It Is Important to Have Legendary-Only Content

[Drachmor]

It is hard to create truly Legendary content if it always has a heroic counterpart. Currently, only raids feel truly Legendary (and that is not my favorite content to run). I think this is a shame, as heroic levels limit the tone that Legendary content can seek. I think it is really important to keep these design spaces separate, sometimes.

I understand that from a development standpoint it is too attractive not to release in both heroic and legendary at once. But our endgame is going to look like farming heroic quests on Legendary R10, and I'm not excited by that.

Remember when hitting level 20 used to feel like "an entirely new game"? I'd love for Legendary to feel like that, too.

 

[Lagin]

Agreed, something needs to be done, especially with a cap of 36

 

[The Blonde]

They just created SIXTY (60) brand new shiny rare items for you to chase, on top of the 100 usual items the expansion has.

They would never willingly throw away 80 things for you to go after.

 

[Blaster]

You know you can skip running things in heroic, right? There’s so much xp now that there’s huge swaths of the game you can skip while leveling. (Crests Drannor and La-bore-dia were so disappointing there’s no way I’m running that cr@p in heroics and legendary every life.)

If I avoided banking levels altogether there’d be even more content I’d skip, or if raid flagging requirements were removed that’d be even more skipable stuff. (I tend to flag in heroics because when I get to cap I can do all the raids right away, because who knows what content I’ll feel like first time reaper XP farming at any given time.)

Additionally there’s several players who might not run legendary or even epics. When a new race comes out I’m willing to lose out on first time reaper bonuses and just go 1-20 to get those lives done and get completionist back. (Or 15-30 for iconics to get the 3X past life feat stack.)

One of the few things DDO gets right is you can play it just about any way you want. No one is forcing you to run content, or play a race or a build, or be casual or a try-hard, or farm gear until your eyes bleed — that, and more, is all for you to decide.

 

[Synalon]

I agree. Legendary content being spread across heroic means we're eternally fighting dogs, rats, birds at endgame. If quests were legendary only, they could be made with more interesting mechanics and challenges, rather than the 6-mobs-per-encounter, smattering of orange-nameds, and a red-named end boss with no unusual attacks or features design philosophy that seems to prevail.

 

[Drachmor]

You know you can skip running things in heroic, right? There’s so much xp now that there’s huge swaths of the game you can skip while leveling. (Crests Drannor and La-bore-dia were so disappointing there’s no way I’m running that cr@p in heroics and legendary every life.)

If I avoided banking levels altogether there’d be even more content I’d skip, or if raid flagging requirements were removed that’d be even more skipable stuff. (I tend to flag in heroics because when I get to cap I can do all the raids right away, because who knows what content I’ll feel like first time reaper XP farming at any given time.)

Additionally there’s several players who might not run legendary or even epics. When a new race comes out I’m willing to lose out on first time reaper bonuses and just go 1-20 to get those lives done and get completionist back. (Or 15-30 for iconics to get the 3X past life feat stack.)

One of the few things DDO gets right is you can play it just about any way you want. No one is forcing you to run content, or play a race or a build, or be casual or a try-hard, or farm gear until your eyes bleed — that, and more, is all for you to decide.

I get what you’re going for here, but you’re not really responding to what I’ve posted.

I’m not just saying “I don’t wanna have to run something in both heroics AND legendary.” I’m saying “I want devs to be able to design a quest that only makes sense in a lvl 30+ context.” I’m saying I want more from our endgame.

I love the fact that we can run the content in heroics and in legendary, from an xp standpoint. And I get that it’s your choice. What I don’t love is the possibility that, after achieving godlike power, _all_ we will be able to do is run high-numbers-versions of quests with heroic stakes, heroic monsters and the same heroic gameplay.

 

[The Blonde]

I don’t view that as a healthy endgame, I view it as a chewtoy given to players who can be satisfied only with inflated numbers.

Congratulations, you're viewing it as what it is!

The next step is accepting that it deterministically could not be anything else.

 

[Drachmor]

Congratulations, you're viewing it as what it is!

The next step is accepting that it deterministically could not be anything else.

Haha you actually caught an edit that I had since deleted - I need to revise my comments before posting them XD

But… shoot, I’ll stand by this, even if it’s a little harsh. And no, this is not _inevitable_, and devs can do something about it.

 

[The Blonde]

Haha you actually caught an edit that I had since deleted - I need to revise my comments before posting them XD

But… shoot, I’ll stand by this, even if it’s a little harsh.

An angry man's words are a quiet man's thoughts.

 

[after human]

you know what, I see your point, it's valid

but realistically, making a quest on both leg and heroic at the same time is just too resource efficient to pass on, so likely they can't afford to not do this

i don't know what the solution for this would be

 

[Drachmor]

An angry man's words are a quiet man's thoughts.

Haha I’ve never heard that. Very fitting

 

[The Narc2]

All good as long as they create heroic only content, make sure they are really long time consuming heroic quests so they wont appeal to the end gamers past life heroic zergers that want content to be designed solely for them in legendary. This way those that solely play in non legendary cap have stuff designed for them solely as well.

In other words no to your request.

 

[The_Apocalypse]

Legendary only? H1-H4 Bloodstone series from AD&D.

 

[The Outfit]

I don't like legendary content that has a low heroic level counterpart. Those quest are short and don't award very good rxp or xp. Which can be good for farming or quick rxp/xp. Assuming we are getting legendary reincarnation at some point. Also could create burnout from having to run so many blip xp quests

 

[Drachmor]

I don't like legendary content that has a low heroic level counterpart. Those quest are short and don't award very good rxp or xp. Which can be good for farming or quick rxp/xp. Assuming we are getting legendary reincarnation at some point. Also could create burnout from having to run so many blip xp quests

I like that you’ve brought a specific feature into the convo of heroic vs legendary content: quest length. While I’m not necessarily opposed to short quests at Legendary levels, it would be cool to get some awesome journeys, longer quests, in the legendary design space.

That said, Sagas may arguably be a solution to this problem, where “one quest” may be spread across several to accommodate peoples’ life schedules.

 

[Glargfest]

I think they could do what they did with borderlands or devils assault — different and more threatening mobs at the epic tiers compared to heroic.

Extremely hard-hitting, petty vermin in legendary content is pretty immersion breaking

 

[Abramax]

100% agree, we have enough content to have exclusive legendary expensions.
Or maybe do 2 or 3 sagas for each expensions : heroic/epic quests only and Legendary quests only

 

[Aelastiar]

I agree. Legendary content being spread across heroic means we're eternally fighting dogs, rats, birds at endgame. If quests were legendary only, they could be made with more interesting mechanics and challenges, rather than the 6-mobs-per-encounter, smattering of orange-nameds, and a red-named end boss with no unusual attacks or features design philosophy that seems to prevail.

100% this.

 

[saekee]

A great example of epic-content-only (when level cap was MUCH lower) is Haunted Halls of Eveningstar. Epic only, and was one of the favorite quests of many players at that time.

Devs made around that time A Study in Sable, very beloved by patient players, well-written and thoughtful.

Brothers of the Forge, perhaps DDO’s most melancholic quest, is epic-only as well and done in the same period.

Looking at the quality of those epic-only quests before legendary was created, and we can appreciate the OP’s point.


Although…I could see, for example, HHoE doing well in a heroic version where you have more incentive to run around and explore for opt xp…

 

[OG DM]

Most of the legendary content is actual heroic content scaled to legendary. The vast majority of this stuff is not actual legendary content by default.

Who would we fight in actual legendary only content? The gods themselves? The great old ones who are older than those gods?

Or are we just scaling up the HP of rats and bird swarms to 30 KHP rather than the 15-20 KHP they already have in level 30+ base content?