It's time for Shard/Seal trade-ins for Ebberon epics

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Originally Posted by DeafeningWhisper

You're confusing luck with skill, and your post makes it sound like you don't want people to get what you had to grind for, kinda like "suffer like I did or it's not fair".
I had to run 20 times the worse raid in the game to get my Pinion, but if they implimented a mechanic with a 10th run completion I wouldn't mind.

My current druid got his Torc on his 6th run, doesn't mean it takes 6 runs to get it and 20th list shouldn't be implimented since anyone can do ADQ2 six times and get a Torc, it just means I got lucky since some have run it 100+ times with no Torc.

Let's take Thornlord for example, what are the odd of making an Epic one? I tried for months to get the base item then gave up, so forget about the seal or shard. Yet I can get a much better bow in CiTW thanks to the 20th list with a fairly good chance, so why is epicing Thornlord such an impossibly grindy task?

We are not asking for an "easy bouton", just a sense of accomplishment and the guarantee that our efforts will pay up eventually because as it stands now I may run the LoD chain for the rest of my life and *still* have no assurance I'll ever get what I want...

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YOU are the one confusing luck with skill.
Everything in this game is luck based. Every chest is random. Random lag. Even random combat numbers. The skill is in manipulating the numbers in your favor.

Sands has much much much lower drop rate and the quests themselves are harder and longer (although still easy the to u14 destiny en/eh easy mode).

Sands= very long much harder quest. Very low chance of a shard even dropping. If a shard actually drops thereby about 1/200 chance it may be the one u need. Even less chance if is ultra rare like thornlord or ring of spell storing

Efens =easy 5 minute quests can solo claw/last stand/fathom in 5 minutes. Can shorthand deeps in 5 minutes. GUARANTEED SHARD DROP from deeps. ~1/50 chance of being shard u want. No ultra rare shards

Bottom line. If original poster had proposed something logical like maybe a sands trade in i might have agreed. But to easy button the easiest epic in the game (and yes it is even easier to farm than house p) is just plain dumb

Quick Reminder:

These are level 20 items and no longer part of the end game. The +5 Threnal weapons are not as valuable as they once were.

Granted a handful of the items are still viable, the majority are not.

/signed again for trade ins. Recommended again, 20th completion shard list.

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Originally Posted by MRMechMan

SOMETHING to take the randomness out a BIT.

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Yeah, that's the point. A trade-in is just one idea that seemed like it would be easy implement, and - I though in my naivety- pretty uncontroversial. But certainly there are many ways you could put in some kind of "grind fail-safe" to prevent the grind from getting out of hand.

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Originally Posted by crazydamage

The skill is in grinding quickly to reduce the the time required

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Yeah... I really don't think that's what most people mean when they talk about being skilled at the game.


On the topic of skill/difficulty though, maybe a system could including having to get epic elite favor. Make the trade-in vendor (or whatever) require having done the whole chain on EE. That would obviously require some separate tracker as most epics, including fens (which this really isn't about...), are part of a larger favor group that includes lots of unrelated quest chains.

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Originally Posted by crazydamage

Efens =easy 5 minute quests can solo claw/last stand/fathom in 5 minutes. Can shorthand deeps in 5 minutes. GUARANTEED SHARD DROP from deeps. ~1/50 chance of being shard u want. No ultra rare shards

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I'll tell you one thing about probabilities.

In a 6-sided dice, you have a 1/6 chance of getting any of the 6 numbers at least once.

So, get one and do your rolls. Try it, 6 times. Than write down which numbers you get.

You'll see that the 1/6 is far from reality.

Now roll it 10 thousand times. Gather the results. You can see that the percentage of each number rolled tends to 16.7%.

If you don't have a big enough sample size, you can't tell that the chances are the mathematicaly simple answer.

Want to taste something more like the DDO randomness?

Do it all again with a D20.

Skills apart, you think it's fine to mindlessly throw yourself into a 4 hours and 10 minutes loop, repeating the same things over 50 times, for a chance of getting 1/3 of the needed items.

I don't like it. I am no hamster. Not saying you are, also.

You made your point, now please leave us gimps here try to get our easy button and do something better than discussing with a bunch of people you will never meet over some digital game that can be tore apart with the pressing of a button.

I was thinking a little about this issue last night and I think the big drawback I saw was that a change like this isnt in and off it self gonna make Turbine earn much new money.

So what I think would be smart is to throw in there a universal shard/seal purchasable in shop for TP.

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Originally Posted by crazydamage

Efens =easy 5 minute quests can solo claw/last stand/fathom in 5 minutes. Can shorthand deeps in 5 minutes. GUARANTEED SHARD DROP from deeps. ~1/50 chance of being shard u want. No ultra rare shards

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Wrong. It's not a guaranteed drop anymore.

I was doing edeeps before motu,was looking for gloves shard,more than 20 runs,saw maybe 2 drop in full groups,then after motu when I stopped looking for the shard and dont need it anymore it drops on my first eh run.
I have more than 70 different shards and seals that I dont need,dont want to destroy them.

I have the claw shard that guy needs.
I also have the bow shard Scoob needs.
matter of fact i have 150ish shards and seals i dont need.I try not to destroy them because they are epic.
But essentialy, right now they are garbage to me.


I am absolutly sure this is true for 100% of the people that posted on this thread.
The reason why DDO is so farmy is because everything is BOUND.
If you can take out those useless seals and shards that pile in your bags and trade them with somebody else then well, everyone else on the server that has what yu need sitting in a bag is a potential chance for you to get what you need.

And well all know.That would be plenty of chances.

So, now that the law of the 'Boundess must be, for all items released' has been nearly completly errased in the FR new content...
Isnt it time to make epic seals and shards unbound???

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Originally Posted by Mryal

Isnt it time to make epic seals and shards unbound???

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Honestly, during the great big bag bug where shards/seals were tradeable...it was beautiful..but also terrible.

You would have people who have run a quest 100-200 times FINALLY get that shard or seal they needed from a guildy...was really cool.

But also people hawking shards in trade channels was a bit much. There would definitely be some good and bad to it.

You could make many epic items without even buying the pack...I imagine that is a problem. People would ALWAYS loot their good shards/seals, and sell em...less feelings of teamwork. But perhaps this would get people to run the content more...can always sell what ya pull, like running shroud even if you don't really need any specific GS item.

It would certainly lead to less frustration with pulls, but there are other problems making everything unbound.

As an economist, I'd support it :D.

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Originally Posted by MRMechMan

You could make many epic items without even buying the pack...I imagine that is a problem.

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They'd still have to get the base item, and the vast majority of worthwhile epics have BTA or BTC base items. I think it's a good idea to finally make seals/shards unbound.

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Originally Posted by MRMechMan

Honestly, during the....

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You might want to edit that bit out, thou shalt not discuss exploits.

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Originally Posted by Ytteri

You might want to edit that bit out, thou shalt not discuss exploits.

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But but but alliteration station! (snarfle)

Honestly, I've never seen the servers so afire than when that "unfortunate" big bad bag bug occured. THere was definitely more good than bad.

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Originally Posted by crazydamage

If you aren't skilled nor patient enough to put in 8 hours, maybe you should spend 30 minutes instead and get the Purple Dragon Knight set which is almost as good. I think thats more appropriate for you.

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Sounds about right imo.

I'd like to invite all the people that are saying 'wow, now its easier, you have no timer anymore' to try and get a full epic item from the Web of Chaos chain.The drop rate in there is at least 10 times lower than pre-underdark, ive done over 50 runs of alternated lords of dust/servants and i havent been able to find either seal or shard of what i want.

Running the same stuff over and over and having to turn off the DM audio because i cant take the same scene over and over is NOT my idea of fun.
As it stands now id much rather have my 1 day timer with the previous drop rate back.

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Originally Posted by Mryal

I'd like to invite all the people that are saying 'wow, now its easier, you have no timer anymore' to try and get a full epic item from the Web of Chaos chain.The drop rate in there is at least 10 times lower than pre-underdark, ive done over 50 runs of alternated lords of dust/servants and i havent been able to find either seal or shard of what i want.

Running the same stuff over and over and having to turn off the DM audio because i cant take the same scene over and over is NOT my idea of fun.
As it stands now id much rather have my 1 day timer with the previous drop rate back.

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Well it's lower on epic hard/normal. On epic elite you still have the higher chances.
Take eDeeps - ehard has something like 40 or 50% chance of dropping a shard in the end chest.
EE still drops a shard everytime (at least from what I have seen).
However the problem with Web of Chaos chain is still that it doesn't drop seals on ehard and EE.
Grinding those on normal is really a pain.

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Originally Posted by Mryal

Running the same stuff over and over and having to turn off the DM audio because i cant take the same scene over and over is NOT my idea of fun.
As it stands now id much rather have my 1 day timer with the previous drop rate back.

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Me too. 8*3 EE Chests from ADQ1. Seals 0. Again.

I agree that the luck portion is really bad.
There is no way to ensure you will get the seal/shard you want, no matter how easy it is to run (and for most of us it is not easy nor fast).

I would suggest a system that gives "universal" seal/shard fragments that you can trade with a barter box to the seal/shard you want. So you can see your progression (a bit like for shroud mats).
An average 20ish completions needed to get a seal/shard would be fine, (thus about 40ish completion for the item).

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Originally Posted by Mryal

I'd like to invite all the people that are saying 'wow, now its easier, you have no timer anymore' to try and get a full epic item from the Web of Chaos chain.The drop rate in there is at least 10 times lower than pre-underdark, ive done over 50 runs of alternated lords of dust/servants and i havent been able to find either seal or shard of what i want.

Running the same stuff over and over and having to turn off the DM audio because i cant take the same scene over and over is NOT my idea of fun.
As it stands now id much rather have my 1 day timer with the previous drop rate back.

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I'm at around 200 runs of LoD and Servants, 4 toons ransack per week (fifth one TRed) and my patience is still holding, but I wouldn't mind knowing the light at end *isn't* an endless grind train.

So far I've completed many of the item sets but only one I actually wanted: Epic Bow of the Silver Flame and I actually need another one now.

A trade-in system would be most welcome, I don't have a single toon interested in any of the Templar epic gear and I can make it all, some of them twice or more, I would trade all of those for one shard I *actually want*.

It's not like we are asking to get something we didn't work for, we did our epics we got shards/seals just not the ones we wanted.

I could get on the boat for something to make a light at the end of the grind tunnel.

I have also been in the situation. In my case it was the seal for the epic grim's braclet I kept four toons on epic timers for months for my tank. I think it took me three months to get this (maybe longer I'm being kind here). So 100/month (also being kind here saying I missed some days), for 3 months for a total of 300 runs just to get 1/3 of an item at 15 in runs (being kind again) 4500 min (not including set up time) =75 hours. Thats over three solid days just to get 1/3 of an item.

I also don't want an "easy button" just something to create a light. I like the idea of EE favor trade in for the area this creates somewhat of a skill bar, and a trade rate of 20:1 would be about right imo (friends trading to you might result in four runs meaning you could an epic item in eight runs and some AH action for scrolls). Eight runs at ten min/run plus some other running around you could get an epic item in an easy four hours. At the current time it takes way less to get FR items.

The way I see it is that most of these "epic" items were eclipsed by the new loot, which require ZERO shards/seals/scrolls.

The grind to get the "older epic" items does not equal their worth any longer, IMO.
Hence the random style, lottery luck, maddening grind should be replaced or reworked.

/signed

Got mine Mroranon helmet shard after 1 year of hellish grinding. That's ridiculous......