Earning Hearts of Wood - post U20

[Mithis]

BtA comms is an absolute must.

It is also very important that alternate methods of obtaining the commas is introduced quickly. While I appreciate the idea of Sagas not everyone enjoys them and forcing players to do that which they do not enjoy is a sure way to lose your base.

[UurlockYgmeov]

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.

my understanding (after recent investigation) this bug has been around for a VERY long time -

[UurlockYgmeov]

BtA comms is an absolute must.

It is also very important that alternate methods of obtaining the commas is introduced quickly. While I appreciate the idea of Sagas not everyone enjoys them and forcing players to do that which they do not enjoy is a sure way to lose your base.

I like sagas - just if this was the way to earn wood - then the 'bonus' part of sagas went out --- since would be forced to run sagas until eyes bled and popped out to earn wood --- and get nothing besides.

[Teh_Troll]

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

People run raids?

[FestusHood]

The problem with tokens or comms dropping in every epic quest is that powergamers will just find the "best" comm/minute quest and farm the hell out of it. Now, I'm not saying that's wrong, but maybe that's not Turbine's design goal. They want people playing a wide variety of quests.... So they are using the saga system to promote that.. It could work, but they need more sagas... They have more time now to add a dozen more sagas into the mix by Update 21, and then it may not be too bad.

They definitely need to go BtA though... We should be able to farm comms on our epic characters, and not be forced to run epic content on a character that you just want to TR at 20.

A dozen more sagas would be a bit much in my opinion. Some people have suggested making each house chain into a saga, but since they are already chains that would seem a bit redundant to me.

Necro 1-4 is the most obvious candidate, except that they don't have epic content. I'm thinking that they don't want to make sagas that are heroic only.

How about a saga that encompassed all of the house quest packs? That's 4 relatively short chains. Carnival, sentinels, fens, and von. If people say they are not connected, well i don't really see that much connection between some of the quests in the Sagas they have now.

[Glin]

I know I did not cover everything in one post.
We are still listening - even though I often see that people think we don't. There are a lot of opinions being expressed.

The topics I covered today were already in discussion during the design talks, some of the other details were not debated as much but will be now.

I can't answer on a change for bind type. Please be patient for the answer.

I can't tell you how long twelve tokens will be the "preferred method".
I would like to see it cleaned it up as a system, consolidate the items, get the right balance, etc. But not at the detriment of people enjoying the game. ...or excluding content.

Thank you for continuing to give us opinions, examples of how you play are also useful feedback tools. We'll keep working on the communication flow.

[Satyriasys]

Thats quite a mouth full. Why not just call it Heroic Reincarnation, Lesser Reincarnation, Iconic Reincarnation and Epic Reincarnation? And the hearts; Heroic Heart of Wood, Lesser Heart of Wood, Iconic Heart of Wood and Epic Heart of Wood.

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.

Thank you for this at least

I guess my only 3 criticisms of your proposal are;

- Rendering content obsolete. I will feel like I'm wasting time if I run an off-saga quest.
- Including True Hearts in an epic system. Players who prefer the 1-20 game should not be forced to gear for and grind epic quests to TR. (this was an issue before but not as severe)
- Placing barriers in character advancement. It is in your best interest to make Reincarnating as easy as possible. The more difficult you make it the more likely the player will move on to another game.

[NytCrawlr]

All of this.

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.

[UurlockYgmeov]

well... at least this controversy sparked new life into the dying forums.... ;p

[slarden]

If I don't view my end reward now and instead wait until U20 goes live, will I be able to earn coms for sagas started before U20 but finished after U20?

[PNGameAcct]

Lots of stuff about the new system

And none of it matters if the Commendations aren't Bound to Account. Period. Everything else is a very, very distant secondary.

[Missing_Minds]

*deletes his initial post*

Hubris. You are guilty of it just as much as we are. The difference is that you are dependent upon us so much more than what you realize/want to accept.

My time is coming to an end. It has been fun.

But I will say this. Don't ***** foot around. Stop making the game whimper. Rip out the old systems that are not to be used any more, and start to consolidate them. Stop making it so confusing to have to learn something different every time. Your code base will thank you.

[jskinner937]

BtC Comms are not good. When the Twelve Token Exchange goes away, it should not be difficult for a lvl 20 to HTR. If they were BtA, we could farm them on a higher level alt to pass to the fresh lvl 20 if we wanted to TR again. Otherwise what is the point in lowering the TR timer to 3 days?

Also the most attractive thing about sagas was getting the bonus of either XP or renown. If we are forced now to take Commendations of Valor, that invalidates the attractiveness of taking that big chunk of XP on an off-destiny after that True Elite completion. Sagas are fun, and were well received, do not make them a grind, keep it fun and fresh, do not break this. Might I suggest either offering Commendations as an auto-granted reward, or at least the ability to select 2 rewards from the list, with CoVs only available to take once? This way we do not have to give up the bonus we are currently getting and there is still the intended balance if CoVs are only able to be selected once per list.

Thank you for the clarification on our current TWH, but on a related note, what will happen to the current Otto's boxes in our inventory. Will these be untouched, and function as they do now, or will these convert to the Heroic versions on Lamania? I hope these will convert to accommodate the new system. These are very expensive items and I hope they are honored as such by the developers for those of us that spent real life money on them. I would actually prefer to see us choose if they would become epic or heroic when we log in after the update.

Thanks again for the post, and thank you in advance for your aniticipated responses.

[Cetus]

I know I did not cover everything in one post.
We are still listening - even though I often see that people think we don't. There are a lot of opinions being expressed.

The topics I covered today were already in discussion during the design talks, some of the other details were not debated as much but will be now.

I can't answer on a change for bind type. Please be patient for the answer.

I can't tell you how long twelve tokens will be the "preferred method".
I would like to see it cleaned it up as a system, consolidate the items, get the right balance, etc. But not at the detriment of people enjoying the game. ...or excluding content.

Thank you for continuing to give us opinions, examples of how you play are also useful feedback tools. We'll keep working on the communication flow.

I'm appalled at your inability to foresee our response given how obviously bad this decision is. If that's true, then it worries me that you really don't know what you're doing. On the other hand, you did foresee these events and intentionally released this announcement.

I'd prefer to attribute this to incompetence rather than malevolence. Either of which are corrosive to any bond that's left between us and this product. I'm trying real hard to stay interested, really - I am, but its slowly slipping because you guys can't get your act together.

[Crazyfruit]

As someone who only enjoys Epic Normal, I'm very disappointed.

The number of commendations earned on an all elite run is 3-4 times that of an all normal run.

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

I expected to have to replay a lot more Eberron content in epic mode to reach level 28 that streakers could skip, and to get lower quality loot/less named drops. I did not expect that I'd have to spend hours and hours repeating full sets of expansion content, especially 4x as much as other players.

I prefer to only do most content 1x per life (when groups are available for the harder quests) and have earned completionist playing ridiculous characters like this. I don't stay at endgame, raid, or anything of the like. I simply TR and try out a silly new build when I reach the end of character progression. I was looking forward to continuing that with the new Iconics & Epic TR system. I have no problems buying hearts if I didn't feel like doing a reasonable amount of effort to earn them - have bought several in the past.

With this system as explained I'll simply play other games that value my time instead of logging into DDO.

I also dislike that the sagas make non-VIPs, regardless of $ spent in the game, feel like a second class citizen - especially now that they'll be required instead of only for a few extra bonus rewards.

[Djjinni]

I know I did not cover everything in one post.
We are still listening - even though I often see that people think we don't. There are a lot of opinions being expressed.

The topics I covered today were already in discussion during the design talks, some of the other details were not debated as much but will be now.

I can't answer on a change for bind type. Please be patient for the answer.

I can't tell you how long twelve tokens will be the "preferred method".
I would like to see it cleaned it up as a system, consolidate the items, get the right balance, etc. But not at the detriment of people enjoying the game. ...or excluding content.

Thank you for continuing to give us opinions, examples of how you play are also useful feedback tools. We'll keep working on the communication flow.

If you could point out just one positive response to this change, on these forums, I'd love to read it :3
Just hope something is learned from these events. You realise just how much Turbine are currently damaging their connection with the player-base? I do not wish to be looking through your release notes trying to find out how you are screwing us over next... I want to go back to actual *excitement* when I read about the awesome improvements you're making for the entire community.

I can state, for a fact, that you will lose players if they go live as Bound-to-Character. You will lose paying customers, and I can assure you that nobody from another game is going to go: "DDO just got grind-y enough for us, let's go play that!"
Nobody likes currencies being Bound.

Give us freedom and flexibility in your base system, and we will respond by spending money on pointless stuff :P



On another topic, it is currently better for my main characters performance for me to take on extra hours at work and buy stuff from the store, than to put time into organizing raids and questing. Is this intended?

[dragon2fire]

I know I did not cover everything in one post.
We are still listening - even though I often see that people think we don't. There are a lot of opinions being expressed.

The topics I covered today were already in discussion during the design talks, some of the other details were not debated as much but will be now.

I can't answer on a change for bind type. Please be patient for the answer.

I can't tell you how long twelve tokens will be the "preferred method".
I would like to see it cleaned it up as a system, consolidate the items, get the right balance, etc. But not at the detriment of people enjoying the game. ...or excluding content.

Thank you for continuing to give us opinions, examples of how you play are also useful feedback tools. We'll keep working on the communication flow.

Understand this for us power gamers the ones that get those tokens quickly. The only reason we still spend a dime on this game is for the tr train. Let me explain how i play. You guys bring out a new pack. I figure out what i want for my main and grind the specific quest i need until i get it. I then tr over and over again until you guys come out with something new. If you make it so i have to grind at epic quests that have literally nothing for me. if you take away my tr train that goes a week at a time when not busy. That is not ok ....it really would make me think long and hard about where to spend my money. Its your business the ball is in your court but i can tell you i know many guys like me.

[fourrumtest]

I know I did not cover everything in one post.
We are still listening - even though I often see that people think we don't. There are a lot of opinions being expressed.

The topics I covered today were already in discussion during the design talks, some of the other details were not debated as much but will be now.

I can't answer on a change for bind type. Please be patient for the answer.

I can't tell you how long twelve tokens will be the "preferred method".
I would like to see it cleaned it up as a system, consolidate the items, get the right balance, etc. But not at the detriment of people enjoying the game. ...or excluding content.

Thank you for continuing to give us opinions, examples of how you play are also useful feedback tools. We'll keep working on the communication flow.

i own epic packs, i bought them to farm tokens, i do not own expansions because turbine failed to convince me expansions were worth my money.

so you cant tell me how long i can run the content i paid for to do what i paid for it to do = i cant tell you how long i will pay your salary.

you can not answer to bind type? i can not answer to my continued support.

invalidate my past purchases to force me to run stuff i don't own or want is not a good strategy to keep me as a customer.

i suggest you scrap this whole idea and spend some time thinking of a way to rebuild player trust.

[redoubt]

Why does a heroic TR heart require you to run epic quests that you cannot do until level 20+?

Could you allow additional sagas that are run at the heroic levels to count toward heroic TR hearts?

P.S. I think your change to allow token exchanges for hearts to remain after U20 is a good plan. In fact I think you should leave them permanently. Having more than one way to earn the hearts is not bad.

[Drwaz99]

I know I did not cover everything in one post.
We are still listening - even though I often see that people think we don't. There are a lot of opinions being expressed.

The topics I covered today were already in discussion during the design talks, some of the other details were not debated as much but will be now.

I can't answer on a change for bind type. Please be patient for the answer.

I can't tell you how long twelve tokens will be the "preferred method".
I would like to see it cleaned it up as a system, consolidate the items, get the right balance, etc. But not at the detriment of people enjoying the game. ...or excluding content.

Thank you for continuing to give us opinions, examples of how you play are also useful feedback tools. We'll keep working on the communication flow.

You also should realize that patience is running very, very thin. You keep asking us for it, yet you keep failing on delivering what you want us to be patient for.

We want you to deliver what you promise just as much as you want to deliver release dates to your bosses. You have delivered release dates, now it's time to dleiver to us, because you haven't yet.

Figure out a currency your going to stick with AND KEEP IT! Whether it be Comms of Valor, Heroism, Tokens or Spikey Hair Trolls. Whatever, just make up you ****ing mind and stick with it!

And for Christ sakes, your MANAGEMENT (not just a producer, a SENIOR producer!), if you can't answer something something regarding bind type, what they heck are you doing? Sure it might be engineering, but you should know answer to this long before your about to release it.