Adding comms to Otto's Boxes is a dirty move turbine. Pathetic and petty.

[Thar]

We included Commendations of Valor in unopened and future Epic Irresistible Otto's Boxes to address a concern we have heard from players who felt that using the box was a negative experience rather than a positive one in terms of Commendations. This aims to make sure that they're receiving the commendations appropriate to the XP received. Nothing is set in stone, though (remember that this is a particularly early state of Update 21 on Lamannia), so if there is a serious concern about including the Commendations in the boxes, it is something we could remove.

adding stuff is fine, don't listen to them. removing is bad...

[Ungood]

Your critical thinking skills are priceless, especially since I posted that the addition of comms, in its own right, is a good thing and I don't have a problem with it *on its own*.

Its the exacerbation of an already pervasive schism that exists between store-savvy players and those who want to attain their accomplishments solely through in game implementations; likely because they simply can't afford the store items.

Adding yet another way to buy your way through faster epic lives while giving the in-game counterpart NOTHING, does precisely that. It widens the gap in efficiency that already exists between the two avenues. I'm arguing to you that the store should not be THAT much better than the in-game implementation. The balance between the store and in-game acquisition of True hearts for 20 epic tokens was very well achieved. This deviates amazingly far from that in the direction of pay2win. And...THIS is my issue. Not the mere addition of comms to boxes.

You need to understand this point if you are to continue this discussion.

Sounds like an P2W rant. Not to be rude, but we already have Chai for that.

[Silverleafeon]

We included Commendations of Valor in unopened and future Epic Irresistible Otto's Boxes to address a concern we have heard from players who felt that using the box was a negative experience rather than a positive one in terms of Commendations. This aims to make sure that they're receiving the commendations appropriate to the XP received. Nothing is set in stone, though (remember that this is a particularly early state of Update 21 on Lamannia), so if there is a serious concern about including the Commendations in the boxes, it is something we could remove.

Myself personally, not too worried about it.

Let us look at the math for a second:

Heroic Otto's Box:
Lots of goodies
Enough xp to complete 17/19 of a heroic life

Epic Otto's Box:
Lots of goodies
Enough xp to complete 17/33 of an epic life
Possible 1300/4200 epic heart or 25% of an epic heart worth 333 tp;
comparable to today's current sale of 20% off epic hearts saving 295 tp

The total value of the addition of heroic commendation is actually minor in that its true worth is 333/5000
or about 1/15 of the total package.


In the not so distant future, Epic Otto's Boxes will compare even less favorably to Heroic,
when the level cap goes to 30 and the xp required to get there is 9.9 million (unless altered).
Enough xp to complete 34/99 of an epic life, or about 1/3 instead of 1/2.

So technically, a bigger issue is future xp to gain level cap and any adjustments that should be made
to the xp curve at that time.

[Shmuel]

We included Commendations of Valor in unopened and future Epic Irresistible Otto's Boxes to address a concern we have heard from players who felt that using the box was a negative experience rather than a positive one in terms of Commendations. This aims to make sure that they're receiving the commendations appropriate to the XP received. Nothing is set in stone, though (remember that this is a particularly early state of Update 21 on Lamannia), so if there is a serious concern about including the Commendations in the boxes, it is something we could remove.

The "concern from players" you ought to be addressing is that the ratio between the drop rate of comms and the number needed to tr is much too low. If you keep comm drop rates as they are now tr hearts should be around 1200 each, not 4200. Otherwise increase drop rates by about 15-20X and add drops to chests as well like guild renown.

[Qhualor]

After watching DDOcast, Producer Rowan said something along the lines of remember when it was hard to get epic tokens in the beginning and it got easier? Total contradiction to what we were told about when they first introduced Comms. Remember we were told we could earn enough to ER if running EE from 20-28? Or have most of what's needed to buy a EHoW from normal leveling running EH?

[Shmuel]

After watching DDOcast, Producer Rowan said something along the lines of remember when it was hard to get epic tokens in the beginning and it got easier? Total contradiction to what we were told about when they first introduced Comms. Remember we were told we could earn enough to ER if running EE from 20-28? Or have most of what's needed to buy a EHoW from normal leveling running EH?

getting comms was never hard, especially in the beginning before they tried (and failed) to make it harder by introducing token fragments and reducing the drop per quest.

even so, there is a big difference between it being hard and it being a grind

[noble_pirate]

Yet somehow you guys seem deaf to the continuous complaints that 4200 IS TOO HIGH !!!

If you fixed that, you wouldn't have to stuff this box full of these. Treat the disease, not the symptoms!
Leave the comms in the box. Reduce the comms needed for tr hearts. Please and thank you.

yep, that's at least will have some sense

...a man, being just as hungry as thirsty, and placed in between food and drink, must necessarily remain where he is and starve to death.
— Aristotle, On the Heavens, ca.350 BCE

[zwiebelring]

They don#t treat anything. They want to earn money with those boxes. Obviously people shall be lured into spending money for them. Why would you cure the system to those boxes being not needed at all?

[IronClan]

It widens the gap in efficiency that already exists between the two avenues.

What does that even mean? I mean before I can call it "other people can buy stuff I don't want them to buy" I need to make sense of the terrible rationalization that's being used to justify that mind set

[IronClan]

After watching DDOcast, Producer Rowan said something along the lines of remember when it was hard to get epic tokens in the beginning and it got easier? Total contradiction to what we were told about when they first introduced Comms. Remember we were told we could earn enough to ER if running EE from 20-28? Or have most of what's needed to buy a EHoW from normal leveling running EH?

Yeah, no. You were never told that; what you were told was that they want to future proof it without raising them in the future, that the cap will be 30, 2 more levels of questing, and that tokens of the twelve were meta gamed so badly that they didn't want cov's to end up like them. So they are taking a wait and see attitude... I don't blame them, even "XP/Min" people have tested things and show that one and done'ing everything on EH and then EE will get you to level cap in about the same time as you get most of your Cov's. It's just that some people want to repeat Von3 endlessly to cap and have enough Cov's to ER...

[Cetus]

What does that even mean? I mean before I can call it "other people can buy stuff I don't want them to buy" I need to make sense of the terrible rationalization that's being used to justify that mind set

It means that the relative power of the ddo store has already risen to stupendous levels. I can buy epic and iconic hearts straight up, effectively bypassing the ENTIRE reincarnation grind.

What have we got in-game? A painful, uninteresting grind that takes us a great amount of time to acquire 4200 comms. The only balance here exists for those who play the game 24/7 and thus get these comms at a reasonable rate.

For everyone else, they got the finger. So, to the DDO store it is.

Its not terrible rationalization at all, you just need to comprehend that rather obvious fact I'm detailing in crayon for you.

[Qhualor]

Yeah, no. You were never told that; what you were told was that they want to future proof it without raising them in the future, that the cap will be 30, 2 more levels of questing, and that tokens of the twelve were meta gamed so badly that they didn't want cov's to end up like them. So they are taking a wait and see attitude... I don't blame them, even "XP/Min" people have tested things and show that one and done'ing everything on EH and then EE will get you to level cap in about the same time as you get most of your Cov's. It's just that some people want to repeat Von3 endlessly to cap and have enough Cov's to ER...

umm yeah we were. I just had the same conversation in this thread https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...stones-Or-Else go to the last couple pages of a conversation I was having and there are quotes of what we were told or you can go here https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...-(Second-Life)

I did do one and done and only got half by cap and I wasn't doing xp/min and ran only EH. I didn't have xp pots or an epic tome of learning. we weren't told one and done anyways, we were told normal leveling from 20-28 and earning enough Comms in a cycle.

[SilkofDrasnia]

Of course its evil.
Everyone should be avarded with 500 comms on each character after first login per day, and 4,200 after reaching lvl28.
Also, while we're on it, lets give everyone 100k XP per day just for logging into game.

Nice way to miss the forest for the trees!

We included Commendations of Valor in unopened and future Epic Irresistible Otto's Boxes to address a concern we have heard from players who felt that using the box was a negative experience rather than a positive one in terms of Commendations. This aims to make sure that they're receiving the commendations appropriate to the XP received. Nothing is set in stone, though (remember that this is a particularly early state of Update 21 on Lamannia), so if there is a serious concern about including the Commendations in the boxes, it is something we could remove.

You are perfectly correct to include CoV in Otto's Boxes.

You DO need to address CoV drop rates in-game though. Between Reinc costs and Wyrm crafting, this has become a must. As many have said, somewhere between + 50%-100% is reasonable.

This exactly, I don't care about otto boxes and if vcoms are in them or not but you still need to fix the drop rate because this is seriously making my game play a negative experience rather than a positive one.

Exactly.. There is no problem here...

Turbine would be "evil" if they added a NEW thing to buy to get comms... That's when you could say they made an artifical bottleneck, and then charge us to bypass it. But this is free comms in an existing item.

I'd say it's a rather nice moce actually.

Baloney! They added it to the epic boxes because they they realized they were cutting their own neck on the sales, period. They are just attempting to make the value of the otto boxes remain the same as before since XP in epic levels isn't the problem but rather a really really bad vcom drop rate is.

.....
I think that there should be more opportunities to earn comms. Put them in chests, make some sort of barter option, and increase end rewards on them.
....

If you really think hard about it it will become apparent to you why they put them in end rewards rather than in chests.

.......

Not be rude, but of all the things to get annoyed with.. how the heck do people make the jumps in logic needed to get their britches in a wad over getting MORE stuff for their money?

Missing the forest for the trees just like Vellrad. People are annoyed because this strongly indicates they will not fix the drop rate and will claim they did listen to us and fix it via this "method".

...
This sense of entitlement that people should retroactively get everything is simply amazing. "I bought an otto's box a year ago! I should get all the new good stuff that comes with it now!" That makes a ton of sense.

Have to agree here.

[Ungood]

Missing the forest for the trees just like Vellrad. People are annoyed because this strongly indicates they will not fix the drop rate and will claim they did listen to us and fix it via this "method".

I feel a bit unclean for having been compared to Vellrad but eh.

Here is the truth, the com rate is not that bad. It's enough to inspire someone to want to buy the heart, but not too much that if someone wants to grind for the heart they can do so in a reasonable manner.

No you are not going to *ding* make 28th and have everything handed to you on a silver platter, especially if you bypassed the bad exp content and only ran max exp/min quests while running exp pots.

I have found it a rather nice feature that they allowed you get the parts while you leveled, allowing you to prep for a eTR as you leveled to 28 (30 soon), as before, the grind started only after you made 20th, so you had to cap and then you could grind for your next life.

Personally, I have to agree with Postumus, the entitlement regarding this staggering.

[Pandir]

I feel a bit unclean for having been compared to Vellrad but eh.

Here is the truth, the com rate is not that bad. It's enough to inspire someone to want to buy the heart, but not too much that if someone wants to grind for the heart they can do so in a reasonable manner.

No you are not going to *ding* make 28th and have everything handed to you on a silver platter, especially if you bypassed the bad exp content and only ran max exp/min quests while running exp pots.

I have found it a rather nice feature that they allowed you get the parts while you leveled, allowing you to prep for a eTR as you leveled to 28 (30 soon), as before, the grind started only after you made 20th, so you had to cap and then you could grind for your next life.

Personally, I have to agree with Postumus, the entitlement regarding this staggering.

Well i don't have a big problem with the 4200 allthough 3200 - 3500 seems better to me.
What really irks me though is that the CoV rate is only based on quest level not quest length and there's none at all in adventure areas.
I hope they can add some CoV's to the slayer/explore steps so i don't feel punished in my ETR routine for doing those, since i actually like them.

[SilkofDrasnia]

I feel a bit unclean for having been compared to Vellrad but eh.

Here is the truth, the com rate is not that bad. It's enough to inspire someone to want to buy the heart, but not too much that if someone wants to grind for the heart they can do so in a reasonable manner.

No you are not going to *ding* make 28th and have everything handed to you on a silver platter, especially if you bypassed the bad exp content and only ran max exp/min quests while running exp pots.

I have found it a rather nice feature that they allowed you get the parts while you leveled, allowing you to prep for a eTR as you leveled to 28 (30 soon), as before, the grind started only after you made 20th, so you had to cap and then you could grind for your next life.

Personally, I have to agree with Postumus, the entitlement regarding this staggering.

Here is where we differ in opinion. I do not feel the need to have 4200 vcom the moment I hit lvl 28 or 30 for that matter, the problem is what is a reasonable grind?

I don't mind that you can't farm von3 for coms.
I don't mind you cant farm raids for coms
I don't mind if you can't etr right away and have to stay at endgame a little.

What I do mind however is that to be able to farm coms at a reasonable rate you have to farm EE only or go home and take out your wallet.

Some of you are over stating and over using the whole "entitlement argument". I use to farm epics everyday when they had a timer and there was only the Epic difficulty and the grind was no where as long as it is now.

I have just hit 20 a day or so ago and I am lvl 22 already with under 150coms. The problem, I tend to hit EH with my wife and tend to do von3 once a day.

Facts are you can't grind vcoms in a reasonable manner unless you hit EE shadowfail and motu and that is the problem.

[Postumus]

What I do mind however is that to be able to farm coms at a reasonable rate you have to farm EE only or go home and take out your wallet.

You make a good point here I think. Thinking about how many runs of normal Eberron epics to get enough tokens for a heart of wood...


I probably average 40ish fragments of the 12 twelve per normal run. So that would be about 50 normal runs to get enough fragments to convert into a heart of wood to TR.


I'm getting around 10 COVs per normal run in the end reward. That means I'd need 420 runs to get enough for a heart of wood to eTR. That's over 8 times as many quests for a heart of wood. Yeah.... I won't be eTRing any time soon.


Doesn't really have anything to do with the boxes though. Cordovan explained why they added them in the DDOCast recently. To compensate players for the number of COVs they miss from purchasing the XPs rather than running quests for them.

[Ungood]

You make a good point here I think. Thinking about how many runs of normal Eberron epics to get enough tokens for a heart of wood...


I probably average 40ish fragments of the 12 twelve per normal run. So that would be about 50 normal runs to get enough fragments to convert into a heart of wood to TR.


I'm getting around 10 COVs per normal run in the end reward. That means I'd need 420 runs to get enough for a heart of wood to eTR. That's over 8 times as many quests for a heart of wood. Yeah.... I won't be eTRing any time soon.


Doesn't really have anything to do with the boxes though. Cordovan explained why they added them in the DDOCast recently. To compensate players for the number of COVs they miss from purchasing the XPs rather than running quests for them.

Ok the 420 runs looks bad, but, before we focus on that, we first need to figure out how many of those exact normal runs do you need to make to go from 20 - 28th level. 100? 200? 300?

Normally by the end of a life going from 1 - 20, running a heroic elite streak, I am around 300 or so by the time I cap, so that's 300+ runs to make around 4 million Exp. Given that very loose math, I would wager that to get 6 million EXP, should take you around 400 runs.

So, after you level from 21 to 28, doing a variety of content, you should be left with a nominal grind of around lets say, 20 to 50 or so farming runs after cap. That seems rather fair in retrospect to how the old epic system worked and you can even over level content to get what you want, you don't need to run it at level at the hardest difficulty.

[Ovrad]

Normally by the end of a life going from 1 - 20, running a heroic elite streak, I am around 300 or so by the time I cap, so that's 300+ runs to make around 4 million Exp. Given that very loose math, I would wager that to get 6 million EXP, should take you around 400 runs.

The difference here is that a TR is 300+ runs of different quests (that's the whole idea of streak), while farming ER is maybe 20 quests at best.

More runs + less quests = a whole lot less fun.

[danotmano1998]

The difference here is that a TR is 300+ runs of different quests (that's the whole idea of streak), while farming ER is maybe 20 quests at best.

More runs + less quests = a whole lot less fun.

This is a large factor of the grind. When you work your way up to 20, you're choosing from hundreds upon hundreds of quests. Always something different to look forward to next level.
Once you hit epic, you've got a only handful of quests that will take you up to where you want to be. This is why it feels onerous and grindy.