New way to acquire the new Hearts of Wood, TR Hearts of Wood no longer avaible at 12

[Singular]

So we're still reviewing feedback at the moment, but just wanted to thank you all for providing comments and concerns regarding TR. This is a main focus of attention here in the dev pit.

Additionally, we'd also like to hear from players regarding your play patterns and sagas, as this is related ...
- Do you feel like you understand how sagas work?
- How easy do you find it to track your progress on sagas?
- Do you multi-task your sagas? (e.g. running a quest because you know it will count towards more than one saga at once)

Thank you for asking.

1. Yes.

2. Easily enough. It involves running to the saga person and getting a list of what I have run and what I haven't (except for the annoying typo in GH that mixes up Cabal and Crucible). It could be made easier through a journal window, or perhaps a searchable function added to the quest completion log.

3. Yes, I do, but I should do this more. It's a lovely thing to have multiple saga completions waiting for you with some XP buffs going.

I like sagas. I think they're great. You've allowed us to play in our favored destinies while getting xp in our off destinies. Well done!

[Kerthyn]

You've allowed us to play in our favored destinies while getting xp in our off destinies. Well done!

Wait.. What? I didn't see that in the release notes. If that's true then, awesome!

[Socio]

Wait.. What? I didn't see that in the release notes. If that's true then, awesome!

They are talking about doing saga's in main destines, and upon completing them swapping before you take your exp reward from the saga list.


Socio

[Kerthyn]

Ah, okay. Thanks.

[Dandonk]

They are talking about doing saga's in main destines, and upon completing them swapping before you take your exp reward from the saga list.


Socio

Indeed. But with the proposed new system, you can either get the xp OR the TR comms, but NOT both.

[Socio]

Indeed. But with the proposed new system, you can either get the xp OR the TR comms, but NOT both.

This I know. Sadly all of this is utter bull and after lurking in good faith all weekend I figured I might start chiming in as well. I Tr! Simple as that. I also to refuse to TR until I make a character I'm 100% satisfied with and can afford to support via scrolls and etc. I also like to level it to 28 and enjoy the fruits of my labor, But I have to say this saga hearts connection is still utter ****. No matter how much they glam it up and revise and revise I will not accept anything but leaving the system be until they can wipe those dollar signs out of their eyes, pull the plugs out of their ears, and get those fingers typing and communicating with us and not flipping through the stacks of cash they are bleeding out of us.

These numbers they presented us in the new system was not a place holder. A place holder is a acceptable amount to achieve while testing all aspects of the changes you are making and they also come with a very clear message indicating they are in fact placeholders. This was nothing more the a attempt to slide one under the door on us, and to play it safe show up with their mask and capes to "rescue" us from this vial fiend of a change with fancy words like "placeholder, reduce, misunderstanding". Frankly it was even worse in this big thread here on lama land that the only responses to the majority of that thread was the OP to start the fuse burning on this steaming bomb, and the one post meant to distract and derail the topic which for the most part enticed and nabbed all the sheeple who flocked along to answer those questions.

Hopefully the drop in sub's and purchases that everyone is advertising will mean something to them cause our feedback sure as hell don't.

Socio

[lyrecono]

sight, what a mess, no tr-ing until the eberron saga's drop coms too (i'm not planning on running GH untill i get the com's)

I refuse to set foot in that backwatter content, it should have stayed forgotten.

i don't want this new valor comm system! i don't want more people leaving due to this...

NO!!!

No to this system!

DO
NOT
WANT!

[jonqrandom]

please go /sign this:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...92#post5142492

thanks, and see you on the bridge

[donblas]

It's interesting that when the sagas were introduced with great fanfare we were told that they were just a fun addition that gave players a free bonus for doing things that they may have done anyway.

Then it's revealed that actually they will be essential for some types of gameplay that some players enjoy (TRing) and will require that those players purchase extra content that they may not want to play.

Is it any wonder that some players don't necessarily trust what they are told?

[Kers]

My TR issue is solved. I junked almost everything in my bank that was BtC that I could reasonably acquire again.

It then went to the twelve and purchased 51 hearts of wood. That is more than enough to get me 3 lives of every class that isn't iconic. I may add 12 more just to make sure I'm covered for iconic class heroic TR's too, with some to spare.

[HedgeHogShadow]

I'm sure this has been said before, but - IMHO, if you spend the time to level to 20, you've earned the right to HTR. If you level to 28, then you've earned an EpicTR. I understand having the Heart as an additional mechanic, but it should be trivial to acquire. Just my opinion, but I think that scenario would promote more people staying with the game. I would have quit long ago if it were not for the option to TR at 20. I enjoy the heroic content, but I would not with new toons. I like adding PLs to my mains. I worry that you keep chipping away at the playerbase with these changes and I'll have even fewer peeps to run with.

[myliftkk_v2]

So we're still reviewing feedback at the moment, but just wanted to thank you all for providing comments and concerns regarding TR. This is a main focus of attention here in the dev pit.

Additionally, we'd also like to hear from players regarding your play patterns and sagas, as this is related ...
- Do you feel like you understand how sagas work?
- How easy do you find it to track your progress on sagas?
- Do you multi-task your sagas? (e.g. running a quest because you know it will count towards more than one saga at once)

1. No. It's never been clear that progress is tracked individually for each Saga until Glin mentioned it. No Saga interface is a terrible oversight.

2. Horrid. I've got to talk to each NPC cause I'll be damned if I can remember what NPC needs what quests. The gold check mark displays all the time too. It should only display when a Saga can have a reward taken.

3. Not at all. I have zero interest in trying to create a spreadsheet to determine the optimal quests to run. And how would I know what I need looking at the LFM panel without running to the Saga NPCs again.

Some of us aren't soloists or guild only players, and Saga's have had, as best I can figure, a detrimental effect on pugging. I run pugs nearly exclusively, frankly because I enjoy them. I've completed not a single Saga since they were released as a result. I have however, earned plenty of tokens and token fragments during that time, more than enough to "earn" a right to TR. So randomly pugging night after night, I can earn opportunities to TR without "thinking", that your Saga methodology is now taking away. I can't put up a lfm for a Saga, because no one understands what the hell that means in terms of quests, and no one has 5-7 hours it would take to run an entire Saga in a single session. What's the odds other puggers are going to "need" the portion of the Saga lfm I put up, I'd say <5% judging by my Gland experience. Despite what I suspect were your intentions, Sagas haven't improved the pugging scene one bit, but it has heavily tilted pugs towards EE content best I can tell. That's become kind of annoying, because sometimes I just want to cruise through some EH content with other puggers and not have to be all attentive. But, why run anything on EH when you're just going to have to re-run it on EE to get the top Saga reward?

The whole pitch behind Sagas was getting rewards for running a variety of content. I run a variety of content, but obviously not massively broad enough a variety comes up on the lfm panel to make a dent in getting a Saga reward. And now I'm going to have to choose between taking a skill tome (which I was eventually looking forward to) and taking some comms to earn enough to TR?

Ellis' post about making comms reward like House C challenge mats was spot on.

[Aletys]

So we're still reviewing feedback at the moment, but just wanted to thank you all for providing comments and concerns regarding TR. This is a main focus of attention here in the dev pit.

Additionally, we'd also like to hear from players regarding your play patterns and sagas, as this is related ...
- Do you feel like you understand how sagas work?
- How easy do you find it to track your progress on sagas?
- Do you multi-task your sagas? (e.g. running a quest because you know it will count towards more than one saga at once)

Well, to answer this:

1. Yes, but I have no interest in them. If I happen to complete one by doing the quests I'm interested in, fine, but otherwise I won't bother.

2. Easy? You must be joking! I have to figure out where the various saga NPC's are, track them down, determine what I'm missing, write it down someplace, then go do the missing quests? When I probably have no interest in doing those quests anyway? If you want to make it easy for players to track sagas, put it in the quest log, just like you have rares & explorers for each area. I only have one toon that is ever likely to complete any sagas, and that is because that one is going for 3000 favor (it's my first toon). The likelihood of any of my other toons ever completing a saga is nil. Which means, under your new system, they will never TR, unless I happen to have spare cash around, which won't happen very often.

3. Multi-task sagas? Total nonsense. I don't run sagas at all. They hold no interest for me. If I happen to complete one by accident, well fine, but frankly, if one of my guildies hadn't told me to go check the saga vendor in GH (on the favor completionist toon), I'd have never done so. And, except on this one toon, I won't be bothering with them. To force me to do something I have no interest in is stupid. There are some quests I never, ever want to do again. This will drive me away from the game.

Bottom line, for the average player, I doubt sagas hold any interest whatsoever. They certainly do not for me. As something to give a bit of extra reward, fine. For those players that like this type of thing, ok. But to tie the whole TR system to it? That's just a very, very bad idea, and whoever came up with it (not to mention those who approved it) needs to actually play this game on a regular basis, on the same terms that average players do. That means on a tight budget, no spare cash, no endless amounts of time to dedicate to a game, no freebies because you're a dev & know how to give a heart to yourself in test mode, and forced to do the amount of grinding you're proposing to force players to do. The rest of us do have real life things we have to do & pay for that do not involve playing this game.

And, to make the hearts BtC instead of BtA adds insult to injury. So re-think this guys, and do not implement it. Many players do not want to play epic content. While I have enjoyed it so far, most of my guildies do not take their toons very far into epic levels before they TR. To force them to buy and play content they may not have just to TR is arrogant and player unfriendly. And worse, to force them to do it on every toon is simply unbelievable. Watch people start to bail if you implement this.

If you want to do this with the epic level TR, well fine, you won't get many takers, but at least you won't mess up the heroic players, which is most of us. Leave the current system in place for heroic, with the tokens of the twelve being used to get TR hearts. If you want to add a second way to get the hearts fine, but don't mess with the existing system. And leave the hearts BtA.

[Nédime]

- Do you feel like you understand how sagas work?

Yes.

- How easy do you find it to track your progress on sagas?

Have to ask NPC (so recall is necessary). As it has been said, maybe an addition to quest compendium would be great.

- Do you multi-task your sagas? (e.g. running a quest because you know it will count towards more than one saga at once)

I level my TRs 90% of the time, the rest is quick raids so the only saga I've ran is Heroic GH (2-3 times on each life) so never multi-tasked sagas.

So we're still reviewing feedback at the moment, but just wanted to thank you all for providing comments and concerns regarding TR. This is a main focus of attention here in the dev pit.

Pleaaaaaase, please, continue reviewing feedback and paying attention to this change in TRing system. I'm not a fan of Doom threads, and try to avoid "it was better before". I really believe there is good reasons to change system or to improve it.
A brief history of mine : I used to farm EPhiarlan back in the time where it was the easy button (remember jump+invis then run to end fight ) - easy but with a timer, so it took some time. Then I had toons well built enough to try other epics Sentinels Von and Echrono. OK getting 20 tokens was a grind because of timers but it was deserved because at level 20 cap it was difficult - yeah there were routines and very determined roles but just step outside for 3 seconds and the wipe was almost guaranteed. Then we had the MotU Xpack. For a while we had the token fragment drop in King forest and quests so it seemed the logic of epic is > level 20 and epic's reward is tokens was maintained.
Then they fixed it. And we entered a dichotomous phase where there was epic content with now useless items (with the exception of a couple per pack) but tokenzzzz and on the other hand, no tokens, but some great gear in MotU and also the possibility to test your toons in harder situations ; and there were people reaching 20, sometimes gaining 1-2 levels, and some ED then TRing asap while other reached 25 then 28 and totally forgetting what was life before cocoon and fury shot ... Seriously I have a guildie who has a capped toon, he's binded at Estar he does only MotU content (he has a second account on which he capped a wizz that serves as a buff bot) so he doesn't even step foot in Eberron again. He made his first shroud yesterday.

Trying to make a generic system that pleases those who wish to get gear and xp as well as those who wish to TR asap is good. More than that : necessary.

Here are my thoughts : if it's commendations, then it has to be BtC (this name sounds personnal unlike token) and then drammatically either increase reward from saga or reduce the numbers needed to barter for a Heart of Wood.

[Shinjiteru]

Think I start with the last questions of Tolero.

1. Not sure. There are 3 Sagas where I would say yes. The other Sagas make me think if you have another meaning of the word Saga than I have.

2. For the 3 Sagas which follow a storyline it's not too hard, I usually just do them in the order of the storyline. For the other Sagas which are not following any storyline from my point of view... I don't know where exactly I am finding the NPCs and I have to clue which quests belong to them nor which of them I already did.

3. No, because I try to avoid these Sagas because having to track the progress of them is beyond my idea of having fun. Especially since they include several quests which I just don't like.

My major concern regarding the Saga system and your changes is, that we don't have enough epic quests to have enough Sagas to make them the only possibility to aquire the new hearts. And more of these Sagas which look like random quests put together doen't make the Saga mechanic any better.
I prefer Sagas which follow a connected storyline and where the name of the Saga already tells me which quests are belonging to the Saga. But maybe I just missed the connecting storyline of the Sagas who look like random quests from ES put together.


About the Commendations of Valor... Why do you want to introduce them at all? Everything you told us till now about them makes them look like epic dungeon token fragments, just with another name. Why don't you just modify the currrent dungeon fragment drops until they meet your desired amount of grind you want to force us to do before we get a TR heart?
And don't tell us they are called tokens of the twelve now... you renamed them this way because you didn't want to let them drop in Eveningstar and you can just rename them again and add them to Eveningstar end chests.
From what I know about your commendations of valor you can only get them from epic sagas, so even if you say you think about other methods to get them they are all going to be involving epic quests otherthise you could include them as a reward for heroic sagas too.

So why are Commendations of Valor better than epic dungeon token fragments? Why do you invest development time for introducing a new currency and deleting an old currency where you could just have made some adjustments to the current availible currency?

If you think TR hearts are too easy to get since MotU, why didn't you continue to adjust their drop rate? You changed their drop rate with MotU anyways. o.O

Some years ago you thought doing challenges at endgame would be a valid method to farm a tr heart, why do you think that's too easy now? (or was it just something to make us buy the challenges and now that most people bought them you take one of their main benefits out of the game again?)

You could also just increase the token price of the TR heart if you think it's not enough grind anymore, but apart from soloing devil assault and inviting 5 players before completing challenges were the fastest way to get a TR heart for probably over two years now. And this speed didn't change with MotU, so don't tell us MotU would have made it too easy...

You know that you killed endgame with your last updates so that TRing is the only endgame for most players at the moment. So please make sure you don't kill that as well with your changes and give us a finished new TR mechanic with several possibilities how to earn these hearts ingame because the Saga mechanic needs very much work from my point of view before this is a finished game mechanic.
What about the possibility to get the epic and iconic hearts for around 100-200 epic dungeon tokens? Or maybe much higher amount, depending on the grind you want to force us into if we don't buy them in the store.