U27 Items Official Discussion - Round 2

[RTFM]

Cetus,

the reason that there is a whole world of players out there that have all the gear they need from MoD is that they had/have a big fat pile of Raid By PassTimers, I wonder where they got them from? Anniversary Cards perhaps?

Do you remember the definition of assume "Assume: To make and a** of you and me". You have to remember that if you run MOD there is probably someone in the party willing to give out raid timers.

My guild leader bought stacks of 100's long before the "Anniversary Cards" and would pass them out on raid nights, of if guildies needed them.

I personally spent millions in plat, draining multiple plat capped toons on my last MOD spree for me 2nd main. I even had to bum 1 million plat from a guildie to buy yugo pots on an alt this last life, because none of my toons had more than 200K plat from buying timers on the AH. They are not expensive, 250K usually (It does not take much grinding to make 250K plat actually).

Timers are also not expensive to buy with TP.

So, there are LOTS of ways to get timers, not just from "Anniversary card playas".

I'm still struggling to work out what I think Turbine should do with regard to Raid By Pass Timers, part of me wants them gone forever, but with so few end game raids I'm worried that what raid LFMs are up on a nightly basis will vanish as less players are able to run them due to being on timer. Then again wont Raid By Pass Timers simply accelerate the end of MoD as a played raid, as suggested by your asertion that lots of players have all the gear they need from it.

Without By Pass Timers your 20 runs will take a lot longer to achieve, just like in the past before they were introduced. Many people ran raids and got nothing until their 20th run and people still ran the raids.

I think that perhaps the answer is to have a stable of end game raids that have loot of comparable power with the chance of dropping +6 and +7 tomes, or possibly +5 supremes ( I guess you'll tell me everyone already has these) mixed in with a number of end quests such as HH and ToEE. Then maybe we can get rid of Raid By Pass Timers, of course if they do I imagine there will be a whole outcry and rage quit threads on the forums.

Personally, I think they should do away with raid timers altogether. It has always been a stupid mechanic and a relic of the days VON 6 was the only real raid in the game. Thank goodness they got rid of "flagging for every run" which was also something people argued against!

TOEE is a great example of a grind nobody wants to do. I've run it lately 1x a day, even with a strong group that knows what its doing, its too long and when I look at the grind, I'll probably never have a weapon from there. MOD, I will keep running on alts until they all have gear....will take several months WITH timers on my schedule, but it least it feels productive. Running TOEE? Fun for a while but no way am gonna grind like that to craft those weaps.

[RTFM]

Regardless, it is a simple fact that achieving 20 runs in MOD with a group capable of doing 6-8 minute runs would take...20*10 (say an extra 2 minutes here and there to talk to quest givers and eat timers) = 200 minutes. 3 hours and 20 minutes. Boom - guaranteed most powerful trinket in the game. Or Deific Diadem, or quiver, or whatever.

I know what you mean, but fact is unless you are willing to lead, or have guys that are willing who you run with, it is not exactly like there are PUGS up every day on the LFM for MOD that know how to do 6 minute runs. So yah, for some players its 200 minutes in one or multiple sessions (I myself can only take about 10 in a row before wanting to puke of boredom, but usually only run 3-6 in a row). But for casual or the majority of players getting 20 runs is not "200 minutes in one sitting". It usually means waiting for some friend to host a run when he happens to be on at the same time, or waiting for that LFM to pop up and hoping the group can complete in 20 mins per run (the focus here on the hoping the group can complete).

I think the game is better if more people can get uber gear with a reasonable amount of grind, and 20 runs for a casual or weekend player is not exactly "easy".

[fmalfeas]

Or just a player that starts to want to scream if they run the exact same thing too frequently.

[slarden]

I'm sorry, but I completely disagree with you (and I think a lot of players I know would disagree with you).

Let's use your example MOD. If I want to kit out my toons with MOD gear, which I really did at least two of them, I was forced with a decision:

1. Forget it, because the drop rates are so incredibly low, and people just loot any gear that drops whether they need it or not, it would take 120-200 runs (total for two toons) to get the gear I wanted.. Even with raid timers, that is a LOT of runs of the same raid. It also costs a lot of plat or store points for all the timers. It is a grind.

2. Run the raid once every 3 days on each toon for the next year, eliminating the need for timers.

3. Run the raid in bursts of 5-20 back to back runs when you get a solid group that can "get it done" without problems on EN, spending oodles of plat, store points on timers (i actually went plat poor on ALL my toons buying timers for MOD on the AH months ago, which was kinda weird being plat poor again!). All I can say is....200 runs to get what I wanted, only actually pulled one item (litany, I already had it by then so put up for roll), and won rolls for two items over that entire 200 runs.

Now I chose #3, and so both my mains have most of what I wanted on them, but still NOT everything! But I'm pretty burned out on running MODS for the time being, hence my 3rd and 4th toons, have NO GEAR and won't be running it anytime soon.

Now you call this system above, too easy? Its a total grind, and only fun AFTER you have the gear. During the grind its a major bummer. It would be much more so having to do 1000 runs because no 20 end reward, or waiting 1 year of grinding every day because timers are no longer available.

So Cetus I don't agree, your approach is way too elitist and totally disenfranchises even the slightest "casual" hard core player! Devs, keep the system as it is, it is already a total pain I still have to run another 200 MODS to get two more toons geared, that's plenty difficult enough.

I saw around 20 MOD runs on Sarlona this weekend so I am sure Turbine's data would show that people didn't stop running the raid after a few months because of bypass timers.

Bypasses work great for me because I work and can't always find raids during the week the few hours I am available for gaming, but I can make up for it on the weekend by running some extra raids. To me the $ spend tiny relative to other forms of entertainment. What does a single trip to comiccon cost?

There are some people that think Turbine should not be selling anything and they will always blame every DDO problem on store items. It was that way before bypass timers also. Ironically the same players want to see rare unbound items so they can sell those for AS and TP codes lol. Just watch the posts and you will see it. They are fine with the fact that people spend money that ends up going to them - they think it's morally wrong if people spend money and goes only to Turbine lol.

There is also a difference of perspective between a person that has 1 or 2 characters vs. those that have 5-6 or more. The game has largely encouraged creating 1-2 super characters instead of a pool of alts in recent years. I think it's very healthy for the game to encourage alts because that was one of the main reasons raiding was so big pre-U14. More people had more alts to run raids and get bta ingredients. They also wanted to get gear for their alts so they can be effective.

By 20 runs of shroud I had an item made. By 20 runs of TOD I had an item made. by 20 runs of eChrnoscope I had an item made. By 20 runs of eVon I had an item made. You can give your eSoS to a main and your epic Antique Greataxe to an alt. The best stuff always went to main characters but the alts could help the main characters and vice versa.

If they want to encourage raiding they should boost raid xp significantly. That would do more to boost raiding than getting rid of bypass timers. They already have proof high xp increases how often an old raid is run - Von5/6.

[Skavenaps]

It's a Monk-centered item that just happens to also be useful for Clerics.

Leave the goggles alone please.

no, this item is beyond OP. it needs a nerf right now.

[Shoemaker]

Again, I think there could be much better clickie. Dark Discorporation 2X per day sounds a heck of a lot more useful. Give us something that is NOT available with scrolls. At lvl 28 inventory space is also NOT an issue so I don't care if its 100 times per day clickie, I can have a stack of scrolls so the feature is a total waste.

You seem to have the false assumption that everyone has TONS of inventory space, I have 10-15 empty inventory slots on my 28 toon if I'm lucky and my bank, shared bank, and TR cache are all full or are what they are. I worked hard to make a lot of my TR gear with special metal types and or augment slots, and I'm not interested in throwing it away to make a less of a version. Many of my toons don't have slots to spare.

You also seem to be under the false assumption that everyone has TONs of UMD to be able to use scrolls. I have quite a few toons that have no points in UMD because they have low INT so didn't have points to spare and they have low or no CHA so it wasn't worth investing in anyways. This is the only 3 charge teleport clickie in the game, and I appreciate what it can offer.

Finally, the devs have also already said that if we don't want the teleport clickie, they'd be happy to take it off the item, but there is not enough development time to add anything else or new in it's place, so it's a 3 charge TP or nothing. I'd rather have the TP.

[Xahtep]

Again, I think there could be much better clickie. Dark Discorporation 2X per day sounds a heck of a lot more useful. Give us something that is NOT available with scrolls. At lvl 28 inventory space is also NOT an issue so I don't care if its 100 times per day clickie, I can have a stack of scrolls so the feature is a total waste.

Do you remember the definition of assume "Assume: To make and a** of you and me". .

"Assume", nice word... From personal experience, i have seen people NOT having teleport (or umd for that matter) at cap. I know, buncha of newbs. Also the mask from ghola fan still is bought for over 300 shards ( personal experience, again). Dont know why, since umd is far cheaper/easier even as a cross class skill.

Its not a perfect item, thats true, but has its uses.
Look at it, it screams FLAVOR all over the place it just happpens to have +12 int.

Have you seen steel post some pages ago? Taking away the clicky wont make them put something better (like insight int +4).
In any case, this one shows the love of devs for int builds, exactly like the epic eye of the beholder (but at least that time they gave int based toons the eFanged gloves with same # in stat)

[JOTMON]

You seem to have the false assumption that everyone has TONS of inventory space, I have 10-15 empty inventory slots on my 28 toon if I'm lucky and my bank, shared bank, and TR cache are all full or are what they are. I worked hard to make a lot of my TR gear with special metal types and or augment slots, and I'm not interested in throwing it away to make a less of a version. Many of my toons don't have slots to spare.

You also seem to be under the false assumption that everyone has TONs of UMD to be able to use scrolls. I have quite a few toons that have no points in UMD because they have low INT so didn't have points to spare and they have low or no CHA so it wasn't worth investing in anyways. This is the only 3 charge teleport clickie in the game, and I appreciate what it can offer.

Finally, the devs have also already said that if we don't want the teleport clickie, they'd be happy to take it off the item, but there is not enough development time to add anything else or new in it's place, so it's a 3 charge TP or nothing. I'd rather have the TP.

UMD is not a false assumption, UMD is always worth investing into..
You gimp yourself and bring less to the group if you cannot use Scrolls in higher levels.(exception is cleric who can already use heal scrolls and cast Resurrection.. and even then.. there are arcane scrolls that are useful)..

UMD 36 and a stack of scrolls.. not that difficult to build up even for partial success.. teleport rods from the ddo store are usable by anyone at any level.

A teleport clickie is not a bad item.. its just at level 28 from a current endgame named item.. meh... teleport is a swap-in as needed item..
I use the Royal Guard Mask at level 11.. a great item used to be a good farming item until Devs screwed the drop rate.. now it is just a grindy farm.. but infinitely useful item and fully unbound.
3x clickie for teleport.. meh... 1x/rest is generally effective enough.. 3x for the lazy traveller who doesn't want to wait at the local tavern for a minute to recharge...


If it comes down to 3x Teleport or nothing, then sure.. I'll get a 3x teleport clickie and trade off my Royal guard mask to a lowbie..
The point in general is.. we want the named bound gear to be goodies to help us in game....
teleport clickies and FF are accessories we want to find that are usable through a much larger level range and unbound.. or at worst BTA..

Now a BTA no-min level teleport clickie that I can use in TR lives or on alts would be great.. think stuff like Quiver of Alacrity, Jack Jibbers blade, upgradeable Ioun stones... these are the oddball goodies we hunt for...
a unbound clickie does have value as a tradeable item, just less so if it is locked in at level 28 ..
The combinations for the belt really only has the +12 Int as the desirable component .. the lesser displace.. resists.. meh.. 2 augment slots.. ok.. but compared to MOD at level 27.. meh..

[IronClan]

This.


We have +4 Insightful Str, Dex, Con, Int and Wis now, but no +4 Insightful Cha. What makes Cha the bastard child of the abilities?

Really? Bastard child? LOL

Look I want a +4 CHA item just as much as the next player who has um... well ... almost any DDO character... but lets not go crazy CHA is the most powerful flexible stat in the game and it's not even close.

[Cetus]

Cetus,

the reason that there is a whole world of players out there that have all the gear they need from MoD is that they had/have a big fat pile of Raid By PassTimers, I wonder where they got them from? Anniversary Cards perhaps?

I'm still struggling to work out what I think Turbine should do with regard to Raid By Pass Timers, part of me wants them gone forever, but with so few end game raids I'm worried that what raid LFMs are up on a nightly basis will vanish as less players are able to run them due to being on timer. Then again wont Raid By Pass Timers simply accelerate the end of MoD as a played raid, as suggested by your asertion that lots of players have all the gear they need from it.

Without By Pass Timers your 20 runs will take a lot longer to achieve, just like in the past before they were introduced. Many people ran raids and got nothing until their 20th run and people still ran the raids.

I think that perhaps the answer is to have a stable of end game raids that have loot of comparable power with the chance of dropping +6 and +7 tomes, or possibly +5 supremes ( I guess you'll tell me everyone already has these) mixed in with a number of end quests such as HH and ToEE. Then maybe we can get rid of Raid By Pass Timers, of course if they do I imagine there will be a whole outcry and rage quit threads on the forums.

Ehh...well ok we're starting to talk about a slightly tangential topic as to whether raid bypasses should exist or not. As far as where they're coming from, of course a multitude of them were obtained through anniversary cards by a ridiculous amount of players - so they flooded the market. It is also true that tons of plat and TP were spent on them as well, so its a combination of several approaches. In the end, there's an abundance of them out there, and make the acquisition of any raid item in the game just a time sink - no challenge whatsoever.

Now if you are interested in having a conversation about whether they should exist? No, I don't think they should. I think they hurt the game by expediting the death of new content.

And no, I wouldn't say that everyone already has +7 tomes. I'm not sure what you were getting at with that statement, but I try to be honest in my remarks.

I know what you mean, but fact is unless you are willing to lead, or have guys that are willing who you run with, it is not exactly like there are PUGS up every day on the LFM for MOD that know how to do 6 minute runs. So yah, for some players its 200 minutes in one or multiple sessions (I myself can only take about 10 in a row before wanting to puke of boredom, but usually only run 3-6 in a row). But for casual or the majority of players getting 20 runs is not "200 minutes in one sitting". It usually means waiting for some friend to host a run when he happens to be on at the same time, or waiting for that LFM to pop up and hoping the group can complete in 20 mins per run (the focus here on the hoping the group can complete).

I think the game is better if more people can get uber gear with a reasonable amount of grind, and 20 runs for a casual or weekend player is not exactly "easy".

Yea, these are all fair points. But the bottom line is that this is merely a time sink and NOT a challenge. The best gear in the game shouldn't be "x minutes away". It should be available to those who can overcome the challenge necessary to obtain it, otherwise - keep trying. That's what makes people keep coming back and seeking character improvements in the first place.

[Drakos]

no, this item is beyond OP. it needs a nerf right now.

No, it really doesn't!

[Steve_Howe]

no, this item is beyond OP. it needs a nerf right now.

Nope. Update 27 isn't even final yet so there's absolutely NO WAY you can say that with any degree of certainty whatsoever.

[FestusHood]

Yea, these are all fair points. But the bottom line is that this is merely a time sink and NOT a challenge. The best gear in the game shouldn't be "x minutes away". It should be available to those who can overcome the challenge necessary to obtain it, otherwise - keep trying. That's what makes people keep coming back and seeking character improvements in the first place.

Here's the flaw with your argument. The channel i am in consists of many players that you would call casual. Despite that, we still manage to muster up a raid now and then. As a group, we simply aren't tough enough to complete endgame raids on epic elite.

You seem to be suggesting that a person simply not be able to get this loot at all unless they run the raids on epic elite. Here is the result of that. I wouldn't buy the pack, and i would advise other people in my circle not to buy it as well, as there would be no reasonable expectation of getting the loot from it.

That ends the argument, doesn't it?

[IronClan]

no, this item is beyond OP. it needs a nerf right now.

On the one hand putting the newly best in slot stat item with the new best possible +12 stat and the first ever source of +4 insightful Wisdom does seem like a dreamy combo...

On the other hand it's Wisdom... the least useful stat in the entire game... and Clerics and FvS's are currently the least powerfull classes in the game.

I'm going to side with: this is a good item because Wisdom is the least useful stat in the entire game.

[Loromir]

This is the official discussion thread for U27 items in the new round of Lamannia! Yes, we get an official thread this time.

Item Updates:

• Five more items for the U27 Raid have been created.
• The Test Dojo cabinet now contains all U27 items that are in the current build.
• Heroic U27 items that had +5 bonuses to individual saves have been bumped to +8
• The U27 Khopesh and Greataxe have had their material type changed to Flametouched Iron
• Heroic U27 items that had +5 to Ability Scores have been bumped to +6
• Resonation and the Lantern Ring no longer replace each other's bonuses
• The U27 Buckler is no longer a Small Shield
• The Epic Shield of Tireless Aid is now properly made of Densewood

A few other notes for things not in this build:

• We're planning on making the Greataxe's crit multiplier x4.
• We're planning on making all of the weapons in this pack either Cold Iron or Flametouched Iron.
• We're planning on having a Longsword in the Raid, looking something like this:
  
  • +13, Improved Banishing, Sovereign Vorpal, Axiomatic X, Armor Piercing 20%, Doublestrike 15%, Red Augment Slot, Orange Augment Slot (Crit Range of 17-20)

Sorry if I've missed this, but Heroic Riftmaker getting x4 crit? If so, I think it should scale back to x3. x4 on the epic version is just right.

[FestusHood]

Sorry if I've missed this, but Heroic Riftmaker getting x4 crit? If so, I think it should scale back to x3. x4 on the epic version is just right.

Might be a good upgrade to Carnifex for crit oriented melees. Probably no more unbalanced than. With holy sword, Carnifex would be 15-20 x4. Riftmaker would be 17-20 x5. 18 vs. 16 crit power.

[Cetus]

Here's the flaw with your argument. The channel i am in consists of many players that you would call casual. Despite that, we still manage to muster up a raid now and then. As a group, we simply aren't tough enough to complete endgame raids on epic elite.

You seem to be suggesting that a person simply not be able to get this loot at all unless they run the raids on epic elite. Here is the result of that. I wouldn't buy the pack, and i would advise other people in my circle not to buy it as well, as there would be no reasonable expectation of getting the loot from it.

That ends the argument, doesn't it?

This isn't a flaw at all. You'd get the kind of loot that is appropriate to the challenge you overcame. I'm not eliminating loot from lesser difficulties in my proposal, its just that the EE loot should be gated by the challenge that is required to obtain it. That's all. Simple risk vs. reward logic here.

I just don't see how players who are unable to beat the game at its hardest can still sport the same gear as those who can. Wheres the incentive to improve then?

"Look there's a shiny! I wanna go get it, I'll do X, Y, Z and maybe that'll work". If it doesn't work, you don't get the shiny. Period. This applies to me as well, if there's something too difficult for me, I expect to not enjoy the reward until I figure out a way to beat it.

[Steve_Howe]

Here's the flaw with your argument. The channel i am in consists of many players that you would call casual. Despite that, we still manage to muster up a raid now and then. As a group, we simply aren't tough enough to complete endgame raids on epic elite.

You seem to be suggesting that a person simply not be able to get this loot at all unless they run the raids on epic elite. Here is the result of that. I wouldn't buy the pack, and i would advise other people in my circle not to buy it as well, as there would be no reasonable expectation of getting the loot from it.

That ends the argument, doesn't it?

Sorry Festus, if you can't complete quests on the highest difficulty setting, why on earth do you feel entitled to the best loot?

Maybe I'm reading you wrong here but that does seem to be what you're saying.

[Chai]

Here's the flaw with your argument. The channel i am in consists of many players that you would call casual. Despite that, we still manage to muster up a raid now and then. As a group, we simply aren't tough enough to complete endgame raids on epic elite.

You seem to be suggesting that a person simply not be able to get this loot at all unless they run the raids on epic elite. Here is the result of that. I wouldn't buy the pack, and i would advise other people in my circle not to buy it as well, as there would be no reasonable expectation of getting the loot from it.

That ends the argument, doesn't it?

That doesnt end the discussion. Heres why.

This "I must have access to the best reward even when I cannot or will not aspire to play the harder parts of the game" is something people will not let go of due to being conditioned by past and previous eras of the game where elite is the default xp difficulty, and the same BTA gear drops on casual / normal as drops on elite. The end gamers did the same thing you posted here, and began heavily attriting - either money wise by not buying packs, or head count wise by leaving to play other games.

You are basically demanding that the company value the market audience you belong to, and outlining what can happen if they dont, which is fine, but this cannot be done by alienating other market audiences from getting what they want either, and still be referred to as sound business strategy, as evidenced by the massive attrition of endgamers for the past few years now. Thus, it is recognized that some semblance of endgame needs to exist in DDO which does not equate to running normal difficulty 20x in the same day for rewards, which is what this will turn into if there isnt a reason to run harder difficulty settings.

[Thrudh]

The goggles while clearly amazing for a Monk, are really going to be the best Goggles for many builds due to having both +12 Wisdom and +4 Insight Wisdom. That's the best possible stat consolidation item in the entire game. I support having +4 Insight stat mods available, but maybe not on the same items that have the +12 version of the same stat. At least, leave that for mythic or Reaper or whatever.

Yeah, it's not good design to have a +12 stat AND a +4 Insight stat on the same item for the same stat...