Earning Hearts of Wood - post U20

[Qhualor]

Here's some things that are up for discussion here at Turbine. We're trying to come up with more public proposals Soon(tm).

* Binding of Commendations of Valor
* Binding of Hearts of Wood (if these are BtA and the Commendations are BtC, you can still farm with an alternate character. And we can still re-use Commendations of Valor in the future for other items that we feel should be BtC, or use for upgrading BtC loot, instead of adding an additional new ingredient type in the future and an additional way to get that new ingredient. This is not a done deal in any case, as this also means you cannot combine ingredients from alternate characters.)
* Additional ways to earn Commendations of Valor besides Sagas, for U20.
* Whether or not Sagas earn Commendations of Valor at all.
* Whether or not the methods for earning Heroic True Hearts of Wood are the same as the methods for earning Epic Hearts of Wood or Iconic True Hearts of Wood.
* Whether or not we phase out Tokens of the Twelve at any point.
* Whether or not we phase out trading in Tokens of the Twelve for Heroic True Hearts of Wood at any point (probably not).
* What content you can use to earn various Hearts of Wood.


We're also trying to make sure that today's Lamannia release showing off other aspects of Reincarnation goes smoothly and that you guys have what you need in order to give good feedback.

I would prefer Comms be BTA. certain things you can specifically make BTC or whatever for trading Comms in. that's easy enough to do. the hearts of wood I am fine with BTC, that's how it is on Live and we are already used to that, but not if it means having to run epic sagas so I can get the heart of wood. im still not understanding why we cant just do a trade in like we do in the Twelve for a heart of wood.

please keep sagas as optional since they are still unfinished and the plan is to introduce more of them. I don't mind if hearts of wood are a saga end reward option as long as we can get them in other places in the game or for a trade in.

I feel like we are getting close to something here, but not quite yet. I just need to see a definite confirmation on bind status, how to obtain a heart of wood and if I have to run specific content, like sagas to get Comms/hearts of wood. after that, I will digest the information and decide what I will do. I have a feeling no confirmation until probably at least next week though

[rosedarkthorn]

Here's some things that are up for discussion here at Turbine. We're trying to come up with more public proposals Soon(tm).

* Binding of Commendations of Valor
* Binding of Hearts of Wood (if these are BtA and the Commendations are BtC, you can still farm with an alternate character. And we can still re-use Commendations of Valor in the future for other items that we feel should be BtC, or use for upgrading BtC loot, instead of adding an additional new ingredient type in the future and an additional way to get that new ingredient. This is not a done deal in any case, as this also means you cannot combine ingredients from alternate characters.)
* Additional ways to earn Commendations of Valor besides Sagas, for U20.
* Whether or not Sagas earn Commendations of Valor at all.
* Whether or not the methods for earning Heroic True Hearts of Wood are the same as the methods for earning Epic Hearts of Wood or Iconic True Hearts of Wood.
* Whether or not we phase out Tokens of the Twelve at any point.
* Whether or not we phase out trading in Tokens of the Twelve for Heroic True Hearts of Wood at any point (probably not).
* What content you can use to earn various Hearts of Wood.


We're also trying to make sure that today's Lamannia release showing off other aspects of Reincarnation goes smoothly and that you guys have what you need in order to give good feedback.

1. Definitely BTA. I want to be able to play all my characters and not worry about having 10 BTC Comms of Valor on one, 5 on another, and then another 6 on the third. I want to be able to put them all together and keep them in one place and pass them to whoever I happen to be working on at the time.
2. You have Comms of Heroism for upgrading loot. Why do we need more than one form of Comm to upgrade things? We already have too many varieties of ingredients we need for all kinds of different upgrades. I'd prefer a more simplistic system that requires a lot less clutter.
3. Comms of Valor should drop in all epic quests at varying degrees depending on difficulty period. If you make them too difficult to get, no one will bother farming them and those who don't want to buy hearts from the store will just leave.
4. I prefer the renown and xp rewards when doing sagas and don't want to farm sagas for Comms of Valor. It doesn't feel like a good enough reward for all the time I'd spend doing 11-25 quests. It doesn't bother me if they're an option for people who might want to take them as a reward though.
5. I think Heroic Hearts should stay in the Twelve, but if they absolutely have to be gotten by Comms of Valor, the system in which they're to be gotten should be similar to what we have now, except we should be able to play any Epic quest and get the Comms that we need. I also think the same thing she be done with Epic and Iconic Hearts.
6. If Heroic Hearts are no longer able to be gotten by Tokens of the Twelve, the only use I would personally have for them is to upgrade Epic gear in the House C challenges. If you were to phase out the Tokens completely, you'd have to decide either to add in Comms of Valor to upgrade the challenge gear, or just use House C ingredients to upgrade them. I'd personally be okay with removing the Tokens and fragments completely and have the Epic gear be upgraded the same way as the Heroic gear. The only reason to keep Tokens at all is if Heroic Hearts can be gotten with them. If you're going to remove that option, then I don't care whether you phase them out or not.
7. I think Heroic Hearts should be able to be be gotten by Tokens of the Twelve indefinitely or a similar system should be put in place with Comms of Valor.
8. All epic content, please. There's nothing I dislike more than wanting to run specific content for whatever reason and not being able to achieve multiple goals while doing so.

[dragon2fire]

* Whether or not we phase out Tokens of the Twelve at any point.

You guys really need to leave the old system for tring alone.....i can not believe this is even still a topic of conversation.

[HungarianRhapsody]

Post removed + User banned

When you have such a large number of that action required all of a sudden with the new changes that are being introduced, that should tell you something about the direction that the game is going.

[Drwaz99]

Looks like sometime in the next week or so (my timeline, not implied by anyone at Turbine) we should see some significant changes to this.

VIA twitter:

Erik DDO ft ProdGlin ?@producerglin 1h

@SteinerDavion why happy - cuz U20 is going to be great! after we change our original plan for HoW. #paradigmshift coming to forum soon(tm)

Erik DDO ft ProdGlin ?@producerglin 1h

I don't want to give out info here because the details matter. But our original perception of sagas being a place for VComm... #WFI....

Erik DDO ft ProdGlin ?@producerglin 1h

Ok, we were really really wrong. [sic] #paradigmshift

[danotmano1998]

Looks like sometime in the next week or so (my timeline, not implied by anyone at Turbine) we should see some significant changes to this.

VIA twitter:

Thanks for posting this, Drwaz99.

Looks like this thing may end up not-so-incredibly-terrible after all. (At least that's what those teasers appear to say to me, anyhow.)

[Drwaz99]

Thanks for posting this, Drwaz99.

No problem.

I know I am certainly tough on them, mainly because I have spent a LOT of money over the past couple of years (Obscene amounts as Richard Gere would say) and really wish the best for this game. I'll be the first to jump back on the wagon when they show that the players are important again.

[Steiner-Davion]

Thanks for posting this, Drwaz99.

Looks like this thing may end up not-so-incredibly-terrible after all. (At least that's what those teasers appear to say to me, anyhow.)

Yeah he beat me to it. ::mumbles something about commuting home and making dinner::

[Scraap]

Here's some things that are up for discussion here at Turbine. We're trying to come up with more public proposals Soon(tm).
* Binding of Commendations of Valor
* Binding of Hearts of Wood (if these are BtA and the Commendations are BtC, you can still farm with an alternate character. And we can still re-use Commendations of Valor in the future for other items that we feel should be BtC, or use for upgrading BtC loot, instead of adding an additional new ingredient type in the future and an additional way to get that new ingredient. This is not a done deal in any case, as this also means you cannot combine ingredients from alternate characters.)

BTA strikes me as the best middle-ground approach there for com aquisition, which would make the wood status irrelevant.

* Additional ways to earn Commendations of Valor besides Sagas, for U20.
* Whether or not Sagas earn Commendations of Valor at all.
* Whether or not we phase out Tokens of the Twelve at any point.
* Whether or not we phase out trading in Tokens of the Twelve for Heroic True Hearts of Wood at any point (probably not).
* What content you can use to earn various Hearts of Wood.

After all the discussion there, strongly leaning towards replacing the Token mechanism with CoVs or vice-versa, with sagas providing an optional extra, and reversing the deprecation approach for token sinks. If anything, it really seems part of the problem has been a lack of uses, not an acceleration of relative acquisition rate.

* Whether or not the methods for earning Heroic True Hearts of Wood are the same as the methods for earning Epic Hearts of Wood or Iconic True Hearts of Wood.

Could go either way, but it strikes me as far simpler to maintain a single currency, both from a content-balance standpoint, and an inventory management one.

[erethizon]

What about the disparity of what the devs are saying? The first says they don't want to punish those that have the skill to complete difficult dungeons faster than the norm. The second says they don't want there to be a difference in time based on skill level/dedication. And the third says that those who've been playing longer and reaped the rewards of the game shouldn't be able to use those rewards to benefit their continued enjoyment of the game.

The fact of the matter is that if it takes someone currently 3 hours to get 24 tokens, while the majority takes 24 hours to get 24 tokens and you change the system so that those that could get TR ready in 3 hrs of game play will now have to spend 20hrs to get ready will result in the majority of players needing to take 160hrs of game play to achieve the same result.

Those that can perform a task 8 times faster than the norm will always perform the task 8 times faster, no matter how challenging you make it. Don't balance the system on the 1%.

To a degree you are right, but there are two main reasons some people are so much faster. The first is the ability to pass tokens. People that run DA with 5 other people passing tokens get their TR heart 6 times faster than people that solo DA (not including that the group of 6 also finishes the quest faster). The other thing is that people that are good at challenges get tokens faster because a higher score means more mats. If they tie TR mats to just completions of quests (with no ability to pass comms and no way to earn more comms on the same quest by scoring higher) it will do a lot to narrow the gap. Better players will still kill faster and thus get more comms more quickly, but they won't get as far ahead. This of course assumes that if epic hard only takes 20% more time than epic normal it only gives 20% more comms. If hard gives twice normal and elite gives triple normal then the better players will be able to widen the gap again by completing more difficult content faster than more casual players can even do normal. This is why it is important that normal not give too few comms just because it is easiest setting. Normal is all some people can play and if you don't want those people being far behind the better players you cannot penalize their difficulty setting too much.

[Trillea]

Normal is all some people can play and if you don't want those people being far behind the better players you cannot penalize their difficulty setting too much.

I am not the best player in the world, far from it. But to say that normal should give anywhere near the comms that hard does, or that hard should give ANYWHERE near what elite does, I wanna know what you are smoking. Because then what would happen is this - the best players will run quests on normal 4-5 times in the time it would take to run once on EE or maybe 2x on EH. This would make it much more unbalanced than it is already, and a heckuva lot more boring.. and a boring game is a dead game. The only way to help the ones that can only run normal is to coach them and make them better players.

[Qhualor]

never understood why a focus needs to be made to close the gap between casuals and power gamers. so what if some players have more time to play and able to run tougher content. they should be rewarded for it accordingly. if there is not enough of a gap with rewards than we get what we have a lot of now, which is hard farming. not the best rewards, but good enough and the content isn't anywhere as difficult as elite.

[Natashaelle]

Here's some things that are up for discussion here at Turbine. We're trying to come up with more public proposals Soon(tm).

* Whether or not we phase out trading in Tokens of the Twelve for Heroic True Hearts of Wood at any point (probably not).

Love the "probably not" -- and thank you for listening to the protesters.

* Binding of Commendations of Valor
* Binding of Hearts of Wood (if these are BtA and the Commendations are BtC, you can still farm with an alternate character. And we can still re-use Commendations of Valor in the future for other items that we feel should be BtC, or use for upgrading BtC loot, instead of adding an additional new ingredient type in the future and an additional way to get that new ingredient. This is not a done deal in any case, as this also means you cannot combine ingredients from alternate characters.)

Well, there IS a third alternative -- the Commendations could be made BtC, but transformable into BtA (or even into tokens of the 12) using khyber dragonshards. Given the lore informing both the MOTU and SC expansion packs, this doesn't even pose any problem for FR-origin characters ; particularly as the altars in question are located in Eberron in the first place.

You could have your cake and eat it, in other words -- If the Commendations were BtC, you would keep the ability of being able to provide rewards in exchange that should be BtC, whereas allowing players to transform them into tokens of the 12, which are BtA, would let you devalue the current method of accrual of such tokens without any associated need for mechanical changes in the 12 rewards game system.

Win-Win, in my opinion.

[Ovrad]

* Binding of Commendations of Valor
* Binding of Hearts of Wood (if these are BtA and the Commendations are BtC, you can still farm with an alternate character. And we can still re-use Commendations of Valor in the future for other items that we feel should be BtC, or use for upgrading BtC loot, instead of adding an additional new ingredient type in the future and an additional way to get that new ingredient. This is not a done deal in any case, as this also means you cannot combine ingredients from alternate characters.)

BtC stuff was fine back when the level cap was 20 and it was pretty easy to cap a character. Nowadays, there's just so much grind involved in the character progression that the majority of players can't even keep alts up to date, you can only focus on your main. BtA helps alleviate this a little by sharing a small part of the excess resources to your alts. It also helps party diversity, like the typical "We need a healer, but I don't wanna grab mine cause I want to pull X on my main guy". And overall, it just makes the game more fun.

* Additional ways to earn Commendations of Valor besides Sagas, for U20.
* Whether or not Sagas earn Commendations of Valor at all.

I much rather have commendations drop in end chests for post-MotU quests, much like epic tokens do for pre-MotU. Because sagas are a huge hassle to track on their own, and even worst while grouping, everyone always needing different parts. Also, placing them as rewards in sagas basically makes the other 3 rewards (xp, renown and skill tomes) deprecated, after only 1 update...

* Whether or not the methods for earning Heroic True Hearts of Wood are the same as the methods for earning Epic Hearts of Wood or Iconic True Hearts of Wood.
* Whether or not we phase out Tokens of the Twelve at any point.
* Whether or not we phase out trading in Tokens of the Twelve for Heroic True Hearts of Wood at any point (probably not).
* What content you can use to earn various Hearts of Wood.

The tokens and HTHoW are a solid mechanic, there's no need to remove them. Having them separated from commendations mechanic is actually a great idea, as it promotes the all the epic quests, instead of just the new ones. If you feel some quests give them too easily, tweak the numbers of the drops instead. Keep it simple.


And most important, please re-adjust the numbers of commendation needed for epic hearts!
Currently we know the iconic and epic hearts are 900 commendations, and your planned number of drops is 3 per quests....

Math 101: that's 300 epic quest runs for a single heart!! It's completely insane!

If we estimate 30 mins per quests (and I'd say it's usually more given the gathering of the party, the buffing and all). That's 150 hours, or a full month for a player that would be playing full time! (and most of us have jobs you know..)

You could drop those prices by 10x and it would still be a grind.

[Gwyxxx]

Math 101: that's 300 epic quest runs for a single heart!! It's completely insane!

If we estimate 30 mins per quests (and I'd say it's usually more given the gathering of the party, the buffing and all). That's 150 hours, or a full month for a player that would be playing full time! (and most of us have jobs you know..)

You could drop those prices by 10x and it would still be a grind.

It's a little bit less, because some quests give from 6 to 9 comm, 3 each from a different saga.
But is allways too much. If i play about 3 hours at day i'll have my heart in 50 days...
I was certain that if an heroic heart is 250, epic would be 500/600... not more.

A little grinding is calculated, from 20 to 28 the road is long.
But 900 is too much.

[Flavilandile]

Here's some things that are up for discussion here at Turbine. We're trying to come up with more public proposals Soon(tm).

* Binding of Commendations of Valor
* Binding of Hearts of Wood (if these are BtA and the Commendations are BtC, you can still farm with an alternate character. And we can still re-use Commendations of Valor in the future for other items that we feel should be BtC, or use for upgrading BtC loot, instead of adding an additional new ingredient type in the future and an additional way to get that new ingredient. This is not a done deal in any case, as this also means you cannot combine ingredients from alternate characters.)
* Additional ways to earn Commendations of Valor besides Sagas, for U20.
* Whether or not Sagas earn Commendations of Valor at all.
* Whether or not the methods for earning Heroic True Hearts of Wood are the same as the methods for earning Epic Hearts of Wood or Iconic True Hearts of Wood.
* Whether or not we phase out Tokens of the Twelve at any point.
* Whether or not we phase out trading in Tokens of the Twelve for Heroic True Hearts of Wood at any point (probably not).
* What content you can use to earn various Hearts of Wood.


We're also trying to make sure that today's Lamannia release showing off other aspects of Reincarnation goes smoothly and that you guys have what you need in order to give good feedback.

First thanks to actually communicating with us.

Now on the topic...

1) Binding of the Commendation.

It's a no brainer for most of us : they should be BTA. [ By extension : All the ingredients ( Stuff that ends up in Green Bag ) should be BTA anyway. ]

Having them BTC and having the Hearts BTA is not an efficient workaround. As we have one or two main character that will gather most of the things,
but we also have several other characters that will be used when needed by the party and the quest ( Cleric, Bard, Rogue ) that will also gather them.
If we can't concentrate the Commendation on one character they are going to clutter even more our already cluttered inventories.
After it's just a matter of dropping the right number of commendation in the shared bank to get them to the character that will go through the TR process.

2) Binding of the Hearts.

See Above, while Having the Hearts BTA and the Commendations BTC solves some problems it doesn't solve all the problems, especially it doesn't allow to
concentrate them on one single character... all the characters that runs quests where they are going to drop ( I'll come to that ) are going to earn some
commendations. In the case of some support characters ( bard, ... ) they are going to be cluttering the inventories for ages before enough will be gathered to be
transformed into Hearts. Having the Hearts BTC and the Commendations BTA is more logical, it allows us to concentrate them on one single character and frees up
lots of inventory space. ( and everybody knows inventory space is a rare thing, every freed slot is important )

3) Ways to earn Commendations of Valor.

Once a gain it's a no Brainer. Commendations of Valor have to drop in End Quest Chest of all the Epic Quests.
If you want to make them drop in the reward list of the Saga, No problem, as long as it drops in all the Epic Quests End Quest Chests.
That way you also solve the Eberron Vs Forgotten Realms problem, as there's Epic Quests in both in more or less equal quantities.

4) Sagas dropping Commendations

*shrug* Up to you, as long as they drop in all the Epic Quests End Chest.

5) Ways of earning Epic HoW and Iconic HoW

What do you mean by that ? Commendations of Valor were supposed to be the currency to buy them, that's why you were deprecating Tokens in the first place.

6) Token deprecating

If you fully intend to deprecate the tokens you will have to address the Shard/seal/scrolls Old Epic Items.
There's a simple way to address that :
* Create New Epic/Epic Hard/Epic Elite items ( EE Item being the same as the Seal/scroll/Shard item ) and make them drop in End Quest Chest, while keeping the
Old Item, Seal, Shard and Scrolls drop rates.
* Extend the Desert Scroll Exchange to all the Scrolls and extend it to Seals and Shards.
* Leave the dual drop ( Old Seal/Scroll/Shard/Item and new EN/EH/EE Items ) for a few month.
* When introducing the Dual Drop give the cutoff date and advertise it over all the channels so that people know the date when the old items will not be available
anymore.
* Keep the Seal/shard/scroll exchange up for another few month after cutoff ( to catch up the stragglers ) [ and give also a clear date of when it will be removed
at the time of the cutoff. ]
* Then fully deprecate the old system.

7) Token Deprecating Part 2

See above. You can do it, as long as you do it carefully.

8) Content to earn Hearts

Until now we Earned Hearts by doing Epic quests. Seems to be logical do keep doing the same. As long as you are not LVL 25 when you have enough
Commendations to buy an Heroic Heart. ( Mid 21 would be good IMHO ).
Now Old European players will remember that we could also get them from The Traveller, by doing Egg Runs. ( along with Teleport Rods, Lesser Hearts and lots
other things ) Maybe that's also something to consider, making them available through an event of some kind.

[Ovrad]

It's a little bit less, because some quests give from 6 to 9 comm, 3 each from a different saga.

Sure, but then again you can count all the quests you'll run more than once before completing the saga, because your friends or pug need them.

[Gwyxxx]

Sure, but then again you can count all the quests you'll run more than once before completing the saga, because your friends or pug need them.

I never pug, i play with my boyfriend usually only two. When a friend want to do something we just have done, we take another character (we have 4 each toons, 3 27/28, 2 23)

I count the time i don't spend on sagas instead, so your math is good for me.
If i want to do Von3 (a quest that i love and that gives a lot of experience) now i will choose between this and sagas, and i don't like it too much.
So 2 month for a heart. Too much.

My intent was only underline that "even if you count the double and triple prize for some quests, the cost is anyway to high"
Not impossible, but certainly too high.

[HAL]

Here's some things that are up for discussion here at Turbine. We're trying to come up with more public proposals Soon(tm).

* Binding of Commendations of Valor
* Binding of Hearts of Wood (if these are BtA and the Commendations are BtC, you can still farm with an alternate character. And we can still re-use Commendations of Valor in the future for other items that we feel should be BtC, or use for upgrading BtC loot, instead of adding an additional new ingredient type in the future and an additional way to get that new ingredient. This is not a done deal in any case, as this also means you cannot combine ingredients from alternate characters.)
* Additional ways to earn Commendations of Valor besides Sagas, for U20.
* Whether or not Sagas earn Commendations of Valor at all.
* Whether or not the methods for earning Heroic True Hearts of Wood are the same as the methods for earning Epic Hearts of Wood or Iconic True Hearts of Wood.
* Whether or not we phase out Tokens of the Twelve at any point.
* Whether or not we phase out trading in Tokens of the Twelve for Heroic True Hearts of Wood at any point (probably not).
* What content you can use to earn various Hearts of Wood.


We're also trying to make sure that today's Lamannia release showing off other aspects of Reincarnation goes smoothly and that you guys have what you need in order to give good feedback.

1. I prefer currency to be BtA (if at all) because I don't tend to grind. So whatever amount of any given currency I happen to acquire on each character can be combined so a particular character can use it. Making any currency BtC means you are governing the way I play my characters since that particular character must now play more, or more of a particular thing, than I might want (grind).

2. Please do not release U20 with Comms only gained from Sagas even if you intend them to be gained in other ways. You know that for some reason updates to systems often do not get done in any reasonable timeframe if at all.

[Spoonwelder]

I just wanted to post this here as well.....since this thread seems to be monitored.....

If you complete a saga but are dead when the XP is triggered then you apparently don't get credit for it as a completion.....see these threads:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...-Saga-problems
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...007-Saga-Error

Two separate reports (one by me for a guildie) and one confirmation from a third party.

So this should probably be fixed sooner than later as if you run through a Saga with a group and you are the only one who missed a quest completion due to you death in an end fight and find out about it only at the end of the saga as the group is disbanding (normal course of business) then you have to pickup that quest by yourself.....as a social game that's a pain in the kiester.