No XP for you

It was only during one of my forays into the hobgoblin fortress in Tangleroot Gorge that I suddenly realised I wasn't getting any experience points for my kills.

You do get xp for kills in DDO. You get xp in the combat zones like Tangleroot Gorge when you reach a certain number of kills, and sometimes you get xp in dungeons when you complete side-quests that target specific enemy types. What you don't get is the steady drip-feed of xp per kill that I so take for granted in MMOs that it took me three dozen hours of /played time in this one to realise it was missing.

Instead most of DDO's experience gain is tied into completing dungeons, and at the end of each adventure the game tells you how much you got and even lists exactly what you got it for. DDO is better at rewarding non-combat actions than any other MMO I can think of, with rewards for such things as disarming traps and discovering secret doors.

Indirectly it also rewards stealth, since you can avoid unnecessary fights without missing out on xp. In DDO rogues are rogues, and the game won't ever penalise you for using the skills it gives you.

The way experience is gained in DDO also links in to the death penalty in this game, which I also didn't realise until even more recently. It's quite subtly done, and in its own way it's the harshest death penalty I've encountered since Requiem: Bloodymare* took away experience I'd already gained when I died.

If you die in an instanced dungeon in DDO you need to re-enter to continue where you left off (and quickly, as it'll reset if you take too long to get back to the entrance) and at the end of the adventure something called a reentry penalty is applied to your xp... and it stacks.

I'd seen it listed before, but it had little or no impact during my last run when I was effortlessly massacring kobolds left and right. It didn't even bite too hard in Tangleroot Gorge, but it did make itself felt when I finally made it to the end of a frankly disastrous run through the Illusionarium of House Phiarlan and received my reward of 0 XP.

So... that was 90 minutes well spent, eh?

*aka Requiem: Memento Mori, aka Requiem: Rise of the Reaver. It's quite fitting that it's this subject that leads me into an aside on that game, seeing as Requiem is a Korean grindathon where you get pretty much ALL of your experience from killing mobs. It was the first MMO I ever played, even before City of Heroes and World of Warcraft, and for that reason it'll always be a game I look back on fondly. The only reason I haven't revisited it since starting this blog is that the NA servers have been blocked to EU players since 2018.

Experience gain in DDO then is binary. Either you complete the dungeon and get all the xp, or you don't and you don't. You do or you not do. There is no try.

Ultimately I don't mind this. My formative gaming period was the mid to late 90s on the PS1, when games were hard and save points were limited. That influences my attitude to gaming to this day, and if there are actual consequences for being defeated I'm going to play better than I would if there were few, or none.

As I mentioned a few days ago DDO has got a lot more challenging over the last 24 hours, and that's a good thing. I started this run at level 5 and I'm finishing it halfway to level 7. It's going to be a long time before I see max level in this game.

I feel like I will get there though. I wasn't optimistic when I returned to this game, but DDO has really come into its own this time around. I'm no longer sleepwalking through every encounter, but really having to think about how I approach each dungeon, and making the most of the opportunities provided by the game's incredible character customisation. This is the first MMO since Fallen Earth in which I carry multiple sets of weapons and change up what I use depending on what I'm facing, and I know that's only going to get more involved as I go further into the game.

(This has also definitely been a factor in the speed of my levelling. Quite aside from the nerve wracking respec I talked about in my last post I've spent a fair amount of time mulling over skill selections and the pros and cons of the gear I pick up.)

Just as I found more to enjoy in Secret World Legends when I played for longer than I have in the past, so has this been a further vindication of the rules I set for myself in this blog. DDO isn't as instantly gratifying as some other MMOs I've played, but I'm glad I came back to it and gave it another chance to shine. This time I have no doubt that I'll be returning to this game.