Earning Hearts of Wood - post U20

[Selensija]

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.

Quest = 36
Saga = 5
Elite = 30 Comms (3 * Normal)
Normal = 10 Comms
Epic Heart is still 2000
Iconic heart is still 1150
Heroic heart = ???

First of all you need to access to both MotU and SC.
Let's say each quest takes an average of 20 minutes on Elite.

To earn an Epic Heart

Time = (Epic Heart / Elite * Saga) * Quests * 20 minutes

Time = (2000 / 150) * Quests * 20 minutes = 9600 minutes = 160 hours.

Heroic Heart (Let's assume the price is reduced by 50% (450))

Time = (Heroic / Elite * Saga) * Quests * 20 minutes = 2160 minutes = 36 hours.

to match the token system (~15 Devil's Assault take about 450 minutes (30 minutes / run) = 7,5 h)
the price has to be reduced to 94 Commendations

-You force players to grind in purchased addons
-You force people to purchase hearts or the addons to grind.

Not cool.

[Khalesh]

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.

Thank you for listening to your player base. I for one do not ever want to see the Heroic Heart of Wood removed from the Twelve barter NPC and I see no reason for them ever to be. You can implement the Iconic and Epic TR Saga system but please do not ever force your player base to HAVE to run through a number of Sagas (even 1 is too much in my humble opinion) for a Heroic TR.

Removing them from the Twelve Barter would effectively kill all Eberron Epics and Challenges and force me to play in an inefficient manner

Thanks
A customer

[Arlathen]

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

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

And make them BTA.

All of this - and also add Commendations of Valor to the Challenge traders (Eveningstar & Cannith). Some folks like to run challenges too, don't 'deprecate' this element of the game either.

I also vote that Comms are additional Saga rewards, i.e they are awarded in addition to whatever the player chooses as a reward from the List.

[Lauf]

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

This!

today I get rewarded for every time I run a quest. under your new system the quest may count toward several sagas, but only once. meaning if I run it more than once in the span of completing the sagas it's in, every additional run is "wasted".
this discourages me from running content I enjoy rather than rewarding me for it.

I repeat the suggestions made by others - keep rewarding for quest completions. keep rewarding for challenges.
if you like your sagas so much, have them give an additional optional reward upon saga completion.

being forced into running full pre-determined lists of quests isn't fun, it's work.

as an optional reward sagas are a nice idea. this system for obtaining hearts takes them from optional to mandatory, and that's where they lose the appeal.

let us run the quests/challenges we enjoy, and be rewarded for those.
completing a saga could provide optional rewards, and would be nice to have.

yes this means not all players would spend the same time obtaining a heart, just like not all players spend the same time leveling to 28.... some rush through quests, some do all the optionals... it's a choice, and choice is good, not bad.

[Khalesh]

For clarity I want to add I also share the following opinions that seem to be shared by most of the community:

1) Commendations of Valor should be bound to account not bound to character
2) Commendations of Valor reward quantities should be significantly higher or heart costs lower
3) Commendations of Valor should drop from other mechanisms other than Saga completions

However my main gripe (and tipping point) was tying Heroic TRing to these Commendations of Valour which for now seems to have been addressed

I may not like how Epic TR and Iconic TR is being implemented but this is new and as such I will adapt as I have adapted over the last 7 years to this game.

But the Heroic TR mechanism should not be touched (add an additional way to Heroic TR if you want to give players options but don't change the existing way).

[arkonas]

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.

glin,


when you do think about moving away from the token area please make sure the "new" system is perfect and ok with the players. This will avoid outrages like you saw this weekend. also when you release something like the heart counts/commendations tell people this my not be the final value. that really made us angry as well. make new sagas and other ways to get these commendations. do you really want to alienate any playerbase? we don't want to see the old epics die either if there isn't a reason to run them. this is why i liked tokens. i could run numerous chains without needing to "farm" them to freaking death like the new system would of said. Not to mention you really limit people that way as well.

no f2p play will ever be able to tr again under that system or premium unless they bought expansions or gianthold. if vips didnt buy the expansions either. They would be limited to gh. so seriously consider making tons of ways to do this system so were not limited into certain content or your players don't feel useless or forced into situations where only money will take them.

[Enguebert]

The current proposal to earn commandation has a major flaw

Only way to gain commandation of valor is to complete saga. And only way to complete SAGA,
you MUST own recent adventure pack/expansions.
And worse, for some sagas, you must own more than one.
Because of this, F2P and some premium account have no way to earn heart to reincarnate

(Currently, even F2P account can get token via challenges)

Here is my proposal, and it also solve another problem : shards, seals and co

1) There will be minor commandations of valor (for heroic content) and commandation of valor (for epic content)
2) All epic quest can give commandations ( commandations of x)
3) Heroic raid give minor commandations of valor
4) Epic Raid give commandations of valor
5) Heroic Saga or heroic arc quest give you minor commandations of valor (one choice from the arc quest reward)
6) Epic Saga or Epic arc quests give you commandations of valor (one choice from the arc quest reward)
7) you can exchange minor commandatiosn of valor for a True Heart of Wood (for the TR at level 20)
8) you can exchange minor commandations of valor for commandations of valor (rate to be determined, example 10 minor for 1 )
9) you can exchange commandations of X for commandations of valor (rate to be determine per commandation, for example 2 commandations of druid of 1 commandation of valor)
10) you can exchange commandations of X for shard/seal/scroll of this pack
11) you can exchange commandations of valor for Epic Heart or Iconic heart
12) Exchange existing token of the twelves for commandations of valor
13) Everywhere you need token of the 12, replace by commandations of valor (Cannith challenge Item Tier3, Augments,...)
Please if you add a new currency, make it useful everywhere and remove the old one

Example 1 : Attack on Stormreach (or waterworks)

Only available on heroic, there is a chain reward
If i complete the chain reward, i have a list where i can choose 1 reward. Add to the list x minor commandations of valor

Example 2 : The Shroud

Heroic Raid. Give x minor commandations of valor in one of the final chest (or maybe in reward list)

Example 3 : Sentinel of stormreach

Heroic or Epic
If you complete the chain in heroic, you will have in the chain reward list x minor commandations of valor
If you complete the cain in Epic, in each epic chest, you will gain commandations of Deneith House
And for the final chain reward (epic), you will choose in a list, where you will have x commandations of Deneith house and y commandations of valor (and other items)

With commandations of Deneith House, you can purchase
- commandations of valor (rate to be determined)
- scroll/seal/shards of items from the pack


With this method, while leveling
- people will gain some minor commandations of valor. They will probably not have enough to buy a True Druidic of Heart, but already a good part of it and
they can farm heroic quests to do their TR
- people will gain commandations of valor while doing every Epic quest (directly or commandations of X that they can change)
- gaining scroll/shard/seal will not be a lottery anymore. You know that if you do this quest YY times, you know you will
have enough to purchase scroll/shard/seal

[kuro_zero]

I'm not sure what the long-term plans are for v-comms as a currency and if things other than hearts can or will be purchasable with them.

However, a simple solution that doesn't require a new currency: Track saga completions separately via the new NPC in the hall of heroes similar to raid completions.

Completing any applicable saga increases the counter, regardless of difficulty run. Higher difficulties still desirable for the higher rewards inherent with the saga without forcing people to take comms.

Three dialog options:
Subtract X Completions from counter for HHOW
Subtract Y Completions for IHOW
Subtract Z Completions for EHOW

And make the Hearts BTA.

[Dandonk]

I don't think this addresses the long term issues in any significant way. Sure, the price is claimed to be lowered (do we know to what?), but there are still other issues that will arise when the Tokens do get phased out.

1) Make the amount dropped be reasonable compared to the runs now needed for TR. (No, I have not read the entire thread, but I haven't seen the numbers yet. I'll leave this here for now.)
2) Make the comms BTA, not BTC.
3) Make several more Sagas so that more epic quests are included in the system. Preferably all, and will at the very least have to include a large chunk of the Eberron epics.
4) Make at least some shorter Sagas so that people have a sense of progress towards getting what they want.
5) Make a UI that supports tracking Sagas.
6) Make sure Sagas never bug out again (like they've done several times now).
7) Add something to House C Challenge pack to make it worthwhile again.
8) Make comms a free extra from Sagas, not something you have to make a tradeoff to get.

Making a completely new system tied to Sagas that have been bugged for so much of their lifetimes seems silly to me, when there is already a mechanic in place to do the exact same.

Apart from the leaving Tokens in place for a so far undiscosed period of time, this does not appear to address my concerns, or the concerns of many other posters.

Please do not implement a new system without making it complete first. No more halfbaked systems that never get updated. Please?

EDIT:
Also, before tying such an integral part of the game to this very new mechanic of Sagas, please make sure it's finished - as much as possible, of course. By that I mean: Sagas should include a large portion of both new and old quests, they should come in different lengths, they should have an UI element making them easy to track, they should preferably be independent of each other (to make tracking easier), the comms should be free extras from completion like the tokens are atm, you should have a back up plan ready for when they bug out next time (as they will, at some point), and the sagas should be double, triple and quadruple checked for bugs before you even think of making this live.

Or... here's a novel idea... stick with tokens, and make them drop in all epic quests. Simpler, faster, and doesn't introduce another new mechanic that invalidates a previous mechanic. Why make life so hard on yourself? Don't tear the house down every time you need to paint the doors.

[MadDruid]

'• 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.'

Realy? this is balancing...maxed players who know what their doing can grind a EE saga in an afternoon...your bog standard first lifer at lvl 20 wont survive in a ee quest. Please tell me how this is leveling the playing field.

and on the subject of saga's please get rid of them...they are overpowered and a way to throw rediculously over the top rewards at the elitists in the game. Nothing since menace pack has been worth releasing in my opinion and certainly not up the the spec of the ealier updates and quest packs...the poor quality has been cloaked by throwing stupidly over the top gear to blind us with shineys...The sub 20 quests are far more fun to play than any of the epic stuff and I wont be grinding weeks of work just to play them on my favorite character

[Silken-Akira]

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.

When the post came that later in the day there would be an answer I thought at least they don't respond blindly and think it true first. But now looking at what you posted after this period I think you even better had said something blindly and we at least could say something like "they are just a bit daft, sad but true"

Now, the only thing I see you trying to do is calm most of us down but in the end still sell us the same story. Sorry but we ain't that stupid. You screwed up with decision. Everyone knows it. So try to take it as a mature company and listen to your userbase. End of story.
1. You will keep earning tokens in the current quests. rename them and use it together in your new system whatever but the base functionality to get a Heroic will need to stay.
2. You will make sure the comms are bound to account
3. You will make sure that those comms can be earned in a lot of other ways than just in the sagas otherwise as much as I liked the initial idea you can scrap it.
4. You will make sure that it is also achievable by people who didn't buy the packs (I did buy both even the last crappy one, but I see friends who don't go VIP and buy everything being more and more penalized and quiting)

I stopped my VIP as long as I don't see that Turbine actually starts listening to their players I will not pay a dime to you. and if this takes too long I will probably leave the game fully. Which is sad bacause in my eyes DDO still has so much potential.

So stop thinking only about how can we trick them in spending more money once in a while and do something back for all those times we do spend it.

[karl_k0ch]

Interesting. It's a start.

You touched an interesting point:

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.

In which way will the new system be more balanced than the old system? Power Gamers will easily run through epic elite sagas (or rather that epic saga which has the best time/valor ratio) in the same time (or less) which normal players take to complete epic normal or epic hard. You mentioned that the elite rewards are 3-4 times higher. But is Epic elite also 3-4 times as difficult?

Instead of creating a disparity between players who invest different times to optimize gear and builds, you create a disparity between characters who merely hit 20 and thoses who are capped and have all the destinies they need. Is this the intent?

If heroic hearts should be able to be obtained by heroic characters, there should be more heroic sagas.

How many times do I have to run Heroic Gianthold Elite in order to get the Heart?

Am I missing something, or is there one of the two Gianthold sagas missing in the OP? If this is intentional, why?

[relenttless]

I've really tried to keep an open mind on this and see it from a dev viewpoint in addition to my own, and I think I vaguely understand SOME of their motivations here.

Once upon a time, the only way to get a heart was tokens run by lvl 20 toons in old epic qsts. These were tough, they really were EPIC,but dropped relevant loot, were fun, they were endgame. There actually WAS an endgame.

These days its actually pretty easy to get tokens, ok, maybe even too easy. However, by forcing players into running specific content at the expense of other content you are flagrantly going against your stated aims.

You can adjust the numbers for comms down but it won't matter a damm if they are BtC, that is the real dealbreaker.

Unless comms are made BtA, your system won't have the faintest chance of working. End of.

NO-ONE WANTS TO RUN 30,40,50 QUESTS FROM A VERY NARROW BAND OF CONTENT ONCE THEY HIT 20 IN ORDER TO TR A TOON.

Simple enough for you?

Comms must be BtA or you can kiss goodbye to a MASSIVE chunk of your clientbase.

[Ausdoerrt]

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

As much as a response is appreciated (albeit more than 60 (!) hours after the beginning of the incident), I'm afraid that this is very disappointing. You have failed to hear - and address - a majority of player concerns. I'll break it up by your sections.

Feedback received (1): - Prices were never the biggest concern by a majority of people. Most anyone with a head on their shoulders realized that those would be adjusted anyway. However, your post addresses none of the following:

- Making the Commendations BtC increases the grind, and it's the "pain" kind of grind;
- Limiting it to reward lists deprives players of other saga rewards;
- Many people do not like to be forced into running sagas at all.

"Since the heroic goal is 20, we are lowering the expectation of number of Epic quests needed to earn the heart." - Any way one looks at it, it's still a significant increase from the current system. Meanwhile, the promise to reduce the heart costs under the new system amounts to NOTHING without at least a ballpark for the numbers.

What are we solving? - Your opening statement here is NOT TRUE. The saga system LIMITS the scope of the game to the quests included in the sagas. It DEPRECIATES Eberron epic content. It will lead to INCREASED farming of the same few quests for quick Saga completion. The players will NO LONGER be able to receive the "currency" as a side-reward for completing epic raids and quests. F2P players are also COMPLETELY alienated by this change.

Additionally, the last thing we need is more currencies, it's confusing enough as is.

Feedback received (2) - This here is the worst part of the post. I read this as "we ignored your feedback on this issue and will decide ourselves later". Please open a constructive discussion on the fate of the tokens NOW to avoid further negative feedback.


In closing: I'm very, VERY disappointed to see that you continue to prioritize damage control over a transparent and constructive response, even when a large portion of the community has come together to tell you that your usual policies can no longer be tolerated. I sincerely hope that your response was an unfortunate miscalculation, and am still waiting for a PROPER response from Turbine development and/or management on the issue.

[Gwyxxx]

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.

Two days of painfull waiting e no numbers yet. A little bit disappointing.
You will lower request but how much. I would like to know if i will allowed to play this game in future or not
I want do epic reincarnation and then heroic... a lot of time. I think is right that heart will not for a restricted elite only.
If a player spend 12 hours for making hearts now, and another 30... I assure you that the first one will be allways faster because it will do everything searching every tricks for make all quest in the less time possible. I will spend instead more than an hour only for a single quest like Whats Goes Up (i like this quest for my luck, a part from the pink shadowfell effect) or Throught a Mirror (i like this less but is potential nice)... And...

I HATE begging help for complete my toons.
How horrible is hoping that someone in my guild must do the epic elite purple dragon knight favor you don't imagine.
And when this nightmare is ended you want put another on my head
I have three charatcters that can do hard easily in a party of two and normal in solo, but my arty is blocked at casual/normal difficulty because she's fleshy and with no destiny yet.
I want to prove strange builds in future without the uncomfortable sensation that the next tr will be so difficult to reach, so please BTA comm.
And tell us more quickly. This is not the epic elite gear (i hate this but i can understand the mechanic) that is so nice but not so important to play well.
This is the nucleus of the game... And if something is too easier for an hardcore player, making it more difficult, you will only penalize more than now all sniff flowers...

[mikarddo]

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.”

This is unacceptable. Commendations of Valor need to drop from all epic quests and all epic raids from the get go. Offerings them from Sagas would be a nice extra but simply cannot be the only or even main way to get them. This is extremely imporant so dont ignore it.

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 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.

You seem to lack a deeper understanding of how playing such a game works. Sure, what you saying is correct if you solo - but it sure isnt correct if you want to group with friends because then its very unrealistic to expect everyone to lack the same quests at the same time. Also, claiming that shoeshoring everyone into playing only Saga quests offers variety is odd at best when those do not include all epic quests and epic raids.

Further, obviously the Commendations of Valor need to BtA.

Releasing the system without fixing these huge flaws will be a huge mistake. So, dont try the "we will fix it eventually.." approach. Fix it before releasing it.

[Satyriasys]

It's no surprise the 2 expansion packs which need to be purchased by both premiums and vip were included in the introduction of this system. Druids Deep and High Road sold poorly so might as well link those into the sagas too. Everything about this system is designed to rake in some quick cash. In time we may see more sagas for older content.

[Dandonk]

TReleasing the system without fixing these huge flaws will be a huge mistake. So, dont try the "we will fix it eventually.." approach. Fix it before releasing it.

Well, they would never release huge flawed systems to live and then leave them in without fixing for years, would they? I mean, based on past experience, that has never been the case, has it?

Oh, wait.

[SirValentine]

Have you heard of the leveling sigils we had shortly after DDO went f2p? It was a horrible idea that greatly impeded character progression by preventing you to level, unless you bought them in the store. Because the odds of finding those sigils in game were astronomically small, most players decided to stop playing instead of paying money to bypass this purely arbitrary barrier.

Hey, you know how they say most new players quit at level 4? I wonder if they're still including data from the leveling sigil days in that total?

[Scraap]

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 don't really want to know my playstyle so much as my pay-style to better sell me things, so let's get right to it:

I came along about a week or two into F2P after hearing from my old DM about this new DnD MMO, with a hybrid pay style somewhere between the typical monthly sub and the guildwars buy once play forever bit. Looking into it further, I saw that there was what seemed to be a plan in place for extending the game indefinitely in a broad manner, and started tossing cash at it every once in a while until I settled into a routine: Once come Christmas, once come Summer, with my satisfaction over that roughly half a year gap determining how much I tossed in from year to year.

First couple years as I was acquiring packs, it was usually around 20-60 bucks per sporadically when I had spare cash for my entertainment budget. Roughly a sub at the time in a low pressure 'It'll still be relevant when you get around to it' environment. Peak spending occurred the Christmas prior and leading up to MoTU, largely due to the "Let's Talk" initiative that (with one notable exception that I'm sure you've heard of time and again by now) seemed to reflect a culture shift to craftsmen talking with their clients to truly get it done right. That netted you something like 2 years sub in half the time (and I had so much at the time already purchased that I even sprung for the Cannith Challenges at full price with no real regret).

I wasn't terribly happy with the small shift in relevance towards the end game area at the expense of the rest of the game, but hey, first expansion, bound to be a misstep or two, and there's always TR'ing to take the edge off, so it hadn't gotten truly bad yet. Give em time to sort out a balance.

Since then, however, there's been more and more of a shift towards what I can only describe as a high-pressure sales environment, where if you don't get it, and play it right now, you will miss out on the enjoyment window, as things go obsolete, systems shift every few months, and things get cranked further and further up. I get that you might think that that would boost sales, I really do, but strictly speaking for myself, it's had the exact opposite effect: If by the time I get ready to give folks your payment only a portion of what is available is relevant, then it's only a portion worth shelling out for. If you've been truly obnoxious about it, then I get truly mulish. If you've started things, but not finished them, that impact the entirety of the game, like you did with the enhancement pass by leaving out the racial trees, or the brain-dead loot approach that only serves as a means of treading water with the same effects cranked up and taking up a new inventory slot, I really start to wonder whether it's even worth it to toss in 20 bucks a pop.

Now I'd mentioned I already own everything (Sans the latest expansion, largely because I'm simply not comfortable with you splintering your playerbase yet again behind not one but 2 pay-walls now for a new player, so that'll wait till end of year at best), and I hear this next year you're wanting to focus on more packs more frequently, so let's go down the order of priority for me when it came to picking and choosing back in the day, and will become relevant once again:

1) Is the content, in isolation, enjoyable from multiple perspectives? (IE: can I bring in my Arcane, Divine, AoE/Tank, TWF, or Ranged focused toon and have some kind of fun with it?)

2) Major major bonus if the content is not static, meaning either everything is on the dice from say, 75-90% effectiveness (that counts for melee/ranged damage input/output spikes per encounter as well, note), or that there is a procedural element in place to spawn things like traps at different locations (meaning there's as much reaction to a changing environment as there is rote memorization in order to keep it fresh.)

3) Will the rewards be relevant once I've moved past that content? (Favor doesn't generally count. I'm not *that* cheap unless you've truly ticked me off that half-year.)

4) Is it for a level that isn't already flooded with enjoyable content?

Go through that list of 4 points, and for the last year +, just about every aspect has taken a hit one way or the other, with this latest announced change particularly failing spectacularly when it comes to point 3.