turbine kills ah house?

[nolifer1]

i see all the items bound to account or charactr, i understud raid loot bound to character, but why quest items bound? people want to trade and and necro4 is alrady 99%9 people bought , i just see it as another negative stuff to game

[Portalcat]

Certainly, the effect of making U23 loot BtA is that there will be relatively little endgame loot worth much of anything left on the ASAH, so you could say that they are de facto deprecating it even if it isn't their policy to do so.

Why they are choosing to have BtA loot is something I do not understand. I wish we would get an explanation. It's really unclear to me what the benefit is to making loot from regular questing bound on acquire rather than tradeable, when most other comparable loot is tradeable.

[SirValentine]

Fully unbound and trade-able for non-raid loot sounds good to me.

But I'll gladly give up trading in order for it not to be bound-to-character if that's my option. I hate that BtCoE ****. BtA, though not ideal, is far better for me.

[JOTMON]

Regular quest items don't need to be bound. at all.
Binding was only supposed to be applied to raid items that were considered to be the best of the best for that level range.

Raid items should be bound.

I prefer the BTA mechanic to the BTCoE system since all BTCoE promotes is selling items to people who have not purchased the packs, flagged for the raids, or even stepped into the raid, let alone completed the raid.
BTCoE rewards pocket books not player achievement.

BTA allows people to change between toons to best suit the party instead of having to pass or be bypassed on getting into parties because the toon they want the item for is not ideal for the current party.
Regardless of the toons we play we are the same players behind the account who have purchased VIP, packs and successfully run the appropriate content.

[TrinityTurtle]

This is simple. We hear over and over on the forums "I don't do that quest, no loot worth running for it."

Now, you're a dev. And you're job is to give people a reason to play the content. Not just crank it out and hope. The biggest vocal group of players (and I suspicion the metric data they have access too will also confirm it) is clear about being motivated by the loot, not the experience of the game.

If the loot is unbound, then you'll get a few people spam zerging it and making a lot of money selling it to others, reducing the general publics need to actually play the content. Some will farm it out themselves, out of desire to play or lacking the plat the zerger feels his time is worth. But less people farm for purely unbound items, the first response of most people I know for something they want that isn't bound at all is hit the auction house. Indeed, the original posters primary concern here is the effect on the auction house, as evidenced by his choice of wording in the title.

If the loot is bound, everyone has to run it themselves to acquire the items. Or now, in the case of asah, use a pay currency to overcome that restriction to get out of playing the content. The better the item, the better degree of binding it should have. Btc vs. bta. So a really popular item would require the players to do the content multiple times in different rolls, and thereby often getting them to help others with the content. More groups are up, and because I want it on my druid that I hardly ever play, I get off my monk, sorc, and fs and let space for other monks, fs, and sorcs for example.

There's a lot going into these decisions.

[FlaviusMaximus]

This is simple. We hear over and over on the forums "I don't do that quest, no loot worth running for it."

Now, you're a dev. And you're job is to give people a reason to play the content. Not just crank it out and hope. The biggest vocal group of players (and I suspicion the metric data they have access too will also confirm it) is clear about being motivated by the loot, not the experience of the game.

This is a very good point. Hopefully a balance can be achieved where it is required for characters to run new quests to get loot but there is also unbound loot available that can be farmed and sold, because selling valuable loot on the AH is a part of the game that many people enjoy. Plus, selling ingredients isn't something that non-exploiters can really do anymore, so the selling options in the AH are a bit limited right now.

[IronClan]

Certainly, the effect of making U23 loot BtA is that there will be relatively little endgame loot worth much of anything left on the ASAH, so you could say that they are de facto deprecating it even if it isn't their policy to do so.

Why they are choosing to have BtA loot is something I do not understand. I wish we would get an explanation. It's really unclear to me what the benefit is to making loot from regular questing bound on acquire rather than tradeable, when most other comparable loot is tradeable.

It's simple, content came out (eGH, High Road, Sable, Brothers of the Forge etc.) got run into the ground for a couple weeks, large numbers of players logged in went to the AH bought the items they wanted from the new content, never ran the new content (didn't even buy the packs from the store), logged off until the next update... you can clearly see this in the DDoracle charts... short couple weeks long spikes, followed by a steep drop off back to normal, and then continued attrition at an accelerated rate over what a similar aged healthy MMO suffers.

After MOTU DDO suffers aproximately 20% more atrrition over the next two years than a comparable MMO (about 33% compared to about 12%)...

MOTU was the introduction of named items being able to be sold (BtcoE loot) it's no coincidence that shortly after the massive spike in activity it caused, player activity actually declined from where it was during old end game where the S/S/S system kept people playing and named items being unsellable encouraged everyone to play all the content instead of skipping it.

(Note before MOTU DDO was actually CLIMBING in player activity, gaining sustained growth faster than it lost them for the only time in the games history ignoring obvious spikes like F2P introduction and MOTU)

[Portalcat]

you can clearly see this in the DDoracle charts... short couple weeks long spikes, followed by a steep drop off back to normal

You can see this for U22 as well, which had BtA loot.

After MOTU DDO suffers aproximately 20% more atrrition over the next two years than a comparable MMO (about 33% compared to about 12%)...

You can pick your pet complaint about post-MoTU endgame and "justify" it with this "logic".

The problem with the argument is that it's classic post-hoc fallacy. There is one entity that has the data that could possibly tease out causation...maybe...and that's Turbine. They may well not know themselves what the most important factors are - certainly, they haven't succeeded in halting them if they do.

There is no particular reason to believe that tradeable loot is even a key causative factor.

MOTU was the introduction of named items being able to be sold (BtcoE loot) it's no coincidence that shortly after the massive spike in activity it caused, player activity actually declined from where it was during old end game where the S/S/S system kept people playing and named items being unsellable encouraged everyone to play all the content instead of skipping it.

Why can't it be a coincidence? MoTU is also notable for complete upheaval of an otherwise complete endgame, if people are to be believed. I would think that would be a much larger factor in halting momentum.

It's also the case that MoTU isn't the specific turning point - it's after Druid's Deep. That's a fair number of months after loot became tradeable, though it's also the case that there are some tradeable items from pre-MoTU, as well as contemporaneous useful and tradeable randgen loot.

(Note before MOTU DDO was actually CLIMBING in player activity, gaining sustained growth faster than it lost them for the only time in the games history ignoring obvious spikes like F2P introduction and MOTU)

About 2 years before MoTU, DDO went for its F2P model which revitalized the game and led to a couple of years where there weren't many competitors who were doing the same, much less with a long and more or less complete game. That would seem like an absolutely massive conflating factor.

Again though, this is an argument that "justifies" any pet post-MoTU complaint people can put a plausible-sounding story behind. Pick whatever you don't like post-MoTU, and say, "Hey, the momentum stopped after they did X!"

[blerkington]

Hi,

I don't know why the shift has occurred.

I suspect it has something to do with astral shards not selling as well as they did at first. The currency has no use to Turbine if it's not being bought from them or being spent on things provided by them.

So if there are now so many AS in circulation that people can acquire them easily without spending in the store, or if someone has figured out how to dupe them, then that system will be abandoned in favour of other ways to make money.

Their modelling may show that selling packs (as the only way to get the new loot) rather than a damaged virtual currency is now the way to go. Just a guess though.

Thanks.

[Ladislaio]

Hi,

I don't know why the shift has occurred.

I suspect it has something to do with astral shards not selling as well as they did at first. The currency has no use to Turbine if it's not being bought from them or being spent on things provided by them.

So if there are now so many AS in circulation that people can acquire them easily without spending in the store, or if someone has figured out how to dupe them, then that system will be abandoned in favour of other ways to make money.

Their modelling may show that selling packs (as the only way to get the new loot) rather than a damaged virtual currency is now the way to go. Just a guess though.

Thanks.

With the 30% sales cut you think that this is actually the case? I would would think that given the lack of a steady in-game source of AS that this would bleed them quickly enough, but I may be wrong. And even if there is a saturation from previous, um, unscrupulous behavior, wouldn't more things getting sold and more chests getting rerolled for things to sell bleed them out more quickly so that they get sold again?


I do not like "Bound To Account on Aquire" (BtAoA) loot; I think that it lowers the value of the loot. With BtAoA people do need to run the particular content on (at least) one toon in order to get their item, but after that the repeat motivation to run the quest quickly degrades. When I run 3bc I currently usually don't fill the party and while people who join the groups do offer their loot to roll it is almost never asked for anymore(except for the Cursed Blade of Jack Jibbers(Of which I've pulled more(working on my 8th) than I have had in-raid uses of mine)). With "Bound to Character on Equip" BtCoE loot you are able to trade/sell/give away items that you don't personally need. This doesn't stop you from giving the item to someone in party that wants it - I still see that happen a lot with Haunted Halls loot(which is a quest that always fills). This *does* give more motivation to run the quest after you already have your gear, as you can farm for a friend who has less playtime, items to sell, and the ability to trade an item you didn't want that you pulled for one that you do want. With very high level quests such as these I would think that longevity of motivation to run them would be something of interest, to give people who prefer the endgame something more to do.

As someone who runs almost only endgame content that is something I am quite interested in. More reasons to run endgame would be nice, right now the "Because it is more difficult" argument isn't managing to fill groups very well beyond one or two times.

I *am* glad that the taps seem to be unbound, maybe the economy will run off of them for a while.

[Mryal]

It's simple, content came out (eGH, High Road, Sable, Brothers of the Forge etc.) got run into the ground for a couple weeks, large numbers of players logged in went to the AH bought the items they wanted from the new content, never ran the new content (didn't even buy the packs from the store), logged off until the next update... you can clearly see this in the DDoracle charts... short couple weeks long spikes, followed by a steep drop off back to normal, and then continued attrition at an accelerated rate over what a similar aged healthy MMO suffers.

After MOTU DDO suffers aproximately 20% more atrrition over the next two years than a comparable MMO (about 33% compared to about 12%)...

MOTU was the introduction of named items being able to be sold (BtcoE loot) it's no coincidence that shortly after the massive spike in activity it caused, player activity actually declined from where it was during old end game where the S/S/S system kept people playing and named items being unsellable encouraged everyone to play all the content instead of skipping it.

(Note before MOTU DDO was actually CLIMBING in player activity, gaining sustained growth faster than it lost them for the only time in the games history ignoring obvious spikes like F2P introduction and MOTU)

These are the most logical reasons to this change.Also explains why no Dev comment was made.But i personaly disagree.I dont think its binding that kept you playing back then, it was how rare/hard it was to get an item (multiple pieces, several items, etc).After several years, my opinion never changed : Best loot system was shard/seal/scroll, but totally unbound.Too bad it only lasted 2 weeks.

[gravisrs]

BTA:
- makes everyone interested in items actually runs the content, I'd love to see necro4 quests populated again!!
- endgame loot shouldn't be tradeable even for shards, its bit Pay2Win.
- brings more newcomers

UNBOUND:
- makes content mainly for farmers that will put everything on ASAH just for profit and makes endgame loot pay2win
- makes distribution of items too effective (every extra items found will be sold/traded) so after 2 weeks everyone will have all the items and will be bored again waiting for u24..

Farmers have still plenty of places to go (EE Tor, Wheloon, Druid's deep).

[Timap]

i see all the items bound to account or charactr, i understud raid loot bound to character, but why quest items bound? people want to trade and and necro4 is alrady 99%9 people bought , i just see it as another negative stuff to game

The key to loot farming is to understand that the FIRST new loot that hits the ASAH will sell for exponentially more than the latecomers to the auction house. There are always whales who are willing to pay several thousand shards for the new shiny. If you are as little as 1-2 day late to the party, the prices come down to 500-1000 AS. One week late, prices come down to several hundred AS. So, I will (and did) do this ....

In the first few hours after new content containing tradeable loot hits, you immediately do the quest on the difficulty that drops the most desired loot, typically EE. You do this with guildies with proven ability, not with some random hoi-polloi from PUGs. Its a race. You run alts if necessary. Just ransack all quests as much as possible as quickly as possible on as many toons as possible. Maybe you work out some profit sharing arrangement with guildies. Do you keep any loot for yourself? Of course not. You will be able to obtain the loot again later. Do you "have fun" while doing the quests? Are you kidding me? Speed is of the essence.

And once the 1000-5000 shards you made is in your pocket, you can commence to laugh at the late-comers who are selling stuff for a mere 500AS. They will need to farm 10x as hard to make the profits you made. And of course, he newbs who sell even later for 100-300AS, they just have no clue. Maybe you'll spring for that Otto's box in the ASAH for 3000AS. After all, it took you just several hours to get that 3000AS. How's that for XP/min?

This is as close to PvP competitiveness as DDO gets, and there is a segment of the population to which PvE is simply too boring. And they thrive on this dynamic and the feeling of superiority. And I did too, until I calculated how much money that 5000 AS is in real life, and I realized how much of a loser it made me to be excited about this amount of money, and I decided to go back to playing DDO just for fun.

But I see that you are a nolifer1, so this would appeal to you

[General_Gronker]

BTA:
- makes everyone interested in items actually runs the content, I'd love to see necro4 quests populated again!!

Actually, it tends to make a lot of us simply skip that content. If you want to see the necro 4 quests populated, then you need to try and convince the devs to make those quests (and all of the other necro quests) not suck so much.

If it's not RAID LOOT, it should NOT be bound. Period.

[blerkington]

With the 30% sales cut you think that this is actually the case? I would would think that given the lack of a steady in-game source of AS that this would bleed them quickly enough, but I may be wrong. And even if there is a saturation from previous, um, unscrupulous behavior, wouldn't more things getting sold and more chests getting rerolled for things to sell bleed them out more quickly so that they get sold again?


I do not like "Bound To Account on Aquire" (BtAoA) loot; I think that it lowers the value of the loot. With BtAoA people do need to run the particular content on (at least) one toon in order to get their item, but after that the repeat motivation to run the quest quickly degrades. When I run 3bc I currently usually don't fill the party and while people who join the groups do offer their loot to roll it is almost never asked for anymore(except for the Cursed Blade of Jack Jibbers(Of which I've pulled more(working on my 8th) than I have had in-raid uses of mine)). With "Bound to Character on Equip" BtCoE loot you are able to trade/sell/give away items that you don't personally need. This doesn't stop you from giving the item to someone in party that wants it - I still see that happen a lot with Haunted Halls loot(which is a quest that always fills). This *does* give more motivation to run the quest after you already have your gear, as you can farm for a friend who has less playtime, items to sell, and the ability to trade an item you didn't want that you pulled for one that you do want. With very high level quests such as these I would think that longevity of motivation to run them would be something of interest, to give people who prefer the endgame something more to do.

As someone who runs almost only endgame content that is something I am quite interested in. More reasons to run endgame would be nice, right now the "Because it is more difficult" argument isn't managing to fill groups very well beyond one or two times.

I *am* glad that the taps seem to be unbound, maybe the economy will run off of them for a while.

Hi,

I could well be wrong with my guesses about the AS economy. If people are able to dupe them then no amount of a sales tax will help, but otherwise that tax plus chest rerolling should be removing them.

I'm not really clear on why we've moved to BTA loot either. It is very convenient for some types of players, but it also does introduce other difficulties of its own. Perhaps one of the devs has explained this somewhere and I missed.

It does seem to be that the AS economy and the shift in binding properties are somehow related, but it could easily be for other reasons than I think, or even just a coincidence.

Thanks.

[SirValentine]

I do not like "Bound To Account on Aquire" (BtAoA) loot; I think that it lowers the value of the loot. With BtAoA people do need to run the particular content on (at least) one toon in order to get their item, but after that the repeat motivation to run the quest quickly degrades.
...
With "Bound to Character on Equip" BtCoE loot you are able to trade/sell/give away items that you don't personally need.

With completely unbound loot, you are able to trade/sell/give away items that you don't personally need. Sure, that's wonderful. My preferred option.

With "Bound to Character on Equip" BtCoE loot, the items you want all suck away your precious few bank/inventory slots. I HATE THIS. HORRIBLE! GLAD IT WENT AWAY.

With "Bound To Account on Aquire" (BtAoA) loot, at least I can store it on an alt when I'm not using it. Not being able sell it is a drawback, but a minor one compared to the inventory nightmare of BtCoE.

[Oxarhamar]

Dbl

[Oxarhamar]

I can't find the Dev quote from U22 on BTA loot

But, I do believe it had to do with "that's what the players wanted" much like the excuses for every other change we are seeing in U23.

Example: the Augments mentioned for Crystal Cove were killed by players commenting in the thread announcing the new augments in favor of upgraded cove loot.

[Bridge_Dweller]

With no sellable loot, after I've gotten what I need for my own use what motivation do I have for running the quests?

For many of us a lot of the fun was hunting for tradables to sell, BTA kills this.

[depositbox]

I am glad Turbine wised-up and decided to take a step towards getting rid of the ASAH. They may have finally got the message from other games that the AH and unbound loot adds disincentives to the longevity of players farming for loot.