Producer's Letter

[Qhualor]

And with this post I think you identify a big difference in viewpoints:

"Only 26" more runs of a raid. 26 raid runs is more of a mountain than an "only" for many players

Let's assume you are after just two items so 40 runs total.

How long will it take you to do these 40 runs?

Without raid timer bypass it would take over 4 months.
For an average player that gets to run a raid about once a week - closer to 10 months

I don't think that being *guaranteed* what you want after 4-10 months is such a bad thing.

Since raid timer bypass is so popular, you can't balance guaranteed loot in a specific time frame for raids. It might take me 4 months to get what I want, but each passing month can be harder to get a group together when using a bypass could get players guaranteed raid loot in half the time. This leads to raids dying out faster than they should making it tougher to get a group together. After awhile you just want to run normal for completion when it can be tough to get a group to do higher difficulties.

[JOTMON]

Since raid timer bypass is so popular, you can't balance guaranteed loot in a specific time frame for raids. It might take me 4 months to get what I want, but each passing month can be harder to get a group together when using a bypass could get players guaranteed raid loot in half the time. This leads to raids dying out faster than they should making it tougher to get a group together. After awhile you just want to run normal for completion when it can be tough to get a group to do higher difficulties.

IF the loot is good enough people will still be running it.. aka shroud.. I have over a thousand runs across all my toons and still running it..
on the flipside... Titan.. after Feathers loot revamp made random gen better than the raid loot and completely ignored the raid loot in the revamp.. dead... who cares about chattering ring now....

Ultimately the time to get the item is irrelevant as long as the item remains level range viable and/or best in slot.
Things like eSOS still desired.. Shroud.. still desired.. and both are still avidly run regularly.

[catouse9]

+1

LOVE those guys trying to pry those gem eyes out of that idol!

[painkiller3]

And with this post I think you identify a big difference in viewpoints:

"Only 26" more runs of a raid. 26 raid runs is more of a mountain than an "only" for many players

the number i put in there wasn't important, i could've said 6 or 106. the fact that there is a number is what bugs me. i prefer to think of collecting virtual treasure as the lottery as opposed to filling a jar with coins.

[Vellrad]

And with this post I think you identify a big difference in viewpoints:

"Only 26" more runs of a raid. 26 raid runs is more of a mountain than an "only" for many players

Let's assume you are after just two items so 40 runs total.

How long will it take you to do these 40 runs?

Without raid timer bypass it would take over 4 months.
For an average player that gets to run a raid about once a week - closer to 10 months

I don't think that being *guaranteed* what you want after 4-10 months is such a bad thing.

With or without bypasses its exactly 200 to 400 minutes of actual gameplay.

[Aelonwy]

the number i put in there wasn't important, i could've said 6 or 106. the fact that there is a number is what bugs me. i prefer to think of collecting virtual treasure as the lottery as opposed to filling a jar with coins.

I don't raid much, so what I'm about to say is not in reference to raids, but I hate, HATE, HATE, hate,hate!!! lottery loot systems. I have everything I need from alot of adventure packs but I still run them because I enjoy them, eg Shan To Khor. I would like to have lots of stuff from the various Necropolis packs but I don't really enjoy them so I mostly avoid them, especially Necro 2 & 3, except for the wilderness area I felt I had wasted my money (bought the bundle) until they epic-ed Necro 4. You know what I liked best about the wilderness area? Guaranteed loot of my choice when I got enough ingredients. Yes the ingredients are a bit of a lottery but if one particular piece isn't dropping for me, I can go run a particular quest with some friends and usually get that missing piece. I love 3x chain end rewards. Heck I just like chain end rewards, even though alot of the more recent ones will only have one or two named items on them. At least you are guaranteed something, its still a little lottery-ish. For example, my main has done the epic necro circuit over a dozen times so far, on five of those her only choice was the Seraphim helm, several times I have had two of the exact same item be my only option(s), and I haven't had much luck with the chests... two more Seraphim helms staring me in the face.

If my only option for all quests in the game was luck based loot, I'd give up, right now, I'd turn and go back to some PC Elder Scrolls game or just stay with PnP, because some of us have loot luck and some of us have to be passed every darn thing that's worth getting.

[Lanadazia]

Honestly, guys, if you are going to epic-ify Vale, don't give us retreads of the same content. The same map, and the same mechanic with different mobs is unbelievably tedious. If I have to re-run the same content just so I can run a different raid (that I'll have a hard time getting a group to run anyways), I might as well just not run the content in the first place.

Yeah, re-ran some of the eOrchard quests people have been raving about. It's reheated leftovers. I might as well just run heroic and not even bother.

Not everyone defines fun as farming uber-powerful loot. Some of us want actual variety of adventure.

my thoughts exactly!

i havent run mark of death yet, though i was thrilled to see lady vol. just the flagging made me not running the raid. i just did one of the flagging quests and had enough.
i don't even run necro4 on my TRs for over a year now cause we were forced to grind it out while TRing before the bravery- and first-time-bonuses got released
making us run the same old and stale content is not worth an update. i'd prefer you push an update a month or two back, and get us an update with exciting NEW content

don't get me wrong: i do like most of the stuff the devs are doing contentwise, great job! especially for newer players this is alot more quests to chose from in the epic area. but for players that have been around 5+ years adding epic versions of quests we have done hundreds of times is just no excitement and plain boring, if not even displeasing


to the uber-powerful loot:

i wish you'd stop the power-creep each update, so we ain't forced to run quests to stay updated gear-wise
its enough if you add gear with ~ the same power level as available gear for that level! so we have a pool of gear to chose from = more varity in item builds
and not a 'must have' item, cause its so powerful, it makes all other items for that slot obsolete and not worth a try.
i really like figuring out my gear layout, but its less fun if i have to fit in pre-set items, due to powercreep

[Postumus]

Honestly, guys, if you are going to epic-ify Vale, don't give us retreads of the same content. The same map, and the same mechanic with different mobs is unbelievably tedious. If I have to re-run the same content just so I can run a different raid (that I'll have a hard time getting a group to run anyways), I might as well just not run the content in the first place.


Not everyone defines fun as farming uber-powerful loot. Some of us want actual variety of adventure.

You've just described the "good old days when DDO had an endgame."

Posters around here like to wax nostalgically about it, but it was just re-heated leftovers with better loot. Same map. Same mechanic. Same mobs. Unbelievably tedious. Farming for powerful loot. Worse drop rate than anything today.

[Qhualor]

IF the loot is good enough people will still be running it.. aka shroud.. I have over a thousand runs across all my toons and still running it..
on the flipside... Titan.. after Feathers loot revamp made random gen better than the raid loot and completely ignored the raid loot in the revamp.. dead... who cares about chattering ring now....

Ultimately the time to get the item is irrelevant as long as the item remains level range viable and/or best in slot.
Things like eSOS still desired.. Shroud.. still desired.. and both are still avidly run regularly.

if there were more raids like Shroud than probably have a longer life. with raids now its just a matter of 20/40/60 completions, even ones with ingredients to upgrade. after you get your loot, whats the incentive to go back? in the old days, even after you got your loot, you would still go back for tomes since they were limited to where they would drop and all required hard/elite for a chance to pull one unless you happen to see one in your 20th list. rare loot that was desired by all like ESOS shard is another good example of why to go back to a raid after you got what you wanted.

[dunklezhan]

I would prefer always new content to simply rehashed old content like the old (and more recent, of course) epics. However, I am realistic about the prospects and rather than waiting ages between updates for new content during which time people leave even faster, I would rather have what we actually have now which is a pretty clear template of relatively regular updates of old content ('rehashed' if you like) which tend to have a 'capstone' that is new (be it a raid, the ship to ship quest in 3BC, or in the case of Xoriat, the first quest instead of the last quest in which we are set upon by art exhibits. But those Delkir are crazy), and in all cases some updated plot.

Things are not that bad, and they could be a hell of a lot worse. Do I want entirely new content? Yes a thousand times yes, I want Khorvaire especially Sharn and Talenta, I want to see various plot lines finished off in interesting ways, I want new classes and all of that shiny stuff. But I'm still pleased to get additional ways to get XP at different level ranges.

But rehashing is not inherently bad, especially when it comes with some genuine differences. For example, this life I can now choose whether I run GH on heroic or epic for example, or house D, or 3BC or Orchard. That's not a bad thing for extending the life of certain quests, and therefore the game, when looked at like that. Not as much as new content, but if it keeps more options coming regularly, I'll take it. Particularly if it's Eberron and not FR in my case, so this last year and next year have been broadly good news for me. So colour me biased

[painkiller3]

I don't raid much, so what I'm about to say is not in reference to raids, but I hate, HATE, HATE, hate,hate!!! lottery loot systems. I have everything I need from alot of adventure packs but I still run them because I enjoy them, eg Shan To Khor. I would like to have lots of stuff from the various Necropolis packs but I don't really enjoy them so I mostly avoid them, especially Necro 2 & 3, except for the wilderness area I felt I had wasted my money (bought the bundle) until they epic-ed Necro 4. You know what I liked best about the wilderness area? Guaranteed loot of my choice when I got enough ingredients. Yes the ingredients are a bit of a lottery but if one particular piece isn't dropping for me, I can go run a particular quest with some friends and usually get that missing piece. I love 3x chain end rewards. Heck I just like chain end rewards, even though alot of the more recent ones will only have one or two named items on them. At least you are guaranteed something, its still a little lottery-ish. For example, my main has done the epic necro circuit over a dozen times so far, on five of those her only choice was the Seraphim helm, several times I have had two of the exact same item be my only option(s), and I haven't had much luck with the chests... two more Seraphim helms staring me in the face.

If my only option for all quests in the game was luck based loot, I'd give up, right now, I'd turn and go back to some PC Elder Scrolls game or just stay with PnP, because some of us have loot luck and some of us have to be passed every darn thing that's worth getting.

but that's just it...cannith and eveningstar challenges (and augments and lots of other things) are set up so you are acquiring pieces towards making something...even shroud and thunderforged are like that. i think that there should be some stuff that is really ,really rare like the eSOS or the eRing of Spell Storing or whatever else.

[MIvan]

Last year we took steps to combat lag. We changed the shared bank to a paged system for example.
Sev~

Any chance to change the TR cache to a paged and searchable system?

[NyteByrd1017]

Yea, the price of an adult movie ticket.

Let's see the value;

2hrs of entertainment for $7 or 480hrs for that same $7.

It doesn't matter. Giving people what they want in a product they pay for is good business. That keeps your customers coming back. Substituting a product they really don't want and then telling them "but, it's not costing you much" is not good business.

Mabar was the catalyst for many longtime customers to reconnect with DDO. It was a stepping stone.

I found out Mabar was cancelled when I logged in last October to play Mabar. This was after months of not playing DDO. I would have played for several months afterwards. My interest would have started up again. I would have renewed my subscription.

I'm not the only VIP who feels cancelling Mabar called for a second look at DDO's direction and not liking what I was seeing.

First and foremost, DDO is a business. Cancelling Mabar was a bad business decision. Why? You had a built-in Mabar clientele who was ready, willing, able, and paying. The smart business decision was to fix Mabar, add a few new twists to it, and keep the customer happy.

Btw, the only reason why I'm on this forum now is because of the new changes that were coming. The new changes look very much like the old with a little twist here and there. Nothing I see will make me renew my subscription. End result: Another lost customer. Not just player, but customer.

[Postumus]

Mabar was the catalyst for many longtime customers to reconnect with DDO. It was a stepping stone.

Interesting. I think this is one of the first posts I've seen where anyone really cared about Mabar being cancelled.

The concept was fun, but the implementation was not so good.

[Seikojin]

For all the complaining about retreading content: they could just make it the shavrath side where you battle portals :P

[NyteByrd1017]

Interesting. I think this is one of the first posts I've seen where anyone really cared about Mabar being cancelled.

The concept was fun, but the implementation was not so good.

Maybe only in this thread. But go back a few months.

[Cetus]

"]
*And if the only thing you lust after is the gear, you are welcome to do so.

This means that you are fine with having the best gear in the game handed out without breaking a sweat? Don't be ridiculous.

"]
*People play EE all the time for the challenge. Why are you different? If you truly don't enjoy the challenge, then by all means, take your 4 month break, and we'll see you on the flip side.

You completely misinterpreted what I'm saying. I do enjoy the challenge, but the moment you have finally beaten the quest to your satisfaction - you no longer have an impetus to return there if there isn't any other kind of incentive to bring you in there. This means roflstomping normal, getting your essentially **guaranteed** stuff, and the game is pretty much done. All that development time reduced to days instead of months, like content used to last.

"]
*Nothing in this game is guaranteed. I do agree that norm running content to get the best gear is not desirable, but by no means are the best gear in the game a guarantee to anyone.

What are you talking about, of course it is guaranteed. In the circle of even above average players, they get anything they set their eyes on simply because the game has reduced any resistance to the acquisition of loot to this: run to the quest giver, run to quest entrance, click normal, press enter, run to end. Repeat until item drops. You really can't disagree with this, as this is exactly what people have been doing to get the games best loot out of the recent updates. And if you're OK with this, then we just have to quite strongly disagree.

"]
*The only sense of entitlement I'm hearing (all over the forums) is from the old guard elitists that defend their uberness with unmatched sarcasm, belittlement, and unfounded claims.

Interesting, I'm sitting here making the case for longer lasting content, and to have the loot increase in power as the risk of attempting to acquire it increases, and your response is to simply insult the players that devoted enough to this product to push the limits of what was possible.

Also, where did I mention anything about preserving some "uberness". Here's a hint: I don't give a squat about how uber I am. I champion anyone who actually has the initiative to show off their mastery of the game and their characters. Just take a look at the achievements forum, my so-called record ranks video has been demolished by zoda and zerk, did I ever say anything other than congratulations or nicely done?

Which unfounded claims are you referring to? Mention them so I can disabuse you of this thought.

"]
*There may be some forumite chatter to make things easier to get...I'm not seeing it, but it may be there. What I AM seeing is a lot of disgruntled old school players belittling everyone that has come after the beginning and lumping us all into the same "entitlement" boat. It's honestly ridiculous. I've seen your vids. I've read many of your posts. You have a lot more to offer than hostility if you so choose. If this kind of post is the best you have to offer after your 4 month break, perhaps another 4 will freshen it.

Enough with the histrionics already.

And you return to making an assertion that is precisely that - unfounded. What makes you think I lumped **YOU** into anything. My statement was vague enough to discount that possibility, yet you just made up your mind right then and there. Seems rational...lol

The only hostility I have is toward objectively bad decisions such as making the games most powerful items acquirable with essentially the touch of a button. After all the challenge in the world is overcome, loot remains to be one of the view incentives left to actually return to old content - especially if it cleverly crafted like the helms of the tor dragon, where most characters can use them.

[fmalfeas]

It doesn't matter. Giving people what they want in a product they pay for is good business. That keeps your customers coming back. Substituting a product they really don't want and then telling them "but, it's not costing you much" is not good business.

Mabar was the catalyst for many longtime customers to reconnect with DDO. It was a stepping stone.

I found out Mabar was cancelled when I logged in last October to play Mabar. This was after months of not playing DDO. I would have played for several months afterwards. My interest would have started up again. I would have renewed my subscription.

I'm not the only VIP who feels cancelling Mabar called for a second look at DDO's direction and not liking what I was seeing.

First and foremost, DDO is a business. Cancelling Mabar was a bad business decision. Why? You had a built-in Mabar clientele who was ready, willing, able, and paying. The smart business decision was to fix Mabar, add a few new twists to it, and keep the customer happy.

Btw, the only reason why I'm on this forum now is because of the new changes that were coming. The new changes look very much like the old with a little twist here and there. Nothing I see will make me renew my subscription. End result: Another lost customer. Not just player, but customer.

They tried to fix Mabar for quite a while. They surrendered. It would require a complete redesign of the event...and...hey, wait, that's basically what they're doing! They're making a new halloween event! (They even said as much. The mimic thing is NOT the replacement, but it will contain the mabar loot so people can actually get that stuff while they work on the new halloween thing.)

What is with all the knee-jerk hysterics all the time, people?

[Faltout]

You completely misinterpreted what I'm saying. I do enjoy the challenge, but the moment you have finally beaten the quest to your satisfaction - you no longer have an impetus to return there if there isn't any other kind of incentive to bring you in there. This means roflstomping normal, getting your essentially **guaranteed** stuff, and the game is pretty much done. All that development time reduced to days instead of months, like content used to last.

The reason we keep running elite even when we've done a flawless run is because we are giving challenge a chance to present itself again. In the form of an unexpected champion? Or maybe because we missed a step? Maybe because there are new members in the group? Maybe because our characters are different? How about player agility and reflexes?

You sound like challenge will never present itself again after performing best. Is it like flipping a switch? Every run after the perfect one is perfect as well? Well, if you only play with the group that achieved the perfect run and with the character that achieved the perfect run and with minimizing every danger by skipping optionals, fights, etc. then of course you'll have no fun. It's you, not the game... No game can compete with that attitude.

[Aelonwy]

but that's just it...cannith and eveningstar challenges (and augments and lots of other things) are set up so you are acquiring pieces towards making something...even shroud and thunderforged are like that. i think that there should be some stuff that is really ,really rare like the eSOS or the eRing of Spell Storing or whatever else.

I feel most raid items fit this category, since you are never guaranteed a complete list of the named items on your 20th. I've heard of ppl that have done more than 80 DQ without getting their base Torq let alone upgrading it to Epic. That's plenty OMG rare. What you are asking for is items with the rarity of ARTIFACTS. While I will grant you DDO is leaning toward this with the powercreep, they aren't quite there yet and such powerful items should be limited to one per server, disappears from your account after a month? a year? so someone else has a miniscule chance of weilding the ultra-rare item. Quest equipment really shouldn't fall into this category.