Earning Hearts of Wood - post U20

[oradafu]

It's easy to explain - you want to make mats exclusive to specific packs, so that people have to buy them to craft the relevant items.

As I stated, if they kept the same mats, all they would have to do if introduce a single new mat or shard.

Let's use Shroud for example, since it was pretty much the one thing done correctly when it comes to crafting in DDO. The mats are all tradable, but you need the Shards to make GS. Instead of making a new set of mats for the Altar of Insanity, they could have used the Medium Shroud mats to upgrade the armor plus a new untradable shard (let's say the Watcher's Eyes). So the pack still needs to be bought (or a pass needed) to make the item.

[Satyriasys]

I like all the different mats like brain sample and cannon parts. If everything was the same it would be boring. All these mats are bta so just have 1 bag to keep all that stuff in. 1 bag doesn't really take up much space, not as much as having a btc exclusive item related to every crafting system. The most annoying btc mats for me are the reavers refuge ones.

[HAL]

This is exactly how I'm reading what the Devs have been saying. Why? Because that is what has happened repeatedly in the game.

Look at Cannith Crafting - the levels ended up higher than lootgen and were supposed to be fixed but never were. As you say, one of many examples.

[ReaperAlexEU]

I like all the different mats like brain sample and cannon parts. If everything was the same it would be boring. All these mats are bta so just have 1 bag to keep all that stuff in. 1 bag doesn't really take up much space, not as much as having a btc exclusive item related to every crafting system. The most annoying btc mats for me are the reavers refuge ones.

yes! i did a few quests in there while following the LFM screen for exp and i handed all my draconic runes over so they wouldn't clutter my bags any more. i've also hovered over the delete button on the ones i do have several times!

[Mryal]

Allright so, time to join this discussion.

First of all good job from the devs communicating and clarifying all of this, those old values were scary.
So, despite these new values, and peraphs comendations becoming BTA (wich is a must, the method we use for obtaining hearts now is BTA, removing that would be bad), what nobody is noticing is that this new system depreciates even more the interest on running old quests, that have alredy been shafted ever since Underdark came.
Theres alredy little interest on running fens/house P/house D epics now, and after those changes come.Why would anybody buy those packs?
The new system, with the sagas, is not too bad, something we can live with.But hey, why not making a Saga for Fens, Carnival and House D epics too.And one for Sands and VON that includes the raids aswell.
Its really unfair to sweep the old content under the rug in favour of the new one.

[HAL]

sagas were well received as an option for bonus rewards with the option to skip 1 or 2 or more quests we don't like. now its being forced on us as the only way in game to reincarnate, when token trade in phases out. as a result, this is how the players react. now players are actually going to hate sagas. well done.

Good point.

[lyrecono]

i assumed that they introduced the saga's to force us to play their forgotten realms content, i'm sorry turbine but if you want us to run it you need to give us an incentive to actualy run it in the first place.
It's only natural for us to skip all the content we loath to run.

Things that make us run quests: (not in any particular order)
Story, fun voice acting etc, good example: reign of madness pack
Fun mechanics, bit of a point of view though, eg random quest objectives/traps
Good exp/min
Good gear, as in non random named gear.
etc.

We will not start playing sup par content with the saga "fix"
I understand the marketing part of it, iconics were meant to lure people in/lure them back, to play forgotten realms content, but that part of ddo is run far less then the Eberron content so all those new people might end up with empty lfm's, wich you apperently saw (proven in the exp reballancing tread).

Forcing us to play them for tr hearts is the wrong kind of incentive.
Drop this CoV system right now!

The loot needs fixing too, a good way of fixing a lot of it is: find a EE blue dragon helmet, go to the barter interface, put on a +8 stat (not just mental) for X amount of epic dungeon tokens/tokens of the 12 or a +3 exep stat of your choice for X amount epic raid tokens. Add in some restored relics and bam! problem fixed

Instead, due to current situation people complain.

U19 aproached.... with even more random stuff people did not wanted in the fist place

Look at the shroud, look how well made it's crafting was for it's time, look at why this was so succesfull!
Your half finished attempt to emmulate it backfired THE VERY NEXT UPDATE! with all it's gear being outdated... (ignore U
The LOB crafted raid gear atleast included shields and wraps.... but lacked clothing and diversity

Why do people run shroud up till U19? (when so many left even shroud lfm's dont fill anymore)
Why did the number of MA/LoB lfm's drop?
Why do server populations drop constantly since U14? (exept for EGH)
Why do people TR so much?

Maybe, just maybe because they do like that Eberron content better?
Maybe because weget tired of not being listened to?

sight

[ironegrip]

Now with kung-fu grip! Rather, including the exp gains for E-Hard. This is the raw exp as from the wiki, so any bonuses from bravery, streak, pots, not dying, no re-entries, and anything else is not included.

1) Lords of Dust - Gain progress for "The End of Eberron" saga. 17,450 exp, 17,450 total.

2) Servants of the Overlord - Gain progress for "The End of Eberron" saga. 20,550 exp, 38,000 total.

3) The Spinner of Shadows - Gain progress for "The End of Eberron" saga. 19,403 exp, 57,403 total.

4) Beyond the Rift - Gain progress for "The End of Eberron" and "The Chosen of Mystra" sagas. 20,736 exp, 78,139 total.

5) Impossible Demands - Gain progress for "Perils of Cormyr" and "Meanace of the Underdark" sagas. 13,854 exp, 91,993 total.

6) The Unquiet Graves - Gain progress for "Perils of Cormyr" and "Meanace of the Underdark" sagas. 14,226 exp, 106,219 total.

7) The Lost Thread - Gain progress for "Perils of Cormyr," "The Chosen of Mystra," and "Meanace of the Underdark" sagas. 17,357 exp, 123,576 total.

8) The Battle for Eveningstar - Gain progress for "Perils of Cormyr" and "Meanace of the Underdark" sagas. 18,039 exp, 141,615 total.

9) The House of Rusted Blades - Gain progress for "The End of Eberron" and "Meanace of the Underdark" sagas. 14,140 exp, 155,755 total.

10) The House of Broken Chains - Gain progress for "The End of Eberron" and "Meanace of the Underdark" sagas. 16,246 exp, 172,001 total.

11) The House of Death Undone - Gain progress for "The End of Eberron" and "Meanace of the Underdark" sagas. 15,190 exp, 187,191 total.

12) The Portal Opens - Gain progress for "The End of Eberron" and "Meanace of the Underdark" sagas. 17,654 exp, 204,845 total.

13) Trial By Fury - Gain progress for "The End of Eberron," "The Chosen of Mystra," and "Meanace of the Underdark" sagas. 18,862 exp, 223,707 total.

14) The Deal & the Demon - Gain progress for "The End of Eberron," "The Chosen of Mystra," and "Meanace of the Underdark" sagas. 16,400 exp, 240,107 total.

15) Reclaiming the RiftGain progress for "The End of Eberron," "The Chosen of Mystra," and "Meanace of the Underdark" sagas. "The End of Eberron" saga is completed - 11 missions for 33 CoV, 33 total. 16,400 exp, 256,507 total.

16) Don't Drink the Water - Gain progress for "Perils of Cormyr" and "Meanace of the Underdark" sagas. 15,804 exp, 272,311 total.

17) In the Belly of the Beast - Gain progress for "Perils of Cormyr" and "Meanace of the Underdark" sagas. "Menace of the Underdark" saga is complete - 13 missions for 39 CoV, 72 total. 18,134 exp, 290,445 total.

18) Outbreak - Gain progress for "Perils of Cormyr" saga. 12,268 exp, 302,713 total.

19) Overgrowth - Gain progress for "Perils of Cormyr" saga. 13,430 exp, 316,143 total.

20) Thorn & Paw - Gain progress for "Perils of Cormyr" saga. 13,925 exp, 330,068 total.

21) The Druid's Curse - Gain progress for "Perils of Cormyr" and "Honor of the Huntsilver" sagas. 17,225 exp, 347,293 total.

22) Detour - Gain progress for "Perils of Cormyr," "Honor of the Huntsilver," and "The Chosen of Mystra" sagas. 17,500 exp, 364,793 total.

23) Rest Stop - Gain progress for "Perils of Cormyr," "Honor of the Huntsilver," and "The Chosen of Mystra" sagas. 13,590 exp, 378,383 total.

24) Lost in the Swamp - Gain progress for "Perils of Cormyr," "Honor of the Huntsilver," and "The Chosen of Mystra" sagas. 16,412 exp, 394,795 total.

25) A Stay At the Inn - Gain progress for "Perils of Cormyr," "Honor of the Huntsilver," and "The Chosen of Mystra" sagas. 14,100 exp, 408,895 total.

26) The End of the Road - Gain progress for "Perils of Cormyr," "Honor of the Huntsilver," and "The Chosen of Mystra" sagas. 18,690 exp, 427,585 total.

27) Friends in Low Places - Gain progress for "Perils of Cormyr" and "Honor of the Huntsilver" sagas. 20,318 exp, 447,903 total.

28) A Lesson in Deception - Gain progress for "Perils of Cormyr" and "Honor of the Huntsilver" sagas. 17,510 exp, 455,413 total.

29) The Thrill of the Hunt - Gain progress for "Perils of Cormyr" and "Honor of the Huntsilver" sagas. 14,090 exp, 469,503 total.

30) Army of Shadow - Gain progress for "Perils of Cormyr" and "Honor of the Huntsilver" sagas. 16,948 exp, 486,451 total.

31) Through a Mirror Darkly - Gain progress for "Perils of Cormyr," "Honor of the Huntsilver," and "The Chosen of Mystra" sagas. "The Chosen of Mystra" saga is complete - 11 missions for 33 CoV, 105 total. 21,254 exp, 507,705 total.

32) The Tracker's Trap - Gain progress for "Perils of Cormyr" and "Honor of the Huntsilver" sagas. 16,105 exp, 523,810 total.

33) Lines of Supply - Gain progress for "Perils of Cormyr" and "Honor of the Huntsilver" sagas. 16,290 exp, 540,100 total.

34) Breaking the Ranks - Gain progress for "Perils of Cormyr" and "Honor of the Huntsilver" sagas. 14,995 exp, 555,095 total.

35) A Break in the Ice - Gain progress for "Perils of Cormyr" and "Honor of the Huntsilver" sagas. 21,233 exp, 576,328 total.

36) What Goes Up - Gain progress for "Perils of Cormyr" and "Honor of the Huntsilver" sagas. "Perils of Cormyr" saga is complete - 25 missions for 75 CoV, 180 total. "Honor of the Hunstilver" saga is complete - 16 missions for 48 CoV, 228 total. 24,726 exp, 601,054 total.

37) Feast or Famine - Gain progress for "Gianthold (Epic) saga. 19,030 exp, 620,084 total.

38) Return to Cabal for One - Gain progress for "Gianthold (Epic) saga. 15,086 exp, 635,170 total.

39) The Crucible - Gain progress for "Gianthold (Epic) saga. 26,510 exp, 661,580 total.

40) The Maze of Madness - Gain progress for "Gianthold (Epic) saga. 16,310 exp, 677,890 total.

41) Trial by Fire - Gain progress for "Gianthold (Epic) saga. 16,670 exp, 694,560 total.

42) Return to Prison of the Planes - Gain progress for "Gianthold (Epic) saga. 17,330 exp, 711,890 total.

43) A Cry for Help - Gain progress for "Gianthold (Epic) saga. 19,710 exp, 731,600 total.

44) Foundation of Dischord - Gain progress for "Gianthold (Epic) saga. 17,398 exp, 748,998 total.

45) Return to Madstone Crater - Gain progress for "Gianthold (Epic) saga. E Hard exp is unlisted, total more then 748,998.

46) Return to Gianthold Tor - Gain progress for "Gianthold (Epic) saga. "Gianthold (Epic) saga is complete - 10 missions for 30 CoV, 258 total E Hard exp is also unlisted, total even more then 748,998.

Sections highlighted in Bold to note when a saga ends; the individual saga is underlined. With the current proposal at the time of writing, a character can earn 258 CoV by completing all sagas by performing 46 quests, without having to repeat any. If a character is VIP, they can opt to skip 6 of them, bringing the total down to 40. If the character is willing to pay astral shards, they can skip an additional 6, bringing the total quests performed down to 34.

Experience gains do not reflect skipping a quest, nor does it tabulate any bonuses, even fundamental ones such as +10% for no deaths and +10% for no re-entries. So, if you're a proficient player, that 748,998+ value gets even bigger. As it stands, it is enough experience to raise a Lv 20 character to Lv 22-ish. Which may be more difficult, given some of the later quests start at Lv 24 on E-normal.

Thanks for doing the math on that . I actually realized after my earlier post that this would probably be faster than running GH consecutively, but I also realize, for anyone taking this route to get the commendations of valor, that the experience would actually end up far greater than those initial numbers would suggest, placing them even further past the lv 20 cap for a simple heroic tr.

Even barring all the optionals and other experience bonuses, the fact that you run each quest once on Ehard means that you will be getting consecutive bravery bonus XP for all of those quests, which on hard stacks up to 75% when calculated with first time completions. so we're really looking at more than 1.3mil xp before the optionals even begin to kick in.

For multi tr's, who will have the knowledge and skill to optimize bonuses, we're looking at 10% no re-entry, 10% no death, a conservative 10% aggression bonus, 8% tamper bonus, a conservative 8% mischief bonus, and I won't even include an observance bonus, for another 36% bonus. If we factor in tomes, potions, or VIP status, that number gets progressively larger. If we then factor in optional experience, many of which are done as a matter of course in running the quest itself, we should see another significantly larger bump in experience attained through the grind for a heart of wood.

As many others have said in this thread, this is assuming you do absolutely nothing else than run these quests once, and even then, you should have more than enough xp to lv 24, if not lv 25.

I won't even begin to think about how bad an epic heart of wood is gonna be at that rate, but I assume anyone under this system grinding for it will be at cap for a looooong time.

[RedOrm]

Here's a notion sparked on the bridge: If turbine wants to push the sale of hearts, how about making them more attractive? How about giving shop-bought hearts the added function of changing your gender? A TR already changes every other detail except your name, why not add this in as a bonus for shop-bought hearts?
Not everyone will be interested, but I've seen it requested repeatedly over the years to sell gender changes, but from what I understand this was too difficult as it would change so many details like hairstyles and what not. Well, during a TR those details are ALREADY changed, so that should not be a problem.

Anyway, just a suggestion to promote the sale of hearts WITHOUT forcing sagas down our throats.

Greetz,
Red Orm

[HAL]

Then why is that what dropped, if that's "not what we're expecting"? There is literally a screen shot of it.

Yea, I can't imagine what the devs are thinking when they put some random thing in Lam and then don't expect us to think that it's what they are thinking will go live.

[patang01]

They seem determined to link TR to sagas to sell off more adventure packs. They want people who TR to break out their credit cards and get all the FR content.

I got all the content and I'm not doing this BS. I let companies earn my money by entertaining me. Once they assume I should pony up money because of X then I'll move on. I don't need DDO, they need me. They think this is like crack for us but everyone has their sober up moment.

[Satyriasys]

I got all the content and I'm not doing this BS. I let companies earn my money by entertaining me. Once they assume I should pony up money because of X then I'll move on. I don't need DDO, they need me. They think this is like crack for us but everyone has their sober up moment.

I couldn't agree more. It's sad to see Turbine head down this path. Not sure if they're in danger of bankruptcy or just getting greedy. Not sure why they just don't make better content and sell us stuff we want instead of trying these sorts of shady tactics.

[Lauf]

I play because it's fun. mandatory sagas as a playstyle aren't fun.
please stop linking the CoVs exclusively to sagas.

[HAL]

Transparent backpedaling is transparent.

We all know this is exactly what you would have shipped with if your customer base hadn't made it clear that this was unacceptable.

And what they still may ship with - don't forget collectible costs for augments which are still unacceptable...

[danotmano1998]

I wholeheartedly agree with this poster, and the many who have chosen to repost this.
+1, Devs, please read and ponder this...

There are many great ideas on these forums to improve DDO. However that is not really the main goal of Turbine, it is a business after all so lets talk profits.

There are pushy ways to do business which may compel customers to make purchases but leave a negative impact on them. DDO is heading in that direction. It is really unnecessary as you have here a wonderful system already in place which could practically sell itself and become a much more popular game. Would you rather not have players spending money in excitement for what they are getting then bitterness for what they have to get?

There are many features we have been begging to buy. Monster Manuals, more cosmetics, more storage, reagent bags, races, classes, housing, sex change, quests, RAIDS. These are just a few off the top of my head. If you would sell us what we want you wouldn't have to trick us into buying what we don't.

DDO is one of the most unique and complex games I have played. The character creation system alone is the main draw for many people. Sadly most gamers have never heard of this game. Why do you not (modestly) advertise? Something simple and cheap, marketing yourself as the complex mmo or the most customizable or unique or action based combat. Any of these marketing points would be a big draw for people looking for such a game. Flaunt the strengths DDO has. There is a real niche market there for this type of game and DDO is the only place to find it.

Stimulate the sales of adventure packs;

While Shadowfell Conspiracy is very beautiful with great artwork and voice acting it is sadly not enough.
Most People buy packs for 2 reasons, loot and xp. Both of witch cost you NOTHING to increase. Why don't you?

What makes Adventure packs desirable;

XP and Loot

There is little to say about xp other than it should be increased if you want to make your adventure packs more enticing. If the new packs had something like von3 you would find Eveningstar much less of a ghost town.

Loot and how it affects the sales of adventure packs;

You have utterly destroyed the once brilliant and esteemed random loot system for no apparent reason. Not only is getting the same 4 suffixes a giant step backwards from what we knew and loved, the auction house is flooded with cheap random items that outclass most of the highest level named items. There goes any incentive to buy adventures for loot. Poor XP and meager loot have successfully rendered your new shiny expansion insignificant and undesirable regardless of it's quality.

Revert random loot to how it used to be when MOTU launched. It was perfect. We had a plethora of unique and exciting effects, we had composed weapon affixes, we had clickies. It was fun, but now loot is boring and therefor the game is boring. Everything we loot now is the same; retributive, doublestrike, ghostbane, deadly or accuracy. We have yet to hear any dev comment as to why you would butcher such a core aspect of this game. Revert random loot and scale it to be slightly less powerful then named loot of the same level. You will once again incentivise people to buy adventures for the sexy named loot. That is one of the biggest draws to mmos, I cannot stress that enough. People love named loot in these games.

Regarding the old packs, they were once the endgame epics. People would stay at 20, raid and farm for epic ingredients and all was wonderful. With the increase in level cap, 20 is nothing more than a pit stop. Those once sought after epic named items are nothing more then level 20 suboptimal named loot. Why do we still need to spend a year grinding for these ingredients when we are getting better random loot, regardless of how boring it is? If the old epic items dropped completed (like every other named item) it would add some value to these old packs. Another thing that made those packs attractive is the ability to work towards your reincarnation which is also being removed, further decreasing their value.

Reincarnation

A very tricky feature to quantify. On one hand its current popularity is mainly due to the lack of an endgame, on the other it is ingenious, innovative and unique to DDO. Actually one of the most brilliant features in the genre.

Hearts of wood however remind me of sigils. They were removed because they were a roadblock to player retention. They created a false obstacle in front of players limiting the amount of time they could spend in the game. Hearts are now serving this purpose.

Since the current loot mess has rendered raids quite pointless and the high level quests offering very little, there is nothing else to do at endgame currently which is only exacerbating the importance of reincarnating.
Anything done to make the reincarnation process more difficult is going to limit the amount of time players remain customers.

Instead you have chosen to monetize this feature with a very unpopular saga system. A system designed to sell not only hearts but adventure packs in a very underhanded manner. The community knows this, and the disdain is going to drive even more away. If the above insights about adventure packs were implemented The sales of all adventures would rise and there would be no cause to create such an unpopular system, the players would not hold resentment but respect and elation.

[Habitual.0]

There are many great ideas on these forums to improve DDO. However that is not really the main goal of Turbine, it is a business after all so lets talk profits.

There are pushy ways to do business which may compel customers to make purchases but leave a negative impact on them. DDO is heading in that direction. It is really unnecessary as you have here a wonderful system already in place which could practically sell itself and become a much more popular game. Would you rather not have players spending money in excitement for what they are getting then bitterness for what they have to get?

There are many features we have been begging to buy. Monster Manuals, more cosmetics, more storage, reagent bags, races, classes, housing, sex change, quests, RAIDS. These are just a few off the top of my head. If you would sell us what we want you wouldn't have to trick us into buying what we don't.

DDO is one of the most unique and complex games I have played. The character creation system alone is the main draw for many people. Sadly most gamers have never heard of this game. Why do you not (modestly) advertise? Something simple and cheap, marketing yourself as the complex mmo or the most customizable or unique or action based combat. Any of these marketing points would be a big draw for people looking for such a game. Flaunt the strengths DDO has. There is a real niche market there for this type of game and DDO is the only place to find it.

Stimulate the sales of adventure packs;

While Shadowfell Conspiracy is very beautiful with great artwork and voice acting it is sadly not enough.
Most People buy packs for 2 reasons, loot and xp. Both of witch cost you NOTHING to increase. Why don't you?

What makes Adventure packs desirable;

XP and Loot

There is little to say about xp other than it should be increased if you want to make your adventure packs more enticing. If the new packs had something like von3 you would find Eveningstar much less of a ghost town.

Loot and how it affects the sales of adventure packs;

You have utterly destroyed the once brilliant and esteemed random loot system for no apparent reason. Not only is getting the same 4 suffixes a giant step backwards from what we knew and loved, the auction house is flooded with cheap random items that outclass most of the highest level named items. There goes any incentive to buy adventures for loot. Poor XP and meager loot have successfully rendered your new shiny expansion insignificant and undesirable regardless of it's quality.

Revert random loot to how it used to be when MOTU launched. It was perfect. We had a plethora of unique and exciting effects, we had composed weapon affixes, we had clickies. It was fun, but now loot is boring and therefor the game is boring. Everything we loot now is the same; retributive, doublestrike, ghostbane, deadly or accuracy. We have yet to hear any dev comment as to why you would butcher such a core aspect of this game. Revert random loot and scale it to be slightly less powerful then named loot of the same level. You will once again incentivise people to buy adventures for the sexy named loot. That is one of the biggest draws to mmos, I cannot stress that enough. People love named loot in these games.

Regarding the old packs, they were once the endgame epics. People would stay at 20, raid and farm for epic ingredients and all was wonderful. With the increase in level cap, 20 is nothing more than a pit stop. Those once sought after epic named items are nothing more then level 20 suboptimal named loot. Why do we still need to spend a year grinding for these ingredients when we are getting better random loot, regardless of how boring it is? If the old epic items dropped completed (like every other named item) it would add some value to these old packs. Another thing that made those packs attractive is the ability to work towards your reincarnation which is also being removed, further decreasing their value.

Reincarnation

A very tricky feature to quantify. On one hand its current popularity is mainly due to the lack of an endgame, on the other it is ingenious, innovative and unique to DDO. Actually one of the most brilliant features in the genre.

Hearts of wood however remind me of sigils. They were removed because they were a roadblock to player retention. They created a false obstacle in front of players limiting the amount of time they could spend in the game. Hearts are now serving this purpose.

Since the current loot mess has rendered raids quite pointless and the high level quests offering very little, there is nothing else to do at endgame currently which is only exacerbating the importance of reincarnating.
Anything done to make the reincarnation process more difficult is going to limit the amount of time players remain customers.

Instead you have chosen to monetize this feature with a very unpopular saga system. A system designed to sell not only hearts but adventure packs in a very underhanded manner. The community knows this, and the disdain is going to drive even more away. If the above insights about adventure packs were implemented The sales of all adventures would rise and there would be no cause to create such an unpopular system, the players would not hold resentment but respect and elation.

^^

[Steiner-Davion]

Lastly, I understand people wanting the BTA Valor Commendations...that said, I think both of these systems would work fine with BTC and make most people happy. If someone could give up all their saga rewards during heroic leveling to buy a heroic heart at 20 there wouldn't be that need to pass tokens between toons. After an intermediary period allowing people to work through their existing caches of tokens the system could be comfortably dropped. What's needed though is a complete, full-game encompassing system (Eberron and FR's, heroic and epic) for earning hearts. Failing that, things need to stay as-is.

Highlighted part above hits it right on the head. In either system (current or proposed ) there is no way to earn a Reincarnation through normal game play during the Heroic Levels.

Period End of Story.

[darksol23]

I agree with the previous two poster so much it needs to be posted for a third time. It's actually well written and constructive, unlike what I really want to say to the devs....

Single best post in this thread:

There are many great ideas on these forums to improve DDO. However that is not really the main goal of Turbine, it is a business after all so lets talk profits.

There are pushy ways to do business which may compel customers to make purchases but leave a negative impact on them. DDO is heading in that direction. It is really unnecessary as you have here a wonderful system already in place which could practically sell itself and become a much more popular game. Would you rather not have players spending money in excitement for what they are getting then bitterness for what they have to get?

There are many features we have been begging to buy. Monster Manuals, more cosmetics, more storage, reagent bags, races, classes, housing, sex change, quests, RAIDS. These are just a few off the top of my head. If you would sell us what we want you wouldn't have to trick us into buying what we don't.

DDO is one of the most unique and complex games I have played. The character creation system alone is the main draw for many people. Sadly most gamers have never heard of this game. Why do you not (modestly) advertise? Something simple and cheap, marketing yourself as the complex mmo or the most customizable or unique or action based combat. Any of these marketing points would be a big draw for people looking for such a game. Flaunt the strengths DDO has. There is a real niche market there for this type of game and DDO is the only place to find it.

Stimulate the sales of adventure packs;

While Shadowfell Conspiracy is very beautiful with great artwork and voice acting it is sadly not enough.
Most People buy packs for 2 reasons, loot and xp. Both of witch cost you NOTHING to increase. Why don't you?

What makes Adventure packs desirable;

XP and Loot

There is little to say about xp other than it should be increased if you want to make your adventure packs more enticing. If the new packs had something like von3 you would find Eveningstar much less of a ghost town.

Loot and how it affects the sales of adventure packs;

You have utterly destroyed the once brilliant and esteemed random loot system for no apparent reason. Not only is getting the same 4 suffixes a giant step backwards from what we knew and loved, the auction house is flooded with cheap random items that outclass most of the highest level named items. There goes any incentive to buy adventures for loot. Poor XP and meager loot have successfully rendered your new shiny expansion insignificant and undesirable regardless of it's quality.

Revert random loot to how it used to be when MOTU launched. It was perfect. We had a plethora of unique and exciting effects, we had composed weapon affixes, we had clickies. It was fun, but now loot is boring and therefor the game is boring. Everything we loot now is the same; retributive, doublestrike, ghostbane, deadly or accuracy. We have yet to hear any dev comment as to why you would butcher such a core aspect of this game. Revert random loot and scale it to be slightly less powerful then named loot of the same level. You will once again incentivise people to buy adventures for the sexy named loot. That is one of the biggest draws to mmos, I cannot stress that enough. People love named loot in these games.

Regarding the old packs, they were once the endgame epics. People would stay at 20, raid and farm for epic ingredients and all was wonderful. With the increase in level cap, 20 is nothing more than a pit stop. Those once sought after epic named items are nothing more then level 20 suboptimal named loot. Why do we still need to spend a year grinding for these ingredients when we are getting better random loot, regardless of how boring it is? If the old epic items dropped completed (like every other named item) it would add some value to these old packs. Another thing that made those packs attractive is the ability to work towards your reincarnation which is also being removed, further decreasing their value.

Reincarnation

A very tricky feature to quantify. On one hand its current popularity is mainly due to the lack of an endgame, on the other it is ingenious, innovative and unique to DDO. Actually one of the most brilliant features in the genre.

Hearts of wood however remind me of sigils. They were removed because they were a roadblock to player retention. They created a false obstacle in front of players limiting the amount of time they could spend in the game. Hearts are now serving this purpose.

Since the current loot mess has rendered raids quite pointless and the high level quests offering very little, there is nothing else to do at endgame currently which is only exacerbating the importance of reincarnating.
Anything done to make the reincarnation process more difficult is going to limit the amount of time players remain customers.

Instead you have chosen to monetize this feature with a very unpopular saga system. A system designed to sell not only hearts but adventure packs in a very underhanded manner. The community knows this, and the disdain is going to drive even more away. If the above insights about adventure packs were implemented The sales of all adventures would rise and there would be no cause to create such an unpopular system, the players would not hold resentment but respect and elation.

[Shinjiteru]

...
in time we intend to add additional methods to obtain “Commendations of Valor.”
...

Is 'in time' the new 'soon' or is there any chance we get more possibilities for commendations with u20 or at least this year?

something about Sagas

Seems you don't realize that the whole Saga system is hardly finished? I don't get the connecting storyline behind half of the sagas, but maybe it's just me that doesn't get the connecting story of them.
Quests which get accounted for several Sagas... nice idea but without an interface to check the saga status from everywhere this just produces annoying running around to check which quests you are missing for which saga, unless you run all of the epic quests in ES at once and then check the Saga NPCs. There are just too many quests which are unpleasent that the option to skip them all is not possible or would cost more money than buying a tr heart in the store.

And the major bug/problem with Sagas is still not solved: If you are dead while the quest completes the quest is not going to be accounted for your saga status.
Most quests get finished by beating a hard end boss, you see the problem?
(And yes I already reported this 2-3 patches ago)

Such a game mechanic shall really be the only possibility to get the new epic and iconic TR hearts?
I hope you think about that again, because if you mess with TRing DDO has no endgame anymore...

...
• 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.
...

Try to do them out of order and I assure you that you are going to notice a penalty for your gaming experience.
(This is probably not the case for the GH and MotU Saga or if you run all ES quests and then get 5 Saga rewards, but many people I play with don't even understand why some quests belong to one of your new Sagas, how would you be able to do them in order or even know which quests you already did without running to the NPC each time?)

• 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.

And how are the commendations of valor better than the current epic dungeon tokens, because as far as I can tell from official forum messages the new commendations are just like token fragments which became BtC.
The accessibility wasn't made trivial by the introduction of Epic levels. Cannith Challenges made it trivial to get them, even before epic levels the epic cannith challenges were easy enough to grind them in a decent amount of time. And still only soloing devil assault and inviting 5 players to pass tokens is beating the time needed to get a tr heart by doing cannith challenges. This was also a major reason for many players I know to buy the house c challenges.

And how is the new system balancing this in any kind? Many people who farm epic tokens for a heart in some hours are going to do EE Saga completions in the same time most other players are taking to get their EN Saga completion done. And since you are talking about players who need several days to get their 20-30 tokens for a TR... this is only possible if they only play 1-2 hours a day and this would cause them to need several days to complete even one EN saga. On top of that on some days they are going to be most of their play time in quests they don't like (most people don't like all quests out there in ddo ) which would be a major impact on their gaming experience from my point of view.
And I really don't see how you are coming to the conclusion that they would be not as far from the other players anymore regarding needed time investment for their TR hearts. Especially MotU made it easier to gather tokens for the casual players and you use MotU as the reason this system got out of balance?
So on the one hand you want to make it harder and on the other hand you want less seperation of the player base farming for tokens? Are you trying to achieve that by causing the casual players to stop farming for TR hearts? o.O
Only possibility to get these two types of players closer together would be some kind of maximum amount of commendations you can get each day. And that this is not a good idea and hopefully doesn't need any explanation.

• 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.

And why are you using development time to delete an old endgame currency and introducing a new one which is going to be similar instead of just fixing the drop rates of the old currency to meet your new ideas of needed grind?
Is it really faster to start with something new than just adjusting the currency which is currently availible and similar to the one you want to introduce?
Just wondering.
Ok token fragments can't be clicked to get a barter interface, but we already have an NPC since ages who is offering different items for them.

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.

Nice step in the right direction, but I think most players want a BtA endgame currency. We were asking for this for ES challenge mats too and you needed several months and updates until you agreed. So please can we start with BtA this time? Many players how their fav. toons and prefer to do mat grinding/farming with these toons. And I am very sure this is going to end in an unpleasent grind of sagas for many players even if you adjust the current values.

And please think about keeping the epic dungeon tokens as endgame currency, feel free to rename them again if you like. But since TRing is the only endgame DDO is having atm there should be several possibilities to earn the needed hearts, at least more possibilities than a not finished game mechanic (Sagas) with some major bug (not crediting quest completion for the saga if you are dead). Lower fragement drop rates and add token turn ins for at least 100-200 epic tokens for an epic heart or iconic heart. Or even higher depending on the drop rates and the grind you have in mind.

[Jefro]

They should add stuff to old content in exchange from taking away from it. Lower the minimum level of augments from tokens of the twelve and it be run for twink gear (gear to make it easier to True reincarnate with) and add lower leveled skill augments as well. Add some ebberron tribute items in exchange or a loot roll that similar to dice. Even some new ship items that can be updated with tokens lets them have something to show for the content.

As for sagas, having to run undesirable quests ruins the fun and the other option of spending money also muddies the experience.