Do you DDO player want the New XP System Adjustments will come on the U60?

[CBDunk]

And we've said quite a few time s they should fix their lag inducing code rather than blaming the players and punishing them because they can't get their game to run correctly like other games do.

Yes, that'd be nice... but DDO is an old game and it would take a massive amount of rebuilding to get it up to the level of more modern technologies.

That isn't what I was talking about. I'm talking about the fact that their response to the 'monster pathing lag' problem is to spend time building a system to punish players in the hopes of forcing them to change their behavior... rather than spending equal (or less) time making changes to actually PREVENT the problem.

For example, blink dogs in DDO have the ability to teleport to the player. I've seen packs of them appear around me in mid-air after I've jumped off a cliff, so this isn't just them invisibly pathing. They teleport. To the player. The game HAS this logic.

We've been told that monster pathing becomes a problem when a lot of monsters are trying to path over long distances. Also, that this pathing only really becomes a lag problem around the red DA level. So... what would happen if, INSTEAD of the current DA system which punishes players but does not actually prevent the lag, they instead had all active/aggro'd monsters teleport to the player (blink dog style) at the DA orange level. Voila! Red DA alert NEVER HAPPENS. Lag AVOIDED rather than ALLOWED and perversely punished.

You're programmers. Change the GAME. Stop trying to change HUMANS through punishment.

 

[Arkat]

 

[somenewnoob]

Yes, that'd be nice... but DDO is an old game and it would take a massive amount of rebuilding to get it up to the level of more modern technologies.

That isn't what I was talking about. I'm talking about the fact that their response to the 'monster pathing lag' problem is to spend time building a system to punish players in the hopes of forcing them to change their behavior... rather than spending equal (or less) time making changes to actually PREVENT the problem.

For example, blink dogs in DDO have the ability to teleport to the player. I've seen packs of them appear around me in mid-air after I've jumped off a cliff, so this isn't just them invisibly pathing. They teleport. To the player. The game HAS this logic.

We've been told that monster pathing becomes a problem when a lot of monsters are trying to path over long distances. Also, that this pathing only really becomes a lag problem around the red DA level. So... what would happen if, INSTEAD of the current DA system which punishes players but does not actually prevent the lag, they instead had all active/aggro'd monsters teleport to the player (blink dog style) at the DA orange level. Voila! Red DA alert NEVER HAPPENS. Lag AVOIDED rather than ALLOWED and perversely punished.

You're programmers. Change the GAME. Stop trying to change HUMANS through punishment.

They HAD a choice. And MANY MANY PEOPLE said go carrot. They chose stick. And nothing we said or suggested changed their minds. I can't fathom how people continue to give them money. I really cant. When a company chooses to punish their customers........I don't care if they sell 22 year old strippers covered in ice cream and cocaine........ I will not be their customer.

(Ok, MAYBE if they sold strippers covered in ice cream and cocaine.... MAYBE)

 

[DeathTitan]

so far 88.3% voted "absolutely NO".

anyway when I run invisible, a question mark appears above monsters head but they do not follow me, so I keep running until red alert and a mob randomly swings in the air and harries/slows me: at that point I attack and the whole dungeon comes after me, even those mobs that can't see me and they are very far away and many rooms away from me.

Well, maybe the developers should investigate why the whole dungeon run to me, and that's a cause of lag because it's very expensive for the server as the developers said: maybe only mobs at a fixed distance should run to me or maybe they should reduce that distance.

Red alert is NOT an issue: the issue is how developers implement/code red alert.

 

[paddymaxson]

Feels like a punishment for people trying to get through content quickly. It's going to be a huge XP nerf for some good XP quests where conquest isn't even possible to get (TOEE nodes as they reset your conquest level as more mobs spawn, shadow crypt where even a 12 gear run routinely only gives aggression)

 

[seph1roth5]

Here is what I think is going on.. You all have no clue why the game acts the way it does.. So your going to blame us, and you will try this conquest thing.. and lets say we all do slow down.. I am betting it doesnt fix the lag.. What if it doesnt fix it? What excuses will you all make next?

Also what if this is the problem, we going too fast through quests, and people still dont decide to go after conquest and speed through the dungeon...Lag would still be there .. so then what is your next solution?

It's like when they changed doublestrike and said that all the procs were causing too much lag. And then they did the ED revamp and added in tons of procs, and more gear with tons of procs.

 

[Gandalf]

Haven't read every thread, but here I go. Given that the "issue" is aggravated mobs pathing, rather than change everything related to XP rewards (carrot) and DA (Stick), why not this change - make your calculations based off of whether a mob is currently aggravated. Thus, in TOEE, if there are 750 mobs, but you on your best path actively aggro at one time say 20 mobs, base the calculations for carrot & stick off of actively aggro'd mobs, not total. This would benefit stealth toons, who are already helping you with "aggro'd mob pathing issues", right? So if you and/or your party can effectively stop actively aggro'ing so many mobs, voila - no burdensome pathing issues. Still applies the stick, because if you actively aggro'd say 20 mobs, and killed say 1, then red dungeon alert based on those numbers. Would also apply to the carrot, as the bonus for killing mobs would based off of whether they were actively aggro'd. Also, as you said you are working on their AI, so if they are simply too slow to ever catch the party/individual, de-aggro them much faster. You also have several quests where they don't aggro at all until closely approached - voila, "aggro'd mob pathing issue" fixed. I suspect, based on developer comments, that there may be more of an issue with running content too fast, as opposed to pathing issues, since the proposed "fixes" are addressing more the player completion speed "issue", rather that easily solving the pathing "issue"...

 

[seph1roth5]

They HAD a choice. And MANY MANY PEOPLE said go carrot. They chose stick. And nothing we said or suggested changed their minds. I can't fathom how people continue to give them money. I really cant. When a company chooses to punish their customers........I don't care if they sell 22 year old strippers covered in ice cream and cocaine........ I will not be their customer.

It's because lag is our fault, duh.

 

[Blunt Hackett]

Step 1: Investigate what quest has mobs that cause instant DA.

Step 2: Pair them down, buff what remains.

Step 3: Shorten the length of time monsters will keep pathing.

Step 4: If lag has not improved, look at code, server, or bandwidth issues instead of blaming the players and turning DDO into Postal.

 

[Mand O'Lin]

Honestly don't really care. If anything Ill see a slight increase of +0 xp as I sit at cap rerunning quests over and over again while waiting on the next actual content update. Might make the upcoming ETR's easier though

As I begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel, I have started to wonder what the game will become... for me, at least.

You have saddened me.

 

[Elves United]

I like the idea of the XP change as long as its a net nuetral change for first time completions. And it looks like it will make repeating quests provide more xp which will make epic life leveling easier. It may also fix the aggression bonuses on some quests that don't have them but should.

That said this seems like a huge undertaking. So many quests. So many with large optional areas.

 

[Mand O'Lin]

don't care if they sell 22 year old strippers covered in ice cream and cocaine........ I will not be their customer.

Wait... where is that in the store?!?!

Was it a limited time release that I missed?

 

[Mand O'Lin]

I like the idea of the XP change as long as its a net nuetral change for first time completions. And it looks like it will make repeating quests provide more xp which will make epic life leveling easier. It may also fix the aggression bonuses on some quests that don't have them but should.

That said this seems like a huge undertaking. So many quests. So many with large optional areas.

One might reasonably think it would be a huge undertaking.

Of course, the developers could simply implement it and then ignore the consequences.

In any event, I am sure SSG "customer support" will be as helpful as always in resolving any issues which crop up. ;-)

 

[Smokewolf]

Only thing that really matters to a player is how fast they can gain experience and level up. If there are game mechanics artificially added that slow this process, then players will just (when possible) skip over that requirement entirely. Efficiency-wise this would be the most effective use of that players time vs the experience gained. Even if the overall experience earned is lower due to kill requirements not being met, the experience per minute often still favors a Zerg play-style. So long as the experience gain is mostly based upon a quests completion, this will always be true. Even more so when exp pots are factored in.

If the Dev's really wanted to change player behavior, it would be far better to award experience for each individual mob (based on CR), with the questing experience being secondary. Otherwise just adding more requirements makes game play a tedious process. Which in the end, will be the newer players who suffer most, lacking both the knowledge / gear needed to succeed when rules suddenly change.

-Smoke

 

[SignO_The_Times]

I know it's been stated, but I've been in a dungeon that literally has ground to a halt due to an alert being triggered - and then suddenly every mob in the dungeon swarms me and the alert shoots to red. Everything drops in speed and it's impossible to even kill the mobs due to debuffs on the character and buffs on the mobs while everything begins spasming and teleporting around. If it's not the alert causing it, then I'd love to know what is?
Oh, and I don't zerg through dungeons, some are just poorly set up and alerts get triggered with the first mob you see, especially on hard - reaper.

Ding ding ding ding. Cut the AI's chase distance, reduce vision range or upgrade your servers. Players do not like being punished for playing games.

 

[Phoenicis]

I can think of a handful of quests that have unavoidable red DA when played on elite. And most of those are in the end fight when you DPS the boss down so fast all the adds show up at once.

As far as a server upgrade, if it's the code that is bogging down when the pathing demand starts climbing throwing more server resources won't fix the problem unless the base code is modified to utilize the additional resources.

Cutting chase distance and/or reducing aggro sharing are, in my opinion the most likely to reduce the occurrence of DA.

Changing the code so that when Yellow or higher DA is triggered the mobs that have been aggroed the longest drop aggro and teleport back to their spawn points, with a short inactive timer so they don't immediately re-aggro seems to me to be the most efficient solution.

As far as reaper: The DM is trying to kill you.

 

[Dman1970]

I never understand why companies seem to refuse to listen to their customer base and make decisions that cause them to lose money. There are lots of examples, and you would think other companies would think, maybe we should see what our customers think of this idea. But no... they plod ahead thinking "WE are the great and mighty all powerful company, and WE control our product and the peons WILL like it and take it! Then when they lose customers, they wonder what went wrong. Not listening to your customer base and paying attention, and giving up on a crappy idea that none, or very few want or agree with. LISTEN to these people SSG! THEY are the ones that make your paycheck.
The game is old, very niche, and compared to most MMOs and other games, expensive to do most content without a subscriptions unless you grind faction to earn enough DDO points to buy it, or lucky enough to catch coupons codes. For new players that may want to run content with long time players, and they can't afford to buy the new packs, it sucks. I hear in discord often, Hey let's run a group. New player of level says hey I'll join, where are we going? Older layer says blah blah. New player says, I can't go, I don't have that. Now they have to try to solo to grind favor for packs, and are going to get hit with this XP hit trying to solo content having to do every zone 3 times or more to max favor and XP, it will take them even longer, so now they keep missing groups and then quit.
Hell, I just came back after a decade away, all my toons are still first life, and at least I am VIP, but looking at the way things are going, I'm wondering if coming back to a game I thought was decently fun years ago was a bad choice. I know I wouldn't be thrilled with these changes myself, and if not VIP, I'd be even extremely unhappy with the new DA idea. If I were FtP still, I'd probably quit.
Continually making poor choices that make your customers feel unheard, disillusioned, and frustrated and they will just wind up leaving and then you will be having the game get shuttered, and then you'll be looking elsewhere for a paycheck while the formally loyal players will look elsewhere for a new game. Is that what SSG wants?