To SSG; The endgame and the mountain we climb

[Jummby]

So recently we had this nerf for xp, the alert system change, a purple alert system, etc...

To what end? What was the point? First it was: we need it to fix lag, than as the community rebelled it was stated simply: People level too fast.

Does anyone consider the endgame aspect at SSG. Alot of us, especially established guilds, have organized raids several times a week. People like to build toons for these raids to make them stronger by adding past lives to them. The goal is usually just to be more effective for the group in many cases. To be clear, of course people start with rose colored glasses just saying: I will get all the lives, till they see how steep that mountain really is.

Mountain was a steep climb before, now, it is steeper. Newer players, returning and players that can not devote the time go get 100 plus lives feel left out to me. I see it myself as people aren't necessarily trying to get every life, but get enough lives where they need it for thier build to be more effective.

Now me, personally I am fine. I am playing the game forever and have several raid toons and they have plenty of past lives under thier belt. What about other people who are either returning to the game or trying out ddo?

What about established players who want to make more alts? I have 4 alts and I will never make another one. The grind has been made so bad, that there is no fun it.

Where's the fun in that at this point?

I understand the free to play very clearly (pay for power, conveniences, perks, etc...). DDO is reaching a point though that to be effective, you need to:

A. Pay up and drop a few 1000s on Ottos Boxes.

B. Play DDO full time (putting in free overtime)

C. Look in the blackmarkets on other forums to but illegal boxes and risk getting caught.

Maybe it's time.to reevaluate the grind. Not saying I have an answer, just saying it's time for a reevaluation.

The bottom line: We have server migrations to find more people to play with, people who only play hard core with the game the way it is and amoung other things, a choke hold on the endgame aspect of DDO and overall less people playing the game.

 

[Blu]

I mentioned in the most recent survey they have going that I wouldn't recommend the game due to the high cost of continuing to play the game once on board and the over reliance of thought process (if you want to reach end game full build/completionist in what a modern game would class) that more grind is needed.

The last thing this game is more grind for PL's, what it needs is a better though process of how to retain end game players - events, changing of reaper, playing for prestige in the form of really nice cosmetics, badges, pins to show next your name is the better way to do this. Most (not all) gamers change between multiple games and SSG I believe realise this but adding more grind doesn't make this game more appealing to play.

 

[Jontheknight]

So recently we had this nerf for xp, the alert system change, a purple alert system, etc...

To what end? What was the point? First it was: we need it to fix lag, than as the community rebelled it was stated simply: People level too fast.

Does anyone consider the endgame aspect at SSG. Alot of us, especially established guilds, have organized raids several times a week. People like to build toons for these raids to make them stronger by adding past lives to them. The goal is usually just to be more effective for the group in many cases. To be clear, of course people start with rose colored glasses just saying: I will get all the lives, till they see how steep that mountain really is.

Mountain was a steep climb before, now, it is steeper. Newer players, returning and players that can not devote the time go get 100 plus lives feel left out to me. I see it myself as people aren't necessarily trying to get every life, but get enough lives where they need it for thier build to be more effective.

Now me, personally I am fine. I am playing the game forever and have several raid toons and they have plenty of past lives under thier belt. What about other people who are either returning to the game or trying out ddo?

What about established players who want to make more alts? I have 4 alts and I will never make another one. The grind has been made so bad, that there is no fun it.

Where's the fun in that at this point?

I understand the free to play very clearly (pay for power, conveniences, perks, etc...). DDO is reaching a point though that to be effective, you need to:

A. Pay up and drop a few 1000s on Ottos Boxes.

B. Play DDO full time (putting in free overtime)

C. Look in the blackmarkets on other forums to but illegal boxes and risk getting caught.

Maybe it's time.to reevaluate the grind. Not saying I have an answer, just saying it's time for a reevaluation.

The bottom line: We have server migrations to find more people to play with, people who only play hard core with the game the way it is and amoung other things, a choke hold on the endgame aspect of DDO and overall less people playing the game.

So I suggested being able to disable past lives and such and got meet with people so against the idea that they would say that the devs would somehow mess it up so badly that I was being unreasonable for suggesting such a thing. I think a lot of people will come to this forum doing the same thing. Anything that potentially saves time for this grind is a waste of dev time apparently and people just love climbing that mountain.

As an on and off player who mainly just comes by for hardcore now, I see no appeal of live servers. I want to work on my main sure but I also liked having the powers of a first life. I want to grind my past lives in case I do end game raiding and what not but I didn't want to solely practice hardcore by creating new toons over and over.

Keep in mind in order for me to have some lenience and save time by allowing me to be more efficient with my time by 100% so that I could climb this mountain, I was being unreasonable.

I think reevaluating this grind is an excellent ide and worth getting into, but I don't know about the community itself.

 

[Col Kurtz]

So recently we had this nerf for xp, the alert system change, a purple alert system, etc...

To what end? What was the point? First it was: we need it to fix lag, than as the community rebelled it was stated simply: People level too fast.

Does anyone consider the endgame aspect at SSG. Alot of us, especially established guilds, have organized raids several times a week. People like to build toons for these raids to make them stronger by adding past lives to them. The goal is usually just to be more effective for the group in many cases. To be clear, of course people start with rose colored glasses just saying: I will get all the lives, till they see how steep that mountain really is.

Mountain was a steep climb before, now, it is steeper. Newer players, returning and players that can not devote the time go get 100 plus lives feel left out to me. I see it myself as people aren't necessarily trying to get every life, but get enough lives where they need it for thier build to be more effective.

Now me, personally I am fine. I am playing the game forever and have several raid toons and they have plenty of past lives under thier belt. What about other people who are either returning to the game or trying out ddo?

What about established players who want to make more alts? I have 4 alts and I will never make another one. The grind has been made so bad, that there is no fun it.

Where's the fun in that at this point?

I understand the free to play very clearly (pay for power, conveniences, perks, etc...). DDO is reaching a point though that to be effective, you need to:

A. Pay up and drop a few 1000s on Ottos Boxes.

B. Play DDO full time (putting in free overtime)

C. Look in the blackmarkets on other forums to but illegal boxes and risk getting caught.

Maybe it's time.to reevaluate the grind. Not saying I have an answer, just saying it's time for a reevaluation.

The bottom line: We have server migrations to find more people to play with, people who only play hard core with the game the way it is and amoung other things, a choke hold on the endgame aspect of DDO and overall less people playing the game.

interesting subject that should be more in focus

I can say for sure that my casual friends who still login once in a while have zero interest in raiding. They have a little interest in farming a past life or two...but know theres zero chance of them dreaming of catching up to the power curve.

Heck, I get on for 1-3 hours a day, and over the past year, I may have done 2 heroic lives and a handful of epic. Stopping to farm equipment at cap is the huge hurdle that really slows the wheel. But, how do you know if your build is going to work until you get most of the stuff!

The grind is way more time consuming than many old vets are willing to admit. As soon as you get all geared up, you realize your build just wont perform the way it could unless you pop a few specific past lives...so you TR to a different class and have to re farm equipment at cap, just to see that the build really wont perform without a few more... ect ect

So the commoners like my friends just wallow around around elite enjoying the game how we can. There is No Endgame for them. Even with my guidance, my teammate will likely never raid in the direction he's going (even though he seems to survive the r2 runs im dragging him through)

I really do not see how the power creep can be balanced for a new generation catch up to the maxed out players. But if you dont try to play catch up...you can still have fun.

 

[Oliphant]

The implicit message is they don't think people will pay for Otto Boxes to get past lives per se, the benefit per se is not worth it. They have to make their own game a slog to level, have to make it painful. Thus growing the game is doomed.

 

[Titus Ovid]

interesting subject that should be more in focus

I can say for sure that my casual friends who still login once in a while have zero interest in raiding. They have a little interest in farming a past life or two...but know theres zero chance of them dreaming of catching up to the power curve.

Heck, I get on for 1-3 hours a day, and over the past year, I may have done 2 heroic lives and a handful of epic. Stopping to farm equipment at cap is the huge hurdle that really slows the wheel. But, how do you know if your build is going to work until you get most of the stuff!

The grind is way more time consuming than many old vets are willing to admit. As soon as you get all geared up, you realize your build just wont perform the way it could unless you pop a few specific past lives...so you TR to a different class and have to re farm equipment at cap, just to see that the build really wont perform without a few more... ect ect

So the commoners like my friends just wallow around around elite enjoying the game how we can. There is No Endgame for them. Even with my guidance, my teammate will likely never raid in the direction he's going (even though he seems to survive the r2 runs im dragging him through)

I really do not see how the power creep can be balanced for a new generation catch up to the maxed out players. But if you dont try to play catch up...you can still have fun.

This, I think it boils down to expectations. I play since early 2010 but I don't have the time and desire to be part of the chase anymore so I adjusted my expectations. But what does this mean for the newer players that started way later than me? They have a much bigger mountain to climb then the early players. With the current model it gets harder to keep up or even catch up. I am pretty sure that that is a big source of discouragement. Maybe a shift to more story telling and role-playing is a solution so a cleric life is significantly different than a ranger life.
And maybe the decision to have to level to 32 only once is a sign that something will change in regard to the xp grind.
Stay tuned.

Cheers,
Titus

 

[Sheikra]

I'm not new, but I just recently have gotten into the endgame. I made a fighter on hardcore, leveled him to cap, transfered over and LRed with free stone into a tank. I threw a mishmash of sharn and feywild gear on him and off he went to tank LH raids.

You don't need 100 past lives or crazy grind raid gear to get into the endgame. Play a tank, a healer, a bard, or ranged dps and you can contribute meaningfully in pug raids on your first life with mediocre gear.

Don't get me wrong, I'm running on the hamster wheel too with my main, but if you're content to run LH/R1 raids, you can definitely get into it with very few past lives. I think new players are told they need 50000 part lives to keep up, and that is more discouraging than reality warrants.

 

[Falkor]

The grind _is_ the endgame.

I've been trying to imagine ... what does a real endgame look for for DDO ? What does that even mean at this point?

Once you get all the goodies, levels, past lives and hang out at 'end game' you realize, there is no real endgame. Raiding the same content for ages? Running the same quests for ages? I guess so. Just on a different character, and doing it differently.

I've come full circle to just questing for fun, not chasing XP, and happen to accumulate raid tokens, ingredients and gear. I'll tend to run saga's just for .. you know ... FUN ?! If I'm not enjoying the game, I'm not playing it. The ephemeral experience is all that will remain once the game dies, or I die.

Not chasing gear, or stat increases, or anything really ... is a big change in mentality. I've even got a full on 'adventuring' heroic build to flower sniff and check out odd stuff in quests. You'd never see me doing that back in the day when trying to 'get to cap' and 'finish my completionist.'


Oh, and Sheikra! Welcome to DDO.

You are doing what I suggest to every new player, and 90% of them don't do it. Having an alt or two for end-game raiding and saga questing is the easiest way to accumulate good gear without having to 'farm.' It's a great way to meet good players, to see effective builds, and learn the game. You've made the game fun for you and are winning at playing.

It perfectly illustrates how the 'grind' is unnecessary to participate in the game, and something veteran players have been communicating for ages.

I wish more newer players had your insight.

<tangent>

Too many can't listen to basic advice and rather than improve their skill and attitude, they instead come here to complain, about things like casters being too strong and cry about how things need to be nerfed. About melee being weak. About whatever.

Instead of learning the game, instead of listening to experienced players, they complain and demand others adjust to them.

The entitled audacity that they demand the entire game adjust to them, rather than the one newb adjust to a long-established game world, is ridiculous. And unfortunately, they have loud voices and too many adjustments are made to appease such types.

No village idiot will be left behind. And if you do, they are crying about zergers while eating dust. Then they cry about tumbling and fast movement. Hey, what a day .. what a day.

</tangent>

 

[Weaponalpha]

You can easily lvl to 20 in 24 hours of game play following any leveling guide you choose. the same is true if u choose iconic and want to go to 30 then itr for iconic pl and heroic. If u play 1 hour per day during the week and 4 hrs per day on weekend you can tr 28 times in a year. these numbers are just for example obviously as u can play 3 hrs some days and 0 others and so on... the fact that the game is NEW to new players means they can enjoy experiencing all of the content, mechanics, leveling, getting better gear and more powerful, etc. for the first few times. if this is not satisfying enough then maybe they dont like the game regardless. no one should expect to be as competent after playing for a few months compared to those who have years and years of play. ddo is less of a skill based game than a knowledge and gear/pl game. many love Hardcore for this reason as it balances this out more.

 

[Lazuli]

Yes, Jummby, I agree. this is overdue since a long time. The grind is too big.

 

[Lazuli]

The grind _is_ the endgame.

The carrot only works when the donkey can see it and believe it is within reach. If you put it too far away, the donkey will have no interest in the carrot.

Grind, yes... necessary for an mmo. Grind so big that people get tired, or discouraged because the end is so far away that it is impossible... no, not that. I agree with Jummby. As a veteran, getting more alts is strongly discouraged. As a new player, the veterans seem so far away that the game doesn't hold their interest. The most common comment I have heard from newcomers is "this game is only focused on veterans."

There's a difference between having grind that keeps people busy and having grind that suffocates the game. Simply that.

And they want to create the legendary reincarnations lol.

 

[Falkor]

Well said. Changing the nature of the grind, and making alts viable, are certainly worth taking a look at. I think it'd help with new players, and could address the 'time-value' concerns of veteran players.

I don't think it's wrong to expect to grind, but when that grind is made meaningless by orbital cow-nerfs, then what's the point. Something has to change.

What though? And exactly what is the issue being addressed when the word 'grind' is used? What change can be made that improves quality of gameplay and creates an actual end-game? Just 'reducing grind' doesn't really get there, in my opinion.

To me it seems that there reaches a point where we are wishing for a different game, or an updated version that addresses gameplay elements that weren't around when DDO was first made.

The reason we have the grind in the way we do is because there is no real end game.

I don't think the devs really know what to do to make one, other than to extend the grind and make the gauntlet more painful for people. This is by-design, because they don't have a creative vision or gameplan for a genuine, enjoyable end-game experience. And also the source of the 'take the power away to resell it back to them' theory.

It's been interesting to see where players tend to congregate. I think these kind of experiences help alleviate the grindiness. If there was more reward to group, and more group-with-rewards based events, it'd improve player experience.

Epic raids, like Von and Chrono, gets tons of action. And slayers. End game raids.

There is a lot of potential. I think there is a lot of undiscovered potential in epics, because new players and veteran players alike meet there in the middle.

 

[Oliphant]

They should let people start a life at level 20 if they want and do so asap. Heroics in 2024 is too dead and the grind is too long. Even if you have a bunch of friends, forming a static group is like getting married in heroics. Given the slim margins for power leveling each other, you have to play when they play and not play when they don't play, or at least you have track progresses, throttle or catch up. The last thing people want any more is to have shackles on their time, and the last thing a game dev should want is throttling. The best place to start the grind initially is endgame reaper farming so why not plop people where their time can be leveraged and grouping is allowed for the full spectrum of epic and legendary levels in the party. There's nothing really awkward in terms of reward when starting at toon at 20, or reincarnating and starting at 20 - you simply won't qualify for a heroic past life that you did not earn - your choice.

 

[Oliphant]

I guess my suggestion likely just makes heroics that much more dead. Maybe they should just seriously relax power leveling in heroics. Why is heroic grouping range so narrow while epics is fully open?

 

[Shear-buckler]

You can easily lvl to 20 in 24 hours of game play following any leveling guide you choose. the same is true if u choose iconic and want to go to 30 then itr for iconic pl and heroic. If u play 1 hour per day during the week and 4 hrs per day on weekend you can tr 28 times in a year. these numbers are just for example obviously as u can play 3 hrs some days and 0 others and so on... the fact that the game is NEW to new players means they can enjoy experiencing all of the content, mechanics, leveling, getting better gear and more powerful, etc. for the first few times. if this is not satisfying enough then maybe they dont like the game regardless. no one should expect to be as competent after playing for a few months compared to those who have years and years of play. ddo is less of a skill based game than a knowledge and gear/pl game. many love Hardcore for this reason as it balances this out more.

So 5 years just to catch up to the current level, never mind all the grind that will be added along the way.

There has been no elivation to the grind (increased xp gain, decreased xp requirments etc) that has not been very well recieved or has not significantly improved the game. The grind has been piling on and we are long overdue for another grind reduction.

 

[Lazuli]

I guess my suggestion likely just makes heroics that much more dead. Maybe they should just seriously relax power leveling in heroics. Why is heroic grouping range so narrow while epics is fully open?

It's a combination of things. At the moment, epics have fewer levels than heroics, so it's easier to find people playing the same thing as you. Also, epics have the looser power leveling penalty and extended bravery threshold, which helps with grouping.

But there are even more things. There are many people who like to do ER because it is short. You prepare the sagas, and very soon you are in the cap again. Heroic/racial TR is a slog, heroics feel very long. And there's another thing, a lot of people don't like low levels because their characters are very limited. There are also builds that don't work well until they get the ED.

There are people who only play heroics because they don't like epic levels, but everything said above makes grouping more effective in epics than in heroics. What most limits grouping into epics are chains with quests that block progress, such as menace, but fortunately they are few.

 

[Nickodeamous]

The grind is very long indeed. And when you finish the PLs and get all the reaper points, and sit at cap and raid, that to me become more about hanging out with friends than anything to raid.

But yes, the grind is real. Speed leveling is real and the battle of zerger vs. Non zerger is real. For me, I don't care to run the harbor 200 times to get my past lives. That is boring and just a mechanical necessity to level. It really is a hampster wheel.

I just don't see ssg saying, "sure, we will give every new player some free past lives" cause it is fiscally irresponsible.

But why do we "need" all of the past lives? We don't. For me, it's a sense of accomplishment, but not a necessity to be good at playing.

Suggestion. Instead of saying x number of racials get you y abilities, and x number of heroics get you z number of passive, why on 10 lives of any get you z, 20 lived of any get you something, and so on.

Of course, grandfather those people that have done their milestones etc. But maybe let people play how they want and still get something in return for running 1-20 x number of times.

I don't know, I am out of ideas to help new players. Lol. But, yeah, Jummby is right.

Nic

 

[Lazuli]

Suggestion. Instead of saying x number of racials get you y abilities, and x number of heroics get you z number of passive, why on 10 lives of any get you z, 20 lived of any get you something, and so on.

In this regard, a big mistake of SSG, along with exponentially increasing the number of past lives and parallel grinds, has been making PLs universally useful. In the original turbine's class TR only a few PLs were useful for a given build, so doing them all was a matter of personal taste and not a necessity for a competitive build. But SSG started changing that system for the worse, to make PLs universally useful, which greatly increased grinding for everyone and not just for grind for hardcore grinders.

For example, the EPLs, which are necessary for all builds. Or the racial ones, which are completely crazy with that action point in the third life of each race. This is crazy, because you go from a moderate grind that is necessary to a huge grind.

SSG seems to have realized that this is not healthy, because now the new PL of the archetypes are no longer focused on being mandatory, but rather useful for specific builds or playstiles.

Although I honestly don't expect SSG to take any action with this excessive grind problem. It is something that has been going on for years, and they have ignored all requests about it. SSG seems indifferent to the retention of new players or the state of alts. Don't expect improvements, so you won't be disappointed.

 

[Fleming]

So recently we had this nerf for xp....

What nerf?

 

[Mand O'Lin]

It's a combination of things. At the moment, epics have fewer levels than heroics, so it's easier to find people playing the same thing as you. Also, epics have the looser power leveling penalty and extended bravery threshold, which helps with grouping.

But there are even more things. There are many people who like to do ER because it is short. You prepare the sagas, and very soon you are in the cap again. Heroic/racial TR is a slog, heroics feel very long. And there's another thing, a lot of people don't like low levels because their characters are very limited. There are also builds that don't work well until they get the ED.

There are people who only play heroics because they don't like epic levels, but everything said above makes grouping more effective in epics than in heroics. What most limits grouping into epics are chains with quests that block progress, such as menace, but fortunately they are few.

Interesting view. I prefer the low level game. To me, the quests are better (more in keeping with the ideas of D&D) and my character is REALLY powerful at low levels. All those little past life bonuses make a significant difference at level 2, and much less difference at level 32.