Please provide some more baseline power for new toons, catch up mechanic.

[Oliphant]

The biggest design problem in DDO the last few years imo is balancing the deep progression systems that are fun and keep us all invested against the accumulating debt of power spread between players and the issues that can cause with new players.

Our biggest design problem outside of technical is actually an accumulated wealth of DDO! There has been so much time for the vets to get awesome accumulation of power and knowledge, so many past lives and reaper tree points accumulated, that we could add some baseline power and upgrade this whole game so its instantly engaging and exciting for new players without much disturbance, a large denominator.

Immediately giving the new player an embodiment of cool and awesome abilities beyond anything you can do in real life is a classic recipe. The problem is immediately giving a player power is where do you go from there? Well, that's no sweat for DDO, with its rich history and deep past life options. We have a huge power spread to keep them interested!

The main objection to this idea for me would be "game is already too easy", but we have 10 reaper diffs and there are plenty of ideas for something like "Take it to R11". I think reaper is working well, except for the gatekeeping factor when some folks aren't even enjoying R1, the common leveling diff at this point.

The next objection to more baseline power I can relate to is desire for people to "progress naturally", with "how we progressed back in the day" as the model. My feeling in 2023 its unrealistic that people have the same experience as people starting in 2006 or 2011 or 2018 or whatever. To keep it simple, that experience should go faster nowadays. If people take 15 years to get to the point where people are now that took them 15 years... well that would take 15 years just to get where we are now. Sounds like empty word circle to say that but it actually is the crux of the analysis. People joining DDO nowadays should get mixing it up in all kinds of cool pockets that never existed for years when I started, but it should be a matter of months not a decade. Giving people some more baseline power will not only give them that constant boost, it will empower them to level faster, to have an easier time making progress.

The last potential objection is loss of revenue for giving away power. However, I think people have so much they can spend and they will spend on goodwill if there is still stuff to buy. With the ability to make a new alt with more power, with a boost to existing alts, I would definitely be more interested in investing time and money in more alt progression.

I personally like the idea of some free past lives each toon could pick, basically everyone gets some free past lives, and maybe make past lives be like filigrees we could unslot and pass around BtA. I guess for those two ideas to mix you'd have to make the free past lives "inherent" or something so not tradeable to avoid free BtA past lives you can pass around. I think strarting with past lives would really hook people into the idea of accumulating power with past lives and the power providing more access to R1 will get people into the RP progression concepts. Making people create a backstory, a history of prior lives, provides more investment in these characters. Vets that can fully progress their past lives with some free past lives left over, could somehow cash them in for something unique, like bundle of reaper fragments, unique cosmetics or something. Or you could even choose to burn your free past lives for cosmetics if you want to prove you're a true challenge warrior.

But it doesn't really matter how the devs do it, just something to help new characters feel more powerful and catch up would be nice.

Thank you for reading my scroll,
Consider the environment before you quote reply this entire post

 

[rabidfox]

There's a great power mechanic: loot has bloated up massively. Lvl 5 Feywild gear will carry a person to 15 sharn gear which will carry them to 29 and then lvl 29+ gear will let someone run h/r1 raids and quests on r4+ (on HC no less). The great illusion is thinking one needs X past lives to be viable. They're fun to have and give one busy work to encourage playing but so not needed in general (with some exceptions for certain builds/push raiding/etc.). Revamped paths would help a bunch as new players typically don't know how to build well nor how to do gear tetris to get full potential. If people sent less time TRing and more time farming gear at cap/running reapers there then they'd see the progress a 1st lifer can make. I see many people TR the moment they cap out and miss out on a whole chunk of gameplay as a result; they get caught up thinking they need to those past lives to do things vs actually just doing them.

Edit: I would say the costs of expansions and access to various content is likely a big limiting factor for power/performance new players can achieve.

 

[Oliphant]

rabidfox, fine think of the past lives as a placebo then. You're talking about how it can work out. I'm talking about seeing it not work out over and over.

 

[DBZ]

Almost finished 98 trs on an alt for reaper rings arg they so need to front load racials

 

[DBZ]

And we should be able to double triple up on these stupid arch type pls too total waste of time most of em

Heal amp is king 15 power meh when your already losing 33 percent at cap does that even matter lol

 

[Oliphant]

One wrinkle I thought of last night is Hardcore. I'd be reluctant as a dev to mess with HC balance and I would not want to create a disparity where its better to start on live because you get free stuff making a new live toon that you don't get making a HC toon. There's no problem in HC with new toon power because the issue is not "game too hard", it's the freakish imbalances between toons in the game.

Easy solution is to provide the free past lives or whatever after a HC character transfers to a live server.

 

[rabidfox]

For new players, outside fixing paths to be good, I'd suggest adding level bracketed starter gear boxes for platinum. The same way there's vet starter gear and iconic gear, add gear packs for level brackets 5,10,15,20,25,29. The gear should be substantually weaker then gear at that level bracket so as to not replace RNG drops. It should just be "good enough" to let a new player go buy the lvl 10 "melee bundle", "caster bundle", etc. and have a basic set of gear where they're not completely feeling useless. It would also allow non-new players that are trying a new build that they don't have gear laying around for to be mimimally functional without spending ages farming out a basic gearset. The vendor that offers them could be disabled on HC to prevent it being used there.

 

[PraetorPlato]

What about a little display where you choose melee, ranged, (element) caster, or DC caster, and it checks to see if you have the 5 most important stats for each of those? (and making combat log overlap info more obvious)

 

[rabidfox]

Free unlimited lesser TRs on a 1st lifer. Make a mistake, you get to fix it the first time around as a new player as many times as needed. (Disabled on HC)

 

[Owlbear]

The game shouldn't be balanced around Reaper at all.

 

[Silverfox]

Please explain how anyone needs a catch up mechanic when there are Eight Seasons of Hardcore that prove without a doubt that there is absolutely nothing hard about DDO. The only thing needed to complete any quest in DDO is an understanding of a build and the quest in question.

 

[Eltronin]

So instead of having a new person work for their gear, earn their levels and actually play the game, you want to give them boosts so they are equal to what? 2 past live toon, 3?

As soon as some one joins, they get starter gear. Then as they adventure and learn the game, they get better gear. Having them earn their gear is much more beneficial then just giving them gear. They will learn the mechanics, see how different abilities on different items work with their character. It is a whole learning process and I feel much more beneficial then handing them items to improve their characters.

 

[saekee]

Here is what I would do:
1) excellent suggestion above re new toon and unlimited ERs. Do it!
2) massively buff Korthos sets. This is the first junk of new players. Make those expedited boots have three clickies not two and some jump boost; Troubleshooter gives higher bonuses; more DR from protective set; FF cloak has HS/MS skill boosts too, etc.
3) I would buff random loot even further until it is occasionally better than named. Its randomness makes the combos often rubbish, a good combo seldom has a slot for an augment, and they never get set bonuses. This is for new players sans TR gear and HC too. Disable on HC if needed. Then, give new toons a TREASURE HUNTER BONUS on chests so they get decent stuff
4) Give a first lifer 10 MP/RP/USP. Call it the feat: Blessing of the Newb. You lose the feat on TR and get a weaker one called Touch of the Newb which gives half those values. This too is lost on TR number 3.
5) Put a level 200 guild ship buff on Korthos that you use once and then it vamishes; you get this after doing Misery’s peak and then speaking with that final one-time npc. Disable for HC. Some story or lore here that you get a top escort ship ride since you ended up there at the destruction of your original ship and lost everything.

 

[Oliphant]

Please explain how anyone needs a catch up mechanic when there are Eight Seasons of Hardcore that prove without a doubt that there is absolutely nothing hard about DDO. The only thing needed to complete any quest in DDO is an understanding of a build and the quest in question.

Already said its not an "environment too hard" issue and suggest not doing this for HC. The issue is player power spread and new players having to cope with mixing it up with the god modes on molasses mode. I don't understand why you think HC players doing ok on HC means everything is easy for everyone (especially the obvious case of new players). Makes no sense to me.

 

[Silverfox]

Already said its not an "environment too hard" issue and suggest not doing this for HC. The issue is player power spread and new players having to cope with mixing it up with the god modes on molasses mode. I don't understand why you think HC players doing ok on HC means everything is easy for everyone (especially the obvious case of new players). Makes no sense to me.

The only issue I see is that new players actual new players have no experience or understanding of the mechanics in DDO. Giving them every past life, every piece of gear, and whatever else will never change that. I watched plenty of new players get the free xp stones when MotU was released and they stepped into Epics with an under geared, no experience player behind the keyboard and failing miserably.

Hardcore has nothing to do with it. Hardcore has simply proven a first life character has more than enough power to complete any quest in the game on Elite or Reaper.

 

[DBZ]

No it hasn't thats mostly veterans and whales you spend enough money stuff gets easy

 

[rabidfox]

2) massively buff Korthos sets. This is the first junk of new players. Make those expedited boots have three clickies not two and some jump boost; Troubleshooter gives higher bonuses; more DR from protective set; FF cloak has HS/MS skill boosts too, etc.
3) I would buff random loot even further until it is occasionally better than named. Its randomness makes the combos often rubbish, a good combo seldom has a slot for an augment, and they never get set bonuses. This is for new players sans TR gear and HC too. Disable on HC if needed. Then, give new toons a TREASURE HUNTER BONUS on chests so they get decent stuff

Korthos set could definately use a buff.

So instead of having a new person work for their gear, earn their levels and actually play the game, you want to give them boosts so they are equal to what? 2 past live toon, 3?

As soon as some one joins, they get starter gear. Then as they adventure and learn the game, they get better gear. Having them earn their gear is much more beneficial then just giving them gear. They will learn the mechanics, see how different abilities on different items work with their character. It is a whole learning process and I feel much more beneficial then handing them items to improve their characters.

It's not that I want people to be handed great gear. I just think no one should ever feel broken and unviable as a new (or returning) player. Letting people buy level 5 power RNG gear at level 10 won't make them OP (or whatever reduction in strength is done with various level starter gear boxes), but it might let them fix poor gearing choices they made and/or offset horrible RNG.

 

[Oliphant]

Think it would be great if you could pick 3 heroic past lives on first life character creation.

Could make a 3x Wiz PL for the spell pen, or 3x Ranger for extra ranged dps, or Paladin x3 for the HA, or do the three you'd least like to play later. What would be the harm of reducing heroic PL to-do list by 3 given there's like 50 you can do? Would get folks aware of PLs and the mechanics.

Maybe do something similar with racial lives, either way it would not break the game if the weakest toons had a tad more power.

Then at level 4 when you first get reaper trees, some kind of one-time event occurs on first life where you are imbued with like 10 reaper or something, just enough to tempt you to play R1. Gets you paying attention, maybe you notice at 21 point you get +100 HP. At least give people the awareness and a modicum of hope.

Then you hit level 20 and some event triggers you pick 3 epic past lives. Gets you keyed into the epic past lives progression system now.

Really would not change much but would be educational, would get you invested quicker into these toons, would allow you to (sorta) roll with the most likely diff for leveling grouping which is R1.

For vets it would make it easy to make certain kinds of useful alts and give a boost for starting out progressing an alt.

 

[Altra]

What about a little display where you choose melee, ranged, (element) caster, or DC caster, and it checks to see if you have the 5 most important stats for each of those? (and making combat log overlap info more obvious)

I'd love for the combat log to put overlapping in red (or another color) to make it easier to see.

 

[rabidfox]

Think it would be great if you could pick 3 heroic past lives on first life character creation.

Could make a 3x Wiz PL for the spell pen, or 3x Ranger for extra ranged dps, or Paladin x3 for the HA, or do the three you'd least like to play later. What would be the harm of reducing heroic PL to-do list by 3 given there's like 50 you can do? Would get folks aware of PLs and the mechanics.

Maybe do something similar with racial lives, either way it would not break the game if the weakest toons had a tad more power.

Then at level 4 when you first get reaper trees, some kind of one-time event occurs on first life where you are imbued with like 10 reaper or something, just enough to tempt you to play R1. Gets you paying attention, maybe you notice at 21 point you get +100 HP. At least give people the awareness and a modicum of hope.

Then you hit level 20 and some event triggers you pick 3 epic past lives. Gets you keyed into the epic past lives progression system now.

Really would not change much but would be educational, would get you invested quicker into these toons, would allow you to (sorta) roll with the most likely diff for leveling grouping which is R1.

For vets it would make it easy to make certain kinds of useful alts and give a boost for starting out progressing an alt.

New players would make poor choices and regret it. Worrying about past lives isn't really something someone new should be doing. Just like they really shouldn't be doing reapers when just starting out (one can if one enjoys the challenge but they're not there for newbies).