Earning Hearts of Wood - post U20

[Glin]

UPDATE: The latest information is now available by clicking here!

Last week we updated Lamannia with a new barter option in place for earning Hearts of Wood in-game. While we would have been better if the information I posting here was released at the same time, we received feedback from the community on the most concerning issues that come with both introducing a new system and changing an old. Below, I intend to address a few facts on the system, cover some of the design thoughts and also address concerns that were highlighted over the weekend.


When Update 20 goes out to live servers, there will be a new commendation available through select Epic Sagas that will allow players to barter for Hearts of Wood. Initially these Epic Sagas will offer an option to claim a Commendation of Valor; in time we intend to add additional methods to obtain “Commendations of Valor.”

(a) Saga: The End of Eberron (Epic)
(b) Saga: Perils of Cormyr (Epic)
(c) Saga: The Planeswalker’s Path (Epic)
(d) Saga: Menace of the Underdark (Epic)
(e) Saga: Honor of the Huntsilvers (Epic)
(f) Saga: In the Wastes of Gianthold (Epic)

A quest can overlap two or more sagas. In the situation where a quest is in multiple sagas, you will receive completion credit for each saga, for example, completing “A stay at the Inn” from the Update 16 Adventure Pack will reward credit in 3 Saga’s (b, c, e above). In this way, you can complete 5 sagas by playing 36 quests, and various combinations within that scenario if you prefer to skip some content.

The points you earn from completing a saga will vary based on the difficulty you completed them in. The number of commendations earned on an all elite run is 3-4 times that of an all normal run. In addition to difficulty, the higher level sagas tend to reward more commendations as well. Since the commendation is the currency, the important figure is the cost of the Hearts of Wood.

Feedback received:
The prices on Lamannia are not final – inspired by the Lamannia feedback, the Heroic Heart of Wood will be greatly reduced from the price displayed in the bartershop today. We’ll be looking at your additional feedback and how players play through sagas, and adjust the costs appropriately. We expect the average player to, upon reaching the minimum level requirement, spend additional hours to obtain a Heart of Wood – but never hundreds of hours. Since the heroic goal is 20, we are lowering the expectation of number of Epic quests needed to earn the heart. You will find that Iconic and Epic hearts cost more because you are expected to earn most of it during gameplay, if you approach earning commendations as your priority reward for Sagas. We are still working on these values, and next Lamannia update they will be lower (though still open to adjustment up/down based on feedback)

Saga’s have been intermittently off since they were introduced this summer. We approached this system with much consideration for delivering something this important, so it is not taken lightly, and we are focused on making sure that Sagas remain available for players who have already started engaging with them, even before the commendations were “the new thing”.

What are we solving?
• The saga system serves to spread out repeat questing and reward for playing a variety of content and more challenging content. It does not penalize for playing out of order and you can be on track for multiple sagas simultaneously.
• One thing, which players have already pointed out, is we are moving to a single game currency specifically for Hearts of Wood. New content, Eberron or FR, will not use Tokens of the Twelve, formerly “Epic Dungeon Tokens.” Originally intended as a hardcore option for the most Elite level cap builds – prior to U14 - the accessibility was made trivial for some when Epic levels were introduced. We left that unchecked and low priority for some time and there is an amazing disparity between players that can grind dozens in hours vs. the majority that takes days (20-30 hours) of gameplay to accomplish – we are balancing this system.
• Along those lines, for over a year DDO has not been adding to the Twelve tokens reward system, quite the opposite, and we will continue to deprecate this system over time. As this is being written, the design team is discussing a few approaches to how this will be done.


Feedback received:
As of this writing, Update 20 will not remove the Heart of Wood from the Twelve barter NPC. Next steps will be discussed at a later date, but eventually commendations will be the preferred method of exchange – ideally this is preferred by most players, today that is not the case and we are acting accordingly.
I do want to point out that the name of the True Druidic Heart of Wood is changing to Heroic Heart of Wood and all existing true-hearts will be updated to match.

As we work to get Reincarnation out to Lamannia, we will also make initial updates to the bartershops with Hearts of Wood.

I realize there are more topics to cover on this subject and we aim to address this here, on the Lamannia forums, during development.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Last week we updated Lamannia with a new barter option in place for earning Hearts of Wood in-game. While we would have been better if the information I posting here was released at the same time, we received feedback from the community on the most concerning issues that come with both introducing a new system and changing an old. Below, I intend to address a few facts on the system, cover some of the design thoughts and also address concerns that were highlighted over the weekend.


When Update 20 goes out to live servers, there will be a new commendation available through select Epic Sagas that will allow players to barter for Hearts of Wood. Initially these Epic Sagas will offer an option to claim a Commendation of Valor; in time we intend to add additional methods to obtain “Commendations of Valor.”

(a) Saga: The End of Eberron (Epic)
(b) Saga: Perils of Cormyr (Epic)
(c) Saga: The Planeswalker’s Path (Epic)
(d) Saga: Menace of the Underdark (Epic)
(e) Saga: Honor of the Huntsilvers (Epic)
(f) Saga: In the Wastes of Gianthold (Epic)

A quest can overlap two or more sagas. In the situation where a quest is in multiple sagas, you will receive completion credit for each saga, for example, completing “A stay at the Inn” from the Update 16 Adventure Pack will reward credit in 3 Saga’s (b, c, e above). In this way, you can complete 5 sagas by playing 36 quests, and various combinations within that scenario if you prefer to skip some content.

The points you earn from completing a saga will vary based on the difficulty you completed them in. The number of commendations earned on an all elite run is 3-4 times that of an all normal run. In addition to difficulty, the higher level sagas tend to reward more commendations as well. Since the commendation is the currency, the important figure is the cost of the Hearts of Wood.

Feedback received:
The prices on Lamannia are not final – inspired by the Lamannia feedback, the Heroic Heart of Wood will be greatly reduced from the price displayed in the bartershop today. We’ll be looking at your additional feedback and how players play through sagas, and adjust the costs appropriately. We expect the average player to, upon reaching the minimum level requirement, spend additional hours to obtain a Heart of Wood – but never hundreds of hours. Since the heroic goal is 20, we are lowering the expectation of number of Epic quests needed to earn the heart. You will find that Iconic and Epic hearts cost more because you are expected to earn most of it during gameplay, if you approach earning commendations as your priority reward for Sagas. We are still working on these values, and next Lamannia update they will be lower (though still open to adjustment up/down based on feedback)

Saga’s have been intermittently off since they were introduced this summer. We approached this system with much consideration for delivering something this important, so it is not taken lightly, and we are focused on making sure that Sagas remain available for players who have already started engaging with them, even before the commendations were “the new thing”.

What are we solving?
• The saga system serves to spread out repeat questing and reward for playing a variety of content and more challenging content. It does not penalize for playing out of order and you can be on track for multiple sagas simultaneously.
• One thing, which players have already pointed out, is we are moving to a single game currency specifically for Hearts of Wood. New content, Eberron or FR, will not use Tokens of the Twelve, formerly “Epic Dungeon Tokens.” Originally intended as a hardcore option for the most Elite level cap builds – prior to U14 - the accessibility was made trivial for some when Epic levels were introduced. We left that unchecked and low priority for some time and there is an amazing disparity between players that can grind dozens in hours vs. the majority that takes days (20-30 hours) of gameplay to accomplish – we are balancing this system.
• Along those lines, for over a year DDO has not been adding to the Twelve tokens reward system, quite the opposite, and we will continue to deprecate this system over time. As this is being written, the design team is discussing a few approaches to how this will be done.


Feedback received:
As of this writing, Update 20 will not remove the Heart of Wood from the Twelve barter NPC. Next steps will be discussed at a later date, but eventually commendations will be the preferred method of exchange – ideally this is preferred by most players, today that is not the case and we are acting accordingly.
I do want to point out that the name of the True Druidic Heart of Wood is changing to Heroic Heart of Wood and all existing true-hearts will be updated to match.

As we work to get Reincarnation out to Lamannia, we will also make initial updates to the bartershops with Hearts of Wood.

I realize there are more topics to cover on this subject and we aim to address this here, on the Lamannia forums, during development.

better communication - and don't want to waste my time in epic saga's to tr at 20. tokens stay. good.

[mudfud]

Last week we updated Lamannia with a new barter option in place for earning Hearts of Wood in-game. While we would have been better if the information I posting here was released at the same time, we received feedback from the community on the most concerning issues that come with both introducing a new system and changing an old. Below, I intend to address a few facts on the system, cover some of the design thoughts and also address concerns that were highlighted over the weekend.


When Update 20 goes out to live servers, there will be a new commendation available through select Epic Sagas that will allow players to barter for Hearts of Wood. Initially these Epic Sagas will offer an option to claim a Commendation of Valor; in time we intend to add additional methods to obtain “Commendations of Valor.”

(a) Saga: The End of Eberron (Epic)
(b) Saga: Perils of Cormyr (Epic)
(c) Saga: The Planeswalker’s Path (Epic)
(d) Saga: Menace of the Underdark (Epic)
(e) Saga: Honor of the Huntsilvers (Epic)
(f) Saga: In the Wastes of Gianthold (Epic)

A quest can overlap two or more sagas. In the situation where a quest is in multiple sagas, you will receive completion credit for each saga, for example, completing “A stay at the Inn” from the Update 16 Adventure Pack will reward credit in 3 Saga’s (b, c, e above). In this way, you can complete 5 sagas by playing 36 quests, and various combinations within that scenario if you prefer to skip some content.

The points you earn from completing a saga will vary based on the difficulty you completed them in. The number of commendations earned on an all elite run is 3-4 times that of an all normal run. In addition to difficulty, the higher level sagas tend to reward more commendations as well. Since the commendation is the currency, the important figure is the cost of the Hearts of Wood.

Feedback received:
The prices on Lamannia are not final – inspired by the Lamannia feedback, the Heroic Heart of Wood will be greatly reduced from the price displayed in the bartershop today. We’ll be looking at your additional feedback and how players play through sagas, and adjust the costs appropriately. We expect the average player to, upon reaching the minimum level requirement, spend additional hours to obtain a Heart of Wood – but never hundreds of hours. Since the heroic goal is 20, we are lowering the expectation of number of Epic quests needed to earn the heart. You will find that Iconic and Epic hearts cost more because you are expected to earn most of it during gameplay, if you approach earning commendations as your priority reward for Sagas. We are still working on these values, and next Lamannia update they will be lower (though still open to adjustment up/down based on feedback)

Saga’s have been intermittently off since they were introduced this summer. We approached this system with much consideration for delivering something this important, so it is not taken lightly, and we are focused on making sure that Sagas remain available for players who have already started engaging with them, even before the commendations were “the new thing”.

What are we solving?
• The saga system serves to spread out repeat questing and reward for playing a variety of content and more challenging content. It does not penalize for playing out of order and you can be on track for multiple sagas simultaneously.
• One thing, which players have already pointed out, is we are moving to a single game currency specifically for Hearts of Wood. New content, Eberron or FR, will not use Tokens of the Twelve, formerly “Epic Dungeon Tokens.” Originally intended as a hardcore option for the most Elite level cap builds – prior to U14 - the accessibility was made trivial for some when Epic levels were introduced. We left that unchecked and low priority for some time and there is an amazing disparity between players that can grind dozens in hours vs. the majority that takes days (20-30 hours) of gameplay to accomplish – we are balancing this system.
• Along those lines, for over a year DDO has not been adding to the Twelve tokens reward system, quite the opposite, and we will continue to deprecate this system over time. As this is being written, the design team is discussing a few approaches to how this will be done.


Feedback received:
As of this writing, Update 20 will not remove the Heart of Wood from the Twelve barter NPC. Next steps will be discussed at a later date, but eventually commendations will be the preferred method of exchange – ideally this is preferred by most players, today that is not the case and we are acting accordingly.
I do want to point out that the name of the True Druidic Heart of Wood is changing to Heroic Heart of Wood and all existing true-hearts will be updated to match.

As we work to get Reincarnation out to Lamannia, we will also make initial updates to the bartershops with Hearts of Wood.

I realize there are more topics to cover on this subject and we aim to address this here, on the Lamannia forums, during development.

Everyone has there preferred method of playing. I prefer to level one alt from lvl 1-20 and immediately TR. I will not do epics to grind for what I like to do. While I appreciate holding off on changing the epic tokens turn in next update, how about offering those of us who care not for epic reincarnation but want to only go to 20 and TR again a way to get true hearts of wood also.
Or better yet, how about making it so true hearts of wood stack. That way I would get a few that would go into my TR bank until needed for next life.

[Dawnsfire]

It sounds like a good compromise for now. I do hope you hurry to add different ways to get the comms though. I tend to complete sagas one time while leveling for the favor. There are a number of quests I do not enjoy and do not like a mechanic that forces me to run those over and over to collect a specific reward.

[fourrumtest]

barf.
take your sagas else where do not want them.
take your new bound to character inventory clutter else where, to much ingredients in the game already.
have a new system? great do not trash everything that came before it.
and lastly please hire someone to communicate with whats left of your customers.

so to sum it up making me run sagas to tr is a deal breaker.
bound to character inventory clutter is a deal breaker.
want me to run the new stuff? make it fun, or rewarding or both, can't do it without destroying old content? then i give up.

[Meat-Head]

ok. If you want to streamline currency to valor.. Do it. Just make "old epics" drop valor. Make drop rates relative to quest level. It's pretty simple really. Also, make a simple exchange available for people with tokens. X tokens = x valor. Simple.


This really isn't that hard.

Also, most people DO NOT want to be forced to run sagas to get valors. This is also simple.

Finally, coms should be bta. Simple again.

[oradafu]

I don't want to run Sagas just to TR.

I don't want to run just new content that isn't very good compared to older content.

I don't want to be forced to gain BTC comms to TR.

I want my purchase for the most EXPANSIVE non-expansion pack to keep its value.

Doesn't seem like any of those points got through to anyone at Turbine... And those are some of the key complaints. There are others complaints also. But as usually, it's fingers in the ear and full steam ahead for Turbine's new shiny system.

[Deadlock]

When Update 20 goes out to live servers, there will be a new commendation available through select Epic Sagas that will allow players to barter for Hearts of Wood. Initially these Epic Sagas will offer an option to claim a Commendation of Valor; in time we intend to add additional methods to obtain “Commendations of Valor.”

Why not just replace fragments of the twelve with Commendations of Valor in their current quantities so they drop in chests instead? Replace Tokens of the Twelve with 50 Commendations of Valor and Greater Tokens of the Twelve with 100 Commendations of Valor? Add Commendations to all epic end reward chests so all quests give something towards a TR, not just the ones where Fragments and Tokens drop right now.

Problem solved until you can implement these additional methods at a later date?

And make them BTA.

[UurlockYgmeov]

just as long as tokens don't stop dropping now. ;p

[Ungood]

Thank you.

[donblas]

In the past we've had new systems introduced slightly broken into DDO. They may receive a few (or no) updates and then are left to languish or swapped for the latest dev fad a year or two later.

Can you assure us this won't happen this time?

Oh and BtA or BtC?

[Thrudh]

New content, Eberron or FR, will not use Tokens of the Twelve, formerly “Epic Dungeon Tokens.” Originally intended as a hardcore option for the most Elite level cap builds – prior to U14 - the accessibility was made trivial for some when Epic levels were introduced. We left that unchecked and low priority for some time and there is an amazing disparity between players that can grind dozens in hours vs. the majority that takes days (20-30 hours) of gameplay to accomplish – we are balancing this system.

This makes sense to me... Getting 20 tokens was harder back in the day and took longer... And there were other uses for them.. Now it is very easy to get them. The key to MMO microtransactions is finding that perfect balance of just enough grind that you consider buying from the store instead... but not so much grind that you feel like the company is screwing you and forcing you to buy from the store.

Feedback received:
As of this writing, Update 20 will not remove the Heart of Wood from the Twelve barter NPC. Next steps will be discussed at a later date, but eventually commendations will be the preferred method of exchange – ideally this is preferred by most players, today that is not the case and we are acting accordingly.

Thank you for reverting the change for now... A big issue with commendations is that they are BtC, and they need to drop in all epic quests... I can understand you may not want to do that, because then people will just farm the one fastest comm/minute quest over and over... So, if you're determined to stick with sagas, create more sagas that cover all epic quests, even the older stuff). Make the comms BtA for Update 20 please, and work on more sagas for Update 21. We need reasons to run older epic content (Make it possible to update old epic loot is another way to achieve that).

[erethizon]

So if I understand correctly you are leaving the ability to get heroic hearts with tokens of the twelve for now, but still plan to remove the ability in the future?

[Meat-Head]

(Make it possible to update old epic loot is another way to achieve that).

yes x3.

[nayozz]

Thx for posting this info.
Now people will be able to tr even if by accident saga will be disa led for hot fixes

[oradafu]

So if I understand correctly you are leaving the ability to get heroic hearts with tokens of the twelve for now, but still plan to remove the ability in the future?

Yes, that appears to be the only change.

No mention of BTA change. No mention of the new Comms appearing outside of the Sagas, which consist of GH and FR only stuff.

[Satyriasys]

Not sure I understand the motivation behind linking hearts to sagas. If you would just add a small amount of epic fragments to all epic quests players would have freedom to run content they enjoy yet still have to work for their heart. All you are doing is forcing players to play very specific quests and that is not going to be popular. Maybe in a year when dozens more sagas are added but then you should have probably waited until then to link hearts to it.

If your motivation is to sell adventure packs you could try making the unpopular packs more inciting by increasing their xp, quality of named items and fixing the random-gen loot system/disaster. It would be far cheaper for you then redesigning a whole system and the people would love you for it.

[Scraap]

So if I understand correctly you are leaving the ability to get heroic hearts with tokens of the twelve for now, but still plan to remove the ability in the future?

Reading that as 'until they cook up a more consistent approach' m'self, but that could just be wishful thinking.

[oradafu]

If your motivation is to sell adventure packs you could try making the unpopular packs more inciting by increasing their xp, quality of named items and fixing the random-gen loot system/disaster. It would be far cheaper for you then redesigning a whole system and the people would love you for it.

All points brought up multiple times on Lamannia before the stuff goes Live. And they still don't fix it after the fact.

[UurlockYgmeov]

"• The saga system serves to spread out repeat questing and reward for playing a variety of content and more challenging content. "

Another way to do this is to do as suggested - make hWood a 3000 favor point option.... would be very simple to program - and it would be BtC.

valcomms should be bta not btc.

please, don't make us run epic junk to HR - have enough BtC junk already cluttering the TR cache. How about more heroic sagas? Necro1-4??? just crying out for it.