Earning Epic and Iconic Hearts of Wood

[Vargouille]

We've been looking for ways to improve the experience of earning Epic and Iconic Hearts of Wood. After several rounds of iteration with the Player's Council, this is the direction we're moving towards. (This would come some time after Update 22.)

While your character is at level cap, completing epic quests adds 2 Heart Seeds into the End Reward list for that quest. This only applies to quests where Commendations of Valor already show up, including Epic Quests, on Normal, Hard, or Elite, that aren't ransacked.

Some notes and explanations:


Reminder that you can turn 100 Bind-to-Character Commendations of Valor into 1 Bind-to-Account Heart Seed, and can turn in 42 Heart Seeds into either an Epic Heart of Wood or Iconic True Heart of Wood.
You'll continue to see Commendations of Valor in End Reward lists upon reaching level cap. This doesn't replace Commendations, but adds an additional End Reward choice.
This intentionally doesn’t affect Thunderforged Crafting or other existing or future uses of Commendations of Valor, only Reincarnation.
This doesn’t touch the current amounts players earn in any way. The players currently earninga full heart (or more) while they level up can keep doing that.


We considered more complicated ideas, but we're not sure it’s necessary for the goal we’re trying to achieve, and this is an otherwise simple solution. For example, we could reward Elite over Normal, or reward high level quests over low level quests. But that's already true for Commendations of Valor, and this is intended as an extra aid for players who have hit the level cap and are in a rush to Reincarnate, yet haven't earned enough Commendations of Valor along the way.

We're also aware some players might decide to only farm for Reincarnation at cap, and take other rewards while leveling up. If this partially devalues Commendations of Valor so other end-reward options feel like more viable choices, that's perhaps not inherently bad.

As we realize Hearts of Wood are important to many of our players, we'd like to hear your feedback.

[Fedora1]

Okay so if I understand correctly, once you hit level cap if you never took a comm at all, you would run 21 epic quests and have enough to ER/IR?

I really really like this.

[slarden]

I have to say this is a really great thing for casual players that run on lower difficulties but still want to ETR.

This is very clever way to shorten the cycle for casual players while still making EE rewarding.

Well done.

[zaphear]

I like this. And I'm always a skeptic..

[TPICKRELL]

Very nice compromise. Well done (Assuming it goes forward).

[arkonas]

We've been looking for ways to improve the experience of earning Epic and Iconic Hearts of Wood. After several rounds of iteration with the Player's Council, this is the direction we're moving towards. (This would come some time after Update 22.)

While your character is at level cap, completing epic quests adds 2 Heart Seeds into the End Reward list for that quest. This only applies to quests where Commendations of Valor already show up, including Epic Quests, on Normal, Hard, or Elite, that aren't ransacked.

Some notes and explanations:


Reminder that you can turn 100 Bind-to-Character Commendations of Valor into 1 Bind-to-Account Heart Seed, and can turn in 42 Heart Seeds into either an Epic Heart of Wood or Iconic True Heart of Wood.
You'll continue to see Commendations of Valor in End Reward lists upon reaching level cap. This doesn't replace Commendations, but adds an additional End Reward choice.
This intentionally doesn’t affect Thunderforged Crafting or other existing or future uses of Commendations of Valor, only Reincarnation.
This doesn’t touch the current amounts players earn in any way. The players currently earninga full heart (or more) while they level up can keep doing that.


We considered more complicated ideas, but we're not sure it’s necessary for the goal we’re trying to achieve, and this is an otherwise simple solution. For example, we could reward Elite over Normal, or reward high level quests over low level quests. But that's already true for Commendations of Valor, and this is intended as an extra aid for players who have hit the level cap and are in a rush to Reincarnate, yet haven't earned enough Commendations of Valor along the way.

We're also aware some players might decide to only farm for Reincarnation at cap, and take other rewards while leveling up. If this partially devalues Commendations of Valor so other end-reward options feel like more viable choices, that's perhaps not inherently bad.

As we realize Hearts of Wood are important to many of our players, we'd like to hear your feedback.

so this will only apply at 28/30 correct?

[Fedora1]

It's actually comparative to hitting L20 and running DA or VON or similar quests 20 times that give out Tokens of the Twelve or Token Fragments to earn enough to TR.

[Mryal]

Awesome.
Make it happen

[Vellrad]

If you made it so easy, why don't you remove hearts?
Effect is the same.

[Captain_Wizbang]

It looks like a good idea, no great idea, BUT.....

Right now, not in the future, right now, drop the required 4200 to something around 3500.

Why? People are having a hard time getting 4200. Sure there are people that don't mind the time-sinc, and running everything within the optimum parameters, but that is not the majority of players.

Just fix what's in place with lowering the requirement.



The proposal is nice, but until then lower the requirement please.

[FAQ]

Bravo! I really like this change. I believe you'll solve many conundrums with this solution :)

[Ovrad]

I've been pretty vocal about my disagreement with the previous CoV system, and, while I love this change, I think it might be a bit much, a single seed per quest at cap would be enough for me. (Also long as the non-cap CoV drops stay the same of course)

But thanks a lot for finally addressing the issue. :)

[Deathdefy]

That's brilliant! I can take sweet, sweet renown again while going from 20 to 28 again too! Phenomenal decision devs - and nice job pushing for it, players' council peeps!

[Wizza]

You know what would be easier?

LOWERING THE REQUIRED NUMBERS OF COMMENDATIONS OF VALOR TO GET AN EPIC HEART.


You don't need any complicated idea. Actually, you keep going for the complicated ones. First you put CoVs in Epic boxes. Now this. JUST LOWER THE NUMBER ALREADY.

[Bridge_Dweller]

Thank you.

[Ivan_Milic]

Ill explain why they are making this change.
They will sell more epic boxes because it will be easier to get epic heart when you are capped.

[Turbosilk]

I think you need more people on the council that don't cave to mob mentality and want to preserve challenges in the game vs rolling over to the mob.

A better proposal would have been at cap: (1) zero seeds for EN runs (2) 1-2 seed for EH runs and (3) 2-3 seeds for EE runs.

[unbongwah]

While your character is at level cap, completing epic quests adds 2 Heart Seeds into the End Reward list for that quest.
I would suggest making it 1 Seed for EN, 2 Seeds for EH, and 3 Seeds for EE. It gives vets an incentive to do EE quests at level cap without unduly punishing those who run EN/EH instead. Helps that 42 is divisible by both 2 and 3. :)

[MadCookieQueen]

I like this idea for all the reasons Varg has stated....lets people take other rewards and helps casual players achieve a goal at the same pace as the not casual players.

I do however have some questions:

1. Will we see this before level cap hits 30?
2. Any reason why this couldn't have been added to U22? Personally I would think that tweaking the end reward lists might be fairly straight forward.

Thanks!

[slarden]

You know what would be easier?

LOWERING THE REQUIRED NUMBERS OF COMMENDATIONS OF VALOR TO GET AN EPIC HEART.


You don't need any complicated idea. Actually, you keep going for the complicated ones. First you put CoVs in Epic boxes. Now this. JUST LOWER THE NUMBER ALREADY.

Their solution is much better because it addresses the problem EN and EH players face with lower com drops.

[blackdae]

Thanks! Awesome news! Maybe too awesome! :)

[RedOrm]

Sounds like an excellent plan. Well done.

Greetz,
Red Orm

[Impaqt]

I still strongly dislike the fact that our end reward lists are overcrowded with stuff we "need"

Nice Item?

Renown?

Seeds/Comms?

I guess its better, but still not ideal.

[eris2323]

We've been looking for ways to improve the experience of earning Epic and Iconic Hearts of Wood. After several rounds of iteration with the Player's Council, this is the direction we're moving towards. (This would come some time after Update 22.)

While your character is at level cap, completing epic quests adds 2 Heart Seeds into the End Reward list for that quest. This only applies to quests where Commendations of Valor already show up, including Epic Quests, on Normal, Hard, or Elite, that aren't ransacked.

Some notes and explanations:


Reminder that you can turn 100 Bind-to-Character Commendations of Valor into 1 Bind-to-Account Heart Seed, and can turn in 42 Heart Seeds into either an Epic Heart of Wood or Iconic True Heart of Wood.
You'll continue to see Commendations of Valor in End Reward lists upon reaching level cap. This doesn't replace Commendations, but adds an additional End Reward choice.
This intentionally doesn’t affect Thunderforged Crafting or other existing or future uses of Commendations of Valor, only Reincarnation.
This doesn’t touch the current amounts players earn in any way. The players currently earninga full heart (or more) while they level up can keep doing that.


We considered more complicated ideas, but we're not sure it’s necessary for the goal we’re trying to achieve, and this is an otherwise simple solution. For example, we could reward Elite over Normal, or reward high level quests over low level quests. But that's already true for Commendations of Valor, and this is intended as an extra aid for players who have hit the level cap and are in a rush to Reincarnate, yet haven't earned enough Commendations of Valor along the way.

We're also aware some players might decide to only farm for Reincarnation at cap, and take other rewards while leveling up. If this partially devalues Commendations of Valor so other end-reward options feel like more viable choices, that's perhaps not inherently bad.

As we realize Hearts of Wood are important to many of our players, we'd like to hear your feedback.

I'm so bored with farming these stupid comms, I (ALSO) suggest you change the requirements to 3500 comms needed, which is more reasonable...

Frankly your idea is also pretty good, but really only makes me want to quit (again) until you finally, someday implement it.

A quicker fix would be just to change comms required to 3500 NOW.

So bored; wanna quit... yet again...

[DagazUlf]

You know what would be easier?

LOWERING THE REQUIRED NUMBERS OF COMMENDATIONS OF VALOR TO GET AN EPIC HEART.


You don't need any complicated idea. Actually, you keep going for the complicated ones. First you put CoVs in Epic boxes. Now this. JUST LOWER THE NUMBER ALREADY.

I've eTRed 9 times now. You know how many times I've had enough comms to turn in for a heart? 3 of those 9 times. Just end this blatant money-grab already and lower the stupid number.

[Captain_Wizbang]

Their solution is much better because it addresses the problem EN and EH players face with lower com drops.


UMMM, as mentioned by a few already, just lowering the requirement now seems much easier. But I think we all agree that EN & EH drops are too low.

http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm299/chefricochet/mechanicwht.gif "I know it's just a flat tire, but this new ecm will make it better"

[Silken-Akira]

for a casual player like myself I can only applaud this.

[B0ltdrag0n]

4 Alts at cap

Impossible Demands, Graveyard, Rusty Blades, Death Undone + one other short quest. Total time of less than 1.5 hours.

5 quests x 4 toons = 20 = 40 heart seeds. in 6 hours. Doesn't seem so hard really.

[Ytteri]

It's about time something like this was implemented. Is it completely unrealistic to ask for this to be added to u22?

[unbongwah]

I still strongly dislike the fact that our end reward lists are overcrowded with stuff we "need"
Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I prefer it when we're offered multiple attractive end-reward options. It means I actually have to think a little about what I want, rather than always double-clicking on the only "right" choice.

[Mithis]

I like this idea.

Do not tie the number rewarded to difficulty in away. Two per run regardless of difficulty is perfect.

[Wizza]

Their solution is much better because it addresses the problem EN and EH players face with lower com drops.

So much wrong. If you can't get 2600-2800 CoVs (which would be my number) from 20 to 28 then I've no idea what you are doing. I'd much rather get my CoVs while eTRing (WHICH WAS THEIR PREMISE WHEN THEY ADDED eTR) rather than sitting at cap farming short quests for 6 hours.

[Fedora1]

I like this idea.

Do not tie the number rewarded to difficulty in away. Two per run regardless of difficulty is perfect.

Exactly.

If I ran all EN it already took me longer to get to cap than someone who ran all EH or EE. Once at cap run 21 quests and let me ER.

[Derana]

Awesomesauce :) I can finally pick up favor again o/ :D

[axel15810]

WeFor example, we could reward Elite over Normal, or reward high level quests over low level quests. But that's already true for Commendations of Valor, and this is intended as an extra aid for players who have hit the level cap and are in a rush to Reincarnate, yet haven't earned enough Commendations of Valor along the way.



I've been a long proponent of making earning hearts something to be done at cap. So I do like the change, but have a few concerns. Notably about the above comments.

You need to reward players for running higher difficulties. You need to give more seeds for higher difficulties, this is very important. If you don't, it just turns this process into a boring, unchallenging experience. We need options, more options are always good. Multiple ways to accomplish a goal keeps players interested. With your proposal you are effectively encouraging capped characters to run epic normal, which is much too easy for capped characters. It will make this process a chore instead of a continuation of enjoying the content at the level of challenge that is intended for capped characters.

I'd recommend 0-1 seed for epic normal, 1d2 seeds for epic hard, and 1d2 +1 seeds for epic elite.

And while you're right, favoring higher difficulties is already true for commendations of valor, that point is not relevant since heart seeds wil now completely override commendations of valor in the end reward list for capped characters. Essentially there may as well not be commendations of valor in the end reward list for capped characters since they will always be a much less appealing option than selecting the heart seeds. Heck you could make each epic elite quest for capped characters give out 199 commendations of valor each, but it still wouldn't matter if you're alternatively offering 2 heart seeds per quest which is the same as 200 commendations of valor for purposes of obtaining hearts of wood.

[LeoLionxxx]

It's about time something like this was implemented. Is it completely unrealistic to ask for this to be added to u22?

Not with it coming out tomorrow, but lets all keep our fingers crossed for a patch soon after!


2 per every quest does seem a little high though. I would suggest 1 for normal, 1D2 for hard, and 2 for Elites. This would make elites still more appealing, but not too much so.

[silinteresting]

We've been looking for ways to improve the experience of earning Epic and Iconic Hearts of Wood. After several rounds of iteration with the Player's Council, this is the direction we're moving towards. (This would come some time after Update 22.)

While your character is at level cap, completing epic quests adds 2 Heart Seeds into the End Reward list for that quest. This only applies to quests where Commendations of Valor already show up, including Epic Quests, on Normal, Hard, or Elite, that aren't ransacked.

Some notes and explanations:


Reminder that you can turn 100 Bind-to-Character Commendations of Valor into 1 Bind-to-Account Heart Seed, and can turn in 42 Heart Seeds into either an Epic Heart of Wood or Iconic True Heart of Wood.
You'll continue to see Commendations of Valor in End Reward lists upon reaching level cap. This doesn't replace Commendations, but adds an additional End Reward choice.
This intentionally doesn’t affect Thunderforged Crafting or other existing or future uses of Commendations of Valor, only Reincarnation.
This doesn’t touch the current amounts players earn in any way. The players currently earninga full heart (or more) while they level up can keep doing that.


We considered more complicated ideas, but we're not sure it’s necessary for the goal we’re trying to achieve, and this is an otherwise simple solution. For example, we could reward Elite over Normal, or reward high level quests over low level quests. But that's already true for Commendations of Valor, and this is intended as an extra aid for players who have hit the level cap and are in a rush to Reincarnate, yet haven't earned enough Commendations of Valor along the way.

We're also aware some players might decide to only farm for Reincarnation at cap, and take other rewards while leveling up. If this partially devalues Commendations of Valor so other end-reward options feel like more viable choices, that's perhaps not inherently bad.

As we realize Hearts of Wood are important to many of our players, we'd like to hear your feedback.

wow, i had to read this 3 times to make sure what i was reading was correct.
with update 22 tomoz and epic necro coming and changes to paladin and everything else
may i say thankyou,wow

your friend sil :)

[Seikojin]

I like this idea for all the reasons Varg has stated....lets people take other rewards and helps casual players achieve a goal at the same pace as the not casual players.

I do however have some questions:

1. Will we see this before level cap hits 30?
2. Any reason why this couldn't have been added to U22? Personally I would think that tweaking the end reward lists might be fairly straight forward.

Thanks!

Most likely, since there are three updates before the end of the year (I believe) and a long time in the world of the internet is a day. :) So I think it will be in before cap increase.
I think timetables are the reason for later than U22. Also hidden loot bugs like how abbots loot was bad for those months after table changes were made (to somewhere not related to the abbot iirc). Either way, bugs.

If it was 2 seeds per run, at cap, you would see an etr heart every day from etr farmers. They would grind out the hearts, then spend the rest of the time etring, capping during timer, and repeating. For the casual players, this would be 8 seeds per day, so less than the time it would take to get a tr heart with the same level of casualness.
I think 1 seed per run would be more in line with TR heart pace. High speed players would get the heart every few days, and casual players would need a bit more time, but not months. It would be just a little longer than getting a tr heart.

My mindset of what to grind comes from the low hanging quests for even the gimpiest of toons. So you have von 3, 4, spies, and devils assault. You can easy handle wiz king and probably a few more, but taking the least to make an extreme example of laziness helps make my point.

With the 2 per, each day would yield 8 seeds, and up to 2 tokens for tring at the same time. 6 game days, can = etr and 12 tokens for heroic tring. I think etr should be at least as slow as heroic tring.

With 1 per run, each day would yield 4 seeds and up to 2 tokens for htr. 11 game days = 44 seeds and 22 tokens. More equality.

[Fedora1]

So much wrong. If you can't get 2600-2800 CoVs (which would be my number) from 20 to 28 then I've no idea what you are doing.

How many COVs would one get running everything on EN? With occasional EH? Not only does it take a lot longer to get to cap, but you got less covs once you get there.

Rewards for running everything EH or EE are getting more covs and getting to cap faster. Once anyone reaches cap I think running 21 quests to get a heart is fair. Very similar to the L20 TR system.

[niehues]

Very nice.. i like it..

u can get to cap without worry too much about your play stile.. do and enjoy a some end game and TR or ETR in not much time in case u feel u dont wanna be stuck on lv28

[Ivan_Milic]

4 Alts at cap

Impossible Demands, Graveyard, Rusty Blades, Death Undone + one other short quest. Total time of less than 1.5 hours.

5 quests x 4 toons = 20 = 40 heart seeds. in 6 hours. Doesn't seem so hard really.

Can do those 5 quests in 20 min.
So epic heart in 1h. lol

[TrinityTurtle]

2. Any reason why this couldn't have been added to U22? Personally I would think that tweaking the end reward lists might be fairly straight forward.

Thanks!

My personal guess is because literally we were all still going at this topic like mad badgers til a few days ago when they managed to shut us all up with something we could all agree on. :)

That's not a lot of time to write the code and look for exploits. We as a playerbase can't both complain "why can't this come out now" and then turn around "They should have had this perfect and unexploitable before it went live" at the same time. Well, literally we can, but it's not exactly ethical. Give them some time to sort the techy side out I think.

[Fedora1]

That's not a lot of time to write the code and look for exploits. We as a playerbase can't both complain "why can't this come out now" and then turn around "They should have had this perfect and unexploitable before it went live" at the same time.

Bah. Spoil sport. :p

[Grosbeak07]

It looks like a good idea, no great idea, BUT.....

Right now, not in the future, right now, drop the required 4200 to something around 3500.

Why? People are having a hard time getting 4200. Sure there are people that don't mind the time-sinc, and running everything within the optimum parameters, but that is not the majority of players.

Just fix what's in place with lowering the requirement.



The proposal is nice, but until then lower the requirement please.

There really is no issue running EH (not unreasonable) from 20 to 28 and you get enough commendations. The problem is players, prefer to run VoN 3 and Wiz King etc. daily for their xp, but they yield 1/3 of the Commendations doing something like Haunted Halls.

I like the proposal, takes the pressure off having to collect Commendations while leveling and if you are short, you can run a bit at cap and achieve it fairly quickly, even if you are time restricted.

[Chaimberland]

This is a great idea. It shows a willingness to compromise. Those of you complaining that it should be 1 seed or 1 seed for EN, 2 for EH & 3 for EE need to stop. Lets show that we are also willing to compromise. It's a simple solution and it works. Just like farming EDA & EVoN for tokens to heroic reincarnate. Its perfect, just the right amount of questing to earn ETR & ITR.

Good job devs and player's council.

[Vargouille]

My personal guess is because literally we were all still going at this topic like mad badgers til a few days ago when they managed to shut us all up with something we could all agree on. :)

That's not a lot of time to write the code and look for exploits. We as a playerbase can't both complain "why can't this come out now" and then turn around "They should have had this perfect and unexploitable before it went live" at the same time. Well, literally we can, but it's not exactly ethical. Give them some time to sort the techy side out I think.

In addition, we also wanted feedback from all players, not just the Player's Council, which takes at least a couple more days. And we want to give players who don't necessarily check every day time to pipe in (for both the Council and the public at large), so a couple of days is on the shorter side we'd even consider.

Basically, there's absolutely no way this makes U22. We proposed several other things that could have gone live earlier, but they didn't sufficiently solve the problem to our and the Player's Council satisfaction. And, of course, we're still taking feedback from you guys which could change the design.

[UurlockYgmeov]

We've been looking for ways to improve the experience of earning Epic and Iconic Hearts of Wood. After several rounds of iteration with the Player's Council, this is the direction we're moving towards. (This would come some time after Update 22.)

While your character is at level cap, completing epic quests adds 2 Heart Seeds into the End Reward list for that quest. This only applies to quests where Commendations of Valor already show up, including Epic Quests, on Normal, Hard, or Elite, that aren't ransacked.

+1 Communication
+1 PC for yelling loud enough and long enough.
+1 I want my MTV
+1 just for the heck of it.

Agree - this is very much like the original system of run 20(ish) epic dungeons and earn a true druidic heart of wood.

Excellent approach and let's get it done. now. as in Update 22 patch 1.

:D

On another side - make the VC's fall like challenge mats when xp falls instead of end rewards. The amount of renown generated by my guild has dropped like an lightning bolt heading toward the nearest ground since this change.

[Lifespawn]

Not with it coming out tomorrow, but lets all keep our fingers crossed for a patch soon after!


2 per every quest does seem a little high though. I would suggest 1 for normal, 1D2 for hard, and 2 for Elites. This would make elites still more appealing, but not too much so.

Big proponent here of doing something with the current system and I have to agree that I like your proposal better than the 2 no matter the difficulty but honestly won't mind either way.

I will again be able to level and enjoy a Wide range of epics and having to spend a little extra time at cap to be able to run how I want is perfectly fine with me.

[Grimlock]

This is a good step in the right direction. Now fix the restriction on Lesser Reincarnation class levels and we will be okay on this topic.

[alancarp]

I've been pretty vocal about my disagreement with the previous CoV system, and, while I love this change, I think it might be a bit much, a single seed per quest at cap would be enough for me. (Also long as the non-cap CoV drops stay the same of course)... But thanks a lot for finally addressing the issue. :)


I agree on all points, including my prior complaints (which is evident from my current sig... that may actually change now :) ).

2 seeds per Epic quest could generate an EHoW in a single weekend (night?) without any trouble at all, frankly. Especially given that you may have already accumulated 1500 or so Comms of Valor without trying too hard by that point (my morninglord is at 1600+/- at level 27; the pally is at 1800 +/- at level 28... where he's been practically since level 28 was introduced).

Yeah: I would be perfectly fine with 1... Heck, that's the equivalent of 100 Comms right there... and since they'd be available on ANY Epic quest, that's really fairly routine.

>> This would also resolve another problem I see: the game is currently too 'top-heavy'. We need more players grinding the lower levels, even the 20-25 range. That would help groups a lot. Supporting quicker ETR would help that, imho.

[SirShen]

This is great news.

[Oxarhamar]

If you made it so easy, why don't you remove hearts?
Effect is the same.

Pretty much.

Just take Epic & Iconic hearts out of the store.

Guess they decided they squeezed all they could out of that and on to the next?

[Enoach]

I applaud you folks for taking this direction - 2 Seeds per quest once at CAP is very generous.


I look forward to this change.

[ArcaneArcher52689]

In addition, we also wanted feedback from all players, not just the Player's Council, which takes at least a couple more days. And we want to give players who don't necessarily check every day time to pipe in (for both the Council and the public at large), so a couple of days is on the shorter side we'd even consider.

Basically, there's absolutely no way this makes U22. We proposed several other things that could have gone live earlier, but they didn't sufficiently solve the problem to our and the Player's Council satisfaction. And, of course, we're still taking feedback from you guys which could change the design.

Thank you.

[Grimlock]

In addition, we also wanted feedback from all players, not just the Player's Council, which takes at least a couple more days. And we want to give players who don't necessarily check every day time to pipe in (for both the Council and the public at large), so a couple of days is on the shorter side we'd even consider.

Basically, there's absolutely no way this makes U22. We proposed several other things that could have gone live earlier, but they didn't sufficiently solve the problem to our and the Player's Council satisfaction. And, of course, we're still taking feedback from you guys which could change the design.

Copy your logic for adding Comms to the loot tables of epic quests and draw upon the unique Item Id# you gave to these 2 seeds and boom - you are good. Unless you are in a blackout period for U22, then I would suggest doing this as a patch in a week or two from now with your U22.1 fixes.

[B0ltdrag0n]

So much wrong. If you can't get 2600-2800 CoVs (which would be my number) from 20 to 28 then I've no idea what you are doing. I'd much rather get my CoVs while eTRing (WHICH WAS THEIR PREMISE WHEN THEY ADDED eTR) rather than sitting at cap farming short quests for 6 hours.


If you could get a heart for 2800 COV's then this point would make more sense.

[erystelle1972]

I am happy with this. I was not going to do the grind. I play... a lot... but the grind is not fun for me. I did not expect to even do many of them because it would not be fun. This allows the covs to be relevant and the ones I have useful. Just change them into seeds or use them for crafting. while I am at cap, I can have the choices of taking rewards or covs without feeling I was going to be shorted. I just might do some grinding after all. Well done with this.

[slarden]

So much wrong. If you can't get 2600-2800 CoVs (which would be my number) from 20 to 28 then I've no idea what you are doing. I'd much rather get my CoVs while eTRing (WHICH WAS THEIR PREMISE WHEN THEY ADDED eTR) rather than sitting at cap farming short quests for 6 hours.

Nonsense You complained you can't get enough running all EE. Someone running EN is getting 1/3 of what I get running EE. If it's not a problem for them to get 2800 covs it shouldn't be a problem for you to get 8400 per lfie since you get triple the COVs someone running EE vs what someone running EN gets. And yet you somehow manage to complain that it is hard to get 4200 covs running all EE. Your claim makes no sense and your numbers make even less sense.

As for me, I have over 30k covs sitting in the bank partially from farming high level EEs when there were COV bonus events and partially from staying at cap for some time.

[Psiandron]

We've been looking for ways to improve the experience of earning Epic and Iconic Hearts of Wood. After several rounds of iteration with the Player's Council, this is the direction we're moving towards. (This would come some time after Update 22.)

While your character is at level cap, completing epic quests adds 2 Heart Seeds into the End Reward list for that quest. This only applies to quests where Commendations of Valor already show up, including Epic Quests, on Normal, Hard, or Elite, that aren't ransacked.

Some notes and explanations:


Reminder that you can turn 100 Bind-to-Character Commendations of Valor into 1 Bind-to-Account Heart Seed, and can turn in 42 Heart Seeds into either an Epic Heart of Wood or Iconic True Heart of Wood.
You'll continue to see Commendations of Valor in End Reward lists upon reaching level cap. This doesn't replace Commendations, but adds an additional End Reward choice.
This intentionally doesn’t affect Thunderforged Crafting or other existing or future uses of Commendations of Valor, only Reincarnation.
This doesn’t touch the current amounts players earn in any way. The players currently earninga full heart (or more) while they level up can keep doing that.


We considered more complicated ideas, but we're not sure it’s necessary for the goal we’re trying to achieve, and this is an otherwise simple solution. For example, we could reward Elite over Normal, or reward high level quests over low level quests. But that's already true for Commendations of Valor, and this is intended as an extra aid for players who have hit the level cap and are in a rush to Reincarnate, yet haven't earned enough Commendations of Valor along the way.

We're also aware some players might decide to only farm for Reincarnation at cap, and take other rewards while leveling up. If this partially devalues Commendations of Valor so other end-reward options feel like more viable choices, that's perhaps not inherently bad.

As we realize Hearts of Wood are important to many of our players, we'd like to hear your feedback.


Especially in light of the broader usefulness of CoVs that Thunderholme brought to the game, this seems a fairly elegant solution to the question of how to earn epic and iconic hearts. Gratz and +1 :)

[Ravand]

Great idea. Thank you for coming up with this.

[Grace_ana]

This is fantastic news.

[Drwaz99]

Good compromise and glad you finally came to the realization something was off. Too bad it took 7 months and a lot of angry folks, some of who left the game for good.

I would say let's try to learn from this but, yeah. Not going to hold my breath.

[Lanadazia]

this is a very nice idea!
more like the old TR way, where you get a token or fragments out of each epic chest.
i'd rather put double the ammount of CoVs as endreward with a chance for 1 heart seed, maybe 2 heartseeds for epic elite high lvl quests like haunted halls or brothers of the forge

if you put it like this, also please add a mechanism for players who had to turn in CoVs for heart seeds due to a lack of bag space
i'd rather stay on cap and get my epic heart of wood done, instead of crunching my CoVs, since you need those for crafting too
this would be a lifetime feature, not neccessary though, but i'd still wanted my CoVs back since i have alot of raid gear planned! :-)

[CaptainSpacePony]

I see no game breaking issues with this suggestion.

[patang01]

While your character is at level cap, completing epic quests adds 2 Heart Seeds into the End Reward list for that quest. This only applies to quests where Commendations of Valor already show up, including Epic Quests, on Normal, Hard, or Elite, that aren't ransacked.

Excellent choice

[jalont]

You know what would be easier?

LOWERING THE REQUIRED NUMBERS OF COMMENDATIONS OF VALOR TO GET AN EPIC HEART.


You don't need any complicated idea. Actually, you keep going for the complicated ones. First you put CoVs in Epic boxes. Now this. JUST LOWER THE NUMBER ALREADY.

Only casuals have a problem collecting the Comms now, and your suggestion does nothing to help those casuals.

[patang01]

I would suggest making it 1 Seed for EN, 2 Seeds for EH, and 3 Seeds for EE. It gives vets an incentive to do EE quests at level cap without unduly punishing those who run EN/EH instead. Helps that 42 is divisible by both 2 and 3. :)

As it was explained, there's already an incentive built into running things on higher diff for Valor. Personally this sounds good to me. It's a balance between those that run mostly at cap and to those that EE everything up until cap and then ETR right away.

[Zzevel]

Their solution is much better because it addresses the problem EN and EH players face with lower com drops.


And they have previously said 'Other' things will become availible for trade in for comms. Id hope we see some LR+ type options available for coms/seeds. Seeds for the TR's, comms for the rest of us. I'd run 50 epics for 100 seeds for an LR+20 :P

[-Zephyr-]

I like this proposed idea. I'd like it even more if playing elite had 3 seeds, but I guess that's asking too much now eh?

[Turbosilk]

I like this idea for all the reasons Varg has stated....lets people take other rewards and helps casual players achieve a goal at the same pace as the not casual players.

I do however have some questions:

1. Will we see this before level cap hits 30?
2. Any reason why this couldn't have been added to U22? Personally I would think that tweaking the end reward lists might be fairly straight forward.

Thanks!

The term "casual" player keeps getting thrown around with authority yet no one can agree on what it means. 99% of the population thinks they are casual and there are no regular players.

[Turbosilk]

Their solution is much better because it addresses the problem EN and EH players face with lower com drops.

The issue is the players running EN don't deserve to accumulate anything towards a heart. Hearts were supposed to be an achievement not a participation award.

[blackdae]

The issue is the players running EN don't deserve to accumulate anything towards a heart. Hearts were supposed to be an achievement not a participation award.

We should also hit "the players running EN" with a stick and kill their pets and blow their ships.. possibly also cancel their account..

They only deserve to suffer, and suffer.. and suffer.

[silinteresting]

The issue is the players running EN don't deserve to accumulate anything towards a heart. Hearts were supposed to be an achievement not a participation award.

ouch.

your friend sil :)

[HatsuharuZ]

2 heart seeds = 200 CoVs.

This works~

[jalont]

The issue is the players running EN don't deserve to accumulate anything towards a heart. Hearts were supposed to be an achievement not a participation award.

I agree that it should be that way, but I don't think Turbine ever meant it to be that way and I'm not sure why you think they did.

Casuals got their way, and they are now given an epic tr without any work.

Fine, now on to the next complaint about how something is too difficult. Casuals now run this game, and they have for a long time. I'd just get over it because it won't be changing.

[Ivan_Milic]

I can bet they will implement this when lvl cap goes up to 30 and you will need 10m xp to cap.
Then casuals will start complaining that it takes too much xp to cap.
It never ends.

[blackdae]

Casuals now run this game, and they have for a long time. I'd just get over it because it won't be changing.

Totally, yeah!
We should ban all the people that can't play 16 hours a day.. They're clearly here to ruin everyone else's game!

-.-

[Turbosilk]

I agree that it should be that way, but I don't think Turbine ever meant it to be that way and I'm not sure why you think they did.

Casuals got their way, and they are now given an epic tr without any work.

Fine, now on to the next complaint about how something is too difficult. Casuals now run this game, and they have for a long time. I'd just get over it because it won't be changing.

I play between 5 and 12 hours a week. Few agree on what a casual, regular, and hardcore player is. I have to stick to my statement that 99% of the population thinks they are casual. Real casual players care little about TR/eTR and even less with how fast they level.

[axel15810]

I agree that it should be that way, but I don't think Turbine ever meant it to be that way and I'm not sure why you think they did.

Casuals got their way, and they are now given an epic tr without any work.

Fine, now on to the next complaint about how something is too difficult. Casuals now run this game, and they have for a long time. I'd just get over it because it won't be changing.

Dude, no. Rethink what you just posted.

This change does not make the game any easier. All it is doing is reducing the grind, AKA repetitiveness involved in the reincarnation system. This is a good thing. Less time mindlessly grinding, more time doing what we want in game.

[Thumbed_Servant]

Sounds like a good idea to help those players with less time to play the game, you know, people with LIVES outside of ddo. They can get hearts of wood for epic tr and go about enjoying the epic game more, and we as a player base KEEP more players playing ddo. Maybe I'm wrong, but I imagine that loss of players once they hit cap is a prime motivator for this and I think we can all agree that keeping more players playing the game is a win for everyone. And yeah, I'd like to not HAVE to take Commendations of Valor from every epic end reward list; I want that guild renown :)

[Sardonica]

Speaking as someone who has been very skeptical of the attractiveness of Epic Reincarnation from the get-go, I think this proposal is more than generous. With sagas available tomorrow, and faster way to earn heart seeds at cap (hopefully?) soon to follow, we may just see more players back in the game. And we want that!

[viktorserak]

We've been looking for ways to improve the experience of earning Epic and Iconic Hearts of Wood. After several rounds of iteration with the Player's Council, this is the direction we're moving towards. (This would come some time after Update 22.)

While your character is at level cap, completing epic quests adds 2 Heart Seeds into the End Reward list for that quest. This only applies to quests where Commendations of Valor already show up, including Epic Quests, on Normal, Hard, or Elite, that aren't ransacked.

Some notes and explanations:


Reminder that you can turn 100 Bind-to-Character Commendations of Valor into 1 Bind-to-Account Heart Seed, and can turn in 42 Heart Seeds into either an Epic Heart of Wood or Iconic True Heart of Wood.
You'll continue to see Commendations of Valor in End Reward lists upon reaching level cap. This doesn't replace Commendations, but adds an additional End Reward choice.
This intentionally doesn’t affect Thunderforged Crafting or other existing or future uses of Commendations of Valor, only Reincarnation.
This doesn’t touch the current amounts players earn in any way. The players currently earninga full heart (or more) while they level up can keep doing that.


We considered more complicated ideas, but we're not sure it’s necessary for the goal we’re trying to achieve, and this is an otherwise simple solution. For example, we could reward Elite over Normal, or reward high level quests over low level quests. But that's already true for Commendations of Valor, and this is intended as an extra aid for players who have hit the level cap and are in a rush to Reincarnate, yet haven't earned enough Commendations of Valor along the way.

We're also aware some players might decide to only farm for Reincarnation at cap, and take other rewards while leveling up. If this partially devalues Commendations of Valor so other end-reward options feel like more viable choices, that's perhaps not inherently bad.

As we realize Hearts of Wood are important to many of our players, we'd like to hear your feedback.


Wow.


thanks


Really. This is big. thanks.


P.S. Are you thinking about lowering the price of said hearts in the store? I doubt anyone will buy them for current price after this, but if you lower it singnificantly, it may become sought-after product...

[Turbosilk]

Speaking as someone who has been very skeptical of the attractiveness of Epic Reincarnation from the get-go, I think this proposal is more than generous. With sagas available tomorrow, and faster way to earn heart seeds at cap (hopefully?) soon to follow, we may just see more players back in the game. And we want that!

Endless TRs keep players wanting to play? I'm going to have to channel some Chai here and state content brings people in and keeps them. Not an endless hamster wheel of TRs.

[pHo3nix]

Dude, no. Rethink what you just posted.

This change does not make the game any easier. All it is doing is reducing the grind, AKA repetitiveness involved in the reincarnation system. This is a good thing. Less time mindlessly grinding, more time doing what we want in game.

It would be better if the difficulty had some impact on how many seeds you got. Who the hell is going to run 21 quests on EE when they can run 21 quests on EN and get the same reward?

Anyway this is a step in the right direction and it will probably make iconics more appealing as well, cause TRing them won't be a pain anymore :)

[bbqzor]

While your character is at level cap, completing epic quests adds 2 Heart Seeds into the End Reward list for that quest. This only applies to quests where Commendations of Valor already show up, including Epic Quests, on Normal, Hard, or Elite, that aren't ransacked.
...
We're also aware some players might decide to only farm for Reincarnation at cap, and take other rewards while leveling up. If this partially devalues Commendations of Valor so other end-reward options feel like more viable choices, that's perhaps not inherently bad.

This. This is a good thing. Thanks for a good solution to many issues people had with the system. I agree with, and am satisfied with, this solution and the logic behind it. Yay.

[Vellrad]

As it was explained, there's already an incentive built into running things on higher diff for Valor. Personally this sounds good to me. It's a balance between those that run mostly at cap and to those that EE everything up until cap and then ETR right away.

No.

This removes any reason to run anything on elite.
Gone.

The best way now is to zerg EH wizking, spies, OOB, von3, von5 and ID, then repeat at normal, then zerg 21 easy EN quests at cap.

Running EE is worthless waste of time, because EH/EN is more rewarding.

[maddmatt70]

Yeah I would say too big of a nerf bat. No reason to have hearts of wood anymore. Somebody runs 21 quick epic normal quest at cap which do not take much time to complete and they got it. Not sure why you had hearts to begin with, but this change will totally take them out of the equation.

[maddmatt70]

In addition, we also wanted feedback from all players, not just the Player's Council, which takes at least a couple more days. And we want to give players who don't necessarily check every day time to pipe in (for both the Council and the public at large), so a couple of days is on the shorter side we'd even consider.

Basically, there's absolutely no way this makes U22. We proposed several other things that could have gone live earlier, but they didn't sufficiently solve the problem to our and the Player's Council satisfaction. And, of course, we're still taking feedback from you guys which could change the design.

Epic elite is once again totally devalued. No reason to run quests on epic elite again.

[Qhualor]

We've been looking for ways to improve the experience of earning Epic and Iconic Hearts of Wood. After several rounds of iteration with the Player's Council, this is the direction we're moving towards. (This would come some time after Update 22.)

While your character is at level cap, completing epic quests adds 2 Heart Seeds into the End Reward list for that quest. This only applies to quests where Commendations of Valor already show up, including Epic Quests, on Normal, Hard, or Elite, that aren't ransacked.

Some notes and explanations:


Reminder that you can turn 100 Bind-to-Character Commendations of Valor into 1 Bind-to-Account Heart Seed, and can turn in 42 Heart Seeds into either an Epic Heart of Wood or Iconic True Heart of Wood.
You'll continue to see Commendations of Valor in End Reward lists upon reaching level cap. This doesn't replace Commendations, but adds an additional End Reward choice.
This intentionally doesn’t affect Thunderforged Crafting or other existing or future uses of Commendations of Valor, only Reincarnation.
This doesn’t touch the current amounts players earn in any way. The players currently earninga full heart (or more) while they level up can keep doing that.


We considered more complicated ideas, but we're not sure it’s necessary for the goal we’re trying to achieve, and this is an otherwise simple solution. For example, we could reward Elite over Normal, or reward high level quests over low level quests. But that's already true for Commendations of Valor, and this is intended as an extra aid for players who have hit the level cap and are in a rush to Reincarnate, yet haven't earned enough Commendations of Valor along the way.

We're also aware some players might decide to only farm for Reincarnation at cap, and take other rewards while leveling up. If this partially devalues Commendations of Valor so other end-reward options feel like more viable choices, that's perhaps not inherently bad.

As we realize Hearts of Wood are important to many of our players, we'd like to hear your feedback.

Are you sure about this? I mean, its basically just like when you reach 20 and take a few days to farm 20 tokens. Its great that I can actually choose loot and renown over Comms, but you are practically giving the heart away. I assume this would help Turbine selling Otto's boxes and xp pots where, right now, leveling too fast and xp works against you trying to achieve at least most of the 4200? There must be some upcoming reasons besides upgrading raid gear and pots eventually coming to spend Comms on? Because we will go from coming up short by level 28 for a lot of us to having more than what we know what to do with them.

I've been making this suggestion in other threads lately, but going through with this new change would make sense now to actually phase out tokens. We should now start spending Comms on heroic hearts of wood and retire Lahar. Make the cost about the same as what it would cost 20 tokens and do a change to challenge turn ins. Offer us a way to trade tokens in for Comms of equal value.

[EllisDee37]

I don't understand the logic of this, though if it goes live my in-game experience will certainly be improved.

If you want to make it that running 21 quests gives you a heart, why not just lower the heart prices to 2500 like you should have done when you introduced the system? Then you don't need to add seeds to the end reward lists at all.

[Qhualor]

Epic elite is once again totally devalued. No reason to run quests on epic elite again.

This too. Less incentive to run EE.

[B0ltdrag0n]

No.

This removes any reason to run anything on elite.
Gone.

The best way now is to zerg EH wizking, spies, OOB, von3, von5 and ID, then repeat at normal, then zerg 21 easy EN quests at cap.

Running EE is worthless waste of time, because EH/EN is more rewarding.


Your run difficult things to be challenged. Not for better stuff. If the challenge isn't enough for you, or you don't feel challenged then limit yourself in other ways.

[Raiderone]

In addition, we also wanted feedback from all players, not just the Player's Council, which takes at least a couple more days. And we want to give players who don't necessarily check every day time to pipe in (for both the Council and the public at large), so a couple of days is on the shorter side we'd even consider.

Basically, there's absolutely no way this makes U22. We proposed several other things that could have gone live earlier, but they didn't sufficiently solve the problem to our and the Player's Council satisfaction. And, of course, we're still taking feedback from you guys which could change the design.

Seems like a fair change. Reduces the grind. I always felt Epic Hearts of Wood should have been like Hearts of Wood (ie only 20).

[B0ltdrag0n]

Yeah I would say too big of a nerf bat. No reason to have hearts of wood anymore. Somebody runs 21 quick epic normal quest at cap which do not take much time to complete and they got it. Not sure why you had hearts to begin with, but this change will totally take them out of the equation.


My eyes can only roll so far into the back of my head with this hyperbole. This is no different a scenario when we ground/grind for tokens for regular TR's. In fact it is a bit easier as you ear coms from 20-28...however the fact that it can be done quickly (after capping is done) is no different than the situation with regular hearts of wood, then, now, forever.

[niehues]

No.

This removes any reason to run anything on elite.
Gone.

The best way now is to zerg EH wizking, spies, OOB, von3, von5 and ID, then repeat at normal, then zerg 21 easy EN quests at cap.

Running EE is worthless waste of time, because EH/EN is more rewarding.

Im sorry.. i play for fun... and when i do EE is because of the fun it gives.. not for 10-15 extra covs at the end.. (yeah it is faster to run the quests u said on EH than 2 of them on EE some times)

once again fun is the biggest reward u can have by playing a game.. if u dont feel pleasure playing.. why bother..

they are doing this to help some ppl and it seems really good...

its possible to today to dont even bother with any diff what so ever if u buy the heart from the store.. and that in terms also breaks your theory

..

[darkly_dreaming]

Thank you, and good job listening to feedback from the players. I do think that 2 heart seeds per quest is perhaps a bit high, 1 would have been fine and 2 on elite - but I'm not going to complain.

[Atremus]

Please put this into the game ASAP

[Vellrad]

Your run difficult things to be challenged. Not for better stuff. If the challenge isn't enough for you, or you don't feel challenged then limit yourself in other ways.

You run challenge ONCE
After you know you can do it, there is no more challenge in content.

[axel15810]

It would be better if the difficulty had some impact on how many seeds you got. Who the hell is going to run 21 quests on EE when they can run 21 quests on EN and get the same reward?



I completely agree, I wrote a few paragraphs addressing this in my first post in this thread.

Higher difficulties need to drop more heart seeds than lower difficuties. If it doesn't, this simply becomes dead time in game and they may as well just give us a heart since we won't have any reason to play at an appropriate difficulty level for our character - AKA no reason to play the game as it was intended to be played. It would ensure that multiple playstyles would be rewarded, instead of just one.

[Ivan_Milic]

Are you sure about this? I mean, its basically just like when you reach 20 and take a few days to farm 20 tokens. Its great that I can actually choose loot and renown over Comms, but you are practically giving the heart away. I assume this would help Turbine selling Otto's boxes and xp pots where, right now, leveling too fast and xp works against you trying to achieve at least most of the 4200? There must be some upcoming reasons besides upgrading raid gear and pots eventually coming to spend Comms on? Because we will go from coming up short by level 28 for a lot of us to having more than what we know what to do with them.

I've been making this suggestion in other threads lately, but going through with this new change would make sense now to actually phase out tokens. We should now start spending Comms on heroic hearts of wood and retire Lahar. Make the cost about the same as what it would cost 20 tokens and do a change to challenge turn ins. Offer us a way to trade tokens in for Comms of equal value.

They are doing this because cap will be 30, and you will need 10 m xp to get there, do you think casuals will etr when you need 10m xp just to get to 30?

[Vindraxx]

I don't understand the logic of this, though if it goes live my in-game experience will certainly be improved.

If you want to make it that running 21 quests gives you a heart, why not just lower the heart prices to 2500 like you should have done when you introduced the system? Then you don't need to add seeds to the end reward lists at all.

Because this now gives players an option of not having to take CoV's every quest during their way to cap. It gives players a choice to take more CoV's and run less (or potentially zero) dungeons at cap to have to get their heart. OR they can run take significantly fewer CoV's on the way to cap and then run more dungeons to get their heart seeds. This change leaves the that choice in the hands of the player, lowering the price does not.

I like this solution, +1 to the devs.

[Livmo]

It sounds good to me.

I don't TR much (maybe why I have such a large alt army aside from storage [hoarder] : ) ) Better toons in DDO than cats in RL right?

I'm more focused on fun. I do enjoy EE for the fun and challenge, and prefer to run EE regardles of end rewards and sagas. I don't feel you need a bunch of past lives to enjoy EE from my personal experience. EE can be soloed on first life, although I prefer to PUG.

This change may get me to TR more. I cannot say for sure until I see it in action. I might make an Epic and/or Iconic completionist if this happens. Right now 4200 comms seems grindy and not fun to me for that. I'd rather just make a new toon when I cap.

However, there are folks that like TR'ing and that is fun for them. If you make TR'ing easier it might steal some of the joy from the folks that like TRing.

I can go either way on this.

[Turbosilk]

They are doing this because cap will be 30, and you will need 10 m xp to get there, do you think casuals will etr when you need 10m xp just to get to 30?

They will troll the forums until the exp gets dropped from 10 m to 4 m.

[Turbosilk]

--

[Ivan_Milic]

They will troll the forums until the exp gets dropped from 10 m to 4 m.

Not gonna happen.
Turbine will put packs with high xp quests, along with selling otto boxes.

[maddong]

Awesome.

[jalont]

Dude, no. Rethink what you just posted.

This change does not make the game any easier. All it is doing is reducing the grind, AKA repetitiveness involved in the reincarnation system. This is a good thing. Less time mindlessly grinding, more time doing what we want in game.

No. Run EE and you won't have to grind for coms.

[Bridge_Dweller]

No. Run EE and you won't have to grind for coms.

I guess that's why we lost a ton of people since ETRing was introduced, they found better things to do with their time.

[Desonde]

Amazing changes!

[droid327]

I still don't like that Seeds are BTA...people are just going to farm Seeds on their perma-cap characters for all their alts, and then immediately ETR at cap. You could hit 21 quests in a single play session between 2 or 3 chars without ransacking.

Since it'll be so much easier, with this change especially, to acquire a Heart once you're capped, maybe make Seeds BTC like Comms. I really don't like excessive twinking, or capping a character out on autopilot without really playing it, when your "main" is doing all the work.

[Relem]

Interesting and fair proposal, however one would recommend careful analysis once it is implemented to see how this actually does effect the way people play for one can see that certain quests, and indeed adventure packs, will rarely be visited whilst within epic levels.

[B0ltdrag0n]

You run challenge ONCE
After you know you can do it, there is no more challenge in content.

Then why run it now?
Make it more challenging and do it again
:eye roll:

Seriously your argument is that YOI have no reason to run EE.

[Captain_Wizbang]

No. Run EE and you won't have to grind for coms.

To put the thread back on track......



is an otherwise simple solution......
. If this partially devalues Commendations of Valor so other end-reward options feel like more viable choices, that's perhaps not inherently bad.


Varg As I personally agree with the later, I feel the "simple solution" is off the mark.

No matter what you do will be an improvement over the current set-up.

[axel15810]

No. Run EE and you won't have to grind for coms.

Can't you see that this is the exact problem that is being fixed?

No longer will we be slaves to a CoV grind. We can now level how we wish since we can now farm the required heart seeds at cap in a short time.

Casual players, non-FOTM builds incappable of zerging EE will no longer be punished with a long grind for an epic heart. Remember, this game is for everyone. Not just powergamers. YOU may be able and willing to zerg EE to get a decent CoV drop rate, but this is an unreasonable expectation for the entire playerbase as a whole. Others who can't because they run non-FOTM builds or don't find it fun are the ones suffering.

This is huge improvement.

[Bridge_Dweller]

I still don't like that Seeds are BTA...people are just going to farm Seeds on their perma-cap characters for all their alts, and then immediately ETR at cap. You could hit 21 quests in a single play session between 2 or 3 chars without ransacking.


Please explain to me how this is a problem?

[Turbosilk]

Can't you see that this is the exact problem that is being fixed?

No longer will we be slaves to a CoV grind. We can now level how we wish since we can now farm the required heart seeds at cap in a short time.

Casual players, non-FOTM builds incappable of zerging EE will no longer be punished with a long grind for an epic heart. Remember, this game is for everyone. Not just powergamers. YOU may be able and willing to zerg EE to get a decent CoV drop rate, but this is an unreasonable expectation for the entire playerbase as a whole. Others who can't because they run non-FOTM builds or don't find it fun are the ones suffering.

This is huge improvement.

I didn't know there was any content left for powergamers.

[droid327]

Please explain to me how this is a problem?

I already did, you just clipped it out...


I really don't like excessive twinking, or capping a character out on autopilot without really playing it, when your "main" is doing all the work.

If you want a sorc, play a sorc to cap. Don't just play your monkcher, and then expect your sorc to emerge, Athena-like, fully formed and fully geared at L30 before you've even learned play the class. All that leads to is people who don't know how to play their chars, and people grinding out the same optimal content on their optimized mains...and then Turbine thinks there's no need for anything besides level-cap content because that's all they see people play, and people complain that there's no one playing non-endgame, there's no midgame-level economy, and then they also feel compelled to rush up to 30 just so they can "start playing".

The game should not "start" at endgame, and that's the self-fulfilling prophecy that happens when people overtwink.

[Qhualor]

They are doing this because cap will be 30, and you will need 10 m xp to get there, do you think casuals will etr when you need 10m xp just to get to 30?

This new change makes it quite easy for any play style. You just run any 21 quests on any difficulty and you can get a heart. It won't be about Comms anymore, but about xp just like heroics. Xp in epics is quite plentiful and easier to come by than heroics. Slayer xp alone can easily get you a level in no time. The more boosts you have going, the faster it will be. It takes me twice as long to level a 3rd life character to 20 than it does for me to cap to 28 from 20. Casuals will find it easier to reincarnate now.

[lethargos]

No. Run EE and you won't have to grind for coms.

I dont have a toon capable of that. I need to TR and ETR before i can do that. So i need to grind exp first , then i need to grind tokens and covs.

Except tokens arent that much of a grind and neither will be covs soon.

Im happy with the change. I still need to grind at cap to make enough seeds to go with my coms , but it will be much less that 21 runs at cap

[Ivan_Milic]

Why not give epic heart for reaching lvl cap?

[Bridge_Dweller]

I already did, you just clipped it out...



If you want a sorc, play a sorc to cap. Don't just play your monkcher, and then expect your sorc to emerge, Athena-like, fully formed and fully geared at L30 before you've even learned play the class. All that leads to is people who don't know how to play their chars, and people grinding out the same optimal content on their optimized mains...and then Turbine thinks there's no need for anything besides level-cap content because that's all they see people play, and people complain that there's no one playing non-endgame, there's no midgame-level economy, and then they also feel compelled to rush up to 30 just so they can "start playing".

The game should not "start" at endgame, and that's the self-fulfilling prophecy that happens when people overtwink.

I'm not sure how this makes any sense. You still have to level to 28 don't you? Who cares after that.

[Munkenmo]

In addition, we also wanted feedback from all players, not just the Player's Council, which takes at least a couple more days. And we want to give players who don't necessarily check every day time to pipe in (for both the Council and the public at large), so a couple of days is on the shorter side we'd even consider.

Basically, there's absolutely no way this makes U22. We proposed several other things that could have gone live earlier, but they didn't sufficiently solve the problem to our and the Player's Council satisfaction. And, of course, we're still taking feedback from you guys which could change the design.

Why don't you add Seeds or COV's to the loot tables, in the same manner we used to recieve epic tokens?

Nobody has an issue with COV's, the issue is with how many we need to get a heart, and the method by which we obtain them.

You should be lowering the required amount of COV's to get a heart, and you should add COV's to loot tables.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/442562-Now-that-Guild-Renown-is-relevant-how-about-moving-COV-s-to-chests

[Turbosilk]

Why don't you add Seeds or COV's to the loot tables, in the same manner we used to recieve epic tokens?

Nobody has an issue with COV's, the issue is with how many we need to get a heart, and the method by which we obtain them.

You should be lowering the required amount of COV's to get a heart, and you should add COV's to loot tables.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/442562-Now-that-Guild-Renown-is-relevant-how-about-moving-COV-s-to-chests

The issue has been people want a participation trophy of making level 28 and reducing the comms you need by so much that you automatically get a heart for free. Makes more sense now to do just that.

[rayworks]

We've been looking for ways to improve the experience of earning Epic and Iconic Hearts of Wood. After several rounds of iteration with the Player's Council, this is the direction we're moving towards. (This would come some time after Update 22.)

While your character is at level cap, completing epic quests adds 2 Heart Seeds into the End Reward list for that quest. This only applies to quests where Commendations of Valor already show up, including Epic Quests, on Normal, Hard, or Elite, that aren't ransacked.

Some notes and explanations:


Reminder that you can turn 100 Bind-to-Character Commendations of Valor into 1 Bind-to-Account Heart Seed, and can turn in 42 Heart Seeds into either an Epic Heart of Wood or Iconic True Heart of Wood.
You'll continue to see Commendations of Valor in End Reward lists upon reaching level cap. This doesn't replace Commendations, but adds an additional End Reward choice.
This intentionally doesn’t affect Thunderforged Crafting or other existing or future uses of Commendations of Valor, only Reincarnation.
This doesn’t touch the current amounts players earn in any way. The players currently earninga full heart (or more) while they level up can keep doing that.


We considered more complicated ideas, but we're not sure it’s necessary for the goal we’re trying to achieve, and this is an otherwise simple solution. For example, we could reward Elite over Normal, or reward high level quests over low level quests. But that's already true for Commendations of Valor, and this is intended as an extra aid for players who have hit the level cap and are in a rush to Reincarnate, yet haven't earned enough Commendations of Valor along the way.

We're also aware some players might decide to only farm for Reincarnation at cap, and take other rewards while leveling up. If this partially devalues Commendations of Valor so other end-reward options feel like more viable choices, that's perhaps not inherently bad.

As we realize Hearts of Wood are important to many of our players, we'd like to hear your feedback.

Wanna do right by the players? Put the COVs in the end chest, not the end reward list.

[Vellrad]

Wanna do right by the players? Put the COVs in the end chest, not the end reward list.

This is terrible idea.

By removing cov from end reward list, player will get item or renown, which is worth less than looting 1 chest.
By putting cov in chest, it forces players to have XP pots 24/7, not when taking rewards and running big XP quests after like now.

[hp1055cm]

While your character is at level cap, completing epic quests adds 2 Heart Seeds into the End Reward list for that quest. This only applies to quests where Commendations of Valor already show up, including Epic Quests, on Normal, Hard, or Elite, that aren't ransacked.

As we realize Hearts of Wood are important to many of our players, we'd like to hear your feedback.

I am truly shocked (in a sort of good way). I'd prefer to see a reduction in the number of COVs required for an EHOW to something more reasonable... somewhere around 2400-3200; but adding seeds at level cap is better than the status-quo.
It does kinda' make sense that level-capped players should get some type of bonus towards earning COVs now that you mention it.


I for one don't plan on spending much time at Level cap in the near future so I will be all about earning multiple EHOW for the foreseeable future.

[IronClan]

I think you need more people on the council that don't cave to mob mentality and want to preserve challenges in the game vs rolling over to the mob.

A better proposal would have been at cap: (1) zero seeds for EN runs (2) 1-2 seed for EH runs and (3) 2-3 seeds for EE runs.

So how foolish would you feel if that exact proposal was suggested in the PC thread and you aren't a special snow flake?

[Lifespawn]

The issue has been people want a participation trophy of making level 28 and reducing the comms you need by so much that you automatically get a heart for free. Makes more sense now to do just that.


not true at all this was about people wanting to play other epics other than a specific set this does not hurt you at all you just like being able to say you did so and so etr's and feel superior.

[Arcanegrin]

I've been a long proponent of making earning hearts something to be done at cap. So I do like the change, but have a few concerns. Notably about the above comments.

You need to reward players for running higher difficulties. You need to give more seeds for higher difficulties, this is very important. If you don't, it just turns this process into a boring, unchallenging experience. We need options, more options are always good. Multiple ways to accomplish a goal keeps players interested. With your proposal you are effectively encouraging capped characters to run epic normal, which is much too easy for capped characters. It will make this process a chore instead of a continuation of enjoying the content at the level of challenge that is intended for capped characters.

I'd recommend 0-1 seed for epic normal, 1d2 seeds for epic hard, and 1d2 +1 seeds for epic elite.

And while you're right, favoring higher difficulties is already true for commendations of valor, that point is not relevant since heart seeds wil now completely override commendations of valor in the end reward list for capped characters. Essentially there may as well not be commendations of valor in the end reward list for capped characters since they will always be a much less appealing option than selecting the heart seeds. Heck you could make each epic elite quest for capped characters give out 199 commendations of valor each, but it still wouldn't matter if you're alternatively offering 2 heart seeds per quest which is the same as 200 commendations of valor for purposes of obtaining hearts of wood.

Like Axel said do 0-1 seed for EN, 1d2 for EH, and 1d2+1 for epic elite.

For anyone other then Epic Elite zergers this would mean running around 30 quests on EH. Zerging on EH wouldn't be as worthwhile, but still good enough. Receiving 2 for any difficulty not only dilutes EE, it also will make people want to just zerg through a bunch of quests on EN which sounds very boring at cap. It also gives those casuals who are only playing EN a reason to play EH at cap, which they should be able to do. People playing on EE will receive their seeds much faster and then be able to choose either comms for all their thunderforged weapons, guild renown, or EE item loot which should be the goal anyway from questing.

----

If this is a problem to code just give us 2 seeds. The existing system is terrible.

[HungarianRhapsody]

We've been looking for ways to improve the experience of earning Epic and Iconic Hearts of Wood. After several rounds of iteration with the Player's Council, this is the direction we're moving towards. (This would come some time after Update 22.)

While your character is at level cap, completing epic quests adds 2 Heart Seeds into the End Reward list for that quest. This only applies to quests where Commendations of Valor already show up, including Epic Quests, on Normal, Hard, or Elite, that aren't ransacked.

Some notes and explanations:


Reminder that you can turn 100 Bind-to-Character Commendations of Valor into 1 Bind-to-Account Heart Seed, and can turn in 42 Heart Seeds into either an Epic Heart of Wood or Iconic True Heart of Wood.
You'll continue to see Commendations of Valor in End Reward lists upon reaching level cap. This doesn't replace Commendations, but adds an additional End Reward choice.
This intentionally doesn’t affect Thunderforged Crafting or other existing or future uses of Commendations of Valor, only Reincarnation.
This doesn’t touch the current amounts players earn in any way. The players currently earninga full heart (or more) while they level up can keep doing that.


We considered more complicated ideas, but we're not sure it’s necessary for the goal we’re trying to achieve, and this is an otherwise simple solution. For example, we could reward Elite over Normal, or reward high level quests over low level quests. But that's already true for Commendations of Valor, and this is intended as an extra aid for players who have hit the level cap and are in a rush to Reincarnate, yet haven't earned enough Commendations of Valor along the way.

We're also aware some players might decide to only farm for Reincarnation at cap, and take other rewards while leveling up. If this partially devalues Commendations of Valor so other end-reward options feel like more viable choices, that's perhaps not inherently bad.

As we realize Hearts of Wood are important to many of our players, we'd like to hear your feedback.

I like this. I think this is good.

This solves every problem that I have with the Hearts of Wood and doesn't break anything that I can see.

YAY, TURBINE!

[Turbosilk]

So how foolish would you feel if that exact proposal was suggested in the PC thread and you aren't a special snow flake?

I stated better than the OP post. Left to me the current status quo needs no changes.

[golruul]

This looks like an extremely easy way of getting hearts, similar to the easy way it is to farm tokens for a heroic TR.

I don't agree with it, but fine.

However, in consideration of people that actually buy hearts (I have five left from store purchases), please hold off implementing this for ~6 months or so. This will give us some time to use the hearts that we bought and not feel ripped off.

Also, I hope you have crunched the numbers correctly. Since it'll be extremely easy to get hearts now, I won't be buying them from the store anymore. I'm sure most other heart buyers will feel the same way.

[HungarianRhapsody]

You need to reward players for running higher difficulties. You need to give more seeds for higher difficulties, this is very important. If you don't, it just turns this process into a boring, unchallenging experience.

I do think that rewarding players for running higher difficulties is a Good Thing(tm), but I think that should be where gear (and favor) comes in. Higher drop rates for higher difficulty levels is good.

Dropping 0-1 for Epic Normal seems like a terrible idea.
1 for Normal, 2 for Hard and 3 for Elite wouldn't be a problem for me. But any time you have 0-1 for Normal for something that you have to actively farm, my heart breaks.

[Turbosilk]

not true at all this was about people wanting to play other epics other than a specific set this does not hurt you at all you just like being able to say you did so and so etr's and feel superior.

Didn't you state in another thread that leveling from 20-28 alone should give you a free eTR?

[Vellrad]

CoV were good, because they gave reason to do higher difficulties and higher levels.

Now players that play EN/EH get better rewards than players playing EE.

Its ********.

This game has turned into endless chain of ******** leveling, then deleveling, then releveling, then deleveling again and again.

With CoVs, there was reason to stay at cap to run high level diffucult quests.

Now its gone.

There is no reason to build good character, no reason to improve skill or gear, because EN/EH don't require having skill, gear or decent character, everyone can get past EN/EH. There is no reason to improve, because running EE gives less rewrard than EN.

This change will contribute to degeneration of players, beign thaught that whatever they do they will always complete and get best reward possible.

[Turbosilk]

not true at all this was about people wanting to play other epics other than a specific set this does not hurt you at all you just like being able to say you did so and so etr's and feel superior.

I have no need to feel superior. I have need to feel what I earn is special for the challenge required to earn it. If little to no effort goes into something then it is not special. When there is little to nothing special in a game then it's time to find another game. Which is why WoW lost over 1/3 of its user base in less than a year.

[IronClan]

Please explain to me how this is a problem?

Everyone takes Guild renowned from 20 to 28, guilds reach 150th level in record time, guilds become self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th... or... I don't... I got nothing.

[Lifespawn]

I have no need to feel superior. I have need to feel what I earn is special for the challenge required to earn it. If little to no effort goes into something then it is not special. When there is little to nothing special in a game then it's time to find another game. Which is why WoW lost over 1/3 of its user base in less than a year.

Where was the challenge of running wheloon stormhorns and gh over and over?

ETR is the current endgame making that a chore is and has proven to be bad for the game just because it isn't bad for you personally doesn't mean it's horrible for other people.

Once you see past yourself you will understand.

[Turbosilk]

Where was the challenge of running wheloon stormhorns and gh over and over?

ETR is the current endgame making that a chore is and has proven to be bad for the game just because it isn't bad for you personally doesn't mean it's horrible for other people.

Once you see past yourself you will understand.

If you read my post you'd know why. But since you didn't/won't I'll recap. When I had 1 hour or less to play each day that was the most efficient questing for me to run.

Are you changing your statement that you should just get a free heart leveling from 20 to 28? Because that is relevant to this thread.

[Lifespawn]

CoV were good, because they gave reason to do higher difficulties and higher levels.

Now players that play EN/EH get better rewards than players playing EE.

Its ********.

This game has turned into endless chain of ******** leveling, then deleveling, then releveling, then deleveling again and again.

With CoVs, there was reason to stay at cap to run high level diffucult quests.

Now its gone.

There is no reason to build good character, no reason to improve skill or gear, because EN/EH don't require having skill, gear or decent character, everyone can get past EN/EH. There is no reason to improve, because running EE gives less rewrard than EN.

This change will contribute to degeneration of players, beign thaught that whatever they do they will always complete and get best reward possible.


This is exactly why we need some great loot that is btaoa from EE quests or special elite augments using the current endgame (etr) was a bad idea and is a separate issue from the lack of reason to run EE.

[Lifespawn]

If you read my post you'd know why.


LMAO your post says you want to feel special yet you state you don't want to feel special?


How special are you to be able to run ee no problem and use a heart as opposed to the person that buys epic boxes and hearts with his plastic sword I see nothing special.

EE needs loot that drops only on EE 45 hp false life augments vitality 30 augments etc etc nice to have things that are not able to be put on the AH or ASAH that should be where the reward for EE is from.

[amtoru]

That's excellent news! I didnt believe my eyes when I read OP:)
Thank you very much for this. This should return the will to play the game again.

PS Mostly casual solo player here, who used to run ID&RB daily on a few epic characters just to make sure that I'll got a heart for my only ERing character. Now I considering ERing a few more characters and invest some money into exp-potions, as I was very burned by all these daily runs. I can run any quests I like now, wow! :)

[Lifespawn]

If you read my post you'd know why. But since you didn't/won't I'll recap. When I had 1 hour or less to play each day that was the most efficient questing for me to run.

Are you changing your statement that you should just get a free heart leveling from 20 to 28? Because that is relevant to this thread.

feel free to quote me in context

[Firewall]

I like that change. Thank you for listening to the players Devs.

[Turbosilk]

LMAO your post says you want to feel special yet you state you don't want to feel special?


How special are you to be able to run ee no problem and use a heart as opposed to the person that buys epic boxes and hearts with his plastic sword I see nothing special.

EE needs loot that drops only on EE 45 hp false life augments vitality 30 augments etc etc nice to have things that are not able to be put on the AH or ASAH that should be where the reward for EE is from.

I'll also explain that there is a difference between superior and special. Re-read the post.

[Vellrad]

This is exactly why we need some great loot that is btaoa from EE quests or special elite augments using the current endgame (etr) was a bad idea and is a separate issue from the lack of reason to run EE.

We need any engame.
We don't have any now, because leveling is not endgame.

And if we ever get it, there won't be people to play anything hard, because etring teaches them that everything autocompletes giving best rewards for nothing.

[LrdSlvrhnd]

And while you're right, favoring higher difficulties is already true for commendations of valor, that point is not relevant since heart seeds wil now completely override commendations of valor in the end reward list for capped characters. Essentially there may as well not be commendations of valor in the end reward list for capped characters since they will always be a much less appealing option than selecting the heart seeds. Heck you could make each epic elite quest for capped characters give out 199 commendations of valor each, but it still wouldn't matter if you're alternatively offering 2 heart seeds per quest which is the same as 200 commendations of valor for purposes of obtaining hearts of wood.

Except that there's more stuff to spend CoVs on - even leaving out the potions of questionable value, there's Thunder-Forged items, as well as anything else they may use in the future.. Leaving them both in gives my capped character who doesn't plan on TRing anytime soon, but might be making Thunder-Forged items, more options.

While I agree with your point about higher diffs producing more Hearts (no skin off my nose, really, though I'm certainly not going to complain if they *don't* do that!) I sure as heck can't support a "may as well not be CoVs in the list" argument. And honestly, if people are finding running EN at cap "a chore" as you suggest... nothing's gonna stop them from running on EH or even EE if that's what their little heart(seed)s desire. Having the same drop on EN (or even EC) as EE isn't going to hurt the "ubers"; it's going to HELP those of us who aren't.

[BOgre]

I like that by making it Seeds you are focusing the change ONLY on Reincarnation, rather than buggering CoV collection for other purposes.

I'm sad that CoV forum drama will disappear virtually overnight. Oh, wait no, I'm HAPPY that CoV drama will disappear :)

If I'd make any change at all, I'd make it N=1d2 -1, H=1d2, E=1d2 +1. But a flat N=1 H=2 E=3 or a flat All=2 is also just fine.

[Saekee]

EE needs loot that drops only on EE 45 hp false life augments vitality 30 augments etc etc nice to have things that are not able to be put on the AH or ASAH that should be where the reward for EE is from.

Yes i agree with this. I like the proposal the devs are making.

Once it becomes easy to epic TR, it raises expectations and assumptions of other players you encounter--that characters have undergone reincarnations in order to buff it in various ways for specific builds. Not necessarily bad, just saying. So it is not awarding meek/casual players (like me), just raises the bar on everyone for what a character is expected to do.

The casual player then gets defined as having only done a couple ETRs, people will complain of PUGS in which the players had little ETR experience, etc.

[LrdSlvrhnd]

In addition, we also wanted feedback from all players, not just the Player's Council, which takes at least a couple more days. And we want to give players who don't necessarily check every day time to pipe in (for both the Council and the public at large), so a couple of days is on the shorter side we'd even consider.

Basically, there's absolutely no way this makes U22. We proposed several other things that could have gone live earlier, but they didn't sufficiently solve the problem to our and the Player's Council satisfaction. And, of course, we're still taking feedback from you guys which could change the design.

Is this something that might (Note I don't say WILL, I say MIGHT) hit with 22.1, or is this something that will almost certainly be held until 23, just out of curiousity?

I like this change, btw... a lot. I'm going to be ETRing my gimpy hagglebard into a SWF swashbuckler, and this change means that she's gonna be able to start taking renown instead of CoVs again (as will, actually, all my epic characters, at least until they get far more need for CoVs than currently). Thumbs WAY up!

[B0ltdrag0n]

So how foolish would you feel if that exact proposal was suggested in the PC thread and you aren't a special snow flake?

I would feel happy it was dismissed

[Thrudh]

If you made it so easy, why don't you remove hearts?
Effect is the same.

This.

I'm fine with the change, but I'm still flabbergasted at your decision... You realize no one will EVER buy a epic heart again, right? Might as well get rid of them.

[Mindos]

Pretty much.

Just take Epic & Iconic hearts out of the store.

Guess they decided they squeezed all they could out of that and on to the next?

(thousands of years ago) In the future, there will be several competing choices to 'spend' your Commendations of Valor on, not just epic reincarnation.

[B0ltdrag0n]

We need any engame.
We don't have any now, because leveling is not endgame.

And if we ever get it, there won't be people to play anything hard, because etring teaches them that everything autocompletes giving best rewards for nothing.

Heroic tr is calling from 2009. You wanna answer the phone?

[Vargouille]

Is this something that might (Note I don't say WILL, I say MIGHT) hit with 22.1, or is this something that will almost certainly be held until 23, just out of curiousity?

Signs point to reply hazy, cannot predict now.

[Thrudh]

No.

This removes any reason to run anything on elite.
Gone.

The best way now is to zerg EH wizking, spies, OOB, von3, von5 and ID, then repeat at normal, then zerg 21 easy EN quests at cap.

Running EE is worthless waste of time, because EH/EN is more rewarding.

This... This change does cause a small problem that there will be far less EE groups now.

And if Vellrad and I are agreeing on something, you know it's true.

[Thrudh]

This solves every problem that I have with the Hearts of Wood and doesn't break anything that I can see.

I'm good with it... It will make people happy... but Turbine will lose 100% of any income they were generating from the hearts, and it WILL remove any incentive to run Epic Elite quests... So there may be some negative consequences. Oh well...

[hit_fido]

You realize no one will EVER buy a epic heart again, right?

Not going to complain about spending less money!

You have to leave it up to Turbine to make a good business decision. Some people have suggested they'll spend as much or more if they're able to reincarnate as rapidly as possible. This will test that theory - it's plausible but only Turbine is in a good position to determine validity and only they will see the actual results.

It's good to see some things don't change - the proposal completely trivializes reincarnation - I could ransack exclusively wizking, spies and von3 til cap then knock off what, maybe 18 fast and easy epic normals for the remaining mats? Even people achieving only 2000 CoV at cap will just need to run 11 more quests for 22 seeds? But you have people still complaining about the mechanics of it. :rolleyes:

[Yaga_Nub]

...
(This would come some time after Update 22.)
....

Why wait? The final date for U22 hasn't been announced and from what I've seen you still have a ton of work to do on SWF and Swashbuckler (yes, Cetus finally convinced me that SWF is TOTALLY overpowered and needs some severe restrictions like not being able to cleave or greater cleave while SWFing).

Love,

Yaga

[SirValentine]

I think you need more people on the council that don't cave to mob mentality and want to preserve challenges in the game vs rolling over to the mob.

A better proposal would have been at cap: (1) zero seeds for EN runs (2) 1-2 seed for EH runs and (3) 2-3 seeds for EE runs.




This removes any reason to run anything on elite.


I suggest 1 seed on EN/EH, 2 on EE.

Even at 1 seed, you'd still get a heart plenty fast, considering you can still get comms along the way, too.

[EllisDee37]

Why wait? The final date for U22 hasn't been announcedYes it has, and that announced date is approximately 14 hours from now. (U22 goes live tomorrow morning.)

[LeoLionxxx]

Why wait? The final date for U22 hasn't been announced and from what I've seen you still have a ton of work to do on SWF and Swashbuckler (yes, Cetus finally convinced me that SWF is TOTALLY overpowered and needs some severe restrictions like not being able to cleave or greater cleave while SWFing).

Love,

Yaga

Surprise (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/443369-Scheduled-Server-Downtime-7-00-AM-12-00-PM-Eastern-%28-4-GMT%29-Wednesday-June-11th#post5351510)!

[LrdSlvrhnd]

Signs point to reply hazy, cannot predict now.

I'll take that as a "Won't commit, but might happen" then *g*

[Ivan_Milic]

(thousands of years ago) In the future, there will be several competing choices to 'spend' your Commendations of Valor on, not just epic reincarnation.

But if you want to etr, just do quick 21 quests, epic heart in 3h.
So I have to ask the same question, what is the point of having epic and iconic heart in store when you can get it in 3h for 0 tp?

[Arcanegrin]

I do think that rewarding players for running higher difficulties is a Good Thing(tm), but I think that should be where gear (and favor) comes in. Higher drop rates for higher difficulty levels is good.

Dropping 0-1 for Epic Normal seems like a terrible idea.
1 for Normal, 2 for Hard and 3 for Elite wouldn't be a problem for me. But any time you have 0-1 for Normal for something that you have to actively farm, my heart breaks.

Is it really overly hard to play EH content when your level 30?

Maybe if someone is a solo only, non min/maxer with extremely limited gear then only EN is possible. But on the flip side if you've been soloing EN from level 20 all the way to 30 you should be able to solo something on EH at level 30.

So not sure where this is coming from.

[Jasparion]

This looks to be exactly what I (and many others) said should be done.

Gather a lot along the way as you level and by the time you reach cap you need to run a few more quests to get what you need.

It also now matches what we were originally told would happen.

Well done for coming around to our thinking !

(Maybe next time not take so long?)

[Thar]

We've been looking for ways to improve the experience of earning Epic and Iconic Hearts of Wood. After several rounds of iteration with the Player's Council, this is the direction we're moving towards. (This would come some time after Update 22.)

While your character is at level cap, completing epic quests adds 2 Heart Seeds into the End Reward list for that quest. This only applies to quests where Commendations of Valor already show up, including Epic Quests, on Normal, Hard, or Elite, that aren't ransacked.

Some notes and explanations:


Reminder that you can turn 100 Bind-to-Character Commendations of Valor into 1 Bind-to-Account Heart Seed, and can turn in 42 Heart Seeds into either an Epic Heart of Wood or Iconic True Heart of Wood.
You'll continue to see Commendations of Valor in End Reward lists upon reaching level cap. This doesn't replace Commendations, but adds an additional End Reward choice.
This intentionally doesn’t affect Thunderforged Crafting or other existing or future uses of Commendations of Valor, only Reincarnation.
This doesn’t touch the current amounts players earn in any way. The players currently earninga full heart (or more) while they level up can keep doing that.


We considered more complicated ideas, but we're not sure it’s necessary for the goal we’re trying to achieve, and this is an otherwise simple solution. For example, we could reward Elite over Normal, or reward high level quests over low level quests. But that's already true for Commendations of Valor, and this is intended as an extra aid for players who have hit the level cap and are in a rush to Reincarnate, yet haven't earned enough Commendations of Valor along the way.

We're also aware some players might decide to only farm for Reincarnation at cap, and take other rewards while leveling up. If this partially devalues Commendations of Valor so other end-reward options feel like more viable choices, that's perhaps not inherently bad.

As we realize Hearts of Wood are important to many of our players, we'd like to hear your feedback.

so basically 200 comms after you cap per run towards a heart. sounds nice.

[Thar]

Signs point to reply hazy, cannot predict now.

love the magic 8 ball...

[Tscheuss]

We've been looking for ways to improve the experience of earning Epic and Iconic Hearts of Wood. After several rounds of iteration with the Player's Council, this is the direction we're moving towards. (This would come some time after Update 22.)

While your character is at level cap, completing epic quests adds 2 Heart Seeds into the End Reward list for that quest. This only applies to quests where Commendations of Valor already show up, including Epic Quests, on Normal, Hard, or Elite, that aren't ransacked.

Some notes and explanations:


Reminder that you can turn 100 Bind-to-Character Commendations of Valor into 1 Bind-to-Account Heart Seed, and can turn in 42 Heart Seeds into either an Epic Heart of Wood or Iconic True Heart of Wood.
You'll continue to see Commendations of Valor in End Reward lists upon reaching level cap. This doesn't replace Commendations, but adds an additional End Reward choice.
This intentionally doesn’t affect Thunderforged Crafting or other existing or future uses of Commendations of Valor, only Reincarnation.
This doesn’t touch the current amounts players earn in any way. The players currently earninga full heart (or more) while they level up can keep doing that.


We considered more complicated ideas, but we're not sure it’s necessary for the goal we’re trying to achieve, and this is an otherwise simple solution. For example, we could reward Elite over Normal, or reward high level quests over low level quests. But that's already true for Commendations of Valor, and this is intended as an extra aid for players who have hit the level cap and are in a rush to Reincarnate, yet haven't earned enough Commendations of Valor along the way.

We're also aware some players might decide to only farm for Reincarnation at cap, and take other rewards while leveling up. If this partially devalues Commendations of Valor so other end-reward options feel like more viable choices, that's perhaps not inherently bad.

As we realize Hearts of Wood are important to many of our players, we'd like to hear your feedback.

This is awesome news. Thanks to all responsible for this Good Thing. :D

[raypal]

Why wait? The final date for U22 hasn't been announced and from what I've seen you still have a ton of work to do on SWF and Swashbuckler (yes, Cetus finally convinced me that SWF is TOTALLY overpowered and needs some severe restrictions like not being able to cleave or greater cleave while SWFing).

Love,

Yaga


Still calendar challenged 'eh.......

been a while

I still blame Yaga...always have, always will................sheeesh I miss that

[Thar]

We've been looking for ways to improve the experience of earning Epic and Iconic Hearts of Wood. After several rounds of iteration with the Player's Council, this is the direction we're moving towards. (This would come some time after Update 22.)

While your character is at level cap, completing epic quests adds 2 Heart Seeds into the End Reward list for that quest. This only applies to quests where Commendations of Valor already show up, including Epic Quests, on Normal, Hard, or Elite, that aren't ransacked.

Some notes and explanations:


Reminder that you can turn 100 Bind-to-Character Commendations of Valor into 1 Bind-to-Account Heart Seed, and can turn in 42 Heart Seeds into either an Epic Heart of Wood or Iconic True Heart of Wood.
You'll continue to see Commendations of Valor in End Reward lists upon reaching level cap. This doesn't replace Commendations, but adds an additional End Reward choice.
This intentionally doesn’t affect Thunderforged Crafting or other existing or future uses of Commendations of Valor, only Reincarnation.
This doesn’t touch the current amounts players earn in any way. The players currently earninga full heart (or more) while they level up can keep doing that.


We considered more complicated ideas, but we're not sure it’s necessary for the goal we’re trying to achieve, and this is an otherwise simple solution. For example, we could reward Elite over Normal, or reward high level quests over low level quests. But that's already true for Commendations of Valor, and this is intended as an extra aid for players who have hit the level cap and are in a rush to Reincarnate, yet haven't earned enough Commendations of Valor along the way.

We're also aware some players might decide to only farm for Reincarnation at cap, and take other rewards while leveling up. If this partially devalues Commendations of Valor so other end-reward options feel like more viable choices, that's perhaps not inherently bad.

As we realize Hearts of Wood are important to many of our players, we'd like to hear your feedback.

This is an example of a good change. Can you go talk to the guy doing the armor revamp and stop him from messing up my pally heavy shield light armor evasion tank?

[maddong]

If you want to keep some incentive to run EE I'd do en 1 eh 1d2 EE 3.... That at least is more in line with the effort.

[axel15810]

Except that there's more stuff to spend CoVs on - even leaving out the potions of questionable value, there's Thunder-Forged items, as well as anything else they may use in the future.. Leaving them both in gives my capped character who doesn't plan on TRing anytime soon, but might be making Thunder-Forged items, more options.

While I agree with your point about higher diffs producing more Hearts (no skin off my nose, really, though I'm certainly not going to complain if they *don't* do that!) I sure as heck can't support a "may as well not be CoVs in the list" argument. And honestly, if people are finding running EN at cap "a chore" as you suggest... nothing's gonna stop them from running on EH or even EE if that's what their little heart(seed)s desire. Having the same drop on EN (or even EC) as EE isn't going to hurt the "ubers"; it's going to HELP those of us who aren't.

As of right now, the CoV consumables are not that useful and you'll have plenty of CoV for other requirements like thunderforged, ect, through the CoV you'll have obtained from levels 20-27 even if you only take CoV a small percentage of the time. Not mentioning you can collect CoV in some chests.

So to me, as of right now there will be little reason to take anything but Heart Seeds at level 28 based on that. I do however think they will start introducing more desirable uses for CoV which will change things a bit.

[Arcanegrin]

If you want to keep some incentive to run EE I'd do en 1 eh 1d2 EE 3.... That at least is more in line with the effort.

These numbers are also good. Makes casuals happy however they might still buy hearts, EH get decent benefit for effort but may still buy a heart, gives a great benefit to the EE crowd who can now farm a heart in just 14 EE quests.

[Soulfurnace]

I'm good with it... It will make people happy... but Turbine will lose 100% of any income they were generating from the hearts, and it WILL remove any incentive to run Epic Elite quests... So there may be some negative consequences. Oh well...
I'll still run EE for fun, but that's about it.

I like the proposed modification - eN gives 50 comms, eHard gives 1 seed and EE gives 2 seeds. Still a reason to run EE, just not as much as before - seems a decent compromise to me.

[haulindonkey]

This is a great idea. It shows a willingness to compromise. Those of you complaining that it should be 1 seed or 1 seed for EN, 2 for EH & 3 for EE need to stop. <snip>
Good job devs and player's council.

Agree wholeheartedly with the above statement. An old adage about someone who's never satisfied is "you'd complain if we hung you with a new rope". C'mon quit the *****ing and moaning, the Dev's are finally willing to meet us halfway (or more) - don't jinx it.

[Ebondevil]

It might be worth having:
1 seed at level 21-24 quests
2 Seeds at level 25-28 quests
3 Seeds at level 29-30 quests
-1 Seed for Epic Normal runs
+1 Seed for Epic Elite runs
+1 Seed for Raids

It would be a bit more complicated, but I think it would help to Incentivise players to run harder and higher level quests to get the seeds faster instead of grinding lower level quests.

[LordArkan]

I'm good with it... It will make people happy... but Turbine will lose 100% of any income they were generating from the hearts, and it WILL remove any incentive to run Epic Elite quests... So there may be some negative consequences. Oh well...

The people that were willing to buy hearts to bypass the severe grind probably didn't make up for the many otherwise paying people that took one look at it and just quit the game instead.

[haulindonkey]

It might be worth having:
1 seed at level 21-24 quests
2 Seeds at level 25-28 quests
3 Seeds at level 29-30 quests
-1 Seed for Epic Normal runs
+1 Seed for Epic Elite runs
+1 Seed for Raids

It would be a bit more complicated, but I think it would help to Incentivise players to run harder and higher level quests to get the seeds faster instead of grinding lower level quests.

I'm ok with this and the other suggestions along these lines, but I think giving out better loot drops (and maybe even special EE loot that isn't game-breaking) would be a better way to encourage players to attempt EE content.

[Lifespawn]

i will actually join the etr wheel once this goes live therefore spending money on pots where i was spending nothing before.

[fourrumtest]

i would prefer to have coms and seeds drop in epic chests, but a sane return rate of seeds(albeit at cap) is a pleasant surprise. maybe i will epic tr in future after all.

feels good to post a smiley for a change.

thank you

[Merlin-ator]

I love this! It's great to know that the players have been heard, and the grind has become within the reach of a normal human being. Thank you for listening!

On a semi-related note, could you take a look at EPL feats? Full stacks of Divine past life feats is way, way too strong. 3 stacks of +3 prr from 3 different divine past life feats is +27 prr. Primal and Arcane might need a glance too. Main problem is that the bonuses kick in at level 1 and have no build cost associated with them. Perhaps they can kick in at level 21? Ask the code peeps if they can have a flavor text EPL feat for level 1. When the first Epic Level is taken, have it check for the flavor EPL. If found, autogrant the proper bonuses.

ETRs are far, far easier to grind out than HTRs because an amazing build never needs to be tossed away and your gear is relevant for all if them. If you have a top-tier, fully geared Monk, that all changes when you need to run a bard life. In ETR, you can make the same build choices for your character, never need to update gear, and have your build work as well as it did the first time, once you account for differences in ED. Thus, having an OP EPL is worse for balance than an OP passive HPL.

[axel15810]

I'm good with it... It will make people happy... but Turbine will lose 100% of any income they were generating from the hearts, and it WILL remove any incentive to run Epic Elite quests... So there may be some negative consequences. Oh well...
i think turbine has (smartly) realized that a system that keeps players playing isnt something they should be trying to monetize to such a large extent. just isnt a good business move. besides, they were definitely losing more income from upset players than they were gaining from heart sales. im also suspecting that heart sales were much weaker than we all think. They need to start monetizing things players are willing to pay for...cosmetics, consumables, new content, convenience items, ect. i have so many ideas for items players would throw money at with minimal development time...and always wonder why they aren't introduced.

[Relem]

On a semi-related note, could you take a look at EPL feats? Full stacks of Divine past life feats is way, way too strong. 3 stacks of +3 prr from 3 different divine past life feats is +27 prr. Primal and Arcane might need a glance too. Main problem is that the bonuses kick in at level 1 and have no build cost associated with them. Perhaps they can kick in at level 21? Ask the code peeps if they can have a flavor text EPL feat for level 1. When the first Epic Level is taken, have it check for the flavor EPL. If found, autogrant the proper bonuses.

ETRs are far, far easier to grind out than HTRs because an amazing build never needs to be tossed away and your gear is relevant for all if them. If you have a top-tier, fully geared Monk, that all changes when you need to run a bard life. In ETR, you can make the same build choices for your character, never need to update gear, and have your build work as well as it did the first time, once you account for differences in ED. Thus, having an OP EPL is worse for balance than an OP passive HPL.

I don't support this in anyway, it is like saying level 150 ship buffs is way too powerful for level 1 so I want them prevented from using ship buffs till level 15. 27 prr, isn't that around 15% damage reduction? Not exactly game breaking is it.

[TheGuyYouKnow]

honestly it seems too easy, even if your running good xp quests you have 2k comms by cap, then its just 10 more quests for an ER?
im all for making heart a bit easier to get but it seems like too much

[dunklezhan]

This is not the simplest solution. The simplest solution is just to lower the CoV cost to TR. Still never really understood why 4200 is the magic number, except for being 100 times larger than the answer to 'what's six times seven'.

Still, as a fix, I'm FAR happier with 'more or less 20 runs and done' at cap as a general approach than in trying to hit that 4200 magic number. People may say it's too easy (which I think is because you can convert any CoVs you already have as well) but that's as long as it takes for a guaranteed name drop in a raid so has equivalence as a concept in the game already - and I like consistent concepts in complex systems, it keeps things understandable - and it is reachable without your brain bleeding out through your ears as you grind.

Put it this way - I had a character at 26 when eTR came in. He's now only 27 and a bit, because as soon as the cov mechanic came in I went right off epic questing and just went back to standard TRing my other characters - because he was already 26. How long was I going to hafve to spend at cap to earn those Covs? awful. I'd now pick him up and play him again to get him to cap where the grind will be less.

This doesn't help with the other problem with eTR, which is the way levels 20-25 are set up (i.e. where levelling is generally a one click affair). It is incredibly dull and disappointing to level through this bracket even when you are grinding out EDs for the first time (as I was reminded last night when my 1st life rogue hit 22. Ugh. pointless. May as well not be a level there. 15 hit points and a general skill boost? Woohoo. Yawn.), but at least you have the constant 'ping' of your EDs to keep you interested in how your character is advancing. When you do have your EDs, I really can't imagine how pointless it must seem - because I've completely avoided eTR for this reason too, and just carried on with heroic TRing my characters - I see no incentive worth putting myself through an epic grind with no choices to be made for at least half the levels involved, which are front loaded to boot.

With the new mechanic I can be persuaded to at least give it a go once though, as I won't have to grind my face off just for the privilege of finding out.


What I really don't get is why didn't you just use Tokens of the Twelve as the eTR collectible, or remove tokens of the twelve completely and just replace them with CoVs and base everything off that one mechanic, to save me having to remember what I need to grind for what, and that some things are only available from one world's quests etc. Normally I'm in favour of lore heavily influencing the game but honestly, the number of different collectibles & ingredients in this game is really properly silly.

[blackdae]

I love this! It's great to know that the players have been heard, and the grind has become within the reach of a normal human being. Thank you for listening!

On a semi-related note, could you take a look at EPL feats? Full stacks of Divine past life feats is way, way too strong. 3 stacks of +3 prr from 3 different divine past life feats is +27 prr. Primal and Arcane might need a glance too. Main problem is that the bonuses kick in at level 1 and have no build cost associated with them. Perhaps they can kick in at level 21? Ask the code peeps if they can have a flavor text EPL feat for level 1. When the first Epic Level is taken, have it check for the flavor EPL. If found, autogrant the proper bonuses.

ETRs are far, far easier to grind out than HTRs because an amazing build never needs to be tossed away and your gear is relevant for all if them. If you have a top-tier, fully geared Monk, that all changes when you need to run a bard life. In ETR, you can make the same build choices for your character, never need to update gear, and have your build work as well as it did the first time, once you account for differences in ED. Thus, having an OP EPL is worse for balance than an OP passive HPL.

Yeah.. 27 PRR is.. mmh wait.. 6.600.000 each life.. nine lives.. 59.400.000..
You totally don't want to give someone all this benefit for that little effort needed..

[DrakeFury]

Ill explain why they are making this change.
They will sell more epic boxes because it will be easier to get epic heart when you are capped.

So what? Personally i never bought any kind of box, nor will i, becouse i like to play the game. People that like to play will continue to support the game via VIP program or by purchasing whatever item from store.
No one is forcing you to buy boxes, and if people want fast leveling, let them have it.

[DrakeFury]

This change is great news. If it is easier to get those seeds, more players will decide to eTR, and thus more activity on servers. Turbine has more active players, more purchases in store, will keep people busy for a while.
Since it will be easy to do eTR, characters will get more power, and thus end game content must be made more difficult, but since they said rest of the year will have no new content, let's make epic Orchard brutal :)

[DrakeFury]

I suggest 1 seed on EN/EH, 2 on EE.

Even at 1 seed, you'd still get a heart plenty fast, considering you can still get comms along the way, too.


This looks like solid idea. Rewards EE, while you can still run lower diff to get hearts fast enough.

[slarden]

I suggest 1 seed on EN/EH, 2 on EE.

Even at 1 seed, you'd still get a heart plenty fast, considering you can still get comms along the way, too.

Overall 1 definitely agree 1 heart is sufficient unless the devs want to effectively remove the ETR barrier completely and are willing to sacrifice the revenue. It will be really easy to get the hearts with 2 seeds per quest, but maybe that is the intention.

I don't see any reason to give more for EE simply because if you are running EE you should already have plenty @ cap and be able to ETR without running additional quests.

The reason I think this change is good is because all people regardless of the difficulty they run can focus on the content they want to focus on rather than having to play the max cov/min metagame which people didn't find fun. I think it's good for the game. Hopefully Turbine is rewarded with more revenue from it.

[Deathdefy]

It boggles my mind to see so many posters arguing that it should only be 1 seed per quest.

Hearts remain a stupid, artificial bottleneck on playing the game the way you want.

Let it be 2. Truly. Forcing people to do 42 quests they don't enjoy and breeze through at cap is worse than 21 unchallenging quests quests they don't enjoy and breeze through at cap.

If you want EE to be worth more seeds - fine, but don't ruin this potentially great change for everyone else.

[Arlathen]

I **love** this change.

I can pick up CoV during the run from 20 to 28, use them for Thunderforged crafting or have the option of Guild renown. It also gives me more reason to keep characters at 28 for getting Heart Seeds, other than just for the raiding / gear grind.

I also approve of the 2 dropped per quest run. No need to lower it to just one.

[Fedora1]

I suggest 1 seed on EN/EH, 2 on EE.

Even at 1 seed, you'd still get a heart plenty fast, considering you can still get comms along the way, too.


This looks like solid idea. Rewards EE, while you can still run lower diff to get hearts fast enough.

Disagree.

The reward for EE was getting to cap a lot faster with more covs, so less (if you even need any at all) grinding at cap.

Rather than a reward for EE, it would be a penalty for anyone doing EN/EH, which is supposed to be the norm. Not everyone can (or even wants) to play one of the few cookie-cutter builds that can handle EE consistently.

I'm not saying monkchers or centered kensai bladeforged or whatever are the only builds able to do EE, but there are certain builds that dominate the EE scene and not everyone wants to play them.

[slarden]

It boggles my mind to see so many posters arguing that it should only be 1 seed per quest.

Hearts remain a stupid, artificial bottleneck on playing the game the way you want.

Let it be 2. Truly. Forcing people to do 42 quests they don't enjoy and breeze through at cap is worse than 21 unchallenging quests quests they don't enjoy and breeze through at cap.

If you want EE to be worth more seeds - fine, but don't ruin this potentially great change for everyone else.

I believe only 21 seeds is needed for etr, but I've always used covs so I don't know for sure.

Anyhow you are right. I take back my support for just 1 seed. 2 seeds is fine.

[MeliCat]

It boggles my mind to see so many posters arguing that it should only be 1 seed per quest.

Hearts remain a stupid, artificial bottleneck on playing the game the way you want.

Let it be 2. Truly. Forcing people to do 42 quests they don't enjoy and breeze through at cap is worse than 21 unchallenging quests quests they don't enjoy and breeze through at cap.

If you want EE to be worth more seeds - fine, but don't ruin this potentially great change for everyone else.


Agreed. Particularly with the new emphasis on renown and that there is no real end game while you're stuck at 28 getting your heart. I thought this was an ok compromise and am happy they are being what seems to be quite generous. Mind you if they ever do further crafting using CoVs like they said they would the difficult choice while leveling comes back again.

[memloch]

I believe with this good change we will see more uses for COVs in the future and then everything will be a choice again

[ddo.rsmo.pt]

Make it so.

Carry on.

[Pandir]

I'm liking this idea :D

[Darthbadger]

Good news.

Combined with looking into balancing armor, buffing bards, and looking at paladins...this is good news.

Haven't played in long time, might be time to check back in.

[morkahn82]

I like the idea very much.

[Nascoe]

I suggest 1 seed on EN/EH, 2 on EE.

Even at 1 seed, you'd still get a heart plenty fast, considering you can still get comms along the way, too.

Yeah, I think it would be nice to give a bit extra for running EE too, giving 1 on EN and EH and 2 on EE would do that. At the same time it would mean running some 20-25? quests on EH/EN which means it should be possible to do in a reasonable amount of time for the more easy going player. And hotshots zipping through the lvls could go back to their favourite grind of High XP quests for lvling and then top it off with 15-20 EE quests at cap.

This would mean we could have a regular crowd of people doing EE at cap to get this weeks ETR done with as well as people running EN and EH at cap.
And maybe that also means there is at least some incentive to buy a heart once in a while (to keep turbine afloat), especially with the planned (;-) ) lowered price for the Iconic and Epic hearts.

Off course if you go for a a 1-2-3 Model (or introduce a 1- 1d2, 1d2+1 model or something) that would work too, but it would really make it easy peasy for people like the poster claiming to do those EE quest in about an hour (that feels like its a bit too fast to me).

[Nascoe]

- no clue why/how, but there you have it a double post :-)

[blerkington]

Hi,

I think it would be more useful if the seeds appeared in reward lists for characters at xp cap, not level cap.

I usually only take level 28 right before reincarnating. Levelling to 27 gives my character an important feat, while still allowing a wider choice of quests to be run without incurring penalties to xp for being overlevel.

Apologies to anyone in this thread who may have already come up with this idea, but I didn't want to read the whole thing.

Thanks.

[Dendrix]

I think this is a good change all in all.
I hope that the heartseeds from this are BTC

[Ivan_Milic]

I love this! It's great to know that the players have been heard, and the grind has become within the reach of a normal human being. Thank you for listening!

On a semi-related note, could you take a look at EPL feats? Full stacks of Divine past life feats is way, way too strong. 3 stacks of +3 prr from 3 different divine past life feats is +27 prr.

27 prr is too strong? lol
It is so strong that I wont even bother with it, just doing 3 divine etr for epic completionist.

[Allorian]

I like this Idea, maybe when the level cap goes to 30 keep the ability to ETR at 28th. It would make it similar to Heroic TR'ing at 20, just when you are done ETR'ng you will want to cap out to 30. Otherwise I agree that this is a great idea!


Thx
Glam

[luvirini]

I'm good with it... It will make people happy... but Turbine will lose 100% of any income they were generating from the hearts, and it WILL remove any incentive to run Epic Elite quests... So there may be some negative consequences. Oh well...

not 100% of income, but a lot, certainly. (I know of people who buy heroic TR hearts despite the farming for them being "easy to do")

The EE thing is the one I am worried about as I enjoy running EEs more than EH mostly personally.

If you want to duplicate the effect of tokens of 12 and heroic TR then the number should vary based on difficulty like the number of tokens of 12 vary... if you run an eberron epic quest today you get less fragments on normal than you get on hard and so on.

Easiest solution would be to do something like: If you are at level cap you get double or triple(or whatever multiple you want to use to get the correct balance of quests run) COVs.

If Turbine does not want to give out COVs then maybe vary the number of heart seeds they give based on quest level and difficulty, remembering that EEs are much harder than hard in terms of enemy capabilities. So maybe something like 20-23 level epics: normal/hard 1 seed, elite 2 seeds. level 24-27: casual/normal 1 seed, hard 2 seeds, elite 3 seeds. level 28+: casual 1 seed, normal 2 seeds, hard 3 seeds, elite 4 seeds.

Whatever the effect, the higher difficulties should be rewarded more.

[fangblackhawk]

great idea... and here i was hoping you would just make heart seeds drop in epic raids along with epic tokens of the 12

[IronClan]

I love this! It's great to know that the players have been heard, and the grind has become within the reach of a normal human being. Thank you for listening!

On a semi-related note, could you take a look at EPL feats? Full stacks of Divine past life feats is way, way too strong. 3 stacks of +3 prr from 3 different divine past life feats is +27 prr. Primal and Arcane might need a glance too. Main problem is that the bonuses kick in at level 1 and have no build cost associated with them. Perhaps they can kick in at level 21? Ask the code peeps if they can have a flavor text EPL feat for level 1. When the first Epic Level is taken, have it check for the flavor EPL. If found, autogrant the proper bonuses.

ETRs are far, far easier to grind out than HTRs because an amazing build never needs to be tossed away and your gear is relevant for all if them. If you have a top-tier, fully geared Monk, that all changes when you need to run a bard life. In ETR, you can make the same build choices for your character, never need to update gear, and have your build work as well as it did the first time, once you account for differences in ED. Thus, having an OP EPL is worse for balance than an OP passive HPL.

Hey be careful throwing nerf requests around without first knowing how much of an impact you are discussing. This is a common problem with nerf requests on the forums.

For example you think 27 PRR is a lot, even if you add the PDK past life PRR to this (9 more PRR) it's likely to be less than 8% damage mitigation in an avarage case. For example going from around 100 PRR to around 136 PRR not a great return for 79,200,000 XP

[BOgre]

Hopefully Turbine is rewarded with more revenue from it.
I for one will re-open MY wallet. I may even re-sub just for shiggles.

[IronClan]

I'm good with it... It will make people happy... but Turbine will lose 100% of any income they were generating from the hearts, and it WILL remove any incentive to run Epic Elite quests... So there may be some negative consequences. Oh well...

Now that PC are allowed to post their opinion (we are supposed to not weigh in on a feature announcement for 24h which is amazingly unfun for me to do) I like it a lot and will be interested to see what sort of cognitive gymnastics the P2W clique uses to stick to the "turbine only designs stuff for P2W/store reasons" dogma.

I think ETR will bust open just like TR did when people started commonly doing the DA token pass TR dance. I believe this hope is what motivated them to open things up, and make it easier to ETR.

Note I could selfishly rage against this change, I bought 5 ETR hearts and 3 iconics in the last few months... but this it better for the game. My buyers remorse was strong when they threw this change on our plates LOL.

OTOH I don't know how many times Turbine is going to realize the failure of Leveling sigils/Tokens pre-DA-pass-LFM's/CoV's but I'm glad they have. I am hoping they take an even more aggressive approach to removing road blocks that make people leave, and make all or most of the games content available to F2P including ED's. But baby steps.

[JPGR]

Some initial thoughts... With guild renown now a factor again, it removes the need to choose between renown and comms as an end reward. Thats fine, but 21 quests to get 42 heart seeds? Thats like every day you are at cap being a bonus comms day on steroids. Turns what was for some a chore and a grind to achieve 4200 comm into an easy button for every1. I imagine a side result of this will be a huge increase in Epic Otto box sales and XP pots as well -you needed to run the content to get the comms, with this proposed change, skip a bunch of questing via boxes or pots, bang out 21 EN quests in an afternoon and ETR. Rinse, repeat....
Gonna have a lot of Epic completionists very soon.

[BOgre]

bang out 21 EN quests in an afternoon and ETR. Rinse, repeat....
Gonna have a lot of Epic completionists very soon.

I think that's hyperbole of the highest order. The (small)% of players able to "bang out 21 quests" in an afternoon on any difficulty never had any problem earning hearts in 1st place. The rest of us, the ones that "play 2-4 quests at regular speed" in an afternoon will still need 1-2 weeks for a heart and 1-3 more months to re-level. That's a good thing in comparison to the 6 months or a year we needed before. THAT's what was discouraging us. Do you really think all the CoV/heart rage was based on a difference between heart-earned-in-3-days and heart-earned-in-1-day??? no.

[Fedora1]

I think that's hyperbole of the highest order. The (small)% of players able to "bang out 21 quests" in an afternoon on any difficulty never had any problem earning hearts in 1st place. The rest of us, the ones that "play 2-4 quests at regular speed" in an afternoon will still need 1-2 weeks for a heart and 1-3 more months to re-level. That's a good thing in comparison to the 6 months or a year we needed before. THAT's what was discouraging us. Do you really think all the CoV/heart rage was based on a difference between heart-earned-in-3-days and heart-earned-in-1-day??? no.

Exactly.

[Vellrad]

I think that's hyperbole of the highest order. The (small)% of players able to "bang out 21 quests" in an afternoon on any difficulty never had any problem earning hearts in 1st place. The rest of us, the ones that "play 2-4 quests at regular speed" in an afternoon will still need 1-2 weeks for a heart and 1-3 more months to re-level. That's a good thing in comparison to the 6 months or a year we needed before. THAT's what was discouraging us. Do you really think all the CoV/heart rage was based on a difference between heart-earned-in-3-days and heart-earned-in-1-day??? no.

I can't imagine how bad player must be, that doing house P chain (w/o big top because it crashes, and SP because its long), house D chain, harbor chain, OOB, forest chain twice on EN to take weeks, but they shouldn't ETR as soon after reaching level cap. They should rather focus on getting gear, and learning how to play better.

[UurlockYgmeov]

well - once you hit 27 (or level cap -1) stop redeeming quest end rewards. take final level then go collect. Hope this works.

[Saekee]

It might be worth having:
1 seed at level 21-24 quests
2 Seeds at level 25-28 quests
3 Seeds at level 29-30 quests
-1 Seed for Epic Normal runs
+1 Seed for Epic Elite runs
+1 Seed for Raids

It would be a bit more complicated, but I think it would help to Incentivise players to run harder and higher level quests to get the seeds faster instead of grinding lower level quests.

that is very clever! Very imaginative +1

On the other hand, no matter what is done, some path will be created to facilitate the approach. Right now for heroic TRs, some peeps can do Devil Assault, finish, invite in a group just to pass tokens in exchange for free treasure and hence get lots of tokens quickly (I have never done this but admire the interdependence). Time is Money is fast and easy; in 5 min one can get a token. There will be some easier high level quest and that will become the focus for the eTR as already people are pointing to the easy Eberron epics for fast completion.

And here I was repeating Sentinels because I have dreamt of EMGs since starting this game...

[EllisDee37]

I usually only take level 28 right before reincarnating. Levelling to 27 gives my character an important feat, while still allowing a wider choice of quests to be run without incurring penalties to xp for being overlevel. Didn't they remove all epic overlevel penalties, so that even a level 28 can get full xp running a level 20 quest on EN?

[Fedora1]

I can't imagine how bad player must be, that doing house P chain (w/o big top because it crashes, and SP because its long), house D chain, harbor chain, OOB, forest chain twice on EN to take weeks, but they shouldn't ETR as soon after reaching level cap. They should rather focus on getting gear, and learning how to play better.

Spoken like a true Epic Elitist. I should learn to be uber I guess or be content with spending 6 months to ER/IR. Good way to keep the game alive, by boring and frustrating casual players.

As a casual player I run 2-3 quests in an evening, maybe shop the AH and vendors, talk with guildies, etc. My play time is 7PM-9PM on a good night and maybe twice that on a Saturday. So yeah running 21 quests on EN is going to take me about 7-10 days to get the heart. Then to re-level with another 6 mil xp ain't gonna happn for a while.

That's how you can imagine how bad a player I must be. But thank you for the advice on learning to play and get better gear.

[Fedora1]

It would be a bit more complicated, but I think it would help to Incentivise players to run harder and higher level quests to get the seeds faster instead of grinding lower level quests.

What is the purpose or goal of encouraging people to play on harder difficulties? Isn't the xp and loot and satisfaction of completing the harder difficulties enouh incentive?

On the other hand, Turbine has already lost many players to the "grind" factor, so making those same casual players have to grind even more is not going to help the game.

The players who enjoy EE are not losing anything by letting everyone who reaches cap earn 2 seeds per quest period. Earning 6mil xp whether you did it quickly by EE or slower by EN is still 6 mil xp.

[Silv]

I would suggest making it 1 Seed for EN, 2 Seeds for EH, and 3 Seeds for EE. It gives vets an incentive to do EE quests at level cap without unduly punishing those who run EN/EH instead. Helps that 42 is divisible by both 2 and 3. :)

Words. Right out of my mouth. This amendment is an excellent proposal.

[Yalinaa]

lvl 20 = house p, house d, devil assault and chrono 4+3+2 (9) quests
lvl 21 = LoD chain, Eveningstar, Red Fens, VoN 1-2, OOB, Spies in the house 4+4+4+2+1+1 (16) quests
lvl 22 = VoN 3-4 and 6, wizking and CoF, house schyndylryn, dont drink the water and belly 3+2+4+2 (11) quests
lvl 23 = demonweb, druid chain 3+4 (7) quests
lvl 24 = high road, gianthold 5+10 (15) quests
lvl 26 = wheloon, sable 5+1 (6) quests
lvl 27 = stormhorn (5) quests

It's 69 quests (and I think I missed some), running them once, and taking the rewards only at lvl 28 will get you 69 x 2 = 138 seeds if my math is correct. That's enough for 3 epic tr!:) Where can I sign it?

And yes, doing those 60-70 quests - even on epic normal - should make enough xp to get to lvl 28, but an EH bravery streak will hit it for sure!

[Oliphant]

@OP Fantastic idea! Hip hip huzzah!

[Silverleafeon]

Good job devs and player's council.

Thank you.
I am quite pleased with this comprise.

[B0ltdrag0n]

Now that PC are allowed to post their opinion (we are supposed to not weigh in on a feature announcement for 24h which is amazingly unfun for me to do) I like it a lot and will be interested to see what sort of cognitive gymnastics the P2W clique uses to stick to the "turbine only designs stuff for P2W/store reasons" dogma.



Chai viam invenient

[B0ltdrag0n]

Didn't they remove all epic overlevel penalties, so that even a level 28 can get full xp running a level 20 quest on EN?


Not quite. It uses a different forumla than heroic.

There is no Power Level penalty for anyone over level 20. Otherwise

28's get no penalty in level 22 or higher
27 get no penalty in level 21 or higher
25-21 get no penalty in 20 or higher.
20's get no penalty for level 19 or higher.

Bravery still applies for the first run of course.

[LrdSlvrhnd]

I can't imagine how bad player must be, that doing house P chain (w/o big top because it crashes, and SP because its long), house D chain, harbor chain, OOB, forest chain twice on EN to take weeks, but they shouldn't ETR as soon after reaching level cap. They should rather focus on getting gear, and learning how to play better.

Sorry we can't all be as uberawesomesaucewonderful as you. Sorry we don't all want to play the same cookie-cutter monkcher builds as you. Sorry some of us like playing for, oh, FUN. On behalf of flower-sniffers, niche-builders, flavor-builders, and casual gamers everywhere, I hereby heartily apologize for just not being you.

[Ivan_Milic]

Sorry we can't all be as uberawesomesaucewonderful as you. Sorry we don't all want to play the same cookie-cutter monkcher builds as you. Sorry some of us like playing for, oh, FUN. On behalf of flower-sniffers, niche-builders, flavor-builders, and casual gamers everywhere, I hereby heartily apologize for just not being you.

You need a monkcher to do en? lol

[Oxarhamar]

lvl 20 = house p, house d, devil assault and chrono 4+3+2 (9) quests
lvl 21 = LoD chain, Eveningstar, Red Fens, VoN 1-2, OOB, Spies in the house 4+4+4+2+1+1 (16) quests
lvl 22 = VoN 3-4 and 6, wizking and CoF, house schyndylryn, dont drink the water and belly 3+2+4+2 (11) quests
lvl 23 = demonweb, druid chain 3+4 (7) quests
lvl 24 = high road, gianthold 5+10 (15) quests
lvl 26 = wheloon, sable 5+1 (6) quests
lvl 27 = stormhorn (5) quests

It's 69 quests (and I think I missed some), running them once, and taking the rewards only at lvl 28 will get you 69 x 2 = 138 seeds if my math is correct. That's enough for 3 epic tr!:) Where can I sign it?

And yes, doing those 60-70 quests - even on epic normal - should make enough xp to get to lvl 28, but an EH bravery streak will hit it for sure!

Unfortunately I do not believe this is how it will work.

You have to complete the Quests at cap to get the seeds not collect the rewards at cap.

[EllisDee37]

And yes, doing those 60-70 quests - even on epic normal - should make enough xp to get to lvl 28, but an EH bravery streak will hit it for sure!Yeah, no it won't. You need 6.6 million xp to get to cap. Let's say 66 quests for simple math, that's 100,000 xp per quest. You'll be way, way, way short.

[EllisDee37]

Not quite. It uses a different forumla than heroic.

There is no Power Level penalty for anyone over level 20. Otherwise

28's get no penalty in level 22 or higher
27 get no penalty in level 21 or higher
25-21 get no penalty in 20 or higher.
20's get no penalty for level 19 or higher.

Bravery still applies for the first run of course.In reading the release notes I see where my confusion was. You're now allowed to enter any epic quest once you hit 20, instead of being locked out of quests 4 levels higher than your character.

There were no changes to overlevel xp penalties.

[Qhualor]

Yeah, no it won't. You need 6.6 million xp to get to cap. Let's say 66 quests for simple math, that's 100,000 xp per quest. You'll be way, way, way short.

I know for a fact that you can cap one and done on EH, but I was also maximizing xp as much as I could in each quest including buying rogue hires for trap, locked optional, etc xp and getting whatever slayers, snowflakes and rares along the way to the quests. that was also with 5% xp shrine, epic tome, 10% VIP, MM, first time bonus and had 30% pot usually going. I still had several raids and a few quests left over by cap. now with E3BC, it will be even easier to do so.

[Yaga_Nub]

Still calendar challenged 'eh.......

been a while

I still blame Yaga...always have, always will................sheeesh I miss that

Everyone should blame Yaga. And I don't believe a **** thing that from any announcement on the boards because you know... devs, and even Jerry (because his evil overlords make him do it) lie....a lot.

[LrdSlvrhnd]

You need a monkcher to do en? lol

Being that I don't have any monkchers, no, no I don't. But my point stands: Not everyone zergs through quests in 5-10 minutes. Some of us like to actually, y'know, enjoy them, not race through to the end as fast as possible. Not everyone has the same style of play or amount of playing time. Some of us, yes, are going to take weeks to do stuff that others can do in hours. Some of us are going to take *years* to do things that others do in days. Because that's how we roll.

[Ivan_Milic]

Being that I don't have any monkchers, no, no I don't. But my point stands: Not everyone zergs through quests in 5-10 minutes. Some of us like to actually, y'know, enjoy them, not race through to the end as fast as possible. Not everyone has the same style of play or amount of playing time. Some of us, yes, are going to take weeks to do stuff that others can do in hours. Some of us are going to take *years* to do things that others do in days. Because that's how we roll.

Some of us improve and do quests faster because you already did them many times, you know how it ends.
How exactly do you enjoy a quest?
You talk with the mobs and try to negotiate with cup of tea?
You think everyone who dont play like you are not playing for fun?
You are the same kind of person as elitists, except they see it, you dont.

[Catteras]

This is the most encouraging and welcome and exciting OP I've read in months (years?) I might actually get to change my signature now.

Thank you, Turbine. This would be a most welcome change. I can now chose my end reward instead of always being forced to take CoVs.

:D

[BOgre]

Some of us improve and do quests faster because you already did them many times, you know how it ends.
How exactly do you enjoy a quest?
You talk with the mobs and try to negotiate with cup of tea?
You think everyone who dont play like you are not playing for fun?
You are the same kind of person as elitists, except they see it, you dont.

That's wrong on so many levels. I've given your opinions far too many chances already, so... /ignore.

[Silkenwise]

Thank you, Turbine. This would be a most welcome change. I can now chose my end reward instead of always being forced to take CoVs.


Hear! Hear!

I haven't touched a single piece of loot after achieving level 21, and I still only have enough comms to make one heart. This will be such a massive injection of FUN back into the game, epics won't feel like such a slog when you get a proper reward for running things ad-nauseum.

In the time it took to get one Epic Heart, I had enough tokens to make 5 heroic ones. This should bring things nicely in line so it's closer to 1-to-1, as it should be. ETR from 28 to 20, then TR back to one and have a fresh go again. That's how reincarnation should be.

[Standal]

At Varg,

You know you have it right when instead of us telling you that the game will end if you implement your suggestion, we argue about whether EN should get fewer seeds and EE should get more. Bravo!

At playerbase,

This is a great change for us. You really don't have to take vcoms ever in the end reward and you still will get a heart in a reasonable amount of time. Every quest you will be making reasonable progress toward your ETR. I have a path currently to get 4200+ coms at level 28. The problem is that I'm also a guild leader. I want my power guildies to help my newbie guildies. The com system sets these two groups at odds. I need to run EEs to get my vcoms. Some of my guild can't or doesn't want to run EE. Running 21 quests at cap helping guildies while still progressing toward a heart seems great to me. Also, I now can take renown at end reward and not feel like I'm destroying my ETR path.

[Bear01]

At Varg,

You know you have it right when instead of us telling you that the game will end if you implement your suggestion, we argue about whether EN should get fewer seeds and EE should get more. Bravo!

At playerbase,

This is a great change for us. You really don't have to take vcoms ever in the end reward and you still will get a heart in a reasonable amount of time. Every quest you will be making reasonable progress toward your ETR. I have a path currently to get 4200+ coms at level 28. The problem is that I'm also a guild leader. I want my power guildies to help my newbie guildies. The com system sets these two groups at odds. I need to run EEs to get my vcoms. Some of my guild can't or doesn't want to run EE. Running 21 quests at cap helping guildies while still progressing toward a heart seems great to me. Also, I now can take renown at end reward and not feel like I'm destroying my ETR path.

Support this!!

[Hiponic]

I love this idea...
Lets get this put into effect as soon as you can.. This will be a game changer for Iconic's and ETR's.
This has been a big issue on many people's minds for some time now and I think this will shut them up.

Maybe even drop this in the first hotfix when you give us our bag banks and crafting bank?

[UurlockYgmeov]

Love this; however put in end CHEST rather than end reward list.


I love this idea...
Lets get this put into effect as soon as you can.. This will be a game changer for Iconic's and ETR's.
This has been a big issue on many people's minds for some time now and I think this will shut them up.

Maybe even drop this in the first hotfix when you give us our bag banks and crafting bank?

agree.

[Tom116]

Looks good to me. It takes the pressure of the non-elitists to run EE if they want IPL's or EPL's. Looking forward to this :)

[Captain_Wizbang]

After much discussion w/ people in-game, only one question remains...


When?

[Vindraxx]

After much discussion w/ people in-game, only one question remains...


When?

I'm really interested to know an ETA on this as well. I just hit 20 on my artificer and started leveling an epic destiny for the first time and I know that my first time going from 20 -> 28 I'm not likely going to have the gear necessary to clear EE content and therefore won't have enough CoV's to Epic TR at 28. I know I can heroic TR at 28, but that would feel like a waste to me and I kind of don't want to get stuck there if I can avoid it.

Otherwise I may just heroic TR now and hope that when I hit 20 again next time this will be live, but after playing a few of the Eveningstar quests, I'm really interested in exploring more of the expansion...

[Captain_Wizbang]

2 toons running from lvl 20 to 28, taking CoV's all the time, AND farming a few quests every day is still 1200 short of 4200.
No, not every quest has been run, because of the drop rate/ xp curve is disproportional.

I just read that the CoV drop rate gets doubled while the lag fest CC is up. But that doesn't help with the current curve.

Soon isn't soon enough IMO for the "change"

[morkahn82]

ETA pls.

[Catteras]

I think you need more people on the council that don't cave to mob mentality and want to preserve challenges in the game vs rolling over to the mob.

A better proposal would have been at cap: (1) zero seeds for EN runs (2) 1-2 seed for EH runs and (3) 2-3 seeds for EE runs.

So you are saying that if 95% of players wanted it to be easier to eTR, that in and of itself is a good reason to NOT make it easier to eTR?

Successful businesses listen to the desires of their customers, and when it is in their financial best interest, grant them.

You want eTRing to be more challenging? Then dont ever take heart seeds for a reward. In fact only take comms every other quest. If you want a grind challenge to please your soul, you can do just that. WITHOUT causing everyone else to suffer through the CoV farm insanity.

I think all you are really saying is that YOU dont like the change and that you feel the need to insult those driving the change. Well played.

[JPGR]

I think that's hyperbole of the highest order. The (small)% of players able to "bang out 21 quests" in an afternoon on any difficulty never had any problem earning hearts in 1st place. The rest of us, the ones that "play 2-4 quests at regular speed" in an afternoon will still need 1-2 weeks for a heart and 1-3 more months to re-level. That's a good thing in comparison to the 6 months or a year we needed before. THAT's what was discouraging us. Do you really think all the CoV/heart rage was based on a difference between heart-earned-in-3-days and heart-earned-in-1-day??? no.

the hyperbole was intentional.

I understand very clearly what the Cov/ heart rage was about. I understand that it is a challenge for some, perhaps many players to be able to grind out the requirements for an epic heart as they are currently being implemented. That collective voice has been very loud. But what about those pple who did the grind for past lives already under the current system, let alone those who have gotten epic completionist? The net result is that while it makes it easier for some to achieve, it necessarilly "waters down" the achievement made by others in the process.
Will the next target of complaint be that it is too hard or takes too long or there are too many ingredients to get for a Tier 3?