Legendary Raids and Bypass Timers

[Chai]

Why would they? I mean think about it, you got EXACTLY what you paid for! You bought raid timers that work perfectly fine in the current game. They will ALWAYS work fine for parts of the game in which they were released. Maybe the folks that "thought" they were being "smart" and bought up piles of them when they were on sale should stop for a moment and blame themselves and not Turbine.

The game changes and evolves people. Learn to accept change and evolve with the game.

Also, I vote for removing the raid timers COMPLETELY from the game. I have seen them damage too many raids already. We need to put the fire out, not throw more gasoline on it.

That's exactly the kind of stuff that creates disgruntled customers and incites people to participate in fight club antics to acquire them for free in the first place. Falling into the arbitrary limitations trap too many times, then having someone explain that it still works in the content that was out when you bought it. How many people paid to grind phlogs faster only to learn after the fact that their weapon now works in 2 levels of content? How many people bought timers in advance only to learn they wont work in new content?

How long before metagaming becomes learning an increasingly long list of stuff and which eras of the game each item works in. Will these limitations be specifically listed in the item descriptions or will people continue to pay for them only to find out afterward that they don't work in the content they try to use them in afterward.

[Spekdah_NZ]

The new legendary raids are not even out on lam yet. No one has lost anything. All your timers still work on all the current content.

There is real attempt to address the issues here. Kudos Cordovan.

[EllisDee37]

I was thinking about raid bypass timers the other day, particularly in terms of epic greensteel.

If shroud never existed, and came out today, and we still wanted the loot, I think it would be naturally resistant to bypass timers due to chest ransack. Sure, people might run it 8x in a row, but then you get nothing out of it for a week. That's not bypass-proof, but it is bypass-resistant.

If raid loot were designed in that way, where you collect BTC tokens from raid chests, collect enough and turn them in to an NPC for your raid loot, chest ransack mechanics alone would help curtail bypass abuse.

Further, you know how shroud now gives you ingredients in the end reward list? I was thinking what if the end reward also gave you good "tokens," but only if you qualify for the daily playthrough bonus?

Combining those two mechanics would limit bypasses in a natural way, while still allowing bypasses to be freely used at any time for any raid. Sure, run it 20 times, but in terms of raid loot, just how good are shroud 20th lists? It's not like you can choose smoke bracers from a 20th list.

EDIT: For the heavy raiders, did chest ransack help limit the utility of bypass timers in thunderholme?

[stoopid_cowboy]

They were put on sale a few weeks before the expansion comes out. Im sure some would have been stocking up in preparation.

Turbine should just offer a refund. Simple and easy and ensures people who were legitimately buying them arent punished because of the actions of those who knowingly and willingly grabbed dozens or even hundreds of duped ones.

Your logic is flawed. Yes they were put on sale a few weeks before a new expansion. So???
Did the sale advertise that they would work on all upcoming content? Nope.

This is a simple case of sales and marketing. How often do you see sales happen right before the new thing comes out? Take a look at car dealerships. They always offer super duper sales on current model cars right before the new model comes out. Does Ford or Chevy or Toyota or whomever owe you a refund and the new model car when the new one comes out? Nope.
Does Samsung owe you a new phone because you just bought the S5 and the S6 came out a month later? Nope.

It all comes down to buyers doing their homework. To the folks that were stocking up to be "prepared", did you check to see if the raid timers would be valid in the Legendary content? I would guess not...

[blerkington]

That's exactly the kind of stuff that creates disgruntled customers and incites people to participate in fight club antics to acquire them for free in the first place. Falling into the arbitrary limitations trap too many times, then having someone explain that it still works in the content that was out when you bought it. How many people paid to grind phlogs faster only to learn after the fact that their weapon now works in 2 levels of content? How many people bought timers in advance only to learn they wont work in new content?

How long before metagaming becomes learning an increasingly long list of stuff and which eras of the game each item works in. Will these limitations be specifically listed in the item descriptions or will people continue to pay for them only to find out afterward that they don't work in the content they try to use them in afterward.

Hi,

Good post. It's reasonable to assume that bypasses sold shortly before an update will work for that update. The product description does not specify any limitations on the use of bypasses either. Right now they are still being sold with no mention of the new restriction. People who don't read the forums are not going to like this, because apart from this thread nothing has been done to notify them of the change.

This is definitely the sort of practice which irks some customers and discourages them from taking advantage of sales or otherwise buying in bulk. The lesson here is only spend a little bit at a time for things you immediately want or need. It would be much better if the company was teaching customers it can be trusted, and that stuff they bought in good faith was not going to be arbitrarily restricted. Screwing your customers just because you can is not a good business practice.

The issue of whether or not bypasses are good for the game is separate from how paying customers are treated. There is a very unfortunate trend in this thread where people who don't like that bypasses exist are being unsympathetic to people who buy and use them. Whether or not you like that people play the game differently to you is far less important than whether or not people are inclined to continue spending money on this game, and that is what keeps the lights on.

Thanks.

[Atremus]

Hello! We're writing today to let you know about a change in the way raid timer bypasses work in Legendary raids. We want to get this information out to you now, rather than wait before you see it on Lamannia, to separate out the discussion, and focus feedback on other aspects of Update 29 when Lamannia arrives with its first preview soon.

Update 29 introduces Legendary raiding to DDO, which are new raids that are CR31+. For Legendary raids, players will be able to bypass the three-day raid timer through the use of a Legendary Raid Timer Bypass, which will be available in Silver and Gold Daily Dice, as a rare chest drop, and in the DDO Store. Non-Legendary Raid Timer Bypasses will keep their current functionality in non-Legendary raids, and we will not be adjusting their ability to be used consecutively.

We've heard from the community about the impact that non-Legendary Raid Timer Bypasses have had over the past few years, including a desire by some to set usage limits on these timers. The feedback we've received on this subject has been often controversial and mixed, and we've spent quite a bit of time discussing the issue internally. We prefer to allow the current timers to function as they are without adjustment. The number of raid timer bypasses in the game is immense; partially due to duplication exploits of the past, and partially due to the volume of timers given out in the past via Daily Dice and the 8th Anniversary Card Event, which was too high. Regardless of the cause, we want to respond to the desire by the community to make sure our raiding scene remains healthy, and do it in a way that limits the impact on players' current timer functionality, by making this change.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts. Thanks!

You should make an upgrade program for anyone that purchased under the last sale. Or offer a discount via turn in. Show that it wasn't a cash grab and win some respect from anyone feeling burned on this change.

Personal thought: I figured this was coming as a counter duper action. I look forward to the raids and going back to the 3 day timer and 20th reward lists. Please continue full lists, that is a nice feature.

Recommendation: If you guys could bump up or increase the drop rates in ToDW, FoTP, and MoD we can all go back to the raid schedules we used to run expecting to see an item every 6 runs or so. Once you make this change you will kill all raid timer usage so running a raid with no drop rates will have a negative impact on those raids.

[Henky]

Hello! We're writing today to let you know about a change in the way raid timer bypasses work in Legendary raids. We want to get this information out to you now, rather than wait before you see it on Lamannia, to separate out the discussion, and focus feedback on other aspects of Update 29 when Lamannia arrives with its first preview soon.

Update 29 introduces Legendary raiding to DDO, which are new raids that are CR31+. For Legendary raids, players will be able to bypass the three-day raid timer through the use of a Legendary Raid Timer Bypass, which will be available in Silver and Gold Daily Dice, as a rare chest drop, and in the DDO Store. Non-Legendary Raid Timer Bypasses will keep their current functionality in non-Legendary raids, and we will not be adjusting their ability to be used consecutively.

We've heard from the community about the impact that non-Legendary Raid Timer Bypasses have had over the past few years, including a desire by some to set usage limits on these timers. The feedback we've received on this subject has been often controversial and mixed, and we've spent quite a bit of time discussing the issue internally. We prefer to allow the current timers to function as they are without adjustment. The number of raid timer bypasses in the game is immense; partially due to duplication exploits of the past, and partially due to the volume of timers given out in the past via Daily Dice and the 8th Anniversary Card Event, which was too high. Regardless of the cause, we want to respond to the desire by the community to make sure our raiding scene remains healthy, and do it in a way that limits the impact on players' current timer functionality, by making this change.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts. Thanks!

The game would be better if no raid bypasses existed anymore and the timer for raids were reduced to 24 hours. One run per day wouldn't ransack chests and would keep the raids alive for a longer time.

Delete them from the game, refund turbine points to people that bought them.

Also please, no BTC ingredients again, farming epic shroud with alts to get ingredients to your main character can bring back to life a lot of unused alts.

But I guess bypasses on store are probably one of the best money-maker of the game.

Also increase drop rate of mark of death, fire on thunder peak and temple of the deathwyrm. Make phlogistons drop as Fall of thruth comms: epic normal 1, epic hard 1D2, epic elite 1D2+1

[Jasparion]

Your logic is flawed. Yes they were put on sale a few weeks before a new expansion. So???
Did the sale advertise that they would work on all upcoming content? Nope.

This is a simple case of sales and marketing. How often do you see sales happen right before the new thing comes out? Take a look at car dealerships. They always offer super duper sales on current model cars right before the new model comes out. Does Ford or Chevy or Toyota or whomever owe you a refund and the new model car when the new one comes out? Nope.
Does Samsung owe you a new phone because you just bought the S5 and the S6 came out a month later? Nope.

It all comes down to buyers doing their homework. To the folks that were stocking up to be "prepared", did you check to see if the raid timers would be valid in the Legendary content? I would guess not...

Your argument doesnt make sense.

What is happening here is more like Samsung discounting SD cards just before releasing the S6, then 24 hours after the sale ends announcing that the SD cards dont work in the new S6 phones.

If I did my homework and bought something called "raid timer bypass" then I would assume it works in raids. How is the onus on me to know ahead of time that soon something else called "legendary raid timer bypass" would be released?

Does the description anywhere on the current timer bypass say "only valid in raids which have been released at the time of purchase"?

I mean it could. I only have 3 bypasses and have never used them. So you could be right. But I dont think you are.

[ViolentEnd]

I both love and hate raid timer resets. I love the fact that they let me run multiple raids when I want. I hate the fact that they cause raids to get used up within a week or two of release. Since they have been implemented, the raid scene has been changed entirely.

Here's where I am coming from ... Raids these days are run like crazy when released, then rarely at all once folks hit 20 completions or whatever after a few days. Due to my work schedule, I often have stretches of time when I cannot play much or at all. As a result, sometimes I miss the the binge raiding that seems to occur when a new raid is released. It is entirely strange when logging on after a short stint away from the game for work, only to find that the new end-game raid is already dead. Aside from this, I personally hate running the same thing over and over (more like work than play to me), but I almost feel forced to hammer out my completions while the raid is hot. I attribute some of this to the fact that several raids have such abysmal drop rates that you NEED to get 20th completions for any chance at loot, but that is an entirely different discussion.

Now here are my 2cents..

The market is utterly flooded with raid timers, due primarily to duping and other exploits. For me, this exacerbates what I see as harm to the raiding scene in DDO. Aside from my personal feelings on raid timer resets, I can only guess at how much revenue DDO is losing from not selling the thousands of timer resets that were duped. This directly harms the game I enjoy. That being said, I think it is reasonable and appropriate for the game developers to introduce a new timer reset mechanism for new raids that is not influenced by the artificially flooded market.

I, personally, would love to see the new timers restricted, for reasons mentioned above, but I feel that by just implementing a new mechanism for new raids is a positive move.

[HastyPudding]

This gets a thumbs up from me. I dislike bypasses, in general, and feel they've taken some of the fun out of the game. There's no reason somebody should have almost every item a raid has to offer if it's only been out for 2 weeks. The more people who use bypasses, the less people there are to run raids for extended periods of time. You rarely see deathhyrm, thunder peaks, or MoD raids on Argo server anymore; everybody duped timers and ran the heck out of them, making it more difficult to find people to run them for those who didn't obtain 1k bypasses.

I'd prefer there be no bypass options for legendary raids, honestly.

[jakeelala]

this is insane, and completely misguided.


just change raid timers to 24 hours, 3 days is WAY too long anyway. Why would you ever want to stop players from playing the best content of the game except every three days.

[1Soulless1]

This gets a thumbs up from me. I dislike bypasses, in general, and feel they've taken some of the fun out of the game. There's no reason somebody should have almost every item a raid has to offer if it's only been out for 2 weeks. The more people who use bypasses, the less people there are to run raids for extended periods of time. You rarely see deathhyrm, thunder peaks, or MoD raids on Argo server anymore; everybody duped timers and ran the heck out of them, making it more difficult to find people to run them for those who didn't obtain 1k bypasses.

I'd prefer there be no bypass options for legendary raids, honestly.

No they are still run, just not pugged as much.

[Captain_Wizbang]

Just remove the 3 day timer on raids, get rid of 20th completion lists, and let us run the raids whenever we want or find a party, or see an LFM.

We had a dev post a while back w/ an explanation why they didn't remove the timers. And from what I remember it was sound. IF the reason is still a programming issue then the OP and turbine are spot on, if this is not the case, I agree with you Livmo.


What I do have an issue with is your comment on 20th completion list. I say keep it and make it better.

PS, nice sig logo

[JOTMON]

Hello! We're writing today to let you know about a change in the way raid timer bypasses work in Legendary raids. We want to get this information out to you now, rather than wait before you see it on Lamannia, to separate out the discussion, and focus feedback on other aspects of Update 29 when Lamannia arrives with its first preview soon.

Update 29 introduces Legendary raiding to DDO, which are new raids that are CR31+. For Legendary raids, players will be able to bypass the three-day raid timer through the use of a Legendary Raid Timer Bypass, which will be available in Silver and Gold Daily Dice, as a rare chest drop, and in the DDO Store. Non-Legendary Raid Timer Bypasses will keep their current functionality in non-Legendary raids, and we will not be adjusting their ability to be used consecutively.

We've heard from the community about the impact that non-Legendary Raid Timer Bypasses have had over the past few years, including a desire by some to set usage limits on these timers. The feedback we've received on this subject has been often controversial and mixed, and we've spent quite a bit of time discussing the issue internally. We prefer to allow the current timers to function as they are without adjustment. The number of raid timer bypasses in the game is immense; partially due to duplication exploits of the past, and partially due to the volume of timers given out in the past via Daily Dice and the 8th Anniversary Card Event, which was too high. Regardless of the cause, we want to respond to the desire by the community to make sure our raiding scene remains healthy, and do it in a way that limits the impact on players' current timer functionality, by making this change.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts. Thanks!

Pointless exercise. Let the existing ones get used and bled out of the system.
On future store/prize versions, add an expiry date.

[Qezuzu]

But instead of people acquiring what they want out of the content in ~50% of the time it takes for Turbine to develop new content, those who pay can do it in 5% of the time, then go back on break for the other 95% of the time. How long until they go on break for 100% of that time? Is that worth the money they make off these?

How the **** are people who pay going to finish faster than everyone now who doesn't pay but does have endless RBTs???

[Deltoideus]

This really sucks for a guy spending alot of money for shards then buying and stocking up off raid timebypass. The price on AH was kinda 2/3 of the realy price buying a raid bypasstimer in shop. that means i kinda spent 20000 tp for something thats not gonna be worth anything (kinda!). Cause the idea of raid bypasses is to play the new raids and get the new end game loot. thats why u buy em and stock em! If u remove that concept your making em meaningless. My idea of stocking up on raidbypasses wasnt to raid the "old" ones and im sure im not alone in thinking that. But im also open for the problem that some ppl have duped alot of bypasses. So we need a fix somehow... those duping ppl im sure also duped astrals diamonds or already gotten so much astral shards from selling duped item they have a vault filled with shards whoever they can swim in!... my point is they have kinda infinte amout of shards anyway.... Thats why im wondering if there is a good way here to convert the raid bypasstimers to something usefull? If u just gonna leave it I feel tricked of my money. Can we come up with good ideas on how not to make ppl feel tricked and still get the balance change?

Ideas!
1.) exchange bypasstimers for shards!

2.) 2 raidbypasses for 1 legendary and make the new legendary bypasses which u got from converting bound to account?

3.) 1 bypass for 1 special (BTA) legendary bypass and the new bypass gets a timer for like 1 year which then are gonna be removed from game same as this trading function. kinda like mabar ingreds. This way ppl still get a chance to consume there bought bypasses on something usefull!

/deltoideus

[Spekdah_NZ]

Pointless exercise. Let the existing ones get used and bled out of the system.
On future store/prize versions, add an expiry date.

Some people have so many that there is not enough players on the server to use them all up .... ever. That aint gonna happen.

Putting an expiry date on them would work but screws over people who store purchased them.

Having a legendary level and setting up new rules for new content is a good way to move forward on changes without upsetting the existing heroic and epic systems.

[IronClan]

What a disaster it would be if they allowed the massive cache of bypasses to deplete this new endgame before they can even add to it, this is a good change.

The easy way to address the concerns of people who have legit timers left (or just bought them on sale) who no longer need anything from the Epic raids but can't use their timers on the new stuff; is to add Mythic bonus drop mechanic to older raids and maybe put some new augments in. Add a few items to DeathWyrm and Fire Peaks and maybe a 4th Commendation upgrade on FoT loot.

[Jasparion]

Pointless exercise. Let the existing ones get used and bled out of the system.
On future store/prize versions, add an expiry date.

I know people with hundreds of them and they werent the ones duping. The ones duping may well have tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands. Each.

[skaught78]

The number of raid timer bypasses in the game is immense; partially due to duplication exploits of the past, and partially due to the volume of timers given out in the past via Daily Dice and the 8th Anniversary Card Event, which was too high. Regardless of the cause, we want to respond to the desire by the community to make sure our raiding scene remains healthy, and do it in a way that limits the impact on players' current timer functionality, by making this change.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts. Thanks!

So the many are being punished for the sins of the few.

I am not in support of this change.