U60 Preview of Preview 2 Lammania XP Changes

[Gavaleus]

So to reiterate a lot of what has already been said by others, the motivation behind these changes is unclear:

• If it's to encourage players to kill aggro'd enemies to reduce server lag, that would be better accomplished by Dungeon Alert. And these changes could even be counterproductive (players will want to aggro more enemies more quickly to retain XP).
• If it's to get players to slow down to return to pre-U59 XP/min levels, can you share any data that shows there has actually been a notable increase? I haven't seen any indication that players' play styles have changed much, if at all. My friends and I certainly haven't been playing any differently.
• If it's that you feel the focus on killing enemies in DDO in general is too low and that players just ignore combat, and this feeling is unrelated to server lag or XP/min, why is XP being reduced in non-Conquest scenarios?

Comparing Preview 1 with Preview 2:

Net effect in Preview 1	Normal	Hard	Elite	Reaper
Conquest	+0%	+5%	0	0
Onslaught	-20%	-10%	-10%	-10%
Aggression	-20%	-15%	-30%	-30%
No Kill Bonus	-20%	-20%	-45%	-45%

Net effect in Preview 2	Normal	Hard	Elite	Reaper
Conquest	+5%	+30%	+30%	+30%
Onslaught	+0%	+10%	-10%	-10%
Aggression	-5%	-5%	-30%	-30%
No Kill Bonus	-20%	-20%	-45%	-45%

OK, so a +30% increase from live when getting Conquest is quite large and more than I expected honestly. But the penalties on Elite and Reaper for non-Conquest bonuses remain unchanged, and that combination (Elite/Reaper with Aggression/Onslaught) is where I imagine the majority of questing ends up.

A> The thresholds to reach a bonus are being lowered. Getting Aggression is twice as easy as it was before.

Even if Aggression is twice as easy to achieve, you're still getting -30% base XP from Live. So the important part is how easy Conquest is to achieve.

B> Dungeons with extremely large monster counts will get addressed - There may be 400 mobs in TOEE (guessing) will be adjusted so aggression/onslaught happen for running critical path, and conquest won't require that much extra exploring. Broken quests (haverdasher/vault dragon fight) in heroic will get fix. The previous preview 1 thread gave us a pretty good idea where problem quests were.

Many of us just don't have faith that the ease of achieving Conquest will be properly addressed across the entire game. You state that the old requirement is 80% of mobs in the quest, but this simply cannot be the whole story since many quests have unattainable Conquest or require killing some infinitely respawning enemies; there must be manually set values somewhere. Just lowering a percentage from 80% to 75% won't be sufficient, especially if you want Conquest to be obtainable along the critical quest path. To do this properly pretty much requires running every quest in the game at least once to figure out an appropriate value.

C> We are looking into communicating how many monsters you need to get these bonuses in the quest panel. We THINK we can get this working.

This would be fantastic. If you do this, it would additionally be fantastic if it could be done for the trap bonus, secret door bonus, and breakables bonus (and I would suggest putting all of them in the XP Report to not clutter up the Quest Panel which can already have a lot of objectives and optionals).

B> The Reaper XP 200% first time XP bonus will now display in the quest panel when it applies, and it will state that this bonus is used instead of delving

It's great that this is being made clear. I don't know if I've ever seen a dev talk about the 200% first time RXP bonus before. It's something that I heard murmurings of when Reaper first came out, so I did some thorough testing to calculate the exact RXP upon quest completion, and sure enough the calculations only work out if there is a first time bonus of 200%, not 95% as you would expect.

What I would also love is for the RXP to be updated with each bonus in the XP Report, like how normal XP is. If you have a trap bonus, breakables bonus, flawless bonus, etc., the normal XP is updated at every bonus to show the new total. Having RXP do this too would be great to make it less obscure.

C> We are looking at making the Reaper XP 200% bonus apply separately for heroic and epic/legendary each - so you can play something on reaper on heroic that has a legendary mode without screwing yourself out of the 30+ level bonus later.

This is already the case on Live, if I'm not mistaken.

 

[rabidfox]

It's pretty confusing which is why were kinda keen on consolidating a little. So the First time bonus and Bravery never applied to reaper XP...instead there is a separate 200% first time reaper bonus that was always there but didn't display in the UI, leading to much confusion because bravery plus first time bonus almost total to 200% anyway.

This reaper xp bonus does not care about you playing any other difficult (it's doesn't care or work like bravery/delving). It applies the first time you play the quest on reaper on heroic and then again on epic/legendary

We thought this reaper bonus didn't keep separate track between heroic and epic because we got some complaints that it didn't but it appears to actually do just that...

Good to know that it was hidden bonus vs what players assumed for the source based off we can see. And we now we know is the exact same bonus as on live so we'll know where our numbers will be at with these changes which seems to be:
1st time reaper = same 200% initial with same or better RXP depending on kill bonus
2nd+ reaper = same or better RXP depending on kill bonus

It eliminates RXP as a factor and just makes regular XP when leveling the concern.

Matching one time hidden bonus being pretty much the same as the front facing bonus... hahahahah that was just asking to confuse everyone.

 

[Lorrgar]

Do you plan to make any adjustments to quest ransack XP? Under this new XP scale how much penalty will we get for repeating a quest within 24 hours? What if we run it 2 or 3 times?

 

[CBDunk]

If this goes live my regular questing group will likely move more towards characters that have both durability and AoE capability (e.g. Warlocks, Druids, EK Wizards, etc), run most content on Reaper 1, and split up to do different paths in each quest to maximize kills while not significantly increasing completion time.

The primary exception will be the SMALL fraction of quests that have 'end chest rewards' which can actually be useful. For those, we'll probably continue running shortest path with some side-tracking where it is possible to get more kills and then come back together by the end.

End results will likely be a very small decrease to game progress across the board. Biggest change will be that it further constrains the viable build styles for doing reincarnation runs. Unfortunately, less variety there will likely result in decreased interest in the long term... but we'll have to see what other changes they make in the future which could counter (or exacerbate) that.

 

[Sarlona Raiding]

What changes is xp/min

Thank you for responding to my post

I am seeing my RXP/min going up 100% of the time. I haven't seen any math to show differently. Literally the only thing changing is lowered monster-kill tiers and higher xp for monster kills. This can only ever result in higher rxp if you do the same thing after the update you do today.

As far as heroic / epic / legendary xp/min that is much more complex, but predictable. Quests where conquest is harder to achieve will be avoided and quests where conquest is easier to achieve with the new threshholds will be better than today so players will swap some quests out and swap others in and level in almost exactly the same time, but with more reaper xp.

Some quests where conquest wasn't previously possible, but now is will be getting a decent xp bump and players will quickly figure all this out.

Whether that offsets quests where conquest isn't even possible remains to be seen, but at least from what I am seeing in reaper mode for regular xp is:

Conquest bonus: Net +30% bonus compared to today (lose 95 from first time, gain 50 from delving, gain 75 from conquest bonus)
Onslaught bonus: Net -10% bonus compared to today (lose 95 from first time, gain 50 from delving, gain 35 from onslaught bonus)
Aggression bonus: Net -30% bonus compared to today (lose 95 from first time, gain 50 from delving, gain 15 from aggression bonus)
No bonus: Net - 45% bonus compared to today (lose 95 from first time, gain 50 from delving)

There will be some quests where a typical run goes from onslaught to conquest after the update due to the lower tiers. In that case, the player will be getting a 40% xp bonus vs today.

So clearly the new meta for leveling (whether the devs want it or not) will be to stick with high xp quests where you get conquest or at a minimum onslaught bonus and the community will figure this all out rather quickly. Quests where too much work is required to get conquest or at least onslaught will be less rewarding, so those will only be run if the xp/min is already super high.

One possibility is to increase base xp for any quest where conquest isn't possible, e.g.., eyes of stone, but I am not sure how much work that is for the devs.

Assuming the devs make some reasonable changes to support this initiative - I just don't see my xp/min changing significantly (up or down). Sure, it's possible they don't make some specific quest adjustments, but I am confident they will get it right in the end.

Either way, it seems this is going to happen either way, so anything the community can do to identify problem-quests is potentially helpful.

 

[vryxnr]

If this goes live my regular questing group will likely move more towards characters that have both durability and AoE capability (e.g. Warlocks, Druids, EK Wizards, etc), run most content on Reaper 1, and split up to do different paths in each quest to maximize kills while not significantly increasing completion time.

The primary exception will be the SMALL fraction of quests that have 'end chest rewards' which can actually be useful. For those, we'll probably continue running shortest path with some side-tracking where it is possible to get more kills and then come back together by the end.

End results will likely be a very small decrease to game progress across the board. Biggest change will be that it further constrains the viable build styles for doing reincarnation runs. Unfortunately, less variety there will likely result in decreased interest in the long term... but we'll have to see what other changes they make in the future which could counter (or exacerbate) that.

Which will ALSO cause more enemies to be active at once, because parties will be splitting up to get max kills, causing DA which is an indicator that what you're doing is bad for the servers.

Further making these proposed changes make no sense given the context of DA and all the talk about it, lag, and "zerging", for the last few months prior to and after update 59.

 

[somenewnoob]

Where's the carrot? This is still stick.

 

[The Narc]

Which will ALSO cause more enemies to be active at once, because parties will be splitting up to get max kills, causing DA which is an indicator that what you're doing is bad for the servers.

Further making these proposed changes make no sense given the context of DA and all the talk about it, lag, and "zerging", for the last few months prior to and after update 59.

People will adjust and move on, some people will do it right splitting and killing mobs right away keeping the alert down, others will do it wrong trying to group up large groups creating DA which the rest ofnus players not wanting lag can only hope the devs enforce strict and severe penalties for this type of action, especially to the metas that are more likely to do these kinds of actions(AOE casters)

 

[alcolitoz]

Getting Aggression is twice as easy as it was before.

This is misleading because getting just agression is huge net loss. Onslaught twice as easy could help, still a net Xp loss.

There may be 400 mobs in TOEE (guessing) will be adjusted so aggression/onslaught happen for running critical path, and conquest won't require that much extra exploring.

You still want us to play the game the way you want it. If you want us to really kill more mobs, dont change the xp and add another step over conquest and put a lot of xp there.

I just looks that Devs want to slow player progression.

 

[somenewnoob]

Why didn't you just leave everything alone and BUFF xp for kills and increase optional xp?

 

[Sarlona Raiding]

Looking at the level 13 quests as a sample:

7 quests have conquest as a possibility
3 have onslaught as a possibility
2 have aggression as a possibility (Feast or Famine and The Archon's trial)
2 don't even have aggression as a possibility (memoirs of an illusory larcener and maze of madness)

This is from the ddo wiki - not sure if it's 100% accurate. I would be happy to identify all the quests where aggression or less is all that's possible, but not sure the devs have any interest in adjusting xp upward for these quests or adjusting monster requirements significantly.

 

[Ahpuch]

You still want us to play the game the way you want it. If you want us to really kill more mobs, dont change the xp and add another step over conquest and put a lot of xp there.

That would be better but I am not even keen on that. I want devs to give us quests with problems to solve. I don't want the solution to every quest that is best rewarded to be "kill everything". I am OK with sticks and carrots used against players who use the agro and ignore strategy. That seems reasonable as it is often against the spirit of the quest objectives, the logic of the enemy and against the stability of the server. But killing everything just because? Too reductive and linear.

IOW

Why didn't you just leave everything alone and reduce the XP only if the players have too many agro'ed mobs at completion (ie DA in effect) and buff the XP if no DA was encountered.

 

[Oliphant]

Isn't leaving mobs be the best possible behavior for avoiding lag? For example, If you in ToEE first quest and you just leave mobs be when possible, will this penalize you for leaving mobs be?

 

[CBDunk]

BTW, I thought of another factor which might be contributing to the 'faster leveling times' that the Devs have said they are seeing;

Have other groups recently been getting to the point where they have more 'dinosaur bone crafting ingredients' than they need? I realized my group had recently stopped doing all the optional chests in Isle of Dread quests... because we don't need them anymore. Likewise, we don't run the Isle of Dread wilderness 'rare spawn route' as often... because we already have the gear and ingredients from those.

The same thing happened previously with Saltmarsh and Sharn... once you have gotten all the specific rewards you need from those there stops being a reason to do anything with that content but maximize XP/minute.

Which also brings me to a better way for the Devs to achieve 'slower leveling times'... do a better job giving people OTHER rewards for levelling slower. If the benefits of completing optional content did not 'run out' fairly quickly then people would continue doing them. One possible example... add some form of 'currency' that can ONLY be obtained from spending time on optionals and can be used to 'buy' things which are otherwise hard to come by. Maybe there is a raid that your group just can't beat which has an item you want... or you've tried running the quest for Jibbers a hundred times and still not gotten it. If players could slowly work towards getting those things by an alternate path... spending time on optionals, then a lot of people WOULD do so. Instant slower average progression... 100% carrot, 0% stick. Also doesn't really change 'game balance' much, as it is only really a benefit for the corner cases that some people just can't get at all otherwise.

There are countless other ways this could be done. Could be the 'currency' idea above. Could be 'for every #### optional XP earned' you receive one magic potion that will automatically add one named/rare item drop to the results of the next chest you open. Could be a choice of guild renown, books, crafting ingredients, et cetera like saga completions. Could be an entirely new reward structure.

The root is just that if you want people to complete optional content, you need to give them ongoing incentives for doing so... and currently, the game doesn't. Tweaking XP structures isn't going to change that.

 

[Oliphant]

If you feeding devs ideas to "slow leveling process" maybe stop and ask yourself why?

 

[CBDunk]

Isn't leaving mobs be the best possible behavior for avoiding lag? For example, If you in ToEE first quest and you just leave mobs be when possible, will this penalize you for leaving mobs be?

Yes. Sneaking past or otherwise going around mobs will result in less XP.

Likewise, in various places there are dialog options which allow you to avoid a fight... those are now more likely to be worth substantially less XP than killing the monsters.

 

[Epzilon]

I think if onslaught gives parity with everything we have on live AND you get every quest that has conquest problems, I think these changes are fine. It also wouldn't be a bad idea to increase the base XP of some really bad quests in general to make people want to do different quests

 

[Ahpuch]

Yes. Sneaking past or otherwise going around mobs will result in less XP.

Likewise, in various places there are dialog options which allow you to avoid a fight... those are now more likely to be worth substantially less XP than killing the monsters.

For example using Diplo on the Daask in Red Rain will now likely reduce XP. This change would undo options put into many quests by the quest designers. The quest designer decided that there was enough fighting but now a global change will undo a thought out choice within the quest.

Blanket changes to rejig how quests are run are a bad idea. Quest designers will no longer put in these little options because the game engine will make them moot.

 

[CBDunk]

If you feeding devs ideas to "slow leveling process" maybe stop and ask yourself why?

In the hopes that they might implement changes that make the game more enjoyable, rather than less?

The Devs have said that their metrics show that the rate of 'progression through the game' has significantly increased since U59. They have explicitly identified this as a 'problem' that they intend to 'fix'. They haven't said WHY exactly, but I'd guess that they have (valid) concerns that faster game progression means decreased game longevity and profits.

Previously, I and a lot of other players, VOLUNTARILY ran Isle of Dread quests more slowly than we do now. We have stopped doing so because the benefits of taking that extra time (i.e. 'dinosaur bone crafting ingredients') have effectively become obsolete... we have more than enough for immediate needs and will get sufficient amounts from 'shortest path' runs to meet any future demand. Ergo, my suggestion to introduce some form of more lasting reward(s) for spending more time in quests. Incentivize people to spend the time... rather than this XP shift, which punishes players who do not.

 

[DreamForge]

TBH I still can't connect the dots between lag issue and this new XP system. Anyway, it's good to know you DDO. It was fun while it lasted.