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

[woq]

I think Reaper is a vastly superior system to past lives in so many ways. It's way more frontloaded, has a nicer progression to it and it is /more/ optional. If you like playing in reaper where it matters it comes naturally at all points of play (heroic/epic/legendary) albeit with a strict emphasis on superior progression in legendary and higher difficulties.

I only say /more/ optional instead of completely optional because it does split the playerbase and if all lfms are reaper, it's not that optional if you wanna contribute to the community.

RXP also doesn't require you to take levels or remake your character (though you can and it makes it progress smoother thanks to 1st time bonuses, but you don't have to); the power it grants is more gated than past lives so you don't become absolutely broken at low levels like epic past lives.. It doesn't make you brokenly op for LN / LH raids, the place where rxp shines is in content that is already more difficult than the prior difficulties..

Honestly, criticizing rxp system is a bit weird to me. You can argue that you don't like that it or reapers exist in the first place, but the system itself learned from their past mistakes and is in almost every way superior.

Edit: I'd go as far as to say it also helps the more atmospheric players too; all the zoom zoom go go go players are playing Reaper because of the increased xp and loot. If you don't like playing there, you'll find more likeminded players by just listing nonreaper quests.

 

[Nickodeamous]

You can solo R10s on casters when you have enough reaper points. You can solo R10s on specific melee builds when you have enough reaper points. Honestly R10 is not tough like you say, people are completing R10s on first day of quest or raid release.

Yeah, but take a look at the builds that are doing this. The point I am trying to make is that even with all the bonus points from the reaper tree, it's incremental, but it's not so much that it allows you to solo R10. It's really the specific builds that are able to do this. This arguments happens like once every 3 months. Numbers wise, reaper is supposed to be harder. But it some cases, its the builds that are able to do this. This is one of those threads that pits the reaper heavy folks against the people that hate reaper unfortunately. There is no winner here. Everyone enjoys the game differently and has a different perspective. Oh well to each their own

 

[owl]

1,000 hps (give or take based on % bonuses) only goes so far. Yes, it makes a difference, but on builds where PRR or MRR isn't as high (builds wearing light/cloth armour for example), 1,000 hps goes real quick on R10 against a doom, champ and/or veng-buffed mob(s), veng circles, etc etc.

The OP asked the question whether the trees make playing reaper easier. My experience as someone running a wide variety of characters is that without a doubt it makes playing easier. And the primary reason in my opinion is the massive hp boost. The other benefits definitely help as wel, but hp is the biggest benefit.

1,000 hp makes a huge difference for any build in my experience. you can get over 1/3 of that with 21 reaper points so it's not like you can't run reaper without high reaper points.

Typically a tank or off-tank will hold the doom since stacks accumulate slowly with high ac. I don't think you need to build to tank dooms or survive vengeance circles to run R10s unless your role in the party calls for it or if you want to solo R10s.

I've never brought a 50 MRR character to R10s and probably never would, but my assassin with a 130 or so MRR and evasion wasn't getting one-shot often and could just boost dodge to mitigate doom dmaage/stacks. Most people I know use the mantle of esher augment set and a few other MRR cap boosters if they want to wear a robe in R10s.

Your mileage may vary.

 

[rabidfox]

1,000 hp makes a huge difference for any build in my experience. you can get over 1/3 of that with 21 reaper points so it's not like you can't run reaper without high reaper points.

Just on side note of 1k HP and survival. I was telling someone the other day that they should make an affirmation swap and they literally had no idea what affirmation was; many people don't know some of the games mechanics or things they can do to survive better. One of the biggest perks of the reaper trees is it offers power that someone can't mess up; just put points in there and you're slightly stronger per point.

As to OP's question of "Do reaper enhancement trees make playing in reaper easier than it should be?"
No, I don't think they make them easier than they should be. I think reapers are reasonably difficult to begin with. I think the trees help somewhat, and especially help people on flavor builds, with so-so gear choices, and/or poor tactical choices or teamwork as they're constant gains that a player doesn't have to think about or math out.

 

[Geezer]

Adding an enhancement tree to a difficulty setting is wrong on every level. Our problem is now we have players so heavily invested in reaper, any change will drive them away. IMHO because of those trees, reaper is a complete fail

I agree with this ^^^^ I have to laugh, because when reaper first came out most people were crying on the forums that it wasnt fair that they were dying so often (these are the same people who asked the devs for a greater challenge, elite was way too easy). So, the devs got the message and created yet another hamster wheel. Then came the free spell points in quest, now we have where you can fully heal yourself when not in combat. People want challenge, but not enough challenge that they cant easily beat that challenge.

 

[woq]

I agree with this ^^^^ I have to laugh, because when reaper first came out most people were crying on the forums that it wasnt fair that they were dying so often (these are the same people who asked the devs for a greater challenge, elite was way too easy). So, the devs got the message and created yet another hamster wheel. Then came the free spell points in quest, now we have where you can fully heal yourself when not in combat. People want challenge, but not enough challenge that they cant easily beat that challenge.

People want different kinds of challenges. Out of combat healing changes have more to do with pacing and resource management than specific encounter difficulty, same goes for SP. Some like that resource management -type of challenge, others don't. I wasn't there and didn't ask for it but when I recently got back I was happy to see that the change had happened in my absence. It makes low reapers more accessible to everyone. That is not a bad thing, because we still have mid and high reapers after that.

I don't understand this hating on a system that does it's best to accommodate for everyone, including the toe dippers and the ultra hardcore ones. Making the difficulties 4+ in a system of 13 difficulties (normal to r10) more accessible is a bad thing and cause for laughing at others?

Additionally, those aren't all the same people. There were good reasons for these changes that aren't explained only by devs kneejerk reacting to "people crying".

If anything, a difficulty scaler that survived mostly unchanged for over half a decade has performed far above expectations in a progressive growth environment.

 

[saekee]

Reaper mode was poorly implemented. It broke a ton of quests (many do not do their stated funcionality like in Frame Work and alarms, or forget about how some hidden spawned fear reaper can DoT you), turned some quests into easy farming quests (nerfed), and killed a playstyle (stealth). It helped some builds and playstyles like casters. New quests are now designed with reaper mode in mind to the extent that Quality control still exists outside player bug complaints on live.

Reaper mode breaks immersion, because the reapers have no relationship to the quest itself. They COULD have been implemented like the problematic Champions introduction, e.g. a pre-existing mob undergoes a Reaper modification and becomes a reaper-type (Fear, Carnage, Doom, etc), perhaps visually all smoky and floaty with horns and skulls. So instead if a Doom Reaper you might have, say, an Orc Doom or a Dragon Doom.

Autodetect of stealthed toons and ten kill completion requirement was just cruel and part of their misunderstanding of stealthplay as some easy button. (FYI stealth is still alive and well; it needed adaptation).

Instead of trees as they are, they could have trees do the following:
1) more cosmetics for bragging rights
2) leaderboards for high skull completions in quests
3) QoL boosts to a character that do not add to power creep, like granting xp bonuses, true sight, greater heroism—stuff that you can skip the scroll cast/clickie or gearing, or speed up the reincarnation wheel.
4) gear boosting—they could have shifted the focus away from the power of reaper xp tree completion instead to resting on random gear boosts—mythic/reaper—including on random loot drops. This would have benefitted Alts as BtA or even unbound gear could have been circulated and created a better interest, and world of, reaper/mythic crafting. In the current iteration, it seems that power boosts happen most on loot boost weekends and it doesn’t seem to make a big difference to be in R1 or R10 to get them. Instead there ought to have been clear boosts to reaper drops by taking on the toughest content.

Much of what I wrote above may still be done and the trees kept as they are.

I am not bothered by the tree power creep as much since spending time at cap in high reaper will quickly generate base points that will get some helpful boosts, like 21 in Grim Barricade. I resisted grinding reaper on my main because of RL family stuff cutting into being able to do quest chains with talented groups at cap, but pushed into it recently. I am up to about 60 pts (low by veteran standards) and enjoying it.

 

[Ethril]

Warlock uses less spell points than other casters.

True, but I don't run out as a sorc either. Or a bard. And I spam spells as a warlock.

 

[Jack Jarvis Esquire]

The answer to the OP is yes.

But easier<>easy.

 

[Br4d]

True, but I don't run out as a sorc either. Or a bard. And I spam spells as a warlock.

Spell points are largely irrelevant in reaper in epics and later. Between lost souls and all of the effects that reduce the costs of metamagics I never run out of spell points between shrines and I often skip shrines because I am not yet at 2/3's mana when I get to them.

The lost souls are one of the really stupid effects that were put in to help players in reaper mode. The reduction in metamagics which have become universally available between enhancements, epic destinies and items are another poorly thought out effect in the game. Also, SLA's using metamagics with no additional spellpoint cost.

What we're looking at now is a completely warped meta that has devalued the overall agency that players have in the game in return for the illusion of choice.

 

[Synalon]

The lost souls are one of the really stupid effects that were put in to help players in reaper mode.

The idea is just ridiculous to me. Hardest mode in the game...so you get unlimited mana? Just why?

Were they added subsequent to reaper's release?

 

[Dom]

The idea is just ridiculous to me. Hardest mode in the game...so you get unlimited mana? Just why?

Were they added subsequent to reaper's release?

They don't drop THAT often to be honest, but regardless, it doesn't matter. If you know the quest(s) you are running, you can ensure you spend your mana accordingly so you don't run out before a shrine is near. There are also a handful of mana regen items other than SP pots that you can use - if SSG decided to get rid of lost souls, it wouldn't make reaper any harder.

 

[Col Kurtz]

The idea is just ridiculous to me. Hardest mode in the game...so you get unlimited mana? Just why?

you can fix that, just send a tell to the melee in your party to grab all the lost souls 1st! mwahahahahaha

 

[rabidfox]

Play a cleric or druid, or any caster where one's stats/DCs are not quite perfect enough to always land spells across the entire leveling curve, and/or like Dom said where one doesn't know quests well enough to know exactly when to burn vs converse mana... And lost souls won't be enough to prevent shrining. They'll just slow the bleed enough that one hopefully will reach the shrine before being on Echoes of Power. It's boring and dull to have your class suddenly stop working because you're completely out of juice. Does it occasionally make mana conservation too easy? Sure, but the alternative is that someone who isn't a 'solidily built and geared min/maxer who knows the quests well' type will run out of spell points early on and suffer until they get to a shrine. I know a few folks who've been playing for over a decade who still have mana issues when leveling on quests, even with lost souls; the same quests my buddies and I zip thru like they're nothing.

 

[The Narc]

Spell points are largely irrelevant in reaper in epics and later. Between lost souls and all of the effects that reduce the costs of metamagics I never run out of spell points between shrines and I often skip shrines because I am not yet at 2/3's mana when I get to them.

The lost souls are one of the really stupid effects that were put in to help players in reaper mode. The reduction in metamagics which have become universally available between enhancements, epic destinies and items are another poorly thought out effect in the game. Also, SLA's using metamagics with no additional spellpoint cost.

What we're looking at now is a completely warped meta that has devalued the overall agency that players have in the game in return for the illusion of choice.

Sla and free metamagics was one of the most impactful changes to the entire game structure of ddo, and proceeded to force changes in all other playstyles in the game which has lead us to the massive power creep that is the game today. But it is what it is and the ship has sailed.

 

[PraetorPlato]

Sla and free metamagics was one of the most impactful changes to the entire game structure of ddo, and proceeded to force changes in all other playstyles in the game which has lead us to the massive power creep that is the game today. But it is what it is and the ship has sailed.

I'm not sure it's that impactful—a lot of people level casters barely touching SLAs (I don't use them on sorc at all, usually, other than sometimes electric loop and scorch for 2 or so levels), and obviously, non-casters aren't affected.

 

[adamkatt]

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.

you only need 156 to mx rp...

 

[Svirfneblin]

I see new characters with few to no reaper points sure do struggle. I rolled up a new Monk and it was a painful grind. Reaper XP is EARNED.

 

[kmoustakas]

RXP and RP keeps people interested beyond the one and done bragging rights; the current system has a sustained longevity. How many people push raid (where bragging rights are these days)? Not many, and those who do tend to one and done that. Groups were clearing the recent extreme challenge quests on r10 on day 1. If all that we had was bragging rights, many high end players would log on for new content, do it on r10 to say they did it, and then take a 6 month break until the next content pack came out. And casual players would just continue to play the same as always. The RXP system did a solid job of keeping those on the high end to have something to do in game and an objective to work on.

Yes.

We need more reaper trees and reaper monster manual exclusives!

 

[Reaped and Ravaged]

IF this game had any interest in attracting new players they would reset Legendary 1st time Reaper bonus once a week. If not maybe some other company like Larian can do it instead if SSG has completely given up on building up the player base.