Earning Hearts of Wood - post U20

[Yaga_Nub]

There's active discussion here at Turbine about the binding status of Commendations of Valor.

This is what we are tentatively moving to for the next Lamannia preview (which is decided days ahead of time, so the conversation is likely to keep moving and Lamannia will be out of date by then):

Heroic True Heart of Wood: Costs 250 Commendations of Valor
Binds to Character on Acquire

This is not what we intend to ship with. However, we need to decide on whether to lower the cost should or change the Commendations to be Bind to Account instead of Character. (Or potentially both, as the exact cost is still under discussion, but for simplicity I'm pretending it's one or the other right now.)

If the Commendations are BtA, we expect that most Commendations will be farmed by level-cap characters and passed to other characters, and that they will be earned much faster than if the Commendations are BtC and earned by lower level characters. We also believe there are legitimate reasons for both choices and why one or the other is better for gameplay or fun, many of which have been expressed by various players recently.

We're of course happy to hear feedback on all aspects of Reincarnation or other upcoming changes, but if you have specific thoughts on whether you'd prefer BtA Commendations or a cheaper price for Heroic True Hearts of Wood, please let us know here in this thread!

It really depends on how hard it is to obtain comms. For instance right now I can get 2000 fragments, combine them into tokens and turn them in for a TR heart in just a few days if I want to play certain quests exclusively. I do it with my high level toons and past the hearts to the toon that I want to TR. There's zero reason to change that right now. If comms are replacing tokens then then replace them but don't change anything else. BtA for tokens, BtA for comms. The only real change is that every quest should drop comms just like the older quests drop fragments or full tokens. I would be perfectly happy with it still taking 2000 comms for a TR heart if every quest dropped between 40 and 60 comms from the end chest. Or make it even easier, make it 40 comms for a TR heart and make it so that each quest drops 1 comm (maybe 2 on EE) in the end chest.

Also as a few people have mentioned, how much are you talking with your marketing team? Any good marketing manager would be screaming at you guys for possibly causing a drop in spending. Some people are going to be able to TR in a day and some are going to take a year and it's not beneficial to you or us for you to figure out to level that out. It doesn't hurt anyone if someone is able to TR in a day or a year. Once again it seems as if you're trying to solve a problem that's not there.

[Missing_Minds]

There's active discussion here at Turbine about the binding status of Commendations of Valor.

What is a commendation? " something that commends, as a formal recommendation or an official citation."

This means that it is for THAT individual. So it does make sense that a commendation is BTC.

Tokens, runes (draconic. *COUGH!*, and other just... tokens, no matter what they may represent (such as a medal) normally do not have a person's name on them, let alone the reason why such as an official recognition. For that reason they should be BTA.

Because of this semantic, I don't personally have an issue with them being BTC. But that does not mean I like this change. This change makes it a chore/work. A game should be fun.


Lets look at what all of these woods really are. SUICIDE. *cue M*A*S*H theme* Seriously, the character goes off and dies. What character is going to go gather up the parts just to go kill themself in a typical setting? So making something in game that is BTC just so the character can kill themselves fails Pen and Paper sensibilities. This is instead a gamer reward and as such should be BTA.

[Lauf]

There's active discussion here at Turbine about the binding status of Commendations of Valor.
if you have specific thoughts on whether you'd prefer BtA Commendations or a cheaper price for Heroic True Hearts of Wood, please let us know here in this thread!

running lower than level content on a high level toon just to get tokens isn't my idea of fun.

so pencil me in for cheaper rather than BtA, as I have no qualms about getting them with a non-capped toon.

neither of these is really a solution to the problems though, please re-read the thread.

[rayworks]

There's active discussion here at Turbine about the binding status of Commendations of Valor.

This is what we are tentatively moving to for the next Lamannia preview (which is decided days ahead of time, so the conversation is likely to keep moving and Lamannia will be out of date by then):

Heroic True Heart of Wood: Costs 250 Commendations of Valor
Binds to Character on Acquire

This is not what we intend to ship with. However, we need to decide on whether to lower the cost should or change the Commendations to be Bind to Account instead of Character. (Or potentially both, as the exact cost is still under discussion, but for simplicity I'm pretending it's one or the other right now.)

If the Commendations are BtA, we expect that most Commendations will be farmed by level-cap characters and passed to other characters, and that they will be earned much faster than if the Commendations are BtC and earned by lower level characters. We also believe there are legitimate reasons for both choices and why one or the other is better for gameplay or fun, many of which have been expressed by various players recently.

We're of course happy to hear feedback on all aspects of Reincarnation or other upcoming changes, but if you have specific thoughts on whether you'd prefer BtA Commendations or a cheaper price for Heroic True Hearts of Wood, please let us know here in this thread!

NO. BTC is wrong. I and many others will walk away from the game if you do it.

And if it isn't what you intend to ship with, why are you even doing it on Lamm? That sounds particularly stupid.

[RedOrm]

There's active discussion here at Turbine about the binding status of Commendations of Valor.

Good. There should be.

Heroic True Heart of Wood: Costs 250 Commendations of Valor

At 17 comms per saga that still means running them 15 times meaning a minmum of 150 quests, easily 3 times what is required now. I'm fine with some increase, but 3 times? That's overkill.
It also still links them to the sagas, which A) currently are not funtional (6 sagas, 2 are bugged 3 have *closed quests*) and b) still forces my to run stuff I don't like.
All other reasons against also still apply. They should drop from chests just like guild reknown as already mentioned many many times. And they should drop from ALL level 20+ quests, FR AND Eberron.

Binds to Character on Acquire

Hearts being bound is fine. Splitting a stack of comms from a bag then dropping them in the shared bank is slightly less convenient then buying a heart and dropping *that* in the bank, but hey. I can see no actual reason for the heart not to be bta, but it's an inconvience and no more.

If the Commendations are BtA

They NEED to be BTA, for reasons already discussed ad nasuem. Seriously. This should not be discussed this should be a given.

If the choice is between less expensive or BTA, my vote is definitely for BTA. However, see my first point above: running 150 quests from an extremely short list is Not A Good Thing.

Greetz,
Red Orm

[Cetus]

Here's what you should do:

1. Acquisition of True heroic hearts should be just as easy as it is on live. It takes relatively little time to gain 20 tokens, especially if players help loot chests and pass them to that person. There are several ways of doing this:

a) Lower the commendation amount for true hearts to like...60 or 70 - if the rate of acquisition stays the same. Seriously if I want to TR it should be no harder than this.
b) Keep the commendation cost the same, but make these UNBOUND. This will encourage the same camaraderie and will bolster the suffering economy as a result of our recent debacle. This way, people have every economic incentive to acquire these.

2. Come up honestly and tell us frankly how hard you want it to be to get the iconic and epic hearts. Perhaps you should finally reveal the past life feats for us BEFORE you introduce these price tags. If the feats are powerful enough, then a high commendation cost would be reasonable. We have completely unquantified benefits, so all we're seeing is the grind part.

You're feeding us half of the information because we don't know what the benefits of Epic TR'ing will be!

...and then one might wonder why we're getting all this rage. What if your boss demands that you work 40 extra hours of overtime this week, but neglects to tell you whether or not there's any pay associated with it, and if there is - how much.

[Satyriasys]

What character is going to go gather up the parts just to go kill themself in a typical setting? So making something in game that is BTC just so the character can kill themselves fails Pen and Paper sensibilities. This is instead a gamer reward and as such should be BTA.

LOL ...never thought of it that way. TURBINE how can you argue with this logic?!?

[Thlargir]

If the Commendations are BtA, we expect that most Commendations will be farmed by level-cap characters and passed to other characters, and that they will be earned much faster than if the Commendations are BtC and earned by lower level characters. We also believe there are legitimate reasons for both choices and why one or the other is better for gameplay or fun, many of which have been expressed by various players recently.

First, kudos for providing a glimpse into the reasons you in the process of messing the game up for a great many people.

Second, why one earth do you believe that you have to chose one or the other? You have a perfectly good mechanism in place for heroic TR, though you seem to be saying that you do not like that overpowered, capped characters are farming for tokens on behalf of lower level characters that want to TR.

If that is the case then why not tie the end reward to the level difference of the quest and the quester? Thus, if you believe that an L28 can farm tokens 10x faster than an L20 in the same quest reduce the token drop for an L28 to 1/10th that of an L20 doing the quest.

Result: L20 heroic TRs will continue as they ever have, L28 sugar daddy's will have THEIR choice of farm or move up to the more difficult quests that you want then to run.

[Scraap]

There's active discussion here at Turbine about the binding status of Commendations of Valor.

This is what we are tentatively moving to for the next Lamannia preview (which is decided days ahead of time, so the conversation is likely to keep moving and Lamannia will be out of date by then):

Heroic True Heart of Wood: Costs 250 Commendations of Valor
Binds to Character on Acquire

This is not what we intend to ship with. However, we need to decide on whether to lower the cost should or change the Commendations to be Bind to Account instead of Character. (Or potentially both, as the exact cost is still under discussion, but for simplicity I'm pretending it's one or the other right now.)

If the Commendations are BtA, we expect that most Commendations will be farmed by level-cap characters and passed to other characters, and that they will be earned much faster than if the Commendations are BtC and earned by lower level characters. We also believe there are legitimate reasons for both choices and why one or the other is better for gameplay or fun, many of which have been expressed by various players recently.

We're of course happy to hear feedback on all aspects of Reincarnation or other upcoming changes, but if you have specific thoughts on whether you'd prefer BtA Commendations or a cheaper price for Heroic True Hearts of Wood, please let us know here in this thread!

I will again reiterate that the TR mechanism is in place at least partly for players to consciously make a choice to avoid re-running the same set of quests in a small amount of time to avoid burnout, even if some choose to gate that with running a small subset of quests to access that mechanism. Do you folks really, honestly believe it's a bright choice to jack up the costs further when it comes to maintaining player attention?

[Antiguo]

If the Commendations are BtA, we expect that most Commendations will be farmed by level-cap characters and passed to other characters, and that they will be earned much faster than if the Commendations are BtC and earned by lower level characters. We also believe there are legitimate reasons for both choices and why one or the other is better for gameplay or fun, many of which have been expressed by various players recently.

We're of course happy to hear feedback on all aspects of Reincarnation or other upcoming changes, but if you have specific thoughts on whether you'd prefer BtA Commendations or a cheaper price for Heroic True Hearts of Wood, please let us know here in this thread!

Tell me one legitimate reason for BtC comendations that doesnt involve cash grabbing from the store, i dare you.

[voodoogroves]

Here's what you should do:

1. Acquisition of True heroic hearts should be just as easy as it is on live. It takes relatively little time to gain 20 tokens, especially if players help loot chests and pass them to that person. There are several ways of doing this:

a) Lower the commendation amount for true hearts to like...60 or 70 - if the rate of acquisition stays the same. Seriously if I want to TR it should be no harder than this.
b) Keep the commendation cost the same, but make these UNBOUND. This will encourage the same camaraderie and will bolster the suffering economy as a result of our recent debacle. This way, people have every economic incentive to acquire these.

2. Come up honestly and tell us frankly how hard you want it to be to get the epic hearts.

Plus, you know, it should have some semblance of parity today with a level 20 character in how easy it is to obtain. I don't want to have to pike a freaking higher level saga just to get my heart.

"those 20s can get their hearts easily, only if they finish this level 25 saga on EE three times!"

[HatsuharuZ]

There's active discussion here at Turbine about the binding status of Commendations of Valor.

This is what we are tentatively moving to for the next Lamannia preview (which is decided days ahead of time, so the conversation is likely to keep moving and Lamannia will be out of date by then):

Heroic True Heart of Wood: Costs 250 Commendations of Valor
Binds to Character on Acquire

This is not what we intend to ship with. However, we need to decide on whether to lower the cost should or change the Commendations to be Bind to Account instead of Character. (Or potentially both, as the exact cost is still under discussion, but for simplicity I'm pretending it's one or the other right now.)

If the Commendations are BtA, we expect that most Commendations will be farmed by level-cap characters and passed to other characters, and that they will be earned much faster than if the Commendations are BtC and earned by lower level characters. We also believe there are legitimate reasons for both choices and why one or the other is better for gameplay or fun, many of which have been expressed by various players recently.

We're of course happy to hear feedback on all aspects of Reincarnation or other upcoming changes, but if you have specific thoughts on whether you'd prefer BtA Commendations or a cheaper price for Heroic True Hearts of Wood, please let us know here in this thread!

By making the commendations BtC, you are forcing all players to slow down the rate at which they TR. This is what some of us would call a 'nerf', since you are taking away something in the game that we depend on and not replacing it with just as useful, but different.

Also, please put the commendations in places other than saga rewards, regardless of the bind status you all decide on. Getting a group together, getting to the quests and running all of that takes too long. Not only that, but it's the *same* quests.

[Djjinni]

You mention a lower cost on the heroic heart of wood. At the previewed amount of 17 coms per EH saga, this puts it at 15 sagas for a true heart. Not extreme, but certainly not a low number. This is at least closer to the sort of grind people are expecting even if it's on the high end.

The current 'grind' is around 20 Quests.

With these changes, you're looking at 150+ (And say you run a single quest *twice* in that time before finishing the Sagas it's connected to... and that quest gives you *ZERO* contribution towards a TR Heart? :/

Those numbers are still no way near what people want to see.

Can someone please, officially, state what is wrong with the current roughly 20 Quest long farm for a TR heart? All I see is Turbine saying that's not ideal, and players disagreeing vehemently.


Let me put it this way, as they keep asking for our feedback.

If Commendations aren't Bound-to-Account, you will lose players.
It's not a 'lower cost vs bind' discussion, you need to make BOTH changes or face a very disgruntled playerbase.

Heroic Reincarnations should be your loss leader. People making back-to-back TRs *spend* money in your store, because they can. If they feel forced to pay to continue as they were? I'd bet most won't.
It's a very large part of the draw to a wide part of the community (And one incredibly unique feature in the MMO Landscape currently..)
You ask for feedback, and the community has given it in droves.. but still you try to state that we're wrong Worrying really.



At least we're making progress.. I think :/

[Vargouille]

I'm basing it on the info we have now, which is 17 per EH saga.

This is not the number we are expecting at all, despite how often this is quoted, and feel this has misinformed some player's expectations. This is partially why we tried to clarify earning progress in multiple sagas at the same time. Our estimates are for roughly 3 Commendations per quest after looking at the overlapping quests in Forgotten Realms, played on Epic Hard.


This is also why we're actively looking at different ways to earn Commendations of Valor, though we can't promise specifics for U20 at this time. That is part of why we aren't touching Tokens of the Twelve for U20, either.

[redspecter23]

Plus, you know, it should have some semblance of parity today with a level 20 character in how easy it is to obtain. I don't want to have to pike a freaking higher level saga just to get my heart.

"those 20s can get their hearts easily, only if they finish this level 25 saga on EE three times!"

This right here. Devs, you think that the level 20 characters should be earning their own hearts through the saga system. Keep them btc and my level 20's will be earning them... by standing at the door while my level 28 two-box solos the chain. Double rewards and my level 20 "earned" it just like you want.

You might want btc for your own reasons, but think outside the box about the actual situations that will occur. I don't want to two-box my toons. I want to play them, but if two-boxing is the easier, faster way, I'll do that with your btc idea I suppose. I might even put an lfm up for 4 more people to pike at the door for their coms too. So 4 people sitting around doing nothing while one person farms coms for them.

[Oshara1]

Is there a reason that the commendations need to be a saga reward option rather than a granted bonus? As is now, tokens of the twelve are obtained as random drops from quest mobs or in epic chests, and do not replace loot or quest completion rewards.

In the new system, from the screenshots that I have seen, it seems that if we want commendations we will have to forego any other saga rewards. Wouldn't it make more sense to drop at least one commendation per saga quest completion, and a significant amount for claiming commendations as a saga reward? You can make the saga reward amount large enough that completing the saga will still be more commendations/min than just farming any individual quest, and we still have the option of collecting commendations as well as receiving tomes/renown/exp if we prefer.

Thanks for the feedback!

Osh

[kanordog]

T
Heroic True Heart of Wood: Costs 250 Commendations of Valor
Binds to Character on Acquire

If the Commendations are BtA, we expect that most Commendations will be farmed by level-cap characters and passed to other characters, and that they will be earned much faster than if the Commendations are BtC and earned by lower level characters. We also believe there are legitimate reasons for both choices and why one or the other is better for gameplay or fun, many of which have been expressed by various players recently.

We're of course happy to hear feedback on all aspects of Reincarnation or other upcoming changes, but if you have specific thoughts on whether you'd prefer BtA Commendations or a cheaper price for Heroic True Hearts of Wood, please let us know here in this thread!

I am happy with the new price (as soon as sagas won't give ridiculously low amount of CoV like 1-3/saga).

BtA vs BtC: with BtC I won't need shared bank to spend money on...

Can both be done though? 1 x CoV = BtA 2x CoV = BtC so players can choose whichever they want?

[Qhualor]

There's active discussion here at Turbine about the binding status of Commendations of Valor.

This is what we are tentatively moving to for the next Lamannia preview (which is decided days ahead of time, so the conversation is likely to keep moving and Lamannia will be out of date by then):

Heroic True Heart of Wood: Costs 250 Commendations of Valor
Binds to Character on Acquire

This is not what we intend to ship with. However, we need to decide on whether to lower the cost should or change the Commendations to be Bind to Account instead of Character. (Or potentially both, as the exact cost is still under discussion, but for simplicity I'm pretending it's one or the other right now.)

If the Commendations are BtA, we expect that most Commendations will be farmed by level-cap characters and passed to other characters, and that they will be earned much faster than if the Commendations are BtC and earned by lower level characters. We also believe there are legitimate reasons for both choices and why one or the other is better for gameplay or fun, many of which have been expressed by various players recently.

We're of course happy to hear feedback on all aspects of Reincarnation or other upcoming changes, but if you have specific thoughts on whether you'd prefer BtA Commendations or a cheaper price for Heroic True Hearts of Wood, please let us know here in this thread!

i have said this already and many others have as well. i am not running epics on a TR that just wants the past life from a class. i wont have the gear for epics. i wont have the skill to play that class. i want the option to TR at 20 when i am ready. i would be forced to play EN/EH because of all that. lowering the cost of hearts or increasing the earned Comms in sagas wont matter if hearts of wood or Comms to trade in for hearts of wood are BTC. do we really need more "pugs suck" threads?

i understand the purpose of the sagas and why you guys are pushing for it, but for Mike's sake, why does it have to be required to run sagas for hearts of wood? why cant we just do a trade in for them? why does it have to be that difficult? forcing players to run specific content just to reincarnate has not and when it goes Live, will not go over well. 250 Comms figures to ~15 sagas. not quests, but sagas. im going to run 15 epic sagas or some multiple times to get a BTC on acquire heart of wood? no i am not.

if you want to slow the progress of players, than stop with the P2W Ottos boxes, P2WAH, raid timer bypass, etc and make a profit by other means that players want like character bank space, scroll bags, adding content that resembles the highly beloved old Eberron content. make bug fixing a priority, even if it doesn't affect Turbines profits. develop an end game. one of the biggest reasons why me and a lot of other players are not running much in epic levels is because of the horrendous fate point grind forcing us to run off destinies that nerf our characters. along with that, theres basically 2 raids and some quests to farm for loot that can be easily traded for in game or sold on the P2WAH. an end game would slow some players down. a happy player is a happy spending customer.

ill be on the Wayfinder bridge if anybody needs me.

[jonqrandom]

Heroic True Heart of Wood: Costs 250 Commendations of Valor
Binds to Character on Acquire

then a lot more comms need to be dropping. 250 / 17 per saga = 14.7 sagas, so effectively 15, or 150 quests (based on eGH, since people may not have/may not like FR content), unless comms start dropping a lot more, instead of the current ~30 quests for a TR.

a fivefold increase is not ok.

... if you have specific thoughts on whether you'd prefer BtA Commendations or a cheaper price for Heroic True Hearts of Wood, please let us know here in this thread!

this isn't an either/or situation. the means to acquire true hearts were BtA, and another method to prevent them from being trivialised should be used rather than making them BtC. neither should true hearts require five times the effort to acquire that they currently do.

several people have already expressed their desire that commendations of valor will be BtA (and drop from all epic quests), hopefully more will expressed their opinions while i've been typing

[Phrida]

There's active discussion here at Turbine about the binding status of Commendations of Valor.

This is what we are tentatively moving to for the next Lamannia preview (which is decided days ahead of time, so the conversation is likely to keep moving and Lamannia will be out of date by then):

Heroic True Heart of Wood: Costs 250 Commendations of Valor
Binds to Character on Acquire

This is not what we intend to ship with. However, we need to decide on whether to lower the cost should or change the Commendations to be Bind to Account instead of Character. (Or potentially both, as the exact cost is still under discussion, but for simplicity I'm pretending it's one or the other right now.)

If the Commendations are BtA, we expect that most Commendations will be farmed by level-cap characters and passed to other characters, and that they will be earned much faster than if the Commendations are BtC and earned by lower level characters. We also believe there are legitimate reasons for both choices and why one or the other is better for gameplay or fun, many of which have been expressed by various players recently.

We're of course happy to hear feedback on all aspects of Reincarnation or other upcoming changes, but if you have specific thoughts on whether you'd prefer BtA Commendations or a cheaper price for Heroic True Hearts of Wood, please let us know here in this thread!

This is such a bad idea, and tbh, i don't get the concept of deliberately "not getting" the point almost everyone in this thread is trying to make. Saying you are still discussing and hashing out feedback doesn't really translate into actually doing that IMO since nothing seems changed/considered/thoughtful pause