End of the week with Major Malphunktion 9.23.11

[Drakos]

To be honest, I'm kinda glad with this change. I really do not want more BTA gear. It's ridiculous that you can gear out a toon completely without ever playing the content on that toon. Takes away half the charm of the game.

The problem is this that maybe half the charm for you but it's not have the charm for everyone else. If you prefer to have a character that uses the item be the one to grind it out fine, nobody forces you to do it any other way, but for some that may not be half the fun so why should they be a force to play the way you like instead of what makes it fun for them.

[Zenako]

Well said Zaodon.

Only problem is that in DDO once you put it on the ground it sinks in never to be seen again....

[Zenako]

The ingredients are still BTA, aren't they? If that's true, then you can simply collect the ingredients on one toon, send it to the toon you want the item on, and craft it. This requires you to plan ahead, and create the toons that you want to use the items on right now. Bit less convenient than before. I could imagine that making the item BTA and "bind on equip" is better.

To be honest, I'm kinda glad with this change. I really do not want more BTA gear. It's ridiculous that you can gear out a toon completely without ever playing the content on that toon. Takes away half the charm of the game.

Your perspective is also likely clouded by your mix of characters, which appears to be 3 capped level 20 toons based on your MyDDO. The real value of the BtA stuff in CC was in the mid levels and being able to move that around. I have over 20 characters on my main account on my main server and dozens more on other accounts and servers. BtA was a wonderful thing for most of them.

For my capped guys, they got only the items they wanted and those items will probably never leave them. Capped cleric got some Plate, Capped Rogue a nice Epic Spyglass, etc, etc. The BtC aspect does not affect my capped guys at all (they were capped before CC came around anyway).

The BtA stuff that you want to be able to pass around and use while at those low and mid levels is where the real problem hits.

[Backley]

"Bound to Account/Character" is stupid. Its a fake, MMO, game-balance mechanic. It has no meaning or value outside of MMORPG economy. There should be nothing BtC. Nothing. Everything should be either unbound or BTA. Players play this game, not characters. Players earn things by playing content. Turbine should not give a rats butt what toon they use.

Simple as that.

I agree, perfectly stated.

[CaptGrim]

The ingredients are still BTA, aren't they? If that's true, then you can simply collect the ingredients on one toon, send it to the toon you want the item on, and craft it. This requires you to plan ahead, and create the toons that you want to use the items on right now. Bit less convenient than before. I could imagine that making the item BTA and "bind on equip" is better.

To be honest, I'm kinda glad with this change. I really do not want more BTA gear. It's ridiculous that you can gear out a toon completely without ever playing the content on that toon. Takes away half the charm of the game.

While I do think that the cove items should be BTC. I really like the new bta push in the past year or so.

It is really nice to be able to play the charactor you wish to play no matter what gear you are trying for. I ve been to the point a few years ago on one of my guys where he was "done". He had everypeice of gear he needed and I pretty much stopped playing him because I had other toons to advance.

Think about ToD and lack of people willing to heal it. If these people could get rings for their other toons they would be more willing to take the risk of a poor run and having to drink a few pots. But as it stands once they get their rings ... no more pugs.

Now look at epic raid, bring whoever you want the shards are bta, the is usually no issue finding competant heals for Epic raids.

The new raids break that cycle and it is disappointing that once these healers get their 30 runs and all 3 essences they need they will be focusing on other guys and not healing, same thing goes for tanks, great DPS, and top notch casters. The new essences should be made BTA.

[Bogenbroom]

DING! It's the journey not the destination. I know this is a sacrilege statement in current gaming, but really it should be about the fun, not about the loot.-My opinion, not Turbine's.

Well, I am going to disagree with the backlash folks.

Item binding compensates for a real world mechanic that players often ignore. Why, realistically, would an adventurer just give away the awesome item that they just finished risking their life for? As players we view our characters as a set, but an Adventurer (or any person, really) would always approach this transaction in a "What does this transaction do for me?" mindset. Be that benefit short (straight up trade) or long term. MMOs have *very* little in terms of long term benefit, since they are games they are built on the short term.

I often find that when folks are complaining about "The Grind" they are obsessing with the end of the journey and journey itself. That is fine, maybe that is what is fun for them, but that is not what games are generally built around. They are built around the journey.

And, before (or probably well after) anyone says "What does it matter how *I* enjoy the game?" The disparate gearing of characters has very obvious effects on the players who simply play the content. They are blatantly derided and excluded.

I am *NOT* saying playing in any one way is wrong. I am saying that the game should be built with a particular vision (and, as with most games, that is "the journey") and concessions to other play styles need to be made very delicately.

Strictly in terms of BtC/BtA... I am not a huge fan of BtA items (ingredients is another matter,) but if there is a need to move a bound item from one character to another I would very much favor a mech that allowed Character A to put said item into a "bound item account bank" from which another character could withdraw *1* item whenever they completed the source content. Maybe in lieu of an end-reward.

P.S. edit. FWIW, I, too, have to keep myself from grinding gear. I want it as bad as anyone. I am not saying "play like me" because I am not a pure "journey taker" either.

[Zaodon]

Well, I am going to disagree with the backlash folks.

Item binding compensates for a real world mechanic that players often ignore. Why, realistically, would an adventurer just give away the awesome item that they just finished risking their life for? As players we view our characters as a set, but an Adventurer (or any person, really) would always approach this transaction in a "What does this transaction do for me?" mindset. Be that benefit short (straight up trade) or long term. MMOs have *very* little in terms of long term benefit, since they are games they are built on the short term.

I often find that when folks are complaining about "The Grind" they are obsessing with the end of the journey and journey itself. That is fine, maybe that is what is fun for them, but that is not what games are generally built around. They are built around the journey.

And, before (or probably well after) anyone says "What does it matter how *I* enjoy the game?" The disparate gearing of characters has very obvious effects on the players who simply play the content. They are blatantly derided and excluded.

I am *NOT* saying playing in any one way is wrong. I am saying that the game should be built with a particular vision (and, as with most games, that is "the journey") and concessions to other play styles need to be made very delicately.

Strictly in terms of BtC/BtA... I am not a huge fan of BtA items (ingredients is another matter,) but if there is a need to move a bound item from one character to another I would very much favor a mech that allowed Character A to put said item into a "bound item account bank" from which another character could withdraw *1* item whenever they completed the source content. Maybe in lieu of an end-reward.

P.S. edit. FWIW, I, too, have to keep myself from grinding gear. I want it as bad as anyone. I am not saying "play like me" because I am not a pure "journey taker" either.

In DDO, my figher can get a SECOND "Sword of Shadows". This RIPS any sense of continuity or believability or immersion. So, given that you can do this in any MMORPG, you need to stop viewing things from the point of view of your CHARACTER (since there is no immersion or continuity in MMOs), and view it as a PLAYER. A player who gets "Item X" should be able to put that item on any of their Characters they choose. If they are lucky enough to get a second copy of "Item X", that can go on another of those characters. It should be 100% irrelevant which character they were ON when they acquired the item. It doesn't upset the artificial game balance of DDO in any way. Sure, farming an item to trade to *other* players *does* have an affect. But certainly not for intra-character swapping for the one player.

[Tharlak]

Its equally ridiculous to think that your "toon" runs a quest. You run the quest. Which character you run it on is irrelevant.

I hate using the words "real world" when talking in a video game forum, but... the idea that an item could even be "bound" is ridiculous.

Player A: "I take off my armor and hand it to Player B"
Player B: "Cool thanks!"
GM: "Um you can't."
Player A: "Why? Can't I remove the armor? Is it cursed?"
GM: "Um, well, no, you can remove it and put on other armor..."
Player A: "OK, I remove it, and put on my other armor. Then I hand it to Player B."
GM: "You can't hand it to Player B, its bound to you."
Player A: "I hereby renounce my bond. Player B can have it."
GM: "It doesn't work that way."
Player A: "OK, its mine. I leave it on the ground next to me, is that ok?"
GM: "Yes."
Player B: "I grab it and put it on."
GM: <sigh....>

"Bound to Account/Character" is stupid. Its a fake, MMO, game-balance mechanic. It has no meaning or value outside of MMORPG economy. There should be nothing BtC. Nothing. Everything should be either unbound or BTA. Players play this game, not characters. Players earn things by playing content. Turbine should not give a rats butt what toon they use.

Simple as that.

^^^^
This

[NXPlasmid]

DING! It's the journey not the destination. I know this is a sacrilege statement in current gaming, but really it should be about the fun, not about the loot.-My opinion, not Turbine's.

This is an extremely dissapointing comment from a dev. Loot is a very important aspect of the "journey". A significant part of that "journey" is building the overall capability of the particular toon you are playing. To suggest simply running the quests is reward enough shows a lack of understanding of both PnP and DDO. Aquisition of loot has always been a critical aspect of Dungeons and Dragons, always.

It's fine to have such an idealistic perspective, but as a paying customer I expect a more realistic attitude from the devs.

[gloopygloop]

DING! It's the journey not the destination. I know this is a sacrilege statement in current gaming, but really it should be about the fun, not about the loot.-My opinion, not Turbine's.

Different players enjoy the game in different ways. If a player said what you just said there, I wouldn't have a problem with it, because that's just that player expressing their opinion on the "purpose" of DDO.

But when you say that, it makes me think that you're going to actively work at implementing your vision of what we "should" be doing in DDO to have fun. And it is entirely possible that the way I enjoy DDO doesn't completely match the way that you enjoy DDO.

I appreciate that you have your own opinions that may or may not match the official development policy, but I also believe that there is plenty of room in DDO for different people to enjoy the game in different ways.

[Bogenbroom]

In DDO, my figher can get a SECOND "Sword of Shadows". This RIPS any sense of continuity or believability or immersion. So, given that you can do this in any MMORPG, you need to stop viewing things from the point of view of your CHARACTER (since there is no immersion or continuity in MMOs), and view it as a PLAYER. A player who gets "Item X" should be able to put that item on any of their Characters they choose. If they are lucky enough to get a second copy of "Item X", that can go on another of those characters. It should be 100% irrelevant which character they were ON when they acquired the item. It doesn't upset the artificial game balance of DDO in any way. Sure, farming an item to trade to *other* players *does* have an affect. But certainly not for intra-character swapping for the one player.

I have to disagree with you there. Any character who can get items to that character that the character did not himself acquire artificially inflates the power level of the game. That creates a power gap on a player-to-player basis instead of a character-to-character basis. The larger that gap is the more strain that puts on game development.

I also disagree with your assertion that the game should be designed from a player instead of character perspective. I do not believe any one character should have advantages over another character due to the fact that the player has a multi-tude of characters. I say that fully believing that I have more characters than anyone else in this game and inter-character item movement is a *huge* benefit to me, personally.

Players will play it from a player instead of character perspective, that is human nature, but I disagree that it should be designed from that perspective.

That said, I think they have done some nice things to bridge that divide, like equipment that is BtA until upgraded, then it is BtC. I am not 100% fan of the notion, but I think it is a very good compromise between the two camps.

[rest]

DING! It's the journey not the destination. I know this is a sacrilege statement in current gaming, but really it should be about the fun, not about the loot.-My opinion, not Turbine's.

It's the journey... for you. Some people like the destination. If you drive somewhere every weekend for a year to visit friends/family/whoever the journey becomes boring and just an obstacle to the destination: visiting your friends/family/whoever.

Similarly, if you've been playing for more than a couple of years, you've "been there, done that" with regard to the content. Did I REALLY like the "journey" to 60 DQs for my torc on my cleric's first life? Heck no. It was just something I had to do to get what I really wanted: the "destination". In this case, the torc.

Besides once I have that gear I want, those items I need to make my build work how I want it, THEN I can do what I like to have fun. Everyone's definition of fun is different. People RP, people permadeath, people zerg, people flower sniff all because that is what they find fun. I do enjoy the leveling process on a new character but, for me at least, it's all leading up to when I can run elite raids and epics with my friends and guilds. That is fun to me. It's not fun to be unable to contribute because I didn't grind out 120 raids for the stuff I needed to be helpful in the harder content.

I'm happy that you love playing waterworks for the 1000th time (literally that many runs if not more for plenty of the players out there) but I'm simply sick of it to be perfectly honest. It's a roadblock in my "journey".

[gloopygloop]

I have to disagree with you there. Any character who can get items to that character that the character did not himself acquire artificially inflates the power level of the game. That creates a power gap on a player-to-player basis instead of a character-to-character basis. The larger that gap is the more strain that puts on game development.

The thing that escalates the power level of the game is when characters get useful items period. It has nothing to do with the question of whether that character obtained the items themselves or if a "big brother" alt farmed the item for them.

It doesn't matter who farmed the item - the only thing that matters is that the item is used.

[Yaga_Nub]

This is an extremely dissapointing comment from a dev. Loot is a very important aspect of the "journey". A significant part of that "journey" is building the overall capability of the particular toon you are playing. To suggest simply running the quests is reward enough shows a lack of understanding of both PnP and DDO. Aquisition of loot has always been a critical aspect of Dungeons and Dragons, always.

It's fine to have such an idealistic perspective, but as a paying customer I expect a more realistic attitude from the devs.

MM isn't a dev.

[Samadhi]

And, before (or probably well after) anyone says "What does it matter how *I* enjoy the game?" The disparate gearing of characters has very obvious effects on the players who simply play the content. They are blatantly derided and excluded.

This is the exact reason I PREFER non-bound and BtA environments. In a BTC only environment, I want XXX item from a raid, and XXX is a horribly built flavor character with mediocre gear. So now I have to pike through 20+ raids on a bad character to get what I need? How is that fair to you to have to carry me through?

Now in a BtA or non-bound environment, I can switch to a main tank, a healer, a bard, a caster, etc etc as to what the group needs to get an easier completion. This makes YOUR life easier because you don't have to carry a gimp; and it makes my gaming time more fun as I can still "waste" my loot on the gimp if I choose to, but can help out the party in the meantime.

This far and wide seems to benefit BTA and unbound environments with no penalty that I can see (unless it is turbine's goal for no one to be able to fill raids in under an hour unless they can play at specific times of the day - which I doubt).



As to the immersion / RP problems you were seeing with it... I don't. My characters are all in a book I am writing. They know each other; and it is unreasonable to assume they need to be selfish with each other.

[Vordax]

MM isn't a dev.

He could be an SDET.

Vordax

[Produktion_Malphunktion]

Different players enjoy the game in different ways. If a player said what you just said there, I wouldn't have a problem with it, because that's just that player expressing their opinion on the "purpose" of DDO.

But when you say that, it makes me think that you're going to actively work at implementing your vision of what we "should" be doing in DDO to have fun. And it is entirely possible that the way I enjoy DDO doesn't completely match the way that you enjoy DDO.

I appreciate that you have your own opinions that may or may not match the official development policy, but I also believe that there is plenty of room in DDO for different people to enjoy the game in different ways.

I don't have vision, I'm QA, I don't set vision on this game. As I stated this is my personal opinion of what I get from gaming.

[MindCake]

Well, I am going to disagree with the backlash folks.

Item binding compensates for a real world mechanic that players often ignore. Why, realistically, would an adventurer just give away the awesome item that they just finished risking their life for? As players we view our characters as a set, but an Adventurer (or any person, really) would always approach this transaction in a "What does this transaction do for me?" mindset. Be that benefit short (straight up trade) or long term. MMOs have *very* little in terms of long term benefit, since they are games they are built on the short term.

But getting a ton of ingredients worth a fortune on your capped whatever, passing it to your lowbie, and crafting the item there is just fine? Where's the consistency in that?

BTW, I handwave/roleplay a group of characters played by one person as a closely knit circle of friends, their families and children. So the old wizard will pass his arcane lore item to his nephew (as long as the youngster is promising and also gets off the lawn), even if it's a priceless artifact he personally crafted after an epic quest through 9 planes. Or a fighter can decide to call a cleric and the latter will appear without a question, because they're buddies, too bad the fighter dissappears in the mean time, but yeah...

[MrkGrismer]

In DDO, my figher can get a SECOND "Sword of Shadows". This RIPS any sense of continuity or believability or immersion. So, given that you can do this in any MMORPG, you need to stop viewing things from the point of view of your CHARACTER (since there is no immersion or continuity in MMOs), and view it as a PLAYER. A player who gets "Item X" should be able to put that item on any of their Characters they choose. If they are lucky enough to get a second copy of "Item X", that can go on another of those characters. It should be 100% irrelevant which character they were ON when they acquired the item. It doesn't upset the artificial game balance of DDO in any way. Sure, farming an item to trade to *other* players *does* have an affect. But certainly not for intra-character swapping for the one player.

In addtion, having the above item BtA instead of BtC might make the player decide, hey, I have a second snazzy ItemX, I think I will make a new character to use it, I guess I will have to buy a new character slot from the ddo store...

Many of the issues I think people are having with the BtC change is for items that are below ML 20. I have a few from CC that I put in and out of the shared bank because they are useful at the ML of the item, but not for many levels after that. It was more useful to make Tier 1 or 2 items at a few different ML levels than to worry about upgrading items to higher ML versions, especially considering the time limited nature of the event. If it was an 'always on' event/quest it might be a different matter (esp if the ml upgrade prices where a bit more reasonable than I remember them being.

[Produktion_Malphunktion]

that the bound state of items in Crystal Cove is currently the same as it was when the event was released earlier this year, and remains Bound to Account when upgraded. We are continuing to discuss this, but for now the items are Bound to Account.