Evidence number 1:
Since hardcore came out the server populations all went down, but now that hardcore is closing the populations aren't back up again... ...we're still hanging at about half of what we were when hardcore came out.

Evidence number 2:
We've gone from a weekly restart, to a bi-weekly restart---even though the server populations are smaller.

Evidence number 3:
Reaper has run its course and many people are bored with the current meta. This is subjective, but personally all the content is now so stale I'm not sure I can level to 30 again. The dead end which is reaper XP is keeping some people going, but it has really ruined the challenge of reapers. The meta has been solved for too long and the recent addition of new reapers didn't revitalize the endgame.

Evidence number 4:
Soul shitter is the worst pack in years. That laggy piece of uninspired garbage makes epic Amarath look good.

Evidence number 5:
The developers are accelerating the number of past lives available to people but everyone seems less and less motivated to give a fuck about all the new past lives. I think we've finally saturated this shit-hole of a system. It was great for a long time but how many times do you really wanna run Shadowcrypt? This is another subjective point...

~

The bottomless money pit of endless TR cycles with a trickle of content is drying up. The (honestly) hackneyed band-aids of champions and reaper difficulty have run their course to keep people amused with ancient fucking content. The servers are running like more garbage than 4 years ago, and communities in game are collapsing the server populations under the weight of boredom.

The biggest issue honestly is Sharn.

Sharn was proof that DDO shouldn't be in the business of yearly expansions.

Ravenloft was great; writing, content, even quality control was above normal for the expansion.

And after? They started off 'decent' with Disciples of Rage. Middling quests; good loot, and a decent Enhancement change with Druids and Renegade for Arti.

Then they hit us with Whiteplume; another classic set of dungeons, a little less polished compared to Ravenloft, but still good quests I don't mind running a handful of times per life. Good loot. But it hid the stinker that was the War Priest/War Soul/FVS Pass.

Next we had Killing Time and Wood Elves. The loot was good on it's own, but it went back and included upgrades for Whiteplume and even older less ran content so that's a win-win. Kind of a filler update but still decent quality.

So we've got 3 solid upgrades in 'year' after Ravenloft released. However; after that the dev cycle has gone downhill in both quality and design.

We've got U41 at just about the 1 year mark for Ravenloft dropping the bombshell that was the dud of an Eldritch Knight revamp. 3 whole new spells for Wiz/Sorc. Endgame Raid Loot level/stat crunch-adjustment (Only positive thing in this update.) and the bard song rework, which still has kinks that haven't been worked out.

Fast forward a whole 5 months and we've got Sharn arriving with all of the glory of a polished turd. Awful writing, terrible gameplay design, and performance drops in both quests and raids alike. We also got warlock level memery in the form of the Tiefling yet somehow the blowback and awareness levels for that one hasn't really caught on. 3 months later we got a patch that gave us a much needed but still questionably effective Epic Destiny pass. Oh and at some point Palemaster got reworked into being some sort of bastardization of homebrew rules out the wazoo. Oh and let's not forget the special mention of inquisitive which completely flipped the meta back in favor of plink-tards running around doing what they do best.

Edit: Don't forget literally every 'release' during Sharn/U42 has been a buggy shitshow. Two official hotfixes and 5 whole large 'patches' during it's lifetime.

U43 as mentioned is a shitshow, consists of 6 quests (2 of which are exceedingly long slog fests while the other 4 are literally 2 second quests), and somehow took 6 months from the release of Sharn to pop into existance. Blame the 5 large patches and hotfixes gluing Sharn together I suppose.

U44 is going to be; get this here. A new alternate starter experience. That isn't free to play. And is aimed at giving Vets a different sandbox to piss around in while they hamster wheel grind. Except the gear isn't worth getting save the busted cloak with level 1 perma featherfall. Oh and for a bit of shinies they're throwing us horses because you need to move faster in public spaces and wildernesses. But no combat. Atleast not a launch, expect mounted combat to cost 2k DDO points in the next 1-3 months depending on how hard they beat the poor engine coder in the back room. Oh and they are doing all of this while milking another classic module to try and get a few bucks out of the dwindling playerbase.

I mean to be fair I suppose the Hardcore server managed to help pad out the massive content drought we've had this year. But honestly I think they'd have been better off focusing on getting Alchemist out of the door within 2019, or better yet having made a class that was requested/desired by the community rather than being Steelstar's newest monstrosity he strokes his ego to ever night.

It is, I’m afraid. But I don’t think it’s as due to content as the OP suggests.

The game is complicated. If you like D&D and want to play an MMO version, it’s still the best iteration that’s ever been available. Its level of customization continues to rival other far more popular (flush) MMOs and game feedback from the melee and casting attacks of my customized character is more responsive to me in DDO than in other games.

The commitment required to be Uber is real. Triple completionist and triple digit RP takes a lot of time and a lot of resources. For most people who are attracted to the unique, positive qualities of DDO, the path to becoming game time superstar is daunting: 10 hours of playtime a week for a year or more and hundreds of dollars.

And that’s just entry level Uber. Want to be as good as the best? Commit 2-4 times those resources.

I think it’s analogous to chess versus checkers. The amount of effort it takes to become an expert DDO player is probably more in line with chess, learning the basics of a more complicated game and then investing in it more than you would otherwise need to in a less complicated game.

This is not to discount the specific, very granular gripes that the OP and others have about the direction that the developers regularly take, but I think the above carries at least as much or more weight than just, “half elves suck.”

5 Foot Step wrote on Nov 4^th, 2019 at 11:18am:


It's not that there's a connection to server population. It's the fact that the game's lag and the servers' need for active intervention are going up even though the game population (and therefore the demand that's being placed on the servers by players) is going down.  That's a really bad trend.

WonderfulFoppyBint wrote on Nov 3^rd, 2019 at 10:21pm:


Most of this is just normal Tes mumbling idiocy, but soul splitter is a fucking horrible pack.

DDO doesn't have the population to support the hardcore server and live at the same time. I'm looking forward to hardcore going away for a while.  If I'm still playing the next time hardcore league starts, then I'll be taking a break from the game.  The past three months have been miserable slogging through reapers and raids with people who have no fucking clue.  Which leads me into...

Gunga is right.  DDO requires an advanced degree in character creation, with a specialization in gear tetris, and like a professional certification you have to keep earning continuing professional education (CPE) credits to keep up with the meta.  I don't mind that, except for the fact it's a huge barrier for new and casual players.  Want to play a popular combat style like THF or bows, or play an iconic paladin?  Too bad, those are noob traps because Sev has allowed those choices to languish far behind.

Ravenloft is a masterpiece, and SSG would do well to replicate everything about it for the next expansion. The Land of Barovia wilderness is insanely large, thematically well done and immerses you in the story. The art and sound teams outdid themselves with the nuanced details found throughout.  The Strahd raid truly feels epic.

Comparatively, The Masterminds of Sharn quest chain feels small because of the elevator short cuts to each quest, and the lackluster story. It feels rushed because it's lacking the polish that Ravenloft obviously received. Soul Splitter is ass. I can't even stomach to run through it for first time RXP each life. 

[quote author=476576746B6A61040  The Strahd raid truly feels epic. [/quote]

Yep.

Best raid ever since ToD/Stealer of Souls.

Rubbinns wrote on Nov 4^th, 2019 at 11:18pm:


I'd put about a 90% estimate on the blame being Wizards of the Coast there and not actually SSG for once.

It's even more unlikely they'll get to adapt a lot of of things now that Wizards of the Coast has their own game studio they bought out. As they'll be throwing the most nostalgic/profitable modules to their own team rather than giving it to DDO. Instead we've got to wait for the next cross-promotional just like Neverwinter has to do now that they aren't top dog anymore on Wizard's totem pole.

That game was on the way to die but had the opportunity to save it, when released ravenloft had success, success that not even developers was ready to believe,then had the population groing up again after years but had the idea to ban and delete toons of players that was on the game for years and was not there only for ravenloft,so the population never hit a good number and devs never took the deleted toons decision back
After that? nothing nice like ravenloft to show till today,have no plan to give a real end game,even the items you need  like a player after 10 runs with friends is yours so players have nothing to do not even grid epic quests for loot,its also bound to account so no reason to grid with plan to sell later if you already have them,so you must tr again with out reason if you are completionist and run again water works for 12 years in a row just to convince youe self that you have something to do in your favourite game
With all this and more like infinity bugs on items and enchantments, lag spikes, performance hit, bad engine with prehistoric graphics, expansions that is really a joke for the money they asked and the size of the expansions, in 3 hours you have done with the expansions and after some runs you have done with the items so the expansions and quest packages is good to repeat only for xp but what if you have done with the xp you need and you just want end game and not a super triple completionist toon?no luck there,the game is designed only to grind xp,no items no pvp no content
Forgot the unlimited dupe and cheat methods that is useless to fix
So with all this new players does not stay old players goes away and baned players never took their toons back to return and as for the players who still login?1 by 1 will drop,so for me its normal to say ddo live in his last days
And i m not sad,this game has nothing more to give,i just hope for ddo 2 but propably will never come

Alex DeLarge wrote on Nov 5^th, 2019 at 3:45am:


Yours is Lokeal_the_flame.   Go bat your eyes a squirrel in your backyard.

NOTpopejubal wrote on Nov 5^th, 2019 at 7:41am:


I’ve only run three of the quests once each, finding Doris twice for boots. They aren’t my favorite quests, but I’ll wind up running them more in time.

Ash's the type of guy who would complain that the water is too cold while being boiled alive in a cauldron.

Asheras wrote on Nov 5^th, 2019 at 10:44am:


Huh? Who am I repeating exactly?

You're literally the only person on the Vault who is the most content with the shit smear that this game has become.

Plus, you throw around numbers like you have the most authority on the subject matter (one of the "rockstars").

That or you're just full of shit. It would explain all the dumb coming out of your mouth tho.

You sure you're not employed at Still Shitty Games?