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]

I love the way SSG decoupled epic past lives from karma/leveling in a sphere. They could probably decouple heroic/racial past lives too and some people would appreciate it (and others would hate that I even dared to suggest it). At one level, they're good for getting people to try out a bunch of classes and races they might not otherwise, but they're also bad in that they force one to run things one might really hate just to get that past life (well +20 hearts and wish of memories exist but that's a costly way to avoid playing a life you might not enjoy).

 

[Oliphant]

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).

Not suggesting taking us to the alien space in Cocoon where no one gets sick, no one feels pain and no one gets old. Just a little boost. Noting that folks aren't leveling on R1 for the challenge. Its better xp and more PUGs for R1.

 

[rabidfox]

Not suggesting taking us to the alien space in Cocoon where no one gets sick, no one feels pain and no one gets old. Just a little boost.

But new players are unlikely to make wise choices and would waste those choices. That's not a new player thing, that's a "like the game, been playing a bit, want to rock the TR treadmill thing"; which I'm fine for those type things too, but that's who it's for.

 

[Oliphant]

But new players are unlikely to make wise choices and would waste those choices. That's not a new player thing, that's a "like the game, been playing a bit, want to rock the TR treadmill thing"; which I'm fine for those type things too, but that's who it's for.

Well, they figure that out soon and then no big deal because they can just redo the toon. If they find out later, well they can do a new toon or just keep going. At that point they will hopefully be over the hump. This does not force people to do TRs, it provides awareness and a bit of hope. If anything it would enable and encourage new players to make alts.

 

[rabidfox]

Could get rid of 28, 32, & 34 point builds (and redo drow's stat system). So when people share a build then it uses a single simple system (tomes would still be a factor but it would be one less thing to worry about when giving someone a setup).

 

[Oliphant]

Anything to help new toons and by proxy new players would be appreciated.

 

[Oliphant]

Also, for fairness one or two options should probably occur:

• Everyone gets the free past lives or whatever. New toons still get catch up in terms of ratio because new toons have smallest denominator.

Or

• If there are x number of free PLs or whatever, and you have less than x, they give you enough to hit x. This provides more arithmetic catch up but and because some players won't benefit.

 

[Eltronin]

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.

As it is now, beginning players/builds are viable. Watch youtube streams of people making first life characters and nothing but gear they find making it with no problem. People on HC do it every season. Someone suggested giving a couple LR Heart of Woods, that would be a good idea as it will allow new players to fix mistakes they make without penalty.

 

[Eltronin]

Also, for fairness one or two options should probably occur:

• Everyone gets the free past lives or whatever. New toons still get catch up in terms of ratio because new toons have smallest denominator.

Or

• If there are x number of free PLs or whatever, and you have less than x, they give you enough to hit x. This provides more arithmetic catch up but and because some players won't benefit.

No, new players shouldn't get past lives. The power creep and free stuff people want is getting out of hand. No reason to award PL to anyonw without working for it. I feel this is a really bad idea.

 

[rabidfox]

As it is now, beginning players/builds are viable. Watch youtube streams of people making first life characters and nothing but gear they find making it with no problem. People on HC do it every season.

What people on HC or professional streamers do isn't necessarily a reflection of a common player. I don't really care if they add the starter gear boxes I suggested or not, it doesn't effect me any. New/returning people having issues with figuring out basic gear choices and/or limited gear options because they don't own X or Y content happens frequently enough on discord. It's up there with someone having made a poor build choice and then having to help them fix it.

HC has the advantage of a very active auction house and pawnbrokers (I often fill in gaps via pawnbrokers on HC in my setups). I literally bought some gear off HC on a throwaway alt and moved them to another server I don't play on to help a newbie the other day that was hitting a wall with their current gear and content they had available. It's just an area I've noticed where it could help some players while not really shift any power balance nor causing bloat.

 

[Oliphant]

New player power creep handwringing now? Now I've heard everything.

 

[Ying]

Anything to help new toons and by proxy new players would be appreciated.

New players don't need more baseline power. There's been steady powercreep in the game for the 14 years I've played it. Where elite used to be difficult, it's now easy. And I'm not talking with past lives. I'm talking about hardcore where you start with nothing.

New players need direction, specifically a way to engage the community to get the resources they need -- build guides, level guides, what to look for in gear, learn mechanics, etc. That community and those resources don't exist within the game. Today the best place to find those resources are DDO streamers which welcome those players and get them pointed in the right direction. But there's very little support by SSG for streamers.

 

[Titus Ovid]

There are a few different things that turn off newbies.

1) Content behind a paywall early on.
2) Crap RNG loot
3) Not being able to open Elite.
4) Later on a crappy build
5) Power gap
6) ....

1) Yes, there is enough content to reach lvl 10 or 12 with f2p quests. But it is really frustrating for new people to have to leave a good group because they don't have the content. I spring for guest passes if this happens but there are no guest passes for Feywild and later expansions. And to buy a guest pass for a specific pack is tricky, too.
My suggestion: Add guest passes to expansions a few month after the release. Better yet make guest passes universal and just have a timer. And it should stop in public areas. So 180 Min for whatever. SSG has to update this mechanic only twice, max three times a year. This would justify a higher price, imo. Maybe 400 points?
2) Have an RNG rework. Block opposite effects and make useful combinations more common. DDO has the worst crafters in the whole Multiverse, really. 90% of the gear that is found is rubbish.
I like rabidfox' idea of equipment packs. Or have a rework of the vendors so they have some useful gear all the time. Masterwork equipment is really not up-to-date anymore.
3) For heavens sake, let all people open elite. I know it is a ViP perk but really, if they are skilled enough to play elite it would increase their chances to find people that join their lfm tremendously. I doubt there are lots of ViPs that would envy this new players.
4) Later on they will notice that their build is crappy. More LR hearts for 1st timers is a very good idea. Or at least free feat swaps, leave the 3 day timer. New people have no idea where to get these Dragonshards but it shouldn't be spammed.
5) New people might not notice or understand the power gap in the lower levels 1-5 but later on pretty much and very strikingly. At least 4 things contribute to power:
a) Game knowledge: they have to gain that themselves
b) Gear: #2
c) Build: #4
d) PLs: I am not fond of giving away past lifes but I don't have a better idea at the moment.
But I would be willing to give away some of my power, like stats to a 1st-lifer. Like I play a melee and don't need my Spell DCs. So why not give them away?! Rightclick on a 1st-lifer and activate special bonus. A very big and complicated downside would be that new players never know what they will get and can't get a feeling of the avatar. But it would be like buffs. If you have a buff bard everything runs so much smoother. So maybe it is not that bad.

I just played around with some ideas while waiting on a train. Feel free to run me over.

Cheers,
Titus

 

[droid327]

For me its not so much new player catchup, but being able to maintain halfway-decent alts without taking away far too much time from main character progression. But solutions for vet alt catch-up could also help new players catch up too.

I've long called for a system where alts get an XP bonus depending on how many PLs fewer they have compared to your "main" (ie the character with the most PLs). That way its fast to catch up, but slow as you get caught up.

I'd love to see Rested XP implemented as another bonus...ie an XP bonus that charges up when you're offline, and gradually discharges as you earn XP in game. VIPs could have a bonus to Rested XP charge rate/max charge.

Adding in a free PL of your choice as a high-end Favor reward would let you effectively "double up" on each life, though it would take longer than a quick power grind to 20...still, it'd make the grind less grindy by giving you another option.

Maybe add in rare, tradable "booster" items that let you tack on an additional PL when you do a TR. That'd create an economic flow from full completionists (who wouldnt need them) to players still catching up. VIPs could get occasional free ones.

 

[rabidfox]

2) Have an RNG rework. Block opposite effects and make useful combinations more common. DDO has the worst crafters in the whole Multiverse, really. 90% of the gear that is found is rubbish.
I like rabidfox' idea of equipment packs. Or have a rework of the vendors so they have some useful gear all the time. Masterwork equipment is really not up-to-date anymore.

Both RNG and masterwork gear passes could be nice. I was going to say they could just offer Vet I, II, III gear to be claimable by anyone who might have had bad luck with loot, but I looked at the vet II stuff and it's pretty dated and bad too.

 

[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.

Reminder of if you missed it. Game is not too hard, per se, although there are 13 difficulties now so kind of one dimensional for some to say game is too easy now.

Idea: Get reaper points awarded when first turning 30 or first time hitting 30 after update and get a tutorial, maybe worded to narrowly avoid breaking 4th wall, suggesting that some time spent fighting reapers at cap can be a very effective way to progress for experience and valuable reaper fragments. Nice to bread crumb players along more from starting out, earning xp, at least trying reaper, getting into epic play and leveling and epic past lives existing, getting a clearer signal when they hit Legendary/End Game that they can still earn power that lasts through reincarnation. Seems like early reaper points earned at cap are the fastest way to progress if you plan to level on R1 in the near future.

Idea: Rebalance reaper xp curve to be more curvy in advantageous way to everyone. Say they give out X free reaper points. Set the xp required for the X+nth point to be equal to the old XP required for the nth point. Provide X free points but basically, the XP requirements change so you stay at exactly the same XP as before and your next level xp requirement stays the same, etc.

 

[Titus Ovid]

(Not exactly the point of the thread, sry OP. I am breaching out.)

Something I can get behind is, average the xp for 1st to 3rd life - no difference anymore and give us the possibility to merge xp from different characters into 1 character respectively add it to the main toon for example.
No disadvantage come to mind spontaneously but advantages do:
1) It would be great for HC people, terrific even.
2) If you are really disappointed by one of your toons, not much is wasted, if you add that xp to another toon.
3) Too many bank toons? No problem, feed it to your TR character.
4) Newbies start out different characters to try out the game but at some point get tired of experimenting. Give them the opportunity to merge the xp into their chosen main.
5) ...

I know it is not a new idea but I am too lazy to search for pros and cons on the old forum.

Cheers,
Titus.

 

[misterski]

1) It would be great for HC people, terrific even.

Why would they want to make it easier to level in HC?

 

[rabidfox]

Why would they want to make it easier to level in HC?

I think the idea being that you could take XP from a HC character and move it to your main (as opposed to letting one use that function on HC); so the time spent there progresses you overall beyond earning cosmetics.

 

[Oliphant]

Rather than eating other toons, I like the idea of turning the past lives into something removable and tradable like filigrees. I'd rather encourage options for alts, option to give some of my OP toons' power to less powerful toons. Toons eating toons seems to go in the other direction, deleting toons, fewer toons.