Collector NPCs Feedback!

[Samir_Bennal]

They just need to come out and say it, "We are needing all of these sudden cash grab themes because we feel threatened by Neverwinter coming out."

Neverwinter was supposed to come out last year and Turbine put out an expansion. Neverwinter got backed up to this year and now we have another expansion plus cash grabbing annoyances out of no where.

So not only does it seem like they are threatened by Cryptic's game but they are also utilizing Cryptic's cash grabbing policy.

Just one comment to all of this Turbine. Have played Neverwinter. Haven't seen anything to be threatened about yet.

[UurlockYgmeov]

*cough*bull&$^#*cough*

Did someone say something?
Just a few ideas.

I personally rolled over a thousand times on both silver and gold. filled backpacks. Can see the rolls in the lammania daily dice threads.

The following not seen (yet):

• Epic Shards/Seals for legacy Epic items.
• Soul Gems (assuming Soul Gems get useful at some point)
• Elven/Dragon/Giant Relics?
• Essence of Cleansing
• Commendations
• Teleport Rod
• Guest Passes

From Lammania - Most of these DO drop on the gold side - and some on the silver.

• Siberys Dragon Shards (Feat Exchange ones)
• Other Ingredients - seal of black abbot - seal of stormreaver
• Shroud Ingredients / Yellow Dopant? Shavarath Signet stone
• Dragon Scales?
• Crafting Essences?
• Raid Timer Bypass
• Astral Shards? yes - on both silver and gold
• Hearts of Wood?
• Ham
• 2 min haste along with death ward greater heroism and lots of other potions/ elixiers - jewels of fortune
• lots of other cool and fun stuff, along with some that are, well, meh.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Just to be clear, the technical constraint was that it was not possible to only change the cost for augments. It was, however, deemed necessary to make a change in costs for augments prior to the system becoming available on the live servers. We'll be taking a look at the costs of collectibles available at Collector NPC in the coming months, and adjusting things as is deemed appropriate.

Please and thank you!

[fco-karatekid]

No player who understands the game economy is going to trade "30 Singed Soarwood, 10 Charred Soarwood, 5 Lightning-Split Soarwood" for 1 random level 8 red augment. I would not trade 1 Lightning-Split Soarwood for it.

UNLESS the drop rate of collectables goes up massively... that'd be the only variable that could change our perception of the time ROI. I've seen no hints at them doing that, tho.

[Karadon_II]

The new interface is great and I'm pleased that all thse collectors/traders/devices are slowly getting this standardised barter UI. It makes it better for everyone.

I'm a fairly thorough collector. I mostly only play in a guild with my RL friends and we're rarely in zerg-mode so there's plenty of time to pick mushrooms, gather moss and search rubble. When I started out, collectables were great for some potions, ammo and for generally getting stuff that you could vendor for gold [back when gold was the basic currency].

Now that I have epic characters earning hundreds of thousands per week, and since Cannith Crafting came online, my relationship with the Collectors has stagnated somewhat but I still pick up those dropped purple bags as it drops from the mob. Today I chuckled as I picked up Blades of the Dark Six from FR mobs [despite the Dark Six bring Eberron gods].

While I may have hundreds of Blades of the Dark Six, Funery Tokens, Strings of Prayer beads now, new players do not and the new turn in amounts virtually elimate them from the collectable system.

The idea of making low-level augments available for collectables is great and I support it. I do not support the rediculous amounts of collectables that have been set to obtain the augments however. They are obviously decided upon by someone in Turbine but clearly not by somone who has ever actually played DDO long enough to aquire collectables in the quantities being asked for. Again this eliminates new players.

One example of how disproportinate the collectable to a reward is getting a Potion of Owl's Skill/Fox's Skill +3 (+3 Alchemical Wis/Int Skills) for 5 "Tome: Alchemist's Chapbook" when it used to be one. I think that if your lucky enough to find 5 Rare collectables like this, it's not two minute potions you should be getting, it's permanent STAT TOMES!!!!

Again putting 5x rare collectables [let aone 30x common and 10x uncommon] against a blind-luck chance at the low level augment you want is insulting. Again this eliminates new players and pretty much all the vets who are not going to blow thousands of plat worth of uncommon/rare collectables used elsewhere on a "chance". I'm in disbelief that this was lower on Lam and someone demanded that the cost be adjusted to the excessive level it is now before it went live, and AFTER people took issue with it.

Why ask for feedback now AFTER feedback was already given on Lam?

And bring back the Undead trader, leave him there permanently and enough with the summoning gimmick if it's just going to break it.

[Pseudograph]

What percentage of free Daily Dice winnings will need to be collectables to provide the 900% additional now required.

How many mushrooms, soarwoods, relics, etc will we get with each BIG SILVER WIN?

Is this not how our collectable bags will be filled (filled to bursting--Now necessary)?

Maybe 90% of Daily Dice wins will payout 10-30 collectables.

I can't wait---Oh, but I must wait AND grind in hopes of a chance for random "junk" items and 10% of the admittedly minor stuff we used to get for a song.

Minor sarcasm aside:

This is not the best way to sell augments or gold chest roll chances.

The gambling chips and cow chips are getting all mixed together here.

Too many bad things can bury a good thing so deep that very few will bother to dig.

Pseudograph

[Cleanincubus]

Just to be clear, the technical constraint was that it was not possible to only change the cost for augments. It was, however, deemed necessary to make a change in costs for augments prior to the system becoming available on the live servers. We'll be taking a look at the costs of collectibles available at Collector NPC in the coming months, and adjusting things as is deemed appropriate.

Then the system never should have made it to the Live server. You all knew 11 days ago, after reading a 200+ post thread here: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=411111, that the turn-in count was insanely high. "Technical constraints" is nonsense. You know it, your bosses know it, you're programmers certainly know it, and so do we. If you people can build trade-in systems that deals with various Gems & coins, various recipes/motes/items, various bone/skull/lich dust/opal/scales; the "technical constraint" issue is thrown out the window.

If the Cannith crafting system can stay on Lamannia for as long as it did, without being released to the Live servers, then the new Collector system should have stayed there as well. These changes never should have made it past the Mournlands server, and certainly not Lamannia. I'm willing to bet they DIDN'T get past the private testers, and definitely didn't get passed the public testers. That simply shouldn't ever happen. If something doesn't make the deadline for release, then don't release it. Seriously, stop pushing things out. You anger your customers far worse by releasing non-working or incorrectly working updates, than they do if you release it late. Heck, this wasn't even an update, it should have been a PATCH, and nothing more.

I already quit the game for a year once, and I still refuse to spend a single penny on the game. These nonsensical releases aren't convincing me to spend $, nor stay with the game much longer. Please fix your internal issues Turbine. I love the game, but eventually this kind of thing becomes "enough is enough" for most players.

[THAC0]

Sorry, but this just sucks. Maybe I missed the memo that the plan was to take away functionality we were used to... I thought this was an addition, not a replacement.

my 2 cents...er astral shards...

[Shadowaras]

why did u kill the undead vendor ? i hope it is just mishap when they new system came up and will fix it asap ..pms dont need more beat down imo

[Full_Bleed]

Barter UI great.

New rewards are headed in the right direction.

Current cost absolutely ruins it.

I'm ignoring the collectable traders until this is fixed.

And I'm ignoring Augments until you guys give us bags to put them in.


Why you guys take something good and diminish it with half an implementation is beyond me.

[Dexol]

Reasonable prices and augment bags

And the random chance augment costs do not fall under the classification of reasonable.

[Eladiun]

Just to be clear, the technical constraint was that it was not possible to only change the cost for augments. It was, however, deemed necessary to make a change in costs for augments prior to the system becoming available on the live servers. We'll be taking a look at the costs of collectibles available at Collector NPC in the coming months, and adjusting things as is deemed appropriate.

Another well planned changed...

[Nagantor]

Technical constraints: sorry, don't believe it. It's hard to imagine the code as tangled as to not allow adding variable costs to turn in of each single collectible type, random augments for all three at once and choose augment for shards. If technical constraints are really the limiting point, I'm sorry for the developers. That means they inherited a code base which is far from fun to work with.

Don't want low level augments too common: easy, make the turn-in BtA and keep the chest ones for economy.

Not listening to Lamania feedback: make it clear that it's only to report bugs, no effect on features anymore at this point.

Reward/cost ratio: finally get to aknowledge what's really used, rare vs. common and what not. If you want reasonable rewards, maybe try with arrows used in Cannith Crafting which are awfully hard to obtain.

[Eladiun]

Technical constraints: sorry, don't believe it. It's hard to imagine the code as tangled as to not allow adding variable costs to turn in of each single collectible type, random augments for all three at once and choose augment for shards. If technical constraints are really the limiting point, I'm sorry for the developers. That means they inherited a code base which is far from fun to work with.

No actually this is the one part I believe. With the spaghetti code that is DDO I can easily imagine 8-9 years ago someone being told to add collector turn ins and as tiered, 3 2 1, and that being hard coded somewhere deep in the bowels of the engine where angels fear to tread.

[karl_k0ch]

If you wanted to sell more Astral Shards, why bother with the Collectible turn-ins in the first place?

The pricing for the random augments is so disproportionate that only people who have no idea of the market value of their collectibles would start to gamble on augments. I find it saddening that the devs install such a mechanic which makes to me the impression of
a) a collectible sink
b) a soft nudge towards the store ("Aww, dear player; are these turn-in costs too expensive to you? Here, look you can just buy what you want.").

I'm really disappointed. In particular from the results of the lammania thread which were: None. Our feedback has been taken into consideration, and discarded. I don't see why one should actually give feedback on new features anymore.


The Disapproving Dredge on the left hand side of my post disapproves.

[droid327]

By the time you've collected 30/10/5, you're probably outlevel for whatever augments it buys. Heck, you probably outlevel the zone for a given set of resource nodes before you collect 30/10/5 without intentionally farming them.

Mushrooms dont keep giving Beetles, for instance, past L12 or whatever. 30/10/5 for a chance at a Deathblock Topaz means you either stop at L10 and farm them, or you get maybe 1 "roll" on it every other TR...

How about 30/10/5 gets you 12 Astral Shards? That way you can use them to buy the augment you want, or you can use them in the new AS economy. Again, farming 30/10/5 is going to take so long as to make AS farming too grindy to be widespread...


Also, the "30" component should be restricted to collectable types that drop in Treasure Bags, meaning you'll get them as you play the game "as intended". The collectables system should not be predicated on finding a quest you can run through, hit a bunch of nodes, then DD out and repeat...

[Henky]

Just to be clear, the technical constraint was that it was not possible to only change the cost for augments. It was, however, deemed necessary to make a change in costs for augments prior to the system becoming available on the live servers. We'll be taking a look at the costs of collectibles available at Collector NPC in the coming months, and adjusting things as is deemed appropriate.

It's been more than 6 months since you knew the existence of the bug in the lesser reincarnation, the one that is making impossible to add a third heroic class to your build if you have epic levels. And you know what? Hearts are being sold in the store, claming that you can switch 3 classes times on the description, but really you cannot do that if you have epic levels and you dont have any level on that class.

Oh, and another thing that you will be taking a look was the XP granted on challenges... nerfed into oblivion.

So, i cant believe anything you say anymore.

[alancarp]

I do not want a "random" augment(No matter how small the list is) when I turn in Collectibles.

THIS - all day long. In two years of playing this game (almost 3, I think), I have NEVER collected a total of 30 ceramic bowls, much less the other items Husk wants in House K, as I checked into it last night. Collectibles were an interesting novelty as I pushed my first toon up to level 20, but frankly, the rewards were pointless. I suppose that's the idea behind this change, but it's creating a whole bunch of other problems:

1. A barter price reduction makes sense... but it had better be a significant reduction - 5 or 6 ceramic bowls: definitely not even 10. 30/10/5 collections should therefore be 6/2/1 (20% of the current numbers). At those levels, then some limited farming for collectibles will make some sense... to the extent that you would actually have slots to use (i.e., Do I really need to farm for a specific augment for a weapon/robe/item that I will only use for 1 or 2 levels??).

2. Easier access to large collectibles bags will be necessary. Even before this change, my Level 9 has both Small and Medium bags... and I'm overflowing now. Last week I would have simply deleted the excess, but now Turbine is encouraging us to keep all collectibles. There's no way I'm paying 500,000-800,000 plat to an auction for a large collectibles bag - or wiping out my paltry turbine points for one either.

3. If the goal is to make crystal augments more accessible, then there needs to be a bag for these, too. [I'm not sure, but I think I may have heard this request from someone else... or was is everybody else?]

4. But overall, I do not like this trend in the game toward more 'random' items after significant farming. This concept of bartering for a 'random' crystal is for the birds. Getting Epic items in Eveningstar with a random element on them is equally stupid. If I'm intending to dedicate some effort to a particular task, then I should be able to have some better surety of expected outcomes.

I know this is a game based on dice rolls, and I'm normally an entirely positive and optimistic sort, but there are limits, and I do believe that line has been crossed.

[alancarp]

For a random augment i could see a turn in rate of 20/5/2.

I appreciate your thoughtful comments - a good run-down. However, I do have to reiterate (from my prior comment above) that even 20/5/2 is way too much - especially for a random item.

Such a collections price would require you to farm a random quest probably 2-3 dozen times to even have a chance to collect this many items. Let's add it up:

1. You may need a hireling - purchased several times.
2. You may need a party group - means a lot of waiting around. Also mean having their indulgence, since you may be counting on them NOT picking up treasure bags and such (yes, the alchem stations and cabinets notwithstanding).
3. Lots of other materials (pots, spell components, weapon repairs, etc.) have to be managed as well.
4. Even for a 20/5/2 augment, it could require a week to gather the materials - even if you're concentrating only on that effort.

It's just not worth it to gather that many materials... particularly at lower levels when you're literally replacing all of your gear with every level change. Why farm for an augment that you'll have to give away (or buy an expensive kit to retrieve) within the next week or month? That's why I believe the right price point is more like 5/2/1 for a random item (if you wanna be surprised) and .... I dunno maybe a 6/8 level for specific augments.

I just don't see that the game should be heading in that direction. It should really be more like "Hey - look at this, I have a half dozen ceramic bowls... I can go get an augment crystal!'

Maybe I'm wrong, but did people work this hard for the Eberron shards and their rewards? I know I didn't.

[Seikojin]

Then the system never should have made it to the Live server. You all knew 11 days ago, after reading a 200+ post thread here: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=411111, that the turn-in count was insanely high. "Technical constraints" is nonsense. You know it, your bosses know it, you're programmers certainly know it, and so do we. If you people can build trade-in systems that deals with various Gems & coins, various recipes/motes/items, various bone/skull/lich dust/opal/scales; the "technical constraint" issue is thrown out the window.

If the Cannith crafting system can stay on Lamannia for as long as it did, without being released to the Live servers, then the new Collector system should have stayed there as well. These changes never should have made it past the Mournlands server, and certainly not Lamannia. I'm willing to bet they DIDN'T get past the private testers, and definitely didn't get passed the public testers. That simply shouldn't ever happen. If something doesn't make the deadline for release, then don't release it. Seriously, stop pushing things out. You anger your customers far worse by releasing non-working or incorrectly working updates, than they do if you release it late. Heck, this wasn't even an update, it should have been a PATCH, and nothing more.

I already quit the game for a year once, and I still refuse to spend a single penny on the game. These nonsensical releases aren't convincing me to spend $, nor stay with the game much longer. Please fix your internal issues Turbine. I love the game, but eventually this kind of thing becomes "enough is enough" for most players.

You do know a technical constraint doesn't always refer to bugs and code changes right? It is a deadline based system. They announce a schedule and have to keep to it. Each week they get closer to the schedule, more and more bugs get pushed off the to do now list and get put on the to do later list. The lower the severity, the further out it gets pushed.

As a tester, it is our task to describe and relate the bug in the most common impactful to bussiness manner. Sometimes something that crashes the game can be let loose if it is soo rare that no one really hits it, or that the repro is soo difficult that it is not going to be seen. The bugs exists, but the work for it is just done when it becomes visible to the customers and they put in a ticket.

Something like these changes, don't functionally break the game, so they get let loose while more important bugs are worked on. And sometimes the bugs are never exposed to the outside world; they just would be catastrophic if they were, so all time is focused internally to fix them.

Now if the release notes we saw contained everything QA submitted internally, we may have less to complain about.