Do reaper enhancement trees make playing in reaper easier than it should be?

[PyrotechRick]

This came up in a different thread but so as not to derail it I have posed it here. My understanding is that reaper was supposed to be an greater challenge for experienced players, but I 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.e. less of a challenge. What am I missing here?

 

[Onyxia2016]

The short answer is Yes.

Anything that increase a characters ability in essence makes whatever you are doing that much easier.
The trees are not the only thinks to take into consideration.

Lost Souls for example help caster's a lot. I can run a caster (nuker type) through a reaper level and not really worry about running out of SP.
I run the same character through the elite version and I have to adjust how much I am casting or I will run out of SP.

 

[Dom]

The point of reaper being a greater challenge for experience players is correct - that is the intention of reaper mode. However there are a few things I would point out:

1) Having benefits that make that mode easier is not necessarily making it less of a challenge. In terms of R1 content, it does help to have more reaper points, and makes your character more survivable. However, R1 in itself is not a particular challenge (except for newer players, who would likely find R1 a challenge even with many reaper points because they likely lack things like quest/game knowledge, gear, etc). In terms of high reaper content, again having more reaper points can help you survive one or two more hits, but if you've run high reaper before (especially high reaper raids), you'll know that you can have 156+ reaper points and all of the past lives, and still get blown to bits due to improper scaling, rng, invisible circles, etc etc.

2) If the argument is that there shouldn't be benefits for players who are trying to play more challenging content, then would you argue that past lives shouldn't be a thing? Champions were added to Elite mode to "add a challenge", but having a bunch of past lives makes it even easier to deal with them.

 

[Ahpuch]

This came up in a different thread but so as not to derail it I have posed it here. My understanding is that reaper was supposed to be an greater challenge for experienced players, but I 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.e. less of a challenge. What am I missing here?

It does make it easier. There are not many players who run R8-10 now who could run them without reaper trees buffing them. As to what you are missing:

My understanding is that reaper was supposed to be an greater challenge for experienced players,

A number of people understood that to be the point but having lived with reaper now for years, it is clear that the point (from SSG's perspective) was not so much to add challenge but to add a new Hamster Wheel to keep players playing. So the challenge was only there enough to sell the work of getting reaper points to make the challenge easier.

 

[PraetorPlato]

People make the (incorrect) argument that you deal more damage in reaper mode. This is ~never true (there's a narrow window for both casters and martial where the t1 boosts cause you to deal marginally more damage sub-level 10), once you get past that, you will always deal less damage in reaper than elite.

Defenses are a little harder to talk about, but once you get past r3, you will always have less defenses, even with maxed RP, than in elite.

 

[songswrath]

Yes
Mind you my main us fully maxxed 210 r points all past lifes. My alt I play the most on. Feels very good now with 70 plus lifes and 90ish points. I say the point of wings on is where you can really feel the power creep. When you can dip into both the dps and def reaper trees.

 

[Col Kurtz]

People make the (incorrect) argument that you deal more damage in reaper mode. This is ~never true (there's a narrow window for both casters and martial where the t1 boosts cause you to deal marginally more damage sub-level 10), once you get past that, you will always deal less damage in reaper than elite.

Defenses are a little harder to talk about, but once you get past r3, you will always have less defenses, even with maxed RP, than in elite.

Reaper seems more like a pilot program that tests how well you dish out DPS. Mobs have more HP's and we deal less damage. The hit point buff from the trees is what makes reaper kind of an easy button.

It really depends on how filled in your tree is compared to the balance of what skull you like to run. Personally, I am finding that I am at a sweet spot for balance/challenge right now (I left DDO soon after reaper came out so, Now I am just getting to my 30th tree point) Already, r1 is pretty darn easy. I can imagine having 100-150 pts would put you in mid skulls at for fairly casual runs. Past mid skulls, the damage/heal nerf makes player skill more important than the power creep compensates.

 

[Lagin]

Adding an enhancement tree to a difficulty setting is wrong on every level.
I mostly "get" why it was part of the design, which I have no issue with mainly, Just implemented wrong IMHO.
The rewards should be for cosmetics, maybe a debuff clickie, etc.

If they make changes (and should) the main problem is, players so heavily invested in reaper, any drastic change it could drive them away.

 

[Griglok (Karatemack)]

This came up in a different thread but so as not to derail it I have posed it here. My understanding is that reaper was supposed to be an greater challenge for experienced players, but I 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.e. less of a challenge. What am I missing here?

You're not wrong, at the same time, the ship has sailed. I think it would be very difficult to remove the reaper trees without making a lot of players upset. Instead, I think it would be cool if there were a new difficulty released (call it Reaper 11) which didn't award any more RXP, but instead was scaled up beyond R10. Create cross-server leaderboards for this new challenge-only difficulty and let people compete for quarterly bragging rights and world's first R11 raid completions.

 

[Scrag]

Below 50 rpoints (i only have 41!) I have found that you can get enough survivability to get through r1-r2, or survive in r3 with a strong lead. That keeps you in a lot of pugs. A decent build can get you to r4, and a good build r6 with support from a team. But even if you have a horrid build you desperately need to respec, at least a low level of rpoints will keep you alive long enough to respec/etr!

 

[woq]

R1 definitely can feel easier than Elite for some builds reliant on SP and inefficient use of spells, for everyone else I do not think Reaper is actually easier. I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing though - it's like training wheels to get into the Reaper system.

I noticed that some people like challenge but dislike Reapers.. so I do wonder if there should be a difficulty between Reaper1 and Elite for people who want more challenge but dislike the Reapers and/or the RXP system.

There's also a world where people are tired of Reapers.. I haven't thought this through but I wonder what would another difficulty scaler of a new kind look like that you could use as a separate or additional difficulty layer next to Reapers. It's a pretty old system by now after all and would bring a whole new level of challenge for those who feel even R10 is too easy in modern DDO. I would not tie an extra enhancement tree to it though... I think we have enough of those. Just challenge and extra xp/increased odds of items like good old times.

 

[TavernBrawler]

Yes. Even the devs can play R10s once they have enough reaper points.

 

[Gimp-1]

You can always reset you reaper tree points and not spend any. Will certainly make R10's more challanging for folks.

Also works for Destiny and Action points. One can always make it more challanging.

 

[Phoenicis]

You can always reset you reaper tree points and not spend any. Will certainly make R10's more challanging for folks.

Also works for Destiny and Action points. One can always make it more challanging.

*hands you a flame retardant suit*

*runs away*

 

[PyrotechRick]

The point of reaper being a greater challenge for experience players is correct - that is the intention of reaper mode. However there are a few things I would point out:

1) Having benefits that make that mode easier is not necessarily making it less of a challenge. In terms of R1 content, it does help to have more reaper points, and makes your character more survivable. However, R1 in itself is not a particular challenge (except for newer players, who would likely find R1 a challenge even with many reaper points because they likely lack things like quest/game knowledge, gear, etc). In terms of high reaper content, again having more reaper points can help you survive one or two more hits, but if you've run high reaper before (especially high reaper raids), you'll know that you can have 156+ reaper points and all of the past lives, and still get blown to bits due to improper scaling, rng, invisible circles, etc etc.

2) If the argument is that there shouldn't be benefits for players who are trying to play more challenging content, then would you argue that past lives shouldn't be a thing? Champions were added to Elite mode to "add a challenge", but having a bunch of past lives makes it even easier to deal with them.

I do agree that one of the main aspects of most role-playing games is that characters improve by overcoming challenges. They gain experience and eventually levels and acquire new, better, and often magical equipment. That obviously makes those same challenges easier in the future and so they must seek out greater challenges if they are to test themselves further.

I guess the distinction I would draw between these normal forms of character advancement and reaper enhancements is firstly that the latter are specifically tied to one mode of play. Secondly reaper already offers a better rate of normal experience and better drop rates for equipment so there is a form of double counting of the benefits when playing this content over non-reaper.

None of this means reaper isn't offering a challenge (if that is what it was mean to do, and as has been pointed out that may not really be the intention). It does seem though that it would continue to offer a challenge for longer if it only offered normal advancement to players from the slightly increased normal XP and equipment drop rates rather than that PLUS reaper XP and enhancements.

 

[Dom]

I do agree that one of the main aspects of most role-playing games is that characters improve by overcoming challenges. They gain experience and eventually levels and acquire new, better, and often magical equipment. That obviously makes those same challenges easier in the future and so they must seek out greater challenges if they are to test themselves further.

I guess the distinction I would draw between these normal forms of character advancement and reaper enhancements is firstly that the latter are specifically tied to one mode of play. Secondly reaper already offers a better rate of normal experience and better drop rates for equipment so there is a form of double counting of the benefits when playing this content over non-reaper.

None of this means reaper isn't offering a challenge (if that is what it was mean to do, and as has been pointed out that may not really be the intention). I does seem though that it would continue to offer a challenge for longer if it only offered normal advancement to players from the slightly increased normal XP and equipment drop rates rather than that PLUS reaper XP and enhancements.

If that were the case though (getting rid of rxp/reaper enhancements), there would be zero reason to have any difficulty higher than R1 which would simply be used as a mechanic to earn more normal xp. If the challenge someone wants is to run R10 but with 0 reaper enhancements, etc. then they can either not spend their reaper points, or go run R10 on hardcore.

Also, its worth noting that the core reaper enhancements (except for the first ones) apply to your character outside of reaper as well. So having the reaper rxp to spend on those cores also makes it easier to complete those "non-challenging" difficulties (elite and lower).

 

[Shear-buckler]

This came up in a different thread but so as not to derail it I have posed it here. My understanding is that reaper was supposed to be an greater challenge for experienced players, but I 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.e. less of a challenge. What am I missing here?

You are missing that the difficulty scales up far more than the bonuses. Even on R1 it's hard to argue that completed trees makes questing faster or easier. On high reaper forget about it, you cant match the difficulty scaling with the stat boosts.

 

[PyrotechRick]

If that were the case though (getting rid of rxp/reaper enhancements), there would be zero reason to have any difficulty higher than R1 which would simply be used as a mechanic to earn more normal xp. If the challenge someone wants is to run R10 but with 0 reaper enhancements, etc. then they can either not spend their reaper points, or go run R10 on hardcore.

Also, its worth noting that the core reaper enhancements (except for the first ones) apply to your character outside of reaper as well. So having the reaper rxp to spend on those cores also makes it easier to complete those "non-challenging" difficulties (elite and lower).

I guess it is partly a matter of individual preferences. I'd rather see each skull of reaper difficulty offer a very small increase in xp and item drop rate but get rid of the enhancements. But then I would rather we got rid of Casual-Easy-Hard-Elite/Reaper 1-10 and had a difficulty slider that scaled across that spectrum (from casual to reaper 10) because my OCD means that having two separate difficulty systems makes my eye twitch. I don't really expect others to feel the same way because that's my problem and I'm sure lots of people like the reaper system the way it is.

I do think that I was probably wrong to think of reaper as a change to the challenge system and it has probably always been more of a subsystem to keep players engaged by acquiring another set of enhancements (which can be fun and engaging in itself).

 

[droid327]

It doesnt completely obviate the added difficulty...but it absolutely does defeat the original point of Reaper, which was challenge for pure challenge's sake

R10 should never have awarded anything additional other than bragging rights

 

[Shear-buckler]

It doesnt completely obviate the added difficulty...but it absolutely does defeat the original point of Reaper, which was challenge for pure challenge's sake

R10 should never have awarded anything additional other than bragging rights

Reaper points is part the original reaper, so I don't see how you can say it defeats it's own purpose.

Character progression makes perfect sense in a character progression based game.