Just started playing again and cannot believe the pile of steaming badness this game has turned into. First they add Champions, a method whereby ordinary mobs turn into bosses, AT RANDOM, maybe one, maybe four. AT RANDOM.
Then Reaper, where you might find very little difference in quest difficulty or suddenly, AT RANDOM, be surrounded by four bosses each of whom can one/two-shot you.
I thought I'd seen the nadir of MMORPG development, but SSG have taken it to a whole new level. Player population in the toilet of course.
Gratuitous insult here. Urg, another MMORPG ruined.
Comments
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Champions can be a pain, but it's set up so you'll only get 1 or 2 on Hard and the 3 or 4 on Elite and I haven't really had a problem with them and I'm an average player at best.
The game got super easy so they added them and when those didn't make the game hard enough, then came Reaper.
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter
Dude, this game is a rotting pale shadow of what it once was. I can only think a few whales keep it going now. Better hope they don't get fed up.
I'll tell you why this is so bad in any MMORPG that does it. (fanboz excepted of course).
Basically these games screw up by making it too easy. At first they got more new players (money), but then started to lose veterans (money) 'cos it was too easy, tension went etc.
But by now they have screwed up their income stream and cannot afford to make the quests harder one by one, so they invent this random crap.
Why is the random BOSS mob crap just so bad? Because it makes completion a crap-shoot AND negates experience. Your experience of playing won't help if round the corner may be the two easy mobs you've always had, or two easy mobs and BOSSES.
This fits in with my general rule of MMORPG management, they are incompetent shoe salemen who wandered in thru the wrong door. So bad.
But yes, those features were asked for, they were begged for by the player base for years, and they have been met with wonderful applause, because it was exactly what the veteran established player base wanted to keep the content challenging. They wanted RANDOM things like champions and Reapers added to the content, so that it was not something they could easily memorize and cake walk after a few tries.
They have fixed things to make sure that at least boss mobs can't be champions, so it's easier now than it used to be.
With that said, Reapers function like High Level Moving Traps, that players need to watch out, this was very sought after addition to the game, and brought with it a much desired tactical dynamic to dungeons so that you don't just OMFGWTFLOLBBQ Blitz-Zerg the content simply because you have done it a few hundred times already.
If that is not your thing, well don't do Reaper. Reaper does not drop better loot, it does not give more favor, it's really just content for multi-TR players that don't want to snooze at their keyboard and would rather face more challenge for more exp, then just grinding Elites to cap each life.
And the population has been as good as it's been for the last 4 years, it's nowhere near in the crapper.
But I get where you are coming from.. this new thing, it is bad.
Have there been design decisions I don't like or agree with? Sure. Ransack for one, although that's easy to get around. Another is getting less xp everytime you run the same dungeon at the same level. I get why they did it, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter
I liked the streak idea they put in, which made doing TR runs kinda fun, as you could straight up elite streak from 1st to 20th, and never have to run the same quest twice, which, felt more D&D-esque to me.
the chest Ransack however. yah.. not a fan, but I get why they did it.
Full disclosure: I don't play D&DO, and only ever played it for about 5 minutes. Long story, addressed elsewhere. So they may have implemented it poorly. But as described, it sounds kind of cool to me.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
two, if you're going to make such grand aggrandizing claims, at least make sure it's not so easy to double check your BS.
quick scan of DDO forums. hmmm. risia games blue coin farming. complaining about IPS nerf. complaining about inquisitor being OP, discussions of new class trees and named loot being introduced in an upcoming update, the AH is an unusable mess, ship buff changes... and one.. yes only one... mention of reaper.
for anyone interested: https://i.imgur.com/D3X2WT5.png
now let's turn to population... that one's pretty easy to bust too... i will preface this by saying that looking at the steamcharts is NOT a good way to get an idea of overall population, as only a portion of DDO's population play thru Steam... however, it IS a good way to get an idea if a game is on a more-or-less upward or downward trend. that said. 4 years, did we say? well, lets look at the last 4 years, shall we?
https://steamcharts.com/app/206480
well hey, would ya look at that, it actually goes UP a little. hmmmm. yup. totally a dying game.
now how bout you quit calling people liars and fanbois online when they don't just kowtow to your crying.
Reaper has it's own levels, 1 - 10. each with their own increased difficulty, and the higher you go, the more you end up needing to gauge each upcoming encounter, you can't just charge in and overpower them like was the case in the past with difficulties like Elite, you have to see if they have Reapers in the mix, also, a Reaper has a chance to spawn with any spawn, so if you did things like hit an Ooze, and it split, a reaper could spawn on the split.
Now, to be fair, Reaper does not offer any better Loot or favor than Elite does, so if you still want a fast loot or favor farm, you are much better off doing Elite. They also added in a Bravery, Streak and 1st time Bonus, which can net you a +150% Exp per dungeon, so running Elite to cap is very do-able even if you are a 3rd+ life TR. So, there is no reason to do Reaper, unless you want the extra challenge and extra EXP to cut down on the number of quests run.
If you are 1st life, or even 2nd life, there is an over abundance of EXP to get you to cap, there is no reason to do Reaper at all.
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
One. If you enter a quest on, say, Hard difficulty, you should not have to be worrying that three harder Champions will appear and turn it into R1 difficulty. It defeats the whole point of levels, earning experience and ranking the quests.
Two, publishers monetize as much as they can get away with of their games. It's a cheaper solution than actually improving the game. This is normal behaviour for most MMO's unfortunately. But DDO is the very first MMO I have played where they have monetised so much, they have also monetised griefing. That's just bad.
Now, I get it, if you have played for sixty trillion years and have two million past lives this stuff doesn't matter. You get to swing your giant flaming todgers around and you love it, but for normal players? Well, the DDO forum is once again full of NEW threads complaining about this issue.
Also, yes, Reaper is for the players that have a bunch of past lives, the best of the best of the best shit at their disposal, wearing their Armor of Giant Epeen, and swinging their Sword of Massive Ballsack, and have zerged that dungeon so many times they could be making dinner, watching porn, and still cake walk it on elite.
What that means is.. if that is not you.. then don't click Reaper.
*goes to DDO forums and peruses new posts*
new 64 bit client, paladin build, tempest discussion, titan raid borked?, bard song changes (wait, what? i need to go check that out. grrrrr), bank changes, cerulean hills changes, loot from epic deleras....
https://i.imgur.com/V0A4HdG.png
wow. not a SINGLE mention of champions! it's almost like you're totally overblowing the issue!
dude. i'm normally not the type to pull the "ltp" card... normally i'm very tolerant and try to help people out as much as i can.. but if you can't handle 1 or 2 of the easier champs, you shouldn't be running a difficulty harder than normal. hard should not be spawning 3 of the hard champs at once, and even if it did, 3 champs does not, i repeat NOT, ramp the difficulty up to reaper 1. (and YES. i know this from experience.)
Soon™ they will claim it's a feature.
and false alarm about bard songs. just someone who came back and realized just now they changed bard songs like half a year ago (at least) in a way that was better for the most part, with one tiny inconvenience... and they were pissing about the tiny inconvenience.
i was happy with the change.