Thread: The Option to disable/re-enable xp gain.

Turbine,

You have created a beautiful world and I love being able to see it, however being the completionist I am I want to be able to finish areas with some sort of challenge still to be had. That being said, it's far to easy to out-level areas and have them be grey bye the time I finish them, I have characters still in Moria who have yet to hit lothlorien/mirkwood. I would love to do these areas, but you've recently lowered the level on enedwaith making me now have to choose where I want to spend those levels and which content I need to skip to keep some sort of challenge going while I quest. I'm not asking for you to undo this as I'm well aware that there are plenty of folks who want to be able to skip some content and not have to do it. What I'm asking for instead is a way to temporarily disable xp gain. This option might also be of help to those people who want to help or wait for friends to catch up to them or what have it. It doesn't need to be a forced thing, just please give us the option to do it. Maybe we can pay the bard some in game cash to disable experience gain and then pay him again to enable it. Please just think about it.

Angel

There have been numerous threads on this topic.

One of the better ones is currently running in the RoR forum, which contains a fair amount of the history of the idea.

To summarize... This is a frequent request. Turbine made an abortive attempt to put in a store item for it last year, but it never made it to live. Most debate centers around the details of how this should be set up...and Turbine hasn't given the details of their plans.

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

If there is a way for this to be done, I think it would make for an excellent addition to VIP perks. Just like VIP subscriptions gain rest XP and other subscription levels can purchase it in the Store, you'd allow VIP to turn off XP gain as well as adding a Store item to do the same for Free and Premium.

The problem I see is with how to accomplish it:

• A straight on/off toggle would be best for VIP, but would not work as well as a Store item unless the same purchase allows for one "off" and one "on".
• A timed buff similar to deed accelerators might work, but it becomes clumsy without some form of control other than "wait it out" when you want to gain xp again.
• Combining the two might be best. You'd get something similar to the Landscape Soldier timer where you buy a certain amount of "no xp gain" time and stop the countdown when you want to gain xp again.

I'll leave figuring out what works to the Turbine devs, but I would not be surprised to see this option show up in some form before much longer.

Turbine tried to deploy this feature last year with the launch of Rise of Isengard. It has been six months without any signs or info on it. I thinking that the next opportunity will be the launch of the Riders of Rohan expansion Fall of this year. I expect very little if any discussion on it prior to deployment. It is going to a premium item sold in the Lotro Store.

Turbine is going to wait until they are ready to stock the shelves. Turbine is not going to want a lot of noise prior to launch. Turbine will decide the pricing and offering based on the cost of the chosen implementation and their revenue targets.

The best thing we can do is talk about it. Turbine will listen quietly and use our feedback in their private discussions on the feature.

If Turbine is quietly reading, I hope they see this:

If the XP disabler is bought with Turbine Points, I will not buy it. I will continue to level at the breakneck speed they seem intent on forcing on us, and when it gets to the point where I can't experience enough of the content before it goes gray on me, then I will stop playing LOTRO. No more subscription fee, no more buying Turbine Points. That's not a threat, it's just reality. Leveling need not be just something you slog through to get to L75. Never mind that all the hard work done over the years on old instances is obsolete.

I wanted to run the Rift on my new Captain. A few bars after I hit L51, I found a group (I started looking at L50). Without doing any of the quests, I was L52 after Fruz. The 3rd boss.

I am already over-leveled for all the fun old SoA content now. I've been looking for groups, but they're less frequent than the end game stuff--so my only option to not out-level content is to stop playing and stand in Angmar spamming LFFs.

One of the biggest problems with MMOs is adding enough speed bumps so that people don't complete everything too quickly and then unsub (or stop spending TPs). Why not add a speed bump that people will *thank* you for?

I can't believe that it would take that many man-hours to add a single check-box to UI settings.

Originally Posted by whheydt

There have been numerous threads on this topic.

One of the better ones is currently running in the RoR forum, which contains a fair amount of the history of the idea.

To summarize... This is a frequent request. Turbine made an abortive attempt to put in a store item for it last year, but it never made it to live. Most debate centers around the details of how this should be set up...and Turbine hasn't given the details of their plans.

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

I wasn't aware of the other thread, as I hate spoilers so I'm trying to actively avoid the RoR forum. that being said I did find that thread and post to it so thank you for pointing this out to me.

Originally Posted by Yula_the_Mighty

Turbine tried to deploy this feature last year with the launch of Rise of Isengard. It has been six months without any signs or info on it. I thinking that the next opportunity will be the launch of the Riders of Rohan expansion Fall of this year. I expect very little if any discussion on it prior to deployment. It is going to a premium item sold in the Lotro Store.

Turbine is going to wait until they are ready to stock the shelves. Turbine is not going to want a lot of noise prior to launch. Turbine will decide the pricing and offering based on the cost of the chosen implementation and their revenue targets.

The best thing we can do is talk about it. Turbine will listen quietly and use our feedback in their private discussions on the feature.

Well I really hope they are working on a way to bring it to the table, it really would be a great feature to have in lotro.

Let me amend that post--

If the XP disabler is implemented in such a fashion that I must buy a *consumable* from the store, I will not buy it.

I am perfectly fine with a 1-time, account-wide TP purchase that will be able to use on all characters, present and future, to disable XP at-will for whatever amount of time I choose (i.e. an XP on/off button). Much like the new barter wallet. I am happy to pay for something specially developed. I would hope that such a small tweak to the UI would not be expensive to create, and therefore the price would be low.

Originally Posted by Frisco

I would hope that such a small tweak to the UI would not be expensive to create, and therefore the price would be low.

Adding a button to the UI may be relatively simple. Making it work, however, is the real trick.

Originally Posted by Frisco

I can't believe that it would take that many man-hours to add a single check-box to UI settings.

That's like saying I can't believe food doesn't magically cook itself when all I do is put an empty pot on the stove.

Every deed and quest has to be changed to use the new flag so XP isn't given out.

Originally Posted by Thornglen

Adding a button to the UI may be relatively simple. Making it work, however, is the real trick.

If they can add XP accelerators Items. They can add XP Decelerator Items. It should not be that Hard.

Originally Posted by Frisco

Let me amend that post--

If the XP disabler is implemented in such a fashion that I must buy a *consumable* from the store, I will not buy it.

I am perfectly fine with a 1-time, account-wide TP purchase that will be able to use on all characters, present and future, to disable XP at-will for whatever amount of time I choose (i.e. an XP on/off button). Much like the new barter wallet. I am happy to pay for something specially developed. I would hope that such a small tweak to the UI would not be expensive to create, and therefore the price would be low.

"As for your consumables, we reject them utterly." -- Gandalf ....sorta.

So yeah, I'm with you on the "no consumables" thing, and I would also like the XP Disabler to be a one-time, account-wide purchase.

But I would even buy it per-character if that's the level of expenditure Turbine "needs" to justify allocating those dev resources. That's how bad I want this feature. I'll pay for it more than once if I have to.

Originally Posted by Cavar

That's like saying I can't believe food doesn't magically cook itself when all I do is put an empty pot on the stove.

Every deed and quest has to be changed to use the new flag so XP isn't given out.

Non sequitur of the day.

As for your second point, I hope that's not the way it works--that would be very inefficient. I would hope the ability to *receive* XP would be what got changed. If the quests were different based on whether or not you could receive XP, how would we be able to pick up a quest at L74 and turn it in at L75?

I imagine it would be more like a birth control pill--the flag makes the quest think you're at level cap, so your XP doesn't go up.

I do /salute you for somehow reading my mind and knowing just what exactly was meant by "that many" (as if it were a set number)...and then making a totally random analogy out of it.

Originally Posted by Cavar

That's like saying I can't believe food doesn't magically cook itself when all I do is put an empty pot on the stove.

Every deed and quest has to be changed to use the new flag so XP isn't given out.

I think your example would be better if you said food would either have calories or be calorie free.

Actually I think it would be character oriented and not quest oriented. The Quest still gives out the XP, it just isn't registered to the character.

Another Example would be to turn all quests grey.

Originally Posted by Celt_Ainvar

If they can add XP accelerators Items. They can add XP Decelerator Items. It should not be that Hard.

That might be if you want to change just combat xp, though. Do those accelerators work on quest xp? It seems most people in the last few posts expect that this would apply to stopping xp from quest turn-ins as well. (Which can lead to its own issues. "I turned in 20 quests before I realized I still had xp turned off! Turbine stole my xp and won't give it back!!" They have to plan for that eventuality.)

Definetly would love to have a way to control XP gain even with alts
I find I am skipping ober quests and exploration in areas due to ease
of leveling and exessive XP Gain.

Prefer a toggle just to turn it off until I want to gain XP.

A pocket Item would be a cool Idea even if it is a store bought Item account wide.

Failing all else a way to turn off rest XP would be a good start and help alot.

Please Turbine It can not be that hard to impliment something that would make everyone happy
and has no effect on end gamers and power levelers but would make the game more fun for
those of us who like to explore all of middle-earth and enjoy the journey as much as getting there.

As for those that say it will be a problem for those that forget to turn it back on and blame Turbine.....
I say you can not design a game to the lowest common denominator.....
If you forget to turn a quest in and delete it by mistake after completing it is that turbines fault did they steal your XP?
No your own lack of proper prior planning and understanding did.
Just to be safe though, how about a pop up warning saying at each log in perhaps "XP gain Is currently Turned off"
that should be easy since Turbine has all kinds of other pop ups.

Ya when you equip the Item. It should have a HUGE WARNING.

You are about to disable xp Gain Are you sure and have yes or no answer.

Originally Posted by MrsAngelD

Turbine,

You have created a beautiful world and I love being able to see it, however being the completionist I am I want to be able to finish areas with some sort of challenge still to be had. That being said, it's far to easy to out-level areas and have them be grey bye the time I finish them, I have characters still in Moria who have yet to hit lothlorien/mirkwood. I would love to do these areas, but you've recently lowered the level on enedwaith making me now have to choose where I want to spend those levels and which content I need to skip to keep some sort of challenge going while I quest. I'm not asking for you to undo this as I'm well aware that there are plenty of folks who want to be able to skip some content and not have to do it. What I'm asking for instead is a way to temporarily disable xp gain. This option might also be of help to those people who want to help or wait for friends to catch up to them or what have it. It doesn't need to be a forced thing, just please give us the option to do it. Maybe we can pay the bard some in game cash to disable experience gain and then pay him again to enable it. Please just think about it.

Angel

I would also love to see this. This is something I have also had problems with before.

Originally Posted by Thornglen

That might be if you want to change just combat xp, though. Do those accelerators work on quest xp?

Depends on which accelerator you get. There are several different ones. Each one has its own set of bonuses. There are accelerators for mob kill experience points, quest experience points and item experience points. Some accelerators have more than one bonus.

Turbine has a lot of flexibility in the system design at this point. It is matter of making sure they all interact properly. You probably don't want to all someone to activate a timed bonus to quest experience points when quest points are set to zero via a disabler. As to whether you want to allow someone with time on the clock for a mob kill experience point boost to disable all experience point earning - No idea - my gut feeling is - you can not disable until your accelerator runs out.

Originally Posted by Yula_the_Mighty

Depends on which accelerator you get. There are several different ones. Each one has its own set of bonuses. There are accelerators for mob kill experience points, quest experience points and item experience points. Some accelerators have more than one bonus.

Turbine has a lot of flexibility in the system design at this point. It is matter of making sure they all interact properly. You probably don't want to all someone to activate a timed bonus to quest experience points when quest points are set to zero via a disabler. As to whether you want to allow someone with time on the clock for a mob kill experience point boost to disable all experience point earning - No idea - my gut feeling is - you can not disable until your accelerator runs out.

I have not yet used one of the xp accelerators available in-game now, but I did get one in loot once and noticed it had in the tooltip something the equivalent of, "can not use with effect: experience disabled". So it would seem you are correct and they planned to block use of the one item if you already have the buff (or debuff as the case may be) from the other.

Originally Posted by MrsAngelD

I wasn't aware of the other thread, as I hate spoilers so I'm trying to actively avoid the RoR forum. that being said I did find that thread and post to it so thank you for pointing this out to me.

There really aren't any spoilers beyond what Turbine has specifically announced in the RoR forum. Everything beyond the announcements is just speculation and argument and should be taken with a grain of salt.

If you want to avoid spoilers on any upcoming release, just stay out of the BR forum for a week or two on either side of releases.

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

Originally Posted by Thornglen

That might be if you want to change just combat xp, though. Do those accelerators work on quest xp? It seems most people in the last few posts expect that this would apply to stopping xp from quest turn-ins as well. (Which can lead to its own issues. "I turned in 20 quests before I realized I still had xp turned off! Turbine stole my xp and won't give it back!!" They have to plan for that eventuality.)

That's always been an issue...and (probably) why it appears that what was attempted last Fall was a time limited Store purchase.

In any case, any form of XP disabler is going to have to come with MASSIVE disclaimers. There will still be complaints from people who forgot that they had one running, but the GMs should be able to point to the disclaimer they player agreed to in order to disable xp (in whatever form) in the first place before politely saying "Tough!"

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

Originally Posted by whheydt

That's always been an issue...and (probably) why it appears that what was attempted last Fall was a time limited Store purchase.

In any case, any form of XP disabler is going to have to come with MASSIVE disclaimers. There will still be complaints from people who forgot that they had one running, but the GMs should be able to point to the disclaimer they player agreed to in order to disable xp (in whatever form) in the first place before politely saying "Tough!"

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

What makes this so much different than the other things that a player can mess up.

There are no disclaimers on the auction house where one can accidentally put something expensive up for a bid at a very low price, or accidentally buy something they did not intend.

There are no disclaimers on the legendary item system where one can accidentally break the weapon one has been working on building for month.

There are no disclaimers on the vendors where one can spend a great number of special coins that one has collected through several quests on the wrong item - or where one may accidentally sell an item one very much wanted to keep.

Besides, the very idea that somebody might complain about the XP disabler actually requires that somebody undergo a massive personality transplant from the time they use it until the time that they complain about it. The type of person who would use an XP disabler is not the type that would complain about leaving it on. The type of person who would complain about leaving it on is not the type of person who would ever use it.

I think that the person who imagines complaints imagines somebody with a "rush to level cap" mentality discovering all of the sudden that they have not gained XP for a while. Yes, that type of person might be upset. However, given his love for reaching level cap, he never would have used the item to begin with.

It is an idea i have seen posts on before it would be a nice option for some of us. People differ in how they play they game for some its all about getting to lvl 75 and doing the raids, i am sure some peole would buy a lvl 75 alt if one was available in the store(are Turbine missing a trick there). Others like myself like to take their time and enjoy the view. I dont do the skirmishes they are an exp mine and you will lvl far to quickly if you do many of them.

It should not be hard to impliment an XP disabler you can toggle on and off. If the worry is that peoploe will forget they have the no exp setting on. It should be possible to either have some kind of a warning when you log on with it enabled or maybe have it so it needs to be reset everytime you log on.

I know of at least two games that have an exp disabler with no problems. Are Turbine really saying that people who play LOTRO are not as capable as those who play other games and will keep forgeting that the disabler is on/off

I would be intrested in seeing Turbines views on the exp disabler and why its not in store.

Originally Posted by Tiempko

The type of person who would use an XP disabler is not the type that would complain about leaving it on. The type of person who would complain about leaving it on is not the type of person who would ever use it.

People of all sorts (except for the "rush to the endgame" types) could have reason to use such a feature, at least every once in awhile. The most typical case is that they've started playing with a friend, and want to keep in sync even if they play different numbers of hours. Even someone like me might use it for that purpose now and again.

And... people complain about everything. They'd complain about this too. However, it simply isn't nearly as big an issue as it used to be: between skirmishes and tasks, people can get back on track soon enough even if they manage to strand themselves without content they can complete at their current level.

I'm at a bit of a loss as to why Turbine wouldn't offer this now. Demand for it seems to be higher than it once was, and that will continue to grow each time they raise the level cap and adjust leveling speed to compensate. The option to slow down ought to keep people around longer, and that's generally a good thing in this business. Plus, given that they already have ways to apply XP rate boosts... it just doesn't seem like it should be that hard to slow or stop it.

Khafar

It sounds like a good idea to have an item that turns on a 'level cap flag' IF one exists in the game. No one knows how Turbine has their leveling system designed. It may be harder than any of us know (especially those who have no experience in writing code). I know I wouldn't want to have to check every line of code that triggers an XP gain event to make sure that the event doesn't trigger when the xp disabler is on. It is probably easier now since deeds dont give XP, but still the QC is still mind boggling to me.

I wouldn't ever use it, free or not, but I can see the value in it for others, so I wouldn't mind it being implemented. If the projected income for it is greater than the dev time projected to complete it, we'll probably get it in one form or another eventually, maybe with RoR like Yula suggested.

Originally Posted by macdadg

I know I wouldn't want to have to check every line of code that triggers an XP gain event to make sure that the event doesn't trigger when the xp disabler is on. It is probably easier now since deeds dont give XP, but still the QC is still mind boggling to me.

I wouldn't ever use it, free or not, but I can see the value in it for others, so I wouldn't mind it being implemented. If the projected income for it is greater than the dev time projected to complete it, we'll probably get it in one form or another eventually, maybe with RoR like Yula suggested.

Hey if Sony Online's coders can pull off the ability to disable combat XP at choice, then I think Turbine's coders could do it in their sleep ;-)

Having this option is Win, win and win for Turbine. The concept that a large group of players want to slow down their levelling place, keeping them in game LONGER, thus causing more store sales is something they should make an instant priority. It's win for everybody because it's optional, my levelling pace affects nobody else in the game for any reason imaginable. But it affects Turbines profits because I am around longer, and buy more stuff.

Hi
Just searched in LOTRO store for "zero xp" and found the "Experience Disabler" pocket item: Stone of the Tortoise. Cost 495tp

"Feel like you're leveling too fast, and want to slow your character's progression down? When equipped, this item disables experience earning from monster kills and quest completions. This item is equipped into your pocket item slot. This item binds to your character when you equip it. Delivers a Stone of the Tortoise."

TY Turbine! (although 495tp is excessive...)