Earning Hearts of Wood - post U20

[Paleus]

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.

On point one, the XP ransack system has already spread out repeat penalties. Though I will admit people still farm certain quests with distinct frequency. If you really want to reduce that tendency, then look at the XP offered by those quests, and make the quests you want people to run match them (don't penalize the existing ones as that would further alienate people).

On point two, people are fine with a single currency. In fact, its often been asked to please stop introducing new currencies. Commendations of valor, tokens of the 12, call it what you want, if it behaves the same then its the same. In this case, it does not behave the same. Tokens dropped at the end of every quest and were bta. Commendations of valor are btc and only at chain completion. I'm fine if you want to make tokens at the end of a saga only, but at least make them bta.

On point two, part 2. There will always be people that can do in a few hours what takes people days to do. This system will just make it so that there will be people that can do in a few days what others can do in months. I would seriously suggest not trying to make adjustments to beat the outliers.

On point three. You are not just depreciating tokens of the 12, you're depreciating entire swathes of Eberron content. Make more sagas and have those apply to a broader range of quests. Because otherwise this seems like a shot in the foot that turns people off altogether. I get that you see a lot of people already have older content and want to motivate them to buy new content. Adjust the xp and loot systems to be both comparable and stable, and people will buy new content. Completely invalidating previous content depreciates player confidence in the game, reduces the variety of things to do, and in the end may very well serve to have people stop buying content altogether when they move on to another game.

[Correlan]

Hi Glin,

Thanks for the communication on the issues that have been raised over the last few days, It is much appreciated. I haven't read every post in this thread so my next few issues maybe repeating something that someone else has already asked.

I've just come back to the game after an extended break (9 months). To be honest, after updating the client, I was looking forward to logging in and seeing where I was at with my characters, with regards to the TR progression and how far they were from being the 'finished' article. Out of 16 characters, I have 2 that are 'finished'. I was determined that I wasn't going to resub or buy the expansion pack, I lasted 2 days (**** you ddo). When I first read about the changes to the TR process I was quite dismayed. Although I am happy about the changes to the xp curve, I'm not very happy about the way in which I'll have to acquire Hearts of Wood. I still have many TR's to do on most of my characters. I understand that the dev's wish to bring in a new system to better fit the current model of ddo, which is great. But I seriously think that when you make these announcements, having a few more details available will save a lot of animosity towards Turbine from the player base.

Now, to the point.

I am glad to hear that epic tokens of the twelve will still be a viable source for getting true hearts for the near future.

Like I have previously said, I have many characters that need past lives, and with the new system that is being implemented in U20, I will have to run saga's to get the commendations of valour to be able to get HoW. I like the idea in principle, but it's the cost of HoW that has me worried and the fact they are BTC.

I am far from being a casual player, I do run epics on my characters that aren't in the TR process. I don't level my TR's past 20, it's wasted time in my opinion. I do however, maintain an elite streak. Eventually, (the not too distant future) I will need to do saga's to earn the appropriate heart for tr-ing, on a character that is on the TR train. If I want to be able to TR asap I will have to run the saga's. Most of the quests in the saga's will be way above that particular toons level for maintaining a streak. I can live with that, I'll run stuff at EH. Bearing in mind that a few of the characters don't have any destinies to call upon on reaching 20, some of the content will be challenging. I can live with that, I like challenges. So, everything being equal, and the dev's plan that I won't have to grind hours and hours of sagas to get my next HoW. I'll have to run, most probably, 36 extra quests, to complete 6 sagas. Even if that's the bare minimum on 6 EH saga rewards to obtain a HoW, that's 36 quests. If I average those quests to 15 mins each (most will probably take longer), That's approx 11 hours extra quest time on a TR life. Which effectively means that new modified xp curve, isn't really a modified xp curve. I'm still going to have to grind approximately the same amount per TR as I currently do, all because the commendations are BTC. Which in my opinion makes no sense.

[Aeolwind]

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.

I've had a couple long posts queued up in my head, but spending the time typing it out isn't worth it because you guys really don't get it. Not even remotely. And this coming from someone who previously only purchased hearts.

[wiliamsane]

I do not like this system or plan at all.
First: Commendations of Valor obtainable throught saga as selectable reward is just bad. Sagas are nice adition to xp grind to hit 28 ,heck even tomes and renown are nice from them. Now we will be forced to pick up only Commendations if we want to do any form of reincarnation. This will make grind to 28 even worse (2xEH certain quest then do what you want anyone ?) Hell yes , i call this "super fun" (just in case : this is irony) and idea of grinding another 6.6 milions of xp after epic tr in same few quests with same build and without streak or first time completion on certain diff. bonus over and over again ... well ... i am going to vomit. Oh and i almost forgot another Commendations grind..

Second: Name of one saga Glin mentioned almost make me to laugh (or cry) -> (a) Saga: The End of Eberron (Epic). You know , you can call whole update 20 "Epic End of Eberron" just little word swap and it will be almost true. Right now tokens are good for true hearts , granted it will stay that way for some time ... "some time" . Augments from tokens are almost useless and instead of improving them turbine decided just to nerf tokens even more . Soon you will be able only to throw them like stones into river. With this change you can almost close all Ebberon epics - loot is obsolete, tokens would be useless etc. That is what i call a good step DDO .. way to go! (just in case : another irony)

Third: Iconics and their tr : Iconic are imho just ordinary classes with some shiny armor and one nice feat of "benefits". Instead race prestiges they just took one class , modified their race enhancements little bit and most important pinned price tag on them and ta-daa new heroes" are aviable. And now it feels like they are raping whole TR system thanks to them.

And last (maybe little offtopic): Calling TR system endgame ... well this must be joke right ? right ? Great , you can TR untill you gone mad and if you one day finish your build , you will only find there are no raids or any reason to play anymore.I sometimes have feeling like DDO´s developers left hand does not know what right hand do and like these changes are made by people who saw DDO only like code and not game.

I am quite afraid where this will lead ..
Regards Elenbril Sane of Thelanis

[Avenging_Angel]

As I posted on the "unofficial" thread on General Discussion.


There is such an amount of BS in this response, it's insulting to the players.

You want me to keep a spreadsheet in order to know which quests I've completed and which ones I need to find the ONE combination to complete multiple sagas in the lowest amount of quests? What about the rest of the game? Phiarlan Carnival, Vault of Night, the raids... almost all Eberron, really.
What about VIPs? They don't have MotU or the new saga included in the program, so they are pretty much left with epic Gianthold... a level 23-24 pack. I thought you said "Since the heroic goal is 20, we are lowering the expectation of number of Epic quests needed to earn the heart"! Let's not even venture into the fact you expect me to run epic Crucible X amount of times if I want to TR a heroic character.
I personally don't have the Wheloon expansion. On how many sagas am I missing out? Why do I have to buy Wheloon in order to TR my heroic character?

Disparity between players who can rack up tokens faster and players who can't? How are you even addressing this? A good player (and with the required equipment) or a good group will run Epic Elite and get more than the average player, who once had the opportunity to run The Snitch, Lord of Dust or something considerably less hard than EE Tor in order to get tokens, at a considerably slower pace. Nothing changes, you are balancing nothing, you are REMOVING options.
Also (and this is personal) I don't trust you with setting the balance between price of Hearts and saga rewards in a honest way.


"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."
I can ALREADY do that. It's called "I enter a quest, complete it and get a reward without worrying about "tracking multiple sagas simultaneously"". It does NOT encourage variety, it forces you down a predeterminate path. Even if EVERY quest in the game was in a saga (a Phiarlan Carnival saga, a Von saga...), it would STILL be less options, it would STILL not encourage variety but paths.

"Eventually commendations will be the preferred method of exchange"
Come on, nobody is buying this. Just write "It's just commendations, no options."

I don't know what you are thinking, I'm astonished. Is it the developers' ego, the will to put something of their own into the game? Is it the management? Are you milking the last bucks from the existing playerbase before letting the game die? No wonder the playerbase has lost all trust in the company.
Someone is saying "this is a step forward in the direction of dialogue". How is that? This response can be summarized in "We think we are right. We think you are wrong. We are doing it regardless."

[psteen1]

You are keeping the turn-ins for tokens... great.

This begs the question- will you still allow tokens to drop? Because that would be a really backhanded method to get your way in the long run.

Also, you want more quest variety, then give each epic pack its own saga please. What is so varied about forgotten realms and gianthold only?

[twigzz]

*stands up*

*yawns*

*sits back down on bridge*

[Hendrik]

I should be able to run any quest I want not what turbine wants. Whether I'm a powergamer or not. Nobody should be forced to do a quest or series because that is what they need to TR.
Sure turbine wants us to run different epics for whatever reason, but by forcing us to do them to get something is not the way to go about getting us to do it.

You mean like farming Devils Assault or Challenges for Tokens?

[Hendrik]

Suggestion:

Make raids drop Comms of Valor.

Give Chronoscope, VoN, and DQ a few.
Give Titan, Abbot, Hound, VoD, ToD, MA, and LoB a bunch.

Though not a total solution, that by itself will give people more of a reason to start running some of the raids that were made obsolete by U14.

Personally, I would prefer a barter box option to exchange my CoH for CoV at a decent exchange ratio.

[Dandonk]

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.

(also added to first post, but wanted it out there where it could be seen)

[Thrudh]

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.

This.. I agree with this 100%. Very bad that you were thinking about making such a huge switch (TRing is your bread and butter now) to sagas, when sagas aren't ready yet!


BtA, make comms drop from all quests (small amounts, but we're always making progress), and give us more sagas that include older epics... That's it.. Not that hard.

[Darkrok]

BtA, make comms drop from all quests (small amounts, but we're always making progress), and give us more sagas that include older epics... That's it.. Not that hard.

Honestly they wouldn't even need to make the comms drop in all quests if they allowed us to get comms from all sagas and made a LOT more sagas - including many (and I mean many) at heroic levels. An ideal system would have many sagas - basically everything that can be grouped together would be a saga - and would offer xp, guild renown, along with some other level-appropriate rewards (skill/stat tomes, etc), in addition to the new comm's in quantities appropriate for the level range. Someone that dedicated themselves to running sagas 1-20 should have enough comm's to TR right at 20. That would frankly be a better system than we have now...people could ONLY play the 1-20 game and TR directly as a result of that.

The problem is that Turbine's done it again. They put in 1/10th of what could be a good system and wanted to immediately kill the old system. They'll get to the 25-75% done range depending on the project, then they'll leave it unfinished and frustrating for the players and move on to the next project. Best case, the only project gets ignored. Worst case, it gets killed and we go back to only having 1/10th of a system again.

[Arnhelm]

ya know, folks, I'm still waiting for clarification that Tokens of The Twelve and Fragments will still drop with the current Epic quests in Eberron.

Until that is clearly stated, having hearts available on Lahar in The Twelve doesn't mean diddly to me.

[RedOrm]

This was just suggested on the Bridge of Resistance: If you want people to run your sagas Turbine, how about adding (a chance of) cosmetic armours/hats and pets/tricks to the end reward list? Now there's a nice bit of cheese to lure the hamsters with...

Greetz,
Red Orm

[Hendrik]

I know, right? Put me and Teh_Troll in a room for 3 hours and we could solve all of DDO's design problems.

Two men enter, one man leaves!

Should make an event out of this and sell tickets - a fortune could be made!

[Bolo_Grubb]

This is not a compromise, this is "Oh look players are upset for some reason we do not understand. Let's let them think we are listening and do what we said we were going to do quietly in two or three months from now, by then they will have forgotten." I believe Marie Antoinette said it best "Let them eat cake."

Hey Turbine, here is a helpful hint, no charge, if you want to quit making things from older content obsolete find new ways of reusing stuff instead of reinventing the wheel every update.

Another hint people are TRing so much because your end game is non-existent, if you make the one reason a good number of people play harder then guess what ... they stop playing.

The whole saga idea is an epic fail from its inception, people are not running those quest because they suck, they have either poor mechanics, poor xp, poor loot, or are just plain anoying, or some combination of all of that, no amount of makeup is going to turn those pigs into prom queens so stop trying and let up play what we want to without trying to force us to play things we have no desire to. What is next an Eberron saga that requires Titan to complete?

Oh and last note most people on the TR train are not interested in your sub-par epic FR quests and want to TR as soon as hitting 20, your saga system does not even allow for that much.

Seriously get a clue, please before the few quildie I have left find a new game as well.

I am of much the same mind here.

First you introduce something that angers everyone, so that when you reel it in just a little it appeases most people because they think you are listening. I still have serious doubts that anyone at Turbine play the game for fun because you sure do not seem to understand your player base.

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.

I am still not sure what you are solving. to farm epic token I play quest that have other items I want. Von series for shards, scrolls, seals and xp. Demon queen for the same reason. If you think there is a problem with the drop rate of tokens then adjust it, but make token available in all epic quest. If you must got to a new system then allow tokens to be traded in on comms of valor. Make Comms of valors available in all epic quest. Where is my saga for Vault of Night or Demon Queen? Or even the Vale. Try doing something to make HOX or VOD worth playing again. Make Comms drop in the subteranne.

Definitely make them BTA. Currently I farm tokens on my epic level character so that I can buy Hearts of Wood on my TR character (who will TR as soon as he hits 20). I certainly do not want to have to take my TR character to 28 before I do another heroic TR just because I need to farm comms of valor on just that character. He is not built for epic content, does not have the gear for epic content and does not have the bank space for gear for both heroic and epic level content.

Why is it such a bad thing for player to get tokens as fast as they currently can? If it means that players are TRing and having fun and playing the game why is this a bad thing? If you want to keep players or attract new players then stop destroying your older content and create new content that can co-exist with it.

It is sad that since update 20 has hit the lamannia server, most the talk in guild caht has been "So what game are you going to try next?" I am sorry Glin but your post has not alleviated that type of talk.

[patang01]

You mean like farming Devils Assault or Challenges for Tokens?

Does it matter how? We pay for our entertainment. Some like to farm a few quests, I like to farm lots of Epic quests. I love however to farm whatever I want. Not to be forced to run specific quests and not to run all of them.

The token/shard system allows me to get an incremental reward towards my goals every single quest.

The saga system forces me to run quests I find loathsome for a reward down the line. But in doing so I have to pick to either advance my opportunity to reincarnate or get more XP, tomes or favor. That's idiotic.

[Drwaz99]

Since Twitter is getting a little action here's the sentences for the AM:

Erik DDO ?@producerglin 1h

Good feedback, we are still in talking mode.

And in a response about requiring Saga's for TR'ing

@MariMcMillan @producerglin I like the price is lowered but its just delayed the inevitable of having to do sagas for TR

=

@legendkilleroll @MariMcMillan that's not necessarily the answer. VComs may be the inevitable, not saga play.

[Lauf]

So Glin's response is "we may adjust some costs, but other than that ... enjoy!"

sigh

THERE ARE PLAYERS LEAVING YOUR GAME

wake up, get it right.

[Kaytis]

Producer Glin.

Let's be honest about what is going on. No matter how you try and spin it, you are putting in a cash barrier to the TR system.

This isn't about balance between the haves and have nots. If it were you could simply make TR free -that is perfect balance.

DDO had a cash barrier right after f2p went live. They were called leveling sigils. They were in the game because the producers were scared that people would just cruise through the game without ever paying anything. Someone finally had the guts to say "I think we are losing more revenue than we are gaining. Let's get rid of them".

They were right.

People will pay when they feel ready to pay. They will pay for a tome or a cometic armor or a cool pet. But if they are not playing because a cash barrier drove them off, then they will never pay for anything. Ever.

Don't be the guy that oversaw the downfall of the game. There were high hopes when you signed on. People were elated and you were vouched for by one of the few people at Turbine that the community at large universally respects. Don't let him or us down. Take a stand and back this onerous self-defeating system out.

By the way if you want people to buy the expansion packs, stop putting random effects on the named loot. Seriously, this is why no one runs those packs. There is nothing specific to run for.

Edit. I made a mistake when I said that Producer Glin was vouched for. It turns out it was Rowan that was vouched for, not Producer Glin. I have no expectations therefore of Glin, and have only this incident, and the wiping of destiny XPs to frame an opinion of him. Given that pattern, I fully expect to be playing Elder Scrolls Online this time next year.