PDK Favor Patron Vendor change: Tiers 2 & 3 to the Relic weapons (Video)

[maddmatt70]

Ps. shade, you've seemed to have missed the upgrade to the 'relic sunblade'

For those not willing to watch the video:

All upgrades on tier 2: +7 to +8 (even twilight...)


Upgrades on tier 3:
Agony, knife in the dark: Hemmorraging becomes Phlebotomizing
Antipode: +0.5 damage die
Balizarde, protector of the king: Hemmorraging becomes Phlebotomizing
Breach, the dividing blade: Shrieking becomes wailing
Celestia, brightest star of day: Gains Banishing
Cleaver, hewer of suffering: Hemmorraging becomes Phlebotomizing
Mornh, hammer of the mountains: +0.5 damage die
Needle, quill-slinger: Hemmorraging becomes Phlebotomizing
Nightmare, the fallen moon: +0.5 damage die
Pinion, cloud-piercer: Shrieking becomes wailing
Sirith, spear of the sky: +0.5 damage die
Tinah, sword of the sea: +0.5 damage die
Twilight, element of magic: One 120 spellpower of choice (combustion, glaciation, corrosion, magnetism, nullification, devotion, radiance)


personal opinion: Celestia and twilight are the only ones worth upgrading, unless you really really really want that extra 1D6 or so damage per swing.

The difference between 108 and 120 on gear slots when you factor in that in some types of magic players can get 600+ spell power is not very much really and 108 can be found in better spots like lootgen hats or rings..

Kind of the overall theme of post update 14 is a miniscule increase in power with weapon and gear whereas there is a major increase in power through levelling and experience i.e. the destinies and epic levels. It really dampered my enthusiasm for running the druid quests in update 15 and will damper my enthusiasm for running the update 16 quests likely. It is also why so many players quit ddo. Not a strong reason to run quests repeatedly and the devs do not put out enough quests to justify the not run quests repeatedly approach.

[Ape_Man]

Honestly, if this is their idea of giving an incentive to run Web, I think it will work the opposite. Most people will figure "it will take way too long to get all those so why bother."

Yes, Turbine's loot people need a reality check.

175 runs to upgrade a weapon to its fullest is insane, not worth the effort, and just plain terrible game design.

This of course could be changed with a DRASTICALLY increased drop rate of stuff.

[PNellesen]

They've got to change this before it hits live, or it will utterly fail as inspiration to continue running Web.

Remind me - what is my inspiration to START running it, especially on a Cleric?



That's what I thought.

[MeliCat]

Remind me - what is my inspiration to START running it, especially on a Cleric?



That's what I thought.

It's kinda fun on a melee. There is some vicarious satisfaction in *killing* *mobs*. To take out your frustrations on the actual raid and loot.

I hear you though. I run a few divines. One item. One item which is a two hander. And then if you want to melee, the obvious items require a of UMD for most. Yeah. Well hey it's kinda fun running it with friends, cracking stupid jokes about stuff. But that's about my only motivation for running my divines at this time.

[Ssdprref]

What about the drop rates still the same but every 3 completions you get a 50% chance of dropping an Heroic Commendation.

I'm sure they are going to require less commendations per item once it hits live.

[Tid12]

What about the drop rates still the same but every 3 completions you get a 50% chance of dropping an Heroic Commendation.

I'm sure they are going to require less commendations per item once it hits live.

And I was sure they would actually fix Shadowdancer's main abilities before live. 1 Update and 2 patches later, oh boy how wrong I was.

[Forgeborn]

The difference between 108 and 120 on gear slots when you factor in that in some types of magic players can get 600+ spell power is not very much really and 108 can be found in better spots like lootgen hats or rings..

Except that you're taking up an extra slot for it, where you could potentially slot something better instead of that spellpower item. And as you're most of the time relying on random gen for that the amount of suffixes that are actually useful and also share slots with that, are rather limited (omniscient springs to mind, that's about it). Pre MotU epic items only have 90 spell power, so don't really work for that. Upgrading twilight saves both that slot, and gets the 'full' 120 spell power when you're using it, which is definitely nice to have, not a must, but nice still.

Mostly I was referring to the twilight tier 3 upgrade (adding 120 spellpower of choice), and the Celestia tier 3 upgrade (adding banishing), are the 2 'best' options there, the rest is just pathetically weak.

[djl]

Except that you're taking up an extra slot for it, where you could potentially slot something better instead of that spellpower item. And as you're most of the time relying on random gen for that the amount of suffixes that are actually useful and also share slots with that, are rather limited (omniscient springs to mind, that's about it). Pre MotU epic items only have 90 spell power, so don't really work for that. Upgrading twilight saves both that slot, and gets the 'full' 120 spell power when you're using it, which is definitely nice to have, not a must, but nice still.

Mostly I was referring to the twilight tier 3 upgrade (adding 120 spellpower of choice), and the Celestia tier 3 upgrade (adding banishing), are the 2 'best' options there, the rest is just pathetically weak.

Only when you consider the amount of work involved. With a more reasonable requirement, the other upgrades are definitely nice. But it's true that Twilight and Celestia (which also happen to be the RAREST items in the drop table, by far) are the only two items where the amount of work involved is justified.

[BlackSteel]

if commendations a la ToD is not an option, how about just tossing a heroic com in every 3rd end reward for completion?

did 16 runs on my main before TR'ing again. Had 4 raid items drop under my name (put em all up for roll, but had the xbow passed my way when it fell), but zero commendations.

one every 3 runs plus a chance to get one in the chests makes the grind humanly possible

[Forgeborn]

Only when you consider the amount of work involved. With a more reasonable requirement, the other upgrades are definitely nice. But it's true that Twilight and Celestia (which also happen to be the RAREST items in the drop table, by far) are the only two items where the amount of work involved is justified.

Yes, I mean that Celestia and Twilight are in my opinion, the only weapons that I'd even think about upgrading if these costs and the current drop-rates of heroic commendations remain as they are now, as they actually give a significant enough increase for the effort taken in gathering the commendations. The other weapons just cost to much effort to upgrade for what they actually gain in return.

IF, the droprates of heroic commendations is increased by a significant amount, OR the cost to upgrade these weapons is significantly lowered (or both), to the point of being able to FULLY upgrade a single weapon (e.g. tier 3) in 40 or less runs, then I might contemplate upgrading other weapons then just Twilight and Celestia.

[blerkington]

Hi,

This number of commendations seems a little much. Or maybe not if the expectation is that now we should run raids much more frequently using a timer bypass.

Maybe it's not too much for people who like the raid. I don't really, not enough to run it regularly after trying my luck with a 20 completions reward list. The main reason I started was a lack of groups for other raids, and even Abbot and LoB seem preferable now.

When I read about the tier 2 and 3 upgrades, two things occurred to me. The first was, how long will it be before we get another raid? This upgrade path seems to imply that it won't be anytime soon.

For what it's worth, I don't mind waiting for a while if what we get is fun, less buggy, and avoids weak and unenjoyable mechanisms like escorting an NPC and random instakills like erupting legs.

The second thing was, why bother? For the gear I'd want from the raid, the increases are marginal at best, and there are other options available which are almost as good and more enjoyable.

And with the track we're on now for item obsolescence, your Tier 3 whatever, that you spent scores of hours grinding to complete, will be comparable something you can buy from a vendor or the AH in another update or two. And no, it doesn't have to be that way.

If there's been any lesson from MotU, it's don't grind. I still like the game well enough to spend many hours a week playing it, but I will be looking at other things, like getting better at playing my main, doing more past lives, enjoying the older content, and possibly spending a little more time on my alts.

Thanks.

[countfitz]

So I know math doesn't solve anything, but I want to see this.

Okay, 10% drop rate ala Shade's post. That means 1 commendation every 10 runs. You need 15 total comms to fully upgrade an item. That means 150 runs. Per item.

Okay, 3 day timer. That's 450 days. So 1 year, three months?

Is that the math?

I'm bad at it, but is that seriously the math here?

I hope I added a zero somewhere too.

Also, though I'd originally given up on the idea, what is the math on getting an eSoS? More or less than a year and three months?

[djl]

So I know math doesn't solve anything, but I want to see this.

Okay, 10% drop rate ala Shade's post. That means 1 commendation every 10 runs. You need 15 total comms to fully upgrade an item. That means 150 runs. Per item.

Okay, 3 day timer. That's 450 days. So 1 year, three months?

Is that the math?

I'm bad at it, but is that seriously the math here?

I hope I added a zero somewhere too.

Also, though I'd originally given up on the idea, what is the math on getting an eSoS? More or less than a year and three months?

Nope, that's the math. Granted, most people are getting their items now so it's really only 120 days but STILL that is unacceptable regardless how powerful the upgrade is.

Getting sixteen individual pieces is considerably more taxing than getting three pieces and a tradeable, even if one of those pieces is extraordinarily rare.

And the thing is, if you have multiple toons you can get an eSoS faster without having to spend any points. Having more toons doesn't help a bit with the commendations because they are bound to character.

[kzeast]

Yea it's beyond unacceptable.

2.5 years later, 13 updates, an insanely longer, harder, higher level raid that you have to grind out hundreds of completion of for a weapon vastly inferior to the esos?

makes zero sense.

Though on different line of thought:
I think allowing minor upgrades to already strong weapons for high costs is cool. The game has absolutely ZERO for me to strive for on improve on my mains atm, so having some real longterm goal to strive for that I can't get that quickly is cool imo.

I was actaully thinking of something similar just as I started playing the U14 beta, since I knew epic crafting was taken out:
Instead of slots, let us upgrade ANY named epic weapon, nearly indefinetely, with expoentially higher costs.
Could work like this:
+1 enhancement (up to +7) = 20 regular commendations of any type
+8 = 40 comms
+9 = 60 comms
+10 = 90 comms
Would stop at +10, but then start offering +W instead:
+0.25W = 110 comms
That would go on for 8 step, then it would drop to:
+0.10W = 150 comms
every 5 steps would also require 1 heroic commendation
after some insane number of upgrades you eventaully get to requires 500 commendations, this upgrade gets your weapon to +11, and it sends out a global message linking your weapon and congratulating you

Commendations would drop in all new quests. Heroic ones rarely in select EE quests like +4 tomes. I'd also have rare unbound commendations drop somewhere to help invigorate the games economy.

So over years, you could build up an ultimate weapon, that wouldn't get too power, at extrodinary costs.

I actually quite like this idea.

[Hendrik]

Or, they should make them drop with vastly increased frequency on hard/elite and drop multiples.

This.

Make it just like ToD and Trophies, higher difficulties give higher chance for multiple trophy/commendation.

[BoBo2020]

A heroic commendation should be a guaranteed drop just like the trophies in ToD.

[Zerkul]

You know what?

I have on Sorcerer Two randomgen scepters:

• +6 Magnetism (120 Spellpower) scepter of Evocation Mastery (maximize II, +3 Focus);
• +5 Glaciation (120 Spellpower) scepter of Cold Mastery (maximize I, superior ice lore).

Why should i even run that raid so many times to get 120 spell power on twilight? The only boost i can get is 6 spell power extra from the implement bonus. It doesn't even have two elements on it just one extra (so just magnetism or glaciation for me). Set bonus? No thanks i have my Xacosian for hardest times.

One thing DEVs haven't understood yet on Sorcerers equipment is that ALL Sorcerers must run two elements to be good. Twilight is good only for ice/force specs Water Savants and it's **** for everyone else. IF they add two elements Twilight griding MIGHT be a possibility for me, else it's just another switch in staff i use for Crowd Control.

[rdasca]

Seriously, since September 2009, has the disconnect from players ever been bigger?

It is things like this that just makes me wonder if anyone at Turbine actually plays DDO.

I get the fact these guys and girls work on this every day and like most probably do not want to go home and play with what they worked on, but we all know there are those at Turbine that at least used to play the game as paying customers.

One would like to think that they at least have looked at the updates from MotU forward and have at least tried to get the people designing the game to understand that these changes are getting to the point of ridiculousness.

The only logical conclusion anyone can draw from this is that Turbine really, really wants to sell a ton of raid bypass timers; because, even at a 10% drop that means 150 runs for one full upgrade for one item, plus the number of runs to get the item you are looking for (and if you are like me, my luck is going to halve that percentage). So that is 450 days if I run the raid every three days, not going to happen, the raid sucks bad enough now (as in not fun at all) that I have only ever gotten the will up to run the thing a couple of times. I was hoping for some real incentives to run the thing but this change pretty much kills any hope of that.

All in all, this is not the worse change Turbine has ever made to the game, but on a scale of 1 to 100 it ranks about a 92. I guess we know now why the devs have been so quite the last few weeks.

[Eladrin]

In Update 16 the commendation drop rates will be significantly higher than they are currently.

This isn't in the current Lamannia version yet, watch the release notes for this when it goes in:

Drop rates for Commendations of Heroism in the raid Caught in the Web have been increased. On Epic Elite difficulty, every player in the raid is guaranteed one commendation each in the first and second chest.

[Ape_Man]

What about for hard? having been in EE CiTW I'm still not sure I can say two commendations are worth the trouble.