Casual Elimination of Named or Rare Items

[Mastese]

Maybe it's just me, but it just doesn't settle well with me to observe the abundance of "Casual Farming for X, Y or Z" LFMs that seem to be the all the craze nowadays.
Casual difficulty was introduced as part of Update 3 to make DDO more accessible. More accessible to those lesser experienced/geared players who found Normal difficulty to be too challenging or even for those who simply preferred an exclusive soloing play-style that would be too limited without the support of others. I "got it" when they rolled Casual out, and think that there are those for whom it legitimately opens up opportunities that wouldn't be there otherwise. It can allow many to simply play and enjoy a sense of accomplishment or success without the worry of build optimization or overall advanced knowledge and skill. It allows others to smartly gain experience prior to taking on the responsibility that comes from higher difficulty team-oriented play.

I feel that Casual has evolved now with unintended consequences. It appears as if the majority use Casual as a utility to easily gather what I believe should be more exclusive named or rare items. The outcome of this trend being the wholesale devaluation of gear that once would have once been considered powerful and prized. Now these items are simply commonplace. As of late, ioun stones are ripe for the picking.

I realize that this is not the only example of practices that have eroded some of the "magic" that made DDO more special in the past. +3 Tomes and other gear for sale through the Turbine Store provide a similar affect. I also recognize that there have been plenty of other threads in the past that have covered this broader topic in full. Still, I would like to see some small steps made to push the balance of the game back in the right direction. I think that Casual difficulty, along with already providing reduced favor and xp, should also exclude the possibility of pulling named, rare or exclusive quest-specific items.

An honest days pay for an honest days work would be a good place to start to returning the value back to DDO in general.

-Mastese

[Sarisa]

A large part of it is that end reward lists cannot currently see what you ran the quest/chain under, and there are a huge number of "third chain rewards" available now.

This is also why you get level 6 grade loot after doing eDA.

[Ungood]

Casual difficulty was introduced as part of Update 3 to make DDO more accessible. More accessible to those lesser experienced/geared players who found Normal difficulty to be too challenging or even for those who simply preferred an exclusive soloing play-style that would be too limited without the support of others. I "got it" when they rolled Casual out, and think that there are those for whom it legitimately opens up opportunities that wouldn't be there otherwise.

(sic)

I think that Casual difficulty, along with already providing reduced favor and xp, should also exclude the possibility of pulling named, rare or exclusive quest-specific items

As you pointed out, this idea would hurt the very people Casual was Made for.

For that alone, I'd have to say.

/Not Signed.

But also it would have no effect as to why people are currently farming casual.

[Impaqt]

As you pointed out, this idea would hurt the very people Casual was Made for.

For that alone, I'd have to say.

/Not Signed.

But also it would have no effect as to why people are currently farming casual.

This...

plus, many named item drops already have a drastically reduced drop rate (Or none at all) on Casual Difficulty. You're not even guaranteed a pie piece on shroud flagging runs on Casual...

[sweez]

It appears as if the majority use Casual as a utility to easily gather what I believe should be more exclusive named or rare items. The outcome of this trend being the wholesale devaluation of gear that once would have once been considered powerful and prized. Now these items are simply commonplace. As of late, ioun stones are ripe for the picking.

I'm not sure what other 'exclusive' gear can be obtained from casual completions - most of the gear people would call exclusive comes pretty, well, exclusively from high-end epic content. Ioun stones are a special beast, and yeah I agree they're somewhat 'easy' to farm now, although I have to say that I like this situation much more then the one we had before.

People who farm for items, even on casual, should have more chance of obtaining those items than people who just sit in harbor chat for hours and snipe f2p newbies that pull ioun stones in the old, wildly random system.

[Systern]

Maybe it's just me, but it just doesn't settle well with me to observe the abundance of "Casual Farming for X, Y or Z" LFMs that seem to be the all the craze nowadays.
Casual difficulty was introduced as part of Update 3 to make DDO more accessible. More accessible to those lesser experienced/geared players who found Normal difficulty to be too challenging or even for those who simply preferred an exclusive soloing play-style that would be too limited without the support of others. I "got it" when they rolled Casual out, and think that there are those for whom it legitimately opens up opportunities that wouldn't be there otherwise. It can allow many to simply play and enjoy a sense of accomplishment or success without the worry of build optimization or overall advanced knowledge and skill. It allows others to smartly gain experience prior to taking on the responsibility that comes from higher difficulty team-oriented play.

I feel that Casual has evolved now with unintended consequences. It appears as if the majority use Casual as a utility to easily gather what I believe should be more exclusive named or rare items. The outcome of this trend being the wholesale devaluation of gear that once would have once been considered powerful and prized. Now these items are simply commonplace. As of late, ioun stones are ripe for the picking.

I realize that this is not the only example of practices that have eroded some of the "magic" that made DDO more special in the past. +3 Tomes and other gear for sale through the Turbine Store provide a similar affect. I also recognize that there have been plenty of other threads in the past that have covered this broader topic in full. Still, I would like to see some small steps made to push the balance of the game back in the right direction. I think that Casual difficulty, along with already providing reduced favor and xp, should also exclude the possibility of pulling named, rare or exclusive quest-specific items.

An honest days pay for an honest days work would be a good place to start to returning the value back to DDO in general.

-Mastese

You realize that this is a game and not a hedge fund, right? Other people don't need to have fun your way to have fun.

"Lighten up, Francis."

[ArcaneMelee]

This would just lead to further "nerfs" of challenging content.

No thanks - casual players want the good stuff too.

[Matuse]

Casual shouldn't increment the quest completions meter.

[psteen1]

Casual shouldn't increment the quest completions meter.

When your toon is high enough level, casual isn't any different than normal. Or hard. Or sometimes elite depending on what you are doing.

If you really want to limit loot, which I don't support, than the only real option is to prevent high level characters running quests that are too low for them.

[licho]

I understand from where is OP coming from, and agry than running 15x Mindsunder to get some nice loot is iffy.

This will be actually nice if the counter for 3rd competicion will tick only on normal and above, and if eCHest will have cr20 rather than cr7 and similar. However, there is much more work to do. And rather than toying with loot tables i wish devs will put effort into classes/races.

From the other side the problem may be that you need to run 20x some quest to get a single piece of transition gear which is not even so uber. Thinking about Dragontouched armor, to get desired settup you need to do at least 10x runs and this is not so much endgame.

[Matuse]

When your toon is high enough level, casual isn't any different than normal. Or hard.

Then run it on normal. Or hard.

[supot]

Mindsunder requires only mindsunder.. I was kinda surprised when I farmed my Ioun stones.. Thought it was a 3x 'Chain' End reward.

If you have to run Mindsunder's 4 quests on Casual, that i believe would work more as intended.

For a level 20 toon, running quests on Normal isn't too difficult even for ungeared adventurers. Running on casual for the purpose of farming is already a chore. Needing it to be normal wouldn't really make it that much more difficult. In lvl 19-20 quests, maybe a bit more difficult.. But still easy.

I'm all for letting the newbies have more options and an easier time.

[mobrien316]

I think anyone who doesn't feel certain chains should be farmed on casual should absolutely not farm those chains on casual. If you think it is wrong or improper or will ruin your fun then you are 100% right in not doing it.


If other people want to do it, why would you want to stop them? What gear they possess and how they obtained it doesn't affect you to the slightest degree.

[madmaxhunter]

Sorry, we already opened Pandora's box. To nerf casual difficulty would only hurt the new players. All the vets that wanted the Ioun Stones have them already.

I have every one... upgraded. Am I one of the "bad" players? Call me what you want. I've been playing this game nearly every day for over two years and have only seen my son pull one stone. And it was one of the craptastic ones.

(Ioun stones are just one reference to casual farming)

[Alaunra2010]

I would not be so concerned. Turbine's rationale may be economic.

In my opinion, ioun stones stick out as the primary example of what you describe. High-level folks can now pick these up in Dreaming Dark. Why? Well I'd bet that VIP membership is down a bit, and The Path of Inspiration was identified as an Adventure Pack that many premium account holders don't own.

Couple that with the fact that ioun stones are kinda cool, have neat properties, and have had obtainability issues in the past, and you have an interesting sales opportunity for Turbine.

So Turbine may have killed two birds... with... one... ioun stone. </barf>

Besides, a lot of named items are throttled way back on casual. That, or they don't drop at all. Take the mysterious bauble, for example. It's "persona non droppa" on casual.

This is speculative, but if I'm right, I don't have a problem with Turbine's strategy. First, boosting sales for less-popular content and giving people neat loot are not mutually exclusive concepts. Second, offering named loot in casual mode for items that do not break the sales model in the DDO Store is something they do routinely.

This would explain why something like an ioun stone is fairly easy to get, while the mysterious bauble is hard to get even under Hard, and things like the Ring of Spell Storing epic upgrades are very difficult to obtain under Epic. The ioun stones don't have much of an impact on store sales, while spell point items definitely do. To me, it all meshes together pretty nicely from a revenue perspective.

[psteen1]

Then run it on normal. Or hard.

you missed my point.

Which was, there is no way to prevent farming of these items. If you take casual farming out like the OP suggests, people will just farm on normal or hard, and it will take them an extra minute or two. No big deal.

So don't bother to fight the system as it is. Just accept the situation and enjoy the nice loot.

[ArcaneMelee]

The other thing to consider is that the best way to farm an ion stone was to grind a level 4 quest on hard. Isn't it better to have level 20's farming a level 20 quest on Casual than a level 4 quest on Hard?

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

I feel that Casual has evolved now with unintended consequences. It appears as if the majority use Casual as a utility to easily gather what I believe should be more exclusive named or rare items. The outcome of this trend being the wholesale devaluation of gear that once would have once been considered powerful and prized. Now these items are simply commonplace. As of late, ioun stones are ripe for the picking.

Simple : DDO is gear oriented -> Newbies adopt that.

It's really a matter of the underlying philosophy.

If DDO wasn't so gear-oriented, fewer people would go out "farming".

Gear-orientedness was introduced into gaming by Blizzard. Blam them, ultimatively. Because they have "taught" or "trained" gamer generations into believing that gear - and hence everything materialistic - is cool and should be aquired at all costs.

People with unnamed and non-rare items are just this : Loosers. Whiners. Weakies - just imagine a word for it, and it will most likely fit.

Having big gear is like driving big cars in RL : It's so cool ! So Über-Cool !
Girls will look after the biggest cars, some people believe.
So, having great gear is paramount for some.

And peer pressure might also play a role in this.

I repeat : If DDO wasn't so much oriented towards gear, people wouldn't go "farming" for them.
But perhaps they would go farming for other things instead. For Bravery Bonus, for example, or for Favour.
Oops, they do it already ...

[Matuse]

Which was, there is no way to prevent farming of these items. If you take casual farming out like the OP suggests, people will just farm on normal or hard, and it will take them an extra minute or two. No big deal.

The difference between casual and normal is pretty extreme. Casual monsters die if you call them a bad name...unfortunately, that also extends to escort targets like Coyle, but that is for another thread.

The way the Vale works is perfect. You can run casual, and it will get you flagged for the shroud, but the ingredient drop rate is terribad, and you'll have to run it even more times to compensate.

Why not just put a vendor on the isle of forgotten dreams who sells ioun stones for 10 platinum? That's basically the situation, it just takes a little bit more time now....and you get a bunch of trash loot to sell/decon.

There is a line between "smack the loot pinata" and "loot that is too hard to get". Pre-U13 Ioun Stones were in the latter category due to their incredibly low drop rate and very limited range of quests where they could appear at all. Now they are firmly in the former area. If the goal was to up the accessibility, then the solution would have been akin to the Eardweller...put them in chests, and sizably up the drop rate depending on difficulty. Either that, or make it a chain reward. Not a single quest.

[decease]

/Not Signed.

do you really want everyone to start playing wf sorc? yea.. everyone can solo everything with wf sorc, but not all player choose to..