BTC Named loot from the middle levels to higher levels

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

Hello,

as I was playing with the semi-static group of the guild where I'm in, I noticed that a lot of mid-level to high-level items are still BTC.

Okay, this makes good food for Sentient Gems, but it's a long time to keep them in my inventory from level ... 164? until I hit level 20. Or 30, to even get such a gem.

I particularly noticed that on Shavarath (spelling ?), which I had visited only for the second time. Now, my fire sorc has a water savant item she cannot use until a TR. Or, until she gets to level 30 and has her own gem, then.
This is also true for several Three-Barrel-Cove items.

So, my suggestion is : To rather turn these older content items into BTA as well.

Personally, I believe - being not unselfish - that BTA items are better, so that I could better outfit alts.

But, this is of course not my decision. At least there are still glam mirrors out there for special items.

Alrik

[Enderoc]

Bound to character is just dumb period. More so now most gear from higher crafting level is bound to account and out performs almost all random and named loot except really high tier or items you need to grind to complete. I say get an altar of sentience going to let new players crush named trash into exp early and let them sell it on the AS as an option.

[TheAlicornSage]

I've been playing for over a decade. I still don't have a sentiant item. So such btc items are not worth even food for such things. If I can't equip or sell, then it is literally worthless, likewise if it's weaker than what I have. And since crafting is so pathetically slow (unless you are some hardcore player that optimizes grinding for xp and such [I hate trying to find optimal methods and paths for max efficiency of gaining xp/loot/etc. Defeats the entire point of playing in my opinion]), I still can't craft gear that is my own lvl.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

And since crafting is so pathetically slow [...], I still can't craft gear that is my own lvl.

Yes, it is incredibly slow. You just have to decide : Sell for money or turn it into Cannith Essences ? Both at the same time doesn't work.

And Essences are so incredibly hard to get.

I've been playing for over a decade. I still don't have a sentiant item.

You can get one relatively easily from via Anniversary Party Favor. And it's pretty funny, too !

[TheAlicornSage]

Yes, it is incredibly slow. You just have to decide : Sell for money or turn it into Cannith Essences ? Both at the same time doesn't work.

And Essences are so incredibly hard to get.



You can get one relatively easily from via Anniversary Party Favor. And it's pretty funny, too !

The big issue there is the spectrum from casual playstyle to "hardcore" playstyle. The latter type tend to enjoy finding efficient ways to get loot and xp but over on the casual end, finding efficient ways to get loot or even research metagame stuff like the best dungeon to find rewards is biring and contrary to the goal of play. Interestingly, if you lean in the direction of finding efficient ways for loot, then often certain things can be achieved unbelievably easy compared to a casual playstyle player who finds those simple things rather confusing, complex, and boring.
This is one of the problems I have with popular mmo design, they favor "hardcore" players in judging how hard to acquire things, leaving casuals to hardly ever get them, or worse, the designers expect players to find out things from other players instead of making it possible for explorer types to find them except by chance.

Personally I'm in the middle. It's not too confusing for me, but definitely boring and contrary to the way I play.

As for the Anniversary Party Favor, I'll check it out, thanks.

[JOTMON]

BTC is a antiquated mechanic that compromises inventory space.

BTA can at least be stored on alt toons.

Until Dev's eventually implement the long awaited large quantity player storage system to accommodate the items we collect all we can do is vendor trash or feed to sentience
(unless it has some useful clicky or ultra rare benefit that is worth tying up inventory through multiple TR lives).

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

This is one of the problems I have with popular mmo design, they favor "hardcore" players in judging how hard to acquire things, leaving casuals to hardly ever get them, or worse, the designers expect players to find out things from other players instead of making it possible for explorer types to find them except by chance.

Hardcore players are - as I see it - probabbly more likely to do grind; and to do grind binds people longer to a game.

As DDO is basically/largely an Action-RPG, there is little to bind people to Adventures made up of story, as the Action-RPG sub-genre in itself is a "quick play" genre. Like ... "fire & forget" or so.

Even with its instanced quest-like structure, DDO has quests which are fast to do, at least for speedrunners, which means a "hop in - hop off" thing. However, it is curious to see that the higher the character level is, the higher the quests become. At least that's my personal impression.

I did not play all quests within DDO so far, but An Invitation To Dinner is the FAR longest quest I've ever played ! : As a "flower-sniffer" kind of player, who wants to get to know EVERYTHING of an quest area, it took me FOUR HOURS to get through this quest ! Inclusive LOTS of "where am I now ???" and "where the heck was the entrance to THAT place again ???" moments.
But that's even level 10, and that's early, compared to other quests.

DDO doesn't have much of a story ... There is story, but it only consists of either a quest chain, or of puzzle pieces assembling themselves slowly in the player's mind.

The only real attempt to combine all puzzle pieces has so far been done here (Warning ! Spoilers ! The first post there can easily be read without any spoilers, though): https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...ory-of-Eberron
So far, no-one has done a graphic form of that, as far as I know.

[TheAlicornSage]

...
BTA can at least be stored on alt toons.
...

Well, that's only if you buy the shared bank. Otherwise it's no different from BTC. To be honest though, unless an item has narrative impact, I don't see why they ever needed BTC anyway.