What problem is Turbine trying to solve?

[Acrisius]

I keep reading these posts regarding the changes to HoW, Tokens, Comms, etc., and Turbine officials asking for specific feedback. I like several of the proposals from my fellow players, but I can't help but wonder:

What problem is Turbine trying to solve?

This all seems like we're playing Battleship, randomly guessing and trying to hit an unknown target. What is Turbine really trying to accomplish? If they cannot be honest with us and share their motivation for these changes, we cannot know if our proposals can accomplish whatever it is they're trying to do.

We can guess what their motivation is (and MANY have done so), with ideas like:

1. Introduce changes to keep the game "fresh".
2. Balance the acquisition of TR materials among all levels of player skill.
3. Scale acquisition of TR materials for Heroic, Iconic, & Epic.
4. Phase out Tokens because of duping exploit.
5. Push players to purchase new content.
6. Push players to purchase TR materials.
7. Force characters to farm their own TR materials (rather than trade them from another toon).
8. Do something to satisfy some arbitrary/unknown directive from parent company.
9. Deliberately sabotage the game mechanics to drive away certain segment of game players.

Now, I'm not saying I agree with any or all of these, or even think some are at all likely; I'm just offering a representative sampling from "reasonable" to "total conspiracy theory". However, without an official statement from Turbine, we're all firing blindly.

When evaluating proposals, you have to have some criteria set out. How does one judge and pick the best solution? We have a LOT of great minds in this community, and a LOT of proposals addressing the reincarnation/HoW/etc. problem, but without knowing the criteria, we have no way of knowing if our "best" proposed solutions are at all acceptable based on Turbine's needs.

LET US HELP YOU.

[Dandonk]

They have too many players. I think this change is WAI.

Anyways, more seriously, you're right, it would be nice to know.

[Paleus]

They have too many players. I think this change is WAI.

Anyways, more seriously, you're right, it would be nice to know.

Dang, ninja'ed. It might not be the problem they are trying to solve, but it would certainly be the problem they did end up solving.

Also, I wouldn't hold my breath for a detailed explanation on reasons for two reasons. 1) Its likely business confidential information that gives competitors and advantage or reveals the hamster wheel to players. -or- 2) Regardless of whatever explanation is offered, it wouldn't convince the player-base it wasn't the full story. The internet and conspiracy theories go hand in hand. It'd be like arguing that we actually landed on the moon.

[Satyriasys]

I keep reading these posts regarding the changes to HoW, Tokens, Comms, etc., and Turbine officials asking for specific feedback. I like several of the proposals from my fellow players, but I can't help but wonder:

What problem is Turbine trying to solve?

This all seems like we're playing Battleship, randomly guessing and trying to hit an unknown target. What is Turbine really trying to accomplish? If they cannot be honest with us and share their motivation for these changes, we cannot know if our proposals can accomplish whatever it is they're trying to do.

We can guess what their motivation is (and MANY have done so), with ideas like:

1. Introduce changes to keep the game "fresh".
2. Balance the acquisition of TR materials among all levels of player skill.
3. Scale acquisition of TR materials for Heroic, Iconic, & Epic.
4. Phase out Tokens because of duping exploit.
5. Push players to purchase new content.
6. Push players to purchase TR materials.
7. Force characters to farm their own TR materials (rather than trade them from another toon).
8. Do something to satisfy some arbitrary/unknown directive from parent company.
9. Deliberately sabotage the game mechanics to drive away certain segment of game players.

Now, I'm not saying I agree with any or all of these, or even think some are at all likely; I'm just offering a representative sampling from "reasonable" to "total conspiracy theory". However, without an official statement from Turbine, we're all firing blindly.

When evaluating proposals, you have to have some criteria set out. How does one judge and pick the best solution? We have a LOT of great minds in this community, and a LOT of proposals addressing the reincarnation/HoW/etc. problem, but without knowing the criteria, we have no way of knowing if our "best" proposed solutions are at all acceptable based on Turbine's needs.

LET US HELP YOU.

Someone at Turbine had the idea of tying their unwanted adventure packs to reincarnation in an attempt to stimulate heart and expansion sales. The idea was lousy and careless yet they have orders to push it through regardless.

[Cauthey_No_CCInfo]

Clandestine agenda is clandestine.

[rayworks]

5 & 6 are the most likely reasons. You wanna TR? Gotta run Sagas or buy a heart. Sagas right now are in expansion areas you have to pay for, and hearts can be bought from the store.

Hidden agenda not so hidden.

[Systern]

The problem that they're trying to solve is that there are fewer people playing and they need to get more money out of us for DDO to remain profitable.

Decrease Reincarnation timers across the board.
Increase grind to get a heart.
Introduce Heroic and Epic Otto's...


All choices designed for you to spend less time playing and more time paying.

[GreenGurgler]

The problem is they are not making as much profit as they feel they can. They feel these changes will make them more money.

Pure and simple.

[Missing_Minds]

Op, the real thing is, it isn't just one cause, but a combination of them.

The problem is they are not making as much profit as they feel they can. They feel these changes will make them more money.

Pure and simple.

In truth, pretty much as well.

Lets face it, the store for them, that business is selling objects of convince.

When a player can get enough tokens, from legit work, for just 1 to 2 hours of work, why would anyone really pay for a convince?

This got made even more apparent after the duping fiasco. So change it all now. I'm not an uber powergamer, and it takes me a few hours, but even I'm going it was too easy to get wood. The counter point to that is: As VIP/buyer of packs, I have access to all the content that does drop them, and I'm a solid player. Of course it is going to be easy. It is much more difficult for those that do not have packs or are not VIP.

So where do you make a distinction of that? That is what it seems Turbine is trying to do. Make more money (*gasp* the horror!) while making it not so easy to get an item from the store in game.

With these changes coming, I hope they drop the price of wood in the store other wise they have really done a half assed job with the conversion.

[Qhualor]

they are trying to make a profit

they are trying to slow character progression

they are trying to push their new saga idea

they are trying to go to one trade in currency (Comms)

if there is more than that, I don't know but that's what I am getting out of it. lots of ideas have been thrown around and nothing new to report today if we are closer to solving this problem. a daily update, at least for now, would be awesome.

[Systern]

they are trying to make a profit

they are trying to slow character progression

they are trying to push their new saga idea

they are trying to go to one trade in currency (Comms)

if there is more than that, I don't know but that's what I am getting out of it. lots of ideas have been thrown around and nothing new to report today if we are closer to solving this problem. a daily update, at least for now, would be awesome.

They have said nothing about going to one currency. They said that CoVs will be the currency for hearts. They intend to eliminate dungeon tokens and the ability to purchase augments from the twelve. They said nothing about Raid tokens and whether they intend to update Master's Gift recipes for making one, or that Heroic Commendations will become ubiquitous though out epic raids.

[Cleanincubus]

I'd venture to guess #2, 5 & 8.

#2 - The fact that it was specifically mentioned that they are trying to create a better balance between power gamers, who can easily farm enough content to do a TR in a matter of hours, and the players who do it far slower.
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post5141968

What are we solving?
• 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

Unfortunately it doesn't appear they actually thought this through completely, and are just trying to push this new system out ASAP. Pretty much more of the usual from Turbine, actually.

#5 - Seeing as Gianthold is the only Adventure Pack to contain a Saga, currently, and the rest are Expansions that were released recently, I'd say this is correct. Seems every Update, since roughly U11 until now (of course before then as well), there have been masses of people on the forum, who were upset by new content or changes. Who really knows how many of those people actually did cancel their subscriptions, or have re-subscribed since then. I'm sure they lost a little bit of money though. I'm sure the licensing fees for FR is pretty expensive, especially considering they are pretty much only doing FR content right now. Clearly the fact that MotU was released as an Expansion, and not an Adventure Pack says enough about that. That was followed by 2 Adventure Packs, to go along with FR, and then the GH revamp. The revamp of GH likely didn't net them much of a profit, seeing as how it's one of the most popular packs, before the update was released, so that was a large amount of development cost that they had to eat. So I'm assuming they actually lost money on it. Then 2 F2P quests to introduce the next Expansion, and a 3rd to finish it off for those who buy it. Then Shadowfell Conspiracy, which seems to be widely panned by people on the forum, with complaints about being screwed over from pre-purchasing MotU, as well as pre-purchasing Shadowfell without knowing what it contained & no included raid. (Full disclosure, I've never played either Expansion, and I likely won't.)
TL;DR - My point being that from reading the forum alone, the past 2 Expansions, as well as connected Adventure Packs & the GH revamp, it doesn't seem like Turbine made a whole ton of money.

Forcing players to purchase the new content, is a way for them to extend their profit, without having to create more. Basically to recoup their loses, from coming short of their projected gains.

[Daine]

The question they should be asking themselves is why are they spending resources and loosing good faith trying to solve a problem that no-one in the player base sees as a problem.

[Qhualor]

They have said nothing about going to one currency. They said that CoVs will be the currency for hearts. They intend to eliminate dungeon tokens and the ability to purchase augments from the twelve. They said nothing about Raid tokens and whether they intend to update Master's Gift recipes for making one, or that Heroic Commendations will become ubiquitous though out epic raids.

That's what I meant. They want to phase out tokens completely and use Comms.

[ZzpxpzZ]

What they are doing, and have been for several updates now, is trying to drive players to play many / all the quests rather than just the few best ones.

This has been their objective for a few updates now and they have been working towards it in a number of different ways, some more successfully than others for the past while.

- Bravery bonus and improved first time bonuses making the first run of a quest each life by far the most rewarding
- Sagas to provide additional rewards for running large spreads of quests at a time.
- Reducing the ability to farm quests by causing them to xp ransack much more quickly.
- Upcoming: Adjusting xp levels to improve quests that players were not running much and nerf quests that everyone farmed like mad.
- Upcoming: Force players to run sagas so not only are they being encouraged to run large spreads of quests but they HAVE to. (I don't know that this is a good approach but it is certainly in line with their endeavors.)
- Upcoming further down the line: Nerf rewards (tokens of the twelve) for older quests that people farmed a lot to further discourage running the same quests repeatedly.

Honestly, while I would say I agree with the goal, it should be done with positive reinforcement rather than negative.

The first two choices, were smarter steps in the direction of the goal than most of the others., as well as rebalancing XP. (Although they should be doing it to the newer quests too if anything they need it the most.) But the other methods were not great choices in my opinion. Forcing people to stop farming quests is a poorer idea, than encouraging them to stop farming quests by rewarding them for running a spread of quests.

If they had gone with their current valor point system but rather than making them exclusively available from Sagas but rather deal with them similarly to how they handle experience where you get some from the quests themselves and an additional bonus if you complete the sagas would have been a smarter choice.

If you wanted to phase out the Tokens of the Twelve system, the above option would also give you framework for doing that, by replacing the twelve tokens from quests with Valor tokens in line with all the rest of the epic quests.

[patang01]

I keep reading these posts regarding the changes to HoW, Tokens, Comms, etc., and Turbine officials asking for specific feedback. I like several of the proposals from my fellow players, but I can't help but wonder:

What problem is Turbine trying to solve?

This all seems like we're playing Battleship, randomly guessing and trying to hit an unknown target. What is Turbine really trying to accomplish? If they cannot be honest with us and share their motivation for these changes, we cannot know if our proposals can accomplish whatever it is they're trying to do.

We can guess what their motivation is (and MANY have done so), with ideas like:

1. Introduce changes to keep the game "fresh".
2. Balance the acquisition of TR materials among all levels of player skill.
3. Scale acquisition of TR materials for Heroic, Iconic, & Epic.
4. Phase out Tokens because of duping exploit.
5. Push players to purchase new content.
6. Push players to purchase TR materials.
7. Force characters to farm their own TR materials (rather than trade them from another toon).
8. Do something to satisfy some arbitrary/unknown directive from parent company.
9. Deliberately sabotage the game mechanics to drive away certain segment of game players.

Now, I'm not saying I agree with any or all of these, or even think some are at all likely; I'm just offering a representative sampling from "reasonable" to "total conspiracy theory". However, without an official statement from Turbine, we're all firing blindly.

When evaluating proposals, you have to have some criteria set out. How does one judge and pick the best solution? We have a LOT of great minds in this community, and a LOT of proposals addressing the reincarnation/HoW/etc. problem, but without knowing the criteria, we have no way of knowing if our "best" proposed solutions are at all acceptable based on Turbine's needs.

LET US HELP YOU.

I honestly don't know myself. Off destiny leveling is highly unpopular right now but they're guaranteeing a loss of players when they force them to do it x3. This whole jumble of earning valor through sagas only forcing people to ignore things like xp bonuses instead makes absolutely no sense.

It's like they're designing this entire reincarnation process to be as arduous and boring as possible and puts a pot of for profit gold in your face (like the new Otto's boxes) so there's just one possible thing you can imagine instead of suffering these poorly thought through designs.

I just don't feel like paying them twice. I'm at the point that I think my many years of playing have come to an end. I don't see a value in spending more money and no value in the money spent. They only thing they seem to offer me is more work - like spending my off time essentially doing office work. And then paying THEM for it.

I have this strange habit of only paying for stuff I get something back from and Turbine is not offering any compelling reason for me to continue hanging around until they figure out what they're doing wrong.

[Loromir]

I keep reading these posts regarding the changes to HoW, Tokens, Comms, etc., and Turbine officials asking for specific feedback. I like several of the proposals from my fellow players, but I can't help but wonder:

What problem is Turbine trying to solve?

This all seems like we're playing Battleship, randomly guessing and trying to hit an unknown target. What is Turbine really trying to accomplish? If they cannot be honest with us and share their motivation for these changes, we cannot know if our proposals can accomplish whatever it is they're trying to do.

We can guess what their motivation is (and MANY have done so), with ideas like:

1. Introduce changes to keep the game "fresh".
2. Balance the acquisition of TR materials among all levels of player skill.
3. Scale acquisition of TR materials for Heroic, Iconic, & Epic.
4. Phase out Tokens because of duping exploit.
5. Push players to purchase new content.
6. Push players to purchase TR materials.
7. Force characters to farm their own TR materials (rather than trade them from another toon).
8. Do something to satisfy some arbitrary/unknown directive from parent company.
9. Deliberately sabotage the game mechanics to drive away certain segment of game players.

Now, I'm not saying I agree with any or all of these, or even think some are at all likely; I'm just offering a representative sampling from "reasonable" to "total conspiracy theory". However, without an official statement from Turbine, we're all firing blindly.

When evaluating proposals, you have to have some criteria set out. How does one judge and pick the best solution? We have a LOT of great minds in this community, and a LOT of proposals addressing the reincarnation/HoW/etc. problem, but without knowing the criteria, we have no way of knowing if our "best" proposed solutions are at all acceptable based on Turbine's needs.

LET US HELP YOU.

I think 3 years ago, obtaining 20 tokens to exchange for a HOW was a real challenge and an accomplishment. Before MOUT, Epic Difficulty was truly difficult. It took time and skill to get 20 tokens. Since MOTU came out, Epic Normal and Epic Hard along with Destinies and better gear have made the farming for 20 tokens dramatically easier. This was not the original intent, obviously.

They are trying to put the challenge back into the obtaining of a HOW. Unfortuantely, they seem to be going to the extreme. Not necessarily making it more challenging, but making it maddeningly more tedious.

Just like they went back the the drawing board on the New TR process a few months ago, they need to rethink the new HOW issue.

[patang01]

I think 3 years ago, obtaining 20 tokens to exchange for a HOW was a real challenge and an accomplishment. Before MOUT, Epic Difficulty was truly difficult. It took time and skill to get 20 tokens. Since MOTU came out, Epic Normal and Epic Hard along with Destinies and better gear have made the farming for 20 tokens dramatically easier. This was not the original intent, obviously.

They are trying to put the challenge back into the obtaining of a HOW. Unfortuantely, they seem to be going to the extreme. Not necessarily making it more challenging, but making it maddeningly more tedious.

Just like they went back the the drawing board on the New TR process a few months ago, they need to rethink the new HOW issue.

That's been a lot of their effort lately; confusing tedious with challenging.

[Flavilandile]

LET US HELP YOU.

I can't agree more, let us help you, tell us what you want to achieve so that we can help you achieve it while keeping us happy.

Edit :

Here is an example of a wasted idea : The Yellow Dopant.

We wanted it, was whined for it, we begged for it, and when we got it you sold it in the store for too many TPs and put a ******** drop rate in the Shroud Chests.
It's a wasted idea, if you had put it for 10% of the actual price, and put it in game through a vendor for an insane amount of plat ( say 500K Plat ) everybody would have bought it, as it is right now, you are probably not selling many of them and we old players with greensteel to deconstruct are just sitting on all our greensteel stuff.

[MichelOue]

So.... is it the end of free to play, and bingo buy some wood? Then Wizards sell this thing to A Viagra commercial?

Like who has not giggled to reincarnate as a bicycle seat... but I got confused real quick. I understand it is a test site. So creative minds must comp[y with technology limitations.

And I was always expecting to hear well you died to often, and you going to need a higher power.... like some new form of pay to play.

was fun, given unlimited XP and told play with character, free weapons and all the fixens.,... just that from 8 to 110 I had barely figured out what was going on....
who knows how long the test will go on...