Earning Hearts of Wood - post U20

[Raiderone]

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preview (which is decided days ahead of time, so the conversation is likely to keep moving and Lamannia will be out of date by then):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!

If commendations can be earned before Heroic Level Cap, then BTC COV is reasonable. If you can only earn them or need to run Epic Levels to gain COV's then they must be BTA. The whole purpose of Heroic TR is to TR at lvl 20.
I would leave HOW alone for H-TR and use COV's for Iconic TR and Epic TR.

[Antheal]

This is not what we intend to ship with.

Transparent backpedaling is transparent.

We all know this is exactly what you would have shipped with if your customer base hadn't made it clear that this was unacceptable.

[Thrudh]

There are many great ideas on these forums to improve DDO. However that is not really the main goal of Turbine, it is a business after all so lets talk profits.

There are pushy ways to do business which may compel customers to make purchases but leave a negative impact on them. DDO is heading in that direction. It is really unnecessary as you have here a wonderful system already in place which could practically sell itself and become a much more popular game. Would you rather not have players spending money in excitement for what they are getting then bitterness for what they have to get?

There are many features we have been begging to buy. Monster Manuals, more cosmetics, more storage, reagent bags, races, classes, housing, sex change, quests, RAIDS. These are just a few off the top of my head. If you would sell us what we want you wouldn't have to trick us into buying what we don't.

DDO is one of the most unique and complex games I have played. The character creation system alone is the main draw for many people. Sadly most gamers have never heard of this game. Why do you not (modestly) advertise? Something simple and cheap, marketing yourself as the complex mmo or the most customizable or unique or action based combat. Any of these marketing points would be a big draw for people looking for such a game. Flaunt the strengths DDO has. There is a real niche market there for this type of game and DDO is the only place to find it.

Stimulate the sales of adventure packs;

While Shadowfell Conspiracy is very beautiful with great artwork and voice acting it is sadly not enough.
Most People buy packs for 2 reasons, loot and xp. Both of witch cost you NOTHING to increase. Why don't you?

What makes Adventure packs desirable;

XP and Loot

There is little to say about xp other than it should be increased if you want to make your adventure packs more enticing. If the new packs had something like von3 you would find Eveningstar much less of a ghost town.

Loot and how it affects the sales of adventure packs;

You have utterly destroyed the once brilliant and esteemed random loot system for no apparent reason. Not only is getting the same 4 suffixes a giant step backwards from what we knew and loved, the auction house is flooded with cheap random items that outclass most of the highest level named items. There goes any incentive to buy adventures for loot. Poor XP and meager loot have successfully rendered your new shiny expansion insignificant and undesirable regardless of it's quality.

Revert random loot to how it used to be when MOTU launched. It was perfect. We had a plethora of unique and exciting effects, we had composed weapon affixes, we had clickies. It was fun, but now loot is boring and therefor the game is boring. Everything we loot now is the same; retributive, doublestrike, ghostbane, deadly or accuracy. We have yet to hear any dev comment as to why you would butcher such a core aspect of this game. Revert random loot and scale it to be slightly less powerful then named loot of the same level. You will once again incentivise people to buy adventures for the sexy named loot. That is one of the biggest draws to mmos, I cannot stress that enough. People love named loot in these games.

Regarding the old packs, they were once the endgame epics. People would stay at 20, raid and farm for epic ingredients and all was wonderful. With the increase in level cap, 20 is nothing more than a pit stop. Those once sought after epic named items are nothing more then level 20 suboptimal named loot. Why do we still need to spend a year grinding for these ingredients when we are getting better random loot, regardless of how boring it is? If the old epic items dropped completed (like every other named item) it would add some value to these old packs. Another thing that made those packs attractive is the ability to work towards your reincarnation which is also being removed, further decreasing their value.

Reincarnation

A very tricky feature to quantify. On one hand its current popularity is mainly due to the lack of an endgame, on the other it is ingenious, innovative and unique to DDO. Actually one of the most brilliant features in the genre.

Hearts of wood however remind me of sigils. They were removed because they were a roadblock to player retention. They created a false obstacle in front of players limiting the amount of time they could spend in the game. Hearts are now serving this purpose.

Since the current loot mess has rendered raids quite pointless and the high level quests offering very little, there is nothing else to do at endgame currently which is only exacerbating the importance of reincarnating.
Anything done to make the reincarnation process more difficult is going to limit the amount of time players remain customers.

Instead you have chosen to monetize this feature with a very unpopular saga system. A system designed to sell not only hearts but adventure packs in a very underhanded manner. The community knows this, and the disdain is going to drive even more away. If the above insights about adventure packs were implemented The sales of all adventures would rise and there would be no cause to create such an unpopular system, the players would not hold resentment but respect and elation.

This is absolutely the best post of the decade...

Devs, please please read this.

[gk_zone]

If you insist on using sagas as the primary (only free) way to earn Iconic & Epic Hearts of Wood, this I propose you make the following adjustments to your requirements:

1. Award 3 CoV per quest in a saga for Normal - netting 258 CoV
2. Award 6 CoV per quest in a saga for Hard - netting 516 CoV
3. Award 9 CoV per quest in a saga for Elite - netting 774 CoV
4. Award 12 CoV per quest in a saga for True Elite - netting 1032 CoV
5. Reduce the cost to acquire a Heroic Heart of Wood to 250 CoV
6. Reduce the cost to acquire a Iconic & Epic Heart of Wood to 1000 CoV

The benefits of this system would allow those who are capable of running the content on EE to acquire enough CoV on 1 complete EE saga run. This is enough, IMO, to earn the right to an Iconic/Epic TR.

This would also allow those who prefer EH to earn enough CoV in 2 full runs of the saga content. Those who chose to run it on EN would have to complete 4 full runs to earn the CoV.

The breakdown on the CoV earned per saga would be as follows:

Normal (258 CoV):
The End of Eberron - 11 quests - 33 CoV
Menace of the Underdark - 13 quests - 39 CoV
The Chosen of Mystra - 11 quests - 33 CoV
Perils of Cormyr - 25 quests - 75 CoV
Gianthold - 10 quests - 30 CoV
Honor of the Huntsilver - 16 quests - 48 CoV

Hard (516 CoV):
The End of Eberron - 11 quests - 66 CoV
Menace of the Underdark - 13 quests - 78 CoV
The Chosen of Mystra - 11 quests - 66 CoV
Perils of Cormyr - 25 quests - 150 CoV
Gianthold - 10 quests - 60 CoV
Honor of the Huntsilver - 16 quests - 96 CoV

Elite (774 CoV):
The End of Eberron - 11 quests - 99 CoV
Menace of the Underdark - 13 quests - 117 CoV
The Chosen of Mystra - 11 quests - 99 CoV
Perils of Cormyr - 25 quests - 225 CoV
Gianthold - 10 quests - 90 CoV
Honor of the Huntsilver - 16 quests - 144 CoV

True Elite (1032 CoV):
The End of Eberron - 11 quests - 132 CoV
Menace of the Underdark - 13 quests - 156 CoV
The Chosen of Mystra - 11 quests - 132 CoV
Perils of Cormyr - 25 quests - 300 CoV
Gianthold - 10 quests - 120 CoV
Honor of the Huntsilver - 16 quests - 192 CoV

For those who don't wish to run all of the sagas to acquire a heroic heart of wood can run The End of Eberron and Menace of the Underdark saga either 1 time for True Elite (288 CoV), 2 times for Hard (288 CoV), 4 times on Normal (288 CoV), or alternatively 1 time for Normal & 1 time for Elite (288 CoV).

[Havok.cry]

Dear Devs,
Thank you for continuing to communicate with us. Thank you for continuing to attempt to adjust based on feed back.

I, and others, have stated our reasons for wanting the BTA commendations. I don't think I need to repeat that. I would like to address how they are earned instead. It was stated that the earnings should approximate 3 per quest run within a saga. I have some questions that need to be answered about this.

-Why sagas? If there is a good reason for it, please explain. I have stated, but will repeat my argument against using the sagas for this: Each and every saga contains quests that I do not like running. I will not spend my entertainment time doing things that I do not enjoy. For this reason any saga that contains even a single quest that I do not enjoy will never get completed by me. This effectively places the ability to earn commendations of valor out of my reach. It is also not a thing I will compromise on. Now, I realize tokens are not disappearing yet, however they will, so this situation has me concerned. Due to turbine's track record with promising to update systems, claiming that more ways to earn the commendations will be added in the future is not reassuring at all. I need something that actually reassures me in order to keep investing my time and money in this game. Many of us have given you our reasons for our dislike of sagas. Please give us a reason to accept them.

-What other plans are there to gain commendations of valor in the future? I do not think you will actually answer this question, but I have to try. I want to threaten and bluster. I want to convince and cojole. None of those things would help though, I seriously doubt anything would. However, I need this question answered. Sagas are literally not an option for me, so my ability to progress in DDO is dependent far more on this than what you are doing with sagas. With the information I have now, I see no future in DDO for me. I can not base my decisions on information I do not have, so please break the rule of not talking about this kind of thing and help us out.

I realize that you guys are discussing things still, and hopefully that discussion is a never ending continuous process. Please include us more. Some of us have shown you that we understand things by explaining it better than you could, so please let us into the discussion. I realize joining the actual discussion would be a terrible idea, but you could let the community take a far more active role in this than you have.

Here is my suggestion as to how:
1-Make a list of goals you want to achieve with some aspect of the design of your "thingie." I am not talking about the whole big picture, but more like a small portion of it. Example would be, "We want players who grind single quests to run a larger variety of quests." but would not be, "We want to update reincarnation."
2-Give a framework or sandbox that provides the delivery method and structure of how it will be added into the game. An example would be, "We want to tie this in to the earning of reincarnation hearts."
3-Clearly state any restrictions that need to be followed. An example would be, "It should take 20-30 hours of game play to earn a reincarnation heart"
4-Post on any and all media outlets about a contest to submit ideas for this. Make sure to include your own forums and game launcher in those media outlets.
5-Gather the results and discuss them as to how you want to implement your goal.
6-Create further contests for other aspects of the result you want to see.

[Thrudh]

What.. on...earth..

If you aren't expecting that number, why has it persisted on the test server for *days* despite this outrage against it? :/
You pulled a number out of somewhere, and it's wrong. The player-base calls for it to be changed. Show us a new number please?

If you want 3 Commendations per quest - AWARD US 3 COMMENDATIONS AT THE END OF EACH QUEST >.> The answer is right there.
Now how many quests per Heart? Let's say 25.
And Boom.
75 Comms for a Heart. I've done the math for you? Tweak as needed

Just award the Comms only once per day per quest (Say, tie it into the 20% daily exp bonus?) - and there you have the quest diversity that you claim is the key part of this..?

Heh, that does seem a lot more simple, doesn't it?

3 comms per quest, only once per day per quest, so people can't just farm the fastest quest 25 times...

Maybe 1 comm per EN quest, 2 comm per EH, 3 comm per EE

[Qhualor]

This is absolutely the best post of the decade...

Devs, please please read this.

I do agree with that post 100%, but it is what we have been saying for a long time and somebody on that long Turbine ladder is not agreeing with this and getting the picture for some reason. the simplest of solutions are right under their noses.

[OzDrew]

There are many great ideas on these forums to improve DDO. However that is not really the main goal of Turbine, it is a business after all so lets talk profits.

There are pushy ways to do business which may compel customers to make purchases but leave a negative impact on them. DDO is heading in that direction. It is really unnecessary as you have here a wonderful system already in place which could practically sell itself and become a much more popular game. Would you rather not have players spending money in excitement for what they are getting then bitterness for what they have to get?

There are many features we have been begging to buy. Monster Manuals, more cosmetics, more storage, reagent bags, races, classes, housing, sex change, quests, RAIDS. These are just a few off the top of my head. If you would sell us what we want you wouldn't have to trick us into buying what we don't.

DDO is one of the most unique and complex games I have played. The character creation system alone is the main draw for many people. Sadly most gamers have never heard of this game. Why do you not (modestly) advertise? Something simple and cheap, marketing yourself as the complex mmo or the most customizable or unique or action based combat. Any of these marketing points would be a big draw for people looking for such a game. Flaunt the strengths DDO has. There is a real niche market there for this type of game and DDO is the only place to find it.

Stimulate the sales of adventure packs;

While Shadowfell Conspiracy is very beautiful with great artwork and voice acting it is sadly not enough.
Most People buy packs for 2 reasons, loot and xp. Both of witch cost you NOTHING to increase. Why don't you?

What makes Adventure packs desirable;

XP and Loot

There is little to say about xp other than it should be increased if you want to make your adventure packs more enticing. If the new packs had something like von3 you would find Eveningstar much less of a ghost town.

Loot and how it affects the sales of adventure packs;

You have utterly destroyed the once brilliant and esteemed random loot system for no apparent reason. Not only is getting the same 4 suffixes a giant step backwards from what we knew and loved, the auction house is flooded with cheap random items that outclass most of the highest level named items. There goes any incentive to buy adventures for loot. Poor XP and meager loot have successfully rendered your new shiny expansion insignificant and undesirable regardless of it's quality.

Revert random loot to how it used to be when MOTU launched. It was perfect. We had a plethora of unique and exciting effects, we had composed weapon affixes, we had clickies. It was fun, but now loot is boring and therefor the game is boring. Everything we loot now is the same; retributive, doublestrike, ghostbane, deadly or accuracy. We have yet to hear any dev comment as to why you would butcher such a core aspect of this game. Revert random loot and scale it to be slightly less powerful then named loot of the same level. You will once again incentivise people to buy adventures for the sexy named loot. That is one of the biggest draws to mmos, I cannot stress that enough. People love named loot in these games.

Regarding the old packs, they were once the endgame epics. People would stay at 20, raid and farm for epic ingredients and all was wonderful. With the increase in level cap, 20 is nothing more than a pit stop. Those once sought after epic named items are nothing more then level 20 suboptimal named loot. Why do we still need to spend a year grinding for these ingredients when we are getting better random loot, regardless of how boring it is? If the old epic items dropped completed (like every other named item) it would add some value to these old packs. Another thing that made those packs attractive is the ability to work towards your reincarnation which is also being removed, further decreasing their value.

Reincarnation

A very tricky feature to quantify. On one hand its current popularity is mainly due to the lack of an endgame, on the other it is ingenious, innovative and unique to DDO. Actually one of the most brilliant features in the genre.

Hearts of wood however remind me of sigils. They were removed because they were a roadblock to player retention. They created a false obstacle in front of players limiting the amount of time they could spend in the game. Hearts are now serving this purpose.

Since the current loot mess has rendered raids quite pointless and the high level quests offering very little, there is nothing else to do at endgame currently which is only exacerbating the importance of reincarnating.
Anything done to make the reincarnation process more difficult is going to limit the amount of time players remain customers.

Instead you have chosen to monetize this feature with a very unpopular saga system. A system designed to sell not only hearts but adventure packs in a very underhanded manner. The community knows this, and the disdain is going to drive even more away. If the above insights about adventure packs were implemented The sales of all adventures would rise and there would be no cause to create such an unpopular system, the players would not hold resentment but respect and elation.

This!

[Havok.cry]

What.. on...earth..

If you aren't expecting that number, why has it persisted on the test server for *days* despite this outrage against it? :/
You pulled a number out of somewhere, and it's wrong. The player-base calls for it to be changed. Show us a new number please?

If you want 3 Commendations per quest - AWARD US 3 COMMENDATIONS AT THE END OF EACH QUEST >.> The answer is right there.
Now how many quests per Heart? Let's say 25.
And Boom.
75 Comms for a Heart. I've done the math for you? Tweak as needed

Just award the Comms only once per day per quest (Say, tie it into the 20% daily exp bonus?) - and there you have the quest diversity that you claim is the key part of this..?

I agree with this 100%

[oradafu]

Just award the Comms only once per day per quest (Say, tie it into the 20% daily exp bonus?) - and there you have the quest diversity that you claim is the key part of this..?

I mentioned this last night. And I pointed out that they already have the mechanism to do it, since it was created with the new Mabar Signet.

[DownGrayeDD]

Instead of offering the commendations as part of the saga end reward list I think they should be something that is just given upon completion of a saga along with the reward list. As others have stated making it part of the reward list for most people will not really be a reward or bonus as they would be forced to take it in order to progress. Also instead of thinking up ways to make the playerbase unhappy enough to pay money(like trying bar off all progress) you could instead find ways to make the new content appealing(like making gear that is cool, interesting, and **Unique**).

[Drwaz99]

There are many great ideas on these forums to improve DDO. However that is not really the main goal of Turbine, it is a business after all so lets talk profits.

There are pushy ways to do business which may compel customers to make purchases but leave a negative impact on them. DDO is heading in that direction. It is really unnecessary as you have here a wonderful system already in place which could practically sell itself and become a much more popular game. Would you rather not have players spending money in excitement for what they are getting then bitterness for what they have to get?

There are many features we have been begging to buy. Monster Manuals, more cosmetics, more storage, reagent bags, races, classes, housing, sex change, quests, RAIDS. These are just a few off the top of my head. If you would sell us what we want you wouldn't have to trick us into buying what we don't.

DDO is one of the most unique and complex games I have played. The character creation system alone is the main draw for many people. Sadly most gamers have never heard of this game. Why do you not (modestly) advertise? Something simple and cheap, marketing yourself as the complex mmo or the most customizable or unique or action based combat. Any of these marketing points would be a big draw for people looking for such a game. Flaunt the strengths DDO has. There is a real niche market there for this type of game and DDO is the only place to find it.

Stimulate the sales of adventure packs;

While Shadowfell Conspiracy is very beautiful with great artwork and voice acting it is sadly not enough.
Most People buy packs for 2 reasons, loot and xp. Both of witch cost you NOTHING to increase. Why don't you?

What makes Adventure packs desirable;

XP and Loot

There is little to say about xp other than it should be increased if you want to make your adventure packs more enticing. If the new packs had something like von3 you would find Eveningstar much less of a ghost town.

Loot and how it affects the sales of adventure packs;

You have utterly destroyed the once brilliant and esteemed random loot system for no apparent reason. Not only is getting the same 4 suffixes a giant step backwards from what we knew and loved, the auction house is flooded with cheap random items that outclass most of the highest level named items. There goes any incentive to buy adventures for loot. Poor XP and meager loot have successfully rendered your new shiny expansion insignificant and undesirable regardless of it's quality.

Revert random loot to how it used to be when MOTU launched. It was perfect. We had a plethora of unique and exciting effects, we had composed weapon affixes, we had clickies. It was fun, but now loot is boring and therefor the game is boring. Everything we loot now is the same; retributive, doublestrike, ghostbane, deadly or accuracy. We have yet to hear any dev comment as to why you would butcher such a core aspect of this game. Revert random loot and scale it to be slightly less powerful then named loot of the same level. You will once again incentivise people to buy adventures for the sexy named loot. That is one of the biggest draws to mmos, I cannot stress that enough. People love named loot in these games.

Regarding the old packs, they were once the endgame epics. People would stay at 20, raid and farm for epic ingredients and all was wonderful. With the increase in level cap, 20 is nothing more than a pit stop. Those once sought after epic named items are nothing more then level 20 suboptimal named loot. Why do we still need to spend a year grinding for these ingredients when we are getting better random loot, regardless of how boring it is? If the old epic items dropped completed (like every other named item) it would add some value to these old packs. Another thing that made those packs attractive is the ability to work towards your reincarnation which is also being removed, further decreasing their value.

Reincarnation

A very tricky feature to quantify. On one hand its current popularity is mainly due to the lack of an endgame, on the other it is ingenious, innovative and unique to DDO. Actually one of the most brilliant features in the genre.

Hearts of wood however remind me of sigils. They were removed because they were a roadblock to player retention. They created a false obstacle in front of players limiting the amount of time they could spend in the game. Hearts are now serving this purpose.

Since the current loot mess has rendered raids quite pointless and the high level quests offering very little, there is nothing else to do at endgame currently which is only exacerbating the importance of reincarnating.
Anything done to make the reincarnation process more difficult is going to limit the amount of time players remain customers.

Instead you have chosen to monetize this feature with a very unpopular saga system. A system designed to sell not only hearts but adventure packs in a very underhanded manner. The community knows this, and the disdain is going to drive even more away. If the above insights about adventure packs were implemented The sales of all adventures would rise and there would be no cause to create such an unpopular system, the players would not hold resentment but respect and elation.

Yeah, this really needs it's own thread. It would be a pity for something this brilliant to get buried in this thread.

I would love to see this thinking applied to U20 but it would require a much needed "cultural" change at Turbine. Unfortunately, that would also require a systemic change within Turbine's branch of DDO. And I'm not quite sure they are ready for that.

[oradafu]

There are many great ideas on these forums to improve DDO. However that is not really the main goal of Turbine, it is a business after all so lets talk profits.

There are pushy ways to do business which may compel customers to make purchases but leave a negative impact on them. DDO is heading in that direction. It is really unnecessary as you have here a wonderful system already in place which could practically sell itself and become a much more popular game. Would you rather not have players spending money in excitement for what they are getting then bitterness for what they have to get?

There are many features we have been begging to buy. Monster Manuals, more cosmetics, more storage, reagent bags, races, classes, housing, sex change, quests, RAIDS. These are just a few off the top of my head. If you would sell us what we want you wouldn't have to trick us into buying what we don't.

DDO is one of the most unique and complex games I have played. The character creation system alone is the main draw for many people. Sadly most gamers have never heard of this game. Why do you not (modestly) advertise? Something simple and cheap, marketing yourself as the complex mmo or the most customizable or unique or action based combat. Any of these marketing points would be a big draw for people looking for such a game. Flaunt the strengths DDO has. There is a real niche market there for this type of game and DDO is the only place to find it.

Stimulate the sales of adventure packs;

While Shadowfell Conspiracy is very beautiful with great artwork and voice acting it is sadly not enough.
Most People buy packs for 2 reasons, loot and xp. Both of witch cost you NOTHING to increase. Why don't you?

What makes Adventure packs desirable;

XP and Loot

There is little to say about xp other than it should be increased if you want to make your adventure packs more enticing. If the new packs had something like von3 you would find Eveningstar much less of a ghost town.

Loot and how it affects the sales of adventure packs;

You have utterly destroyed the once brilliant and esteemed random loot system for no apparent reason. Not only is getting the same 4 suffixes a giant step backwards from what we knew and loved, the auction house is flooded with cheap random items that outclass most of the highest level named items. There goes any incentive to buy adventures for loot. Poor XP and meager loot have successfully rendered your new shiny expansion insignificant and undesirable regardless of it's quality.

Revert random loot to how it used to be when MOTU launched. It was perfect. We had a plethora of unique and exciting effects, we had composed weapon affixes, we had clickies. It was fun, but now loot is boring and therefor the game is boring. Everything we loot now is the same; retributive, doublestrike, ghostbane, deadly or accuracy. We have yet to hear any dev comment as to why you would butcher such a core aspect of this game. Revert random loot and scale it to be slightly less powerful then named loot of the same level. You will once again incentivise people to buy adventures for the sexy named loot. That is one of the biggest draws to mmos, I cannot stress that enough. People love named loot in these games.

Regarding the old packs, they were once the endgame epics. People would stay at 20, raid and farm for epic ingredients and all was wonderful. With the increase in level cap, 20 is nothing more than a pit stop. Those once sought after epic named items are nothing more then level 20 suboptimal named loot. Why do we still need to spend a year grinding for these ingredients when we are getting better random loot, regardless of how boring it is? If the old epic items dropped completed (like every other named item) it would add some value to these old packs. Another thing that made those packs attractive is the ability to work towards your reincarnation which is also being removed, further decreasing their value.

Reincarnation

A very tricky feature to quantify. On one hand its current popularity is mainly due to the lack of an endgame, on the other it is ingenious, innovative and unique to DDO. Actually one of the most brilliant features in the genre.

Hearts of wood however remind me of sigils. They were removed because they were a roadblock to player retention. They created a false obstacle in front of players limiting the amount of time they could spend in the game. Hearts are now serving this purpose.

Since the current loot mess has rendered raids quite pointless and the high level quests offering very little, there is nothing else to do at endgame currently which is only exacerbating the importance of reincarnating.
Anything done to make the reincarnation process more difficult is going to limit the amount of time players remain customers.

Instead you have chosen to monetize this feature with a very unpopular saga system. A system designed to sell not only hearts but adventure packs in a very underhanded manner. The community knows this, and the disdain is going to drive even more away. If the above insights about adventure packs were implemented The sales of all adventures would rise and there would be no cause to create such an unpopular system, the players would not hold resentment but respect and elation.

Yeah, this really needs it's own thread. It would be a pity for something this brilliant to get buried in this thread.

I would love to see this thinking applied to U20 but it would require a much needed "cultural" change at Turbine. Unfortunately, that would also require a systemic change within Turbine's branch of DDO. And I'm not quite sure they are ready for that.

I agree that the Devs need to read this and use this as a blueprint. I doubt it will happen since Faydingsun has basically wrote in one post what players have been saying repeatedly over and over for more than a year. But the Devs are deaf. Even now after the second or third time in the last year that a mass sub cancellation has happened, you can tell that they HEAR us, but they still aren't LISTENING to us.

And I agree that the changes need to be applied for Update 20. And they need to be retroactive. The Shadowfell "expansion" needs to be overhauled because it is such a poor product for its price. Additionally, with the future removal of Epic Tokens, the House C Challenges need an overhaul also in both worthwhile loot to replace the removal of the only useful item in the pack, but also level and gear upgrades, along with Epic mats trade-ins for the Epic gear.

[Aletys]

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.

While I appreciate that you are communicating better, you still clearly do not get it. Many of us DON'T LIKE THE SAGAS!!! We don't want to be forced to run them just because some dev thinks it's a nifty idea.

Sagas have too many quests that are not fun to run. Perhaps rather than forcing us to play quests that we hate to run, you should use one of the other methods suggested by players. Let us run the stuff we want to run, rather than trying to force us to run stuff we don't like. Not everyone is going to like the same things, so give us some options. And if people are not running some quests, perhaps that should tell the devs that they have done something wrong. The solution to that is not to force players to play quests they don't like, but to fix the problems. A lot of the new content is frankly not very interesting, the loot is often not very good, and some of the quests are a miserable grind. Perhaps if some of those quests that are not getting played had better loot, and were not so miserable, people might actually run them more often.

Further, the sagas appear to require that you purchase paks in order to run them. For people on a budget, that is a problem. So while they might buy one or two, grinding those repetitively is going to get old really fast.

My suggestions are as follows:

1. Eliminate the saga requirement. They were originally introduced as something "extra" to add something to the game, but now you're making them mandatory. If quests are so bad that you need to force players to play them, then you're doing something very wrong.

2. If you are determined to use commendations instead of tokens of the twelve for getting TR hearts, then don't tie them to sagas. Have them drop from chests & end rewards. That will allow players to play what they like, not force them to run stuff they don't want to play. And if players want to run one or two quests repeatedly to get their commendations, let them. Just because that's not your "vision", that doesn't make it invalid. Some quests are simply easier/less painful to run than others. If all I'm aiming for is a heart so I can TR, why force me to play other stuff I'm not interested in?

3. Make the commendations BtA, rather than BtC. Tokens are BtA, why should commendations be different? I personally am getting very tired of the amount of BtC stuff I'm seeing, as it means endless grinding for every toon and creates inventory issues. Further, most of the folks I play with don't want to run the epic stuff. They have maybe one toon (if any) that they keep at an epic level, but TR the rest when they hit 20, or shortly after, once they have enough tokens.

4. Give players who have earned Tokens of the Twelve a mechanism to exchange their existing tokens for an equivalent no. of commendations (20 tokens currently for a heart, so simply ratio it). That way players won't feel gypped that they've worked hard for a bunch of tokens to buy hearts with, and now they won't be able use them for that. Sure, we can use them for augments, but frankly, that's not why most of us are earning them. We have other ways to get augments.

5. Instead of spending all this effort on something your player base almost universally hates, spend some time fixing the serious bugs in the game, and put this new stuff to the side untill the bugs are actually fixed. Just one example: Right now the Arcane Archer capstone is completely broken. It's been well documented (both on the forums & through bug reports). If you take it, you lose your arrow imbues. I had to reset everything so as to remove it, since it made my AA completely useless in a fight. And, oh, the AA bow enhancements are completely broken as well. Both have been broken since U18 came out. Shouldn't stuff like that get fixed before you start playing with new systems? We're coming up on Update 20 and it's still not fixed? In my world, people would be fired for that type of nonsense.

6. Since none of the devs seem to have a clue as to why the player base is so upset, I'd like to suggest that you have a few devs run the sagas the way a player would have to, sufficient sagas to get a TR heart. Then make the devs repeat that exercise 5 or 6 times (pretty typical no. of active toons for many players), and see what it's like to have to play what you're proposing. And, they should not do it in a development environment where they can take shortcuts, but in an actual live game where they have to grind through the sagas repetitively just as real players would have to. You might find out why we're so upset.

Finally, it is very clear from your comments that the Turbine devs are bound and determined to ram this change down players throats. That is not only wrong, but very poor business. Remember the idea of making customers happy? Your players are your customers. Businesses that alienate their customers tend not to last very long.

If I have to run sagas on every single toon, just to TR, I'm going to very quickly want to throw my monitor at someone. Which means I won't be playing DDO anymore once my existing TR hearts run out. I had planned to shift to an annual VIP from my quarterly VIP at the next renewal, but, well, that won't be happening now, as I plan to leave my options open. Frankly you have generated a lot of ill will and distrust among your player base, and it will take a lot to make up for that.

[Eistander]

Some good stuff stemming from the players, but the point that stands out to me the most is that the apparent majority which Turbine is apparently trying to slow down the powergamers for (hey, they called them out specifically for *going too quick* on the grind.. how dare they!), will only harm the more casual playerbase which seems to be what Turbine is pining for.. however, with only 2 epic chains remotely within a realistic grasp for a fresh group of level 20s, whom may or may not be on the proverbial TR train, probably won't have the means nor the gear, much less possible the Epic Destinies it requires to hammer through something like Epic Elite.. which is probably will be the likeliest case, as evidenced by the whole Bravery Bonus thing we have going on..

I will totally admit I might be reading too much into this, however this change does nothing but stall people artificially all the while promoting how convenient the store option really is. Calling a spade a spade seems a waste, so chalk up to it what you will. I think this will only hurt the more casual players who don't have the skills/whatever for the more challenging Epics in the Sagas at higher difficulties, especially without at least some 20 base epic gear. BTA or not.

Now lets see if we can get more information on this new Sagas-only system from those who are making it, once they figure it out. Either way I suppose.

[Satyriasys]

[nevermind]

[ZzpxpzZ]

I just wanted to weigh in with my thoughts so far on this issue.

First off, just so you can see where I am coming from, I typically buy my hearts so this whole fiasco wouldn't be a game breaker for me per se, (although since most of my friends would be affected if they start leaving I surely wont stay.) however there are a few things here that I have opinions on and find quite interesting.

First off, I understand the reasoning behind some of the goals that turbine has been pursuing that are not one everyone is accusing you of. Many of the recent design decisions that people are freaking out and saying that you are doing the exclusively to force people to spend more money and whatnot are on specific track of progress that people are often overlooking and disregarding other related changes that don't negatively affect people - the goal of having payers play most or all the quests rather than the few best.

This has clearly been a design goal since bravery bonus came along quite a while ago. I can say that I strongly support that design decision despite some opposition from it on the forums and some of my friends agree with me and some prefer to farm specific quests. It is my opinion that even for those who prefer to farm this is a good goal to strive towards because I know, through lots of experience, that some play styles that even the players themselves choose, can negatively impact the long term experience of the player. In other MMOs, ones without TR, I am known for blasting extremely quickly to max level, farming whatever the most idea loot source that is available some obscene amount of times, and then burning out on the game. The fact is, many players will choose such routes because they are the most rewarding style of gameplay as far as advancement goes, and its a reality that that is important to people. Basically, I support your efforts in trying to drive people to playing more content rather than just a few best quests.

That said, some things recently have not been done as well as they could and are compounding now to become a very severe issue:

Recent quests are fun - once. Many aspects of the most recent quests are designed in such a way that they are thrilling and exciting the first time it occurs but have strong elements of tedium that really reveal themselves as you run them multiple times - problems like linearity, or ridiculous amounts of enemies (it used to be that it was a pretty intense quest if you ended up killing more than 150 enemies in the quest - with only a very few outliers like coalescence chamber. Recent quests however seem to throw pathetic monsters at you in droves and even medium quests are easily breaking 200+ monsters. This is interesting when its new but quickly becomes very boring and frustrating.)

The sagas are too long and too varied. Not everyone likes every bit of content, but the sagas currently in the game are so long that inevitably people end up playing the stuff they really like as well as the stuff they hate. The gianthold saga is pure gold, its a fun pack, a cohesive saga that rewards you for playing all of it rather than just the most farmable quests, and is a nice added bonus at the times you complete it. It is what sagas should be. Not only it that people do not like to have to be forced into running every bit of content, but also, while people are willing to work towards eventual payoffs, when the payoffs are too long in coming people expect them to be a lot larger regardless of whether they merit it.

A couple things that really should be done are these:

Reduce the size of sagas, make them closer to 10 quests long, 15 for a long one, of course adjust rewards accordingly as necessary.

Add sagas, particularly for older content. New sagas on old content would be an easy way to add excitement to running old quests and doesn't even entail adding any more content.

Improve experience in the new content so that it is actually worth running on its own merit rather than just because it is part of one of the very few sagas.

Reconsider what sort of challenges are the best for future content. I feel like it has already been well established by Kobold Assault and that other one in the marketplace what the population feels about quests that are only about zergs of trash mobs. It isn't that they have no place, but they should be the minority, not the majority.

Either add enough sagas that at least every epic content in the game has a saga associated, or don't consider adjustments to the tokens of the twelve content at all. It isn't necessary anyway, there are two new types of hearts that players will need from saga currency anyway, so the old hearts at least don't need a new way to obtain then, certainly they don't need to lose their old way anyway.

And just as another nice little addition - raid sagas, throw in some sagas that include clearing raids. If sagas don't already check for whether you were eligible for experience when you completed them, they probably should since it seems that it is likely against your design goals to have high level players farming low level sagas for rewards. If that is the case, you could have some sagas for the raids themselves, like a bonus reward (possibly with a chance at a random named item drawn from the raids in question) maybe for sets like VON, ADQ, Reavers Fate; Shroud, Abbot, ToD; and the epic raids.

[Systern]

Turbine-
From what I am reading in this thread I see a lot of back and forth between us but the debate is really going nowhere. We want a good game and you want profits. There is nothing wrong with that but instead of trying to convince us you are somehow doing this for our own good just admit your true goal. I see a lot of frustrated players trying to explain just how bad an idea sagas are and wondering why you don't get it.
the truth is you do get it you just don't care. You have your own agenda, but you're going to have to come clean about it. So it's just about money, that's fine lets talk about that then and not this smoke and mirrors you are trying to sell us on.

It's no surprise the quests strategically chosen for sagas are required purchases for premiums and VIPS alike. It's no mystery why you snuck a Druids Deep quest in a "saga" where it has no business being. Someone got an idea of packaging your stagnant content into sagas and make it a required purchase for TRs. That person must not be very knowledgeable about this game and should probably be fired.
I get it, you don't want to talk about your sales strategy with a bunch of gamers, but you're getting to the point where you're going to have to or stop communicating with us altogether.
Just stop lying to our face about what your goals are, it's embarrassing. I want Turbine to be successful too, the day when DDO shuts down will be a very sad one.

By going forward with the saga requirement you are affectively removing the in-game means to acquire hearts. That seems to be the case since you refuse to give us a realistic number.
If you're going to insist on the saga requirement then you'll have to make a concession, like reducing the cost of hearts on the store. If hearts cost 500 points I would never bother with sagas and would always buy them on the store. Currently, you're forcing me into a position where the grind is too much and the store is too expensive so what are my options other then leave your game?

Just wanted to also throw in that the mixed message recieved leads to the conclusion they're coercing more heart sales.

Increase the grind required to get one.
Yet they're lowering all TR timers to 3 days.

[EllisDee37]

I remember 4 days ago how excited I was for U20. All that excitement...Turbined.

[Havok.cry]

Here is a suggestion, if you are going to insist on the sagas:
Make a "mercenary contractor" that lets the player plug in any X# of different quest completions (none can be the same quest) to get a saga reward. It could be called the Saga of We Don't Care What You Run as Long as You Make Us Money" I imagine it alone would solve all complaints about the saga system. I would wager it would be the most run saga in the game bar none. But I bet you would never do it as it does not allow you to make decisions for us.