Winter Festival Letdown

[denna1]

Don't get me wrong, the winter festival thing is a good idea, but it would have been a great idea if they could have made it so that all people who play the game can enjoy it fully.
I mean the reality is that a large percentage of the people who play this game have lag issues (we can't all have the best computer equipment), so the little narrow ramps are almost impossible to hit.
Lag issues aside, a lot of people simply don't have characters with enormous jump skills.
And then there are people like me, the coordination challenged. Most of us are older and weren't born with a game controller at the other end of our umbilicle cord.
So what can they do next time they have a good idea and want to make it a great idea. Well first they should get an old guy with a mid-level cleric who plays on a lap-top to test it and see if he can navigate the mess they created. If he can get it at least once in every twenty tries then it's a go.
Or... they can make a short bus version for the rest of us. In the case of the current promotion, there should be a ski slope or a large skate track.
Or... wait, why not make it so the coins (white, blue, & purple) are random chest drops. Remember the festivault coins? Everyone had a chance to get gold ones. Or stick with the fire monsters dropping them but give a small chance for purple and blue to drop as well, not just white. I don't want to have to kill a named or end boss just to get a better coin.
Another great idea would have been to simply have a small no xp/np favor quest instance with an ice ring or dungeon. That way it would be a private instance for up to six people (reduced lag). You could fight things as you skate to earn coins. (not just white ones either)
So once again DDO has done something with obvious good intentions that only a handful of their customers can truly enjoy, all while creating a situation where-by that small handful can get extremely rich selling what only they can reach to those of us stupid enough to pay their ridiculous auction house price, for the stuff we will never see otherwise.
So for me, yeah, the winter festival makes everything so pretty. But I am tired of having my blood pressure raise as I get more and more frustrated trying to get that elusive purple coin. And with a jump skill in the 70's I really shouldn't be having a problem.

[fuzzy1guy]

HUGE letdown on the purple coin thing. Trying to get one of the few things actually worth even trying to get...

And dammit i just cant do it. The tavern never has enough people to trigger all the stuff now. And i can never hit that 4th jump in the harbor just right. Once. Let alone enough times to end up with a good recipe.

After days of trying i don't wanna even try now.


(cue posts about how you farmed up a million purple coins with ease and i'm a noob for failing)

Screw winter. I hate the cold.

[doug0810]

Denna1's right. This "winter games" idea is asinine. Only people using high end equipment, with lag-free internet connections, and with the right player design, are going to have a resonable chance to gather Purple coins. That means folks like me, with average equipment and a s.h.i.t.t.y ISP, are left to the gold farmers on the auction house.

Nice job bending the regular guy over ddo. Again.

At least with the Holiday Coins there was a random chance for a gold coin drop.

[Horrorscope]

The majority have lag issues? Have you turned graphics and feedback down? I had no idea most are still having lag issues. Yes jumping skill rewards aren't always crowd favorites.

[gordgray]

I tried once no more! I am with the others Why cant you do something that don't require you toon to keep asking some one to buff them so thy can keep getting coins. The Chat window gets very full of people asking for buffs to the point I Put my Guild window up, why cant you find things thy did for fun in winter back then and fine tune it for the game? I don't think that is asking much

Don't get me wrong, the winter festival thing is a good idea, but it would have been a great idea if they could have made it so that all people who play the game can enjoy it fully.
I mean the reality is that a large percentage of the people who play this game have lag issues (we can't all have the best computer equipment), so the little narrow ramps are almost impossible to hit.
Lag issues aside, a lot of people simply don't have characters with enormous jump skills.
And then there are people like me, the coordination challenged. Most of us are older and weren't born with a game controller at the other end of our umbilicle cord.
So what can they do next time they have a good idea and want to make it a great idea. Well first they should get an old guy with a mid-level cleric who plays on a lap-top to test it and see if he can navigate the mess they created. If he can get it at least once in every twenty tries then it's a go.
Or... they can make a short bus version for the rest of us. In the case of the current promotion, there should be a ski slope or a large skate track.
Or... wait, why not make it so the coins (white, blue, & purple) are random chest drops. Remember the festivault coins? Everyone had a chance to get gold ones. Or stick with the fire monsters dropping them but give a small chance for purple and blue to drop as well, not just white. I don't want to have to kill a named or end boss just to get a better coin.
Another great idea would have been to simply have a small no xp/np favor quest instance with an ice ring or dungeon. That way it would be a private instance for up to six people (reduced lag). You could fight things as you skate to earn coins. (not just white ones either)
So once again DDO has done something with obvious good intentions that only a handful of their customers can truly enjoy, all while creating a situation where-by that small handful can get extremely rich selling what only they can reach to those of us stupid enough to pay their ridiculous auction house price, for the stuff we will never see otherwise.
So for me, yeah, the winter festival makes everything so pretty. But I am tired of having my blood pressure raise as I get more and more frustrated trying to get that elusive purple coin. And with a jump skill in the 70's I really shouldn't be having a problem.

HUGE letdown on the purple coin thing. Trying to get one of the few things actually worth even trying to get...

And dammit i just cant do it. The tavern never has enough people to trigger all the stuff now. And i can never hit that 4th jump in the harbor just right. Once. Let alone enough times to end up with a good recipe.

After days of trying i don't wanna even try now.


(cue posts about how you farmed up a million purple coins with ease and i'm a noob for failing)

Screw winter. I hate the cold.

Denna1's right. This "winter games" idea is asinine. Only people using high end equipment, with lag-free internet connections, and with the right player design, are going to have a resonable chance to gather Purple coins. That means folks like me, with average equipment and a s.h.i.t.t.y ISP, are left to the gold farmers on the auction house.

Nice job bending the regular guy over ddo. Again.

At least with the Holiday Coins there was a random chance for a gold coin drop.

The majority have lag issues? Have you turned graphics and feedback down? I had no idea most are still having lag issues. Yes jumping skill rewards aren't always crows favorites.

[gavagai]

Don't get me wrong, the winter festival thing is a good idea, but it would have been a great idea if they could have made it so that all people who play the game can enjoy it fully.

[snip]

So for me, yeah, the winter festival makes everything so pretty. But I am tired of having my blood pressure raise as I get more and more frustrated trying to get that elusive purple coin. And with a jump skill in the 70's I really shouldn't be having a problem.

Unfortunately, while the Festivult coins were more accessible to all, most of the rewards were mediocre. The winter festivult is offering "permanent" upgrades on weapons, so I think the difficulty level is necessary to keep from unbalancing the entire game.

That said: I haven't even spent 5 minutes worrying about coins. I don't care about them. Recipe collecting and holiday crafting is not as exciting as questing and experimenting with character tactics. I'm not capped, and I'm not sitting on gear that I intend to keep for long. It's no loss to not participate. Really.

My advice is to enjoy the fun times as much as possible, and turning your back on the event once you've had enough. No upgrade to a temporary, random drop equipment is worth the cost to your enjoyment.

[IronClan]

Unfortunately, while the Festivult coins were more accessible to all, most of the rewards were mediocre. The winter festivult is offering "permanent" upgrades on weapons, so I think the difficulty level is necessary to keep from unbalancing the entire game.

No offense but my interpretation of that is that elite players, twitch gamers with the best computers/connections and the best gear will get to upgrade that best gear even more (seriously I'm seeing + enhanced weapons with 2 or 3 different 1d6 damage "blasts" AND with 1 or 2 other attributes (weighted seeker of parrying etc.)...

That's not KEEPING balance, that's adding an elephant on the same side of a "scale" that already has several piano's and a mack truck on it.

Don't know how you fix it, without either making the rewards lame for anyone who's played for more than a few months, or giving everyone uber weapons... But it does suck that some people have hundreds of purples while the rest of us have a hard time getting even one... and it's obvious from these threads that the people who are getting 100's of purples are the only ones getting the really good rewards....

[Lithic]

The shortbus version is the blue and white coins. Any blind one-armed monkey can get all the blue and white coins they want. You don't even need skates as there are several accessable just from jumping from buildings/ledges in the harbour. You do have access to a featherfall item right?

This of course has correspondingly "shortbus" rewards. You aren't going to suggest that they start putting +5 tomes in every waterworks chest right now are you?

But theres MORE good news! You can buy the recipes from purple coins from other players, or just buy the purple coins.

[gavagai]

No offense but my interpretation of that is that elite players, twitch gamers with the best computers/connections and the best gear will get to upgrade that best gear even more (seriously I'm seeing + enhanced weapons with 2 or 3 different 1d6 damage "blasts" AND with 1 or 2 other attributes (weighted seeker of parrying etc.)...

That's not KEEPING balance, that's adding an elephant on the same side of a "scale" that already has several piano's and a mack truck on it.

Sure, people with better connections will get more. And so will the people with more spare time. But it benefits Turbine to keep those who dedicate huge portions of time to the game, since they are in fact dedicating more time to it. I don't feel bad because I didn't put the time in to earn it.

Listen, I'll be there with you with the pitchforks if Turbine scales the whole game harder because they assume we all have Icy Burst-enhanced equipment. But I doubt that's gonna happen. The weapons are a benefit to some players that don't disadvantage other players. Unless you PvP alot, in which case a good Resist pot will help even the odds.

You'll get GS weapons eventually, and then you'll see how goofy the whole "balance" concept is in DDO. Many epic weapons are hugely inferior to standard ML12 greensteel.

[MrCow]

Any blind one-armed monkey can get all the blue and white coins they want.

As someone who has done things completely blind I can assure you that gathering the white and blue coins is not a very easy thing to do blinded.

[IronClan]

The shortbus version is the blue and white coins. Any blind one-armed monkey can get all the blue and white coins they want. You don't even need skates as there are several accessable just from jumping from buildings/ledges in the harbour. You do have access to a featherfall item right?

Shortbus? Wow that's an odd thing say about people who have lives and jobs and girlfriends or wives. Seems to imply a sort of elitist "I'm great at DDO so I'm better than you are" thing which is both amusing (in a jokes on you kind of way) and embarrassing at the same time.

Seriously get out of your parents basement, talk to a girl... maybe don't tell her about your "leet WF level 20 TR hatetank build that pwns all the raids".

[Gunga]

I thought it was cool.

/shrug

[Girlbrush]

Having attempted the ice games, I completely agree with denna1. As it stands now, unless you have the permanent skates, good jump, lots of other buffs and good coordination, you'd either be struggling to get coins the proper skating way or be forced to farm a couple of spots for a handful of coins, which isn't very fun after a while. It would be great if Turbine included more ways to get coins easily, like increasing more floating white/blue coins so that people who are trying but failing to skate can still grab something and be encouraged to keep trying. Or having them as chest rewards is another good suggestion. I know I enjoyed collecting coins that way during Festivult.

[Lithic]

Shortbus? Wow that's an odd thing say about people who have lives and jobs and girlfriends or wives. Seems to imply a sort of elitist "I'm great at DDO so I'm better than you are" thing which is both amusing (in a jokes on you kind of way) and embarrassing at the same time.

Seriously get out of your parents basement, talk to a girl... maybe don't tell her about your "leet WF level 20 TR hatetank build that pwns all the raids".

In the original post, the OP asked for a "Shortbus version" for old and decrepit people on laggy connections, so I used the term in my reply to him. He has since edited that part out.

[AylinIsAwesome]

I'd really like to see them drop in chests too. Most of my characters are a bit tight on skill points and can't train Jump much (if at all). Also it's extremely hard to aim for the coins I want when they all look the same colour to me, particularly the Blue and Purple ones.


At the same time though, I don't think it's all that unbalancing for any non-Monk character (speaking from melee...not sure about casters) since most melee eventually aims for named or crafted melee weapons while Monks are (for the most part) using randomly dropped handwraps. But hey, at least they get Jump as a class skill.


But still, I would like to see them drop in chests, not for imbalance reasons or anything like that, but because doing the Half pipe and the Jump are boring. It wouldn't be so bad if the coins (White, Blue and Purple) had a higher drop rate among Fire Creatures.

What's the point of making someone do the Jump of the Half pipe for half an hour when they could be questing instead? Just seems like a stupid gimmick to me.

[Xionanx]

Personally I would love for Turbine to use this as a stepping stone to implementing a legitimate crafting system.

How much harder could it be for them at this point as they have pretty much done it now:

You get:
A) A Recipe
B) Some "Magic" (Motes)
C) A Base (Random Item)
and get an effect added.

Why would it be such a great leap for them to convert all the collectible collectors into recipe givers for their respective "types" of items they woudl normally give out; Ie the kobold tends to give Reptillian Bane items, so why not Reptillian bane recipe?

The have a stone that "Breaks Down" normal magic items into thier "essence" and make people buy a MW Item as a "Base" for thier new weapon crafting.

Anyway, other then that.. yeah the games themselves are the suck and **** me off.

[AylinIsAwesome]

Personally I would love for Turbine to use this as a stepping stone to implementing a legitimate crafting system.

How much harder could it be for them at this point as they have pretty much done it now:

You get:
A) A Recipe
B) Some "Magic" (Motes)
C) A Base (Random Item)
and get an effect added.

Why would it be such a great leap for them to convert all the collectible collectors into recipe givers for their respective "types" of items they woudl normally give out; Ie the kobold tends to give Reptillian Bane items, so why not Reptillian bane recipe?

I think this would be a good thing. The stuff I get from the collectors I just trash at the vendors. If I could add Undead Bane to say a Holy Weapon of Righteousness though...I'd be much happier about it when I get so many collectibles it fills up all my bag spaces. (Still only affects random loot.)

[Rylex_Night-Shield]

Alright... I'm going to try my best to hold my tongue as to not appear to be inflamming others. All I keep hearing is, "I can't, I can't, I can't..."

Let me address a few things. First, I bought the perm skates. Why? Because at ONLY 95 TP's, it's a decent bargin. You can farm 100 TP's in like 2-3 hours folks, and that's on your main server. You can hop over to a new server you don't have a toon on and earn it in about 3-4 hours, depending on the group you find in Korthos. If you REALLY want to save your TP's, you can use your white coins too. But there is a learning curve of course to use them right. In about 10 min, I can grab about 20 white coins now. However in the long run, it'll save you a lot of headaches and time just to buy them from the DDO store.

Second, jump CAPS at 40 skill. All you NEED to do is go over to house P, earn 75 house P favor for lv 1 favor, and they let you buy a 30 min, +30 jump for a tiny price of 100gp from the house vendor. Come on folks... it's not that hard to do. If you have people whinning for sorcs and wizards to buff them in gen chat they're just being lazy. If you beg my wizard for jump, I'm usually nice enough to give you tumble as I run past and laugh at you. About the only other buff I use besides jump is haste. Again, house P lv 2 favor gave me a nice perma haste from my time amulet. If you don't have the adventure packs to earn the favor, there's pleanty of potions to buy in the marketplace.

Third... what lag? Are you kidding me? Do you have ANY clue what system I'm using? This is a home build 32 bit AMD 2800, 1 gig ram, 256 ram video card machine I made about 10 years ago. I've had to replace the power supply in it twice now. The last official upgrade it got was 5 years ago when I put in a 120gig HD. If anything breaks in it again, I'll have to buy a whole new machine since they don't sell spare parts in a comp store anymore. I have lag in part one of the shroud, I get about 25-30% data lost from lag because of all the blasted portals. I could "fix" it if I desided to lower my graphics down a bit but I like how it is now and I get by. I have 0 lag in the harbor. I don't even have a "nice" internet connection, I'm using an AT&T dsl modem. It does what I need it to and that's good enough.

Lastly, yes, it does take some degree of hand-eye coordnation to aim a jump. I don't know what to say if you can't. There's no shortcut around it I can advise you. I also love doing The Pit as well but then I can solo that and I don't mind letting others tag along for the XP and favor if they want. But, if you want to get "good" at jumping, The Pit is a great place to build that skill. There might be some technique to the series of jumps too, I don't know. I do know I showed 2 other guild mates how to grab purple coins that asked me how and they both started grabbing them about 30 min later. If you're on Ghalla, ask my guild leader in New Outriders for me and I'll show you how too. I don't care since coins reset 3 seconds after someone else grabs it. So, as long as I'm not right on top of you, I don't mind you grabbing the coin before I do. It's just that it takes about 2-3 min for the coin to reset for you if you grab it yourself. Personally, I like that feature in game.

Personally, I did the game for about 48 hours and got bored with it. I grabbed all the recipes and had 10 of the recipe #5's in that time. About the only reason I would want to do it now is to farm purple coins to either sell or hand in for recipe #5 to sell. I guess I could sell winter motes too but I don't even now a reasonable price since I have 3000 left over. Actually, the only "thing" I do need are festival twigs... thanks a lot devs... :P Steps 1-3 are pretty easy and obtainable for about EVERYBODY. If you can't get to lv 1 house P favor, then you should be worring about other things then ski jumping. As far as step 4 goes... try and try again until you're good at it. Even with my technique, it isn't for everyone and I'm sure other people have different ideas. I have seen a few FvS and Monks "cheating" to make the jump across and I'm using a rogue. So, other's are able to obtain purple coins then just besides myself. Good luck and I hope to hear more about what you "can" do then what you can't do.

[Memnir]

Beyond the extraordinarily bad choices made in regards to using Twigs and Coal in some of the recipes - I think the Winter Games have been very enjoyable. Granted, I've only come to appreciate them over the last few days - but I really like them.

The Purple Coin jump is hard.
Learning the tricks to controlling your jump can be difficult.
Getting the lucky-lotto reward of recipe #5 is frustrating.
There is a learning curve. You will not be good at it without practice...

But, these things do not mean it sucks. Challenge is a good thing - and the fact that it's hard but possible is fantastic. I feel like a champ each time I get a Purple Coin and that is completely due to it being difficult. There is no easy-button on the Purples, and that is awesome.

If you are not good at it - practice. I did, and it took a while to learn and I had some very frustrating moments while I got to know what I was doing. Or don't... less competition for Purples means there will be more for me to grab. This is one event that rewards those who are patient and diligent enough to learn. And that is fantastic, imho.

[S0rdmasta]

Once again I see a clear divide between the opinions of those with a join date of 2006 and the newer players.

Only someone with millions of plat would even joke about buying #5's and purple coins. And only people who have been playing for years have millions of plat. I do understand that having played for years, it all probably seems easy, and the frustration of newer lower level players might get annoying after a while. But if you really think people are complaining for no reason, or just not trying hard enough, then you have lost your perspective and clearly cannot even recall what it was like to be a new low lvl player.

You might as well just take our word for it, trying to get purples on a low level toon, on a 320ms ping is beyond challenging. Its just plain frustrating. Fun factor is very low. We newbies don't even kid ourselves about getting icy burst onto anything. We know we'll be lucky to get a few frosty weapons out of the whole thing by mindlessly farming off a rooftop. The OP is spot on, the festival is geared towards high end toons and veteran players.