Druidic Heart / Token trade change: come clean Turbine - what is the real goal, here?

[Cauthey_No_CCInfo]

To Whom It May Concern:

I have been informed this evening that, per Lamannia notes, the ability to swap 20 Tokens of the Twelve for a True Druidic Heart of Wood will be going away. The new, post u20 cost of a True Druidic Heart of Wood will be 900 (nine hundred) Commendations of Valor.

These Commendations of (alleged) Valor are ONLY attainable by completing Epic Sagas, and collecting your Epic Saga reward. Further, the information I have suggests that the highest Saga reward will only grant 17 (seventeen) of these Commendations of Valor. Farming 900 might take a little bit.

So, anyone who is attempting to casually working through their TR lives attempting to reach completionist will now be required to 1) work through A LOT of epic content to farm Commendations of Valor, or 2) shell out $15 PER LIFE to continue their efforts.

TURBINE: What is your true goal with these changes? Are you trying to run off the pseudo casual player that enjoys the game and periodically spends money in the store? Or, are you just trying to fleece us, AGAIN? The way I see it, you are making TR work less grindy with the XP, however you are replacing the grind obstacle with a $$$ obstacle.

I really don't want it to be the case, but this feels like the last straw for me. If you continue to incorporate these money-grab agendas into EACH update, I'm not sure how much longer I will be playing. I draw a lot of enjoyment from my TRing efforts. I have an ultimate plan for Metalbone as a completionist, though I cannot burn to the end quickly as my playtime is limited. If you are going to incorporate this $15 gate, per life, you will be robbing me of one of the greatest joys that I experience while playing this game.

I TRULY hope that at least one of the influential folks on your team read this post, and reconsider the plan to remove the 20 Tokens of the Twelve swap for a True Druidic Heart. Some of the folks that I play with urged me to make my voice heard, despite my cynicism that Turbine really does not care what I, the player, have to say.

Frankly, I think that your plan to incorporate Commendations of Valor is probably the LEAST VALOROUS thing you could possibly do to the game. NOT brave. NOT valiant. This change would be most cowardly and underhanded. How poetic that you named these Commendations of Valor.


** I would STRONGLY RECOMMEND that anyone who had TR plans that extended past u20 do what they must to invest in as many Token of the Twelve purchased True Druidic Hearts of Wood ASAP. **

[PermaBanned]

1) The devs feelings are hurt that we don't spend enough time playing their wonderfully designed "hand crafted" epic quests.

2) The post-MotU packs have sold poorly, and since they can't (won't?) go back and improve them to be desirable, they thought they'd try making them required. The (often broken) Sagas didn't do this outright, so they said "Ah-Ha! If they won't pay for the content they don't want to run, they'll have to pay to TR! Brilliant!"

[EllisDee37]

1) The devs feelings are hurt that we don't spend enough time playing their wonderfully designed "hand crafted" epic quests.

2) The post-MotU packs have sold poorly, and since they can't (won't?) go back and improve them to be desirable, they thought they'd try making them required. The (often broken) Sagas didn't do this outright, so they said "Ah-Ha! If they won't pay for the content they don't want to run, they'll have to pay to TR! Brilliant!"

Sadly I think you're pretty close to the actual truth.

It's a shame, because I really enjoyed DDO.

[Systern]

Further, the information I have suggests that the highest Saga reward will only grant 17 (seventeen) of these Commendations of Valor.

I ran the saga on Lammania.
I ran the shortest saga, on epic normal, and paid the shards to upgrade the reward to Epic Hard level. It was NOT an elite, nor true elite reward, on one of the longer sagas.

Don't get me wrong, while they get better; they're still poo if those 900/1150/2000 numbers are official.


Also, while the drama has been fun, I'd like to point out that this is most likely a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. The departments aren't communicating with each other so no individual dev is stepping up to give the correct answer or even reassurance that these are placeholder values.


To ProducerRowan, I'd like to suggest that since your teams are so fond of developing new systems: Craft an improved change control system so that the other departments can communicate the design doc, or at the very least stop looking like a*****es to the customers.
We've had communication from Squeak, Varg, F_o_S, and Cordovan today, and while Squeak said on lamma that she was unaware if those values were final, NO ONE knew the answer and so they ignored it in all messages.

[EllisDee37]

Also, while the drama has been fun, I'd like to point out that this is most likely a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. The departments aren't communicating with each other so no individual dev is stepping up to give the correct answer or even reassurance that these are placeholder values.

Irrelevant. All ridiculous placeholder values have always gone live. Remember collectable turn-in rates? Quest xp on the new quests?

Lammania is the final build, not the "adjust placeholder values" build. Those numbers are going live.

[Nestroy]

1) The devs feelings are hurt that we don't spend enough time playing their wonderfully designed "hand crafted" epic quests.

2) The post-MotU packs have sold poorly, and since they can't (won't?) go back and improve them to be desirable, they thought they'd try making them required. The (often broken) Sagas didn't do this outright, so they said "Ah-Ha! If they won't pay for the content they don't want to run, they'll have to pay to TR! Brilliant!"

I think you missed one:

3) to make the price for Druidic Hearth of Woods cheap in comparison.

[Qhualor]

and its been stated many times what we see on Lamma is official. very rarely do the devs make last minute changes before hitting live.

[Soulfurnace]

Those numbers are going live.

Unless we convince Turbine otherwise!

Hah. I'll be farming hearts until u20. I foresee many more eNorm DA groups.
And more house C farming.

[EllisDee37]

Unless we convince Turbine otherwise!

Hah. I'll be farming hearts until u20. I foresee many more eNorm DA groups.
And more house C farming.

Agreed. All my current in-game plans just got put on hold so I can do nothing but farm epic tokens for hearts before U20 goes live or until the devs change their minds and confirm that tokens will be able to buy heroic hearts. I'll get all my alts at least 1 heart, plus extra hearts for already-planned past lives.

That's around 140 tokens total I'll need, with having somewhere in the 30s now. Once I finish that grind and buy all my hearts, it will signal the beginning of the end. After I use up all those hearts and finish that last heroic life there will be nothing left for me in DDO, so I'll look elsewhere for my gaming.

Heroic TRing is the bread and butter of what I do. It's my main gameplay. I keep a stable of epic alts for guild raids, and I love raid nights, but the vast majority of my game time is spent heroic TRing mainly just for the fun of TRing. If I can no longer spend 20 epic tokens for a heroic TR heart, there will be nothing for me in the game.

[Soulfurnace]

That's around 140 tokens total I'll need, with having somewhere in the 30s now. Once I finish that grind and buy all my hearts, it will signal the beginning of the end. After I use up all those hearts and finish that last heroic life there will be nothing left for me in DDO, so I'll look elsewhere for my gaming.

I feel sorry for people with alts :\

My triple-completionist in progress needs ~30 more hearts.
600 tokens. It's still not capped.
The race is on.

[HernandoCortez]

This is outrageous. And to make things worse they will lock or delete this thread instead of interacting with their player base.
Another Turbine screwup incoming.

[Cauthey_No_CCInfo]

This is outrageous. And to make things worse they will lock or delete this thread instead of interacting with their player base.
Another Turbine screwup incoming.

I hope not. I was really careful in the drafting of my OP to not be offensive, or break any of the community guidelines. I hope that anyone else contributing to this thread will recognize that, and do the same.

[DirtySheepdip]

I hope not. I was really careful in the drafting of my OP to not be offensive, or break any of the community guidelines. I hope that anyone else contributing to this thread will recognize that, and do the same.

Op was well written, and shows how many of us feel. +1

[redoubt]

To Whom It May Concern:

I agree.

1. Quit "fixing" stuff that is not broke.

2. Quit making your "fixes" far far worse than what we already have.

[nibel]

Agreed. All my current in-game plans just got put on hold so I can do nothing but farm epic tokens for hearts before U20 goes live or until the devs change their minds and confirm that tokens will be able to buy heroic hearts. I'll get all my alts at least 1 heart, plus extra hearts for already-planned past lives.

I will not change my current game style to mindlessly farm tokens. If this change goes live, and is NOT reverted until I level enough for my next TR. I'll simply stop TRing. And with current endgame, this might means that I'll stop playing.

It is not worth the hassle to farm to play stuff I don't find fun anymore. There are plenty of games in my to-play list to be this attached to only one (even if it is my favorite).

[Cauthey_No_CCInfo]

I turned in a big part of my cache for True Druidic Hearts. Now, the problem is that they are BtC, and must now manage to find a place to store them. *not pleased*

[Gremmlynn]

1) The devs feelings are hurt that we don't spend enough time playing their wonderfully designed "hand crafted" epic quests.

2) The post-MotU packs have sold poorly, and since they can't (won't?) go back and improve them to be desirable, they thought they'd try making them required. The (often broken) Sagas didn't do this outright, so they said "Ah-Ha! If they won't pay for the content they don't want to run, they'll have to pay to TR! Brilliant!"

I see the most likely reason as the game being a few hundred thousand players short of what they need to justify development cost otherwise. Believe it or not, it cost about the same amount to run a game with several million players as it does with what we have. But the income from several million is a lot more, so they have to find ways of getting us few to make up the difference.

[Mamba_Lev]

900 is a joke, Turbine on their quest to keep the game all grind all the time. Roll on TESO. Turbine deserves to end.

[Ausdoerrt]

what is the real goal, here?

Obviously, to make sure the 10 people left after the update pay $$$ for hearts.

[rayworks]

I see the most likely reason as the game being a few hundred thousand players short of what they need to justify development cost otherwise. Believe it or not, it cost about the same amount to run a game with several million players as it does with what we have. But the income from several million is a lot more, so they have to find ways of getting us few to make up the difference.

But this stupid plan won't get them new customers and old customers are gonna leave in droves. Apparently the real goal is to kill the game.