Nebula Fragment

[Vish]

What? There was a scavenger hunt?
And ppl been grinding all week to get in on it?
And it’s already solved?
Pay to win wins!
Or gets fleeced too sounds

And the loot sucks and it’s not worth it?
Perfect artifacts with 4 slots?

Ya I didn’t get invited either
And didn’t bother
I’m too short

If their perfect?
They should fit any set?
Like a perfect fit for the tetris we suffer

Omg the grind
I’m glad it’s all equalized now and I can just keep what I’ve got

Welcome to mmos

[Fivetigers33]

I love how communities come together to solve these larger problems. Some players, like myself REALLY enjoy this singular component of the game. I heard about this Nebula shard and I wanted desperately to get in on the activity of discovering what was at the end of this journey. I happily loaded up my characters with elixirs of discovery, treasure hunters pots, and even bought a large amount of shards. I've played more in the past week than I have in the past couple months.

Most(95%) my playing was chest grinding to find a nebula shard. I know two people that looted a nebula shard within their first 2 chests. I kept my head down farming for the nebula fragment because I wanted to be part of the community that solved the new problem. Unfortunately, it was solved before I could loot a shard and participate. I ransacked 11 characters on all wilderness chests and went through all my shards.

I love the idea and these are the types of things that really engage me. Unfortunately, it was disappointing to watch from the sideline while grinding because I was on the wrong side of the curve of a statistical drop rate. It would have been nice to participate in solving rather than participating in the grind.

I am in the same category as this guy. Farmed my ass off trying to just be able to participate, but ended up just watching from the sidelines. These secret items are a lot of fun, but relying completely on RNG is poor execution. Hopefully you learn from this. At least with the dull dagger there was a light at the end of the tunnel via raid runes. I still look forward to the next one of these DDO mysteries though.

[Lynnabel]

I am in the same category as this guy. Farmed my ass off trying to just be able to participate, but ended up just watching from the sidelines. These secret items are a lot of fun, but relying completely on RNG is poor execution. Hopefully you learn from this. At least with the dull dagger there was a light at the end of the tunnel via raid runes. I still look forward to the next one of these DDO mysteries though.

I agree that everyone should be able to participate. For this scavenger hunt, I specifically made it so that anyone could hunt for the Star Altars, not just people with a fragment or frame. This is an improvement from the Dull Dagger, which actually required you to own one before you could help puzzle things out.

[Vorachtin]

Edit - forget it, not posting here on a forum over moderated to death.

[GramercyRiff]

I agree that everyone should be able to participate. For this scavenger hunt, I specifically made it so that anyone could hunt for the Star Altars, not just people with a fragment or frame. This is an improvement from the Dull Dagger, which actually required you to own one before you could help puzzle things out.

Without the nebula there isn't enough motivation to participate. This is where you got it wrong. A hunt for the sake of the hunt isn't as fun as hunting for something you will actually capture at the hunt's end.

[ahpook]

Great work, everyone

Thanks Lynn and SSG for this puzzle. I haven't yet got a nebula to participate but it seems like a cool idea and hope to see more of it.

Looks like my estimate of 2 months was a little off! (just a bit!)

Probably would have taken 2 months if all 8 slots were not similar shrines hidden in each pack. Next time make each of them something different (e.g. talk to an NPC, or killing the right mob, something that looks like a collectible,end reward from a quest,...) and you can likely get that time up on the next one.

And despite the naysayers the loot is interesting. If it was any better then many of those same people would be complaining of the mandatory grind for a rare drop. The extra filigree slot means at the very least that every item includes a +1 to any ability.

Nice job!

Indeed. Nice job to both the designers and the hunters.

[karatemack]

Great work, everyone

Good to see an acknowledgement from the dev team this time around!

Thanks again to Stratis for all the attempts this past weekend.

[apocaladle]

I agree that everyone should be able to participate. For this scavenger hunt, I specifically made it so that anyone could hunt for the Star Altars, not just people with a fragment or frame. This is an improvement from the Dull Dagger, which actually required you to own one before you could help puzzle things out.

are there any other items like dull dagger we missed completely?

[Alternative]

I agree that everyone should be able to participate. For this scavenger hunt, I specifically made it so that anyone could hunt for the Star Altars, not just people with a fragment or frame. This is an improvement from the Dull Dagger, which actually required you to own one before you could help puzzle things out.

Someone without the frame will be busy hunting for the frame, not for the second step of the puzzle. With drop rate like this (4 chars ransacked on explo in my case) you just make people resentful, so maybe don't pat yourself on the back.

[Carpone]

I don't understand what use case you're describing here. Is this only for Alchemists who can already give themselves an Alchemical bonus? Otherwise, you're swapping in +2 Exceptional, when you can easily have +1 Exceptional in an augment, for an extra of only +1, instead of swapping in a straight extra +2 Alchemical? Why would anybody want to do that?

Trances snapshot their stat. So using No Step Missed, you swap in +2 Exceptional DEX offhand and a mainhand with as much DEX as your sentient gem can hold. +2 Alchemical only matters if you aren't using Tenser's for DEX or alchemical potions for INT/WIS/CHA.

Regardless of class, I'm not sure why you'd bring builds that don't care about Wisdom into a discussion of items providing Wisdom. None of my comments apply to anybody who doesn't care about the stat we're discussing.

We're talking about Jidz-Teka, clearly a monk-only item. Monks care about WIS, DEX and CON.

[Airmaiden]

Please add all Artifacts to this upgrade alter (since you need to surrender your Nebula Fragment to upgrade and it is extremely rare drop).

Thanks

[ahpook]

Please add all Artifacts to this upgrade alter (since you need to surrender your Nebula Fragment to upgrade and it is extremely rare drop).

Thanks

Assuming you are looking for the extra filigree slot, I would prefer they didn't. These are ML 30 artifacts so they should be better than the ML 29 artifacts from previous quests.

[Lencrennis]

Yes, though you can't get all three of your Sentient, and +2 Alchemical off-hand, and +2 Exceptional off-hand, so the LGS +2 Exceptional stat isn't much use.



I have one. Actually, I think I have 3 across 4 characters. They're nice, but they don't drop like candy; many players (or characters) have never pulled one. It's easier to farm 20 Tokens and buy a +1 Diamond than to farm a raid that seldom gets run and hope for a rare drop from it.



Yes, it does.

Whether you're actually using a Globe or just a +1 Diamond, if you have it directly, then you can use that augment slot for something else. I don't know what's complicated about that.

Hey, uh, the globes drop in Tor. Black dragon. Elite.

[Arellano]

Without the nebula there isn't enough motivation to participate. This is where you got it wrong. A hunt for the sake of the hunt isn't as fun as hunting for something you will actually capture at the hunt's end.

Eh, I don't have a frame (I don't even have Saltmarsh), but I had fun hunting for the two shrines that I found. It was an interesting collaborative effort of pooling ideas together and splitting efforts to searching.

[Assio]

Great work, everyone

I will note for those who are scanning the list for something for their specific build that Sands (which is not currently released at legendary tier) has more items within it than most of the rest of the s/s/s stuff put together. Its entirely feasible that the perfect item you're looking for is still waiting in the wings. I'll be honest, I was banking on this puzzle taking a little longer to finish which would have given me time to quickly sneak those items in the list, but you all are too fast for me Looks like my estimate of 2 months was a little off! (just a bit!)

It also looks like some of these items are missing augment slots, scaled effects, or the appropriate set bonus, which I can get in for an upcoming patch. In the meantime, I hope you all feel proud to have contributed to my little scavenger hunt. Nice job!

First of all, thank-you for putting this together. I'd like to identify a couple problems I saw with this iteration and offer a solution.

1) Limited Engagement: Not many people knew about the nebula shard before it was solved. Higher community engagement leads to higher satisfaction with content.
2) Fast Completion: Due to lack of time gating, the community was able to solve this as fast as information could be unlocked.
3) Limited Contribution: Because the community in general was not aware of the nebula shard, less players were able to contribute to the solving.
4) Static World: Current State.


Solution:
Create a time-gated experience that reveals a new "chapter" to the overall quest on a weekly basis. You need to bring the servers down on a weekly basis for restart. When that happens, apply a small patch that opens up a new segment each week. Over the course of 10 weeks, players can enjoy the pursuit of the new quest. Here is how it will improve customer experience.

1) Increased Engagement: Over time, more players will find out about the news quest and be aware of it's presence. if they know, they can participate.
2) Time-gated Completion: On a weekly basis, players will be able to log in and and observe quest advancement. it can't be solved all at once, because it isn't fully open.
3) Increased Contribution: It is the journey, rather than the destination. Players are more likely to participate because each new week reveals a new pursuit.
4) Dynamically Evolving World: Players feel like they are in an evolving world with a new storyline advancing the quest on a weekly basis. Example: the market tent destruction with increased player engagement and less costly digital assets.


Here is an example of the revised quest road-map:

--Week 1 Players begin to discover the nebula shard and eventually find the NPC who says it resembles the power of Velah and it needs shard fragments to fully understand its capabilities.
--Week 2 Players don't know where to find fragments, so they look everywhere before finding the first one in a wilderness area shrine.
--Week 3 The next fragment shrine is in a shrine within a quest.
--Week 4 The fragment is hidden as an end reward from a quest. Players begin to understand the event and participation increases.
--Week 5 The fragment is hidden in a wilderness area, but in a non-tab-able jar. The drop rate of the nebula shard is increased.
--Week 6 The fragment is hidden in a non-tab-able crate within a quest.
--Week 7 The fragment is hidden with a collectable NPC vendor. Players begin to rally and buzz increases
--Week 8 The fragment is hidden in the marketplace on a non-tab-able crate that is on top of a building.
--Week 9 The final fragment is hidden in a new non-tab-able rock at the bottom of Von 6. The NPC reveals that the nebula shard creates perfected items and the list is shown. The NPC dialog offers a new dialog option that reveals that the Sands of Menechtauren now holds hold a new power.
--Week 10 Perfected desert loot becomes comes available with this NPC.

I'm not even sure all this is possible with DDO's current platform architecture, but it the idea may be worth exploring in a staff meeting.

[Arkat]

Everyone who cares to will already have +1 Exceptional to their primary stat(s)...from an ML20 augment. The Globe is nice but a very rare drop. How many people actually have one? Certainly not "EVERYONE".

You'd be surprised.

It doesn't free up an augment slot. The Globe of True Imperial Blood augments are abundant as they've been available for years. Ask around if you need one.

Indeed.

[TedSandyman]

I feel like I am missing something because I cannot find the one in the chronoscope behind the bar or the one in Storm the Beaches.

Do they move? Does it depend on level? Do you have to complete the quest?

I found the sands one, but haven't really looked for the others.

Update: Just not paying enough attention, I suppose.

[Saekee]

if the sands ones complete sets, that will make a huge difference

Honestly, I would take the perfected Golden Guile...

[Nickodeamous]

Perfect Jidz-Teka stances:

FIRE: 1.5W unarmed damage (does not stack with Reinforced Fists)
WATER: +5 Luck Bonus to Attack/Saves, +10MRR cap
EARTH: +5 Critical Hit, and Critical Confirmation, +10 PRR
WIND: +20 Jump, +20 Tumble, +5 Sneak Attack and Sneak Attack Damage

Fire should be +0.5 stacking to make it worth it. If you have the THTH belt, this is useless to me.

Also, I use the radiant ring which has +3 quality deadly. If I replaced this, sure, I would get the same amount of wisdom, but I would lose the quality deadly and quality accuracy for +14 protection (same as armor, so useless), +5 insightful saves (I believe same as Parrying, so again useless). Unless you wanna play gear tetris from H E double hockey sticks, losing the +3 damage is not worth offsetting with an additional filigree. Just my point of view though. It may work for others, and honestly, I'll try and get one and do this, as its fun, but the reward doesnt quite match the time invested imo.

Nico

[tpbtoc]

Someone without the frame will be busy hunting for the frame, not for the second step of the puzzle. With drop rate like this (4 chars ransacked on explo in my case) you just make people resentful, so maybe don't pat yourself on the back.

True, though I think the word frustrated would serve better here. I used my play time this week to hunt for the nebula and end up not getting it, so I didn't even think about phase 2 of the hunt.