Epic Dungeon Tokens and TR

[Chette]

As epic dungeon tokens are not going to be dropping in any of the new content, will you be implementing new mechanisms for aquiring true hearts of wood?

Otherwise it seems our choices are either to farm out content we've already been running for years, which gives extremely poor quality loot compared to the new content (i.e. you're only running it for the tokens), or, the more likely route, buy them from the DDO store...

I don't fancy either option.

[Dagolar]

As epic dungeon tokens are not going to be dropping in any of the new content, will you be implementing new mechanisms for aquiring true hearts of wood?

Otherwise it seems our choices are either to farm out content we've already been running for years, which gives extremely poor quality loot compared to the new content (i.e. you're only running it for the tokens), or, the more likely route, buy them from the DDO store...

I don't fancy either option.

That seems to be the way of it. Think of it as having SOME reason to go back and run those old quests [and they do give epic experience and epic level random loot, at least]. TRing is the loot drop of those quests. :P

Given how TRing bases off of level 20, it makes sense, in a way, to continue associating it with those quests.

You can still get epic tokens by trading in [old] challenge ingredients as well, so there's an option that isn't quite years old.

Still, could make it really interesting, and have a Druidic-based faction in FR that has a "Very nice loot" list (in much the same manner as Argo favor does) that takes a fair bit of effort to work on, but once you get to it, it offers some specialized options [Perhaps even including a selection of consumables that give feats with benefits of the same nature as Argo HP and persist through TRs, giving even more reason to TR, to collect them all] of which a True Heart is one.

Eh, in any case, there can be a way for it.
But for now, I'm not seeing it as an immediate concern: If you're running the new content any time soon on a toon, chances are you won't be wanting to TR that toon for a fair time anyway. ;P

[Chette]

But for now, I'm not seeing it as an immediate concern: If you're running the new content any time soon on a toon, chances are you won't be wanting to TR that toon for a fair time anyway. ;P

Aye, but I'll be using that toon to farm epic tokens for ones I do want to TR, and I'd rather not waste my time in quests with **** loot

IT won't be a problem at first, I agree, since we'll be farming our XP from the old content anyway. But I see it becoming a big problem once you've XP capped all the characters that you don't plan to TR, and want to TR some of your characters you're still working on.

[Vellrad]

S&M guide to true heart of wood for epic dungeon tokens:
1. (optional) Get shipbuffs, house P buffs, consubamles or items you migth wish to use on next steps.
2. Go to House Cannith Enclave
3. Talk with challenge ticket NPC. Do it each day if you don't own challenge pack to accumulate decent amount of tickets.
4. Gather friends and/or guildes and/or puggers and/or hirelings.
5. Complete one the following challenges on epic (CR21) difficulty setting: "Time is money", "buying time", "labor shortage" until you run out of time or tickets, or until you gather total 6,000 ingredients.
6. Talk with halforc NPC giving lvl20 rewards and trade your ingredients with for epic dungeon tokens.
7. Take your tokens to the Twelve Enclave and trade them for heart of wood.
8. ???
9, Profit!

[merentha]

You know there are three valid ways to answer and understand the decision:

Marketing (has 2):
-Keep a reason for the old content to be purchased by Premium/F2P players who do not want to buy True Hearts of Wood from our DDO store.
-The people who only want to buy MOTU need a reason to spend money in the DDO store.

Developer (also has 2):
-We need to shake things up, so the new epic items do not have slots, therefore why would we have tokens and token fragments drop?
-We have a tone more content so there is no need to keep using the grind creation mechanic from when we were limited to launching Epic content with only VoN to play at that level.

Game Lore:
-Epic items in Eberron are different than Epic Items in Forgotten Realms, so why would we keep to the Epic Token mechanic.

I personally do not care either way, but I thought I'd make my guesses.

[Dagolar]

Aye, but I'll be using that toon to farm epic tokens for ones I do want to TR, and I'd rather not waste my time in quests with **** loot

IT won't be a problem at first, I agree, since we'll be farming our XP from the old content anyway. But I see it becoming a big problem once you've XP capped all the characters that you don't plan to TR, and want to TR some of your characters you're still working on.

Well, the devs did clarify they wanted to keep the tokens limited to Eberron.

I suppose an easy thematic way to approach it would be to have the new challenges and old challenge have some sort of universal overlap, allowing you to in some manner access epic tokens through the new challenges. As an example, removing the [potions, epic pieces] from old challenges, swapping in an "Celestial Feather" ingredient you can trade for, adding a similar element to the new challenges, then having a "Celestial Ingredient Vendor" that you can trade to for all those items, as well as some additional new ones related to epic content.

Not seeing any clear way of associating them with the rest of the new content yet, though.

[ainmosni]

S&M guide to true heart of wood for epic dungeon tokens:
1. (optional) Get shipbuffs, house P buffs, consubamles or items you migth wish to use on next steps.
2. Go to House Cannith Enclave
3. Talk with challenge ticket NPC. Do it each day if you don't own challenge pack to accumulate decent amount of tickets.
4. Gather friends and/or guildes and/or puggers and/or hirelings.
5. Complete one the following challenges on epic (CR21) difficulty setting: "Time is money", "buying time", "labor shortage" until you run out of time or tickets, or until you gather total 6,000 ingredients.
6. Talk with halforc NPC giving lvl20 rewards and trade your ingredients with for epic dungeon tokens.
7. Take your tokens to the Twelve Enclave and trade them for heart of wood.
8. ???
9, Profit!

Because the solution to being forced to run tired old repetitive content for epic tokens, is to run tired old repetitive content for epic tokens.

[Chette]

S&M guide to true heart of wood for epic dungeon tokens:
1. (optional) Get shipbuffs, house P buffs, consubamles or items you migth wish to use on next steps.
2. Go to House Cannith Enclave
3. Talk with challenge ticket NPC. Do it each day if you don't own challenge pack to accumulate decent amount of tickets.
4. Gather friends and/or guildes and/or puggers and/or hirelings.
5. Complete one the following challenges on epic (CR21) difficulty setting: "Time is money", "buying time", "labor shortage" until you run out of time or tickets, or until you gather total 6,000 ingredients.
6. Talk with halforc NPC giving lvl20 rewards and trade your ingredients with for epic dungeon tokens.
7. Take your tokens to the Twelve Enclave and trade them for heart of wood.
8. ???
9, Profit!

Indeed, a way to farm tokens, but again, it requires one to run epics for the express purpose of farming tokens for TR, while in the previous system, epic dungeon tokens were simply something you got for running content you were already running for loot anyways.

[Vellrad]

Because the solution to being forced to run tired old repetitive content for epic tokens, is to run tired old repetitive content for epic tokens.

One of guildies gathers all the tokens he needs for TR in 2 hours. Not really tragedy to do once per TR, plus epic challenges are source of XP for lvl18/19 players.


Anyway, there is no gain from TRing at lvl21+ (well, no more than on 20). So Eberron is place when you do leveling, TRing and leveling again, thats why devs didn't included epic tokens into FR. And probably because devs hates us all.

[ainmosni]

One of guildies gathers all the tokens he needs for TR in 2 hours. Not really tragedy to do once per TR, plus epic challenges are source of XP for lvl18/19 players.


Anyway, there is no gain from TRing at lvl21+ (well, no more than on 20). So Eberron is place when you do leveling, TRing and leveling again, thats why devs didn't included epic tokens into FR. And probably because devs hates us all.

i understand that running challenges is a fast way to get epic tokens, but for those of us who are not interested in runescape-like grinding, it would make more sense to just make epic quests drop epic tokens.

[varusso]

I start running Epic Buying Time solo at 16, which gives ~alright~ XP as well as the tokens. Around 18 I can kill the Marilinth relatively easily, so I get a supply crate for decon loot as well. It takes 5 mins to get a minimum of 1/2 token-worth of materials. On a decent run or when 2-manning its easy to get much more.

Challenges are the fastest way to get epic tokens. For time investment, its much better than any other method currently in the game, and would probably still continue to be better than anything in FR. After a few months, all of the FR content will be "old content" anyway, so its really a moot point. You would only get the benefit of "new content" + tokens until you get bored of that content as well.

Sometimes you get to have your cake, sometimes you get to eat it; you very rarely get to do both.

[Chette]

Anyway, there is no gain from TRing at lvl21+ (well, no more than on 20). So Eberron is place when you do leveling, TRing and leveling again, thats why devs didn't included epic tokens into FR. And probably because devs hates us all.

I'm not TRing at level 21+, I'm gathering tokens for the <=20 characters that I plan to TR. Or at least I would, except that there won't be any tokens in the content I'll want to be running.

Sometimes you get to have your cake, sometimes you get to eat it; you very rarely get to do both.

Unless you have stock in the DDO store :P

[VorpalKnight]

I start running Epic Buying Time solo at 16, which gives ~alright~ XP as well as the tokens. Around 18 I can kill the Marilinth relatively easily, so I get a supply crate for decon loot as well. It takes 5 mins to get a minimum of 1/2 token-worth of materials. On a decent run or when 2-manning its easy to get much more.

Challenges are the fastest way to get epic tokens. For time investment, its much better than any other method currently in the game, and would probably still continue to be better than anything in FR. After a few months, all of the FR content will be "old content" anyway, so its really a moot point. You would only get the benefit of "new content" + tokens until you get bored of that content as well.

Sometimes you get to have your cake, sometimes you get to eat it; you very rarely get to do both.

I always get my cake and eat it too, I always wondered what kind of people got cake and didn't eat it, must be an elf thing.

[Dagolar]

[/B]

I always get my cake and eat it too, I always wondered what kind of people got cake and didn't eat it, must be an elf thing.

Hey. Those elves saw what happened to the halflings.
Those things go STRAIGHT TO YOUR THIGHS. >: (

Luckily, us Warforged eat virtual cake.

[chickenmaniac]

In the latest incarnation of the Beta (open), I received an epic token fragment from a t-bag in the Kings Forest.

WAI? Prolly not.

[Matuse]

epic dungeon tokens were simply something you got for running content you were already running for loot anyways.

No, I always ran epic quests for the tokens. Getting loot (beyond decon garbage) was never an option. The ingredients simply don't drop for me. At all.

[Mosch]

I start running Epic Buying Time solo at 16, which gives ~alright~ XP as well as the tokens. Around 18 I can kill the Marilinth relatively easily, so I get a supply crate for decon loot as well. It takes 5 mins to get a minimum of 1/2 token-worth of materials. On a decent run or when 2-manning its easy to get much more.

How? I can't enter epic challenges on my lower level characters; it tells me I need to be level 20 for that.

[Emili]

The mob in Faerun do drop epic fragments.

[luvirini]

How? I can't enter epic challenges on my lower level characters; it tells me I need to be level 20 for that.

You just need a level 20 in the party. They do not need to enter.

[varusso]

How? I can't enter epic challenges on my lower level characters; it tells me I need to be level 20 for that.

Note this ONLY applies to challenges, not other level-restricted quests/zones:

If there is a level 20 in your party, you can get into an epic challenge. The 20 does NOT have to be in quest, and they dont even have to own the challenge packs. They just have to be in your party, and can be running around in Vale if they want to. So long as they are in the group, you can hop into the epic challenge and run it yourself.

I have a second account, and I use a lvl 20 on that account in my group to allow me to enter. Grab a pocket healer and park them in center -- they distract the mobs long enough for me to get back and kill whatever is there (plus they keep the kobolds healed ) This also works with lower-lever challenge restrictions. IE: Kobold Island: Short Cuts (15-20) you can get in before 15. There is even a youtube video (MrCow iirc) doing epic buying time at lvl 1.

Not sure this is WAI (most likely not) as I have yet to see a dev response on it. Crystal Cove allowed us free-access in terms of level, so it mat be WAI. Regardless, it DOES work, so I use it for now to get my tokens while I can still get XP for it. By the time I cap I have more than enough tokens to TR with. Double-dipping FTW