Commendations of Valor Update

[HungarianRhapsody]

The price is still too high.

Adding in ANOTHER layer of ingredients instead of making the comms themselves BTA is asinine, and just means that it's more likely some sort of bug will be introduced to screw people over.

I'm still not convinced that 6 million karma is the right number for ETR. Especially as the past life feats are rather meh.

I like this change because it involves introducing a new item that can fit in bags instead of involving more programming. Anything that avoids additional programming is a Good Thing(tm) as far as I'm concerned because it reduces the chance of bugs.

[Darkrok]

Thank you for listening Turbine! I know there will be some outcry against this but honestly this is a solution that accomplishes both what the players (ability to earn hearts on any toon) and Turbine (BTC comm's) want. I have no opinion on the 42 vs 25 thing brought up as I haven't played enough to form that opinion but just being able to farm these on any toon is an enormous boon.

[ArcaneArcher52689]

1. Set the heart price to 25 seeds.

2. Lower the Karma required to ETR to 2 million.

Do this and I may even become a Turbine Fanboi.

as much as I actually agree with point 1, i'm not going to push them to change a system that's just over 1 week old. As far as the karma amount, I agree that 6million is too much, but I think i'd rather have it cost 3 million, with a 4.5 million cap, allowing us to bank half an ER each time.

and some how i doubt that last part would ever happen...

[Derana]

1. Set the heart price to 25 seeds.

2. Lower the Karma required to ETR to 2 million.

Do this and I may even become a Turbine Fanboi.

+1

p.s. thanks for the seeds update. its really needed.

[Loromir]

Any reason the Heart seeds aren't completely unbound? I know plenty of endgame players who don't like to TR and will still have no real use for the comms of valor. (Potion turn-ins are underwhelming).
What would be the harm of unbound Heart Seeds?

Most ingredients in the game should be unbound, imo. And let supply & demand (and hardcore vs casual players) work it's magic. Turbine would benefit from increased platinum and Astral Shard sinks.

Since COV's are just one of the options for rewards on quest completion...These endgamers who don't TR would not need to take the COV but rather a different reward like Guild Renown etc.

BTA is good enough in this case.

[Hafeal]

Do this and I may even become a Turbine Fanboi.

I see the hesitation with 'may' ... I guess I'll really get worried about the end being near if Chai shows up next echoing your thought.

[Qhualor]

Well, it helps ease the "pain" of earning Comms but instead of addressing the problem you created another ingredient and a quick fix.

[Loromir]

We’re aware of several topics of discussion relating to Commendations of Valor. As players get more time with Update 20, we’ll be keeping an eye on how Commendations of Valor are working out and will consider possible changes. We have identified two issues that we feel we can address sooner rather than later:

1. Bind-to-Character: Earning Hearts of Wood via multiple Characters
Commendations of Valor are an Epic Ingredient that are Bind-to-Character, because we plan to use them for lots of different reward types. However, this puts extra strain on players who are earning Hearts of wood by playing many different characters, or who may have one character earning Commendations in lower levels while another character is already at the level cap. We’d like to address this to give additional options to these players while still allowing us flexibility for reward items we offer through Commendations in the future.

2. Commendations of Valor and Bag Space
The number of Commendations of Valor received scales heavily across different character levels, which means it’s challenging to simply reduce the amounts of Commendations bestowed, or the costs for Hearts of Wood, without consequence for characters of different level. However, this was not intended to put stress on bag space, so we’d like to address that too.


Introducing: Heart Seeds
We’re adding a new, entirely optional ingredient relating to Commendations of Valor and Hearts of Wood called “Heart Seeds”. This new ingredient adds some complications, but we felt those complications were worth it in order to address the above issues.

Heart Seeds:

• Stacks of these precious seeds can be combined to form Iconic or Epic Hearts of Wood.
• Purchasable with Commendations of Valor, these seeds are Bound to Account (unlike Commendations of Valor), allowing you to get hearts of wood by pooling resources from multiple characters.
• Bound to Account items are tradable to your other characters through the Shared Bank.

Notes:

• You can obtain 1 Heart Seed by turning 100 Commendations of Valor.
• You can obtain either one Iconic True Heart of Wood or one Epic Heart of Wood by turning in 42 Heart Seeds.
• You can still obtain either of those Hearts of Wood by turning in 4200 Commendations of Valor. You can safely ignore Heart Seeds if the above issues don’t affect you.
• Heart Seeds are currently only obtainable through the barter interface associated with Commendations of Valor.
• Heart Seeds can only be used to purchase Iconic True Hearts of Wood or Epic Hearts of Wood. In particular, they cannot be used to buy the potions that Commendations of Valor can be used for.
• You cannot turn Heart Seeds back into Commendations of Valor.

Thanks for your feedback on Commendations of Valor and Hearts of Wood.

Thanks for the fixes.

Face it, some people are just not fulfilled unless they find something to complain about. Some of these people would complain if Turbine gave every character $100 as a gift of appreciation because the check was mailed instead of hand delivered.

Turbine has proved over the past 6 weeks that they are listening to the playerbase, some people just refuse to see it.

[Grosbeak07]

Like this in general. However, I'm still in the camp that says rather than make a new currency to save space, lower the amount of CoV's needed so I move them out of my inventory for stuff (hearts etc.) more frequently.

While we are it, I'd like to see a conversion for Purple Dragon Knight, War Wizard etc. coms for Commendations of Valor.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Like fragments of the twelve and tokens of the twelve. Good. +1 Thank you for listening and communicating!

edit: like the name and icon - very appropriate and fits in with the existing lore. another +1

[Qzipoun]

Does this work? Yeah sure I guess it solves the BTC issue but you're adding YET ANOTHER INGREDIENT!? I get it, you want comms of valor to be used for other stuff in the future, but at the same time, every mechanic you've introduced to be "improved in the future" has been left half-assed, I'm not convinced you'll be doing anything with comms of valor because the next big thing will just require a new type of ingredient to make sure everyone starts at 0... We'll see...

Can you now explain how these seeds are any different from epic tokens? Just separate seeds from valor all together, kill valor until you have a tangible use for them (not a potential future use) and have seeds drop in end chests. This is the only solution that solves all the issues with your current system (not competing with end rewards, no stupidly strict ransack mechanism, BTA etc.)

The issue with epic tokens was the mechanism to use them, not acquire them...

[Lifespawn]

good change even tho I hate another ingredient this one is completely optional and leaves the cov as they are for the other uses you guys have in mind ...sooner than later I hope


I still think dropping it down to 3000 is in order and even then you would have to take every single reward as cov's it would be awesome if it could be coded like challenges and the "score" of the quest was tied to the comms u got the more u kill and the more optionals you do the bigger the payout.

[rest]

And of course, some people will never be happy.

You're happy enough for at least 4 people. Someone's gotta white knight Turbine, and it's not gonna be me.

And your domain name is expired.

They had their reasons for not changing the COVs from btc to bta. They have stated over and over why they are btc and not bta. They have other plans to add options that make them btc in the future. This was a way to separate the covs a bit from the hearts of wood, so that they can in a future update tinker with reincarnation a bit more then what they have been able too.

"Other plans" will never materialize. How many half finished abandoned systems do we already have? Three? Five? Half a dozen? Ten? More?

And if you're counting those ridiculously lame potions as a reason for why they should remain BTC... well..

[ThrakThor]

We’re ...STUFF...Commendations of Valor and Hearts of Wood.

As many others have said, great compromise, you get what you want (BTC tokens for future purposes) but we get what we want (able to pool resources for TRing). I assume that the new ingredient will stack in the ingredient bag (I saw another thread that mentioned inventory space is on your agenda so that is good)? I'd also like to add my vote to reconsidering the amount of comms/heart seeds needed and the amount of Karma necessary. Please also rethink adding Comms/Seeds to the end list of Sagas, that would go a long way to helping ease the grind to something manageable.

Thank you for listening and reacting positively.

[Silverleafeon]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/42_(number)

[KahaNZL]

Thanks very much for listening and bringing the fix in !

You have a very happy customer with yet again demonstrating that turbine does indeed listen ( fanboi much lol )

Although I am still concerned 4200 is a little 2 high, I do think now turbine will actively tune things as time goes on.

Nice one.

**runs off to reactivate his lvl 28 Sorc to farm high lvl q**

[Pooklebunny]

Do this and I may even become a Turbine Fanboi.

*sobs*

I... I thought you were different...

*flees with rustle of crinoline*

[patang01]

Thanks for your feedback on Commendations of Valor and Hearts of Wood.

And thank you for addressing 2 pain points out of 3; bag space and btc. The third will of course be a question of if 4200/42 is the right or proper amount for your average player.

I think not; it suggests a week or two for people who can play DDO non stop and grind out quests really fast but that's not your average player.
On the other hand 2-3 week for average players seems reasonable. Currently I see a pace of 2-3 months which simply isn't reasonable. Especially given the average pace of leveling up to cap again.

[DagazUlf]

Karma is still too high.

Number of seeds is too high.

And now I not only have Comms taking up inventory space, but yet another item taking up bag space.

I really can't understand why people are liking this at all.

[Systern]

Problems with the ER implementation:

1. Cost prohibitive. 4200 commendations is an arbitrarily large number.
2. Encourages farming. During the Saga implementation, it was noted that the sagas aren't very diverse in terms of game play. There's only 4 options for epic sagas, and 2 of them overlap almost in their entirety. 83% of your Epic content is Level 24 or below, which has horrible acquisition rates for commendations. This pushes players into the same, repetitive content.
3. The second largest problem with the saga implementation was that its focus is on unpopular content. Guys, really, most of your players do not like Shadowfell. It was rushed to market. It's incomplete (bad loot implementation). Its design ignores most of the framework of your game (shadar-kai, howlers). It's laggy (insane spawns). Focusing on your failures further diminishes your successes.
4. Past lives are too conservative. You're so worried about what happens when you stack 3 or 9 of them, that you've made no single one appealing to get. The incremental progress is not worth deciding to commit to this game avenue. The cliche is "In for a penny, in for a pound" to keep people on the hamster wheel. Not "take the plunge". 6.6 million XP for +1 weapon enchant, +2 AC, or 2% doublestrike is absurd. All of the effects of past lives can typically be purchased with the first 2 AP a character gets. They're not worth an entire life or epic life to get.
   Heroic past lives are a base of 5%:
   • 5% Healing Amp.
   • Assuming you're on the die, +1 Dc is 5% success.
   • +1 To hit was 5% to hit before the AC changes.
   
   Epic PLs offer less while requiring more.
5. The #1 most frequent feedback about Epic Destinies is: ... wait for it... "Grinding Off Destinies Is Not Fun". Designing a system that just ups the ante from 1.98m of unfunness to 6 million xp of unfunness is Epic Fail.

So, huge grind that's not fun for a minuscule payoff. Yea. Skip it.

Turbine's making progress though. The players are abandoning the system before the devs do. That's a first.