To SSG; The endgame and the mountain we climb

[T.O.]

Yeah that's the key question. Can you lower the grind without making players run out of things to do? Personally I think there is so much grind in the game that you can easily reduce it by 30%+ without facing that risk.
New grind is added all the time with new races, classes and archetypes, and when we get legendary reincarnation there will be whole other layer to grind out.

Yeah 30% xp pots or 50s. So this is about you don't want to pay for it. Got it now.

 

[Shear-buckler]

Yeah 30% xp pots or 50s. So this is about you don't want to pay for it. Got it now.

Nope, complete miss. I run 50% pots and VIP and have done so for years. I will keep doing so no matter what the devs do to the grind. Got any other clever takes?

 

[T.O.]

Nope, complete miss. I run 50% pots and VIP and have done so for years. I will keep doing so no matter what the devs do to the grind. Got any other clever takes?

Nope. Because there is no grind. Let me reach for that fine bottle of wine and edam cheese. Keep that whine you got but I'll share some cheese

 

[Speed]

SSG, where is the fun?

here:

Then there is that other 10% of the time... Where I go "Man, I gotta grind this out or that out and this is the most efficient way to do that..." and then one of the guildies pulls me back and says hey, why play the game if its gonna feel like work. Don't get lost in the ideal buddy. Just enjoy.

and here:

For my own sanity I stopped focusing on end game. Now I play whenever class/race combo the best I can, maybe try some of the odd builds or just make something up as I go and see how it works out. Make a THF (quarterstaff) Barb/Sorcerer (think Shaman) and see how it does.
Otherwise it is playing the meta class/race combo running highest xp per minute, predetermined quests, to lvl32 then rinse/repeat. That just sounds depressing to me.

This is just psychological trap - similar model appears in various f2p games and is especially effective in mobile versions.
Many (if not most) players need their goal and when they achieve it, then some of them will left, because there is nothing more to do.
MMO needs something like this to keep this type of players for longer time.
This is a problem of some people that feel pressure in their heads ("I MUST HAVE IT! So I will force myself to do things that I do not enjoy! YES! I must spend a lot of my valuable time to just have it! MY PRECIOUS SHINY TREASURE!") while others do not care and just play the game how they like.

Things that are not fun if you are forced:
- playing classes and races that you do not enjoy and doing it 3 times
- not playing favorite classes and races more than 3 times, because it is not optimal
- playing content that gives more xp instead of enjoyment level
- pressure
- routine

Things that are healthy:
- just playing the game normally how you like for your enjoyment
- social part (you may even play content that you do not like)
- in the meanwhile, naturally progressing with your goal if you like to have it, no matter how hard it is to achieve

If you feel bad that you can not contribute in some raids (which are not introducing something extraordinary new, just higher numbers that later start to be common like anything other that you already played, but I get that someone just wants to be in that ultimate best of the best), then there are is other content where you can with people that have similar power level and still have fun.
Most people will not think about how some players performed when quest is over, because they also were new and know that not everyone have all the passives.
Many are happy to see new players, so their all time invested game may survive and they can have more people to play with.
It is bad when someone just stays in entrance and waits for easy xp, but when you are doing best what you can (even with minimal contribution), then this is good enough.

 

[YeeboF]

Two common sense suggestions that come up every time this issue is raised (I think I saw the racial one in at least one post above already, not going digging for it), and will never be implemented:

1. Have the past life XP penalty kick in more gradually, so maybe ten lives to get to where it is now by life 3
2. Reverse the order of the racial lives, so that you can get the 12 extra build points (or whatever we are up to now) from your first 12 lives instead of your first 36 lives.

That would get a new player the strongest past life bonuses relatively quickly, while still leaving the near infinite grind for further incremental gains largely intact.

 

[DilemmaEnder]

The point I am trying to get at is that if it doesn't matter if it's 30% or 3%, why would it matter if it was 90%? Or even 100%? You can have a social experience without getting a past life.

While you can have a social experience without gaining a past life - these are some of the arbitrary sign posts that exists within this medium.

Which is to say that each past life and reaper point has some value. It is a mechanical change to the functioning of your character. A progression that helps to measure how far you've come since the last time you checked your history. That is how goal setting and accomplishment work. You set a goal and estimate your progress towards that goal based on effort used to propel you along that progression. This is how all life works.

In the system that is DDO we have specific mile markers along the path to Triple Completionist, if you choose to walk that path. Which keep in mind, you do not have to. You can simply make a character and try them out and delete them. You can go through any and every quest in the game. You can solo every raid, or die trying. You can collect every cosmetic or try to put on a fashion show of weapons. There are a thousand things you could do.

But which ever you try to do, you can make an educated guess about how long it might take you to do it. And I don't think that once you have moved whatever amount along that path it is before you decide it is too long you should start tell the designers of it that they need to change that path.

Especially when there are others whom started before you and already succeeded (proving it is not impossible) and others whom started after you whom are not yet feeling such ennui.

As I find to often be the case, if you find that your goal seems unattainable, changing your perspective is far more conducive to your mental health than asking the world to change its rules.

It may just be that the path of Triple Completionist is not the right path for you. We all know many people that play only during HC. Clearly there is meaning in enjoying this game without Past Life feats.

 

[Shear-buckler]

While you can have a social experience without gaining a past life - these are some of the arbitrary sign posts that exists within this medium.

Which is to say that each past life and reaper point has some value. It is a mechanical change to the functioning of your character. A progression that helps to measure how far you've come since the last time you checked your history. That is how goal setting and accomplishment work. You set a goal and estimate your progress towards that goal based on effort used to propel you along that progression. This is how all life works.

In the system that is DDO we have specific mile markers along the path to Triple Completionist, if you choose to walk that path. Which keep in mind, you do not have to. You can simply make a character and try them out and delete them. You can go through any and every quest in the game. You can solo every raid, or die trying. You can collect every cosmetic or try to put on a fashion show of weapons. There are a thousand things you could do.

I agree! There is a purpose to the past lives and completionist feats. The question of how long it should take to attain them is therefor perfectly legit and I really don't understand why you are filling an entire waffle truck just to avoid the question.

When asked if you are okay with past lives being harder to obtain you say you would be fine with it. When asked if you are okay with past lives being easier to obtain you try to invalidate the question itself. To me that seems dishonest.

As I find to often be the case, if you find that your goal seems unattainable,

I don't find the goal unattainable. It works fine for me, I will get all past lives soon enough, I already have the vast majority of them. But I also realise that since I have played this game since 2007, I run 50% xp pots and VIP and have accumulated a large amount of knowledge and gear to make leveling very quick and easy I can't just be looking at it from my perspective. If you don't have those things and start the game today it will be a very long hill to climb and you will most likely never catch up unless you play and pay a lot. That is the perspective I care about.

changing your perspective is far more conducive to your mental health than asking the world to change its rules.

This is a game forum. Discussions about game design and providing feedback is literally the purpose of the forum. The topic is, approximately, "how long should it take to get all current past lives". There is no mental health issues involved in having an opinion on the matter that is different from the status quo.

 

[Fizban]

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.

/Not signed

There are many MMOs out there that provide a cookie cutter character with little to no customization, i.e. WoW, etc.. DDO incorprates the complex character customization development you get to some extent from D&D (pen and paper) and this is why the game is so appealing to most of the DDO fan base.

I do not want the past live system dismantled and if you're really honest there are not any true MMO games out ther that do no incorprate some level of grind. Grind is neccesary in an MMO for a player's sense of accomplishment with their character. DDO does have the ability to adjust to players that do not like to grind for various gear or character past lives, etc... This is why there are so many different levels of difficulty. While I don't generally run quests on normal or hard, I know of several players where that is only what they do.

Every player has the ability in DDO to go as hard or not as hard as they desire.

 

[PraetorPlato]

You have 4 uber completionists so it's not surprising that you support a suggestion that is specifically made to help uber completionists respec. The catch-up part of the "guide" mechanic is a poor afterthought that was slapped on to create an illusion that the suggestion was for the benefits of others and not the ones who push it so hard. It would be a complete disaster for the game if implemented. The meta for "non-ubers" would be to play something else while waiting for the 3 day timer because redoing everything for your character every 3 days would get very old very fast buy it would still be the by far optimal way to progress your character.

I would even go so far as to say it's the worst catch up mechanic known to man.

Reaper xp is arguably the main grind, if you didn't play between TRs, you're not progressing that at all

 

[Shear-buckler]

Reaper xp is arguably the main grind, if you didn't play between TRs, you're not progressing that at all

That's my point. Players would become so bored and annoyed from redoing their entire character every three days that they would not bother progressing between lives that the outcome would be that they simply play something else when waiting for the timer and catch up with the endgame progression after.

Players already find TRing a hassle, making an every three day thing for almost 2 years would be a disaster.

 

[DilemmaEnder]

I agree! There is a purpose to the past lives and completionist feats. The question of how long it should take to attain them is therefor perfectly legit and I really don't understand why you are filling an entire waffle truck just to avoid the question.

When asked if you are okay with past lives being harder to obtain you say you would be fine with it. When asked if you are okay with past lives being easier to obtain you try to invalidate the question itself. To me that seems dishonest.



I don't find the goal unattainable. It works fine for me, I will get all past lives soon enough, I already have the vast majority of them. But I also realise that since I have played this game since 2007, I run 50% xp pots and VIP and have accumulated a large amount of knowledge and gear to make leveling very quick and easy I can't just be looking at it from my perspective. If you don't have those things and start the game today it will be a very long hill to climb and you will most likely never catch up unless you play and pay a lot. That is the perspective I care about.



This is a game forum. Discussions about game design and providing feedback is literally the purpose of the forum. The topic is, approximately, "how long should it take to get all current past lives". There is no mental health issues involved in having an opinion on the matter that is different from the status quo.

No change is needed in the current XP and or Past-Life system.

I agree there is nuance to the topic but nothing that I have read in this thread made me go "Man I wish it were that way!" or "Wow, that would be awesome!" or "I think that would be great for the game!"

I'm not even saying it can't change. Just that nothing I have read has made me feel that it is warranted.

 

[rabidfox]

I'd want the same "choose whatever past life you want" that epics got after the ED revamp applied to all past lives. When I go from 30 to 20 (ER) or 20 to 1 (TR), let me take any past life I want. If I want to grab a racial, heroic, or epic then yay. If I don't want to play X class or Y race for whatever reason then I can still grab that past life (I know +20 hearts and wish of memories cover this but I just want it baked into the system). If I want to take a racial instead an epic life then let me or vice versa. Etc. Etc. Just lots of options to progress past lives while playing whatever I want. The only odd duck out would be iconic past lives, it would likely need to be iconic past (of your choice) + other past life of your choice.

Is it lore breaking for some? Sure. Would some people hate the idea? Absolutely. Just a personal thing I'd enjoy.

 

[Br4d]

I bank my xp and run quest's 2 levels over. There is so much xp that there is no need to do the big xp chains earlier than needed. I don't even touch E-star till epics. You need to reevaluate your leveling game. I also run 30's. But your leveling game is the disaster you made. Not SSG

I ran Outbreak last night. First time. R1. It's not a long quest, just 10 fights or so including the boss. Takes about 10 minutes counting the optional area with the chest. 12.5K XP. Overgrowth followed for 13K XP.

I mean what the heck? 12.5K XP at quest level 17? 13K in the same chain?

That's 50% less XP than any comparable Eberron quest.

These quests have somewhere between 50% and 200% less XP than anything else in the range.

It's like Eveningstar was intentionally devalued in XP because the expectation was that the quests would be run most often by Iconic characters on their 1st life starting at 15.

 

[Weaponalpha]

The Grind is there to weed out the weak. Or...maybe play the amount of time you are capable of and stop comparing yourself to those who dedicate more time and thus have more stuffs? If i joined WOW today i would imagine that i had some work to do. Here's a time management tip, stop posting on the forums and start questing. Have yet to get any xp or loot on here.

 

[Br4d]

The Grind is there to weed out the weak. Or...maybe play the amount of time you are capable of and stop comparing yourself to those who dedicate more time and thus have more stuffs? If i joined WOW today i would imagine that i had some work to do. Here's a time management tip, stop posting on the forums and start questing. Have yet to get any xp or loot on here.

I play WoW also and yes it can have 3, maybe 4 months work to do to get to endgame and maybe another 2 months to gear up once there.

I've been playing DDO since release and I can safely say that the grind here is 100x the grind in WoW and it never ends.

 

[rabidfox]

I play WoW also and yes it can have 3, maybe 4 months work to do to get to endgame and maybe another 2 months to gear up once there.

I've been playing DDO since release and I can safely say that the grind here is 100x the grind in WoW and it never ends.

HC season starts, everyone has zero existing gear nor past lives, and one levels to cap while grabbing 5k favor. Gear up at cap. Run various quests on r4 without ever dying. Reapers wings have been earned on HC. I think people have also run every raid on HC at this point. No HC season has lasted more than 3 months. So it sounds like we're faster than WoW for doing end game. All the past lives, higher difficulty settings, and things beyond that are just icing on the cake; all the content can be run on completely fresh characters quite fast. Sure there's player knowledge involved in that, but that's why vets generally share builds and gear advice with those who ask. If one feels they can't currently run r4+ at cap nor do raids, it's not the need of massive grind of past lives that's holding them back.

 

[Genkiba]

I play WoW also and yes it can have 3, maybe 4 months work to do to get to endgame and maybe another 2 months to gear up once there.

I've been playing DDO since release and I can safely say that the grind here is 100x the grind in WoW and it never ends.

Good. This is the kind of grind that attracts me to this game, not the raid/gear grind of WoW.

 

[Silverfox]

I play WoW also and yes it can have 3, maybe 4 months work to do to get to endgame and maybe another 2 months to gear up once there.

I've been playing DDO since release and I can safely say that the grind here is 100x the grind in WoW and it never ends.

The only grind in the game that is required is actually learning how to play, farm the appropriate gear and do what you can and be ok with that.

The fact that any player tells a new player that past lives are required only propagates this myth. However telling new players this myth is certainly easier than the first point.

HC season starts, everyone has zero existing gear nor past lives, and one levels to cap while grabbing 5k favor. Gear up at cap. Run various quests on r4 without ever dying. Reapers wings have been earned on HC. I think people have also run every raid on HC at this point. No HC season has lasted more than 3 months. So it sounds like we're faster than WoW for doing end game. All the past lives, higher difficulty settings, and things beyond that are just icing on the cake; all the content can be run on completely fresh characters quite fast. Sure there's player knowledge involved in that, but that's why vets generally share builds and gear advice with those who ask. If one feels they can't currently run r4+ at cap nor do raids, it's not the need of massive grind of past lives that's holding them back.

There is no better example than HC there isn't a quest in DDO that cannot be competed with a group of first life characters working together.

 

[Jummby]

Good. This is the kind of grind that attracts me to this game, not the raid/gear grind of WoW.

The OP is very simple: It is meant for people who want to play end game organized raids and what it takes to be in the raids, not just carried in them.

To the people that answer how much they like to grind, I am happy for you. This OP has nothing to do with you.

The OP was about people who want to play end game content and the issues they face.

 

[rabidfox]

not just carried in them.

I challenge the concept that most people are getting carried because of lack of past lives. I think the typical player needs a good build and a solid gear setup (which is something they could easily be lacking either or both of) and they need to understand the mechanics for any given raid and their class. Telling most people they're being carried is a disservice (as long as they're built and geared correctly). I'd rather help people figure out how to improve their builds and how to tetris out their gear so they can enjoy the game right now.