Casualization at its peaks. What are your thoughts?

[TPICKRELL]

Wonna bet that sentient weapons will introduce a new ingredient type that will have apsolutely nothing to do with cov?
Taking into account former experience, i am quite confident i might win if you take the bet xD

Historically you would be correct.

I'm hoping the fact that they publicly nominated COV's as a longer term multi-use crafting ingredient will make it different. My bet is that like thunder forged it will be both, you will need COVs and some new ingredients.

[Miow]

Some random thoughts..

I like the shard, seal scroll system.
I liked the old epic system...it pushed me to better myself
I was more than happy to get a couple +4 tomes to choose from for my 20th TOD run, consider the effort it takes to run 20 tods.

Now people are so used to getting stuff way easier than ever nothing holds any value anymore for various reasons....etc

Btw i'm not a hardcore gamer by any stretch.

[unbongwah]

Oh, is it "Blame the Casuals" Day again?

HA HA! Kidding, of course - every day is "Blame the Casuals" Day!

Carry on.

[jalont]

I do not see a problem here, except: do we really need so much p2w in store, so that we have to make EE so hard to please the p2cheat elitists? And further penalize casual players for not being a cheater and not running EE?

No.

How did I miss this.

EE is not hard by any stretch of the imagination. Even the worst players in the game have crutches available to them (monkcher/shiradi caster) that will allow them to be a competent member of a party in EE. A "p2w" store has nothing to do with it. And this is a problem.

[HAL]

If Turbine sees more profit in gearing the game more toward casuals, nothing we say will change that.

[Gremmlynn]

No no dont take it wrong, i dont want personally to have "better gear" then others.
I want higher difficulties to be more difficult and to provide proper reward for it.
Even if im unable to complete it myself, i just want to be sure that there wil be a reward for higher and more difficult content so that i can work on improving myself to be able to get that reward.

Focus from seeds, from observing lfm today made players shift to high xp/min quest while not turning them in and completing mutliple quests on lower difficulty while turning in once they cap.
Commendation of valor mechanics before this change rewarded players who did all quests on ee and did ee higher tier quests underlevel so that they could collect a epic heart pre cap.

Now, efficiency wise that is not the case, and as efficiency wise there is no reason to run epic elite, we are left with loot, and 3bc showed what they did regarding that..
Initialy i asked myself this: If they will continue with 3bc loot mechanics, is there any point to ee content at all?

To my mind, the only reason anyone should feel forced to run any difficulty is because that's what they want to run.

While I have little issue with higher difficulties dropping more loot to make up for slower completions to take away incentive to not run them for efficiencies sake. I do see treating some customers better due to their preferences as a poor way to run this business. After all, Turbine has a lot more reason to care if they are satisfying their customers by providing the play experience they are looking for then they do that their customers are playing in the manner they may see as "the right way".

[jalont]

To my mind, the only reason anyone should feel forced to run any difficulty is because that's what they want to run.

While I have little issue with higher difficulties dropping more loot to make up for slower completions to take away incentive to not run them for efficiencies sake. I do see treating some customers better due to their preferences as a poor way to run this business. After all, Turbine has a lot more reason to care if they are satisfying their customers by providing the play experience they are looking for then they do that their customers are playing in the manner they may see as "the right way".

There's a problem with this though, and it mostly centers around the fact that DDO doesn't have any PvP to speak of.

This is the first and only game I've ever played where nothing matters. This effects both casual and powergamers. Casuals seem to have no use for EE or wanting to get better. So why are they playing? Why are they building a toon? Trying to get that perfect weapon doesn't matter because it certainly isn't going to give them the power to overcome a challenge that they couldn't before. EH and EN has no challenge to overcome. For powergamers, there's no point in farming anything because EE offers no real challenge to them. Trying to get anything is a pretty hollow exercise because it isn't like those things are needed.

It's all very weird, and it's a very weird experience. It's probably the reason DDO was never really popular to begin with. There's no "hook".

[janave]

Oh, is it "Blame the Casuals" Day again?

HA HA! Kidding, of course - every day is "Blame the Casuals" Day!

Carry on.

Same old topic, brand new title :d

[jalont]

Oh, is it "Blame the Casuals" Day again?

HA HA! Kidding, of course - every day is "Blame the Casuals" Day!

Carry on.

It's not blame the casuals day. It's blame the devs day. Of course people want everything handed to them. This is the Millennials syndrome in action. It's Turbines fault for giving in.

[ivstuntman]

I think casual players are customers too, and pay the same prices in either their money or their time grinding and deserve to enjoy the game in all it's aspects as well as the hard core players..

Now now, People do need some farm, but I feel everybody wants to do the harder runs at some point.

[Ancient]

EE is not hard by any stretch of the imagination. Even the worst players in the game have crutches available to them (monkcher/shiradi caster) that will allow them to be a competent member of a party in EE. A "p2w" store has nothing to do with it. And this is a problem.

EE isn't that hard, but it is slower than EN. My wizard suddenly feels less worthwhile in epics because I can't run as fast as the party and stuff is dead by the time I float into the room. In EE, those same players often waited for me to be the first to run into the room to take the alpha agro. Can't argue with the results though, getting more xp in a shorter amount of time now and seeing a larger variety of quests since we tear through them faster... It is a nice change of pace for now, but I do hope they do something to add a bit of carrot back to EE.

As far as the "crutch" builds, I see plenty of poor monkcher/shiradi players. It may lower the bar to get into EE, but it doesn't mean there is no skill involved.

[painkiller3]

...

The gianthold loot model is somewhat of a failure when it comes to using loot as a motivation to play, because you could just buy everything you wanted from other players anyway. It sure helped launch the ASAH though, and enrich the better players who were capable of farming up rare items. I'm certain it made Turbine some money, but I'm not sure it was entirely beneficial in other ways.

...

Thanks.

this

if the gianthold loot was BTA or unauctionable then it would be motivation to play EE

[Gremmlynn]

95%+ of the game caters to casual. How would using 5%- to please the power gamer means ignoring to casual crowd?

See, this is as wrong as when I say that casual, even though they don't wanna face the toughest challenge, want the same thing as the others that "work" for it. It's pure envy from my point of view but when a casual reads that, he goes "Not at all, I just want everything accessible to me while I enjoy the game my own way, screw what the devs are trying to do or anyone else".

While the power gamers will say : "Sure, you can have all your casuals world BUT give us a little piece of the cake because ALL THAT WE ENJOY is that little piece", which is not there atm.

It boils down to kicking people (powergamers) out of the game "indirectly" vs not pleasing casuals which may or may not leave anyway because those reasons (like best loot) have nothing to do with enjoying the game in reality. The damage just ain't the same to both camp. I'd say it's totally unfair, nothing less.

I don't play because I have no fun at all vs I have no fun at all because I can't get the best gear just ain't the same to me. One complaint seems more valid than the other.

What you seem to be missing is that Turbine has to deal with how things are, not how you, they, or anyone else thinks they should be.

Though I'm really not sure what you mean by power gamers not having their little piece of the game when, rather than making EE more accessible, they left it as it is for the hard core types and simply made it unnecessary for the rest.

As far as what complaints are "valid". The validity would be based on their effect on the bottom line, not anyone's sense of what may be right, wrong or "fair".

[JOTMON]

(sorry for not being clear in opening as it was really late when i started this thread, my posts will slowly show what i initialy thought, best sumerized in post 19)

Whole epic lfm is full with mainly eh/en lfms.
First day and i alrdy dont like it.
Seed change backfired exactly as i thought it would. Might be to soon to make a conclusion. But currently it feels like this and it is going into this direction.
I mean everyone feels the same that now its a matter of efficiency to run lower difficulty.
Was this expected? Yes.
But do we really need to trivialize ddo so much?
Can we get at least some promise that running epic elite content will offer some reward that is actually worth it.

At least the ee/eh/en loot system. Something, anything, as i fear if the next update will have btaoa loot with same stats no matter the difficulty, there will be no real reason for the Epic elite setting.
I know, many will say do it for the challenge, but shouldnt challenge be somehow be rewarded?

Opinions welcome and i encourage people to discuss this, as i am highly interested what community thinks how ddo should be difficulty wise and what you think about current direction ddo is taking.

My opinion:
Personally, i dislike it as i am losing sight of running hardest content on hardest setting.
Any other mmo, has different values and loot system depending on what you run content on.
Higher tier difficulty = better rewards /titles/ladder boards.
Ddo should not be a exception in that regard and should reward higher skilled players with something to make them feel a sense of achievment and progress /for example loot titles/ theras encouraging everyone to get better.

Seed farming is way too easy now.
I did a quick solo/shortman party zerg last night ..
Von3,GH, LOD, Series1,Series2.Series3, highroad, Stormhorns, Wheloon and got 74 seeds and some other loot goodies that I took instead of Seeds as well as 2 guild levels from saga rewards (with store pot).
and still had time to jump into a pug EN Deathwyrm raid.
ended up with 1.4mm xp and more than enough seeds for a TR stone but haven't capped my Destiny yet.. still 2mil xp to go...
Will hopefully rinse repeat another quick series run tonight..
at this rate I will have enough seeds for 4 TR's by the time I cap this destiny before the weekend hits..

I guess they wanted TR's to be easy to achieve.. and they are...
Von3 - 18 CoV or 2 seeds... wasn't a difficult choice. considering we used to have to trade 100 CoV's for 1 heart seed.

[Gremmlynn]

How can EN/EH not be a piece of cake if EE is soloable with exactly the same gear and builds.

Because they aren't being played by the same players.

And how can the ones struggling to progress eventually get there?

Believe it or not, many players find struggling to progress a good reason to not play that game. They find the difficulty level they are comfortable with and play it. In many cases, struggling to progress is what they play to get away from.

I have yet to see a logical reason why Turbine should care enough what a players motivation is to use the game as a social engineering tool to try to change it. What's their payoff for doing so?

[Gremmlynn]

The worst casualization of the game is lock-step with the worst soloization of the game: Dungeon Scaling and Diminished Class Dependance.

When group synergies and dependence are trivialized and dungeons are easier alone it is both pro casual and pro solo. The developers got rid of important tools for creating challenging content and it is nearly impossible to walk those changes back.

If content required trappers, healers, tanks, and crowd control we would have much more challenging and inclusive content befitting D&D and a MMO. Even the idea of raids are a joke now because what most power gamers want from raids is something with high reward that they can solo 10 times a day.

The player base would also only consist of those who find the game worth waiting around for all those pieces to assemble before they can do pretty much anything.

[Powskier]

May help to put rewards like xp pots and the like in EE chests Players who wanna run EE alot have most the stuff anyways,so binding loot or tier loots wont matter..players dont need items they allready have.

[Powskier]

Seed farming is way too easy now.
I did a quick solo/shortman party zerg last night ..
Von3,GH, LOD, Series1,Series2.Series3, highroad, Stormhorns, Wheloon and got 74 seeds and some other loot goodies that I took instead of Seeds as well as 2 guild levels from saga rewards (with store pot).
and still had time to jump into a pug EN Deathwyrm raid.
ended up with 1.4mm xp and more than enough seeds for a TR stone but haven't capped my Destiny yet.. still 2mil xp to go...
Will hopefully rinse repeat another quick series run tonight..
at this rate I will have enough seeds for 4 TR's by the time I cap this destiny before the weekend hits..

I guess they wanted TR's to be easy to achieve.. and they are...
Von3 - 18 CoV or 2 seeds... wasn't a difficult choice. considering we used to have to trade 100 CoV's for 1 heart seed.

shoulln'd this make players happy...you are choosing to run casual seed runs,not being forced..still need xps for sphere,casual dont do help that alot.Shuts up the cov farmin problem...takes newbs outta the epic elite lfms too i iagine .YEA we have a winner;lets try not to thrash turbine for givin what players asked for so vehamently in the forums.

[Vellrad]

this

if the gianthold loot was BTA or unauctionable then it would be motivation to play EE

No.

This means people will run it once, and they will have no reason to run it again after looting item.
Trading it means I have a reason to run it after getting 1 item.

[Gremmlynn]

So, are they pushing away people because they are scared that if not everyone can obtain the best everything, they just won't play? On the other side, who the heck thinks like that? Would you really stop playing a game because you cannot obtain the best gear even though you don't need it and aren't willing to try to get it? See where I am going... not quite sure yet which playstyle is creating the problem...

More a matter of telling one customer they don't matter as much as another.

As far as which play style is creating the "problem". It's more a conflict between play styles than a problem created by one or the other. As to which is "right"? Whichever it best serves Turbine to make right. It's not really a moral issue and even if it were, Turbine's moral, and legal, responsibility lies with providing their (or WBs to be exact) investors with the best possible return on their investment. Not with making their customers better people.