VIP Perk Suggestion

[Dom]

As someone who has been playing this game continuously since 2010, I have done the levelling/past life grind and reaper experience farm over and over again. At this point, it is a mind-numbing process that gets very repetitive. To address this issue, along with other issues, with an “all-in-one” solution, below is a suggestion that would be beneficial to both SSG as a company, and new players, veteran players and players who have quit/taken a break from the game (this is something that could entice them to come back):

VIP Perk Suggestion – The Guide:

For any character (on a VIP account) that has achieved BOTH epic completionist (1x) AND either heroic completionist (1x) or racial completionist, they will be granted access to use “The Guide” on that character to gain all the experience needed to reach level 32 without having to level, just like on Lamannia.

Note: For anyone who doesn’t know, “The Guide” is an NPC on the Lamannia preview server that allows you to gain maximum experience for your character by talking to it.

What Does This Solve?

A few things would be addressed by implementing this:

• Eliminate the gap between new players and veteran players in terms of past lives – a new player would have an easier time catching up with the past life grind by having access to “The Guide”.
  • Every three days (reincarnation timer), players gain a new past life by reincarnating which can equate to accumulating 10 lives per month.
  • To put into perspective how steep the grind is currently, it would take about 3,000 hours of play time (assuming ~16 hours for a 1-30 life) to have a character that has three times every single past life available in the game (186 past lives).
• Create a valuable VIP perk, further incentivizing people to be VIP and actually making it more worthwhile. Many players have cancelled their subscription, especially after the cancellation of the daily gold rolls without replacement for that perk (which we were told we would be getting). Having spoken to a number of players, something like this would make them re-subscribe to VIP.
• Eliminate the redundancy of levelling from 1-30 every life, even if your toon has every single past life available. Obviously, this “grind” shouldn’t be fully eliminated, and thus the access to “The Guide” would be locked behind completionist or racial completionist so that players don’t just have instant access to level cap/past lives.
• Promotes the creation and development of alt characters.

How Does This Benefit SSG?

Of course, SSG will be skeptical of this at first… however there are some positive benefits on their end, including the $$$ factor.

• First and foremost, this would help retain current VIPs as well as attracting new, and even old, VIP subscribers by adding meaningful value.
• This is in line with their goal of (or at least this is the way it comes across) tailoring to new(er) players by helping to reduce the disparity between new players and veteran players, at least from the past life grind aspect.
• Hearts of wood would still be needed to TR, thus players will still be buying hearts from the store.
• XP pots will be used for the initial levelling grind as well as obtaining Reaper Experience.
• There would likely be an increase in the amount of jewelers and sentient toolkits, dino bone picks, etc. as players would be changing builds more often.
• More alts = more $$$

This is something that I have come up with and ran by a handful of people to get their input. Definitely open to more feedback, but it seems like a perk like this is something that would check all the boxes and be beneficial for both SSG and its players in the long run.

 

[comfy]

Eliminate the gap between new players and veteran players

Without veteran players running groups 1-32, would new players have anyone to play with?

 

[rabidfox]

Without veteran players running groups 1-32, would new players have anyone to play with?

If this was implemented, I'd just spend more time leveling my 2nd or 3rd favorite characters. My main would just use the guide to try new builds at cap rather than powerleveling each time I want to try a new set up (or waiting until lam to test builds- I do that a lot currently); it's a bit tedious when I want to try a slight variation (often with a different race) and having to fully zerg level back up just to see if it's what I wanted or not.

 

[Liy]

I think this is great. As a player who left for 5 years and came back to a whole new game, I can definitely agree there is a huge leap from the strength of my character vs someone on the same exact build but will the lives. It is massive and I found it quite a challenge to just get a to a point that I am able to enjoy the elite content. I still have a lot of lives to go to be anywhere near capable like some of these hugely veteran players but the thought of having to grind out 200 lives is so disheartening and discouraging. I have also talked to several players that just don't run elite end game content at all because the difference all the lives make. There are many players that don't get to enjoy the high reaper content or end game content because of this.

Definitely in support of this as an amazing perk to VIP - gives us a reason to keep our subscriptions or reup them. Once I have all the expansion packs purchased, I will no longer have a reason to keep mine so interested to see where this goes.

 

[Dom]

Without veteran players running groups 1-32, would new players have anyone to play with?

There would still be veteran and new players running groups from 1-32 for sure, especially on alt characters. Some people will still continue to solo, but that is going to be the case regardless of implementing this or not.

 

[Mary]

Mary my main is almost a triple completionist, just a few racial lives away. It would be very nice to be able to change her to another race/class/build without having to grind. I agree Dom's idea would be a nice value for VIPs, it directly addresses a major concern of the need to have a VIP system that rewards those of us who are loyal subscribers. LOTRO has a very solid VIP system - it's time DDO got some love too.

 

[Rub-A-Dub-Dub]

DDO has a VIP subscription? Would be nice to have a real vip sub to buy. I have been vip free since 2016. I sometimes buy it for the xp bonus when I tr on a xp bonus week.

 

[Indyanna]

I like the idea but agree that there would definitely be less levelling groups, not everyone would run alts.

We know a mega server is not going to happen but it would be nice if they could try something to address low server populations

 

[Neo]

Without veteran players running groups 1-32, would new players have anyone to play with?

I'm a veteran player, my character is done never TR anymore. Under this system I would actually make an alt, I won't make an alt now I'm not tring 200 times again, also would be willing to pay for VIP. So you might lose some but you'd gain others.

Another benefit is players that tr into a build, hate it, then instead of getting it back to cap they just never log in again. This system would offer a bailout to those players.

DDO is seriously missing catch up mechanics. In gw2 the same day you create an account you can be running end game-ish content. You can buy a level pass, that includes a starter set of endgame gear. DDO has nothing to help new players and has only furthered the gap between veterans with the addition of more past life feats.

 

[Fistle]

I could see this if folks have full completions, then sure 100%. I still think they need to fix the lag issues and truly find the solution so we can merge. A broader player base would be great.

I would also love to see them put in a mentoring system. Players who have full completions get a Title/Buff applied to their account of "Mentor". When a player with this buff is in a party with non "Mentor" status players they get a XP bonus applied to all in group.

 

[pjstechie]

Good start to an interesting idea. I think the access needs more of a "cost" to use though. As in using the guide should cost something in game. That could be something like threads, heart seeds, remnants etc.

 

[Meat-Head]

Good idea. This is a reasonable catch-up mechanic for a certain niche.

Con for SSG: Fewer boxes sold
Pro for SSR: More VIP sold.

They should at least run some numbers and consider it.

 

[Griglok (Karatemack)]

I think the idea has merit, but doesn't need to be so complex. Just add a new TR option that doesn't give a PL- and allows a character to jump right from 1- 32 (whatever level cap is). There's no need to require folks to grind out any lives prior to being able to use this feature- and would have some measure of benefit for players of all experience levels.

If you want to require VIP to use the feature, fine. If they ever implemented, it's likely there would be another type of heart required for this new type of TR. Put that heart in the DDO store and allow players to purchase it with currency like remnants, tokens, etc.

 

[Guntango]

I think the idea has merit, but doesn't need to be so complex. Just add a new TR option that doesn't give a PL- and allows a character to jump right from 1- 32 (whatever level cap is). There's no need to require folks to grind out any lives prior to being able to use this feature- and would have some measure of benefit for players of all experience levels.

If you want to require VIP to use the feature, fine. If they ever implemented, it's likely there would be another type of heart required for this new type of TR. Put that heart in the DDO store and allow players to purchase it with currency like remnants, tokens, etc.

Funny, I think your idea would be more work to implement; The Guide already exists and works as intended. Just copy and paste it to live servers.

I would use the feature all the time, I love running reapers with my crew and would reset every week. The only thing stopping me from doing it today is the leveling grind. Otherwise, I’d be buying hearts and tool kits much more frequently. I’ve probably done 5 rounds of reapers on my current ice Druid (7.5M fresh RXP) because I can’t stomach the thought of tring and re-leveling. That would’ve been 5 hearts purchased that they’re never getting back.

I like this idea:

It appeals to the die hard old schoolers who want to be a hero but don't have the time or disposable income. It will appeal to new players who like the game initially before discovering the insurmountable grind of ever winning DDO.

It promotes long term game play (18-24 month growth cycle).

It creates long term stickiness (once you have a max life toon, you’ll likely pay to upgrade it and play new content).

Once you’ve completed your first toon, you can start your second favorite toon. Alts promote another 18-24 month cycle.

This also gives VIPs a valuable quality of life mechanic, worthy of, you know, VIPs.

 

[Griglok (Karatemack)]

Funny, I think your idea would be more work to implement; The Guide already exists and works as intended. Just copy and paste it to live servers.

You could be right. The Guide doesn't require any completionist on lam today. Not sure if that change is more complex to implement than a version of TR that doesn't grant a PL. More of a question for the devs that I doubt we'll get an answer to. Doubt they're entertaining any of this.

A few things to consider with this idea:

• It doesn't encourage long-term VIP subscriptions. New race/class/destiny just launched? Cool- subscribe for 30 days and insta-level.
• Will likely reduce sales for Ottos Boxes/XP pots in the store.
• Leaves players not interested in alts with less to do in-between new content. DDO = TR Grind
• Potentially removes players from the LFM pool as they no longer need to level to gain lives.
• Significantly affects RXP. No reason not to TR for "free" every 3 days to reset first times.
• Will it reset favor/raid flagging?

FWIW... I don't think this idea is "bad", but about 5,000 versions of suggestions detailing ways to reduce PL grind have been proposed over the years. Of all the solutions proposed, I like shared PLs the best.

 

[Twinkle]

respeccing would retain way more people than grind lock in. Finding a good middle ground like this is a great idea. I'd resub

 

[Twinkle]

also here is another crazy idea: like any other modern game (POE, D4), why not just try it as a feature for a few months and then choose whether to keep it or not (aka a Season). If it breaks DDO, roll it back. If it's good but needs changes, change it. Doesn't seem like that big of a deal to try

 

[Dude]

also here is another crazy idea: like any other modern game (POE, D4), why not just try it as a feature for a few months and then choose whether to keep it or not (aka a Season). If it breaks DDO, roll it back. If it's good but needs changes, change it. Doesn't seem like that big of a deal to try

I love statements like this. They could just code it in and, if it doesn't work, code it out. No problem! No work involved there. /s

 

[Twinkle]

I love statements like this. They could just code it in and, if it doesn't work, code it out. No problem! No work involved there. /s

they could just hide the NPC to turn it off

 

[Drawing Guy]

Dom's post is a possible solution to several of the game's major issues:

New player retention: this game is immensely complex and can be quite overwhelming to new players. And if a player decides to tackle it and figure it all out, they then find a looming wall that takes years or tens of thousands of dollars to conquer and catch up to the "end game". Sure one could argue you don't need all the past live to play reaper 10 and all, but with most builds reflecting those past lives and the whole point of most games is to be the best you can be, that kind of grind is just too late in a game almost two decades old. I'm not going to do it on my alts and I can do it faster and more efficiently than most new players... and I personally know many that bowed out in the face of that grind.

No real catch up mechanic: This is a big part of new player retention. It is needed if you want to bring and keep new players in an older game. While technically ottos boxes fulfill this role, the cost is absurd. I'm willing to bet that 99% of those that got most of their lives from boxes duplicated them or bought them from dupers. And while you could greatly lower the prices or offer large bundles of them, it still would put a large price considering the number of lives. Lowering the grind goal to then unlock a system like Dom suggests would provide a much more achievable catch up system. This would mean less people quitting over the grind wall and potentially buying boxes to earn the few lives they need. And once someone actually feels like they are in the game, their are other ways to monetize.

The game is not alt friendly: The power gap and extreme grind of the PL and reaper system means you have either the same wall against your alts to make them on the same playing field as your main. This can make them discouraging to play, and lessen the character pool that players can use to play with lower level guildies, friends, and new players. Back before all the TR systems, I gladly hopped on an alt that fit the situation a friend or guildy needed. I didn't feel I was depriving my main of time needed for the massive grind, and my alts didn't feel of drastically different power levels, so I didn't feel like I was hobbled just to do something else. Alts mean a bigger play pool for me keeping me playing, and easier for others to find someone to play with. Account wide PLs and Reaper XP is the best solution for this, but a level skip or better catch up system still would make alts much more viable for veteran players as well.

Player role gaps can cripple game play: Many players especially newer ones not in well established guilds, can find themselves really struggling to get parties and raids together if they can't find needed roles. Allowing players to respec means someone can actually change to fill that role. Sure, current systems are clunky, but 30 minutes is still better than days or not being able to feel like you can play at all.


I take long breaks from the game because once my main has caught up to the end game, I look at my alts and just say "screw this" to the grind. Once enough content has built up I usually come back. Something like Doms suggestion would give me a lot more to do with alts being more realistic to catch up with, or messing with specs and not facing a TR grind on my main. As it is, only a matter of time where I just don't come back from one of my breaks.