We have a one-question survey for you!

[hit_fido]

It's like this for me. I like the game in spite of it's obvious faults but that's ONLY because I made it past the bar of entry long ago when it was a different, simpler game. I'm not sure why that's hard to understand.

DDO is easier than it's ever been. There are more free to play quests than in 2009. There are more free classes and races now than 2009. A subscription costs the same as it did in 2009. The bar of entry is lower than ever before for new players to try the game out and level a character to 20 or 32 and get a sense for whether they like "chilling" with the game or not.

It's not logical to assume a new player would automatically be unwilling to endure the same issues you see as detrimental and end up exactly where you are now - spending a lot of time on the game and having fun doing so.

 

[hit_fido]

So the one person sorta defending recommending DDO is very quick to assume strung-out druggie behavior of DDO players.
#revenue_model

Addictive behavior is what is being described.

Or a kind of sad abusive relationship. "SSG keeps beating me, I can't stand this and no one would ever want to endure what I'm going through but I'll log in and play for another 8 hours this weekend."

 

[Jack Jarvis Esquire]

DDO is easier than it's ever been. There are more free to play quests than in 2009. There are more free classes and races now than 2009. A subscription costs the same as it did in 2009. The bar of entry is lower than ever before for new players to try the game out and level a character to 20 or 32 and get a sense for whether they like "chilling" with the game or not.

It's not logical to assume a new player would automatically be unwilling to endure the same issues you see as detrimental and end up exactly where you are now - spending a lot of time on the game and having fun doing so.

It's more of a grind to get all the PLs now. That's not in question.

There is a question as to whether or not all that grind is necessary to enjoy the game.

Frum the perspective of those of us who have gone through it, there is a natural bias to tend to insist it is - otherwise we have to face the prospect that, just maybe or more, we ground all that out for something which isn't in fact all that necessary.

If one adopts the stance that the PL grind is a nice to have rather than a necessity, I would agree with your summation.

And so, I do.

All the PLs I've ground make the game easier. But not necessarily more fun. IME at least.

 

[Mand O'Lin]

Yeah, but if you didn't open Cordovan's link in a private browser window (or better yet in a sandbox instance) and you were already signed into a Google account, it doesn't pop up a notice that it's using your Google account or anything.

Somewhat poor form to at least not put a disclaimer with said link to warn their customers that it'll automatically use their Google account.

Par for the course.

 

[Fhrek]

There is a question as to whether or not all that grind is necessary to enjoy the game.

This last holyday I sat to replay Tactics Ogre Reborn, The Witcher 3 and Dragon's Dogma... my fun was trying to complete 100% of those games...

DDO is a game that don't provides that (and as a MMO it shouldn't)... so, I've to say (sad, but...) DDO lost the appeal for me.

 

[Kimbere]

DDO is easier than it's ever been. There are more free to play quests than in 2009. There are more free classes and races now than 2009. A subscription costs the same as it did in 2009. The bar of entry is lower than ever before for new players to try the game out and level a character to 20 or 32 and get a sense for whether they like "chilling" with the game or not.

It's not logical to assume a new player would automatically be unwilling to endure the same issues you see as detrimental and end up exactly where you are now - spending a lot of time on the game and having fun doing so.

What's free isn't the important bit. What's NOT free is. That's the part you keep missing (or ignoring?).

Catching up in DDO is harder and more expensive than it's ever been.

There's more non-free content, races, classes, and archetypes in the game. There's also more content that is not included in the VIP sub.

I've recommended DDO to plenty of people in the past. None of them stuck with the game more than a couple months. None of them considered it a good recommendation.

If someone asks me about DDO, I tell them what to expect. They can make their own choice based on that info. What I don't do is *recommend* it, especially if it's unsolicited.

 

[Ellisaria]

DDO is easier than it's ever been. There are more free to play quests than in 2009. There are more free classes and races now than 2009. A subscription costs the same as it did in 2009. The bar of entry is lower than ever before for new players to try the game out and level a character to 20 or 32 and get a sense for whether they like "chilling" with the game or not.

It's not logical to assume a new player would automatically be unwilling to endure the same issues you see as detrimental and end up exactly where you are now - spending a lot of time on the game and having fun doing so.

So what's the problem with telling them up front what those issues are and letting them decide for themselves if they are "unwilling to endure the same issues you see as detrimental" without spending hours to get there? What assumptions are you making that the bar is low to get to 20 or 32 moreso now than ever? That the new player will buy a sub to a "f2p" game when they realize they can only open normal and even if they feel like repeat grinding the same free dungeon to level to unlock higher difficulty that doesn't drop any relevant named gear and you have to be lucky with random gen loot only to find there is not a lot of free quests once you hit around level ten? Then what? Buy vip, buy expacs to progress? All to get to 20 or 32 to "get a sense for whether they like 'chilling' with the game". Can it be done? Sure. It's done on HC every season, a vet will know how to do it, how many times is optimal to run kobold's new ring leader for best xp gains, how to deal with the bugs, the lag, but a totally new player with ZERO knowledge in a game that hasn't aged well and has a huge paywall for content compared to other products on the market? No, they will not know the "tricks" unless they have someone there taking the time to show them, carry them, hold their hand, what have you. Will such a totally fresh newbie make it to 20/32 without support nowadays? The game's player retention rate/new player retention rate will tell you that.

Who said everyone here is spending a lot of time on the game and having fun doing so? You. You are making assumptions that everyone has the same motives and experience. We are all here enduring the nerf cycles, the lag, the grind, the inventory bloat. Why? For friends we met along the way, for goals, for sunken cost, for so many reasons? Does that mean nothing should change because everything is perfect as is? No, hence the survey. Why would ssg offer a survey like this if not to ask "how do you (the customer) think we can do better". If I received so much negative feed back to a customer survey at work that would be a big red light of "something is seriously wrong and we need to sit down and rethink some policies".

 

[Oliphant]

The whole point of a survey is to get and respect some data points. If you'd recommend DDO by all means take the survey.

 

[Lazuli]

What's free isn't the important bit. What's NOT free is. That's the part you keep missing (or ignoring?).

Catching up in DDO is harder and more expensive than it's ever been.

There's more non-free content, races, classes, and archetypes in the game. There's also more content that is not included in the VIP sub.

I've recommended DDO to plenty of people in the past. None of them stuck with the game more than a couple months. None of them considered it a good recommendation.

If someone asks me about DDO, I tell them what to expect. They can make their own choice based on that info. What I don't do is *recommend* it, especially if it's unsolicited.

Exactly.

 

[hit_fido]

It's more of a grind to get all the PLs now. That's not in question.

That's true, but past lives weren't even an option in 2009, and it follows that the more past lives you have the option to grind for, the more time you'll need to spend if you really want to "collect them all". If we never had past lives and the cap stayed at 20 do we think Turbine/SSG would have been able to maintain player interest just by adding new level 20 quests and raids? What would DDO look like now, cap to 20 then keep rerunning hundreds of level 20 quests or raids with no power creep? I don't think that would have been sustainable. We have players complaining that they're capped out on reaper points and don't have anything to do.

If one adopts the stance that the PL grind is a nice to have rather than a necessity, I would agree with your summation.

Yeah, this is how I see them. It's an option, they give players a carrot to chase while they otherwise have fun playing the game. This could be a whole different thread but I don't see any reason to assume new players see all these optional systems, crafting systems, past life systems, as an inherently negative "grind" that they'll have to suffer through before they're allowed to have fun. They could just as easily view those as contributing a richness and depth of things to do that they can try out and jump between to keep feeling fresh and varied.

 

[Lazuli]

Anyway, there is no need to discuss this so much. We have answered according to our personal experience. If our experience is distorted and DDO has a high retention of new players although this has not been the case with our acquaintances, SSG has the data and know.

They know how many new accounts are made. They know how many are still logging in and playing (thus discounting mule accounts). So they have a good idea of new player retention.

While I would be surprised if retention was good, that is no longer important. The survey is answered, we cannot change the answer even if we wanted to (I don't want to, SSG needs real opinions, nor sycophants who tell him what he wants to hear, like what is happening to Putin).

 

[hit_fido]

So what's the problem with telling them up front what those issues are and letting them decide for themselves if they are "unwilling to endure the same issues you see as detrimental" without spending hours to get there?

There's no problem with detailing the litany of grievances you have with the game. The bottom line is this person wants to know if you recommend for or against trying it out. Claiming you'd just be like, well, I spend time playing it and having fun but I have absolutely no opinion on whether you should give it a try makes no sense to me. You're not an anomaly, if you enjoy the game then they might too, and the only way they'll know is by trying it out.

Who said everyone here is spending a lot of time on the game and having fun doing so?

If you're spending time playing a game you don't have fun with that's a big problem, I've addressed that. It's problematic behavior, it's akin to an addiction. If you're not spending time playing the game because you quit but you still come to the forum to express your opinion then I've addressed that too, it makes sense to me why you would recommend someone else not try it out since you've decided it's no longer fun and, consistent with that, actually took the healthy action of quitting. That leaves everyone else here who are playing the game and having fun.

 

[hit_fido]

None of them stuck with the game more than a couple months.

That isn't a new phenomena. That's been the consistent experience of most new players since launch in 2006. I picked it up with the free to play relaunch in 2009 with a huge spike of other players but very few of that cohort ended up staying around more than a couple months or a year. That's well before past lives, crafting systems, expansions, and everything else that's come around after. Lots of people just decide they don't really like DDO's game play, it's ok. I'd still recommend they try it because those of us who do like it end up getting hundreds/thousands of hours of good entertainment over the years that we're happy about.

 

[Oliphant]

I sympathize with the devs in the sense that catering more and more to vets and creating grinds to keep the game interesting for vets was probably necessary or at least seemed necessary to keep the game going. I sympathize with the nature of the trap. However, the periodic signaling with the vengeance nerfs that the game has to be laborious enough to keep Otto Boxes relevant at full price does not in anyway put me in a position to responsibly recommend the game. There is no excuse in a game with a vast wealth of built up past life options to continue to operate with this paradigm.

 

[Cordovan]

Thank you to those who participated! Closing the thread as the survey is now completed.