Earning Hearts of Wood - post U20

[era42]

Suggestion. If you're aiming at 3 valor tokens / quest, just reward most of them for the quest completion. Give 2 for quest completion, push the 1 to saga rewards (for non-saga quests, tough, but even with reduced rate, they'd still give some). Maybe limit this to 1/day/quest to prevent the rusted-blades issue.

Then you'd have to pick whether you want to put them to chests where they are tradeable, or if you just need to implement a new way of rewarding them. I suggest just rewarding them when quest completes, similar to getting fragments of twelve from kills.

[oradafu]

perhaps we should have seen the writing on the wall when Turbine changed the name from Epic Tokens/Token Fragments to Tokens (Fragments) of the Twelve.

What I really want to know is why the change in the first place? Why not spread the system to the FR content as well, especially now? MY guess is that it came down form WotC that the name had to change because Turbine proposed using the old Epic Tokens to upgrade your Voice of the Master and Mantle of the Worldshaper to the new color Augment that combines the two. And since those two items are found via Eberron content, WotC would not allow those items to be upgraded via running FR content. (Same reason why we can't have airships in the FR or really teleport directly between the two worlds.)

All that being said, not only is it stupid, it is just plain bad form and unduly punitive. If the system off the Old Epic Tokens and Fragments had been or were to be expanded to FR content and all the rest of the Epic Content, then the old system for turing in Tokens for Hearts could be kept in place with a super slight modification.

It sounds like that the Hearts were to easy to acquire via token. Ok if you take that at face value and accept it (and it is probably true) then simply increase the amount of tokens needed. BUT this increase would only work and be accepted by the players would be by increasing the number of quests where you could fragments and tokens, ie all epic content.

Now if the Name was still Epic Tokens and Epic Token Fragments, then we can do this. But, since they Changed the Name to Tokens of the Twelve, WotC would not allow them to drop in the FR.

So this begs the question again, why the heck was the name changed in the first place? If it is because of the new Color Augment from the VoM and MotWS upgrade, then the easy fix would be to give the players more meaningful uses to spend these tokens on Oh wait, if they expanded the Token system to include Iconic and Epic Reincarnation, and increased the costs for Heroic Hearts slightly, then everything would make sense, be in balance and no one would be up in arms.

Crazy conspiracy theory.

Especially since the Epic Token name change happened during the MOTU expansion. The reason that the Devs gave for not allowing Epic Tokens in MOTU was because the Comms and Epic Tokens couldn't drop in the same chests, which pretty much hints that they share the same loot slot.

[Iriale]

Well, a new day on the bridge.
The new numbers (average of 3 comms per quest, price of 250 comms per heart) are better than the old, but as others have repeatedly pointed out, that's peanuts compared to the real issues.
Let's list them again for clarity.

*BTA vs BTC. This needs to go NOW. BTA is the only valid option.

*The link to sagas. This also needs to go. Coms need to drop from all level 20+ end chests. The reasons for this also have been explained.

Untill then, you can find me on the bridge.

Greetz,
Red Orm

This!!!

Devs, don't kill the game...

[ReaperAlexEU]

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.

yup, a very well written post that neatly sums up how we want to give turbine money. not because we have to but because we want to. it's such a fundamental part of keeping customers happy. if the business side of the company held that close to their heart then i'd be willing to bet on DDO's future that profits would rise, and i've already lost my home server to the european shutdown.

[Iriale]

This is an amazing first post and should be the blueprint for Turbine for guaranteed! success.

What you are trying to implement with your saga approach sadly reminds me of a very bad street drug seller, who has never heard that the first dosage should be free.
Let the players get cheap on the reincarnation path, once they are on the train, they will stay and want more.
Never ever try to make the beginning an obstacle.

I repeat:
It's counterproductive to raise the cost (be it by TP costs, by time to grind, by pain to run unwanted quests)
fewer people will reincarnate, the playerbase will shrink, your profit will shrink.
Every reincarnation increases greatly the duration a player will stay in DDO and
raises the chance for selling goodies like XP boosts.

True, very very true...

[jonqrandom]

I am far more likely to just delete the problem toon and start again rather than pony up for a Druidic Heart in the store.

this has been said a few times now, and turbine - this will impact your sales of tomes. XP tomes, stat tomes, skill tomes. once upon a time they didn't persist through TRs, true, but now they do, and if someone won't TR a toon, why would they spend money on a tome or tomes that they'll just throw away?

[sir_smacks_alot]

Why do i need to run specific quests to get the heart of wood that i need to reincarnate? I don't know if anyone else has suggested anything similar, but why not just make whatever currency you need for a heart of wood be it tokens, commendations, or whatever you want to call it available in ALL epic quests. Let us run any epic content that we enjoy running and gain whatever currency we need for a heart of wood.

I personally see no reason to tie it to any specific quests at all. Put the currency we need for hearts of wood in all epics. Allow us to gain that currency the way that we enjoy.

[Satyriasys]

Why do i need to run specific quests to get the heart of wood that i need to reincarnate? I don't know if anyone else has suggested anything similar, but why not just make whatever currency you need for a heart of wood be it tokens, commendations, or whatever you want to call it available in ALL epic quests. Let us run any epic content that we enjoy running and gain whatever currency we need for a heart of wood.

I personally see no reason to tie it to any specific quests at all. Put the currency we need for hearts of wood in all epics. Allow us to gain that currency the way that we enjoy.

They seem determined to link TR to sagas to sell off more adventure packs. They want people who TR to break out their credit cards and get all the FR content.

[voodoogroves]

EE:s, very few. But, Guesstimated 15 minutes from partying EH sagas. One set of guildbuffs is enough for a fast completion of one chain of CitW flagging quests, but that means no tarrying. Many quests are more on the 30-45min range for sure, so the 15 minutes was an optimistic estimate. And even at that optimistic number, we end up with 42 hours of fast-grind for epic heart. That's 3 weeks of 2hours/day of superfast quest-running in quests you don't get to pick. Sounds like a chore instead of fun-time.

And yes, I aimed for minimum completion values, as an effort to compare to the minimum times to get twelve tokens currently. I should have been more clear about that.



I agree. I wasn't trying to get a complete solution, just throwing some napkin math at a part of the puzzle.

And, of course, you have to get everyone at the same spot in that pretty linear quest line. No doing Spinner unless everyone has done Lords/Servants ... and Shindlerthing deserves special mention because once you do the quests, you have to recall back out to get The Portal Opens.

[Deadlock]

Crazy conspiracy theory.

Especially since the Epic Token name change happened during the MOTU expansion. The reason that the Devs gave for not allowing Epic Tokens in MOTU was because the Comms and Epic Tokens couldn't drop in the same chests, which pretty much hints that they share the same loot slot.

Which begs the question why we don't have the option to exchange Eveningstar commendations for Tokens of the Twelve, or going forward, why we can't convert them into these new Commendations of Valor.

As a model going forward, I could work around:
1. Specialised commendations for specific types of rewards/packs
2. Ability to convert specialised commendations into generic commendations of valor
3. Ability to convert generic commendations of valor into specialised commendations

So by doing all 3 steps you could convert between specialised commendations with some element of wastage built into the process. But you have flexibility going forward to choose the commendation currency and a fixed "base" commendation currency. This way, anything I earn retains some potential value instead of just being junk that sits in a slot in an ingredients bag that you don't care about any more .... like any Eveningstar commendation is for me now.

[voodoogroves]

They seem determined to link TR to sagas to sell off more adventure packs. They want people who TR to break out their credit cards and get all the FR content.

And, for disclosure, I own all the content - the good, the bad and the sucky.

I definitely don't like this because while I own it, at least today I feel like I have a choice on the path I take. I don't with these hard tied to epic Sagas and BTC.

[oradafu]

Why do i need to run specific quests to get the heart of wood that i need to reincarnate? I don't know if anyone else has suggested anything similar, but why not just make whatever currency you need for a heart of wood be it tokens, commendations, or whatever you want to call it available in ALL epic quests. Let us run any epic content that we enjoy running and gain whatever currency we need for a heart of wood.

I personally see no reason to tie it to any specific quests at all. Put the currency we need for hearts of wood in all epics. Allow us to gain that currency the way that we enjoy.

Yup. It's been brought up.

Not only in this thread, but it was brought up back when MOTU came out that the Devs decided that Epic Tokens should no longer drop in all future Epic content.

[Ausdoerrt]

EE:s, very few. But, Guesstimated 15 minutes from partying EH sagas. One set of guildbuffs is enough for a fast completion of one chain of CitW flagging quests, but that means no tarrying. Many quests are more on the 30-45min range for sure, so the 15 minutes was an optimistic estimate. And even at that optimistic number, we end up with 42 hours of fast-grind for epic heart. That's 3 weeks of 2hours/day of superfast quest-running in quests you don't get to pick. Sounds like a chore instead of fun-time.

I see, I was going more off GH quests since I know them better, and very few can be done in that time, net to none if you include commute time.

And once again, I encourage the devs to balance not around zerg completions (min/maxed build, max epic loot, level 100 guild buffs, quickest roots already memorized) but around average completion time, weighted average if need be. You balance around the zergers, you alienate 99% of the player base.

[oradafu]

Which begs the question why we don't have the option to exchange Eveningstar commendations for Tokens of the Twelve, or going forward, why we can't convert them into these new Commendations of Valor.

As a model going forward, I could work around:
1. Specialised commendations for specific types of rewards/packs
2. Ability to convert specialised commendations into generic commendations of valor
3. Ability to convert generic commendations of valor into specialised commendations

So by doing all 3 steps you could convert between specialised commendations with some element of wastage built into the process. But you have flexibility going forward to choose the commendation currency and a fixed "base" commendation currency. This way, anything I earn retains some potential value instead of just being junk that sits in a slot in an ingredients bag that you don't care about any more .... like any Eveningstar commendation is for me now.

I never understood the fetish that the Devs have on making more and more mats, instead of building on the existing mats.

If the fear was that some/all players had "too many" of the existing mats, all the Devs had to do was add a single new mat or shard. Instead, they just kept adding more mats each update ranging from 5 mats to 35 mats per update.

Not to mention that the mats are haphazardly tradable/bta/btc with little rhyme or reason, except for Shroud mats.

It makes no sense, especially since everyone complains about the mini-commodities game that players have with their bags. No one likes it, but it's the one thing that we can always count on from the Devs adding each update.

[BDog77]

Well, a couple of people have quoted Thrudh when he said "hearts are too easy to get" and I would too, but I can't go back through all those pages and find it. I have read all of this thread, start to finish, every single post. If you look at my number of posts you see I rarely post, mostly when it is something I care deeply about, like when they nerf Pallys (huh, you would think I would have as many posts as Thrudh by now, and btw, if Devs are still looking at this post, when a Pally dies they STILL lose their healing amp from enhancements, ahem, back to topic), or when they are contemplating a change that I think might either destroy the game (this change) or make it so much better (the enhancement pass). Don't get me wrong, I think this change could potentially start a chain of events that will lead to a single server or less for a legacy game that has nowhere to go. So, why would I want to quote what Thrudh said? I think what he said (and what a couple of other people have said) goes directly to the heart (pun intended) of the matter.

1: Either TRing is endgame, in which case gating it this way seems silly. (And btw, I think right now it is)

2: Or, it not intended to be endgame, in which case gating it this way seems silly. (I think they want epic content to be endgame, but that can't happen until there is a firm cap, DUCY? Which makes TR an intermediate solution until endgame can be established)

Either way, gating it at all seems silly. That's right, I'm suggesting making hearts FREE.

Whoa, slow down there Hoss, you're losing us, free? Sure, why not?

1. They have stated that they want to remove tokens of the twelve completely. They did this by removing (so far) anything else worth getting (which, btw, is a HUGE part of the reason Hearts are too easy to get, nothing else to spend tokens on), so remove Hearts from the game....Bam! No more need for tokens of the twelve!

2. As several people having pointed out, there is already a cost associated with TRing, that is, you have to start at level 1 again. Why should you be taxed (the cost for Hearts) on top of this? I know, I know, some people will say that you gain benefit from "paying the cost" of going to level 1, but that's my point, you paid a cost, got a benefit, why does that transaction NEED to be taxed?

3. Hearts originally were not a tax. There was a thriving end game, many people had capped toons that were working on gear, buying augments to min/max gear, etc. Hearts were merely an OPTION of something a toon might choose to buy (probably setting back a purchase or 2 that he actually wanted to make on his capped toon), in order to TR a lesser toon. I kinda see that the Devs might be trying to replicate that sense here with sagas, BUT the big problem with this right now is that there is NOT a stable endgame, therefore, nobody is "playing endgame", and of course, they are proposing BTC which would NOT replicate what we had when the cap was 20. TRing was an OPTION, now it has become endgame (at least for now), and therefore any cost associated beyond that of losing XP becomes a tax.

4. In the same vein as above, the new epic quests have seemingly become a bit of a slugfest, with even trash mobs having inflated hitpoints, and lots of mechanics where you must kill waves of them to advance. Also, something changed with U19. Before that, my Pally and my friend's Fighter had no problem doing EH, I don't mind telling you that has changed. Most often now 1 or the other of us is dead when the quest completes (which kinda screws us on the Sagas). Now, I don't mind not being able to complete some of the content, and I'm not one of those people that thinks EE should be accessible to anyone, but I'm starting to think EE will not be doable for these toons unless we add past life power. Therefore, if the new endgame is being setup as something that will REQUIRE the average gamer (that's me fo sho) to TR in order to access all the content, then there DEFINITELY should not be a tax on TRing. Btw, I did play the game back when there was a cap at 20, and I did use this character, and was able to complete the (then) epic quests with a group, as maybe he would be able to do now, but right now there is not that endgame with groups running this EE content all the time to get a little more power, adjust gear, etc.

5. So many people spend money on other things during a TR life, XP Pots, Otto's boxes, etc. that this change even makes sense from a money grab standpoint.

6. What a nice thing this would be to be able to say to people "Hey, come back to DDO, TRing is free now!" We might get back some of the people who left over some questionable decisions lately.

Well, I'm gonna hand the soapbox to someone else now. If y'all care about my personal opinion, I think that since Turbine has (seemingly) gone all in with it's decision to make Iconic and Epic TR, the writing is on the wall. TR is, and will always be, an integral part of whatever endgame finally settles out to be, so my personal feeling is 1 above, TR is endgame.

TLDR; TRing is endgame, so gating it is silly.

[Ausdoerrt]

I never understood the fetish that the Devs have on making more and more mats, instead of building on the existing mats.

It's easy to explain - you want to make mats exclusive to specific packs, so that people have to buy them to craft the relevant items.

[HAL]

2. Why are you building a new system that requires players to run above level 20 to do a heroic TR? I understand that the order epics and the original TR came out in left us with tokens for hearts, but now that you are starting a new system, why leave that flaw? Why not set up Sagas in heroic content as well and allow us to use them to get heroic TR hearts?

This

I also want to reiterate what a lot of others have said: adding Commendations to the End Reward of Sagas will negate the rest of the rewards for most people once they become more experienced players. Since Sagas are such a "pain" to run, no one will choose any of the other rewards once they realize how many times they will have to run Sagas.

Make Commendations an automatic reward, not a choice from the End Reward list.

[ReaperAlexEU]

It's easy to explain - you want to make mats exclusive to specific packs, so that people have to buy them to craft the relevant items.

nahh, you could just have different rewards from npc's in different packs. it's more likely to be tied to time in said pack farming the items

[slarden]

It's easy to explain - you want to make mats exclusive to specific packs, so that people have to buy them to craft the relevant items.

I think part of the motivation for including the new coms in saga end rewards is because there are so many good choices. They are hoping people will grab something else and buy the heart of wood. The other possibility is social engineering. Turbine is really bad at Social engineering and should just let people play the way they want. It seems that all their social engineering attempts increases attrition so they should just give it up.

If they make the past lifes good enough for epic and iconic reincarnation they will sell some hearts. There is no reason to mess with heroic TR at this point.

The CRs are not correct in Lord of Dust and Servants. My stronger characters have no problem with those quests, but my lesser characters won't run those quests right now. Between quests closures and quests with other problems, requiring people to complete a full saga seems problematic.

Just drop the new coms in chests and offer bigger bounties in saga end rewards like you do for guild renown. Sagas still have incentives, but they aren't mandatory.

[mons]

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.

I would personally like to know more on the overall picture, you are just touching base on Heroic Reincarnation but what will it translate to when Epic and Iconic are brought into the picture? Like I stated back on page 10, if your gonna go this route you must make more saga's for heroic and start them sooner than Giant Hold ie..ww and stk/catacombs and necro 1/necro 2 and deleras...etcetera. TBH, other than raid loot and Turbines unwillingness to stack like items (generalization) and inventory both backpack and bank I completely loathe the idea of BTC and I cant say it enough times.

Keep tokens of the twelve in game...period, if you decide to go the saga route exclusively in time then make the tokens useful for other things....Cannith Crafting comes to mind/augments etcetera. This way people will be able to use what they have on alternative options.

Again speaking for myself, I strongly believe Heroic and Epic reincarnation should be completely separate from one another with Iconic falling somewhere in between. I should not have to run Epic content to have the ability to start that character at level 1 and I shouldn't have to run Heroic content again for that character if im going to Epic TR.