Expand or limit?

stealthbr

Hello everyone. I am here today to see what you all think of certain systems introduced to DDO that were meant to expand the player's possibilities within the core experience, but that I believe worked against it, in essence limiting the game. Before I address these elements, I would like to say that I played DDO for a period of almost two years and the introduction of these features was one of the reasons why I ended up straying away from it.

There are three major elements introduced over the course of the game's lifetime that I believe have been detrimental to the game's health, to the variety of dungeons, to player choice, and to the overall fun factor. These are crafting, reincarnation, and prestige enhancements.

First and foremost, crafting, implemented within the game in parts, cultivated an entirely different vision of what DDO developers initially had in mind regarding grind. In the beginning, one of the main objectives of the game was to promote the adventure, to place emphasis on the moment, to allow for truly epic instances with your party as you challenged Stormreach's deadliest obstacles. However, this objective gradually strayed off course as the developers threw away what they so valued about this once truly unique game. Crafting was introduced and so began the grind for materials, the repetition of every type of adventure simply to promote a mere facet of character progression. Not only this, these crafted items appeared in great fashion, boasting extraordinary stats, desired by every single type of character.

And so, crafting became a norm, no, a requisite for anyone who dared try and tackle higher level quests. Long gone were the days where skill and intelligence were the most important factors within the game's extremely promising combat system. Long gone were days where an intrepid group of adventures could step into a quest and with their wits try and outsmart a difficult situation. The game had, in essence, established a gear/grind based playstyle where numbers took the front seat, while skill and tactics were left to rot in the backburner. Even damage types lost purpose as Greensteel supremacy almost ensured you never had to switch weapons. Encounters became increasingly similar and so playstyles eventually became limited by the game's added features.

Then, we have reincarnation. I can't really think of why developers would go as far as introducing this system, only to increase replayability at the expense of the game's enjoyment. With the culmination of the famous "reset", the game lost whatever small portion it had left of true adventure. The race to level 20 became not only the primary objective of several players, but also a necessity to take on the game's most difficult content. Players more than ever began power-leveling in the hopes of getting stronger instead of experiencing some truly remarkable dungeon experiences. They essentially began preparing to play the game instead of actually playing it.

And finally, the introduction of prestige enhancements is without a doubt noteworthy mark in the history of the game's many updates as one of the systems which I believe led to the game's downfall in terms of enjoyment and quality. With the addition of enhancements such as Knight of the Chalice for Paladins, the developers shot themselves in the foot. Not only did they have to make dungeons with monsters that accomodated the monster type associated to the enhancement, the story revolving around the quests suffered as it became painstakingly repetitive. Encounters suddenly became extremely dull, and many monster types present in the lower levels were never again to be seen. High level questing was all about killing demons and evil outsiders.

Indeed, I believe there are many faults to the game, yet it's core remains fun. Even so, I can't bear any longer with such systems in place as I have been spoiled by the game's long lost quality.

blackcat35

I'm Still having fun playing this game. I recently came across a pale lavender ioun stone that I sold for 2.6 mil. I heard a rumor that I'm not quite sure how valid this statement is but that the max any one character can have is 4 mil. Most importantly, I'm enjoying myself in DDO and think there is alot that DDO has to offer people, even if they just want to play for free.

stealthbr

Originally posted by blackcat35

I'm Still having fun playing this game. I recently came across a pale lavender ioun stone that I sold for 2.6 mil. I heard a rumor that I'm not quite sure how valid this statement is but that the max any one character can have is 4 mil. Most importantly, I'm enjoying myself in DDO and think there is alot that DDO has to offer people, even if they just want to play for free.

What do you think of crafting, reincarnation, and prestige enhancements though? Do you believe they are a boon to the game's diversity or replayability or do you think they work against the game actually limiting it many fronts? I created this thread with the sole purpose of starting a discussion to see if people could bring valid points regarding this topic, not if you are enjoying the game or not.

Rokurgepta

Originally posted by stealthbr

Originally posted by blackcat35

I'm Still having fun playing this game. I recently came across a pale lavender ioun stone that I sold for 2.6 mil. I heard a rumor that I'm not quite sure how valid this statement is but that the max any one character can have is 4 mil. Most importantly, I'm enjoying myself in DDO and think there is alot that DDO has to offer people, even if they just want to play for free.

What do you think of crafting, reincarnation, and prestige enhancements though? Do you believe they are a boon to the game's diversity or replayability or do you think they work against the game actually limiting it many fronts? I created this thread with the sole purpose of starting a discussion to see if people could bring valid points regarding this topic, not if you are enjoying the game or not.

 Without those things DDO would be empty after a certain point. DDO end game is not very good. Epic content can be quite boring so reincarnation allows people to rebuild and rework characters they might be attached to and make them better. The Vets that are still in game almost all have a character or more than one that reincarnation allows them to fix that Turbine broke with changes that screwed up characters and Turbine offered no way to fix them.

 

Prestige enhancements are a great boon to the game. The game lacked diversity before them. Not that they added a ton as some of the PE are not good but at least they gave some people choices. The cleric PE made them playable again while before that Favored Souls were clearly a better choice.

 

The game needs more and much better crafting. The more there is to do the more likely DDO is going to draw in non traditional D&D players.

Rokurgepta

Originally posted by blackcat35

I'm Still having fun playing this game. I recently came across a pale lavender ioun stone that I sold for 2.6 mil. I heard a rumor that I'm not quite sure how valid this statement is but that the max any one character can have is 4 mil. Most importantly, I'm enjoying myself in DDO and think there is alot that DDO has to offer people, even if they just want to play for free.

 Yes plat cap is 4 million per character.

blackcat35

Originally posted by Rokurgepta


Originally posted by blackcat35

I'm Still having fun playing this game. I recently came across a pale lavender ioun stone that I sold for 2.6 mil. I heard a rumor that I'm not quite sure how valid this statement is but that the max any one character can have is 4 mil. Most importantly, I'm enjoying myself in DDO and think there is alot that DDO has to offer people, even if they just want to play for free.

 Yes plat cap is 4 million per character.

 

Thanks for confirming this.

blackcat35

Originally posted by stealthbr


Originally posted by blackcat35

I'm Still having fun playing this game. I recently came across a pale lavender ioun stone that I sold for 2.6 mil. I heard a rumor that I'm not quite sure how valid this statement is but that the max any one character can have is 4 mil. Most importantly, I'm enjoying myself in DDO and think there is alot that DDO has to offer people, even if they just want to play for free.

What do you think of crafting, reincarnation, and prestige enhancements though? Do you believe they are a boon to the game's diversity or replayability or do you think they work against the game actually limiting it many fronts? I created this thread with the sole purpose of starting a discussion to see if people could bring valid points regarding this topic, not if you are enjoying the game or not.

 

I haven't been playing for that long (couple months) and don't have any chars who are 20th yet. I have 9 characters though and have been playing pretty regularly for couple months now. Each of my characters is over 5th, with the highest being 12th. I'm also subscribed. I don't understand the True Rezz, why bother to redo your entire character just for a few attribute points...Worse, if you do True Rezz, you lose any stat tomes you used on your character. So if I don't true rezz and use many +3 stat tomes on a character, you are further along than if you True Rezzed. There is also previous lifes enhancements or feats, and haven't really looked into them that much. Supposedly from what I'm hearing TR characters are more powerful than if they didn't TR. I like the crafting and prestige classes.

Azrile

What you are basically describing (or complaining about) is a mainstay in every mmorpg.   The problem is very simple, it takes developers MUCH longer to implement content than it does players to go through it.   The reason this is a problem is one word... progresssion.   Players ALWAYS need to feel like they are progressing their character... as backward as it seems,  players do not want to ever have a ´finished´character.   So now you have these two conflicting things.

How does every dev solve it?  By forcing repetition and incremental progression.    They have two choices ( but can use both at the same time)..  You can have random progression, or you can have incremental progression.   No matter what, you are going to have to run that dungeon 20 times for an upgrade.. so either you have a 5% chance to get the item, or you always get 1/20 of the item (or points, or crafting material etc).

Even a game like WOW, with a billion dollars and a huge budget forces players to repeat content ad nauseum.  Not only do i have to run the same endgame dungeons every day for the past 8 months for ´points´.. the devs even limit how many  ´points´ I can earn per week so that I can never own everything I want.

I personally think TR was an absolutely brilliant thing to do.  Many players, like myself, enjoy questing and leveling, but don´t enjoy endgame grinding.  Allowing me to ´reset with a bonus´ is awesome... and Completionist is like the ultimate carrot.

Until there are super-devs or programs that can create content on the fly, we are stuck with repetition and incremental progression.  Crafting seems like a problem for you.. but in reality, the devs could just remove crafting materials and use ´points´like WOW does.. it still is the same thing... you are running the same content multiple times trying to collect something