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

[Turbosilk]

True hearts of wood are ridiculously easy to get, what is your solution?

[vhortex]

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.

They are to blame though, when they change the monsters and raids making it a requirement to take SP pots in the raids.. My whole guild was disbanded having the members quit, a good portion of them are Cash/Store buyers of SP pots and sometimes cakes while the rest farm favors or exchange collectibles to meet the sp pot needs.

I live TRng since I still think that the game is fun and made bad choices that is enough for me to reroll, the TR capability and my new guildies made the reroll non problematic. They just help me get to 20 then TR. I have almost all the packs and I have all the expansion.. Guess I will stop playing the game if this made it to live. I hate wheelon prison shifting, it is a pain in the eyes when things shift and my lawful good multi class monk gets random negative source damage when the shift happen and I hate it.

[Cauthey_No_CCInfo]

True hearts of wood are ridiculously easy to get, what is your solution?

Reasonable, or easy now, yes. But, based on the notes, you're going to have to run somewhere in the neighborhood of ~57 back to back EPIC Saga completions to get one.

Do you also suggest that would be "easy to get?"

I do not mind if they make a teeny little more grind of it. So long as it's a reasonable grind, and hay synergy with playing HEROIC content.

[Darkrok]

True hearts of wood are ridiculously easy to get, what is your solution?

I'd say that for more players they're not ridiculously easy to get. That said...even if they were in what way does this really damage the game? People that don't want to play epics at all can minimize the time they spend running epics and play the part of the game they want to play? I'm failing to see the problem in that either to the health of the game or to Turbine's bottom line.

[hit_fido]

I'd say that for more players they're not ridiculously easy to get. That said...even if they were in what way does this really damage the game? People that don't want to play epics at all can minimize the time they spend running epics and play the part of the game they want to play? I'm failing to see the problem in that either to the health of the game or to Turbine's bottom line.

Hard to say and another time I would really enjoy seeing actual numbers from Turbine data, but personally, I paid for, I think three, true hearts before I clued in on how I really ought to make a cheap farming character for tokens and well, most other stuff. Doubly clued in when I realized I'd never have to farm tokens on any other character to TR them either. The game had (and mostly still has) high replay value for me so at the time it didn't feel too expensive to pay for them, especially since I wasn't paying for very much else at that point, just inventory space and the occasional new pack. But the choice between free and trivial vs ~$12 a pop is a pretty easy one to make, and I haven't paid for a heart since. Players in guilds, I can't imagine should have any difficulty obtaining tokens assuming their guild mates are at least generous enough with their time to run Devil's Assault together 2, 3, 4 times?

The trouble with these early decisions and designs by Turbine is that they become ingrained activities and expectations in the player base. Whereas once many players may have felt like I did, that $12 or so to replay a life seemed like a reasonable value proposition, once power creep and availability and habit set it, now many players, by their own reactions, demonstrate that replaying a life has essentially no monetary value to them. It's worth a couple hours of Devil's Assault, but pay for it? No way! <screenshots VIP cancellation>

I can understand the thought process going on somewhere at Turbine looking back and regretting that they've made a cornerstone attraction of DDO - the replay value of TR - into a practically free activity. But this is like ED wiping. It's way too late and they should have known that. It's terrible PR, terrible relationship management. They should have sucked it up and looked for other ways to drive revenue. Players are at the point of throwing cash at their browser windows begging for another bank tab or bag tab. Many claim to be willing to pay for content that contains raids, etc etc. Monster manuals, more vanity cosmetics. There are plenty of places to look for more revenue. And they picked one that would predictably enrage players to the point of cancelling accounts? Terrible execution at the executive level.

[Arnhelm]

Ya know, something just occurred to me... Could this be an attempt to "punish" players for the revolt over the XP for ED TR proposal? Only now dawning on me we might be seeing something that is personal rather than pure business.

Hmm...

[Darkrok]

Ya know, something just occurred to me... Could this be an attempt to "punish" players for the revolt over the XP for ED TR proposal? Only now dawning on me we might be seeing something that is personal rather than pure business.

Hmm...

I think you're on the right track but it's not punitive...it's simply another way to get at the same goal.

The current dev team does not like that people would rather run content from years ago as opposed to the 'great new content we've made'. The XP for ED TR proposal and this are both aimed at pushing people to quit it with all this heroic TR'ing and move on to the new 20+ shinies they've added recently.

[rimble]

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?

While there is probably some well intended goal to allow TR things to be reasonably obtained by a wider variety of methods (as opposed to just eDA or eChallenges)--I believe they also want to take the things out of chests, because in chests it allows you to concentrate/consolidate the rewards by passing them around (either between friends, or yourself if you want to multi-box). You can get 12 Tokens per EN Devil Assault if you want to share/multi-box enough...or I don't know how many per Challenge...

I find it pretty perplexing. There is little end-game aside from TRing. Without an end-game, people leave. Why would you make it harder to participate in the end-game? So you don't make money on the Hearts, I would hope you make it up somewhere else by the player continuing to play.

[EllisDee37]

True hearts of wood are ridiculously easy to get, what is your solution?

True hearts being ridiculously easy to get isn't a problem and doesn't need a solution. The ease of getting hearts is partly what keeps DDO alive.

I believe they also want to take the things out of chests, because in chests it allows you to concentrate/consolidate the rewards by passing them around (either between friends, or yourself if you want to multi-box). You can get 12 Tokens per EN Devil Assault if you want to share/multi-box enough...or I don't know how many per Challenge...

You can't concentrate/consolidate challenge rewards.

[rimble]

You can't concentrate/consolidate challenge rewards.

Challenge Rewards get turned in for BtA Tokens of the Twelve, don't they? Ah, I guess you couldn't pass those between alt accounts tho. I guess that's why I prefer eDA...and why they want to kill it.

[EllisDee37]

Challenge Rewards get turned in for BtA Tokens of the Twelve, don't they? Ah, I guess you couldn't pass those between alt accounts tho. I guess that's why I prefer eDA...and why they want to kill it.

Yes, challenge mats are BTA and are awarded directly into your bag, not from any chest, so there is no way to pass them. Everything worth buying with them is also BTA.

I suppose you could spend your challenge mats on crafting bags and hand over the essences you get to other people, but the crafting bags give a total of something like 3% of the value of your challenge mats. It would be like vendoring named items and handing over the plat you got from the vendor to another player as a means of passing the named item.

[Turbosilk]

True hearts being ridiculously easy to get isn't a problem and doesn't need a solution. The ease of getting hearts is partly what keeps DDO alive.

The only thing keeping any game alive is profit. Is anyone proposing how to keep DDO profitable and thus keeping them from closing shop?

I am suggesting that currently acquiring true hearts is too easy and their change is too much.