U27 Items Official Discussion - Round 2

[FestusHood]

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.

You were specifically talking about raid loot. As far as i know, these don't yet have mythic versions, just the one. They already have higher drop rates on elite. We're not talking about getting a slightly better version of the item on elite, we're talking about getting the item in any form, at all.

Believe it or not, there are many people playing this game that can never reasonably expect to beat MOD on epic elite. Certainly not often enough to farm it. Are you willing to pay 5000 tp for new packs to make up for all the lost sales from people who don't buy it because they know there is literally no chance to ever get the loot from it?

I will assume then that you think an appropriate droprate for phlogs in thunderholme would be 0% on epic normal, 2% on hard, and 100% on elite?

Before you say that people who can't complete epic elite raids aren't trying hard enough, i'll just say that the belief that anybody can do anything with enough effort is inaccurate. Innate talent is a real thing. If Shaq couldn't make his free throws, i guess he just wasn't trying hard enough right?

[Steve_Howe]

You were specifically talking about raid loot. As far as i know, these don't yet have mythic versions, just the one. They already have higher drop rates on elite. We're not talking about getting a slightly better version of the item on elite, we're talking about getting the item in any form, at all.

Believe it or not, there are many people playing this game that can never reasonably expect to beat MOD on epic elite. Certainly not often enough to farm it. Are you willing to pay 5000 tp for new packs to make up for all the lost sales from people who don't buy it because they know there is literally no chance to ever get the loot from it?

I will assume then that you think an appropriate droprate for phlogs in thunderholme would be 0% on epic normal, 2% on hard, and 100% on elite?

Before you say that people who can't complete epic elite raids aren't trying hard enough, i'll just say that the belief that anybody can do anything with enough effort is inaccurate. Innate talent is a real thing. If Shaq couldn't make his free throws, i guess he just wasn't trying hard enough right?

Sorry Festus, it's one thing to treat people equally, it's quite another to make them equal.

[FestusHood]

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.

Wrong. Raid loot. So no loot at all. If i can't get any loot from a pack, i won't buy it. That's fine, i can live without the u27 pack. Can the game live without money?

[Steve_Howe]

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

Really? What "School Good of Design" says that and why, exactly?

[Steve_Howe]

Wrong. Raid loot. So no loot at all. If i can't get any loot from a pack, i won't buy it. That's fine, i can live without the u27 pack. Can the game live without money?

Without YOUR money? Assuredly.

Please keep in mind you do not speak for a whole heck of a lot of people.

[FestusHood]

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.

Let's follow this. Starting with u27, all raids only have any chance to drop items if completed on epic elite. This also applies to 20th completion lists. Only verified epic elite completions will henceforth count toward this total. Brilliant. Let's try that and see what happens to the raiding scene.

As far as this other gobbledygook, what are you talking about? We're not talking about whether or not there should be an endgame here.

In our society, people who have lots of money can simply buy nice things. People with more modest incomes can also have some nice things, they just have to be frugal and it takes a long time. I guess you say the heck with that, you can't ever have these things. Here is a bone you dog.

[slarden]

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.

It's the same circular problem. You run it and get a superior item because you ran it on EE. now you don't feel challenged because you increased your power and could already beat the content before the new shiny.

I think the devs are doing it right by adding the mythic bonuses as chase items that mostly drop on EE. Small, but useful bonuses like trs.

If anything I think the approach steel layed out is a bit too restrictive. +2 mythics should drop at a higher rate on EH and +4 mythics should drop at a higher rate EE. It sounds like both mythic bonuses will rarely drop below EE. They should offer some incentive to step up to EH instead of EN instead of making it EE or close to 0 chance for a mythic.

[FestusHood]

Without YOUR money? Assuredly.

Please keep in mind you do not speak for a whole heck of a lot of people.

I don't speak for a lot of people. Hmm. Number of people who regularly complete endgame raids on elite vs people who complete them on other difficulties. I wonder which is a higher number? I'm not just talking about my money. I'll also throw in the 20 or so people who raid from the channel i am in. You make it an epic elite only game, those people are out. and that's just from our one little obscure channel. Many of those people have asked my advice on what to buy, and i advised them. Guess what my advice would be on this one?

[FestusHood]

It's the same circular problem. You run it and get a superior item because you ran it on EE. now you don't feel challenged because you increased your power and could already beat the content before the new shiny.

I think the devs are doing it right by adding the mythic bonuses as chase items that mostly drop on EE. Small, but useful bonuses like trs.

If anything I think the approach steel layed out is a bit too restrictive. +2 mythics should drop at a higher rate on EH and +4 mythics should drop at a higher rate EE. It sounds like both mythic bonuses will rarely drop below EE. They should offer some incentive to step up to EH instead of EN instead of making it EE or close to 0 chance for a mythic.

He wasn't talking about mythic quest items. He was talking about all or nothing raid loot.

[Rys]

Can we get the tiered loot again?

Also, why not any new augments? Is this system completly abandoned now?

[Drakos]

I don't speak for a lot of people. Hmm. Number of people who regularly complete endgame raids on elite vs people who complete them on other difficulties. I wonder which is a higher number? I'm not just talking about my money. I'll also throw in the 20 or so people who raid from the channel i am in. You make it an epic elite only game, those people are out. and that's just from our one little obscure channel. Many of those people have asked my advice on what to buy, and i advised them. Guess what my advice would be on this one?

Just because they run the raids on the highest levels does not mean YOU speak for them. Not everyone who runs these on elite feels as you do. Some people don't care about how others get the loot they get.

[JOTMON]

You were specifically talking about raid loot. As far as i know, these don't yet have mythic versions, just the one. They already have higher drop rates on elite. We're not talking about getting a slightly better version of the item on elite, we're talking about getting the item in any form, at all.

Believe it or not, there are many people playing this game that can never reasonably expect to beat MOD on epic elite. Certainly not often enough to farm it. Are you willing to pay 5000 tp for new packs to make up for all the lost sales from people who don't buy it because they know there is literally no chance to ever get the loot from it?

I will assume then that you think an appropriate droprate for phlogs in thunderholme would be 0% on epic normal, 2% on hard, and 100% on elite?

Before you say that people who can't complete epic elite raids aren't trying hard enough, i'll just say that the belief that anybody can do anything with enough effort is inaccurate. Innate talent is a real thing. If Shaq couldn't make his free throws, i guess he just wasn't trying hard enough right?

well your drop rate ratio's are screwed..
but realistically harder challenge=better reward.. its basic human psychology of risk vs reward( and punishment)..

Every gamer goes through the mental calculation of challenge vs reward..
do you level and move on, do you stay.. do you go back and run old content as an over level player...
rewards come in lots of different forms.. XP, Gear, Plat, Favor, levelling, fame, fortune, whatever....


in tiered challenges it makes sense to have tiered rewards.. casual/normal/hard/elite..
Running lower tiers to build up to hit higher tiers.. its stepping stones to success.. get transitional items to be good enough to get to the next level..


I am not a fan of purely random drops, but am ok with having them..
Generally, chasing mythics randomly.. just sucks..
let me get tokens to upgrade to a mythic after so many runs.. random is.. random...I don't go to casino's for the same reason.. its BS.
you are playing the random numbers game.. I would rather a path of repetitiveness with a chance of random bonus reward.

I like 20th incrementals for a choice of something from the list.. adding unbound tomes would be nice for ongoing completions.


Ultimately it still takes practice and trying over and over to get that comfort level..
I don't think its any different for any athlete.. your example of Shaq isn't all about free throws.. yeah he has size and some natural talent, but even Shaq practices.. even if it is in his own basketball training court at his house.. that's not just for show.. most NBA players(Shaq included) train 3 hours a day, every day, all year round.. throwing 300-500 shots an hour every day trying to improve their game... any athlete in any sport is doing the same thing.. they are training, researching, improving their knowledge and skill. They are not sitting around smoking ciggies and downing beers playing poker all night and showing up just in time for games to throw the free throw and call it a day.


Now if anyone had the desire and was trying to get better and was going out there every day and throwing 500 baskets, trying on every one, every day for a year, would you be a better basketball player.. sure you would.. would be be NBA worthy.. probably not... but you would be better than you were..


When I first started running Abbot, it was ugh fail, fail, fail, fail, ...doom...
Eventually the guild leader of the guild I was in back then was hey. lets go practice puzzle sides. we set 2 people as static runners, and 2 for each puzzle.
and we ran it 20 times a night without completing.. we save completion runs for the weekend so we didn't screw up timers..
Rotating 6man crews of 2 per puzzle teams.. every night for weeks we practiced.. rinse/repeat.. until we hit the benchmark success ratio.
Then we could run a raid with the static 6 people and fill with guildies or pugs as desired.. as long as we had the 6 player core we were good to go.
Then Abbots became a every 3 day run.. occasional fails due to lag or pugs not listening.. but generally 90% success consistently.
My cleric had 120+ heroic completions before I was done with Abbott for him.. it was tough, but worth the work we put into it.


MoD.. pft.. why even bother trying heroic when Epic MoD is soo much easier... 10 minute no-fail runs, guaranteed full list after 20 runs.
Why bother Elite.. Elite only offers a time sink, aggravation and resource usage and relatively no better reward.
Our best MoD EE run was about 40ish minutes when it first came out.(hours of preparation, re-speccing, gearing, organizing, optimizing party) and it was rough.. 1 named item dropped for the party.
Rinse repeat 10 minute normal runs goes pretty quick.. what is the motivation to challenge higher.. there is none.. hence.. no one running EE's, or EH, or even trying to put a group together for it once you have done it once or twice.. there is no reward increase.. so farm normals it is...

[FestusHood]

Just because they run the raids on the highest levels does not mean YOU speak for them. Not everyone who runs these on elite feels as you do. Some people don't care about how others get the loot they get.

I'm not even attempting to speak for people who run raids on the highest levels. I'm speaking for people who can't do that actually. The group i raid with would have 0 chance of completing any level 30 raid on epic elite. I was specifically addressing Cetus' irritation that people were able to get Mark of Death loot without running epic elite.

[FestusHood]

well your drop rate ratio's are screwed..
but realistically harder challenge=better reward.. its basic human psychology of risk vs reward( and punishment)..

Every gamer goes through the mental calculation of challenge vs reward..
do you level and move on, do you stay.. do you go back and run old content as an over level player...
rewards come in lots of different forms.. XP, Gear, Plat, Favor, levelling, fame, fortune, whatever....


in tiered challenges it makes sense to have tiered rewards.. casual/normal/hard/elite..
Running lower tiers to build up to hit higher tiers.. its stepping stones to success.. get transitional items to be good enough to get to the next level..


I am not a fan of purely random drops, but am ok with having them..
Generally, chasing mythics randomly.. just sucks..
let me get tokens to upgrade to a mythic after so many runs.. random is.. random...I don't go to casino's for the same reason.. its BS.
you are playing the random numbers game.. I would rather a path of repetitiveness with a chance of random bonus reward.

I like 20th incrementals for a choice of something from the list.. adding unbound tomes would be nice for ongoing completions.

Ultimately it still takes practice and trying over and over to get that comfort level..
I don't think its any different for any athlete.. your example of Shaq isn't all about free throws.. yeah he has size and some natural talent, but even Shaq practices.. even if it is in his own basketball training court at his house.. that's not just for show.. most NBA players(Shaq included) train 3 hours a day, every day, all year round.. throwing 300-500 shots an hour every day trying to improve their game... any athlete in any sport is doing the same thing.. they are training, researching, improving their knowledge and skill. They are not sitting around smoking ciggies and downing beers playing poker all night and showing up just in time for games to throw the free throw and call it a day.

Now if anyone had the desire and was trying to get better and was going out there every day and throwing 500 baskets, trying on every one, every day for a year, would you be a better basketball player.. sure you would.. would be be NBA worthy.. probably not... but you would be better than you were..

When I first started running Abbot, it was ugh fail, fail, fail, fail, ...doom...
Eventually the guild leader of the guild I was in back then was hey. lets go practice puzzle sides. we set 2 people as static runners, and 2 for each puzzle.
and we ran it 20 times a night without completing.. we save completion runs for the weekend so we didn't screw up timers..
Rotating 6man crews of 2 per puzzle teams.. every night for weeks we practiced.. rinse/repeat.. until we hit the benchmark success ratio.
Then we could run a raid with the static 6 people and fill with guildies or pugs as desired.. as long as we had the 6 player core we were good to go.
Then Abbots became a every 3 day run.. occasional fails due to lag or pugs not listening.. but generally 90% success consistently.
My cleric had 120+ heroic completions before I was done with Abbott for him..

If they were to add mythic versions to raid loot that was only available on epic elite, i would be fine with that, provided the difference wasn't between awesome and garbage. I was specifically responding to systems already in place, which don't have tiered versions.


My comment about Shaq was intended to be sarcasm. I'm fully aware that Shaq practiced free throws even more than the average player. My point is that there are many people playing this game who will never be able to rise to the level of completing endgame raids on elite. Since there is currently no tiered raid loot, the only way to differentiate the difficulties is with droprates. As long as there is any chance at all of loot dropping on normal, there will be people who got their loot on that difficulty. Just last Sunday i pulled a Dumathoin's (sp?) bracers from a deathwyrm that we ran on epic normal. Why were we running epic normal? Because that's all we can handle at this point. Maybe someday we will try it on epic hard, since in my opinion it's a much easier raid than the twin dragon one. Epic elite? Very unlikely we will ever even attempt it on this difficulty, because it would be futile.

I'm fine with upgrade systems personally. If elite drops three times as many upgrade widgets as normal, i'm ok with that. There's a difference between making people with less ability work harder and excluding them completely. The thunderholme raids do this nicely.

[IronClan]

Believe it or not, there are many people playing this game that can never reasonably expect to beat MOD on epic elite.

This is an idea you have often repeated and I'm here to tell you it's just wrong; you me, or anyone can have multiple Elite raid completions with 100% feasibility. You've put raiding on this unattainable horizon as some sort of tightly knit hard to get into good ol boys club, it's a figment of how you view the game, not actually how the game is.

I've completed every raid in the game on E and nearly 100% of the raids I join were joined from the LFM panel and 70% of them were lead by someone I either didn't know from adam or only passingly know.

People who talk about raiding like it's some sort of exclusive club with dreaded "elitists" and big mean "ubers" do the entire game a disservice. When I started playing DDO this talk on the forums did more to make me timid about joining raids than anything else... then I stopped salavating over the "raid loot I'll never have because I'm not elite" and I joined a raid... I found no one paying any mind to me, I found very little of anyone who expected anything more than "try and follow directions and not intentionally goof things up". I found the vast majority of leaders willing to explain what was going on, and even *gasp* most people in raids willing to laugh off a honest mistake.

You know what REALLY hit me about raids?

1. No one cares what you're doing unless you ask for responsibility (I'll tank so and so, I can do this puzzle) so if you don't ask for a responsibility you can just blend in and DPS what needs it, and help as you feel comfortable/capable.
2. No one cares if you die... even less than Quests! EVERYONE dies in raids some players have this dread of dieing around other players, almost a performance anxiety sort of thing... no one gives a flip in raids... they throw a raise and barely note who it was who needed it.
3. It's remarkable just how willing most good raid leaders are to explain things, and how very seldom I've ever seen someone abused for being new to a raid (like literally not one time in the entire time I've played have i seen someone admit to not knowing the raid and get flack for it)

The biggest hurdle to someone getting an EE raid completion is the willingness to join the LFM's that go up for them and maybe tough out a failure here and there, regen hp and SP and zone back in for another try.

[FestusHood]

This is an idea you have often repeated and I'm here to tell you it's just wrong; you me, or anyone can have multiple Elite raid completions with 100% feasibility. You've put raiding on this unattainable horizon as some sort of tightly knit hard to get into good ol boys club, it's a figment of how you view the game, not actually how the game is.

I've completed every raid in the game on E and nearly 100% of the raids I join were joined from the LFM panel and 70% of them were lead by someone I either didn't know from adam or only passingly know.

People who talk about raiding like it's some sort of exclusive club with dreaded "elitists" and big mean "ubers" do the entire game a disservice. When I started playing DDO this talk on the forums did more to make me timid about joining raids than anything else... then I stopped salavating over the "raid loot I'll never have because I'm not elite" and I joined a raid... I found no one paying any mind to me, I found very little of anyone who expected anything more than "try and follow directions and not intentionally goof things up". I found the vast majority of leaders willing to explain what was going on, and even *gasp* most people in raids willing to laugh off a honest mistake.

You know what REALLY hit me about raids?

1. No one cares what you're doing unless you ask for responsibility (I'll tank so and so, I can do this puzzle) so if you don't ask for a responsibility you can just blend in and DPS what needs it, and help as you feel comfortable/capable.
2. No one cares if you die... even less than Quests! EVERYONE dies in raids some players have this dread of dieing around oither players, almost a performance anxiety sort of thing... no one gives a flip in raids... they throw a raise and barely note who it was who needed it.
3. It's remarkable just how willing most good raid leaders are to explain things, and how very seldom I've ever seen someone abused for being new to a raid (like literally not one time in the entire time I've played have i seen someone admit to not knowing the raid and get flack for it)

The biggest hurdle to someone getting an EE raid completion is the willingness to join the LFM's that go up for them and maybe tough out a failure here and there, regen hp and SP and zone back in for another try.

We are a fairly tightly knit channel. We have raid nights specifically so that we can raid together. We want to raid together, and even those folks among us who have gone outside the channel to get their raid completions have admitted that it is much more enjoyable for them to do it with their friends rather than strangers. For many of the people in our channel it is hard enough to get them to join in on these raids even when entirely consisting of people that they know they enjoy playing with. They don't want to join pug raids, and won't.

Several of the people in our channel have joined even epic elite pugs for Mark of Death. They did this, not to get elite completions, but hoping to learn something that they could use to help our group complete it on epic normal. Yes, that's right, we have not yet been able to complete this raid, even on normal. It would probably be helpful if we could get more than 5 or 6 people to even try it. We've discussed opening up the group on the lfm, but frankly there is a difference between being the one person essentially piking in a raid, and being the majority of the group.

[Grailhawk]

It would probably be helpful if we could get more than 5 or 6 people to even try it. We've discussed opening up the group on the lfm, but frankly there is a difference between being the one person essentially piking in a raid, and being the majority of the group.

You and your group need to get over what ever anxiety is keeping you form putting up the LMF, just do it.

[Xahtep]

We are a fairly tightly knit channel. We have raid nights specifically so that we can raid together. We want to raid together, and even those folks among us who have gone outside the channel to get their raid completions have admitted that it is much more enjoyable for them to do it with their friends rather than strangers. For many of the people in our channel it is hard enough to get them to join in on these raids even when entirely consisting of people that they know they enjoy playing with. They don't want to join pug raids, and won't.

Several of the people in our channel have joined even epic elite pugs for Mark of Death. They did this, not to get elite completions, but hoping to learn something that they could use to help our group complete it on epic normal. Yes, that's right, we have not yet been able to complete this raid, even on normal. It would probably be helpful if we could get more than 5 or 6 people to even try it. We've discussed opening up the group on the lfm, but frankly there is a difference between being the one person essentially piking in a raid, and being the majority of the group.

You guys need to get out of your comfort zone.

Try again, fail again and fail better. Just make sure someone have Resurrection scrolls.

[Thrudh]

Really? What "School Good of Design" says that and why, exactly?

Takes away choice. Bad design... Anyone who uses Wisdom as a primary stat now has one choice for a Wisdom item. All other goggles are now off the table for that character.

I mean, I've got characters who might use a +11 item instead of a +12 item in my primary stat to make gearing work, but no one is going to pass up a +12 item that ALSO has +4 insight bonus...

Absolute best in slot items are bad design. There should always be some trade-off... Hard choices means the devs are doing it right. No-brainers mean they messed up.

Plus, what's the point of even having an insight bonus if you're going to put it on the same item as the primary stat? Just get rid of insight bonuses and make it a +16 wisdom item.

[FestusHood]

You guys need to get out of your comfort zone.

Try again, fail again and fail better. Just make sure someone have Resurrection scrolls.

Trust me, it's not for lack of trying. The 5 or 6 of us that are willing to try and learn this have gone in there, many times knowing that we will fail before we start. We don't have some of the right parts to make it easier, i.e. none of us has a caster that can reliably crowd control the archers, let alone anything else.