Earning Hearts of Wood - post U20

[lyrecono]

Dear Glin,

Why are you (as company, not you personally) so set on these saga's?

We're not in the least interested in them, the quests in there aren't as much fun as the heroic Eberron quests.
the balance is a problem too, even if we have to run all the saga's once to gain a heart it would be too much, some of these quests are too high level to do at 20 (esp on EE).

Are you having trouble keeping the forgotten realms populated?
Are you trying to sell more forgotten realms content?

What is the real reason behind all this?

[Natashaelle]

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.

This.

As far as I can tell, nobody is complaining about Iconic nor Epic Hearts of Wood being available only through Sagas --- under the underlying assumption that extra Sagas and other such will be introduced, and as according to Glin's suggestion of further ways to gain commendations.

The True Heart of Wood is a separate problem.

If the hope is that is should take *hours* of gameplay to earn a TDHOW, then just freaking make it so !!!

KEEP the tokens of 12 system for True Hearts, and also drastically increase the amounts of Tokens and fragments dropping in each quest as per difficulty level --- OR reduce the cost of a TDHOW to about 6 tokens if you didn't want to trivialise the value of the lvl 20 augments from the same place.

Bingo !! no more massive differential between players who can earn their TDHOW in hours, and those who need several days.

[Antiguo]

What is the real reason behind all this?

$$$

[Ovrad]

So in short:

• Prices for hearts will be slightly less commendations of grind.
• TR heart will still be in the twelve.... for now, but subject to change soon.
• Epic tokens might be removed completely soon as well.
• It's gonna stay BtC.
• Sagas are still the only way to get commendations of grind.

...that's not enough, sorry.

You seem eager to point out that you can "multitask" sagas, but you don't take into account that because of grouping, you'll also run each quests multiple times before turning the saga in. Those "3 sagas" will still be more quest runs than the total of quests in them.

If the debate for discontinuing epic tokens is just gonna get pushed back to next update, players will be just as upset then than now.

BtC items aren't fun, period. We are the same player behind each character, we earned those by playing either way, let us play whatever character we feel like instead of streamlining us all the time. This just leads to abandoning alts.

And sagas are being turned from an additional bonus prize, to a mandatory grind. Adding comms to them does NOT add more options, but rather eliminates the other rewards as a valid choice.

[Teh_Troll]

make the stuff BTA, 20 hours play to earn, and it'll be good enough.

And when running sagas remember to hjeal meh.

[Cleanincubus]

What are we solving?
• 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.

They better start working on how to make the commendations drop for all Epic quests then. The community has made it clear, by a pretty large margin, that we will not accept Sagas as being the only source to get a Heroic Heart of Wood (and I'm not talking about the DDO Store).

I understand that you're trying to use a Saga system to balance the playing field between power gamers and the rest of us. However, you're intended direction is hurting the non-power gamers of the community, worst of all. I've been playing DDO for about 3.5 years now. Within the past month, I finally TR'd my first character. I own 13 Adventure Packs, where 6 of those have Epic difficulties. I chose those 6, specifically to be able to do a TR on my characters, the other 7 for easier leveling & for the fun factor. I do not own either Expansion, nor do I plan to purchase them. So currently, I am left with Gianthold as my sole source of Sagas. That is a huge limitation for getting enough ingredients/collectables to purchase a Heroic Heart of Wood, via your proposed Commendations method, verse the 34 quests I can currently run for Tokens or Token Fragments. That is just not realistic. I should not be penalized because of overachievers, simply because I choose to play much slower.

[rayworks]

I don't see anything addressing the BTA vs BTC issue. Interesting that everything else was addressed. But not that.

One should note that what you don't see is just as important as what you do see.

I do not wish to run epics if my plan if my wish is to TR upon reaching 20th level. Turbine is forcing me to play quests that I do not wish to play. Please address that devs.

[rayworks]

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

BWAHAHAHAHA!!! You are so screwed. They'll stop with U20, if not before.

[Qhualor]

Phasing out the old epic stuff sounds like a good idea, but put in something that lets us phase it out of our inventory as well. What are we supposed to do with the old tokens?

phasing out old epic quests is not a good idea because its fast becoming like low level heroic quests. the epic gear, partly because of the drop rates for scrolls/shards/seals and partly with a lot of the epic gear that comes from them, getting outdated. tokens for augments wont be enough reason to farm those quests. they will be run mainly for xp.

the old tokens, when that day comes, I think should be traded in for Comms since that will be the preferred method of exchange. that would be fair to me.

[SirValentine]

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.”

I was a big fan of the Saga idea as an optional extra reward for running entire sequences of related content, for people who like that sort of thing, while those who only enjoy a smaller subset of quests were free to ignore them.

But until competitive alternate methods for getting these comms exists, you just made Saga absolutely compulsory for everyone. That's going to tick off a lot of players who do not enjoy that play-style.

I.e., you're ruining the best Saga feature: being an optional extra.

[Qhualor]

I don't see anything addressing the BTA vs BTC issue. Interesting that everything else was addressed. But not that.

One should note that what you don't see is just as important as what you do see.

I do not wish to run epics if my plan if my wish is to TR upon reaching 20th level. Turbine is forcing me to play quests that I do not wish to play. Please address that devs.

this is what makes the difference between me continuing to play or leaving the game. unfortunately, we have to do the wait and see game now.

[IMaraudU]

Dear Glin;

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post5142106

Goodbye.

[rayworks]

That said, I truly think you should have been able to anticipate this outcry and had this horse out in front of the cart.

They did anticipate it. Its why they release these things on Friday afternoon.

[Havok.cry]

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

I do not, and doubt any one will, believe this. Not until it actually happens. Besides my utter lack of faith in a company that has failed so often to keep it's promises, putting a system live, in a state that is not even close to what it needs to be to be successful, is foolish. You are dancing the razors edge so to speak, careful where you step (figuratively of course). As I have stated previously, if what goes live, now or in the future negatively impacts my enjoyment of the game, I will be done with turbine.

*snip*

Yes, we all do actually know how sagas work. I am sorry if you were under the impression that we did not. Many of us still do not like them. Many of us will not, for any reason play content that we do not like. When a saga has even so much as a single quest I do not want to run, I will never ever complete that saga.

If you think I will pay you to not play content I will never play anyway, just to get a saga completion, then I have no hope for you. Though I do have to admit, getting people to pay you to not play your game, is pretty genious. I wish I could take credit for that. (This paragraph is referring to the option ot pay to skip a quest each saga, that might get some to complete sagas that otherwise they would never run due to one or two quests in them.)

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)

I am glad to hear that you are reconsidering these values. It is a very positive thing in my view.

I would like to point out though that as long as epic and iconic TRing is tied into the sagas, I will never participate in those systems. This makes me sad as several of my characters want to do lives as Iconics to get the cosmetic gear only available that way. It also means I will likely not play my iconic characters much any more as they have no future for me. While I can not imagine that this will affect your decisions about these, I will continue to hope that it will. I want to participate in those systems, but will not at the cost of my enjoyment.

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”.

Maybe you could take the time to enlighten the community as to what other options you have discussed for this, and why those other options were discarded. As I have said, the sagas are not really an option for me as they stand right now, so I would like to provide useful feedback and maybe help you all at turbine find a solution that I, and anyone that shares my views, would be able to use to participate in your new reincarnation systems.

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.

There is a flaw in this view. One of the reasons DDO has many of the players that it does, is that we can choose how to play. Many of us do play a variety of content, and we do it because we want to. Others play only and small list of the most efficient quests, and they also do this because they want to. What the saga system does is make "the small list of most effiecient quests" into a much larger list of things they need to run. Unfortunately the other half of us are pretty brutalized as the gigantic variety of things we would run is being hacked appart into a list of only the things the devs have allowed into the saga system. Perhaps this illustrates why many of us feel the saga system is failing us.

• 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.

This is understandable. I hope you intend to work closely with players in finding this balance. Personally I am fine with it taking the same time it took me to earn a heart when I first started playing back in 2010, and hope you do not intend it to take longer than that.

• 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.

Do you want suggestions. We could give you probably a couple billion (some exaggeration may be occurring here) more than your design team could even think of in there life time. After all we out number them by a lot (a lot is an actual scientific number, I swear!).

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 this decision. While I understand wanting to move to a universal currency for things end game (I have read so many posts wishing for this very thing), I am glad you have made the decision to phase it out slowly. May I suggest eventually doing two things:
1-Give us a trade in option. This will ease any transition, as players will not feel they are losing the value of the hours they spent earning them. If you will forgive a real life comparison: A country decide to drop there current money and go to euros, just tells its citizens that all there current money is now valueless and they need to start earning the new currency from scratch. You can see how this would be bad, and while I do understand the differences in scale and importance between real life and in-game, I hope you can understand why allowing us to retain our valuables, even if they change icons would be a good thing.
2-Replace them in the quests, don't just drop them. I don't think I need to explain how your game makes money selling packs, so I won't. All I will say is that devaluing content will devalue your game, we both know this, so rather than just making the quests that currently drop the tokens stop dropping them, instead replace them with something else. If you are moving to an universal end game currency, then make it that. Just don't leave those spots in our chests empty (BTW it is breast cancer awareness month, just sayin'). Chests need to be exploding out of there confines so that we get our fill of booty! (Sorry I couldn't resist)

[Natashaelle]

1) NOBODY wants to be forced into running the Saga system, though it's probably OK for the Epic HoW, and definitely for the Iconic HoW given the FR nature of most Iconics in the first place.

2) What about BTC versus BTA ????

---

So continuing the sit-in for the time being

PS thank you for keeping the TDHOW in the 12 ; let it stay that way

[Systern]

• 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.

Your list states that there will not be new sagas added to U20.
Prior to U20:

1. 4 quests in Carnival
2. 4 quests in Sands
3. 3 quests in Sentinels
4. 4 quests in Red Fens
5. 5 quests in Vault of Night
6. 3 quests in Web of Chaos
7. 1 quest in Devil's Assault
8. 9 challenges in Vaults of the Artificers

Any of 33 Methods for a player to choose how to acquire the currency to procure a Heart of Wood to keep playing your game.

Post U20:

1. (1 saga) Gianthold
2. (2 sagas) Buy Menace of the Underdark
3. (3 sagas) Buy Shadowfell and Menace; and have access to High Road, Druid's Deep (available in a VIP subscription)

6 specific methods that a player must comply with to acquire the currency to procure a Heart of Wood to keep paying for your game.

Citing variety as a reason for the change is disingenuous.

This "amazing disparity in players" is not addressed. High level raiding guilds and veterans can today ROFLSTOMP through elite or true elite completions of sagas. Punishing past success in no manner discontinues their future success.
This reasoning is also disingenuous.

I have played your game for years now, and do not appreciate having my prior successes used against me. I have accumulated "wealth" through playing the 33 methods I've listed and the future rate that I can acquire this currency should be moot. The fact that the Design team has not provided varied, compelling ways to spend this wealth is the core problem of DDO. Every new thing needs a new currency to pay for it because there's too much of the old currencies in the game.

You have failed to address the bound to character issue that so much of the community has bristled. BtC limits my enjoyment as a player. I am punished for capping a character once it is maxxed out, and my time on that character can not be used to advance my enjoyment playing other characters. It is stifling. It leads to me as a player finally being "done" with your game once a character is completed. Wouldn't it be better to keep players like myself enjoying their time playing, and not regretting that all this play time could be spent getting XP, Loot, and currency on a character that can use it? That regret will build over time until you lose that player.

The saga system was introduced with U19, and has spent the majority of time since September 19th offline. Hanging this critical feature of player retention upon it seems to be more hopeful than wise.

This change to the saga system obsoletes more content than you're introducing with U20. Never a good thing.

In closing, a point that I didn't harp on prior to U19's release since playing this content was optional: I FRIGGEN HATE WHELOON. THE PURPLE HAZE GIVES ME A MIGRAINE AND LAGS MY FRIENDS OUT. I WILL NOT JUMP THROUGH THIS HOOP EVEN WITH YOUR NEW GUN TO MY HEAD.

[mute_mayhem]

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.

1st point: There is no variety to the content currently provided by sagas. The sagas you listed previously in the post are the only sagas currently (and likely ever, given Turbine's track record with half-baked systems) in the game. You're taking the heart of wood grind from being able to do any Eberron epic quest or epic challenge to having to do a small subset of quests that happen to be part of a saga. I fail to see how this increases variety or how the old system penalized players for playing out of order, seeing as epic tokens came from chests, not end-rewards.

2nd point: Why not just add tokens of the twelve to all epic quests? Why go to the trouble of designing an entirely new system?....Oh wait, I figured it out. You guys love introducing pointless systems more than frat guys love beer.

3rd point: See point 1.

In conclusion, it seems to me you're creating the problems instead of solving them, as you claim.

[rayworks]

If you are worried about the recent...issue with item generation....then just don't convert over the old ones.

Or do better QA and listen to the people on Lamm who reported it in the first place. The recent exploit was not the player's fault, it was the devs/QA.

[UurlockYgmeov]

^^^ forgot the raids also drop tokens and fragments.

[azrael4h]

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.

I could not care less about your propaganda about the sagas. No one wants them, no one wants to be forced into playing them, and very few will.

Feedback received:
The prices on Lamannia are not final –

Where have I heard this before? Oh yes, the xp values on both sets of challenges, xp values on Druid's Deep and Shadowfell and IQ and Shavarath, and House C... All feedback there has been ignored, everything went live as was. So don't lie to us.

What are we solving?

Obviously absolutely nothing since you are still breaking a perfectly functioning system, simply out of spite due to the fact that no one wanted, or bothers with, your shiny new poorly implemented "thing" (sagas).

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

In other words, you intend to ignore all feedback that disagrees with you, you're just pushing it back to U21 or maybe 22 in order to let the firestorm simmer down a little bit, since it garnered outside attention. I wonder how you will explain the dip in earnings come the next quarterly report? A little harder to ignore your immediate supervisor's feedback.