U60 Lammania Preview 1 - XP System Adjustments

[Xandrah]

We've had a lot of great feedback in this thread, but one thing that we haven't seen a lot of feedback on is suggestions to get players back to the XP/minute and general questing speed that was taking place prior to Update 59. We have seen a very significant increase in general speed of play since our recent lag reduction work, and as players have noticed, it's causing issues regarding game performance. Some of the goal here is to get players back to the pace they were prior to those recent changes. So, just to ask: How would you reduce player speed as it were to pre-Update 59 levels?

A lot of players feel the need to zerg to finish quests due to the increased past life xp requirement and desire to get completionists. Maybe consider taking away the increased xp need for leveling up in heroics.

Does your data show the same trend for heroics and epics? Or is there more a rush on heroic leveling?

 

[Lotoc]

We've had a lot of great feedback in this thread, but one thing that we haven't seen a lot of feedback on is suggestions to get players back to the XP/minute and general questing speed that was taking place prior to Update 59. We have seen a very significant increase in general speed of play since our recent lag reduction work, and as players have noticed, it's causing issues regarding game performance. Some of the goal here is to get players back to the pace they were prior to those recent changes. So, just to ask: How would you reduce player speed as it were to pre-Update 59 levels?

Personally I've been of the opinion since the 33% damage nerf to r10 magic damage that enemies should just have more health on average rather than that nerf specifically which hit underperforming casters harder than ones which were oneshotting mobs with more than 33% damage to spare.

 

[rabidfox]

We've had a lot of great feedback in this thread, but one thing that we haven't seen a lot of feedback on is suggestions to get players back to the XP/minute and general questing speed that was taking place prior to Update 59. We have seen a very significant increase in general speed of play since our recent lag reduction work, and as players have noticed, it's causing issues regarding game performance. Some of the goal here is to get players back to the pace they were prior to those recent changes. So, just to ask: How would you reduce player speed as it were to pre-Update 59 levels?

But who's actually changed pace? I run at the same super fast pace as ever and kill along the way just as pre-u59.
What player base is alerting along the way that wasn't before?
People that can't kill fast vs the quanity of mobs so they zoom past them? Maybe reduce pack sizes so that killing things along the way is viable without being a slog?
What quests are these in? Are more people running ToEE/etc. since work so they're in quests that alert easily?
None of the people I run with in parties or LFMs when leveling are suddenly doing things differently, so I'm not sure who is nor why.

 

[PyrotechRick]

One issue a lot of players seem to have is that "if I go slower my XP potion wears off so I get less benefit from it". I don't know if it would be possible, or even desirable, but what if, rather than measuring XP potions in hours and minutes, they where measured in "number of quests entered"?. So a 50% XP potion that lasts 3 hours at the moment might grant 50% XP for the next 12 quests you enter (edit - maybe have it tick down on quest completion rather than entry). It might encourage people to play a wider variety of quests, including longer ones, and be more inclined to take time in them.

 

[calouscaine]

We've had a lot of great feedback in this thread, but one thing that we haven't seen a lot of feedback on is suggestions to get players back to the XP/minute and general questing speed that was taking place prior to Update 59. We have seen a very significant increase in general speed of play since our recent lag reduction work, and as players have noticed, it's causing issues regarding game performance. Some of the goal here is to get players back to the pace they were prior to those recent changes. So, just to ask: How would you reduce player speed as it were to pre-Update 59 levels?

The bonus xp for killing things is great - but it shouldn't detract from over all xp across the board.
Give incentives for doing optionals - i.e. more xp, a chance at the dungeons named items in their loot chests.
Leave a boost on the kill everything xp, but add something to the dungeons which won't get it to balance it out.
If you guys want people to play slower and take their time they need to have a reason to. Begin adding in some random things for people to find (similar to rare encounters) in the dungeons, i.e. treasure, special rewards (this could be anything of use - sxp, scavenger hunt items to make something useful, a random special merchant that has it's own named items for sale as a rare encounter behind a hidden area, things like that).
But to be honest, it boils down to whether or not some one wants to spend the time going slow and finds it worth it. And there are a lot of individuals who simply like going fast.
Give something like a base attack and damage bonus vs x creature for fully filling out a monster manual creature section (+1 or 2 would be fine).

 

[Cordovan]

More information required.

Is this on HC or the live servers?

Are you seeing new record time completions, or just a higher percentage of players going for max efficiency? (i.e., the low end for time completions is the same as always, but it has become a more common case thus changing the average?)

Nothing has changed for me, personally.

On all worlds. It is both a significant increase in completion speed in addition to a larger pool of players achieving these speeds. It is essentially why, after the recent lag work, the community has been seeing increased lag, as the speed has pushed to the point that things have become somewhat untenable. That was one of the main reasons why the suggestion to move first-time XP to the Conquest system was tried; it allows players to earn more XP in general since they can get that bonus XP every time they run the quest rather than just the first time, but also discourages some amount of the hyperzerging that had been taking place. We recognized that it would impact people's XP/minute calculations, but the hope was to find a solution that both encouraged exploration and offered generally more XP with an acceptable level of slowdown of player speed. For players who wished to continue at their current pace they still could, although they might need to run a few additional quests per level, but others might be encouraged to take advantage of these new bonuses.

 

[Ahpuch]

We've had a lot of great feedback in this thread, but one thing that we haven't seen a lot of feedback on is suggestions to get players back to the XP/minute and general questing speed that was taking place prior to Update 59. We have seen a very significant increase in general speed of play since our recent lag reduction work, and as players have noticed, it's causing issues regarding game performance. Some of the goal here is to get players back to the pace they were prior to those recent changes. So, just to ask: How would you reduce player speed as it were to pre-Update 59 levels?

I think it has been mentioned in this thread. Base the bonus on monsters actually agro'ed or on DA. Conquest is not the correct metric. And make it so that it less of just a reduction.

Of course, we don't actually know the WHY the time is faster so the need "to get players back to the XP/minute and general questing speed that was taking place prior to Update 59" is hard to comment on. The responses to tie bonuses to Agro'ed mobs or DA were supposedly predicated on the idea that unresolved mob agro had gone up which supposedly ties to those faster completions. Is that not the case? I will say that slowing down the completion speed by forcing players to interact with more (unagro'ed) mobs to get completion seems at odds with concerns about server performance and seems destined to just make both players and operations engineers unhappy.

 

[Zaszgul]

On all worlds. It is both a significant increase in completion speed in addition to a larger pool of players achieving these speeds. It is essentially why, after the recent lag work, the community has been seeing increased lag, as the speed has pushed to the point that things have become somewhat untenable. That was one of the main reasons why the suggestion to move first-time XP to the Conquest system was tried; it allows players to earn more XP in general since they can get that bonus XP every time they run the quest rather than just the first time, but also discourages some amount of the hyperzerging that had been taking place. We recognized that it would impact people's XP/minute calculations, but the hope was to find a solution that both encouraged exploration and offered generally more XP with an acceptable level of slowdown of player speed. For players who wished to continue at their current pace they still could, although they might need to run a few additional quests per level, but others might be encouraged to take advantage of these new bonuses.

Well, I'm not certain how new record speeds are being achieved.

My xp/min hasn't changed post U59, and can't think of any mechanical change for how new records are suddenly achievable across the board.

 

[Zuldar]

On all worlds. It is both a significant increase in completion speed in addition to a larger pool of players achieving these speeds. It is essentially why, after the recent lag work, the community has been seeing increased lag, as the speed has pushed to the point that things have become somewhat untenable. That was one of the main reasons why the suggestion to move first-time XP to the Conquest system was tried; it allows players to earn more XP in general since they can get that bonus XP every time they run the quest rather than just the first time, but also discourages some amount of the hyperzerging that had been taking place. We recognized that it would impact people's XP/minute calculations, but the hope was to find a solution that both encouraged exploration and offered generally more XP with an acceptable level of slowdown of player speed. For players who wished to continue at their current pace they still could, although they might need to run a few additional quests per level, but others might be encouraged to take advantage of these new bonuses.

I think one way to do it would be to put meaningful loot in optional chests so players don't try to just go straight to the end where the only good stuff is. The way to do that might be to completely overhaul how random loot works. You know how like in Path of Exile or Diablo there's a Rare quality of loot that is essentially a random item but with more power on it, add something like that with unique modifiers (with appropriate rarity for the good stuff) or generic set bonuses based on class archtypes.

Having good random loot might encourage players to go out of their way to check on optionals.

 

[Lotoc]

On all worlds. It is both a significant increase in completion speed in addition to a larger pool of players achieving these speeds. It is essentially why, after the recent lag work, the community has been seeing increased lag, as the speed has pushed to the point that things have become somewhat untenable. That was one of the main reasons why the suggestion to move first-time XP to the Conquest system was tried; it allows players to earn more XP in general since they can get that bonus XP every time they run the quest rather than just the first time, but also discourages some amount of the hyperzerging that had been taking place. We recognized that it would impact people's XP/minute calculations, but the hope was to find a solution that both encouraged exploration and offered generally more XP with an acceptable level of slowdown of player speed. For players who wished to continue at their current pace they still could, although they might need to run a few additional quests per level, but others might be encouraged to take advantage of these new bonuses.

Fundamentally if the goal is to slow people down and tone down how excessively dungeons are being left on alert then do not move all the exp to conquest, move it to a bonus for not majorly alerting the dungeon.
You want us to deal with everything on the critical path? simplest way to do it.
If you need to tie more of it into actual kills make the difference in the aggression bonus rather than full on conquest but make sure to have set every single quest to give the aggression bonus for clearing out the critical path, too many quests don't even get aggression with a 100% kill rate.

 

[Drachmor]

I know this isn't a super exciting change because we're basically just trying to encourage most players to do what their already doing, but monsters are a major component of the game play in how time is spent, and our reward structure should reflect that so completely avoiding them doesn't seem as attractive and becomes a less common practice.

This is an excellent point but there is some really, really crucial nuance to this.

A lot of the monster in the game are not meaningful obstacles to quest completion.

There are lots of quests where players do not hit conquest, not because they are skirting content, but because they would need to go out of their way to finish all of the little unnecessary offshoots of the quest to achieve conquest.

Some quests (Haverdasher) you just can't hit conquest. I'm not worried about these (but their base xp should be increased to net neutral). I'm worried about those long, high-xp quests where players are still putting in a ton of honest work and ending up with less xp. I'm worried about the quests where most of the monsters are concentrated in low-xp optional objectives; that right there isn't fair to "how time is spent."

If this decision is going to reflect design intention, I do think you need to look at some high-vis areas where this design isn't necessarily upheld in the quest.

A good example of a quest where conquest makes sense - Von3. This is a long, advanced, challenging, complex quest with a ton of objectives and xp to be earned, and yes, an achievable conquest bonus that people actually go for.

An example where conquest is just incidental - Kobold Assault.

An example where these conquest bonuses honestly make sense - the catacombs, probably. I just kinda dash past the enemies there and yeah, they actually do pose a legit threat, so instead of doing this "keep away" game (which is fun, by the way. zerging *is* fun), fine, I could understand killing the mobs. I really do. I think this is a positive change, from a design perspective.

An example where conquest (and dungeon alert) is severely flawed - Frame Work.

I'm sorry, I know Frame Work is designed to be this "kill-everything" quest, but you've given us the option to complete the quest a different way, a faster way, and I think that play should be rewarded.

If you want to kill it, you _do need to change these quests in some fundamental way_, other than just... roadblocks and xp requirements. Frankly it just isn't fun to "have to" do something, when in so many other ways a more *important* design strength than killing mobs in DDO is meaningful choice and player ingenuity.

This is a bold, one-size-fits-all solution to a really nuanced problems. And since the changes are supposed to be "net neutral," that means players can really only stand to *lose* xp, never to gain. Plus, more monsters killed means more time spent per quest, so overall, this is very clearly an xp loss.

If that is your objective, fine; maybe players are leveling too fast, in your opinion. If that is not your objective: I do believe these numbers should be buffed to reflect a net "gain" (which will, in effect, be much closer to actual neutral). Bump conquest or delving depending on your design goals: encourage quest diversity, or thoroughness of completion, respectively. Look at Spies: I still run Spies R, E, H, N because it's efficient to do so. With greater Delving, maybe I'll go somewhere else. With greater conquest, well at least I'm putting a lot of work into these runs (which, btw, I am. People go for onslaught in these repeated, high-xp quests.)

 

[Xandrah]

I like the idea for adding some additional reward to the monster manual for completing things. I would take the extra time to get optionals each life.
Another idea can be accruing an xp bonus for time logged off while in a tavern or guild airship. I have seen this on other MMOs.

 

[rabidfox]

Add +2 seconds onto XP pots running per kill made in a quest (when in appropriate difficulty range). Bet a lot of people will suddently clean up the mobs along the way.

 

[Ahpuch]

... discourages some amount of the hyperzerging that had been taking place. ...

This is still unclear. If the hyperzerging is killing everything and simply getting it done faster is that a problem? I will assume that when you say hyperzerging you actually mean, running by and ignoring mobs, resulting in perfomance degradation. In that case then tackle that specifically as has been mentioned here. Leave the XP as is but add penalties if the DA or % agro mobs (alive/dead) are too high. If you do want to do that you at least won't degrade XP for all those players that do not hit DA when running quests yet still don't get Conquest.

You should stress a higher priority on fixing those quests that have a DA problem though. Maybe start with a list of all the quests you are looking at to resolve unintended DA problems. Let us know that you know there is a problem. Those quests get inappropriate mob agro and fixing them is not just for the players but for your ops team. That would be far more effective for all concerned than trying to rejig conquest counts on innumerable quests. Only fixing the quests with inappropriate DA will actually reduce performance issues.

 

[calouscaine]

On all worlds. It is both a significant increase in completion speed in addition to a larger pool of players achieving these speeds. It is essentially why, after the recent lag work, the community has been seeing increased lag, as the speed has pushed to the point that things have become somewhat untenable. That was one of the main reasons why the suggestion to move first-time XP to the Conquest system was tried; it allows players to earn more XP in general since they can get that bonus XP every time they run the quest rather than just the first time, but also discourages some amount of the hyperzerging that had been taking place. We recognized that it would impact people's XP/minute calculations, but the hope was to find a solution that both encouraged exploration and offered generally more XP with an acceptable level of slowdown of player speed. For players who wished to continue at their current pace they still could, although they might need to run a few additional quests per level, but others might be encouraged to take advantage of these new bonuses.

This is just a guess, but I am betting people are trying to run through content faster because of the new da system. They don't want to deal with it and want to get it over with as soon as possible.

 

[DOMO]

I’m going to put my opinion on the gigantic pile already here.
In full respect to the developers: Do you play your game?
This is a bad change. Players on average do not get conquest, so the experience bonus should be more front loaded. I know you mentioned Castle Ravenloft quests, but there are a variety of quests that you cannot get conquests in. Heroic von 3, house of rusted blades are both quests that you will not get conquest in just off the top of my head.

 

[Lotoc]

This is just a guess, but I am betting people are trying to run through content faster because of the new da system. They don't want to deal with it and want to get it over with as soon as possible.

that is complete bunk, doing that is actually worse.
Alerting quests on live is ONLY BUFFING BOSS MONSTERS more than DA was doing previously, regular mobs are exactly the same as they've always been under dungeon alert. Just because you dislike being unable to oneshot bosses getting +1000 PRR and MRR doesn't make it the reason for every issue.

 

[cocopufff]

On all worlds. It is both a significant increase in completion speed in addition to a larger pool of players achieving these speeds. It is essentially why, after the recent lag work, the community has been seeing increased lag, as the speed has pushed to the point that things have become somewhat untenable. That was one of the main reasons why the suggestion to move first-time XP to the Conquest system was tried; it allows players to earn more XP in general since they can get that bonus XP every time they run the quest rather than just the first time, but also discourages some amount of the hyperzerging that had been taking place. We recognized that it would impact people's XP/minute calculations, but the hope was to find a solution that both encouraged exploration and offered generally more XP with an acceptable level of slowdown of player speed. For players who wished to continue at their current pace they still could, although they might need to run a few additional quests per level, but others might be encouraged to take advantage of these new bonuses.

I feel like one of the big issues with this is that it is ultimately means you have to choose between generating favor or generating EXP per minute.
Zerg-running a quest basically means you're getting the most favor as fast as possible. If we're just talking favor, there's literally no point in repeating the quests after that. So for people looking to optimize favor (which is most people, since it gives DDO points) this is always going to end up being a nerf to EXP per minute. It can take 2X-3X as long to run a quest for conquest, so for farming favor, nothing changes except you now just get less EXP for it.

Is this something the team is aware of / thinking about?

 

[Titus Ovid]

We've had a lot of great feedback in this thread, but one thing that we haven't seen a lot of feedback on is suggestions to get players back to the XP/minute and general questing speed that was taking place prior to Update 59. We have seen a very significant increase in general speed of play since our recent lag reduction work, and as players have noticed, it's causing issues regarding game performance. Some of the goal here is to get players back to the pace they were prior to those recent changes. So, just to ask: How would you reduce player speed as it were to pre-Update 59 levels?

Putting a malus on DA/Tying xp to DA would do that, no?!

 

[Drachmor]

I know this isn't a super exciting change because we're basically just trying to encourage most players to do what their already doing, but monsters are a major component of the game play in how time is spent, and our reward structure should reflect that so completely avoiding them doesn't seem as attractive and becomes a less common practice.

TL;DR - Players already hit conquest when it's worth it. Players shouldn't have to adjust to do things that aren't "worth it." I know this is an attempt to make conquest *more worth it.* However, either a lot of quests are going to need to be seriously redesigned for this to be anywhere close to net-neutral (as it stands, it is a very clear and substantial net loss in xp, like, I could see this being 5 or 10% over the course of a life at least, just with the increased time and plenty of quests that simply do not support getting conquest in good conscience)

... or these numbers need to be bumped slightly to reflect a numerical "gain." Think about it: more time to get the same xp? That is a loss. Quests where conquest *shouldn't* be expected, as it would seriously distract from the fun and quest flow? That is a loss.

Maybe that is your intention... but I don't know if it should be? Seeing as zergers are engaging with this game as much as anyone lol. They are spending just as much time in this game, if not more - they're just cycling through a bit faster.