price, get access to almost everything, and get enough points from VIP to buy everything else? Then you also get all the benefits of being VIP, including extra XP, and spend less money.

It' not almost everything anymore, and it's only a fraction of the content most people run most of the time.

If VIP were meaningfully "most of the content" It would be way more defensible, and the lackluster insultingly bad "VIP Rewards" would be a nice-to-have addition.

 

[in4theride75]

It' not almost everything anymore, and it's only a fraction of the content most people run most of the time.

If VIP were meaningfully "most of the content" It would be way more defensible, and the lackluster insultingly bad "VIP Rewards" would be a nice-to-have addition.

While I do agree the value of VIP has decreased over the years it's still 85% (84.6%) of all quests. You may have a different personal definition of almost all but I'd consider 85% to be almost all.

 

[Solarpower]

It' not almost everything anymore, and it's only a fraction of the content most people run most of the time.

Yet it gives more than enough to run quests 1 time without the need to redo Sagas.