Raid Loot: Missing sense of accomplishment

[Fallout_Zero]

ESoS was the pinnacle IMO. It was a great weapon for a long time and it was difficult to get even the base item before the 20th list. Then trying to get all 3 components. It was an accomplishment to make it epic and get the oohs and aahs when you see people wielding one. It could take a year of questing to get one and wasn't obsolete.

Flash forward today. Raid timer and run normal for a week, you get a named item and the T3 weapon.
Has DDO been really dumbed down that much? Removing challenges. Removing incentives for EE raids.

Turbine really been shooting themselves in the foot.

[Pandir]

ESoS was the pinnacle IMO. It was a great weapon for a long time and it was difficult to get even the base item before the 20th list. Then trying to get all 3 components. It was an accomplishment to make it epic and get the oohs and aahs when you see people wielding one. It could take a year of questing to get one and wasn't obsolete.

Flash forward today. Raid timer and run normal for a week, you get a named item and the T3 weapon.
Has DDO been really dumbed down that much? Removing challenges. Removing incentives for EE raids.

Turbine really been shooting themselves in the foot.

I dunno last time i checked people said the new raids are pretty challenging,the weapons are far to grindy to get and the drop rate for the items is way too low.

[Ivan_Milic]

Lol, so last week people were complaining that drop rates are horrible, now the weapons are too easy/fast to make.
Esos still is great weapon.

[axel15810]

I'm a big fan of the system CiTW and FoT have. They rewarded EE with fully upgraded items, but also allowed you to eventually get the item you wanted on lower difficulties as well if you wanted to grind for it. It was a nice mix of chance and grind.

Old shard/seal/scroll system was too extreme in chance. Most never got that ESoS shard and can't do anything to get closer to getting it. And it seems the new raid is too extreme in grind. I wish there was a small chance I could get a great weapon from a single run instead of knowing for sure I'm going to have to grind 20+ runs for a single T3 item.

Then again, this is suppossed to be end game so as long as we get a few more end game raids it won't be so bad. This content is made to be run over and over and if we had more raids to choose from it wouldn't be so bad.

[patang01]

ESoS was the pinnacle IMO. It was a great weapon for a long time and it was difficult to get even the base item before the 20th list. Then trying to get all 3 components. It was an accomplishment to make it epic and get the oohs and aahs when you see people wielding one. It could take a year of questing to get one and wasn't obsolete.

Flash forward today. Raid timer and run normal for a week, you get a named item and the T3 weapon.
Has DDO been really dumbed down that much? Removing challenges. Removing incentives for EE raids.

Turbine really been shooting themselves in the foot.

Personally I prefer beating the raid to be the challenge, while grinding for an item isn't. In fact grinding for an item can be so random and tedious. A better system will always be GS because you're always working towards a final goal. The idea of grinding out and ESoS by doing the same Raid tons of time makes be throw up in my mouth. It's terrible design and no challenge whatsoever.
I'd love a Hound experience; that was great short raid. There was always a chance to fail. And that's what so many raids lack now; a sense of accomplishment through failure and success. I rather have something unique as a reward of beating something you can fail - and it doesn't even have to be raid loot - than the idea of making a convoluted terrible system like the old Epic with item, shard seal and scroll. That seriously confuses the idea of challenge with repetition which it's not.
Trust me, I've never Ooh Aah when people wielded their ESoS because I knew that some of them had pulled all their stuff in less than 20 and some had tormented themselves through 60+ before they got it. That's soul slaughtering.

If I would design something that was a true challenge, I'd make it so you can get a temporary bonus if you manage to completely it on EE. It would last for say a week. And I'd make that EE so challenging that it felt like an accomplishment to do it. Kinda like Hound - where you can't just resource yourself to a win - you have to coordinate, time and know your stuff. So much of the challenge is removed today because casters can simply chew themselves through resources and continue to add all the DPS needed. When you make DPS secondary to tactical features, timing and coordination it becomes less of a deciding point. Hound was like that.

That temporary bonus could be stacking with other challenges or even random, but it should be significant. It should also come with a indicator that 'that guy' beat the challenge. Like a glowing crown or whatever above the head. You want to be admired? Look at that guy for finishing the greatest challenge in the game. By making it temporary you either want to do the challenge again to get another effect or get a stacking one. And you'll keep going back because they expire. The raid becomes less about raid items and more about accomplishments. And more to the point the raid continue to be active well after everyone pulls all the goodies.

[HAL]

ESoS was the pinnacle IMO. It was a great weapon for a long time and it was difficult to get even the base item before the 20th list. Then trying to get all 3 components. It was an accomplishment to make it epic and get the oohs and aahs when you see people wielding one. It could take a year of questing to get one and wasn't obsolete.

Flash forward today. Raid timer and run normal for a week, you get a named item and the T3 weapon.
Has DDO been really dumbed down that much? Removing challenges. Removing incentives for EE raids.

Turbine really been shooting themselves in the foot.

Turbine is a business - they make decisions to keep the majority of players happy / paying. Players who enjoy a long grind and RNG to get loot are not the majority.

[Seikojin]

I'm a big fan of the system CiTW and FoT have. They rewarded EE with fully upgraded items, but also allowed you to eventually get the item you wanted on lower difficulties as well if you wanted to grind for it. It was a nice mix of chance and grind.

Old shard/seal/scroll system was too extreme in chance. Most never got that ESoS shard and can't do anything to get closer to getting it. And it seems the new raid is too extreme in grind. I wish there was a small chance I could get a great weapon from a single run instead of knowing for sure I'm going to have to grind 20+ runs for a single T3 item.

Then again, this is suppossed to be end game so as long as we get a few more end game raids it won't be so bad. This content is made to be run over and over and if we had more raids to choose from it wouldn't be so bad.

This. I think the thing people are griping about now is the gear is build a piece, like GS, LoB, and now this. However the power scale is not there for those levels of items after GS. GS is a special beast. Maybe the complaints are against equal level named items? Either way, the new loot, it is sometimes cool, but nothing like shavrath did. I think that kind of uniqueness is what people are hoping for out of each new release of loot. However there has to be variety and flexibility in the loot, or else everyone has the same loot at all times. Even as powerful as esos is, I don't see it everywhere (and wouldn't even if the drops were easy).

I think the old systems should be replaced by something similar to FoT, where you can build it up from lower tiers or run for the drop on elite.

[Teh_Troll]

I dunno last time i checked people said the new raids are pretty challenging

Not on Normal, hard is not "hard" unless your group is full of idiots.



,the weapons are far to grindy to get and the drop rate for the items is way too low.

approx 20-30 runs to get a weapon and the named loot simply doesn't drop (it's gotta be broken, no way drop rates this terrible are WAI). Is that too grindy?

[Teh_Troll]

Lol, so last week people were complaining that drop rates are horrible, now the weapons are too easy/fast to make.

The drop rates ARE horrible. But compared to the ESOS they are much faster to make, even without any shenanigans.



Esos still is great weapon.

At level 20.

[Portalcat]

People will complain about any system they build ever.


Look, they did an official thread on named loot systems. People almost universally said they loved GS and hated shard-seal-scroll. People frequently cited the fact that you'd always make progress when farming GS as one of its major selling points, and insisted that they hated systems where you were no closer one run than the next.

The result: we get a system where you make guaranteed progress. We get a system where the named items are all on the 20th list.

[Fallout_Zero]

People will complain about any system they build ever.


Look, they did an official thread on named loot systems. People almost universally said they loved GS and hated shard-seal-scroll. People frequently cited the fact that you'd always make progress when farming GS as one of its major selling points, and insisted that they hated systems where you were no closer one run than the next.

The result: we get a system where you make guaranteed progress. We get a system where the named items are all on the 20th list.

I like the LOB crafting. If you just want to run normal then all you get is normal base item. But if you want the best, you run EE. Gives us incentive to run EE. Although like others said EE pug can be a nightmare. This new run 20 and done has no challenge on en and zero incentive to run harder.

[Grimlock]

How do you provide players the sense of accomplishment from pulling or building an end game raid loot item when the game is approaching the final phase of its life cycle?

How do you suggest Turbine rolls out or changes the existing raid/item crafting system? They tried the s/s/s/item system - people complained and rightfully so - it is a silly waste of time that gives players nothing but frustration as we all try year after year to grind and get that last item. The alternative is the Shroud/Thunderholme compile ingredients over time and then run the raids for the final ingredients similar to how the Shroud works. The problem here is people rampantly duplicating items then saturating the auction houses with said items.

If you can buy all the end game items or crafting materials from the auction house does this take away the sense of accomplishment?

PortalCat said it best - people will complain about any system you build. This is true for DDO. It is true in real life. There is no right answer. I think if you run a quest or chain 10 times you should certainly have enough components to craft an end game item. I do not feel as if running the same quest 20, 40, or even 60 times is necessary to reward a player with an item or components they need to finish off an item. I also feel as if Turbine neglecting to address the duplicating issues in game is a very big oversight and they should invest labor time into tracking down who is doing this and remove these items/components from the game.

[Sokól]

The drop rates ARE horrible. But compared to the ESOS they are much faster to make, even without any shenanigans.


Really hate that this duping thing exists....

[Lonnbeimnech]

I had low level loot.

Now my high level loot makes my low level loot look bad.

I has a sad.

[Impaqt]

I dont understand the concept of doing everything you can to accelerate the process, but then complaining when your done.....

If you CHOOSE to buy/obtain dozens of raid bypass timers n order to speed up the process of getting your loot. Thats on you. thats not really turbines fault.

there are people that havent even stepped foot into these new raids yet. haven not even started to build their weapons.

[Qhualor]

I dont understand the concept of doing everything you can to accelerate the process, but then complaining when your done.....

If you CHOOSE to buy/obtain dozens of raid bypass timers n order to speed up the process of getting your loot. Thats on you. thats not really turbines fault.

there are people that havent even stepped foot into these new raids yet. haven not even started to build their weapons.

You just opened a can of worms heh

[Arcanegrin]

The problem here again is the lack of loot. Very few crafting possibilities. Most people only get a chance at items on their 20th run. If people got a couple decent items along the way it would just be more interesting. People check if anyone got an item then exit immediately, most other raids people wait to see if loot gets rolled for or not.

They could have added an extra 6-10 items to each raid pretty easily. Not everything has to be fantastic. One of the best parts about loot thats only good for a few specific cases is that it makes you interested in creating a build just for that item. Two big dragon raids and practically no items, no gold?

A few items the same as a wondrous craftsmanship level 28 with a slot would work, if thats not special enough then add some type of effect (freedom, immune to webs, immune to cometfall knockdown, eternal cloak of flames etc.)

A few weapons with increased crit multipliers or crit ranges (or both), maybe for weapons that don't get much love.

A rainbow item with 4+ slots.

The lack of items is just boring for a raid. At least in Shroud you could make all type of equipment.

[Grimlock]

Why do we have a Turbine Developer whose main focus is in-game loot with only a small amount of raid loot items available? Not talking about the crafting system here - talking about raid loot items.

Is this an internal Turbine personnel hurdle with not getting approval from some VP or Project Manager?

[Blackheartox]

The drop rates ARE horrible. But compared to the ESOS they are much faster to make, even without any shenanigans.



At level 20.

Its good even at 28.
Falcion better, but til 28 you still use esos + its great for martial ep plifes farming, better then most weapons

[Fallout_Zero]

Also like to add a couple of things, lack of sense of surprise or anticipation.
You know just hit 20 en runs guarantee a named item. 30 runs a T3 item.

Miss the feeling of excitement when you get something rare like ESOS shard and people in party stare at amazement. That's the magic that's missing.

[Blackheartox]

Also like to add a couple of things, lack of sense of surprise or anticipation.
You know just hit 20 en runs guarantee a named item. 30 runs a T3 item.

Miss the feeling of excitement when you get something rare like ESOS shard and people in party stare at amazement. That's the magic that's missing.
Go farm for epic ring of spellstoring components..
Ultimate junkie feling when you get it epicd.
Esos is nothing compared to ring!
(tho now with duping and junk everyone prolly has 10s of thousands of sp pots sigh)

[kierg10]

Let the players design the raid loot......

Basically, make a thread where players design raid loot, like they say what should go on it blah blah, then the loot people veto anything that is clearly OP as **** (like a +500 charisma helm for example), then take all of the non stupidly designed items, make a poll where people can vote on their favourite 12 items, make a notice in the launcher of this, on twitter, and on facebook, then take the top 12 items and put them in your next raid.

Or even more than 12, 12 was just an arbitrarily chosen number.

[kierg10]

Even make a notice whenever someone logs on, like it banners on only their screen/in their textbox, saying to go and vote on the items......this way you can make items that the players actually want....

Also make sure to categorize items for DC casting, tanking, melee DPSing, twfing, thfing, etc. and make sure you get a nice mix of them.

Also make it mostly accessories dropping in raids, because weapons in raids tend to be limited except for crafting, just put the weapons in the regular quests so you don't dilute the raid loot tables if you want to balance weapon choices for the players.

[Portalcat]

Let the players design the raid loot......

Basically, make a thread where players design raid loot, like they say what should go on it blah blah, then the loot people veto anything that is clearly OP as **** (like a +500 charisma helm for example), then take all of the non stupidly designed items, make a poll where people can vote on their favourite 12 items, make a notice in the launcher of this, on twitter, and on facebook, then take the top 12 items and put them in your next raid.

Or even more than 12, 12 was just an arbitrarily chosen number.

This will never happen because the masses have proven themselves awful at designing balanced loot. The feedback threads to the raid loot and HH were overwhelmingly full of people complaining that it wasn't good enough; they don't substantially increase the power of anything, release, and lo and behold, it's largely best-in-slot end game loot because it was good already.

[kierg10]

This will never happen because the masses have proven themselves awful at designing balanced loot. The feedback threads to the raid loot and HH were overwhelmingly full of people complaining that it wasn't good enough; they don't substantially increase the power of anything, release, and lo and behold, it's largely best-in-slot end game loot because it was good already.

This update I would say is okay on raid loot, but since motu much of the loot has been quite underwhelming.....I think that at least giving the players some input would really help the progression of loot.

It would also be good if we could agree to not make anything "better" anymore, just make it different.....

[IronClan]

Seriously I don't know how many runs I'm going to need to make 2 shadow robes and 1 Armor, 1 DPS thunder forged Shuriken and 3 caster sticks but I don't expect to be done doing it in the next couple months even if I grind it into the ground. And after doing them both a couple times now, I am pretty sure I'll be spreading that out over a few ETR's and eventually even new content and new raids.

Meanwhile I have a toon parked that runs VON for eSoS on occasion and hasn't eaten a timer since his 20th when he got the base SoS...

My Druid is slowly doing MA and LoB (For a +2 Alchemical wisdom caster stick) getting close, still need a T3 spirit.

I decided not to buy Black stones or Lantern ring for the same character going to loot them myself.

Slow simmer your play and you lessen the burn out, I'm not saying you have to do it my way; I'm saying if you enjoy DDO and don't want to burn yourself out doing 60 of the same raid in a week, you're better off not doing 60 of the same raid in a week.

[Seikojin]

I dont understand the concept of doing everything you can to accelerate the process, but then complaining when your done.....

If you CHOOSE to buy/obtain dozens of raid bypass timers n order to speed up the process of getting your loot. Thats on you. thats not really turbines fault.

there are people that havent even stepped foot into these new raids yet. haven not even started to build their weapons.


You just opened a can of worms heh

I don't think it would open a can of worms. I completely agree. It is like saying the game is too fast when all you do is max streak, elites, pots, the works. Or the same player complaining covs don't drop enough ;)

When I was finishing my last GS item for my main, I used timers to get the last LDS I needed. I enjoyed the ability to save plat and get what I wanted, even if it bypassed the timer.


Why do we have a Turbine Developer whose main focus is in-game loot with only a small amount of raid loot items available? Not talking about the crafting system here - talking about raid loot items.

Is this an internal Turbine personnel hurdle with not getting approval from some VP or Project Manager?

All loot is contingent on a couple of gating factors: what loot already is best in slot, what story can provide lore for the item, what gaps in power exist. Ultimately, as is, turbines devs are also qa, managers, producers, etc. So one person who works on loot also works on many other aspects outside of the game and has very little time to make the necessary changes to please everyone.


Let the players design the raid loot......

Basically, make a thread where players design raid loot, like they say what should go on it blah blah, then the loot people veto anything that is clearly OP as **** (like a +500 charisma helm for example), then take all of the non stupidly designed items, make a poll where people can vote on their favourite 12 items, make a notice in the launcher of this, on twitter, and on facebook, then take the top 12 items and put them in your next raid.

Or even more than 12, 12 was just an arbitrarily chosen number.

No, that would be wrong. Player invariably would make unbalanced loot that had unintentional, thought of, balance issues that other players would silently exploit until rage hit the forums. And making a vote and checks system would require too much resources from what the game always needs: moar content!

I think the tweaks they did to Tempest spines raid loot was nice. Not best in slot, but flavorful and fairly strong at level items. I think that should be a baseline for all raid loot. Strong for its level and sometimes best in slot for its level.

I like the LoB and even the new wyrmcrafted stuff. GS2? I don't think so. Whatever is going to be gs2 would have to be a long road to build, and be very powerful for its level. Nothing dps' @ level 12 like a tier 3 GS item.

[Chai]

Its not a contradiction. The drop rates ARE horrible and people DO get their weapons too quickly.

This is what happens when paid rapid character advancement takes over end game. The game is designed around its monetization.

[Kalimah]

But at the same time, why do I care if someone else is willing to buy 20 raid timer bypasses and run that raid until their eyes bleed to get a new shiney? I just dont have it in me to give a **** about how or why someone else got their loot.

[asdfghhjkl]

First of all, I want to preface this post by emphasizing that I am not trying to demean a particular approach to games. That is not at all my intention here.

Now, it seems that for some people, "accomplishments" only count if they are rare, if you've obtained the character/item/achievement that few other people have. That's a fair attitude, I think, even if it's not my personal approach to gaming.

But, for those people, I do think that you need to seriously consider whether DDO is still the game for you. The new direction for DDO is to reward elite players, not with better stuff, but with slightly better chances at the same stuff. They don't want items like EE Dragon Helms or eSoS that are only available to player with sufficient skill and/or time.

Instead, skill, time, and money are becoming interchangeable requirements--the more of one you put in, the less of the others you need. So if you want to see rewards that can only be achieved with sufficient skill, or sufficient dedication, rewards that don't accrue to the average player, you may need to look elsewhere.

[Grimlock]

But at the same time, why do I care if someone else is willing to buy 20 raid timer bypasses and run that raid until their eyes bleed to get a new shiney? I just dont have it in me to give a **** about how or why someone else got their loot.

I don't have an issue with raid timer bypasses - they are an excellent idea. I do care about the duping of items, which impacts the in-game economy. The fact that duping items has been going on since release tells me Turbine does not have the ability to track it down to deal with it, or they have washed their hands entirely of the matter.

[memloch]

The SSS system was great at keeping people running quests over and over again. When people talk about the old raid scene this is the system that they are referring to. In my opinion it was way to grindy.

My preference would be to keep the SSS system but allow trade ins to get the seal or shard needed. Even if it was 10 to 1 it would be better than the random drop needed today. I would then allow the old epics to be upgraded using COVs (perhaps multiple tiers) to allow the old items to return as end game items.

My thoughts are that this system would create the end game that everyone wants. There would be many more options for players in terms of quests to run and in terms of how to equip your toon.

[SardaofChaos]

Its not a contradiction. The drop rates ARE horrible and people DO get their weapons too quickly.

This is what happens when paid rapid character advancement takes over end game. The game is designed around its monetization.

So we raise the drop rates. Except then people get their weapons even quicker. Well, let's try lowering the drop rates to fix that. Now the drop rates are terrible again.


I don't see where the contradiction went away?

[Teh_Troll]

Miss the feeling of excitement when you get something rare like ESOS shard and people in party stare at amazement. That's the magic that's missing.

That was replaced with named items that DON'T EVER DROP.

[Teh_Troll]

Let the players design the raid loot......




Gloves of the Ubber Troll.

- STR +11
- 30% Hjeal meh! Amplification
- +6 Artifact bonus
- Vamprism to all weapons
- Infraction Absorption (25 charges/rest)
- Green and Colorless slots

[Grimlock]

Gloves of the Ubber Troll.

- STR +11
- 30% Hjeal meh! Amplification
- +6 Artifact bonus
- Vamprism to all weapons
- Infraction Absorption (25 charges/rest)
- Green and Colorless slots

You forgot to add regenerates bard songs.

[kierg10]

Gloves of the Ubber Troll.

- STR +11
- 30% Hjeal meh! Amplification
- +6 Artifact bonus
- Vamprism to all weapons
- Infraction Absorption (25 charges/rest)
- Green and Colorless slots

+6 artifact bonus to what? lol

[Teh_Troll]

+6 artifact bonus to what? lol

Damage, like how Claw and Planar Focus give a +4.

Don't tell you my idea doesn't give you wood.

[Kalimah]

I don't have an issue with raid timer bypasses - they are an excellent idea. I do care about the duping of items, which impacts the in-game economy. The fact that duping items has been going on since release tells me Turbine does not have the ability to track it down to deal with it, or they have washed their hands entirely of the matter.

No argument there but at the same time I think the duping is not as rampant as some may think. Large blocks of us have nothing to do with duping and its not a valid argument to propse punishing the whole for any portion that may be duping. That discussion needs to be a total different discussion than any other and the punishments specific to those who are doing it. I guess Im saying we should not all tip toe around on egg shells because some portion of the pop is duping...if thats how they are doing their thing its between them and DDO.

[Grimlock]

No argument there but at the same time I think the duping is not as rampant as some may think. Large blocks of us have nothing to do with duping and its not a valid argument to propse punishing the whole for any portion that may be duping. That discussion needs to be a total different discussion than any other and the punishments specific to those who are doing it. I guess Im saying we should not all tip toe around on egg shells because some portion of the pop is duping...if thats how they are doing their thing its between them and DDO.

Unless Turbine is the responsible party for duplicating items and posting them on the auction house. Thousands of scales - literally thousands of them posted right after Update 20 tells me someone is duplicating items.

Now if Turbine doesn't want the backlash of the 99%ers complaining about "Pay To Win", then their next logical step is to put it on the ASAH. This lowers the population of Astral Shards in game and gives players a chance to buy the item they want thinking it is coming from another player. By selling items for a ridiculous amount of shards, this certainly baits in players to buy bundles of Astral Shards from the DDO Store and then turn around and buy what they need from the ASAH.

[Chai]

So we raise the drop rates. Except then people get their weapons even quicker. Well, let's try lowering the drop rates to fix that. Now the drop rates are terrible again.


I don't see where the contradiction went away?

If they werent selling the abilty to obtain quickly, they could have more reasonable drop rates ~shroud era.

Due to selling rapid character advancement, those that pay get their loot too quickly AND the drop rates ARE horrible in hopes folks will pay to mitigate said drop rate - so theres no contradiction in reference to todays endgame, because its designed to monetize, rather than have long term replay value.

[BigErkyKid]

Personally I prefer beating the raid to be the challenge, while grinding for an item isn't. In fact grinding for an item can be so random and tedious.

+1.

To me, it is not a worthwile achievement to do something 50 times. I would go "ohhh" over people with items that require you to beat raids where failing is the most common thing.

But to me, it seems that DDO has settled for a bit for mediocrity. I know it sounds tough. But to me that's what it looks like when what is rewarded is repeating some already surpassed challenge 50 times. People who put in the time (and the money, raid timers before the event were store items) get it no matter what, whereas a "great" DDO player with fewer hours of gameplay will end up falling behind.

Make it tougher. Much tougher.

[BigErkyKid]

If they werent selling the abilty to obtain quickly, they could have more reasonable drop rates ~shroud era.

Due to selling rapid character advancement, those that pay get their loot too quickly AND the drop rates ARE horrible in hopes folks will pay to mitigate said drop rate - so theres no contradiction in reference to todays endgame, because its designed to monetize, rather than have long term replay value.

and +1.

I have said it often, too many of the game features seem designed to get at your wallet and not to make the game more fun.

If it wasn't because of the card event, people would have surely bought some raid timers to get the mats to craft their tier 3.

But I don't think this kind of approach will keep the game alive long term.

[Kalimah]

Unless Turbine is the responsible party for duplicating items and posting them on the auction house. Thousands of scales - literally thousands of them posted right after Update 20 tells me someone is duplicating items.

Now if Turbine doesn't want the backlash of the 99%ers complaining about "Pay To Win", then their next logical step is to put it on the ASAH. This lowers the population of Astral Shards in game and gives players a chance to buy the item they want thinking it is coming from another player. By selling items for a ridiculous amount of shards, this certainly baits in players to buy bundles of Astral Shards from the DDO Store and then turn around and buy what they need from the ASAH.

Yeah man I dont play the ASAH game, I couldnt tell you what was on there at any time at any point in history. I do not participate in this scam.

But that said, just a hand full of people could dupe a lot of stuff fast. So I maintain it is a small portion of the playerbase that does this stuff.

[Kalimah]

+1.

To me, it is not a worthwile achievement to do something 50 times. I would go "ohhh" over people with items that require you to beat raids where failing is the most common thing.

But to me, it seems that DDO has settled for a bit for mediocrity. I know it sounds tough. But to me that's what it looks like when what is rewarded is repeating some already surpassed challenge 50 times. People who put in the time (and the money, raid timers before the event were store items) get it no matter what, whereas a "great" DDO player with fewer hours of gameplay will end up falling behind.

Make it tougher. Much tougher.

This to me seems like one of those things that sounds like a good idea on the forums but when it happens like this in game we are highly irate.

[Gremmlynn]

First of all, I want to preface this post by emphasizing that I am not trying to demean a particular approach to games. That is not at all my intention here.

Now, it seems that for some people, "accomplishments" only count if they are rare, if you've obtained the character/item/achievement that few other people have. That's a fair attitude, I think, even if it's not my personal approach to gaming.

But, for those people, I do think that you need to seriously consider whether DDO is still the game for you. The new direction for DDO is to reward elite players, not with better stuff, but with slightly better chances at the same stuff. They don't want items like EE Dragon Helms or eSoS that are only available to player with sufficient skill and/or time.

Instead, skill, time, and money are becoming interchangeable requirements--the more of one you put in, the less of the others you need. So if you want to see rewards that can only be achieved with sufficient skill, or sufficient dedication, rewards that don't accrue to the average player, you may need to look elsewhere.The problem with this is, it simply isn't a good idea to try to make money developing a game in which most potential customers quickly become dissatisfied with. In order for a small number of "winners" to feel special, they need a large number of "losers" that are willing to stick around to be better than.

It's also silly to expect skill to count for more than money when dealing with a company that has a lot of interest in money and could care less how skillful you are. Until they can monetize your skill by selling tickets or something, this will be the case.

[BigErkyKid]

This to me seems like one of those things that sounds like a good idea on the forums but when it happens like this in game we are highly irate.

:D I think you are right, I would still support it :P

[Gremmlynn]

and +1.

I have said it often, too many of the game features seem designed to get at your wallet and not to make the game more fun.

If it wasn't because of the card event, people would have surely bought some raid timers to get the mats to craft their tier 3.

But I don't think this kind of approach will keep the game alive long term.That assumes they feel the game would be profitable enough to bother keeping it around long term.

[Chai]

That assumes they feel the game would be profitable enough to bother keeping it around long term.

And for that to happen, they either need to retain players and attract new players -OR- the players who do not attrite need to spend more and more to make up for the income disparity caused by attrition.

The former is a better plan for longevity. The latter is not but it can work as a bandaid solution until a plan for the former can be put into place. In this instance the latter reached the saturation point before these new raids came out, and the attrition increased and is more and more noticable at more time passes.

[Gremmlynn]

And for that to happen, they either need to retain players and attract new players -OR- the players who do not attrite need to spend more and more to make up for the income disparity caused by attrition.

The former is a better plan for longevity. The latter is not but it can work as a bandaid solution until a plan for the former can be put into place. In this instance the latter reached the saturation point before these new raids came out, and the attrition increased and is more and more noticable at more time passes.Basically, they need a big enough player base that every dime they spend on development generates the expected number of dimes, or more, in revenue. MMOs are an industry in which all significant costs are the same regardless of how many customers you are serving.

Drop below that number and you have to find ways of making up the difference or become a cost to earnings casualty.

[Uska]

I know what your talking about even beyond raid loot I miss the old days when you felt excited to have gotten one of biggies back at the start such as a Vorpal weapon. Now there isn't much excitement no matter what you loot.

[slarden]

Also like to add a couple of things, lack of sense of surprise or anticipation.
You know just hit 20 en runs guarantee a named item. 30 runs a T3 item.

Miss the feeling of excitement when you get something rare like ESOS shard and people in party stare at amazement. That's the magic that's missing.

You can only get a tier 3 with 30 runs if you run all on EE. It's more like 55+ runs on EH and 80+ runs on EN. For someone that isn't partaking in raid bypass timers that is a roughly 90 days for 1 tier 3 weapons on EE, 165 days on EH or 240 days on EN. 1 weapon... Opinions on the level of grind may vary and is heavily influenced by whether you have access to raid timer bypasses.

I do think they should add some super rare items to raids, but they shouldn't make those the most powerful items in the game since it becomes a lottery system. Make it a bta item with 3 ddoor clickies or something like that. It will be useful and highly desired, but not so overpowered that it's the best item in the game. You can even make the clickie random - a ring of useful things that has a random good clickie on it that isn't easily obtained from other items.

I also think on your 40th run and each additional increment of 20 you should have a chance for a +6 tome that goes up a little at each 20 increment.

[Hendrik]

People will complain about any system they build ever.


Look, they did an official thread on named loot systems. People almost universally said they loved GS and hated shard-seal-scroll. People frequently cited the fact that you'd always make progress when farming GS as one of its major selling points, and insisted that they hated systems where you were no closer one run than the next.

The result: we get a system where you make guaranteed progress. We get a system where the named items are all on the 20th list.

Truth!

Give people what they ask for and they will complain about it.

[Fallout_Zero]

Truth!

Give people what they ask for and they will complain about it.

What? How is the raid like GS crafting?

[arkonas]

I dont understand the concept of doing everything you can to accelerate the process, but then complaining when your done.....

If you CHOOSE to buy/obtain dozens of raid bypass timers n order to speed up the process of getting your loot. Thats on you. thats not really turbines fault.

there are people that havent even stepped foot into these new raids yet. haven not even started to build their weapons.

i agree with this. i wasn't in a hurry to do the new raids. don't get me wrong i really want to try them at some point, but i don't want to be burned out on it. its why i rarely use raid timers. i also have 16 in the bank. i never try to rush it because what will i do if i do everything? i will be sooooooo bored. screw that. ill take my time thanks.

[Catteras]

I love you people. I really do.

One moment that game is too easy and loot is too easy to get.

Then when Turbine cracks down, it's too hard.

People will whine no matter what anyone does. Fact of life. This is why God made popcorn.


ESoS was the pinnacle IMO. It was a great weapon for a long time and it was difficult to get even the base item before the 20th list. Then trying to get all 3 components. It was an accomplishment to make it epic and get the oohs and aahs when you see people wielding one. It could take a year of questing to get one and wasn't obsolete.

Flash forward today. Raid timer and run normal for a week, you get a named item and the T3 weapon.
Has DDO been really dumbed down that much? Removing challenges. Removing incentives for EE raids.

Turbine really been shooting themselves in the foot.

[Ivan_Milic]

I love you people. I really do.

One moment that game is too easy and loot is too easy to get.

Then when Turbine cracks down, it's too hard.

People will whine no matter what anyone does. Fact of life. This is why God made popcorn.

Yep.

[Arcanegrin]

I'm not sure the items are too easy to acquire, they may in fact be too hard, either way most people will get items from 20th reward lists and that is just boring.

The FOT system of EN items, EH items, and EE items was great and would let you feel progression while running the raids, (if you got items from them).

No matter what though there just aren't enough items to be interesting. All the items (total of 17) contained in this update put together should be enough for 1 Raid (including haunted halls). Fall of truth had 13 items.