Introduction and Development Plans

[PurpleFooz]

Hi everyone, following ProducerRowan’s letter, it seems like an opportune time to re-introduce myself to the community. You probably already know a bit of me from the dungeons I’ve created: Partycrashers, the Delirium dungeons, Blockade Buster, Undermine, I Dream of Jeets, Schemes of the Enemy, and Belly of the Beast (proper credit should also go to Keeper and Enosity for the visuals they made.)

I was lead of the content creation group while making some of those dungeons, but earlier this year I also became the lead of the design group as a whole.
As lead, I work with Producers Rowan, Glin and Vyvyanne to figure out the strategies of who works on what and when. That’s a bit tricky, since we know that some players want nothing but content, while other players advocate new classes, or enhancements, etc. It helps that we have so many developers that are so proficient in their specialties – rather than having all the developers tripping over each other by working on the same thing, we’re organized into different teams to work on different features at once.

So here are what the different teams are working on:



Enhancements & Epic Destinies


The developers who specialize on character advancement systems are concentrating on addressing the Enhancement issues that the community's submitted through the bug-tracker. There are currently developers spending all of their time addressing these bugs. Looking at the numbers of enhancement bugs we're fixing compared to what's coming in through the bug reports, we're hopeful that enhancements will soon reach a point where the vast majority of players feel it’s stable and complete.


We know that for a lot of players, “complete” means more enhancement trees. We have goals to make more trees for specific classes - we just released the Eldritch Knight for example. While we’re trying to fix as many enhancement bugs as we can for each release, we’d like to make sure we take the time to create each enhancement tree correctly, so you’ll see the trees trickle out at a slower rate.


And, we’ve already started a similar process to crush Epic Destiny issues. There are multiple developers working on fixing the reported ED bugs, and we’re planning out how to finish out remaining trees for everyone to feel that the system is complete. Piloto has already made posts to poll the communities for ideas on the next ED.


Treasure improvements


Simultaneously, we have a different team dedicated to treasure features. They’re currently focused on resolving the “ghostbane” issues. Some of you may already have seen DrOctothorpe’s posts on that topic. He and the rest of the treasure team are making changes to address as much player feedback as they can for patch and Update 21, and then they’ll move on to develop new treasure to go along with the new Update 21 content.


Some of the guys are overlapping with the character advancements team to look at the number of Commendations of Valor we’re giving out. We know that there are complaints that we’re giving out too few, and we’re working to address that. Some of what’s making it complex is that we want to give out the right number not only for the immediate short-term, but that it’ll stay the right number 6 months from now or 2 years from now.


New dungeons


Yes, we also have a whole separate team busily making brand new content too, as well as fixing bugs in old content. We know this is the bread & butter of DDO, so this is our largest team.
BTW, I haven’t stopped working on new dungeons. I’m about to go back and put some more work into the Haunted Halls of Eveningstar. Working with Ed Greenwood has been a blast, and he’s certainly set an ambitious target. The Haunted Halls already has more gameplay than what I put in any of my previous dungeons and there’s still much more to go!


Aside from the efforts going into those priorities, there is also planning and setup work going into the future features that ProducerRowan mentioned. Don’t worry, it’s not our intent to simply ignore systems such as Housing or Crafting either – we’ll get to those once we’re through with our current pushes with core features like Enhancements and Epic Destinies .

A final thing before I head back into dungeon work – we’re really trying to keep the flow of communication going. Over the next few weeks, developers from each of the disciplines will be talking about what’s happening in their particular specialties. This is to give the players the information you’re asking for, but it’s also to help the developers get the feedback they need to properly take DDO where everyone wants it to go!

- PurpleFooz

[Teh_Troll]

You need a team dedicated to nerfing monks.

[Lerl]

Hi everyone, following ProducerRowan’s letter, it seems like an opportune time to re-introduce myself to the community. You probably already know a bit of me from the dungeons I’ve created: Partycrashers, the Delirium dungeons, Blockade Buster, Undermine, I Dream of Jeets, Schemes of the Enemy, and Belly of the Beast (proper credit should also go to Keeper and Enosity for the visuals they made.)

I was lead of the content creation group while making some of those dungeons, but earlier this year I also became the lead of the design group as a whole.
As lead, I work with Producers Rowan, Glin and Vyvyanne to figure out the strategies of who works on what and when. That’s a bit tricky, since we know that some players want nothing but content, while other players advocate new classes, or enhancements, etc. It helps that we have so many developers that are so proficient in their specialties – rather than having all the developers tripping over each other by working on the same thing, we’re organized into different teams to work on different features at once.

So here are what the different teams are working on:


Enhancements & Epic Destinies

The developers who specialize on character advancement systems are concentrating on addressing the Enhancement issues that the community's submitted through the bug-tracker. There are currently developers spending all of their time addressing these bugs. Looking at the numbers of enhancement bugs we're fixing compared to what's coming in through the bug reports, we're hopeful that enhancements will soon reach a point where the vast majority of players feel it’s stable and complete.
We know that for a lot of players, “complete” means more enhancement trees. We have goals to make more trees for specific classes - we just released the Eldritch Knight for example. While we’re trying to fix as many enhancement bugs as we can for each release, we’d like to make sure we take the time to create each enhancement tree correctly, so you’ll see the trees trickle out at a slower rate.
And, we’ve already started a similar process to crush Epic Destiny issues. There are multiple developers working on fixing the reported ED bugs, and we’re planning out how to finish out remaining trees for everyone to feel that the system is complete. Piloto has already made posts to poll the communities for ideas on the next ED.


Treasure improvements

Simultaneously, we have a different team dedicated to treasure features. They’re currently focused on resolving the “ghostbane” issues. Some of you may already have seen DrOctothorpe’s posts on that topic. He and the rest of the treasure team are making changes to address as much player feedback as they can for patch and Update 21, and then they’ll move on to develop new treasure to go along with the new Update 21 content.
Some of the guys are overlapping with the character advancements team to look at the number of Commendations of Valor we’re giving out. We know that there are complaints that we’re giving out too few, and we’re working to address that. Some of what’s making it complex is that we want to give out the right number not only for the immediate short-term, but that it’ll stay the right number 6 months from now or 2 years from now.


New dungeons

Yes, we also have a whole separate team busily making brand new content too, as well as fixing bugs in old content. We know this is the bread & butter of DDO, so this is our largest team.
BTW, I haven’t stopped working on new dungeons. I’m about to go back and put some more work into the Haunted Halls of Eveningstar. Working with Ed Greenwood has been a blast, and he’s certainly set an ambitious target. The Haunted Halls already has more gameplay than what I put in any of my previous dungeons and there’s still much more to go!


Aside from the efforts going into those priorities, there is also planning and setup work going into the future features that ProducerRowan mentioned. Don’t worry, it’s not our intent to simply ignore systems such as Housing or Crafting either – we’ll get to those once we’re through with our current pushes with core features like Enhancements and Epic Destinies .

A final thing before I head back into dungeon work – we’re really trying to keep the flow of communication going. Over the next few weeks, developers from each of the disciplines will be talking about what’s happening in their particular specialties. This is to give the players the information you’re asking for, but it’s also to help the developers get the feedback they need to properly take DDO where everyone wants it to go!

- PurpleFooz


Wow. Thank you. +1

[Livmo]

Thank you for those upcoming changes and improvements!

Moar Sharn :D

[SirValentine]

it seems like an opportune time to re-introduce myself to the community.
<snip>
earlier this year I also became the lead of the design group as a whole.


Hello, and congrats on the promotion.



And, we’ve already started a similar process to crush Epic Destiny issues. There are multiple developers working on fixing the reported ED bugs, and we’re planning out how to finish out remaining trees for everyone to feel that the system is complete. Piloto has already made posts to poll the communities for ideas on the next ED.


I was quite surprised at the the degree of consistency in the replies to Piloto. Several themes kept getting mentioned by lots of different people.

One of those was, not just bug-fixing or whole-new-destiny, but also possibly re-working existing destinies. I think it's fair to say that some are quite a bit weaker than others currently, or don't have a well-defined role, or fail to achieve any of the several disparate goals they seem to have. Likewise for individual abilities within destinies.



Treasure improvements
<snip>
New dungeons


I'm glad the ghostbane-random-loot mess is getting fixed. But beyond that:

I hope there's some good communication here. One of the things I really like is NAMED loot that is useful, either directly MORE useful than similar random loot, or with useful UNIQUE abilities, and thematic to the pack or adventure that it comes from. And with drop rates that are MODERATELY low, so it's not instant gratification, but achievable in some reasonable moderate amount of time.



A final thing before I head back into dungeon work – we’re really trying to keep the flow of communication going.


Excellent. I like hearing from you all, and love when I can tell you're listening to us. Thanks for the update.

[Memnir]

A final thing before I head back into dungeon work – we’re really trying to keep the flow of communication going. Over the next few weeks, developers from each of the disciplines will be talking about what’s happening in their particular specialties. This is to give the players the information you’re asking for, but it’s also to help the developers get the feedback they need to properly take DDO where everyone wants it to go!

- PurpleFoozhttp://i.imgur.com/EozXRUm.gif

Thanks for the encouraging news.

[toaftoaf]

it's a shame there are soo many full time teams on stuff that just should have been release when it worked right.

fact

[StoptheRock]

Good stuff. Always feels great to read from the devs.

By the way, is Feather of Sun still around there?

[Lifespawn]

is there certain people we should send pm's too reguarding issues above and beyond bug reporting as that has failed in the past and a continuously updated Known Issues list would go an extremely long way to quelling our fears that things just go unnoticed.

Personally I have a problem with 2 enhancments in the newest EK tree one has finally been recognized but the other I fear will get no notice because it hits a seriously small set of players and seems to be a very easy fix imo For Cormyr lasts 1 min when it should last 2.

I know that you feel once you make a known issues list you have to fix stuff on there and that we will hound you over some taking forever but it would be a huge help and make people more willing to put the effort in to help you guys do your jobs rather than a small subset of diehards still doing testing.

[rest]

Where are Eladrin and MadFloyd?

[levesque2004]

I'll point out, Dev Tracker is not picking up all the devs. MajMal is not picked up, for example. Might want to address that... it'd help folks find the communications from the devs. Might even reduce the number of "devs don't communicate" complaints (yeah, i'm a hopeless romantic).

[rest]

A final thing before I head back into dungeon work – we’re really trying to keep the flow of communication going. Over the next few weeks, developers from each of the disciplines will be talking about what’s happening in their particular specialties. This is to give the players the information you’re asking for, but it’s also to help the developers get the feedback they need to properly take DDO where everyone wants it to go!



What's the over/under on this not actually happening?Any bookmakers in the house?

[Hafeal]

Cheers, thanks for the breakdown and news.

The revamped communication we have seen and continue to see, is a major positive in me returning to ViP.

[Drwaz99]

Where are Eladrin and MadFloyd?

They were good so I am thinking Infinite Crisis..

[Memnir]

What's the over/under on this not actually happening?Any bookmakers in the house?
I'm not going to lay odds, but this is not the first time we've heard such things being said. Yeah, it might be cause to once again use the Charlie Brown/football pic - but (as always, which is why it's so apt so often) I hope not. I'm hoping that this might be the time they follow through. Time will tell.

I'm hoping that the last few years have been a learning experience for Turbine, and the takeaway was that they need to do better to keep the game profitable. Again, time will tell.

[Thar]

Hi everyone, following ProducerRowan’s letter, it seems like an opportune time to re-introduce myself to the community. You probably already know a bit of me from the dungeons I’ve created: Partycrashers, the Delirium dungeons, Blockade Buster, Undermine, I Dream of Jeets, Schemes of the Enemy, and Belly of the Beast (proper credit should also go to Keeper and Enosity for the visuals they made.)

I was lead of the content creation group while making some of those dungeons, but earlier this year I also became the lead of the design group as a whole.
As lead, I work with Producers Rowan, Glin and Vyvyanne to figure out the strategies of who works on what and when. That’s a bit tricky, since we know that some players want nothing but content, while other players advocate new classes, or enhancements, etc. It helps that we have so many developers that are so proficient in their specialties – rather than having all the developers tripping over each other by working on the same thing, we’re organized into different teams to work on different features at once.

So here are what the different teams are working on:



Enhancements & Epic Destinies


The developers who specialize on character advancement systems are concentrating on addressing the Enhancement issues that the community's submitted through the bug-tracker. There are currently developers spending all of their time addressing these bugs. Looking at the numbers of enhancement bugs we're fixing compared to what's coming in through the bug reports, we're hopeful that enhancements will soon reach a point where the vast majority of players feel it’s stable and complete.


We know that for a lot of players, “complete” means more enhancement trees. We have goals to make more trees for specific classes - we just released the Eldritch Knight for example. While we’re trying to fix as many enhancement bugs as we can for each release, we’d like to make sure we take the time to create each enhancement tree correctly, so you’ll see the trees trickle out at a slower rate.


And, we’ve already started a similar process to crush Epic Destiny issues. There are multiple developers working on fixing the reported ED bugs, and we’re planning out how to finish out remaining trees for everyone to feel that the system is complete. Piloto has already made posts to poll the communities for ideas on the next ED.


Treasure improvements


Simultaneously, we have a different team dedicated to treasure features. They’re currently focused on resolving the “ghostbane” issues. Some of you may already have seen DrOctothorpe’s posts on that topic. He and the rest of the treasure team are making changes to address as much player feedback as they can for patch and Update 21, and then they’ll move on to develop new treasure to go along with the new Update 21 content.


Some of the guys are overlapping with the character advancements team to look at the number of Commendations of Valor we’re giving out. We know that there are complaints that we’re giving out too few, and we’re working to address that. Some of what’s making it complex is that we want to give out the right number not only for the immediate short-term, but that it’ll stay the right number 6 months from now or 2 years from now.


New dungeons


Yes, we also have a whole separate team busily making brand new content too, as well as fixing bugs in old content. We know this is the bread & butter of DDO, so this is our largest team.
BTW, I haven’t stopped working on new dungeons. I’m about to go back and put some more work into the Haunted Halls of Eveningstar. Working with Ed Greenwood has been a blast, and he’s certainly set an ambitious target. The Haunted Halls already has more gameplay than what I put in any of my previous dungeons and there’s still much more to go!


Aside from the efforts going into those priorities, there is also planning and setup work going into the future features that ProducerRowan mentioned. Don’t worry, it’s not our intent to simply ignore systems such as Housing or Crafting either – we’ll get to those once we’re through with our current pushes with core features like Enhancements and Epic Destinies .

A final thing before I head back into dungeon work – we’re really trying to keep the flow of communication going. Over the next few weeks, developers from each of the disciplines will be talking about what’s happening in their particular specialties. This is to give the players the information you’re asking for, but it’s also to help the developers get the feedback they need to properly take DDO where everyone wants it to go!

- PurpleFooz

please please please no epic 3 barrel cove unless you are trashing everything there and making it all new. the quests stink and are skipped now whenver possible as xp is bad, quests are annoying.

EPIC tempus spine!!! that is what you should work on. The only other series i hear people want epic is water works.

I'd day epic titan but most people hate those quests too as too long. Epic threnal but people want to choke coyle as it is.

[dunklezhan]

Don’t worry, it’s not our intent to simply ignore systems such as Housing or Crafting either – we’ll get to those once we’re through with our current pushes with core features like Enhancements and Epic Destinies .



Less talk. More push. ;)

I jest. Don't stop the communication ?please.

[droid327]

That all sounds great. The only thing I really consistently wish you'd do better is more transparency at the design stage...it seems like, way too often, the dev team mulls behind closed doors, spending a lot of time coming up with an idea that they present to the playerbase, and get blasted for, then send it back to square one for redesign. Let us in the whole process, let us see the ideas as they're evolving, let us make suggestions or point out problems. You're always free to disregard our input, after all. Most industries would (and do) pay lots of money for the kind of customer feedback that MMO playerbases give willingly and vociferously...

No one has any complaints about the lack of effort of the dev team to push out new content. They have complaints about new content getting pushed out, then getting pulled back, redone, pushed out again, and so on...

For example, CoVs. The devs calculated out the number, and pushed it live before they explained what it was and how they got there. Share your data with us first, share your logic, we could have pointed out what assumptions you were making wrong, and how to correct them. Then you wouldn't have to waste design and coding time going back to change things.

[Oxarhamar]

Snip*
Some of the guys are overlapping with the character advancements team to look at the number of Commendations of Valor we’re giving out. We know that there are complaints that we’re giving out too few, and we’re working to address that. Some of what’s making it complex is that we want to give out the right number not only for the immediate short-term, but that it’ll stay the right number 6 months from now or 2 years from now.
[/LIST]
- PurpleFooz

You can't have the Correct numbers now when the level cap is 28 and the correct numbers 2 years from now when the cap is 30.

When the level cap is raised it will increase the amount of CoV a player can gain while capping by default.

More high level quests will grant more CoV:
LVL 29 quest EN 24 EH 39 EE 70
LVL 30 quest EN 26 EH 42 EE 75

if your number of CoV required to buy a Heart are the right number for 2 years from now then they are the wrong number for NOW.

The simple answer is to reduce the CoV required to gain a Heart for now and readjust when the level Cap is raised.
(you'd have cheers when the numbers were reduced and pitchforks when it was raised but, that's the only way the numbers can be correct both now and in the future)

[Oxarhamar]

please please please no epic 3 barrel cove unless you are trashing everything there and making it all new. the quests stink and are skipped now whenver possible as xp is bad, quests are annoying.

EPIC tempus spine!!! that is what you should work on. The only other series i hear people want epic is water works.

I'd day epic titan but most people hate those quests too as too long. Epic threnal but people want to choke coyle as it is.

Just because' you don't like 3BC doesn't mean the XP is bad

the XP is bad because, you don't know the quests and can't complete them in a reasonable amount of time.

My old 3 man Static TR group always made a run thru 3BC the XP is very good but, you've got to know the quests and be prepared.


I will never say no to any content being Epic

[Cauthey_No_CCInfo]

A final thing before I head back into dungeon work – we’re really trying to keep the flow of communication going. Over the next few weeks, developers from each of the disciplines will be talking about what’s happening in their particular specialties. This is to give the players the information you’re asking for, but it’s also to help the developers get the feedback they need to properly take DDO where everyone wants it to go!

To me, this has been a giant win. You guys have made a herculean effort to change your communication MO. And I, for one, greatly appreciate it. I have allowed myself to make Market/VIP purchases again with this renewed communication. Please keep this trend up! And thank you for all that you do! :D

[UurlockYgmeov]

...Aside from the efforts going into those priorities, there is also planning and setup work going into the future features that ProducerRowan mentioned. Don’t worry, it’s not our intent to simply ignore systems such as Housing or Crafting either – we’ll get to those once we’re through with our current pushes with core features like Enhancements and Epic Destinies .

A final thing before I head back into dungeon work – we’re really trying to keep the flow of communication going. Over the next few weeks, developers from each of the disciplines will be talking about what’s happening in their particular specialties. This is to give the players the information you’re asking for, but it’s also to help the developers get the feedback they need to properly take DDO where everyone wants it to go!

- PurpleFooz

Nicely communicated! Now keep it up.

Concerning parts in red. Critical.

And I see Rowan and Glin's communication - but seems 1/3 of the team isn't communicating: Vyvyanne - haven't seen name yet alone a post by
in a long time! Entire team needs to communicate - the higher the level of responsibility the more they need to.

[SisAmethyst]

Hi everyone,...

So here are what the different teams are working on:


Enhancements & Epic Destinies ...
Treasure improvements ...
New dungeons ...

...

A final thing before I head back into dungeon work – we’re really trying to keep the flow of communication going. Over the next few weeks, developers from each of the disciplines will be talking about what’s happening in their particular specialties. This is to give the players the information you’re asking for, but it’s also to help the developers get the feedback they need to properly take DDO where everyone wants it to go!

- PurpleFooz

Wow, that is really nice feedback giving us a better idea where we are going and much appreciated!

And yes, like the one before said, to ditch the cannith crafting below the carpet with all your improvements on loot.

[oradafu]

Hopefully the fixes and tweaks to the Enhancement system means that many classes will get a boost in the their upper Core Abilities. Or at a minimum the Capstones finally mean the original target of being "as powerful or more powerful thank Evasion." Although as I and others have pointed out, Capstones should be as powerful as at least Evasion plus one or two levels (or two tiers of three or four trees) of another class.

[Lauf]

we’re really trying to keep the flow of communication going. Over the next few weeks, developers from each of the disciplines will be talking about what’s happening in their particular specialties. This is to give the players the information you’re asking for, but it’s also to help the developers get the feedback they need to properly take DDO where everyone wants it to go!

Thank you very much for the communication, it is definitely a welcome initiative.

as personal feedback, please address build breaking bugs before others.

I have a monk broken for several months now waiting for you to get around to fixing improved weapon finesse to work with handwraps.

[SisAmethyst]

please please please no epic 3 barrel cove unless you are trashing everything there and making it all new. the quests stink and are skipped now whenver possible as xp is bad, quests are annoying.

EPIC tempus spine!!! that is what you should work on. The only other series i hear people want epic is water works.

I'd day epic titan but most people hate those quests too as too long. Epic threnal but people want to choke coyle as it is.

The thing is, I would love to see EPIC WW, Tempest Spine and certainly also the titan raid. However there need also to be a backstory and not just putting an epic label on those. The backstory for GH was pretty clear to finish the story of the Trutheful-One. However this should also mean not just reuse old locations and mechanics.

Regarding Threnal. Coyle has probably meanwhile a medal and sit in his chair lamenting how he saved the world, you don't just redo this protecting quest with more HP, but spin the story further. Something like that he come to you to save once again his but, because he can count on you with the promise he will stay out of the danger zone. Then you may enter in the same quest entrance but actually after some meter the floor has cracked, just like the crack in the Harbor, with hundred of spiders crawling out. So parts of the Quest reused, but then branch into a different are, with different monsters. A quest should be like reading a good book, with a story that maybe turns unexpected and surprise you. At least the first time through.

[era42]

Hi everyone, following ProducerRowan’s letter, it seems like an opportune time to re-introduce myself to the community. You probably already know a bit of me from the dungeons I’ve created: Partycrashers, the Delirium dungeons, Blockade Buster, Undermine, I Dream of Jeets, Schemes of the Enemy, and Belly of the Beast (proper credit should also go to Keeper and Enosity for the visuals they made.)


Awesome quests, keep more of this kind of variability coming, and we have a winner. The newest quest in Sable Manor gives hope for the future quests to be awesome, after the failure called Shadowfail, with your list of dungeons the future looks way less bleak.

Still, even your list isn't perfect. Belly of the Beast, while innovative, suffers heavily from the unavoidable orange/red alert on the waves with a big party. Prevent the enemy waves from triggering dungeon alert, and the quest becomes much less annoying. And, even fun quests need exp as reward, which was only fixed at u20. Schemes suffered from poor exp for way too long.

[Seikojin]

Thanks for bringing this all up. I am glad more communication is coming. I just hope it stays that way. It really, really helps from both sides.

[Cyr]

You can't have the Correct numbers now when the level cap is 28 and the correct numbers 2 years from now when the cap is 30.

When the level cap is raised it will increase the amount of CoV a player can gain while capping by default.

More high level quests will grant more CoV:
LVL 29 quest EN 24 EH 39 EE 70
LVL 30 quest EN 26 EH 42 EE 75

if your number of CoV required to buy a Heart are the right number for 2 years from now then they are the wrong number for NOW.

The simple answer is to reduce the CoV required to gain a Heart for now and readjust when the level Cap is raised.
(you'd have cheers when the numbers were reduced and pitchforks when it was raised but, that's the only way the numbers can be correct both now and in the future)

I disagree, because it seems apparent that thee devs want to use comms as the currency to buy upgraded loot in the future (ie comms of hero V2.0). The right' comm number would be set for current level cap in the assumption that later you would have more things you needed to buy with those hearts. A good system here would allow people the ability to keep accumulating comms slowly for their gear through TRs or do some farming at cap to get their gear faster.

[sephiroth1084]

Good job! Thank you!
Congratulations on your promotion!

Hi everyone, following ProducerRowan’s letter, it seems like an opportune time to re-introduce myself to the community. You probably already know a bit of me from the dungeons I’ve created: Partycrashers, the Delirium dungeons, Blockade Buster, Undermine, I Dream of Jeets, Schemes of the Enemy, and Belly of the Beast (proper credit should also go to Keeper and Enosity for the visuals they made.)

Dungeons known for their creativity and variety.



So here are what the different teams are working on:

Enhancements & Epic Destinies

The developers who specialize on character advancement systems are concentrating on addressing the Enhancement issues that the community's submitted through the bug-tracker. There are currently developers spending all of their time addressing these bugs. Looking at the numbers of enhancement bugs we're fixing compared to what's coming in through the bug reports, we're hopeful that enhancements will soon reach a point where the vast majority of players feel it’s stable and complete.

We know that for a lot of players, “complete” means more enhancement trees. We have goals to make more trees for specific classes - we just released the Eldritch Knight for example. While we’re trying to fix as many enhancement bugs as we can for each release, we’d like to make sure we take the time to create each enhancement tree correctly, so you’ll see the trees trickle out at a slower rate.

Does this also encompass some balance issues, such as some PrEs being much too weak/ineffectual/devoid of interesting material to spend AP on (I'm thinking of the paladin here, but others could use the same treatment, like tiers 3, 4, and 5 of Deepwood Stalker)? Would it be more helpful to submit feedback on these as bug reports? As comments in this, and other developer threads, or as discreet topic threads on the forums?



And, we’ve already started a similar process to crush Epic Destiny issues. There are multiple developers working on fixing the reported ED bugs, and we’re planning out how to finish out remaining trees for everyone to feel that the system is complete. Piloto has already made posts to poll the communities for ideas on the next ED.

I hope this includes reworking some of the existing destinies that just aren't cutting it.



Treasure improvements
...and then they’ll move on to develop new treasure to go along with the new Update 21 content.

Question: what is the process used when designing new named loot? Do developers compare the stuff to older loot? Existing popular items? Do they use DPS calculators, such as Barrage, to see whether the weapons they are designing are actually worth using over existing options? This last one I suspect is a NO (I know that some of the older loot developers didn't even know such things as DPS calculators existed). I'm particularly concerned about that one, because we continue to see real flops in the weapon department that are easily recognized when thinking about items in that way, or quickly discovered when plugged into Barrage and compared to other weapons. As I've said numerous times in the past, I'd like to see two-handed weapons that are more powerful than the Epic Sword of Shadows, but only in a narrow niche, such as against one or two types of enemies. Unfortunately, simply stapling on static damage bonuses won't cut it, because the ESoS's power is multiplicative with our continuously scaling bonuses to damage that get multiplied on critical hits.

And example of an idea would be using your technology to increase critical multipliers on certain rolls, and your tech to apply effects vs. certain types of enemies, to create weapons that mimic, or surpass, the ESoS's crit profile against a subset of enemies, or under certain conditions. Threat range probably can't be mutated on the fly like that, so take a weapon with a 15-20/x2 profile and give it Giant Destruction, which adds Greater Giant Bane and +2 to critical multiplier vs. giants. Now, the weapon is a 15-20/x4 vs. giants, which is pretty impressive, but won't overshadow every other weapon in the game, because it won't be all that useful vs. non-giants.


Some of the guys are overlapping with the character advancements team to look at the number of Commendations of Valor we’re giving out. We know that there are complaints that we’re giving out too few, and we’re working to address that. Some of what’s making it complex is that we want to give out the right number not only for the immediate short-term, but that it’ll stay the right number 6 months from now or 2 years from now.

What exactly is the concern here, that when you raise the cap to 30 we'll be getting too many CoV if the number is lowered? I just want to point out that we're already looking at a bigger grind to Epic Reincarnate at 6.6 million XP than we were for the old True Reincarnation at 4.3 million XP. That the ETR also doesn't reset first time quest bonuses, meaning no Bravery Bonus (something instituted specifically to make TRing less of a chore), and that we have fewer epic-level quests, with less variety, than we do heroic-level quests makes this even more tedious. Then, that we also need 6 million XP in a particular destiny sphere may also add significantly to the grind if what you're after is an Epic Past Life from an off-destiny. Does acquiring CoV have to be an additional burden we have to deal with to the degree that it is currently?

Isn't it more important to keep players ETRing, running on that treadmill, rather than giving up in frustration and leaving?



New dungeons
Yes, we also have a whole separate team busily making brand new content too, as well as fixing bugs in old content. We know this is the bread & butter of DDO, so this is our largest team.
BTW, I haven’t stopped working on new dungeons. I’m about to go back and put some more work into the Haunted Halls of Eveningstar. Working with Ed Greenwood has been a blast, and he’s certainly set an ambitious target. The Haunted Halls already has more gameplay than what I put in any of my previous dungeons and there’s still much more to go!
This sounds promising!

[Cyr]

As to priority list presented by Fooz...

I like having some focus on completing something for once, but I see a big huge problem with the loot side. Loot is not just 'random' loot, or cannith crafted, or fill in the blank subsystem. It is all those together. Cannith crafting needs to be updated as updates occur to other systems as a basic part of maintaining systems. The lets do this subsection of loot this update and ignore everything else is one of main problems with prior loot design.

[Jasparion]

You need a team dedicated to nerfing monks.

1. Fix 10k Stars so it does not work with bows.
2. Buff the level 18 enhancements and level 20 capstones of all the non-Monk classes so that anyone deciding to go pure is not griefing the rest of their playing group.
3. Get dedicated team back to working on Gnomes and Warlocks and Drow poisons which stack with Rogue poisons.

[Hathorian]

nice to hear from you, thanks!

[Drwaz99]

Is it just me or did something totally fubar the formatting on this page?

There's a huge black box with Facebook, Twitter and Youtube across all the replies.

[kmankowski]

Is it just me or did something totally fubar the formatting on this page?

There's a huge black box with Facebook, Twitter and Youtube across all the replies.

You don't like black on black text?

[enochiancub]

Is it just me or did something totally fubar the formatting on this page?

There's a huge black box with Facebook, Twitter and Youtube across all the replies.

Enormous obnoxious white box with a Facebook, Twitter and YouTube icon and the formatting below it is borked.

Yours is the first post I can see.

[Capricorpus]

Not a ton of new information, but we already got the new information last week.

The primary thing I took out of this is "we're communicating and plan on making an effort to continue to do so", and I very much appreciate that.

Anyways, thanks, and I'm undoubtedly not alone in hoping that this sort of thing will become the norm!

[Thumbed_Servant]

Hi 'fooz. Partycrashers was yours? AWESOME....love that quest....love all the optionals and how they ARE optional

Nice letter, all good things said.

I REALLY love DDO, and so I am very glad to hear that *bugs* are being worked on as well as new content.

[Cleanincubus]

Aside from the efforts going into those priorities, there is also planning and setup work going into the future features that ProducerRowan mentioned. Don’t worry, it’s not our intent to simply ignore systems such as Housing or Crafting either – we’ll get to those once we’re through with our current pushes with core features like Enhancements and Epic Destinies .

A final thing before I head back into dungeon work – we’re really trying to keep the flow of communication going. Over the next few weeks, developers from each of the disciplines will be talking about what’s happening in their particular specialties. This is to give the players the information you’re asking for, but it’s also to help the developers get the feedback they need to properly take DDO where everyone wants it to go!

- PurpleFooz
Have to say, this is not what I was expecting when Rowan posted this:
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/431908-Holiday-Producer-s-Letter?p=5186797&viewfull=1#post5186797

In regard to introducing new things - PurpleFooz (Lead Designer) is putting together a follow-up post to talk about finishing systems, which is a high priority for next year. He'll talk more about what that means.

Our top priority is still to finish, polish, and then introduce new things.
If you can't comment on finishing the abandoned systems, that Rowan apparently thought you could/would comment on, could you ask the Developer(s) who actually can/will, to please comment. I was pretty much expecting a full post about finishing systems, not one sentence, that was pretty much the exact same thing Rowan said. Not really any kind of reassurance that the dozens of unfinished systems will actually be worked on. Seriously let down here.


As far as Housing, please read every single post after this one, to give you an idea of what us players think of Housing, compared to other things you could be working on.
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/422381-If-you-where-a-ddo-producer-what-would-you-do?p=5066206&viewfull=1#post5066206

[QuantumFX]

The developers who specialize on character advancement systems are concentrating on addressing the Enhancement issues that the community's submitted through the bug-tracker. There are currently developers spending all of their time addressing these bugs. Looking at the numbers of enhancement bugs we're fixing compared to what's coming in through the bug reports, we're hopeful that enhancements will soon reach a point where the vast majority of players feel it’s stable and complete.

So… long story short… we will *NEVER* see the racial PrE’s that were supposed to be included in the Enhancement update as the devs got distracted by another shiny. And as a side benefit, pure class builds will stay dead and buried.

[soloist12]

We know that for a lot of players, “complete” means more enhancement trees. We have goals to make more trees for specific classes - we just released the Eldritch Knight for example. While we’re trying to fix as many enhancement bugs as we can for each release, we’d like to make sure we take the time to create each enhancement tree correctly, so you’ll see the trees trickle out at a slower rate.

To me, "complete" also means balance changes to never-used abilities, and overpowered abilities - this includes EDs and enhancement trees.


And, we’ve already started a similar process to crush Epic Destiny issues. There are multiple developers working on fixing the reported ED bugs, and we’re planning out how to finish out remaining trees for everyone to feel that the system is complete. Piloto has already made posts to poll the communities for ideas on the next ED.

Just to touch on my first comment, that new tree is difficult to suggest for. You'll see from the feedback that due to whatever reason, you guys very rarely go back and make adjustments on already implemented abilities. Without modifying the US and EA trees, the new tree might end up being yet another homogenization of melee/casting abilities, and after we cap the new tree, might not even get used like the other 2.

This is key, and something you guys lose focus with in design: EE quests require focused character building to work well, and what works in EN and EH does not jive with 10k hp trash and 60 Reflex/Fort/Will save monsters. For example, The Judgement line in EA. On paper and in concept? Yeah it's cool. In the delivery? That ship sunk. Will you go back and look at it? It's been a year+, black ball points to never.

That's one example of many.


Simultaneously, we have a different team dedicated to treasure features. They’re currently focused on resolving the “ghostbane” issues. Some of you may already have seen DrOctothorpe’s posts on that topic. He and the rest of the treasure team are making changes to address as much player feedback as they can for patch and Update 21, and then they’ll move on to develop new treasure to go along with the new Update 21 content.

I cannot stress this enough, just as I did in the Shadowfell beta forums on the Item Forum: You need your end game to be powerful named loot that drop at an uncommon-to-rare rate. A crafting mechanism works in tandem with this, as we fill out our necessary stat holes (augments work in a similar way). However you do this, whether it be trade-able or shard/scroll/seal system has no ultimate bearing, we will strive to achieve it.

One thing I will suggest though, is your seal/shard/scroll system had far more LFM groups running for obvious reasons:

- you had to run the quests more to get the final item than you do now
- the final items were meaningful
- you wanted more hands on your pull in the hopes they didn't need it and would put it up for roll
- faster and more efficient with a party of 6
- can't simply buy your item in the p2winhouse or from 6 -account-chest-pullers



Everything else looks good.

[Flavilandile]

Hi everyone, following ProducerRowan’s letter, it seems like an opportune time to re-introduce myself to the community. You probably already know a bit of me from the dungeons I’ve created: Partycrashers, the Delirium dungeons, Blockade Buster, Undermine, I Dream of Jeets, Schemes of the Enemy, and Belly of the Beast (proper credit should also go to Keeper and Enosity for the visuals they made.)

Hi, Welcome.. Back somewhat.
That's some quests that are fun ( at least for me )... Though Schemes has a tedious end fight.



I was lead of the content creation group while making some of those dungeons, but earlier this year I also became the lead of the design group as a whole.
As lead, I work with Producers Rowan, Glin and Vyvyanne to figure out the strategies of who works on what and when. That’s a bit tricky, since we know that some players want nothing but content, while other players advocate new classes, or enhancements, etc. It helps that we have so many developers that are so proficient in their specialties – rather than having all the developers tripping over each other by working on the same thing, we’re organized into different teams to work on different features at once.

Right now a lot of us wants :
- Content, also known as more raids at end game, like 6-8 Raids that actually are worth doing ( Not Shade Ego Stroking things like Pain in the Navel. Things like VONs, Titan, ... )
- Fixes, there's so many broken things right now that after each update the game is : what did they break this time ? Especially since what we see in Lammania is NOT what appears on live.
- NO MORE SYSTEM CHANGE. There has been enough, there's been some that were definitely NOT wanted ( Enhancemnt crash, you could have just done a UI revamp that would have pleased everybody )
- Full and complete rollback of the Ghostbane Item Update. Even after today it's not full (many prefixes were removed ) and not complete ( we can still get Ghostbaned by the Loot God )



So here are what the different teams are working on:



Enhancements & Epic Destinies


The developers who specialize on character advancement systems are concentrating on addressing the Enhancement issues that the community's submitted through the bug-tracker. There are currently developers spending all of their time addressing these bugs. Looking at the numbers of enhancement bugs we're fixing compared to what's coming in through the bug reports, we're hopeful that enhancements will soon reach a point where the vast majority of players feel it’s stable and complete.


We know that for a lot of players, “complete” means more enhancement trees. We have goals to make more trees for specific classes - we just released the Eldritch Knight for example. While we’re trying to fix as many enhancement bugs as we can for each release, we’d like to make sure we take the time to create each enhancement tree correctly, so you’ll see the trees trickle out at a slower rate.


And, we’ve already started a similar process to crush Epic Destiny issues. There are multiple developers working on fixing the reported ED bugs, and we’re planning out how to finish out remaining trees for everyone to feel that the system is complete. Piloto has already made posts to poll the communities for ideas on the next ED.




Yeah, completing Enhancements Trees and Epic Destinies is a must.




Treasure improvements


Simultaneously, we have a different team dedicated to treasure features. They’re currently focused on resolving the “ghostbane” issues. Some of you may already have seen DrOctothorpe’s posts on that topic. He and the rest of the treasure team are making changes to address as much player feedback as they can for patch and Update 21, and then they’ll move on to develop new treasure to go along with the new Update 21 content.


Some of the guys are overlapping with the character advancements team to look at the number of Commendations of Valor we’re giving out. We know that there are complaints that we’re giving out too few, and we’re working to address that. Some of what’s making it complex is that we want to give out the right number not only for the immediate short-term, but that it’ll stay the right number 6 months from now or 2 years from now.




As I wrote above : To Deal with the Ghostbane Issue, you first need to do a full and complete rollback of the Ghostbaning of Items. Right now you have only done a partial one.
Then you will be able to restart from the beginning and do it the right way.



New dungeons


Yes, we also have a whole separate team busily making brand new content too, as well as fixing bugs in old content. We know this is the bread & butter of DDO, so this is our largest team.
BTW, I haven’t stopped working on new dungeons. I’m about to go back and put some more work into the Haunted Halls of Eveningstar. Working with Ed Greenwood has been a blast, and he’s certainly set an ambitious target. The Haunted Halls already has more gameplay than what I put in any of my previous dungeons and there’s still much more to go!




Really we need RAIDS at LVL 28/30, quests are not enough...We need raids that have a replayability, that are not tedious, that have some appeal. The Best one in that domain is called the Shroud. It's varied enough that everytime it changes, it has something that appeals to players ( Greensteel crafting ) and it has a replayability ( collecting more UNBOUND components to make more items ).

What you should avoid while doing new raids :
- Bound to Character components
- Tedious Ego stroking raids like Caught in the Web
- Raids with weak Named Items that can be surpassed by random loot.



Aside from the efforts going into those priorities, there is also planning and setup work going into the future features that ProducerRowan mentioned. Don’t worry, it’s not our intent to simply ignore systems such as Housing or Crafting either – we’ll get to those once we’re through with our current pushes with core features like Enhancements and Epic Destinies .

A final thing before I head back into dungeon work – we’re really trying to keep the flow of communication going. Over the next few weeks, developers from each of the disciplines will be talking about what’s happening in their particular specialties. This is to give the players the information you’re asking for, but it’s also to help the developers get the feedback they need to properly take DDO where everyone wants it to go!

- PurpleFooz

[Dandonk]

Very nice with more communication :) I'm looking forward to hearing more details later on :)

[Galeria]

A wonderful, positive, informative post. Thank you, Purplefooz.

I'm a big fan of your work (those are some of my favorite quests) but I'm an even bigger fan of sincere and honest communication. Keep up the good work!

[voodoogroves]

Hi everyone, following ProducerRowan’s letter, it seems like an opportune time to re-introduce myself to the community. You probably already know a bit of me from the dungeons I’ve created: Partycrashers, the Delirium dungeons, Blockade Buster, Undermine, I Dream of Jeets, Schemes of the Enemy, and Belly of the Beast (proper credit should also go to Keeper and Enosity for the visuals they made.)

I was lead of the content creation group while making some of those dungeons, but earlier this year I also became the lead of the design group as a whole.
As lead, I work with Producers Rowan, Glin and Vyvyanne to figure out the strategies of who works on what and when. That’s a bit tricky, since we know that some players want nothing but content, while other players advocate new classes, or enhancements, etc. It helps that we have so many developers that are so proficient in their specialties – rather than having all the developers tripping over each other by working on the same thing, we’re organized into different teams to work on different features at once.

Hello again and thanks for taking the time here!



Enhancements & Epic Destinies


The developers who specialize on character advancement systems are concentrating on addressing the Enhancement issues that the community's submitted through the bug-tracker. There are currently developers spending all of their time addressing these bugs. Looking at the numbers of enhancement bugs we're fixing compared to what's coming in through the bug reports, we're hopeful that enhancements will soon reach a point where the vast majority of players feel it’s stable and complete.


We know that for a lot of players, “complete” means more enhancement trees. We have goals to make more trees for specific classes - we just released the Eldritch Knight for example. While we’re trying to fix as many enhancement bugs as we can for each release, we’d like to make sure we take the time to create each enhancement tree correctly, so you’ll see the trees trickle out at a slower rate.


And, we’ve already started a similar process to crush Epic Destiny issues. There are multiple developers working on fixing the reported ED bugs, and we’re planning out how to finish out remaining trees for everyone to feel that the system is complete. Piloto has already made posts to poll the communities for ideas on the next ED.


Everyone already wants more. If you can though, you might get more mileage balancing the ones that are already in the game but only dip-worthy.


Treasure improvements


Simultaneously, we have a different team dedicated to treasure features. They’re currently focused on resolving the “ghostbane” issues. Some of you may already have seen DrOctothorpe’s posts on that topic. He and the rest of the treasure team are making changes to address as much player feedback as they can for patch and Update 21, and then they’ll move on to develop new treasure to go along with the new Update 21 content.


Some of the guys are overlapping with the character advancements team to look at the number of Commendations of Valor we’re giving out. We know that there are complaints that we’re giving out too few, and we’re working to address that. Some of what’s making it complex is that we want to give out the right number not only for the immediate short-term, but that it’ll stay the right number 6 months from now or 2 years from now.


Treasure update is good. You guys have heard enough about that though, so not going to pile-on ;-)

Good to hear about CoV; curious to see what happens.


New dungeons


Yes, we also have a whole separate team busily making brand new content too, as well as fixing bugs in old content. We know this is the bread & butter of DDO, so this is our largest team.
BTW, I haven’t stopped working on new dungeons. I’m about to go back and put some more work into the Haunted Halls of Eveningstar. Working with Ed Greenwood has been a blast, and he’s certainly set an ambitious target. The Haunted Halls already has more gameplay than what I put in any of my previous dungeons and there’s still much more to go!


Quests like Partycrashers and Blockade Buster that can be solved differently, faster with different character mechanics are awesome. We need more of these. Much more like this, fewer with deus-ex-machina or "new unavoidable mechanics".



Aside from the efforts going into those priorities, there is also planning and setup work going into the future features that ProducerRowan mentioned. Don’t worry, it’s not our intent to simply ignore systems such as Housing or Crafting either – we’ll get to those once we’re through with our current pushes with core features like Enhancements and Epic Destinies .

A final thing before I head back into dungeon work – we’re really trying to keep the flow of communication going. Over the next few weeks, developers from each of the disciplines will be talking about what’s happening in their particular specialties. This is to give the players the information you’re asking for, but it’s also to help the developers get the feedback they need to properly take DDO where everyone wants it to go!

- PurpleFooz

Thanks!

[Madja]

A final thing before I head back into dungeon work – we’re really trying to keep the flow of communication going. Over the next few weeks, developers from each of the disciplines will be talking about what’s happening in their particular specialties. This is to give the players the information you’re asking for, but it’s also to help the developers get the feedback they need to properly take DDO where everyone wants it to go!




This make me so happy! It's so much easier to get excited about the game when you get to hear about what's going on behind the scenes.
Being told the reasoning behind changes to the game, or explanations on why a suggestion by a player might work as well as he thought, helps me feel like you do care about and listen to the players, which makes me much for positive about this game that I love!

Thank you!

[mna]

Treasure improvements


Simultaneously, we have a different team dedicated to treasure features. They’re currently focused on resolving the “ghostbane” issues. Some of you may already have seen DrOctothorpe’s posts on that topic. He and the rest of the treasure team are making changes to address as much player feedback as they can for patch and Update 21, and then they’ll move on to develop new treasure to go along with the new Update 21 content.




One thing that may have drowned under the ghostbane thing but, from some rudimentary analysis could be even more important, would be clickies.

Any number of worthwhile spell effects used to be found on various kinds of clickies that could be used by anyone. Since these are no longer dropping, the equivalent capability is very hard to find or, effectively, completely missing.

And I mean the various random loot accessories that'd cast, say, Heroism, Feather Fall, Remove Curse, Lesser Restoration, Divine Power, Expeditious Retreat... even Detect Secret Doors. (And a bunch of less useful effects too, but variety is fun.)


Oh well. Wonder what those 5/rest Divine Power goggles would be worth in the AH these days... or 3/rest Expeditious Retreat bracers (not selling those either, but anyway).


If it's been decided somewhere that these will not be happening any more on random loot, fine, but I do hope this is a carefully planned thing. After all, it again hits new players the hardest, you know, those who are farthest behind in the power curve anyway. Old players know where to farm for the named items with these effects anyway.

[maddmatt70]

Purplefooz I wanted to throw out a big playerbase complaint regarding the content development and that is epic monsters. There are too many mundane mobs on epic levels such as epic rats. The playerbase do not want to fight epic rats in epic content. Whether you are developing new epic dungeons or re-epicing old content what do you think about changing the epic mobs in some way to make them feel more epic.

[sephiroth1084]

Is it just me or did something totally fubar the formatting on this page?

There's a huge black box with Facebook, Twitter and Youtube across all the replies.

Something got messed up in the formatting on my post apparently. Maybe the way I quoted the
[List] text? I don't know. Cordovan went in and edited it to remove the problem, and I've gone back to re-edit in my replies, minus the obnoxious blanket over the whole page. No idea how that happened.

Oops.

[sephiroth1084]

Purplefooz I wanted to throw out a big playerbase complaint regarding the content development and that is epic monsters. There are too many mundane mobs on epic levels such as epic rats. The playerbase do not want to fight epic rats in epic content. Whether you are developing new epic dungeons or re-epicing old content what do you think about changing the epic mobs in some way to make them feel more epic.

Agreed. Personally, I'd really like to see any quest updated from heroic to epic get at least some remodeling done to differentiate the two. It doesn't have to be a lot, but some is really necessary.


Chains of Flame received some new, dangerous traps, and had a couple of air elementals stuck in some nasty places (on narrow bridges overlooking long drops to lava).
Wiz-King got Hex Wraiths added in one hallways, and in the fight with Raiyum.
A Small Problem has a much more serious fight at the end of it.
The beholders in The Prisoner (Von 2) get some Tharaskh hounds as teammates.

There really isn't enough of this (and even these are mostly fairly minor). Simply slapping an epic template on the creatures, traps and XP is incredibly lazy, and while it does give us some expanded options late in the game, it's really not very satisfying. Now, on some less frequently played heroic quests (like the 3BC stuff, I guess) it may not be such an issue, since we aren't hitting it regularly when TRing (at least I'm not), but you should still really be updating these.

You went to the trouble of updating the story arc in Return to Gianthold, with some new NPCs, changed the population of the explorer zone, replaced the explorer points with the "journals" set in different locations, moved the named monster spawns, made a change to the middle of Gianthold Tor, and created a new raid. That was all great! But then you didn't make any changes to the quests themselves! The traps are all in the same places. The puzzles are all the same. The monsters are all unchanged. Disappointing, even if the quests were, and remain, enjoyable to play through.

Epic rats, dogs, wolves, etc... are plain stupid. Replace them with something else. If you don't have something that you feel is in-theme, pull some more monsters out of the paper material that you haven't utilized yet.

[BananaHat]

So here are what the different teams are working on:



Enhancements & Epic Destinies


The developers who specialize on character advancement systems are concentrating on addressing the Enhancement issues that the community's submitted through the bug-tracker. There are currently developers spending all of their time addressing these bugs. Looking at the numbers of enhancement bugs we're fixing compared to what's coming in through the bug reports, we're hopeful that enhancements will soon reach a point where the vast majority of players feel it’s stable and complete.


We know that for a lot of players, “complete” means more enhancement trees. We have goals to make more trees for specific classes - we just released the Eldritch Knight for example. While we’re trying to fix as many enhancement bugs as we can for each release, we’d like to make sure we take the time to create each enhancement tree correctly, so you’ll see the trees trickle out at a slower rate.


And, we’ve already started a similar process to crush Epic Destiny issues. There are multiple developers working on fixing the reported ED bugs, and we’re planning out how to finish out remaining trees for everyone to feel that the system is complete. Piloto has already made posts to poll the communities for ideas on the next ED.

Once the bugs and such are hammered out, ideally your team here would lay out a projected plan to the community for future Enhancement Trees/Epic Destinies, get feedback, and then make a slow but continuous stream of new trees/spheres. Making new content here, new classes, and new spells would be great too. Where is Evard's Black Tentacles? I know you have the animation from the DeGenev Brothers illusion show! :D Providing new character options will keep people playing the game longer. Appeal to the character builders here and they will stick with the game.



Treasure improvements


Simultaneously, we have a different team dedicated to treasure features. They’re currently focused on resolving the “ghostbane” issues. Some of you may already have seen DrOctothorpe’s posts on that topic. He and the rest of the treasure team are making changes to address as much player feedback as they can for patch and Update 21, and then they’ll move on to develop new treasure to go along with the new Update 21 content.


Some of the guys are overlapping with the character advancements team to look at the number of Commendations of Valor we’re giving out. We know that there are complaints that we’re giving out too few, and we’re working to address that. Some of what’s making it complex is that we want to give out the right number not only for the immediate short-term, but that it’ll stay the right number 6 months from now or 2 years from now.

Please add new raid loot to the upcoming raids that will give those who like to itemize something to strive for. Right now, striving for random loot is not nearly as fun as something named. It is great that random is the new end items and that a lot of the random items can outpace everything else in the game, but alot of that is just better stats, not fun and unique stuff. Upgradable and customizable raid loot should really be the holy grail for the end game. Appeal to the loot monkeys here (I'm mainly a loot monkey with altitis). I saw the talk of intelligent or sentient items in the other dev post or something like greensteel version 2. You know why greensteel was insanely popular? It was customizable, had unique and awe inspiring effects (lightning strike is still sweet), could be put all over your gear slots, and had a crafting system that allowed you to trade with others for ingredients you needed. If this team builds a flexible system similar to greensteel (think all weapon types, think all armor types, think most if not all accessory slots, quiver/returning ammunition too!) they will have a winner that will keep the playerbase playing the game and enjoying the game because they can make what they want for their particular build. This game is all about playing how you want to play, embrace that. Of course, this all relies on the raid being fun and accessible as well...



New dungeons


Yes, we also have a whole separate team busily making brand new content too, as well as fixing bugs in old content. We know this is the bread & butter of DDO, so this is our largest team.
BTW, I haven’t stopped working on new dungeons. I’m about to go back and put some more work into the Haunted Halls of Eveningstar. Working with Ed Greenwood has been a blast, and he’s certainly set an ambitious target. The Haunted Halls already has more gameplay than what I put in any of my previous dungeons and there’s still much more to go!


For all the hype building up to the Haunted Halls of Eveningstar and the changes to secret door detection for it, please don't make this quest basically inaccessible to those parties without a rogue/arti/spotter. I've never played this module, so I'm guessing hidden things are a major part of it, but please don't make this quest an insane spot fest. I say this as someone who usually has a spotter in the party too. Secret stuff is fun for the first run, but quickly becomes old as everyone figures out where to go and sends the spotter to do their thing. It is a short lasting shtick. I'm hoping there will at least be some level of randomness in this quest too to keep the party on their toes. Appeal to those who crave new content here.

I'm looking very much forward to the new raids, this game has lost a lot of the "traditional" end game content in favor of the reincarnation cycle. I'm not terribly huge on reincarnation because I like my character to keep all the sweet abilities they built up! Let me use them on big baddies in a raid that challenges me and my guild/pug/etc. On the topic of the upcoming raid, as I stated above, please please please make it accessible!!! This is a major factor in the longevity of a raid. If the raid group has to run through the Stormhorns for 45 minutes getting to the raid, it will be dropped like an ugly baby. I know you are all proud of the largest explorer area and I'm sure that appeals to many of the explorer type characters, but if you don't have a fast travel (ala Tower of Despair) it will just become painful and it will kill the raiding scene for it. Look at unpopular raids such as Lord of Blades/Master Artificer, some of their unpopularity is due to the effort required to get there. Caught in the Web (its story issues aside, don't make me the sidekick) and Fall of Truth have been good at getting the raid group out there and having fun (or recovering from wipes quickly), so I'm hoping the dev team recognizes this and continues the trend of accessibility.

Also, please no epic 3 barrel cove. I've been playing the game since it came out and have never liked the area. I know of many other players who feel the same. If you are going to epic something, I'd rather have classics like... oh, I don't know, Epic Kobold Assault. Epic Waterworks/STK. Epic Stormcleave. Epic Delera's chain. Heck, Epic Shavarath, at least that would make sense as end game monsters.


Aside from the efforts going into those priorities, there is also planning and setup work going into the future features that ProducerRowan mentioned. Don’t worry, it’s not our intent to simply ignore systems such as Housing or Crafting either – we’ll get to those once we’re through with our current pushes with core features like Enhancements and Epic Destinies .

A final thing before I head back into dungeon work – we’re really trying to keep the flow of communication going. Over the next few weeks, developers from each of the disciplines will be talking about what’s happening in their particular specialties. This is to give the players the information you’re asking for, but it’s also to help the developers get the feedback they need to properly take DDO where everyone wants it to go!

- PurpleFooz

Responses above in red.

[ycheese123]

By the way, is Feather of Sun still around there?

Wondering that too. He's either been really quiet or is no longer around because of this (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/430045-Dear-Feather-of-Sun?p=5162800&viewfull=1#post5162800).

[CarpeNoctu]

I’ve created: the Delirium dungeons, Blockade Buster, Undermine, and Belly of the Beast

- PurpleFooz

So... You're the one.

I now have all I need to plot my revenge.

[Xorm]

Treasure improvements
o treasure features. They’re currently focused on resolving the “ghostbane” issues. Some of you may already have seen DrOctothorpe’s posts on that topic. He and the rest of the treasure team are making changes to address as much player feedback as they can for patch and Update 21, and then they’ll move on to develop new treasure to go along with the new Update 21 content.


Some of the guys are overlapping with the character advancements team to look at the number of Commendations of Valor we’re giving out. We know that there are complaints that we’re giving out too few, and we’re working to address that. Some of what’s making it complex is that we want to give out the right number not only for the immediate short-term, but that it’ll stay the right number 6 months from now or 2 years from now.
- PurpleFooz

I have to second the Named loot being not useful at all, the only useful named loot anymore is from Titan or (CITW but everyone has that now). Titan is bugged and you cant complete it, even though the drop rate on the loot is horrible anyway. Where is Epic Titan? I thought we were promised that to be next?

[SaIamander]

And, we’ve already started a similar process to crush Epic Destiny issues.



Wow you hired Axer?!?

[BDog77]

I’ve created: Partycrashers, the Delirium dungeons, Blockade Buster, Undermine, I Dream of Jeets, Schemes of the Enemy, and Belly of the Beast

Wow, absolutely some of my favorite content. Thank you, sir. Very excited to hear you are working on "Haunted Halls", I look forward to it's release now with a great sense of excitement.

As Lead Designer, please infuse all of your dungeon creating teams with a bit of your own brilliance. Let's try to avoid the tedium of mass MOBs in shadowfell. Although if y'all lowered the CRs a bit for the non-epic type mobs, that might be nice. It is kinda epic to wade through a sea of enemies, smiting them right and left, not so epic being dragged down by a bunch of criminals not powerful enough to avoid prison in the first place.

Also good to hear we might get some of the absolutely broken things in enhancements fixed, like the Pally KoTC capstone and vigor of life, along with some of the ED stuff, like some of the broken epic moments (US and EA, I'm looking at you!). I'm hoping that means that the racial PREs will be added also.

Keep up the good work!

[DrakeFury]

Hi everyone, following ProducerRowan’s letter, it seems like an opportune time to re-introduce myself to the community. You probably already know a bit of me from the dungeons I’ve created: Partycrashers, the Delirium dungeons, Blockade Buster, Undermine, I Dream of Jeets, Schemes of the Enemy, and Belly of the Beast (proper credit should also go to Keeper and Enosity for the visuals they made.)

I was lead of the content creation group while making some of those dungeons, but earlier this year I also became the lead of the design group as a whole.
As lead, I work with Producers Rowan, Glin and Vyvyanne to figure out the strategies of who works on what and when. That’s a bit tricky, since we know that some players want nothing but content, while other players advocate new classes, or enhancements, etc. It helps that we have so many developers that are so proficient in their specialties – rather than having all the developers tripping over each other by working on the same thing, we’re organized into different teams to work on different features at once.

So here are what the different teams are working on:



Enhancements & Epic Destinies


The developers who specialize on character advancement systems are concentrating on addressing the Enhancement issues that the community's submitted through the bug-tracker. There are currently developers spending all of their time addressing these bugs. Looking at the numbers of enhancement bugs we're fixing compared to what's coming in through the bug reports, we're hopeful that enhancements will soon reach a point where the vast majority of players feel it’s stable and complete.


We know that for a lot of players, “complete” means more enhancement trees. We have goals to make more trees for specific classes - we just released the Eldritch Knight for example. While we’re trying to fix as many enhancement bugs as we can for each release, we’d like to make sure we take the time to create each enhancement tree correctly, so you’ll see the trees trickle out at a slower rate.


And, we’ve already started a similar process to crush Epic Destiny issues. There are multiple developers working on fixing the reported ED bugs, and we’re planning out how to finish out remaining trees for everyone to feel that the system is complete. Piloto has already made posts to poll the communities for ideas on the next ED.


Treasure improvements


Simultaneously, we have a different team dedicated to treasure features. They’re currently focused on resolving the “ghostbane” issues. Some of you may already have seen DrOctothorpe’s posts on that topic. He and the rest of the treasure team are making changes to address as much player feedback as they can for patch and Update 21, and then they’ll move on to develop new treasure to go along with the new Update 21 content.


Some of the guys are overlapping with the character advancements team to look at the number of Commendations of Valor we’re giving out. We know that there are complaints that we’re giving out too few, and we’re working to address that. Some of what’s making it complex is that we want to give out the right number not only for the immediate short-term, but that it’ll stay the right number 6 months from now or 2 years from now.


New dungeons


Yes, we also have a whole separate team busily making brand new content too, as well as fixing bugs in old content. We know this is the bread & butter of DDO, so this is our largest team.
BTW, I haven’t stopped working on new dungeons. I’m about to go back and put some more work into the Haunted Halls of Eveningstar. Working with Ed Greenwood has been a blast, and he’s certainly set an ambitious target. The Haunted Halls already has more gameplay than what I put in any of my previous dungeons and there’s still much more to go!


Aside from the efforts going into those priorities, there is also planning and setup work going into the future features that ProducerRowan mentioned. Don’t worry, it’s not our intent to simply ignore systems such as Housing or Crafting either – we’ll get to those once we’re through with our current pushes with core features like Enhancements and Epic Destinies .

A final thing before I head back into dungeon work – we’re really trying to keep the flow of communication going. Over the next few weeks, developers from each of the disciplines will be talking about what’s happening in their particular specialties. This is to give the players the information you’re asking for, but it’s also to help the developers get the feedback they need to properly take DDO where everyone wants it to go!

- PurpleFooz


Thank you. +1

[lyrecono]

Good to hear, please pay attention to all the good ideas people have come up with in this (and many other) thread(s).

Since you're dead set on 3BC, can you fix the stupidety of EE settings? i would like to see something else then monchkers or shiradi sorcs in there. Other classes belong there too. It doesn't have to be easy, people should still be geared to the teeth and prepared, not to mention being skilled in playing said class.

Another point is gear, we would like to see some worthwhille 2hf gear, farming von 5/6 for the (0.00000001% droprate) esos shard is boring many to tears.

It's been years, get over it, make us better stuff, please.

Also: more original eberon content please, brothers of the forge was awesome, more of that!!!

[Revolted]

Talk talk talk

Ok, I'm more of a "let's see what these guys can do and give my opinion afterwards" guy. So I will not enter in the discussion about what you said ;)

I just came here to, 1st) congratulate you for the nice promotion, and the nice dungeons you've designed so far, and 2nd) to give voice to my approval of the new communication attitude, that gives us a feeling that you care about us, even if that's not true!

Hope to see you around

[Robai]

...
That’s a bit tricky, since we know that some players want nothing but content, while other players advocate new classes, or enhancements, etc.
...

How many teams are working on increasing BtC space?
My main toon is collecting dust for like 2 years now.
Actually, none of my toons has a future because of way too limited BtC space.

[harry-pancreas]

--
You need a team dedicated to nerfing monks.

[Teh_Troll]

Wow you hired Axer?!?

I wish, he'd be the perfect guy to be put in charge of nerfing monks.

[LadyKoneko]

hi everyone, following producerrowan’s letter, it seems like an opportune time to re-introduce myself to the community. You probably already know a bit of me from the dungeons i’ve created: Partycrashers, the delirium dungeons, blockade buster, undermine, i dream of jeets, schemes of the enemy, and belly of the beast (proper credit should also go to keeper and enosity for the visuals they made.)

i was lead of the content creation group while making some of those dungeons, but earlier this year i also became the lead of the design group as a whole.
As lead, i work with producers rowan, glin and vyvyanne to figure out the strategies of who works on what and when. That’s a bit tricky, since we know that some players want nothing but content, while other players advocate new classes, or enhancements, etc. It helps that we have so many developers that are so proficient in their specialties – rather than having all the developers tripping over each other by working on the same thing, we’re organized into different teams to work on different features at once.

So here are what the different teams are working on:



enhancements & epic destinies


the developers who specialize on character advancement systems are concentrating on addressing the enhancement issues that the community's submitted through the bug-tracker. There are currently developers spending all of their time addressing these bugs. Looking at the numbers of enhancement bugs we're fixing compared to what's coming in through the bug reports, we're hopeful that enhancements will soon reach a point where the vast majority of players feel it’s stable and complete.


we know that for a lot of players, “complete” means more enhancement trees. We have goals to make more trees for specific classes - we just released the eldritch knight for example. While we’re trying to fix as many enhancement bugs as we can for each release, we’d like to make sure we take the time to create each enhancement tree correctly, so you’ll see the trees trickle out at a slower rate.


and, we’ve already started a similar process to crush epic destiny issues. There are multiple developers working on fixing the reported ed bugs, and we’re planning out how to finish out remaining trees for everyone to feel that the system is complete. Piloto has already made posts to poll the communities for ideas on the next ed.


treasure improvements


simultaneously, wehave a different team dedicated to treasure features. They’re currently focused on resolving the “ghostbane” issues. Some of you may already have seen droctothorpe’s posts on that topic. He and the rest of the treasure team are making changes to address as much player feedback as they can for patch and update 21, and then they’ll move on to develop new treasure to go along with the new update 21 content.


some of the guys are overlapping with the character advancements team to look at the number of commendations of valor we’re giving out. We know that there are complaints that we’re giving out too few, and we’re working to address that. Some of what’s making it complex is that we want to give out the right number not only for the immediate short-term, but that it’ll stay the right number 6 months from now or 2 years from now.


new dungeons


yes, we also have a whole separate team busily making brand new content too, as well as fixing bugs in old content. We know this is the bread & butter of ddo, so this is our largest team.
Btw, i haven’t stopped working on new dungeons. I’m about to go back and put some more work into the haunted halls of eveningstar. Working with ed greenwood has been a blast, and he’s certainly set an ambitious target. The haunted halls already has more gameplay than what i put in any of my previous dungeons and there’s still much more to go!


aside from the efforts going into those priorities, there is also planning and setup work going into the future features that producerrowan mentioned. Don’t worry, it’s not our intent to simply ignore systems such as housing or crafting either – we’ll get to those once we’re through with our current pushes with core features like enhancements and epic destinies .

A final thing before i head back into dungeon work – we’re really trying to keep the flow of communication going. Over the next few weeks, developers from each of the disciplines will be talking about what’s happening in their particular specialties. This is to give the players the information you’re asking for, but it’s also to help the developers get the feedback they need to properly take ddo where everyone wants it to go!

- purplefooz
way to go. Thanks for info

[LadyKoneko]

I wish, he'd be the perfect guy to be put in charge of nerfing monks.

But think of all the new we'd all get to cast!

[Scraap]

So you're coming from a background of designing the last point of interaction for a character, and got stuck with the job of herding cats. Condolences, but hey, at least you're experienced with looking at what the end results need to be.

Would you say you were satisfied with the degrees of contribution to various interactive actions from:

Racial abilities
Character levels
Enhancements
Gear
EDs

If not, what would you like to emphasize more or tone down in the coming year?

[Alcedes]

Hi everyone, following ProducerRowan’s letter, it seems like an opportune time to re-introduce myself to the community. You probably already know a bit of me from the dungeons I’ve created: Partycrashers, the Delirium dungeons, Blockade Buster, Undermine, I Dream of Jeets, Schemes of the Enemy, and Belly of the Beast (proper credit should also go to Keeper and Enosity for the visuals they made.)

I was lead of the content creation group while making some of those dungeons, but earlier this year I also became the lead of the design group as a whole.
As lead, I work with Producers Rowan, Glin and Vyvyanne to figure out the strategies of who works on what and when. That’s a bit tricky, since we know that some players want nothing but content, while other players advocate new classes, or enhancements, etc. It helps that we have so many developers that are so proficient in their specialties – rather than having all the developers tripping over each other by working on the same thing, we’re organized into different teams to work on different features at once.

So here are what the different teams are working on:



Enhancements & Epic Destinies


The developers who specialize on character advancement systems are concentrating on addressing the Enhancement issues that the community's submitted through the bug-tracker. There are currently developers spending all of their time addressing these bugs. Looking at the numbers of enhancement bugs we're fixing compared to what's coming in through the bug reports, we're hopeful that enhancements will soon reach a point where the vast majority of players feel it’s stable and complete.


We know that for a lot of players, “complete” means more enhancement trees. We have goals to make more trees for specific classes - we just released the Eldritch Knight for example. While we’re trying to fix as many enhancement bugs as we can for each release, we’d like to make sure we take the time to create each enhancement tree correctly, so you’ll see the trees trickle out at a slower rate.


And, we’ve already started a similar process to crush Epic Destiny issues. There are multiple developers working on fixing the reported ED bugs, and we’re planning out how to finish out remaining trees for everyone to feel that the system is complete. Piloto has already made posts to poll the communities for ideas on the next ED.


Treasure improvements


Simultaneously, we have a different team dedicated to treasure features. They’re currently focused on resolving the “ghostbane” issues. Some of you may already have seen DrOctothorpe’s posts on that topic. He and the rest of the treasure team are making changes to address as much player feedback as they can for patch and Update 21, and then they’ll move on to develop new treasure to go along with the new Update 21 content.


Some of the guys are overlapping with the character advancements team to look at the number of Commendations of Valor we’re giving out. We know that there are complaints that we’re giving out too few, and we’re working to address that. Some of what’s making it complex is that we want to give out the right number not only for the immediate short-term, but that it’ll stay the right number 6 months from now or 2 years from now.


New dungeons


Yes, we also have a whole separate team busily making brand new content too, as well as fixing bugs in old content. We know this is the bread & butter of DDO, so this is our largest team.
BTW, I haven’t stopped working on new dungeons. I’m about to go back and put some more work into the Haunted Halls of Eveningstar. Working with Ed Greenwood has been a blast, and he’s certainly set an ambitious target. The Haunted Halls already has more gameplay than what I put in any of my previous dungeons and there’s still much more to go!


Aside from the efforts going into those priorities, there is also planning and setup work going into the future features that ProducerRowan mentioned. Don’t worry, it’s not our intent to simply ignore systems such as Housing or Crafting either – we’ll get to those once we’re through with our current pushes with core features like Enhancements and Epic Destinies .

A final thing before I head back into dungeon work – we’re really trying to keep the flow of communication going. Over the next few weeks, developers from each of the disciplines will be talking about what’s happening in their particular specialties. This is to give the players the information you’re asking for, but it’s also to help the developers get the feedback they need to properly take DDO where everyone wants it to go!

- PurpleFooz


Will there be team to fix Paladins? I mean, a class that is not really useful beyond 4 splash levels seems a bit "buggy" to me. And how about Sword and Board tanking? As it is, it is a VERY undesired play style due to the MANY shortcomings of its current implementation. Can we get that fixed or removed even? I would prefer to see it fixed honestly, but if you guys don't want to make it useful, I would rather see it removed than have it dangling in front of me taunting me ruthlessly.

You made mention of fixing buggy enhancements...does this include reworking the useless ones as well? Such as many of the core abilities/capstones? Look at the pally capstones for example. One doesnt work at all and the other is absolutely useless(SD). Or how about the US epic moment? compared to every other tree, that lone is just a laughable mess.

[PurpleFooz]

Thanks guys for all the well wishes and feedback. I'm hoping I'm responding to everyone's questions in this big post below.
There are a few questions I know I'm not directly responding to, but that's because other developers are going to address those questions.
So here we go:


You need a team dedicated to nerfing monks.

We avoid nerfing things unless there’s a game-breaking issue or the vast majority of players agree something needs to be changed. But we have no plans to make monks more powerful either.
I did see posts about monk bugs though. We do want to fix all bugs. But please, please bug-report it. That feeds into our internal bug tracking. That’s a lot more efficient and isn’t likely to be overlooked like forum posts of bugs.


is there certain people we should send pm's too reguarding issues above and beyond bug reporting as that has failed in the past and a continuously updated Known Issues list would go an extremely long way to quelling our fears that things just go unnoticed.

The known issues list is handled by our community team. But if you want something fixed, bug-reports are the way to go.


I'll point out, Dev Tracker is not picking up all the devs. MajMal is not picked up, for example. Might want to address that... it'd help folks find the communications from the devs. Might even reduce the number of "devs don't communicate" complaints (yeah, i'm a hopeless romantic).
I’ve contacted Tolero about this for further action.


That all sounds great. The only thing I really consistently wish you'd do better is more transparency at the design stage...it seems like, way too often, the dev team mulls behind closed doors, spending a lot of time coming up with an idea that they present to the playerbase, and get blasted for, then send it back to square one for redesign. Let us in the whole process, let us see the ideas as they're evolving, let us make suggestions or point out problems. You're always free to disregard our input, after all. Most industries would (and do) pay lots of money for the kind of customer feedback that MMO playerbases give willingly and vociferously...
That’s what we’re trying to do here :D


…Belly of the Beast, while innovative, suffers heavily from the unavoidable orange/red alert on the waves with a big party. Prevent the enemy waves from triggering dungeon alert, and the quest becomes much less annoying. And, even fun quests need exp as reward, which was only fixed at u20. Schemes suffered from poor exp for way too long.

We’re looking into dungeon alert. We’re still getting a handle on all the technical goals and the feasibility of different options, so it’s not something we’re currently prepared to have an informed discussion on yet. Please bear with us.
We’re also planning a 2nd pass of XP adjustments for a future update.


How many teams are working on increasing BtC space?

We have engineers looking at additional storage space. There are a lot of different types of storage we could be working on, and it is often driven by data on what players are asking for as well as purchasing.


Some players have also brought up concerns about our intent to epify 3BC. We’re keeping a close eye on those threads, and Knockback is explicitly going to be clarifying our plans and taking in more player feedback. It looks like just as many players are currently asking for epic 3BC as there are against, but we also believe we can address many of the concerns of those who are against it.

Also, I see various questions about what we’re including in our plans for enhancements. Are we just introducing new trees, are we rebalancing/fixing other trees? The answer is that we want to do as much as the community wants us to do. Piloto’s threads are a good place to express what you want to get out of it.

[rest]

Thanks guys for all the well wishes and feedback. I'm hoping I'm responding to everyone's questions in this big post below.
There are a few questions I know I'm not directly responding to, but that's because other developers are going to address those questions.
So here we go:



We avoid nerfing things unless there’s a game-breaking issue or the vast majority of players agree something needs to be changed. But we have no plans to make monks more powerful either.
I did see posts about monk bugs though. We do want to fix all bugs. But please, please bug-report it. That feeds into our internal bug tracking. That’s a lot more efficient and isn’t likely to be overlooked like forum posts of bugs.



The known issues list is handled by our community team. But if you want something fixed, bug-reports are the way to go.


I’ve contacted Tolero about this for further action.


That’s what we’re trying to do here :D



We’re looking into dungeon alert. We’re still getting a handle on all the technical goals and the feasibility of different options, so it’s not something we’re currently prepared to have an informed discussion on yet. Please bear with us.
We’re also planning a 2nd pass of XP adjustments for a future update.



We have engineers looking at additional storage space. There are a lot of different types of storage we could be working on, and it is often driven by data on what players are asking for as well as purchasing.


Some players have also brought up concerns about our intent to epify 3BC. We’re keeping a close eye on those threads, and Knockback is explicitly going to be clarifying our plans and taking in more player feedback. It looks like just as many players are currently asking for epic 3BC as there are against, but we also believe we can address many of the concerns of those who are against it.

Also, I see various questions about what we’re including in our plans for enhancements. Are we just introducing new trees, are we rebalancing/fixing other trees? The answer is that we want to do as much as the community wants us to do. Piloto’s threads are a good place to express what you want to get out of it.

Where are Eladrin and MadFloyd?

[murf201]

Thanks guys for all the well wishes and feedback. I'm hoping I'm responding to everyone's questions in this big post below.
There are a few questions I know I'm not directly responding to, but that's because other developers are going to address those questions.
So here we go:



We avoid nerfing things unless there’s a game-breaking issue or the vast majority of players agree something needs to be changed. But we have no plans to make monks more powerful either.
I did see posts about monk bugs though. We do want to fix all bugs. But please, please bug-report it. That feeds into our internal bug tracking. That’s a lot more efficient and isn’t likely to be overlooked like forum posts of bugs.



The known issues list is handled by our community team. But if you want something fixed, bug-reports are the way to go.


I’ve contacted Tolero about this for further action.


That’s what we’re trying to do here :D



We’re looking into dungeon alert. We’re still getting a handle on all the technical goals and the feasibility of different options, so it’s not something we’re currently prepared to have an informed discussion on yet. Please bear with us.
We’re also planning a 2nd pass of XP adjustments for a future update.



We have engineers looking at additional storage space. There are a lot of different types of storage we could be working on, and it is often driven by data on what players are asking for as well as purchasing.


Some players have also brought up concerns about our intent to epify 3BC. We’re keeping a close eye on those threads, and Knockback is explicitly going to be clarifying our plans and taking in more player feedback. It looks like just as many players are currently asking for epic 3BC as there are against, but we also believe we can address many of the concerns of those who are against it.

Also, I see various questions about what we’re including in our plans for enhancements. Are we just introducing new trees, are we rebalancing/fixing other trees? The answer is that we want to do as much as the community wants us to do. Piloto’s threads are a good place to express what you want to get out of it.


Yeah i dont want them nerfed , I just don't want them being the undisputed heavyweights of bow usage !!! There already the best at unarmed btw .

You already have the fix available , Increase doubleshot chances in the enhancments , And the doubleshot debuff needs to be removed from manyshot and left only on 10k !!

Wheres the rangers second form of manyshot ? Wheres the rangers extra multiplier on crits .

If thats meant to be , then make rangers the best at unarmed dmg !!

At this point a non 10k user should be able to reach , 80% doubleshot with a little work and rangers over a 100% chance at a double and maybe even a 5 % chance at a tripleshot , Though i do agree it should deactivate during manyshot and resume right after !!

And please buff shiradi , For ranged weapon users all it adds is cc , I never notice dmg from it !!

[kned225]

Please dont scrap epic 3bc! Must have!

[Robai]

...
We have engineers looking at additional storage space. There are a lot of different types of storage we could be working on, and it is often driven by data on what players are asking for as well as purchasing.
...

Thanks!
Just keep in mind that +20 slots won't solve the problem (need like +200 slots at least, also make the storage sortable by: 1) ML, 2) name, 3) type (belt/ring/etc), 4) raid/named/random item, 5) binding (btc/bta/unbound)).

[harry-pancreas]

any chance to make 10k stars available for (mostly) everyone, or making it work just for shurikens ?

Or any new ability to make the non-monk ranged able to catch up the monkcher ?


and S&B and pallys being useful again ? (just useful, not the new OP thingie)

[patang01]

Some players have also brought up concerns about our intent to epify 3BC. We’re keeping a close eye on those threads, and Knockback is explicitly going to be clarifying our plans and taking in more player feedback. It looks like just as many players are currently asking for epic 3BC as there are against, but we also believe we can address many of the concerns of those who are against it.

Also, I see various questions about what we’re including in our plans for enhancements. Are we just introducing new trees, are we rebalancing/fixing other trees? The answer is that we want to do as much as the community wants us to do. Piloto’s threads are a good place to express what you want to get out of it.

I'm sure you guys have good reasons to epify 3BC, one being low utilization (perhaps). You get more bangs for the bucks to epify something that is not used or owned by most people. Unlike EGH. But I've noticed something with say stormhorns after people pointed it out - the reason why it doesn't feel that special is because unlike everything from Shavarath to Shroud we've been dealing with a increase in 'epic' encounters. Like pit fiends and even dragons. Whereas in Stormhorns we find more giants, orks, wolves and such. It's big and pretty, but not Epic. And the purple mist - terrible. Please change it. I run this xpack as little as I can because of it. It makes me sick to my stomach.

[Thar]

. And the purple mist - terrible. Please change it. I run this xpack as little as I can because of it. It makes me sick to my stomach.

I know people with vision issues that say never again because of the purple mist.

it's almost as bad as the blue snow. did smurfs invade eveningstar?

[LucidLTS]

It helps that we have so many developers that are so proficient in their specialties – rather than having all the developers tripping over each other by working on the same thing, we’re organized into different teams to work on different features at once.

Wow, and what might be the best news of all, no team dedicated to starting new systems to dump half baked on the resentful playerbase. That's a huge improvement!

If you manage to pull it off, I'll be very happy you got the job.


A final thing before I head back into dungeon work – we’re really trying to keep the flow of communication going. Over the next few weeks, developers from each of the disciplines will be talking about what’s happening in their particular specialties. This is to give the players the information you’re asking for, but it’s also to help the developers get the feedback they need to properly take DDO where everyone wants it to go!

- PurpleFooz
This too, if true, is great news. It isn't easy to get past the legacy of lies and broken promises, but we desperately want you to succeed. Keep the communication frequent, candid, and bi-directional and we'll be much more understanding, even if things don't go as planned. Respond to our posts so we know you are actually reading them.

And it's important to share your plans and the reasons behind them before you start implementing them. Some of the worst decisions in the game were presented "Fait Accompli", and your customers are understandably touchy on the subject. It's certainly not a democracy here, but extending us that courtesy might spare you a peasant revolt or two. Remember, if you can't justify your choices, they probably aren't good choices.

[Stonemerge]

please please please no epic 3 barrel cove unless you are trashing everything there and making it all new. the quests stink and are skipped now whenver possible as xp is bad, quests are annoying.

EPIC tempus spine!!! that is what you should work on. The only other series i hear people want epic is water works.

I'd day epic titan but most people hate those quests too as too long. Epic threnal but people want to choke coyle as it is.

I like 3BC https://www.ddo.com/forums/images/icons/icon7.png,

but I LOVE Tempest Spine; raids are always a great idea ... TS is versatile, nice action, Puzzles, swimming, fire, Beholder, Golems, Undead, Traps ... its so diversified ... not as mindless as CitW ... plz plz plz ... eTS



"Kobolds always remember Waterworks" ... i don't want eWW ... i want the Sequel ... "Revenge of the Gnashtooth" ... Avatar of Kurtulmak ... Epic Fiendish Kobold Shamans ... and the Kobold-Trademark: Traps ... let them take revenge for the tenthousands of slaughtered Kobs.

[Flavilandile]

Lets be constructive in criticism ( I hope ).

First many thanks for the interactions with us.



The known issues list is handled by our community team. But if you want something fixed, bug-reports are the way to go.

There's a long term goal here : the Known Issue List is barely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to bugs.
Right now it is mostly useless for us players.
It seriously needs to be rethought from scratch so that it tracks down all the known bugs, with a way to know their status ( New in need of more information, Qualified [ as in we know about it we have enough info, we just need to find time in our schedule to fix it ], In Test [ Fix is coded, but not live yet ], Fixed [ Mr Obvious here ] )



We’re looking into dungeon alert. We’re still getting a handle on all the technical goals and the feasibility of different options, so it’s not something we’re currently prepared to have an informed discussion on yet. Please bear with us.
We’re also planning a 2nd pass of XP adjustments for a future update.

Dungeon Alert had a use when it was introduced, like Bravery Streak... Right now both have lived long past their usefulness.
Zergers will keep zerging, and the only way to stop them is to put locked doors every step... but then they will play something else or go in other quests.




We have engineers looking at additional storage space. There are a lot of different types of storage we could be working on, and it is often driven by data on what players are asking for as well as purchasing.


Everybody will be unanimous : unbound ( or at worst BTA ) Scroll Case, Potion coffer, Spell Component Pouch, and splitting the Ingredient bag in several bags ( one of each set of things ) along with increasing bank/shared bank space.


[/quote]
Some players have also brought up concerns about our intent to epify 3BC. We’re keeping a close eye on those threads, and Knockback is explicitly going to be clarifying our plans and taking in more player feedback. It looks like just as many players are currently asking for epic 3BC as there are against, but we also believe we can address many of the concerns of those who are against it.
[/quote]

Look at another thread you'll find easily what to epicify ASAP. ( and the job is more than half done anyway, so it could be done really fast )



Also, I see various questions about what we’re including in our plans for enhancements. Are we just introducing new trees, are we rebalancing/fixing other trees? The answer is that we want to do as much as the community wants us to do. Piloto’s threads are a good place to express what you want to get out of it.

Rollback to Pre-Enhancement Crash ? and consider an Enhancement Update that doesn't break characters and just concern the UI ? ( j/k the damage for that is already done sadly.)
Just consider not forcing any system change down our throat, and asking us what we want in that domain before starting to develop things... It would avoid things like Enhancement Crash, Occupy Stormreach and a few other things.



Thanks!
Just keep in mind that +20 slots won't solve the problem (need like +200 slots at least, also make the storage sortable by: 1) ML, 2) name, 3) type (belt/ring/etc), 4) raid/named/random item, 5) binding (btc/bta/unbound)).

This, there's been several suggestion for storage in many threads, ask Cordovan and Tolero to dig them out form the forum and produce a digest ( with overheads ) so that you can see what we want. You have lots of options and some of them we would be willing to buy them... ( as long as the price is not stupid )


I'm sure you guys have good reasons to epify 3BC, one being low utilization (perhaps). You get more bangs for the bucks to epify something that is not used or owned by most people. Unlike EGH. But I've noticed something with say stormhorns after people pointed it out - the reason why it doesn't feel that special is because unlike everything from Shavarath to Shroud we've been dealing with a increase in 'epic' encounters. Like pit fiends and even dragons. Whereas in Stormhorns we find more giants, orks, wolves and such. It's big and pretty, but not Epic. And the purple mist - terrible. Please change it. I run this xpack as little as I can because of it. It makes me sick to my stomach.

I'm also sure that's what they though : Lets Epicify 3BC, since it's one of the low selling location. Sadly it is a low sale location for a reason : no decent loot, tedious to reach quests, poor XP, there's more XP for less a hassle and faster at that level range.

Now if you look at that other thread started by a dev lately, you'll see an almost concensus on what to Epicify. That should give you hints.
Also, I have to concur that Stormhorn and Wheloon were a disappointment. In the First case, despite a nice scenery, the encounters in there didn't have an adventurous feel... It felt like I was hunting things in the backyard of my castle...
Not really heroic, and far from being Epic.
Wheloon, after the first seizure 'Pikachu' Inducing flash I just forgot about the area and the quests in there. Remove that purple haze, and I might consider returning to explore the area.



And it's important to share your plans and the reasons behind them before you start implementing them. Some of the worst decisions in the game were presented "Fait Accompli", and your customers are understandably touchy on the subject. It's certainly not a democracy here, but extending us that courtesy might spare you a peasant revolt or two. Remember, if you can't justify your choices, they probably aren't good choices.

This is extremely important...
Between Enhancement Crash, Commendations of Valors / Epic TR and a few other things we have been faces with Fait Accompli character breaking system chances that drove players off and alienated the community. Consider that you could have avoided the Occupy Stormreach Bad Press if you had told us long before we found out on Lammania what was in store... And we could have told you in a less vehement and vocal way that it was going to be a Bad Idea ( Commendations BTC and found as reward only still is... but that's another point, like doing complex things ( Heart Seeds, Burden of Guilt ) when there's an easy way to do it. )

[Teh_Troll]

We avoid nerfing things unless there’s a game-breaking issue or the vast majority of players agree something needs to be changed. But we have no plans to make monks more powerful either.

Does this mean you plan to buff the other classes to the point where splashing monk is no longer a no brainer?

If you do the powercreep will be stupidly awesome.

In this case the vast majority of the intelligent players who aren't power-mad agree monks need to be nerfed hard.

[dunklezhan]

In this case the vast majority of the intelligent players who aren't power-mad agree monk splashes need to be nerfed hard.


FTFY.

Lets be clear about this: Monks aren't the problem. Awesome front loading is the problem.

[Derana]

Some players have also brought up concerns about our intent to epify 3BC. We’re keeping a close eye on those threads, and Knockback is explicitly going to be clarifying our plans and taking in more player feedback. It looks like just as many players are currently asking for epic 3BC as there are against, but we also believe we can address many of the concerns of those who are against it.

thats exactly how it should be done. thanks for that!

i belong to the ppl that like the idea of epic 3bc altho i never played much of it but i think it could be fun, also cuz i hope that the slayer area will be epic as well and therefore (i hope) drop epic rare items (something completely new in ddo if im not mistaken?!).

[dunklezhan]

thats exactly how it should be done. thanks for that!

i belong to the ppl that like the idea of epic 3bc altho i never played much of it but i think it could be fun, also cuz i hope that the slayer area will be epic as well and therefore (i hope) drop epic rare items (something completely new in ddo if im not mistaken?!).

I like 3BC generally, and we need more epic content. So I don't really understand the objections to epifying 3BC myself, provided they take some time to fix the issues with the explorer area (needs teleport locations badly).

Think I'd rather see epic restless isles & Titan or epic Shan To Kor though.

[era42]

We’re looking into dungeon alert. We’re still getting a handle on all the technical goals and the feasibility of different options, so it’s not something we’re currently prepared to have an informed discussion on yet. Please bear with us.
We’re also planning a 2nd pass of XP adjustments for a future update.


Thanks, it's good this thing is on radar. Until a better fix, could you just handle the few individual quests hand by hand? Belly of the Beast, most of Shadowfell, that's pretty much it.

Just remove the scaling from the amount of mobs, the enemies already get more HP/damage, why add more (already harder) opponents against bigger parties? I personally would remove that scaling factor in general, but especially in the alert-inducing quests.

[Aelonwy]

I have hope that epic 3BC can be incredibly enjoyable. I hope they give us some new storyline that ties all the quests together. I would prefer most animal and vermin type creatures removed from the quests and explorer zone, really epic has no place for such things unless they are named creatures, some unique specimen that has survived the ages quietly growing in power.

Also this cannot be said enough... there is a giant white arch between the location of the scrag rare and the little dancing kobold island, this enormous white arch does not have an explorer location currently, but it should. Furthermore, it looks like the doorway into some vast ruin, large enough for a dragon perhaps. This arch begs to be used. Give it an explorer location. Give it a mysterious quest.


...
If any of these suggestion has been said before, my apologies, I don't have the time to read all the pages in a thread anymore.

[deahamlet]

We have engineers looking at additional storage space. There are a lot of different types of storage we could be working on, and it is often driven by data on what players are asking for as well as purchasing.


I can't purchase anymore so I don't see what data you're going to get... you don't give me more options to get space. All characters I actually play have all the upgrades for personal inventory and bank. I already have a gazillion character slots, some of which I play for fun, some of which hold BTA and unbound items and mats. You're not going to get any more moneyz from me unless you introduce new inventory.

I'm not sure how much data you can have as a lot of vets already have all those slots, focus on their "mains" and therefore have no reason to spend on inventory and bank slots. Perhaps you should look at how many people have MAX bank and inventory slots as a REAL indicator on how desired this feature is.

[oradafu]

Also, I see various questions about what we’re including in our plans for enhancements. Are we just introducing new trees, are we rebalancing/fixing other trees? The answer is that we want to do as much as the community wants us to do. Piloto’s threads are a good place to express what you want to get out of it.

I just don't believe you on this.

When the number of trees that multiclasses could get was expanded from 3 to 6, pure class players were worried that they would be ignored again. We were assured that as a minimum when it came to power that Capstones would be as powerful or more powerful than Evasion. The Devs then proceeded to do nothing to increase power of capstones since they were originally unveiled.

And even if the Capstones were increased to match the power of Evasion, it ignores the fact that all Core Abilities are weak especially compared to stuff available in the trees that need 5 levels or less. Core Abilities, especially those in the upper levels need a major boost besides capstones. Capstones and the core abilities are competing with Evasion and up to 4 trees of abilities (with several of the weaker classes having only two trees, like Bard and Paladin).

The Dev need to look at what is gained with 2 levels of Paladin or Monk and 6 levels of Monk and adjust the Core Abilities and Capstones to meet those very "abused" splashes.

But I don't think this will happen, since I brought up several times in MOTU beta about the weak capstones and Devs repeatedly said that there was nothing wrong with capstones and that players were asking for too much power in the capstones. So nothing was done in the past year and three or four months because the Devs themselves shut down communication when it came to capstones. Even with players expressing how bad the capstones are. And even though players continue to joke about things like more than 4 levels of Paladin makes builds bad.

This doesn't even touch on people's concerns about particular trees that didn't involve Sorc or Cleric (which were the only places the Devs showed interest in fixing).

So no, I don't believe you when you say that there's going to be anything to rebalance enhancements because when it came to the simple job of making Capstones viable, you shut down debate about it and ignored players' concerns.

[Bogenbroom]

<snip>raids are always a great idea <snip>


I disagree with this statement. I comment only to make it clear that there is a portion of the player base that is not high on raiding. Some are, but some aren't.



"Kobolds always remember Waterworks" ... i don't want eWW ... i want the Sequel ... "Revenge of the Gnashtooth" ... Avatar of Kurtulmak ... Epic Fiendish Kobold Shamans ... and the Kobold-Trademark: Traps ... let them take revenge for the tenthousands of slaughtered Kobs.

I wanted to emphasize this ^^. I despise epics that are just the heroics with inflated stats. The idea of epic Kobolds in any quantity is... offensive. Yes, re-use the dungeons. But when content is made epic, the population of that content should be changed to something more reasonable.

I know that complicates development, but failing to do so is just a cop out and really undermines a lot of otherwise fantastic work.

For example, y'all did some great work in the eGH wilderness, but then I pop into a Cabal for One and I'm fighting Hobos. On the power curve Hobos should average maybe level 6, and no more than maybe 1% should ever pass level 13. A level 24 Hobo is the Elminster of his people. He is a raid boss... not the fodder I am wading through.

[Thumbed_Servant]

...We do want to fix all bugs. But please, please bug-report it. That feeds into our internal bug tracking. That’s a lot more efficient and isn’t likely to be overlooked like forum posts of bugs.

Hello 'Fooz.

Question: How many of your players utilize the forums, as a percentage? You all calculate this.

Statement: You look terrible silly and forgive me but inept asking for the players to use the bug reporting tool that you (Turbine) can NOT repair. The bug report from ingame is down and has been for a very long time.

As I play the game I enjoy so much I find bugs and I get frustrated by them. Sometimes I bug report them, but that means going to desktop and opening the forums and the bug page, and I am used to going to the forums and have them bookmarked. How many of your non-forum using players do you think will bug report if they have to leave the game/drop to desk top and then go to the forums that they don't care to use in the first place?

So, seriously, bug report it as a constant mantra from you (Turbine staff) who can't even repair the bug reporting tool is so incredibly...inane. Of ALL the bugs reported, the very bug of YOUR bug reporting tool being down should be fixed so that WE may bug report as you ask. If you cannot fix it, well...how does that help our confidence in your ability to repair ANY bug if you cannot repair a high priority (isn't the broken bug reporting tool a high priority?) bug like your own broken bug report???

I love the game, I feel that Turbine has a lot of talented people who care about doing a good job. Some days, the egg on their face comes from them, not us nor our volatile emotional states (yeah, players are volatile).

[Teh_Troll]

FTFY.

Lets be clear about this: Monks aren't the problem. Awesome front loading is the problem.

LOLz. . . DC 75-80 insta-kill SURE IS BALANCED.

/not

[voodoogroves]

LOLz. . . DC 75-80 insta-kill SURE IS BALANCED.

/not

Stop complaining, I can hit that easy with my cleric.

No wait, sorry - can't.

With my PM then.

Hm. Yeah, sorry again - that's a non-starter.

With my paladin though, sure thing.

[Sebastrd]

Some players have also brought up concerns about our intent to epify 3BC. We’re keeping a close eye on those threads, and Knockback is explicitly going to be clarifying our plans and taking in more player feedback. It looks like just as many players are currently asking for epic 3BC as there are against, but we also believe we can address many of the concerns of those who are against it.

I love 3BC and can't wait to see it epic. It has some of the best quests in the game.

[oradafu]

Some players have also brought up concerns about our intent to epify 3BC. We’re keeping a close eye on those threads, and Knockback is explicitly going to be clarifying our plans and taking in more player feedback. It looks like just as many players are currently asking for epic 3BC as there are against, but we also believe we can address many of the concerns of those who are against it.


Regarding Epic 3BC, it seems about evenly split on people looking forward and people against it. That's about the same split for raising the cap from 20 to 25. Epic 3BC will have less impact and less damage to the game than the cap being raised did, so I see no reason not to go forward with it.

[EllisDee37]

I enjoy 3BC and won't complain about it being made epic.

However, the primary complaint against it is quite valid. Demons, Devils, Dragons; these are epic things. Hobgoblins and Minotaurs (and humanoids in general) are NOT epic.

[oradafu]

I enjoy 3BC and won't complain about it being made epic.

However, the primary complaint against it is quite valid. Demons, Devils, Dragons; these are epic things. Hobgoblins and Minotaurs (and humanoids in general) are NOT epic.

That's more of an argument on why the Forgotten Realms as a whole post-MOTU has been horrible along with the stop-kill-advance design of all the quests.

[Robai]

I can't purchase anymore so I don't see what data you're going to get... you don't give me more options to get space. All characters I actually play have all the upgrades for personal inventory and bank. I already have a gazillion character slots, some of which I play for fun, some of which hold BTA and unbound items and mats. You're not going to get any more moneyz from me unless you introduce new inventory.

I'm not sure how much data you can have as a lot of vets already have all those slots, focus on their "mains" and therefore have no reason to spend on inventory and bank slots. Perhaps you should look at how many people have MAX bank and inventory slots as a REAL indicator on how desired this feature is.

Well said! +1

[EnjoyTheMoment]

The thing is, I would love to see EPIC WW, Tempest Spine and certainly also the titan raid. However there need also to be a backstory and not just putting an epic label on those. The backstory for GH was pretty clear to finish the story of the Trutheful-One. However this should also mean not just reuse old locations and mechanics.

Regarding Threnal. Coyle has probably meanwhile a medal and sit in his chair lamenting how he saved the world, you don't just redo this protecting quest with more HP, but spin the story further. Something like that he come to you to save once again his but, because he can count on you with the promise he will stay out of the danger zone. Then you may enter in the same quest entrance but actually after some meter the floor has cracked, just like the crack in the Harbor, with hundred of spiders crawling out. So parts of the Quest reused, but then branch into a different are, with different monsters. A quest should be like reading a good book, with a story that maybe turns unexpected and surprise you. At least the first time through.Another idea for Coyle would be to replace "Holding for Reinforcements" with a quest in which you need to fight back wave after wave of undead until the last wave, in which the newly minted vampire Coyle must be defeated ... to finish the quest. His special power could be "Time Stop" or a souped-up "Slow Time" spell, so that players could enjoy eliminating the "Time Vampire" Coyle.

I'm being serious. Coyle is so hated that he's practically an internet meme. You'll probably revive more interest in Threnal by switching Coyle to an evil undead and by having a sense of humor in how you handle him than you could through just about any other change you could make to the pack.

[rojo]

really
Quote Originally Posted by Teh_Troll View Post
You need a team dedicated to nerfing monks.

you dev respond to trolls... come on look at there accounts and see how much money they have spend on the game, and lives they have tred..... Now listen to players that play the game... That is all I am asking.
RoJox look me up:)
With respect always
First and for most Empire guild spend more then 5k or more on the game can you say that?

[Scraap]

By the way, since I'm apparently falling behind on my 'repeating the obvious' quota for the year:

When are we going to see racial enhancement PRE tree unlocks so we can give fully informed feedback on the current state of capstones instead of evaluating it on a portion of the system?

[EllisDee37]

When are we going to see racial enhancement PRE tree unlocks so we can give fully informed feedback on the current state of capstones instead of evaluating it on a portion of the system?My sense is that their eyes were bigger than their stomachs when they talked about adding racial prestiges for all races. It's pretty unlikely we'll be getting any new racial prestiges since it wasn't even mentioned in the plans for 2014. That means it would be 18 months after the expansion pass went live that they'd even begin working on them.

Unfortunately this is another arrow in the quiver of the complaints about half-finished systems.

[Flavilandile]

My sense is that their eyes were bigger than their stomachs when they talked about adding racial prestiges for all races. It's pretty unlikely we'll be getting any new racial prestiges since it wasn't even mentioned in the plans for 2014. That means it would be 18 months after the expansion pass went live that they'd even begin working on them.

Unfortunately this is another arrow in the quiver of the complaints about half-finished systems.

We could also ask for plain class enhancement trees... Because after all not everybody want's to be a Prestige Class.
And this kind of tree could bring back things that were scrapped from the old system. ( like skill bonuses for example )

[HAL]

Thanks!
Just keep in mind that +20 slots won't solve the problem (need like +200 slots at least, also make the storage sortable by: 1) ML, 2) name, 3) type (belt/ring/etc), 4) raid/named/random item, 5) binding (btc/bta/unbound)).

Also, name-able bags and search boxes on all of the larger bags would be great. LotRO has some great storage systems...

[Teh_Troll]

you dev respond to trolls...

They should. The best ideas come from me.

[HAL]

I can't purchase anymore so I don't see what data you're going to get... you don't give me more options to get space. All characters I actually play have all the upgrades for personal inventory and bank. I already have a gazillion character slots, some of which I play for fun, some of which hold BTA and unbound items and mats. You're not going to get any more moneyz from me unless you introduce new inventory.

I'm not sure how much data you can have as a lot of vets already have all those slots, focus on their "mains" and therefore have no reason to spend on inventory and bank slots. Perhaps you should look at how many people have MAX bank and inventory slots as a REAL indicator on how desired this feature is.

If only a small percentage of characters have maxed out storage space, that tells them that if they add more storage only a small percentage of players will be purchasing it. So they're comparing that number vs. the number of other things that are purchased by the player base to determine what will return the most bang for the development buck.

[ishr]

thanks for this useful thread and explanation.

is there any chance we will see some attention to the broken quest completion timer? it is definitely something that would be very popular with the new raids coming out soon...

[Todkaninchen]

please please please no epic 3 barrel cove unless you are trashing everything there and making it all new. the quests stink and are skipped now whenver possible as xp is bad, quests are annoying.

Mostly agree. The lowby version now is fun, for the level, and a good intro. But an epic version shouldn't be the same quests, just harder (like most of Epic GH) and should--instead--be something like a follow on (like the raid portion of Epic GH).

I sort of threw a really rough idea of something I'd like to see in an Epic 3BC--with development challenges included, like moving airships in a busy instance--here:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/431908-Holiday-Producer-s-Letter?p=5191047&viewfull=1#post5191047

But, I'd love to see a continuation of the story instead of just the same quests with insane HP totals.

[Todkaninchen]

So... You're the one.

I now have all I need to plot my revenge.

Those are freaking awesome quests!

Caveat: I love rogue mechanics and ninjas...

[bardliam]

Any chance Cannith Crafting will be updated any time soon to add all the new prefixes/suffixes? Or some sort of epic crafting center so we can make nifty-keen stuff like we get in epic drops?

[samthedagger]

Hi everyone, following ProducerRowan’s letter, it seems like an opportune time to re-introduce myself to the community. You probably already know a bit of me from the dungeons I’ve created: Partycrashers, the Delirium dungeons, Blockade Buster, Undermine, I Dream of Jeets, Schemes of the Enemy, and Belly of the Beast (proper credit should also go to Keeper and Enosity for the visuals they made.)

I was lead of the content creation group while making some of those dungeons, but earlier this year I also became the lead of the design group as a whole.
As lead, I work with Producers Rowan, Glin and Vyvyanne to figure out the strategies of who works on what and when. That’s a bit tricky, since we know that some players want nothing but content, while other players advocate new classes, or enhancements, etc. It helps that we have so many developers that are so proficient in their specialties – rather than having all the developers tripping over each other by working on the same thing, we’re organized into different teams to work on different features at once.

So here are what the different teams are working on:



Enhancements & Epic Destinies


The developers who specialize on character advancement systems are concentrating on addressing the Enhancement issues that the community's submitted through the bug-tracker. There are currently developers spending all of their time addressing these bugs. Looking at the numbers of enhancement bugs we're fixing compared to what's coming in through the bug reports, we're hopeful that enhancements will soon reach a point where the vast majority of players feel it’s stable and complete.


We know that for a lot of players, “complete” means more enhancement trees. We have goals to make more trees for specific classes - we just released the Eldritch Knight for example. While we’re trying to fix as many enhancement bugs as we can for each release, we’d like to make sure we take the time to create each enhancement tree correctly, so you’ll see the trees trickle out at a slower rate.


And, we’ve already started a similar process to crush Epic Destiny issues. There are multiple developers working on fixing the reported ED bugs, and we’re planning out how to finish out remaining trees for everyone to feel that the system is complete. Piloto has already made posts to poll the communities for ideas on the next ED.


Treasure improvements


Simultaneously, we have a different team dedicated to treasure features. They’re currently focused on resolving the “ghostbane” issues. Some of you may already have seen DrOctothorpe’s posts on that topic. He and the rest of the treasure team are making changes to address as much player feedback as they can for patch and Update 21, and then they’ll move on to develop new treasure to go along with the new Update 21 content.


Some of the guys are overlapping with the character advancements team to look at the number of Commendations of Valor we’re giving out. We know that there are complaints that we’re giving out too few, and we’re working to address that. Some of what’s making it complex is that we want to give out the right number not only for the immediate short-term, but that it’ll stay the right number 6 months from now or 2 years from now.


New dungeons


Yes, we also have a whole separate team busily making brand new content too, as well as fixing bugs in old content. We know this is the bread & butter of DDO, so this is our largest team.
BTW, I haven’t stopped working on new dungeons. I’m about to go back and put some more work into the Haunted Halls of Eveningstar. Working with Ed Greenwood has been a blast, and he’s certainly set an ambitious target. The Haunted Halls already has more gameplay than what I put in any of my previous dungeons and there’s still much more to go!


Aside from the efforts going into those priorities, there is also planning and setup work going into the future features that ProducerRowan mentioned. Don’t worry, it’s not our intent to simply ignore systems such as Housing or Crafting either – we’ll get to those once we’re through with our current pushes with core features like Enhancements and Epic Destinies .

A final thing before I head back into dungeon work – we’re really trying to keep the flow of communication going. Over the next few weeks, developers from each of the disciplines will be talking about what’s happening in their particular specialties. This is to give the players the information you’re asking for, but it’s also to help the developers get the feedback they need to properly take DDO where everyone wants it to go!

- PurpleFooz

This is the kind of quality communication DDO needs more of. It is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[nibel]

The thing is, I would love to see EPIC WW, Tempest Spine and certainly also the titan raid. However there need also to be a backstory and not just putting an epic label on those. The backstory for GH was pretty clear to finish the story of the Trutheful-One. However this should also mean not just reuse old locations and mechanics.

Not even Gianthold was well-handled in this department. Prison of Planes got a different final boss (and final boss monologue), but every other quest (including the rest of PoP) was just the exactly same quest as heroic. The chain had a slightly different storyline, but the quests themselves are the same. And it gets weird when you consider that both chains are supposed to be two different storylines in the same place.

They should have switched the "prisoners" in PoP, even if the theme of each room were the same.
Madstone could have to be worked in reverse, to reactivate the madstone spell, and then destroying the skeletal warlock to deactivate it again for real.
Crucible could have different champions, different maze layout, different trap types on the agility test, different stat check on the instinct test, etc
Cabal should DEFINITELLY have another King, and another reason to kill the usurpers instead of the same old tale. I don't like it being placed as a flagging quest because it kills the rivality between hobgoblins and orcs we see on Feast, but the relic excuse could work.
Feast, Trial, Maze, Cry and Foundation all had to change the named mobs around, AND provide at least one small change in the quest storyline.
When I first entered Epic Tor, I thought the new endfight was awesome. New caster, respawning skeletal mobns, ritual casting. Awesome! Then I rerun it on heroic and noticed it was also switched there. Why?I mean, you stop the ritual in heroic only to the epic guy (that IS a different named boss) just repeat the same ritual all along? It doesn't makes sense. Specially if you consider that during the epic GH storyline, the Stormreaver is free from his madness and could had stopped him.


I seriously hope that Epic 3BC don't get the same mistake they did on GH storyline. Either you should not focus in the story at all and consider the epic version a bonus (VoN, Sands, Carnival, Sentinels, Fens), or you really work on Epic version to make it distinct from Heroic.

[Singular]

I disagree with this statement. I comment only to make it clear that there is a portion of the player base that is not high on raiding. Some are, but some aren't.



I wanted to emphasize this ^^. I despise epics that are just the heroics with inflated stats. The idea of epic Kobolds in any quantity is... offensive. Yes, re-use the dungeons. But when content is made epic, the population of that content should be changed to something more reasonable.

I know that complicates development, but failing to do so is just a cop out and really undermines a lot of otherwise fantastic work.

For example, y'all did some great work in the eGH wilderness, but then I pop into a Cabal for One and I'm fighting Hobos. On the power curve Hobos should average maybe level 6, and no more than maybe 1% should ever pass level 13. A level 24 Hobo is the Elminster of his people. He is a raid boss... not the fodder I am wading through.

I would like to see a massive, all out attack by kobolds and hobgoblins and so on. I don't think their level needs to be increased - we can kill them en masse. They would pose a problem b/c some hits would get through - like the 1000 6HD archers firing at the healer...

:)

[Mahalko128]

I would like to see a massive, all out attack by kobolds and hobgoblins and so on. I don't think their level needs to be increased - we can kill them en masse. They would pose a problem b/c some hits would get through - like the 1000 6HD archers firing at the healer...

:)

And suddenly, servers shut down~

[ranthrock]

When you re-do 3bc:

1) please use different dungeons. 3bc already has quite a bit of dungeon-reusage already. Give me something new, please. Not just different traps or whatever, give me different stories. Maybe in epic 3bc you have to venture into a different crack in the volcano to attack the dragon below or something (or his avatar, or whatever).
2) Feel free to have similar quest-models, but new quests. For example, keep the rakham's trail quest, but make it a raid, with two teams completing separate puzzles (think Abbot), and have an entirely new randomized puzzle setting for us to have to do.
3) Give us a raid. Let us fight some kind of giant airship battle with what's his face up on the mountain. Seriously, give us something besides runrunrunkillkillkill. That's what 3bc is all about. The quests are puzzle-based, make it so.
4) Please give us a quest called "Meeble's Revenge" where the kobold that we made walk the plank forces us into a gauntlet of unbelievably deadly traps (this could be the epic version of prove your worth) to punish us for killing him earlier in our lives. Make him a raid boss. Give him abbot-like powers. Make him the most feared kobold in the game. Let him shoot fireballs out his arse and cast time-stop and everything. Make him ooze awesomeness so that he makes us forget all about ghostbane.
5) go reread 4) and do that. it sounds more awesome every time I read it.

[Silverleafeon]

We have engineers looking at additional storage space. There are a lot of different types of storage we could be working on, and it is often driven by data on what players are asking for as well as purchasing.
Thank you for the additional shared bank space, although that does not solve my bound to character problems, much loot can be shifted there temporary, it helps.

Thank you for allowing extremely pricing on the shard auction house, effectively increasing btcoe space by 20.
So far, I usually have been able to avoid destroy then TR then buy back, although I have destroy a lot of named loot over time.

I would enjoy some sort of player housing if done right, if it includes storage.


Some players have also brought up concerns about our intent to epify 3BC. We’re keeping a close eye on those threads, and Knockback is explicitly going to be clarifying our plans and taking in more player feedback. It looks like just as many players are currently asking for epic 3BC as there are against, but we also believe we can address many of the concerns of those who are against it.Very Neutral on this point, hardly played it.
Tried to loot the awesome bow out of there, with no success.

Hoping to see Epic Greensteel within the next two years.


Also, I see various questions about what we’re including in our plans for enhancements. Are we just introducing new trees, are we rebalancing/fixing other trees? The answer is that we want to do as much as the community wants us to do. Piloto’s threads are a good place to express what you want to get out of it.
Thank you, overall I am pleased with DDO.
Much has been changed and change takes time to adjust to.

[Maxummmatt]

I love all the new high level and epic content, but how about making it more fun to TR and discover new low level content? DDO seems to be in an arms race of higher levels, more powerful gear, bigger buffs, and so on. I'd love to revisit a time when a +2 sword was a big deal, and a stat of 18 was impressive, not laughable.

[Borathan]

I seriously hope that Epic 3BC don't get the same mistake they did on GH storyline. Either you should not focus in the story at all and consider the epic version a bonus (VoN, Sands, Carnival, Sentinels, Fens), or you really work on Epic version to make it distinct from Heroic.

I somewhat agree there.

However, I'm still really hoping that Sentinels gets finished, both 3BC and Sentinels seem to form a pretty good story arc and would probably work well together for a Saga...

[MangLord]

I'd most like to see a new tree for Fighter enhancements. Easily the saddest class as far as enhancement trees. Stalwart Defender is ok, but why play that when tanking is barely useful and Paladins's Sacred Defender is much better? Can you think of one quest where having a tank is absolutely necessary? I can't, which makes me wonder why there are two different trees devoted to it.

Kensei is ok, except that half the enhancements were designed for monks. Why does a fighter need bonuses to concentration? Why would I need to be centered with my chosen weapon if I don't want any monk levels? Just before the enhancement trees changed, I planned for a dwarven fighter dual wielding dwarven axes, and collected a ton of axes to use for my next life. It was fine, except that kensei bonuses only apply to your main hand weapon, so again, better suited for two handed fighting or monks. Basically, by level 16 I ran out of decent enhancements to spend points on, and used my +20 heart to respec as a tempest ranger. In doing so, I got evasion, self heals, cool two weapon attack clickies, and a comparable damage output at the loss of a point of critical threat range and the use of heavy armor. Frankly, I was annoyed at the amount of monkish **** in the kensei tree. Monks already have three well designed trees to choose from, while fighter got swept under the rug.

Fighter has a good tree for sword and board, and an ok two handed fighting tree. What it needs is a good two weapon fighting tree. Something like Ranger Tempest, akin to to similarities between Sacred and Stalwart Defenders. There needs to be a reason for someone to want to play a pure fighter, or make TRing through fighter life interesting without being forced to splash in other classes to keep from hating it. If you choose to go the kensei route, then half the kensei tree is useless without monk levels, and half the defender tree is useless if you've specialized in greatweapons.

Druid, Paladin and Artificer trees are also a bit lackluster, in my opinion. Unlike fighter, at least they're synergistic enough to spend extra points in the other tree when you have all you want in your primary. Each class should have three options.

One other issue I find with the enhancement trees is that no matter what class it is, I feel like between levels 12-15 I can handle the quests rather easily with the top tier enhancements that I have, because they actually work most of the time. By the time I'm doing elite Wheloon, Vale and other 18+ content, my abilities are still just as good as they were at level 12, only the enemies are exponetially tougher. For example, my dwarven axe fighter was hacking through gianthold like a savage on elite, then a week later he can barely stay alive against ogres in Vale. I don't know if devils and ogres have very high PRR, but his criticals steadily got smaller and smaller the higher the level of content, yet they gained more HP and did more damage to me. Eventually I got disgusted enough to switch to tempest and realized just how pathetic the fighter trees really were. All the feats in the world can't make up for feeble enhancement trees.

[MangLord]

As far as content goes, I would prefer to see more heroic content. There's more than enough epic content. I feel like the top of the pyramid has a gleaming golden capstone, while the bottom is crumbling and starting to decay.

I can easily reach level 25 while only getting halfway through the Caught In The Web chain. Really great quests, good story, and overall very well done. Run a few epic VON and Gianthold quests, and reaching 25 is a piece of cake. On the other hand, I have to suffer through a lot of quests that I don't particularly like at levels 5-8, and 17-20. Making High Road heroic helped the grind, as well as the addition of Wheloon, but I'm honestly not too crazy about either chain. Wheloon elites are insanely difficult at level, and those chain attacks are incredibly overpowered. Stormhorns are awesome, but not something I want to break an elite streak on so close to TR.

By the time I'm around level 17, I'm just wishing to fight normal orcs, oozes and zombies again. The stories are really great in the existing content, don't get me wrong, but I'm longing for a little bit of classic dungeon crawling at that point. I just don't want to see another mind flayer, demon or beholder for a while.

I feel like a couple more level 1 or 2 quests would liven things up in the Harbor quite a bit. I know it sounds crazy, but I'm always underleveled by a rank or two by the time I finish Korthos elites and get sick of the wilderness slayers. Some new blood for levels -10 would be really nice for people on the completionist route. Just my two cents.

[MangLord]

I'd like to add that less is more, when it comes to enemies. It seems like a lot of the newest content depends heavily on swarm tactics, which is terrible for normal people without top end gaming PCs.

Almost every time I've tried Friends In Low Places on elite, we get a party wipe at the end because everyone has completely lagged out. My guild leader took a screen shot of his mutilated corpse surrounded by no fewer than 30 thugs, while the rest were easily running down his wife and I on our red dungeon alert as I was trying to sprint down the corridor while seeing maybe every tenth frame. 12 enemies with 3x the HP would be just as challenging, only our computers wouldn't all simultaneously be hit with Stunning Fist.

Spinner of Shadows is a good example of a great, challenging end fight. (The whole LoD chain, actually) There's not a whopping, computer melting horde of enemies, but they're tough as nails and my character is always running back to the center for heals the second I draw hezggro.

[Ungood]

Hi everyone, following ProducerRowan’s letter, it seems like an opportune time to re-introduce myself to the community. You probably already know a bit of me from the dungeons I’ve created: Partycrashers, the Delirium dungeons, Blockade Buster, Undermine, I Dream of Jeets, Schemes of the Enemy, and Belly of the Beast (proper credit should also go to Keeper and Enosity for the visuals they made.)

I was lead of the content creation group while making some of those dungeons, but earlier this year I also became the lead of the design group as a whole.

Well you earned it, those dungeons and quests are great fun, I enjoy them immensely each life.

[MangLord]

Ever since update 19, I've questioned the amount of work I put into crafting. I used to make all my own gear up until level 13-15, and now I have to scour the auction house for hyperinflated prices on a bunch of stuff I can't make. It was bad enough when I broke down and shelled out $60k for a new banishing weapon, but now I feel gimpy if I don't have seeker and deadly +6 on my melee characters.

When was the last time crafting was updated? By the looks of it, it seems to top out at around level 11-12. Spellpower shards only go up to +66, which isn't fun when you're trying to boost your epic ranger's measly heals. They're basically useless when Epic Gianthold hobgoblins are hitting me for about 100pts a shot.

[oradafu]

If only a small percentage of characters have maxed out storage space, that tells them that if they add more storage only a small percentage of players will be purchasing it. So they're comparing that number vs. the number of other things that are purchased by the player base to determine what will return the most bang for the development buck.

However if a majority of players are complaining about the lack of storage AND there is a small percentage of active players who upgraded their storage, it might point to the price point of storage being a bit too high for most players.

Also, the focus and push from Turbine for the past year has been on increasing and selling BTA storage while at the same time making most new items and converting a majority of old unbound items into BTC items. This doesn't help or solve any problems, it just exasperates a pre-existing problem even further.

[FrostBeard]

PLEASE READ
------------

Just on the bug reporting thing, us the players are happy to inform you of what we find, but it would be greatly appreciated if we had a fully functional in game tool for this.

The current ticket system is pretty **** poor and isn't really designed for reporting bugs, its more for urgent player help like broken quests or being stuck etc.

Normally if you do find a bug or what looks like one, and try to use the ticket system you get palmed off to your website outside of the game filling out a bunch of forms.

Nobody wants to waste there time filling out a form in a browser during play time.

Some sort of main menu option that grabbed the players account details and the details of the bug and sent it to a database in game would go a long way to helping both the players and make your work a lot easier.

Have a look at Rift or World of Warcraft they have fantastic intuitive in game bug reporting tools.

[Robai]

If only a small percentage of characters have maxed out storage space, that tells them that if they add more storage only a small percentage of players will be purchasing it. So they're comparing that number vs. the number of other things that are purchased by the player base to determine what will return the most bang for the development buck.

Why the number of characters matters?
I have like 70 characters atm, but only play like 4-5 toons.
I'm sure that at least 80% of players, who actually play this game will buy more BtC space for their main toons (unless additional BtC prices will be too crazy).

[dunklezhan]

Don't know if they're keeping an eye on this, but an observation, for the downtime:

Everyone I know who runs the TR train always, always, always, holds L19. That is, they take 18, and then don't take 19 until just before (or if the timing works out badly, just after) L20. I'm told this is because of a dearth of L17/18 content in particular, which of course thanks to BB and additional XP requirements they want to be running first time on elite if they can (though I think there's a fair bit these days). This is maddening for me. I hate holding levels, and I hate repeating quests. I feel like there's enough there for each life, and that the quests are quite runnable at level on elite if they want. However this is so non optimal in terms of efficiency the idea of running quests on elite first time that aren't a base level of character level-2 is anathema. I find this is a big problem for grouping too - people aren't as willing to take you in groups for regular questing when you're L19, and of course you can't join epic quests because you're not 'epic'.

I don't know what the answer is. I mean, I don't know if this demonstrates a need to tweak BB, or boost XP from quests, or reduce XP requirements at those levels for TRs (again). But I do know one sure fire way to combat it - more L17/18 content. More L15 content wouldn't go amiss either. By all means make any new quests always have an epic version (ideally involving different mobs and story rather than just inflating HP/saves/damage of existing mobs), but please make sure that there's more heroic content at those levels.

Personally I want more content at L10-13, but that's because I don't actually like a lot of the existing content at those levels, not because there isn't plenty. So I feel the game needs more 15-19 content. Not as badly as it once did, certainly, but it could still do with some more concerted effort.

I also agree with the plans to keep revamping lower levels and areas like Harbour to make things easier for new players to get sucked in - but I think more content higher up is of equal priority.

Oh. And ideally these would be Eberron quests, not FR. I don't WANT to get to L17 and then feel like its time to switch to eveningstar. I'd like the option of continuing to run primarily in Eberron at least until epic levels. Thats when I feel it's appropriate to start Realm hopping.

[Robai]

... I don't know what the answer is. I mean, I don't know if this demonstrates a need to tweak BB, or boost XP from quests, or reduce XP requirements at those levels for TRs (again). But I do know one sure fire way to combat it - more L17/18 content. More L15 content wouldn't go amiss either. By all means make any new quests always have an epic version (ideally involving different mobs and story rather than just inflating HP/saves/damage of existing mobs), but please make sure that there's more heroic content at those levels. ...

More content will also mean that there will be less players to group with since they will be scattered.
It may sound weird, but yeah, you should never be at level 19 (except when you have almost enough xp for lvl 20).
There are a lot of quests at lvls 17-19 actually, will mention some packs:
Eberron:
Reaver's Reach
Reign of Madness
Path of Inspiration
Dreaming Dark
Secrets of the Artificers
Devils of Shavarath
FR:
Druid's Deep
High Road
Storm Horns
Motu (Murder by Night, The Riddle)

Some of them has terrible xp, but there is more than enough xp if you do them just half of them (actually I usually just farm Vale + Reaver's Reach).

[harry-pancreas]

Don't know if they're keeping an eye on this, but an observation, for the downtime:

Everyone I know who runs the TR train always, always, always, holds L19. That is, they take 18, and then don't take 19 until just before (or if the timing works out badly, just after) L20. I'm told this is because of a dearth of L17/18 content in particular, which of course thanks to BB and additional XP requirements they want to be running first time on elite if they can (though I think there's a fair bit these days). This is maddening for me. I hate holding levels, and I hate repeating quests. I feel like there's enough there for each life, and that the quests are quite runnable at level on elite if they want. However this is so non optimal in terms of efficiency the idea of running quests on elite first time that aren't a base level of character level-2 is anathema. I find this is a big problem for grouping too - people aren't as willing to take you in groups for regular questing when you're L19, and of course you can't join epic quests because you're not 'epic'.

I don't know what the answer is. I mean, I don't know if this demonstrates a need to tweak BB, or boost XP from quests, or reduce XP requirements at those levels for TRs (again). But I do know one sure fire way to combat it - more L17/18 content. More L15 content wouldn't go amiss either. By all means make any new quests always have an epic version (ideally involving different mobs and story rather than just inflating HP/saves/damage of existing mobs), but please make sure that there's more heroic content at those levels.

Personally I want more content at L10-13, but that's because I don't actually like a lot of the existing content at those levels, not because there isn't plenty. So I feel the game needs more 15-19 content. Not as badly as it once did, certainly, but it could still do with some more concerted effort.

I also agree with the plans to keep revamping lower levels and areas like Harbour to make things easier for new players to get sucked in - but I think more content higher up is of equal priority.

Oh. And ideally these would be Eberron quests, not FR. I don't WANT to get to L17 and then feel like its time to switch to eveningstar. I'd like the option of continuing to run primarily in Eberron at least until epic levels. Thats when I feel it's appropriate to start Realm hopping.


i agree, if you take 19 you're condemned to solo. And level 13 characters need another really good chain besides the sands and necro 3 IMHO, the rest are stand alone quest that are ok for a few times but they get old at 2nd/3rd run (whisperdoom, made to order, etc)

[Waaye]

[...]help the developers get the feedback they need to properly take DDO where everyone wants it to go!

- PurpleFooz

Greetings and welcome, PurpleFooz!

History shows that consensus is not a good idea.

The Ariel motorcycle company built a bike that everyone said they wanted but nobody bought and Ariel went bankrupt.

Most people said they did not want video recording machines or pocket-sized tape recorders but Sony built them anyway and Sony thrived.

The trick is not making what customers say they want but figuring out what they will desire in the future but do not yet know it.

One simple thing that could be done now, though, that would help many players would be grouping players by speed. Most public groups move way too fast for slower players to keep up. Fast players do not like slow players falling behind but slowbies don't like flying through quests without a pause. The root cause of many player conflicts can be traced back to differences in playing speed.

Better speed matching in groups should help to retain more players.

Anyway, good luck with your projects.

[mkmcgw17]

Hi everyone, following ProducerRowan’s letter, it seems like an opportune time to re-introduce myself to the community. You probably already know a bit of me from the dungeons I’ve created: Partycrashers, the Delirium dungeons, Blockade Buster, Undermine, I Dream of Jeets, Schemes of the Enemy, and Belly of the Beast (proper credit should also go to Keeper and Enosity for the visuals they made.)

I was lead of the content creation group while making some of those dungeons, but earlier this year I also became the lead of the design group as a whole.
As lead, I work with Producers Rowan, Glin and Vyvyanne to figure out the strategies of who works on what and when. That’s a bit tricky, since we know that some players want nothing but content, while other players advocate new classes, or enhancements, etc. It helps that we have so many developers that are so proficient in their specialties – rather than having all the developers tripping over each other by working on the same thing, we’re organized into different teams to work on different features at once.

So here are what the different teams are working on:



Enhancements & Epic Destinies


The developers who specialize on character advancement systems are concentrating on addressing the Enhancement issues that the community's submitted through the bug-tracker. There are currently developers spending all of their time addressing these bugs. Looking at the numbers of enhancement bugs we're fixing compared to what's coming in through the bug reports, we're hopeful that enhancements will soon reach a point where the vast majority of players feel it’s stable and complete.


We know that for a lot of players, “complete” means more enhancement trees. We have goals to make more trees for specific classes - we just released the Eldritch Knight for example. While we’re trying to fix as many enhancement bugs as we can for each release, we’d like to make sure we take the time to create each enhancement tree correctly, so you’ll see the trees trickle out at a slower rate.


And, we’ve already started a similar process to crush Epic Destiny issues. There are multiple developers working on fixing the reported ED bugs, and we’re planning out how to finish out remaining trees for everyone to feel that the system is complete. Piloto has already made posts to poll the communities for ideas on the next ED.


Treasure improvements


Simultaneously, we have a different team dedicated to treasure features. They’re currently focused on resolving the “ghostbane” issues. Some of you may already have seen DrOctothorpe’s posts on that topic. He and the rest of the treasure team are making changes to address as much player feedback as they can for patch and Update 21, and then they’ll move on to develop new treasure to go along with the new Update 21 content.


Some of the guys are overlapping with the character advancements team to look at the number of Commendations of Valor we’re giving out. We know that there are complaints that we’re giving out too few, and we’re working to address that. Some of what’s making it complex is that we want to give out the right number not only for the immediate short-term, but that it’ll stay the right number 6 months from now or 2 years from now.


New dungeons


Yes, we also have a whole separate team busily making brand new content too, as well as fixing bugs in old content. We know this is the bread & butter of DDO, so this is our largest team.
BTW, I haven’t stopped working on new dungeons. I’m about to go back and put some more work into the Haunted Halls of Eveningstar. Working with Ed Greenwood has been a blast, and he’s certainly set an ambitious target. The Haunted Halls already has more gameplay than what I put in any of my previous dungeons and there’s still much more to go!


Aside from the efforts going into those priorities, there is also planning and setup work going into the future features that ProducerRowan mentioned. Don’t worry, it’s not our intent to simply ignore systems such as Housing or Crafting either – we’ll get to those once we’re through with our current pushes with core features like Enhancements and Epic Destinies .

A final thing before I head back into dungeon work – we’re really trying to keep the flow of communication going. Over the next few weeks, developers from each of the disciplines will be talking about what’s happening in their particular specialties. This is to give the players the information you’re asking for, but it’s also to help the developers get the feedback they need to properly take DDO where everyone wants it to go!

- PurpleFooz

Cool I really like blockade buster and acute delirium very cool quests. I honestly would like to see a reduction in the amount of rule changes such as enhancement trees and character builds I liked the game better before epic and as for the new enhancement system its easier to use but its there are several issues with the new system I think need to be addressed before we start adding more trees that done exist in dungeons and dragons. More content less fluff please. Rule changes are fluff cheaper and easier than making content though id wager. Thanks for taking the time to receive input. :)

[mkmcgw17]

Cool I really like blockade buster and acute delirium very cool quests. I honestly would like to see a reduction in the amount of rule changes such as enhancement trees and character builds I liked the game better before epic and as for the new enhancement system its easier to use but its there are several issues with the new system I think need to be addressed before we start adding more trees that done exist in dungeons and dragons. More content less fluff please. Rule changes are fluff cheaper and easier than making content though id wager. Thanks for taking the time to receive input. :)

Any chance at all of making some first edition content come to life? Maybe some real old stuff Judges Guild or early TSR. Dark Tower. Tegal Manor. Tomb of Horrors. Id gladly buy all those. Probably a lot of legal issues involved though. Again thanks for taking the time to ask for player input.

[whiteline]

Skill points need to be based on toons main ability score not Intel

[Kir1]

We avoid nerfing things unless there’s a game-breaking issue or the vast majority of players agree something needs to be changed.

Vast majority is playing monchkers, why would somene think that this same vast majority of cause would ask to nerf them?

This is same situation where vast majority farmed only Von3, of cause vast majority would never asked to nerf exp for this quest (i am grateful you still decide to adjust exp for it).

[Brendael]

Hi PurpleFooz,

First off nice work on the list of quests you've designed. They're among some of the better ones in the game.

I'm also glad to hear you're taking loot seriously and I'm hoping that you can get it back to where it should be.

Finally, I have a suggestion. Even if it is a once-off quest. I'd like to see an Epic Diplomatic Impunity where the goal is to go down to that bloody beach and beat the snot out of the Droam army there. Even if it is just a straight arena battle amongst the siege weapons against overwheming odds. There could also be a few battles against Droam champions, etc.

[Singular]

Wow, fantastic - thank you for increasing communication!

[mkmcgw17]

Hi everyone, following ProducerRowan’s letter, it seems like an opportune time to re-introduce myself to the community. You probably already know a bit of me from the dungeons I’ve created: Partycrashers, the Delirium dungeons, Blockade Buster, Undermine, I Dream of Jeets, Schemes of the Enemy, and Belly of the Beast (proper credit should also go to Keeper and Enosity for the visuals they made.)

I was lead of the content creation group while making some of those dungeons, but earlier this year I also became the lead of the design group as a whole.
As lead, I work with Producers Rowan, Glin and Vyvyanne to figure out the strategies of who works on what and when. That’s a bit tricky, since we know that some players want nothing but content, while other players advocate new classes, or enhancements, etc. It helps that we have so many developers that are so proficient in their specialties – rather than having all the developers tripping over each other by working on the same thing, we’re organized into different teams to work on different features at once.

So here are what the different teams are working on:



Enhancements & Epic Destinies


The developers who specialize on character advancement systems are concentrating on addressing the Enhancement issues that the community's submitted through the bug-tracker. There are currently developers spending all of their time addressing these bugs. Looking at the numbers of enhancement bugs we're fixing compared to what's coming in through the bug reports, we're hopeful that enhancements will soon reach a point where the vast majority of players feel it’s stable and complete.


We know that for a lot of players, “complete” means more enhancement trees. We have goals to make more trees for specific classes - we just released the Eldritch Knight for example. While we’re trying to fix as many enhancement bugs as we can for each release, we’d like to make sure we take the time to create each enhancement tree correctly, so you’ll see the trees trickle out at a slower rate.


And, we’ve already started a similar process to crush Epic Destiny issues. There are multiple developers working on fixing the reported ED bugs, and we’re planning out how to finish out remaining trees for everyone to feel that the system is complete. Piloto has already made posts to poll the communities for ideas on the next ED.


Treasure improvements


Simultaneously, we have a different team dedicated to treasure features. They’re currently focused on resolving the “ghostbane” issues. Some of you may already have seen DrOctothorpe’s posts on that topic. He and the rest of the treasure team are making changes to address as much player feedback as they can for patch and Update 21, and then they’ll move on to develop new treasure to go along with the new Update 21 content.


Some of the guys are overlapping with the character advancements team to look at the number of Commendations of Valor we’re giving out. We know that there are complaints that we’re giving out too few, and we’re working to address that. Some of what’s making it complex is that we want to give out the right number not only for the immediate short-term, but that it’ll stay the right number 6 months from now or 2 years from now.


New dungeons


Yes, we also have a whole separate team busily making brand new content too, as well as fixing bugs in old content. We know this is the bread & butter of DDO, so this is our largest team.
BTW, I haven’t stopped working on new dungeons. I’m about to go back and put some more work into the Haunted Halls of Eveningstar. Working with Ed Greenwood has been a blast, and he’s certainly set an ambitious target. The Haunted Halls already has more gameplay than what I put in any of my previous dungeons and there’s still much more to go!


Aside from the efforts going into those priorities, there is also planning and setup work going into the future features that ProducerRowan mentioned. Don’t worry, it’s not our intent to simply ignore systems such as Housing or Crafting either – we’ll get to those once we’re through with our current pushes with core features like Enhancements and Epic Destinies .

A final thing before I head back into dungeon work – we’re really trying to keep the flow of communication going. Over the next few weeks, developers from each of the disciplines will be talking about what’s happening in their particular specialties. This is to give the players the information you’re asking for, but it’s also to help the developers get the feedback they need to properly take DDO where everyone wants it to go!

- PurpleFooz

Hi I have been playing ddo since 2009 and have decided to stop playing. I am a old first edition paper player and have played almost every computer version that has come out. I started losing interest in ddo when epic came out and really lost interest the new enhancement system changed the way the game was being played. Role playing and team play is not encouraged like it was in the paper game and the main goal seems to be to become as powerful as you possibly can. To me dungeons and dragons was about creating a character a persona with powers and flaws and playing that persona as it went through life. Advancement is a very important part of the game but is not the only part. I did really like the game until recently even with its lack of content. The real straw that broke the camels back is I keep getting personally attacked for wanting to play older style characters and keep getting declined for groups because im playing a straight fighter. Apparently if you dont have monk ranger or paladin level and arent self healing you cant play with groups. I thank you very much for the game im going to try a different one that is closer to the original version of dungeons and dragons. Paladins and Monks cant multiclass. Rangers cant be Lawful. And since just the creation of undead is an evil act if your undead your evil. Thank you have a nice day.

[Iwant_DiabloThree]

Haunted Halls I hope is the first of many old school revamps. I would really like to revisit the real old modules ala EOTB, Menzo ect.
There is awesome content just waiting to be rediscovered....... Menzo would be pretty freakin cool