Why BtC? Why? Why? Why?

[danotmano1998]

It's not mentioned in the upgrade text. So I suppose ( and hope ) it doesn't change anything.

Well, how many times now have they 'fixed' something by altering the descriptions instead of actually fixing it?

You keep on hoping and supposing. I hope you're right, I really do.

Also, until we hear from a developer, we don't know that anything is being grandfathered yet.
BtA = more flexibility, more use, more incentive to make more characters.

If I get a super duper BtA item that I want to try, well then I'll make a character. Don't have a slot? No problem. Money well spent. Don't have that race? no problem. Money well spent.

But to have a handful of characters that have loot tied to them and ONLY them?
It discourages all the above for me.

I won't TR a guy just because I found some cool loot and want to try it out.
But I WILL make a first lifer, and vet status them so I can play with my new toy unless I don't have any character slots open.

Here's an example: I have a sorceror that I made into my crafter. Most of his good stuff is BtC. I have an artificer I made some time later. A good portion of her stuff is BtC.

If those items were BtA, Turbine would get from me: a purchase of 2 true hearts so I could TR my crafter into an Arti.

As things stand now, I look at my unfun Artificer and just sigh. No way I'm going to grind Cannith crafting up to 100 on another character. No way I'm going to regrind all that gear I ALREADY HAVE when I could just swap it between characters.

So there is a very specific example of how Turbine is losing money from me by making items BtC.

Instead of sales they could have had, I am going to delete my artificer, and just keep my sorceror as my crafter. Now I have a free character slot. Boom, yeah Turbine just lost more $$ I actually wanted to spend.

[Llewndyn]

I disagree. BtC AND BtA are horrible mechanics that discourage players and gimp the economy. They should not be used except for *maybe* raid loot, but that is for a different discussion thread. As BtA and BtC are used now, the drop rates for certain items and loot should be dramatically increased and the grind to make items (like Mabar loot) should be significantly lowered.

DDO does not need more grinds, it needs less, to attract and retain players - especially casual, non-powergamers, imo. Add on that the way they have used the Store, they are hurting themselves with BtC, as prior posters have mentioned - and I just have to laugh.

When you make fun content that people want to run, I find people share in the loot - because they run and re-run quests and have what they need. There are always going to be a few loot jerks. Put 'em on the list.

Overall, making more items available for sharing and trade is good for players and guilds and is a boost for a healthy game economy.

[Curate2]

Here's an example: I have a sorceror that I made into my crafter. Most of his good stuff is BtC. I have an artificer I made some time later. A good portion of her stuff is BtC.

You lost me here. I think you're saying you'd rather have your artificer be your crafter than your sorc. And the only solution you see is to TR your arti into a sorc, your sorc into an arti, and swap all their gear, etc. A complete swap of identity. That seems a little over the top.

You only need one crafter. The way it works is your crafter makes the shards, passes them to your other toon, and the other toon assembles the final item. Yes an arti does get a bonus to crafter level so it would have been more optimal if you had made an arti crafter in the first place. But you didn't, and it's no big deal. Your sorc can still attain the same crafting levels eventually. (My crafter is a halfling rogue and he's at 150/150/150.)

Also, you are really claiming you would immediately send Turbine $$$ cash! cash! wads of cold hard money nao!!! $$$ for two True Hearts? As opposed to buying them in-game using epic tokens, which aren't overly hard to acquire, like most players do.

[Hafeal]

One of the guys in my office still plays Civ II! ROFL. +1 to you, sir!

[SealedInSong]

Not surprised, but equally displeased.

I really don't see any good arguments for this except the perennial "they want us to grind" one, but really, we all know there are a lot of ways to make money off of us that would be really easy: avatar housing, making creative items instead of one eSoS and then 1,000 crappy alternatives, better cosmetic customization, etc.

Even though the ingredients are BtA I'm still going to have ZERO inclination to have lvl 4-8-12-16-20 Brawling Gloves, or worse, two sets of five min-level versions of the Brigand's Cutlass on my scimitar user. No way.

And this is coming from a person with twenty characters with all inventory and shared bank and personal bank upgrades. I have space for a lot of things, but I need more space, and I'm not using any of it on this junk anymore.

It's a trial just to do Cannith farming for a low/mid/epic Challenge tunic for me over the span of a few months, let alone trying to make five tiers of items for a dozen characters in the space of a festival. Ugh.

[Cardoor]

Instead of messin w/ success, how 'bout messin w/ the mess? Crystal Cove was the success, why make it part of the mess? As OP asked...whyx3?

[Singular]

1. Where can we see the items?
2. Do they have higher epic level versions of the old stuff?
3. Did they fix the Epic Tier III Buccaneers's ring so that we can add protection to it?

Yes, that sucks if they're btc. What a poor design.

[shadereaper33]

1. Where can we see the items?
2. Do they have higher epic level versions of the old stuff?
3. Did they fix the Epic Tier III Buccaneers's ring so that we can add protection to it?

Yes, that sucks if they're btc. What a poor design.

1.You can look in the barter box to see them on lamma, or in a couple of different threads on the lamma/items forum.
2. No
3. To the best of my knowledge, this was fixed a long time ago. Might be wrong though, don't use that ring on anyone.

[Sqrlmonger]

My understanding was that the reason House C challenge gear was BtC while Cove was BtA was because of the limited window you have for cove. I don't see how this has changed in any way.

The gear needs to be BtA for several reasons:

1) Not screwing over new players who don't already have the BtA cove items.
2) Maintaining the appeal of the items so that there are actually enough people doing Cove to open the instance on a semi-regular basis. Cause if the openings slow down more people will stop just because of that and it snowballs from there until it opens once every other day thanks to the sweatshop farmers.
3) Because of the limited window in which we can make cove items (I like my sanity thanks).
4) Because of the ridiculous amount of effort it takes to actually make a full level 20 item.
5) Because there is really no reason to make them BtC when its been BtA for years and it clearly hasn't broken the game or been too powerful in any way.
6) Because its about time the devs stay the nerf hand for a once and this is as good a place as any.
7) And finally, just because.

Thank you.

-Sqrl

[Singular]

1.You can look in the barter box to see them on lamma, or in a couple of different threads on the lamma/items forum.
2. No
3. To the best of my knowledge, this was fixed a long time ago. Might be wrong though, don't use that ring on anyone.

Thanks for the answers!

The ring isn't fixed - I have it on a character and followed the instructions for fixing it (putting it in the stone of change). Nothing happened, no protection.

[EllisDee37]

Thanks for the answers!

The ring isn't fixed - I have it on a character and followed the instructions for fixing it (putting it in the stone of change). Nothing happened, no protection.

You'll likely have to make a new one to get your protection. New rings have correctly gotten protection +5 for a long time now.

Then again, the bloom is off the +5 protection rose now that endgame gear can easily be slotted for +7 protection.

[Singular]

You'll likely have to make a new one to get your protection. New rings have correctly gotten protection +5 for a long time now.

Then again, the bloom is off the +5 protection rose now that endgame gear can easily be slotted for +7 protection.

Thanks and good point. I wonder if I'll be able to do something with it in the cove, when CC comes out.

[btolson]

The ring isn't fixed - I have it on a character and followed the instructions for fixing it (putting it in the stone of change). Nothing happened, no protection.

This recipe was definitely working at one point. I repaired several such rings across a few servers using it.

[Llewndyn]

One of the guys in my office still plays Civ II! ROFL. +1 to you, sir!

Did you see there's a guy who has a game that's been going since like 2005 or something?

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/18/tech/g...ars/index.html

[voodoogroves]

This recipe was definitely working at one point. I repaired several such rings across a few servers using it.

There's something about how and when you built the rings.

I had one that worked, one that didn't.

The one that worked was fully built in the first cove, then upgraded fine. The second was partially built (T2 maybe), then upgraded first in Cove 2, then I tried to apply the fix, and it failed.

[GeneralDiomedes]

pi = (P-ATC)Q*BtC

[Nedime]

Just been on Lammania.

Looked into the barter box. The only Btc item I see is the botomless bottle of rhum.
Rune arm is BtCoE
Rest is BTA.

Seems to me this whole thread is a hoax.

[danotmano1998]

You lost me here. I think you're saying you'd rather have your artificer be your crafter than your sorc. And the only solution you see is to TR your arti into a sorc, your sorc into an arti, and swap all their gear, etc. A complete swap of identity. That seems a little over the top.

You only need one crafter. The way it works is your crafter makes the shards, passes them to your other toon, and the other toon assembles the final item. Yes an arti does get a bonus to crafter level so it would have been more optimal if you had made an arti crafter in the first place. But you didn't, and it's no big deal. Your sorc can still attain the same crafting levels eventually. (My crafter is a halfling rogue and he's at 150/150/150.)

Also, you are really claiming you would immediately send Turbine $$$ cash! cash! wads of cold hard money nao!!! $$$ for two True Hearts? As opposed to buying them in-game using epic tokens, which aren't overly hard to acquire, like most players do.

You hit the nail on the head. I know how the system works, but had my Arti been my primary crafter, I would be about 20 crafting levels ahead of where I am now on my sorc.

Yes, I am thinking swap of identity. I would indeed be buying hearts if the gear was swappable between the characters, but it isn't. I realize I can just grind out the levels regardless.

Yes, I would be purchasing those hearts, because to me, token farming isn't all that much fun, and I can be impatient. Rather that just insert a complaint that BtC is bad, I have tried to put forward a specific example of why the BtC mechanic is discouraging me from spending money in the DDO store.

[Seikojin]

pi = (P-ATC)Q*BtC

The whole point of BtC is so you have to run with your mage to get that mage specific item you want. Instead of farming it with your solo-mc.

Item acquisition has always been about the hard work for the best gear. Part of that work is playing with all of your characters, not just one who can circumvent all the work.

[patang01]

The whole point of BtC is so you have to run with your mage to get that mage specific item you want. Instead of farming it with your solo-mc.

Item acquisition has always been about the hard work for the best gear. Part of that work is playing with all of your characters, not just one who can circumvent all the work.

Which is a perfect way to make people stop running stuff altogether. BTC mats is just dumb. What's so special with FR challenge mats compared to Cannith or for that matter Shroud mats? Nothing. How about BTA Epic Tokens compared to U17 unbound regular and 'Epic' relics? Or BTC red fen **** compared to BTCoE named FR items? Or BTC citw flagging quests end rewards compared to Harper BTCoE end rewards?

BTC is dumb. I understand it for things like raid loot. But it makes no sense in regards to anything material wise. And time spent grinding is time spent grinding. One way to make things less fun and cause people to leave is to force people to 're-grind' for items on all different alts.