Alternative to Past lives and Reaper Enhancements

[PyrotechRick]

There have been lots of threads discussing how the accumulation of multiple past lives and reaper points by veteran players has created an environment that makes it difficult for new players to catch up and discourages them from joining the game. Not everyone agrees with that point of view but I do think this is an issue.

For those people that have worked hard to accumulate past lives and reaper points it is clearly a large issue to simply remove these and it isn’t much better to allow new players to obtain these benefits more easily as this invalidated all their hard work. However I think that it would be possible to leverage two existing game systems, favour and guilds, to create a system to address this. I apologise if this has been suggested elsewhere.

Rather than acquiring past life feats from reincarnating, or reaper XP/Reaper points from completing high Skull quests, Characters would earn favour (I prefer “reputation” but the idea is the same). This could be labelled “Reaper Favour” or “Past Life Favour” or could just be generic favour and may or may nor unlock specific character benefits. The main idea though is that high favour/reputation characters confer a bonus to any guild they are in from that high reputation. This would probably be an increase on guild level and/or the maximum level the guild can reach and thus the amenities it can access. When a Character leaves a guild or moves to a different guild they take those benefits with them.

Some of the benefits of past lives and reaper enhancements could be made available through high level guild amenities. This allows veteran players to confer the benefits of their experience and hard work on new players without having to create an entirely new system. It allows these players to retain some mechanical benefits form their hard work form better guild amenities (though they share these with everyone on the guild). It also offers players something in return for the loss of overall power that might come form loosing some of the mechanical benefits of specific past life feats or reaper enhancements in the form of influence within their guild and kudos from fellow players, though this is admittedly less tangible than those mechanical benefits.

Such a system would need a degree of calibration to decide which benefits go where but I wonder if the underlying principle couldn’t work?

 

[Mornyngstar]

What about amenities that could only be bought if the guild is lv 151+ and the person purchasing it has X # of reaper points. These amenities duplicate (thereby overlap) some of the low level reaper bonuses (thereby sharing the reaper runners knowledge) with the Guild. This would draw new players into guilds and give them a boost in the first gathering of reaper points but not add to the power creep since the bonuses overlap and not stack.
There could also be a top tier amenity of lv 200 guild, bought by someone with max Reaper points that grants something that stacks with everything. I.E. a Reaper Monument that grants +1% reaper xp.
Now the downside, what happens if the person that has the reaper points leaves? Do they have the ability to detect and then remove the amenity if there is not a player with sufficient Reaper Points? This is to deter someone jumping from guild to guild grabbing the amenities for each guild then leaving. On the other hand, if it was treated as accumulated reaper xp across all toons in the guild (similar to Guild Renown) thereby when someone leaves, they take their Reaper Renown with them unlike Guild Renown.

 

[Dom]

However I think (And I can't point to a link right now) it was the reaper mechanic that was first discussed as being changed to a "shared power" mechanic. I would agree that past lives are more in need of a "catch up" mechanic. I do think though that reaper enhancement trees which gradually make playing in reaper mode easier somewhat undermine the idea of Reaper as a high challenge mode...but that's a different topic.

Saying that reaper enhancement trees make playing in reaper easier and undermines the idea of a high challenge mode makes no sense. I'll leave it at that because the thread is going to get derailed otherwise, but I think you should reconsider that statement.

 

[PyrotechRick]

What about amenities that could only be bought if the guild is lv 151+ and the person purchasing it has X # of reaper points. These amenities duplicate (thereby overlap) some of the low level reaper bonuses (thereby sharing the reaper runners knowledge) with the Guild. This would draw new players into guilds and give them a boost in the first gathering of reaper points but not add to the power creep since the bonuses overlap and not stack.
There could also be a top tier amenity of lv 200 guild, bought by someone with max Reaper points that grants something that stacks with everything. I.E. a Reaper Monument that grants +1% reaper xp.
Now the downside, what happens if the person that has the reaper points leaves? Do they have the ability to detect and then remove the amenity if there is not a player with sufficient Reaper Points? This is to deter someone jumping from guild to guild grabbing the amenities for each guild then leaving. On the other hand, if it was treated as accumulated reaper xp across all toons in the guild (similar to Guild Renown) thereby when someone leaves, they take their Reaper Renown with them unlike Guild Renown.

Yes that's largely what I was thinking. I don't have an exact answer for what happens when a character leaves a guild. I guess it depends on what the technology can do as well as what works best.

 

[PyrotechRick]

Saying that reaper enhancement trees make playing in reaper easier and undermines the idea of a high challenge mode makes no sense. I'll leave it at that because the thread is going to get derailed otherwise, but I think you should reconsider that statement.

Thanks for not derailing the thread. I've created a separate thread incase you want to try and change my mind because I do find it hard to understand how giving enhancements, that give progressively greater bonuses when playing in a particular mode, don't eventually make that mode easier and easier. I'm happy for any one to explain to me what I'm missing though.

 

[Nebless]

Why do people always think 'new players need to catch up'? It's stupid, especially here where players are constantly reincarnating? The goal post is always moving. Short of an auto boost with X number of lives attached you can buy it's never going to happen unless the experienced players stop playing and just wait for the newbies to catch up, and how realistic is that?

Say you've been playing since 2009 and you get a friend to try out the game. Does he really need to 'catch up' to your character to play? OR isn't it more likely you'll just create a new character so you can quest together?

 

[PyrotechRick]

Why do people always think 'new players need to catch up'? It's stupid, especially here where players are constantly reincarnating? The goal post is always moving. Short of an auto boost with X number of lives attached you can buy it's never going to happen unless the experienced players stop playing and just wait for the newbies to catch up, and how realistic is that?

Say you've been playing since 2009 and you get a friend to try out the game. Does he really need to 'catch up' to your character to play? OR isn't it more likely you'll just create a new character so you can quest together?

Don't think of it as a "catch up" mechanic as much as a narrowing of the gap between new and veteran players in regard to what content they can do. And the reason I think that is important is that the population is low and there aren't lots of new players that can play with each other until they get to know the game. Many will just leave if they cant contribute in some way and that can't be good for the long term health of the game. .

 

[Onyxia2016]

My perspective it a "catchup mechanic" would only really apply to high reaper.
A first life character can contribute and carry their own in all level appropriate content up to reaper without question.
Some can even do low reaper without issue but a new player should focus more on the base game and levels to understand their chosen character/path before venturing into reaper.

Once you know how to play and build a decent character, usually over a couple of past lives, then is when you put that knowledge and design to the test by giving reaper a go. Keep bumping you the reaper level until you find your break point. Then see what is needed to advance. Could be different gear, point spending in trees, strategy, etc..

This build, test, fall on your face, redesign is what makes DDO so engaging. I mean there are only some many times you can just run the same quests over and over. Figuring out how to do it better and at harder difficulties are just as much part of the game as running Korthos the first time.

 

[Griglok (Karatemack)]

Here's what I see for past lives:

1. Due to power creep on gear, feats, enhancements, filigrees, etc., it's difficult to find a reaper setting that you feel prepared for but is also challenging until you hit R8-10. This leads to the perception that you need PLs to be successful, because a lot of players don't know which builds can be effective without past lives. I am grateful to those on the forums who share effective builds that don't require a ton of PLs. We need more of that in the community.
2. Racial lives = racial AP. Epic lives = destiny points. Adapting builds you see on the forums to account for less AP/DP isn't easy, and if you don't have all the PLs done, it's easy to see why you would view lack of AP/DP as a major barrier to your success. I think front-loading the extra AP on the racial lives would be a wonderful QoL change. Most of the build flexibility comes from the extra points, granting these to players earlier would provide a huge boost to the character and I would be willing to bet less would actually care about triple completionist if it were implemented.
3. Some people want to have all the PLs simply because they exist. That's ok. It's not a great reason to make a change to the game. But the have's vs the have not's will always be a thing. This applies equally to RXP. You don't need all the PLs or RXP to be successful in R10 quests, or even to participate in R10 raids.
4. Past lives do buy you build flexiblity/freedom. Whether or not it's true, the perception that all the PLs/RXP are necessary has real impacts on the game. Here are some benefits to solving for this:
   1. New(er)/returning players feel less under the weight of insurmountable grind.
   2. Alt-play is encouraged.
   3. As people "finish" their characters, more of them would opt to enter high reaper and play at cap.
   4. There would be more support for future grinds (IE: Legendary TR) if more people were "finished" with the old grinds on at least 1 character.

 

[rabidfox]

I've easily earned 25+ reaper points on hardcore. Wings have been earned on HC by people, twice. Spend times in reapers at cap, get reaper points; it's one of the least grindy aspects of the game if one runs reapers. Fun fact, I know lots of people with less reaper points on their mains than my HC characters have gotten; their play choices are what hold them back there and I'm okay with that as it's their choice for what's fun to them.

 

[Guntango]

The thing is - the very words "with an R10 group" is what makes the rich richer and the poor not so much richer.

If you hang out with a group / guild of R10 players you can take turns being the one bringing a weak character and earn those rxp really fast. If you are not part of such a group you will not find it that easy to just go join R10 groups for 36 hours, in particular if this is your first character so you do not have the experience with R10 from a strong character prior.

So, I do understand your point, but it should also be clear that your example does carry an element of elitism.

Even so, I dont think reaper xp needs to be easier - the system is indeed very frontloaded (maybe not 58 points in 36 hours, but still front loaded). It is probably the best of all the systems when it comes to being front loaded and thus the least in need of a catch-up mechanic.

Good Sir - just do it. Put that R10 LFM up and free yourself. Blaming elitists is so boring.

I left the game at cap 25 a DDO superstar. I came back a complete noob - reaper had been introduced, new stats, new mechanics. I grinded and took my lumps. I quickly found that I did not want to waste precious first time rxp on low reaper and relentlessly hit R10s, ready or not. I was no elitist at level 26 with 4 RP running r10s, and it certainly doesn't take an elitist to do the math.

Getting the fourth core in grim barricade might be a better goal for a new player, but it is certainly not elitist to suggest it.

JUST DO IT.

If I see an r10 up in the LFMs, I'm likely to join even if they're complete noobs. Just that they're out there trying push is incentive.

So, you see, if us so-called elitists join r10s when we see them, that relative noob with brass b***s hitting r10s has just met a few people who may invite them in their next R10 trains. Now, a noob has a static R10 group. Or are they an elitist now?

 

[rabidfox]

just do it. Put that R10 LFM up and free yourself.

Doing it is the key. I earned wings off the pug scene back when I was in a tiny guild of a few old school friends (and I was only one who regularly played); so pugging was the only real option for me. Even if a group is just running mid-skulls, it's way more RXP than never going into the quests at all. I enjoy when people complain there's never any LFMs listed but they also never list any themselves; I see that complaint fairly frequently (if someone lists LFMs, and they never get others to join, then that's a whole other issue with the game).

 

[Guntango]

Racial lives = racial AP. Epic lives = destiny points. Adapting builds you see on the forums to account for less AP/DP isn't easy, and if you don't have all the PLs done, it's easy to see why you would view lack of AP/DP as a major barrier to your success. I think front-loading the extra AP on the racial lives would be a wonderful QoL change. Most of the build flexibility comes from the extra points, granting these to players earlier would provide a huge boost to the character and I would be willing to bet less would actually care about triple completionist if it were implemented.

Please do this immediately. AP, then skill, then stat. Great idea.

 

[rabidfox]

Please do this immediately. AP, then skill, then stat. Great idea.

I'm calling it now on how the conversation would go:
SSG: "Good news, racial past lives will now in the order of AP, then skill, then stat."
Player1: "SSG sucks, it should be AP, stat, then skill. Why do you hate us? I'm deleting my account."
Player2: "Leave it the old way, I earned it and others can too."
Player3: "Great idea. Love it."
Player4: "Just delete past lives and be done with it. This change still means I have to grind out 14 whole lives!"
Player...

 

[woq]

I don't like the idea of a guild-based past life system or account wide lives, at least one that fully stacks or one that reaches all the way to quadruple uber completionist. Tying more power to guilds is not good, guild buffs are already huge and lacking them is a huge downside. Adding more sounds awful.

Maybe there could be a low ceiling amount of past lives you could bring that essentially work for the past life system similarly to how Veteran status does - if you have a turbocompletionist (or whatever, maybe don't even need it, just VIP some VIP/Shop unlockable), but you could sacrifice lives on one character to enable some sort of veteran demigod family tree thing where your new alts could (if you so chose) at creation to start with a not-very-high number of some past lives to start with. But I dunno, seems convoluted and hard to pin down on how such a system would work. I definitely think fully sharing all would completely kill the idea of progressing on multiple characters and that's a key part about DDO. Hard no to any idea like that, even more so if it's tied to a guild or a community that could boot you at a whim or one that could eventually die outside your control.

Epic past lives and iconic lives are also (mostly) in a good spot imo. They might have to adjust them if Legendary TR ever becomes a thing to add to the pile but until then they're just kinda there, a nice goal that isn't mandatory but is definitely appealing to progress toward and they have a nice power curve - like melees? Focus on doublestrike EPLs and you're pretty far along. Very frontloaded, pick your path kinda thing.

Not gonna go to epic destiny points and racials too much but I think they completely dropped the ball by reinventing the wheel and poured glue all over them for silly friction. Heroic enhancement trees work great, they made a strictly worse system on top with racial/epic destiny point access being tied to past lives. Racial points being tied to first life would be a good amendment to an existing bad system, but yeah as rabidfox put it some people would still be unhappy. Can't satisfy everyone no matter what you do, but you can do your best.

On the RXP front I think that system is generally in a good spot and a great example of a better system and there is no need to "guildify" them. They're very frontloaded, they're optional unless you like Reaper mode, in which case they are accumulated naturally at all points of the game with an emphasis on playing at cap and higher difficulties. They don't make or break a builds' basic operations like Racials or Epic Destiny Points might. You can perform perfectly fine with a small number of RXP at lower tiers and they accumulate fast at lower tiers when you're getting started. A honestly great progressive system that is fast to get into and keeps people engaged for a long time. You only need to get them to face higher difficulty and that again, is (mostly) optional.

Why only mostly optional? The biggest gripe I can see here is that if you want to embrace a community and the rest of the community only plays on reaper mode you can feel isolated and feel forced to play reaper against your wishes, but that's a problem of more systemic nature on socials, and an imperfectly populated playerbase than the rxp system. I don't think that is fixed by tweaking the rxp system.

 

[woq]

I'm calling it now on how the conversation would go:
SSG: "Good news, racial past lives will now in the order of AP, then skill, then stat."
Player1: "SSG sucks, it should be AP, stat, then skill. Why do you hate us? I'm deleting my account."
Player2: "Leave it the old way, I earned it and others can too."
Player3: "Great idea. Love it."
Player4: "Just delete past lives and be done with it. This change still means I have to grind out 14 whole lives!"
Player...

YEP 100%

Sadly this is how building on existing systems always goes. You can't please everyone; I work in healthcare and this is basically my life. Someone tries to improve it => everyone is up with pitchforks, sometimes the end result is better, sometimes it's awful and even if it's better adapting takes effort. The realization that something got better is rarely made with that intent - maybe only in a passing discussion "remember when back in the old days things used to suck THAT bad?" - and whatever that change was it was still likely resisted at the time by a seemingly large number of people.

If you can build from scratch you will skip almost all of this, but once the milk is on the ground... You can only do so much, doesn't mean you shouldn't try to make it - in this case past life system - better when there are - imo obvious but it's subjective I suppose - issues with it.

 

[Lazuli]

Please do this immediately. AP, then skill, then stat. Great idea.

AP, the stat, then skill. A free completionist feat is enough to justify those almost useless +1 skill lives.

I believe this is the most frequently made proposal since the racial grind was created. Always ignored, of course.

 

[Lazuli]

I'm calling it now on how the conversation would go:
SSG: "Good news, racial past lives will now in the order of AP, then skill, then stat."
Player1: "SSG sucks, it should be AP, stat, then skill. Why do you hate us? I'm deleting my account."
Player2: "Leave it the old way, I earned it and others can too."
Player3: "Great idea. Love it."
Player4: "Just delete past lives and be done with it. This change still means I have to grind out 14 whole lives!"
Player...

This system would help the new players and would not harm the veterans in any way, who would not see their grind devalued in any way. I am against taking away benefits from those who have obtained them, but opposing a change that does not harm at all your character is pure and simple selfishness.

Anyway, my opinion is that kind of selfishness is easy to ignore. Benefit many players vs. upset a few selfish players? Easy decision. And that kind of anger usually passes quickly, since nothing has actually been taken from them.

Now, if they really takes away benefits (player 4), the anger will not pass without consequences: many people would not accept that they wasted their time and money in this way..

 

[Sheikra]

Doing it is the key. I earned wings off the pug scene back when I was in a tiny guild of a few old school friends (and I was only one who regularly played); so pugging was the only real option for me. Even if a group is just running mid-skulls, it's way more RXP than never going into the quests at all. I enjoy when people complain there's never any LFMs listed but they also never list any themselves; I see that complaint fairly frequently (if someone lists LFMs, and they never get others to join, then that's a whole other issue with the game).

The hardest part of this for me is joining a group I know I'm going to be essentially piking in. I'm not saying you did that, but I know (from personal discussion) that a lot of players feel very comfortable piking.

That's the biggest barrier to entry to endgame reapers and raids I think. Don't want to get on the piker blacklist because I'm an idiot lol

 

[mikarddo]

Good Sir - just do it. Put that R10 LFM up and free yourself. Blaming elitists is so boring.

I am not blaming anyone. I run R10 regularly, so I am not missing out My two best characters have 133 and 118 reaper points respectively and I often run with guildies or friends.

I still consider it a fact that it is much easier to earn rxp fast and efficiently on a new characters if you have a circle of friends that often do so and dont mind carrying. Sure, it can also be done purely pugging without knowing anyone in advance but it is likely to be a good deal slower and more prone to getting inefficient groups sometimes.

 

[Jasparius]

Ïf you make both account wide - then a player who made 1 full completionist with 156 reaper points would be completely done. Even starting a new alt would not add to that. I think that would be bad.

I prefer making it easier to catch up but not automagical and I am very willing debate the details - but just not full auto as that leaves nothings once done with 1 character.

The WOW equivalent around Reputation is alts get a 200% bonus from level 1 to 10, dropping to a 100% bonus from 11 to 20.

Something similar could be done for XP and RXP I assume.