Legendary Green Steel

[Severlin]

Because of dupers, I'd imagine.

The DDO player base has had, for a while, a dedicated group that pursues methods to duplicate items or ways to re-use items. We've worked hard to close these loop holes so these activities don't ruin the economy or devalue the accomplishments of our general player base and we are constantly vigilant for the methods by which these exploits might be accomplished.

I get that it can be fun to occasionally use cheat codes or use a godmode to rampage through a game, particularly when it is single player and no one's experience is being ruined. It's not cool, however, or good for the game when those activities spill into the rest of the game and ruin the fun for people legitimately playing the game. It devalues their accomplishments and thus their experiences in the game and destroys any sense of economy and fair play. This is why we have pursued and worked to eliminate these exploits.

This update represents our ongoing efforts to bring an end game back for players who feel it has been lacking. The players who enjoy that have made it clear that our normal content updates are consumed too rapidly to "count" as a true end game. We are introducing systems to satisfy players who want a deep and satisfying progression and reward system that will allow them to have goals for quite some time. If this update is ruined by exploits or methods to circumvent the content it will ruin the fun for all of those people that are looking for that long term end game play.

Our design goals are currently focused on end game play more so than game economy. This is why we have designed the system to keep the ingredients, at least initially, as bound to account. This allows us to track the accumulation of ingredients and items and acts to mitigate the collateral damage of potential exploits. This still allows players to move ingredients to alternate characters that need them, while acting as a preventive measure against new or previously unknown (by us) methods of duplication.

Sev~

[jalont]

Our design goals are currently focused on end game play more so than game economy. This is why we have designed the system to keep the ingredients, at least initially, as bound to account. This allows us to track the accumulation of ingredients and items and acts to mitigate the collateral damage of potential exploits. This still allows players to move ingredients to alternate characters that need them, while acting as a preventive measure against new or previously unknown (by us) methods of duplication.

Sev~

A robust economy will bring people into endgame content that won't bother with it otherwise. Very few people are going to sit around in the upper levels and grind raids, meaning they'll likely just avoid those raids altogether. If you have something for them to trade into something else that they'll use, they'll jump into those raids when they can, providing the people that wish to grind those raids with enough players to fill groups. This choice to make everything bound shrinks the endgame player base considerably.

[UurlockYgmeov]

someone in the general ddo discussion section has stated that the codex runes will expire after a limited time (he said 3 months). Is this for real? This would be very disturbing if true.

no.

very no.

[WiseFreelancer]

The rune system as an alternative to 20ths is a great step forward, very happy with it.

Back to greensteel - combining two previous pieces of feedback into a new one: the lack of normal augment slots hurts non-casters who want/need spellpower. Decent non-weapon items with spellpower on them are rare and often raid-based. An easy way to get a bit of spellpower without using actual caster weapons is to use a red slot. This is a dps sacrifice (it could have been a dr breaker or a damage effect) but often worth it. You can't do this with epic greensteel. This isn't a big deal if you have a second weapon slot to put the augment on (swf/twf/shield users) but is harder on two-handed fighters and ranged toons, who already get the benefit of fewer effects.

I bring this up because last update revamped arcane archers, with dev comments about keeping AA gearing in mind in future. This update, not so helpful to them.

And yes, you can use a Tier 1 slot. Unless the spellpower you want is Light/Repair/Force.

[Systern]

No. It cannot be done in that manner (at least, not entirely).

We're willing to hear suggestions, but the following requirements must be met:

1. Players cannot have all available ingredients before new quest(s) using those ingredients come out. Update 29 would almost automatically be a failure if nearly everyone had fully upgraded Legendary Green Steel the day it released.
2. Playing each quest pack needs to be incentivized. While we respect that players would something like to just play whatever quest they want, playing Haverdasher again and again should not give access to Thunderforged, Green Steel, and Temple of Elemental Evil items.
3. Ingredients and Crafting generally exists to make life easier and less frustrating, not harder. We absolutely could just have each and every augment from Legendary Green Steel drop as rewards in the Shroud (tier 1s where tier 1 ingredients drop, tier 3s only in the end chest, etc.), and blanks could just randomly appear in the end chest. But with 40+ different blanks and 600+ different augments, the chance of getting what you want is extremely low. This would entirely eliminate all LGS ingredients, and be far less fun and engaging and probably frustrating.

We've tried to retain much of the flavor and possibilities of Heroic Green Steel while reducing complexity. There are dozens of ingredients from Heroic Green Steel that we've chosen to not carry over to Legendary (including entire tiers of ingredients: Chipmunk Funk etc. x5, Tapers etc. x~12, 5 Shavarath Stones + 1 Signet Stone, dead power cells, the need to charge dead power cells, "empty" shards). We're aware players aren't always keenly interested in lots of ingredients.

What players want is some commonality. As for requirement #1, I understand that there should be 1-3 maguffins per pack to search for, but there's some commonality between them all.

An analogy for example:

• Your pantry has these staple ingredients: Milk, flour, sugar, eggs, oil.
• You get Vale of Twilight, and can now go get chocolate out of the raid. Combining that with your staple ingredients and you get brownies!
• You get Haunted Halls, and can now get Dill. You can now make tasty breakfast omelets.
• Get inspired quarter, and you get... rennet and tomatoes. You can now make cheese.... and pizza!
• And no matter what you cook, you have to pay the gas bill, so each recipe includes <some> plat.

AFK for dinner.



But you see the point: there's commonality; there's a shared pool. There's running content that indirectly progresses your goals by increasing the staples - You're at least getting milk and eggs by pugging vons or sands and not worrying that you're not getting baking, dutched, bittersweet, Ghiardelli, milk, and 60 other types of chocolate I can't think of names for; from Vale.

The cake is the incentive to run the pack. The chocolate is the access-control to ensure purchase of content. The milk/eggs/plat are the foundation of the economy so that things don't go entirely obsolete. The system then starts to regulate itself. Market forces. yadda yadda.


Players: "There's too much plat in the game. Inflation is nuts."
Turbine: "We'll stop making content that uses it and make this instead: epic tokens "
Players: "There's too many tokens in the game. Not enough ways to spend them"
Turbine: "We'll stop making content that uses that and make this instead: commendations of valor"
Players: "There's too many commendations of valor in the game. Not enough ways to spend them"
Turbine: "We'll stop making content that uses that and make this instead: commendations of heroism"
Players: "There's too many commendations in the game. Not enough ways to spend them"
Turbine: "We'll stop making content that uses that and make this instead: astral shards"
Players: "Umm astral shards? **** dupers and cheapskates refusing to buy them"
Turbine: "We'll stop making content that uses that and make this instead: dwarven ingots"
Players: "There's too many collectables in the game. Not enough ways to spend them"
Turbine: "We'll set absurdly high, unsustainable prices on augments to encourage you to buy them from the store instead."



Do you see the problem with this cycle? Instead of adding more outlets for plat, you make a new currency/ingredient each time. Repeating the same mistake and running into the same problem over and over again.

[ViolentEnd]

We've worked hard to close these loop holes so these activities don't ruin the economy ...


Our design goals are currently focused on end game play more so than game economy. This is why we have designed the system to keep the ingredients, at least initially, as bound to account. This allows us to track the accumulation of ingredients and items and acts to mitigate the collateral damage of potential exploits. This still allows players to move ingredients to alternate characters that need them, while acting as a preventive measure against new or previously unknown (by us) methods of duplication.

Sev~

I have a few opinions on this strategy.

First of all, there is no economy to speak of these days, primarily due to everything new being bound.

Second, the market was/is flooded with stuff that was duped in the past, but that cat is long out of the bag. Without being too judgmental, I think that could have been nipped in the bud before the apocalyptic damage was done, but that is in the past, and I choose to look forward.

Third, if those "loop-holes" are now closed, then new, unbound ingredients/items/whatever are a positive addition that might help to start the revival of a once good, if not thriving, economy.

Fourth, if you can "track the accumulation of ingredients and items ... to mitigate the collateral damage of potential exploits", then you can swiftly, and with "extreme prejudice", prosecute those that dupe anyways.


In my opinion, with everything being bound, you are not hurting the dupers so much as the every-day players that are part of any sort of community. Communities of players (i.e. guilds) benefit from being able to trade between accounts, guildmates, etc. By just allowing "players to move ingredients to alternate characters that need them", one is encouraged (forced) to hoard mats for potential future use. In the original Shroud, I remember a great sense of community in my guild as we were all trying to get our guildmates equipped with their first greensteel item.

In my guild, we actively try to help one another. In the case of crafting materials, those guild members that play a lot are invariably going to end up with more of certain types of mats than they use, and eventually, more of any type of mats than they will ever need. When our more casual members are crafting something and are short of a specific type of something, we, as a community, try to help them as best we can. With this new strategy, our only available response is "sorry, I have 25 of those that I would love to help you with, but instead, we need to organize a raid party to grind out one small infernal chain".

Anyways, that's how I feel. I have been on both sides of the conversation, and it is not a ton of fun either way.

On a related note, having everything bound, again, in my experience, decreases the replayability of quests and raids. If I have everything I "want/need" from a quest pack, and cannot trade anything new I find (outside of passing within the chests), I am much less likely to rerun that quest/pack/raid. The sense of excitement is greatly reduced when there is, literally, no gain to be had.

[UurlockYgmeov]

The DDO player base has had, for a while, a dedicated group that pursues methods to duplicate items or ways to re-use items. We've worked hard to close these loop holes so these activities don't ruin the economy or devalue the accomplishments of our general player base and we are constantly vigilant for the methods by which these exploits might be accomplished.

I get that it can be fun to occasionally use cheat codes or use a godmode to rampage through a game, particularly when it is single player and no one's experience is being ruined. It's not cool, however, or good for the game when those activities spill into the rest of the game and ruin the fun for people legitimately playing the game. It devalues their accomplishments and thus their experiences in the game and destroys any sense of economy and fair play. This is why we have pursued and worked to eliminate these exploits.

This update represents our ongoing efforts to bring an end game back for players who feel it has been lacking. The players who enjoy that have made it clear that our normal content updates are consumed too rapidly to "count" as a true end game. We are introducing systems to satisfy players who want a deep and satisfying progression and reward system that will allow them to have goals for quite some time. If this update is ruined by exploits or methods to circumvent the content it will ruin the fun for all of those people that are looking for that long term end game play.

Our design goals are currently focused on end game play more so than game economy. This is why we have designed the system to keep the ingredients, at least initially, as bound to account. This allows us to track the accumulation of ingredients and items and acts to mitigate the collateral damage of potential exploits. This still allows players to move ingredients to alternate characters that need them, while acting as a preventive measure against new or previously unknown (by us) methods of duplication.

Sev~

— emphasis added


well said. also doesn't preclude the change to unbound of LGS mats in the future.

[Atremus]

never mind saw the thread in general in drop rates... Reading that now

[CThruTheEgo]

The DDO player base has had, for a while, a dedicated group that pursues methods to duplicate items or ways to re-use items. We've worked hard to close these loop holes so these activities don't ruin the economy or devalue the accomplishments of our general player base and we are constantly vigilant for the methods by which these exploits might be accomplished.

I get that it can be fun to occasionally use cheat codes or use a godmode to rampage through a game, particularly when it is single player and no one's experience is being ruined. It's not cool, however, or good for the game when those activities spill into the rest of the game and ruin the fun for people legitimately playing the game. It devalues their accomplishments and thus their experiences in the game and destroys any sense of economy and fair play. This is why we have pursued and worked to eliminate these exploits.

This update represents our ongoing efforts to bring an end game back for players who feel it has been lacking. The players who enjoy that have made it clear that our normal content updates are consumed too rapidly to "count" as a true end game. We are introducing systems to satisfy players who want a deep and satisfying progression and reward system that will allow them to have goals for quite some time. If this update is ruined by exploits or methods to circumvent the content it will ruin the fun for all of those people that are looking for that long term end game play.

Our design goals are currently focused on end game play more so than game economy. This is why we have designed the system to keep the ingredients, at least initially, as bound to account. This allows us to track the accumulation of ingredients and items and acts to mitigate the collateral damage of potential exploits. This still allows players to move ingredients to alternate characters that need them, while acting as a preventive measure against new or previously unknown (by us) methods of duplication.

Sev~

I would be able to understand and agree with this, if it weren't for the fact that the exploits of some time ago were initially pointed out to Turbine on Lamannia and nothing was done or said about it. They were then allowed to go live, pointed out to Turbine again once they were on live, and nothing was done or said about it. They were then allowed to continue for months but were only known to a few at that time. The masses were eventually informed about how to perform the exploits on "the forums which shall not be named," and still nothing was done or said about it. This was allowed to continue for months until the market was literally flooded with duped items to the point that you couldn't buy anything from the auction/shard houses that went into a bag without it almost certainly being a duped item. Then after the market was completely and totally ruined, only then did Turbine actually do something about it. The end result is that Turbine is continuously implementing mechanics which inconvenience all players because they chose not act for so long and allowed the situation to get so out of hand.

I don't recall who was at Turbine during that time Sev, and I'm not trying to point fingers. I'm pretty sure you were not in charge then. Nevertheless, Turbine played a huge role in the whole situation because of their failure to act sooner than they did. So I don't understand why "extreme prejudice" was not exercised against Turbine and instead continues to be exercised against the entire playerbase. I've never seen any recognition by anyone from Turbine for their responsibility in the duping debacle, and I'd be able to accept reasons like those you mention above a bit more easily if there were some acknowledgement of Turbine's mistake. I don't intend for this post to sound accusatory, but I can't stand these excuses you all come up with to explain why we should all be inconvenienced when Turbine shares a great deal of responsibility for the duping debacle and has never even acknowledged that.

Make the base ingredients unbound just like heroic greensteel and if duping becomes an issue, do something about it immediately, not nine months down the road.

[hunzi2010]

A robust economy will bring people into endgame content that won't bother with it otherwise. Very few people are going to sit around in the upper levels and grind raids, meaning they'll likely just avoid those raids altogether. If you have something for them to trade into something else that they'll use, they'll jump into those raids when they can, providing the people that wish to grind those raids with enough players to fill groups. This choice to make everything bound shrinks the endgame player base considerably.

I don't believe so.

Like I have said in the past DDO caters for more of a mature player design.
the people winging are the young ones that are free to play.
Personally as I have stated before I DO NOT support the shard exchange and if there is a green steel blank, augment, potion or anything like this that I need I buy the store ones with my tp and refuse to give anyone my money to ASAH.
its when people get an item and them post it up for 2500-5000 shards it becomes ridiculous.
I aint paying literally 100.00 real dollars for an item, you can stick that where the sun don't shine.
this is why the economy is bad. greed.....
if you want to get an economy working again then my suggestion 3 years ago was you can only post an item to a maximum percentage value above the base.
this way there is a cap and the items are then affordable, so this is where supply and demand comes into it. you only want to download the new content and farm like stupid while drops are good then make a killing on the AH. the way that Sev has proposed is what a lot of fellow ingame chit chat is agreeing to and the feedback on the forums. people prefer BTA. and it works too.
again sorry guys and gals who are free to play, apologies as I am not intending to offend anyone, I just don't understand when I look on the shard exchange that items are so so so expensive...
that's my 2 shards...lol
thanks everyone.

[Aletys]

I don't believe so.

Like I have said in the past DDO caters for more of a mature player design.
the people winging are the young ones that are free to play.
Personally as I have stated before I DO NOT support the shard exchange and if there is a green steel blank, augment, potion or anything like this that I need I buy the store ones with my tp and refuse to give anyone my money to ASAH.
its when people get an item and them post it up for 2500-5000 shards it becomes ridiculous.
I aint paying literally 100.00 real dollars for an item, you can stick that where the sun don't shine.
this is why the economy is bad. greed.....
if you want to get an economy working again then my suggestion 3 years ago was you can only post an item to a maximum percentage value above the base.
this way there is a cap and the items are then affordable, so this is where supply and demand comes into it. you only want to download the new content and farm like stupid while drops are good then make a killing on the AH. the way that Sev has proposed is what a lot of fellow ingame chit chat is agreeing to and the feedback on the forums. people prefer BTA. and it works too.
again sorry guys and gals who are free to play, apologies as I am not intending to offend anyone, I just don't understand when I look on the shard exchange that items are so so so expensive...
that's my 2 shards...lol
thanks everyone.

Sorry, can't agree with you. Well, I can that there are absurd prices shard AH sometimes, but, frankly, I very much doubt that anyone actually pays those. Just because someone posts a ridiculous price for something does not mean anyone is going to be silly enough to pay it. Beyond that, stuff is worth what someone is willing to pay. Your suggestion would just mean there would be even less stuff available on the AH's.

As far as BTA vs. BTC vs. unbound, I prefer unbound to the other two, and BTA to BTC for obvious reasons. But I see no reason why mats should be bound at all, except for a few such as heroic greensteel shards. The rest should be unbound. It will make possible guildies helping each other, encourage folks to farm the stuff, etc. Right now, everything I'm hearing on what is planned is just making me not want to bother to run the new content at all.

[Bingobong]

Agreed, Varg this is a seemingly minor but vital point: GS has longevity partially because of the binding status of shards... it allows ings to be freely traded but characters must actually do shroud to make items (because of the BTC shards of power).

One of the very reasons that Heroic Shroud has had such longevity and LFM filling potential is the fact that EVERYONE needs mutliple shards of power/Great power/Supreme power.

It's not a minor point, it's the lynchpin of the system. The keystone... if you remove it you subtly break the formula that lead to the original success.

With it: you can have an economy item (tradable ings) without it you can't. With it people re-run shroud several times on EVERY alt, and they may run it even more to sell ings, without it they only need run shroud on 1 character and will never repeat it for extra ings because they can't be sold.

^This. The devs really need to read this post. Their current approach breaks the very thing that gives the shroud its longevity.

There's an old saying: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Add new content and upgrade items to legendary levels, but leave the current mat system in place ... keep BTC shards and leave mats tradable.

[EllisDee37]

We're more than happy for players to compare the tiered heroic weapon effects to the ones you guys have seen in Legendary Green Steel so far. They're quite directly inspired with few major design changes, other than the numbers and bonus types (which we've generally made much kinder - many effects in Heroic Green Steel used the same bonus type for all three tiers for the same stats, so only the best would apply).

Non-stacking Heroic Green Steel effects used to stack. Changes to underlying game mechanics have progressively nerfed greensteel effects, like for example spell power.

When Heroic Green Steel was first introduced, offhand I'd say that every single effect stacked with every other effect. This is more of an idle musing than a complaint, though.

[Bingobong]

The DDO player base has had, for a while, a dedicated group that pursues methods to duplicate items or ways to re-use items. We've worked hard to close these loop holes so these activities don't ruin the economy or devalue the accomplishments of our general player base and we are constantly vigilant for the methods by which these exploits might be accomplished.

I get that it can be fun to occasionally use cheat codes or use a godmode to rampage through a game, particularly when it is single player and no one's experience is being ruined. It's not cool, however, or good for the game when those activities spill into the rest of the game and ruin the fun for people legitimately playing the game. It devalues their accomplishments and thus their experiences in the game and destroys any sense of economy and fair play. This is why we have pursued and worked to eliminate these exploits.

This update represents our ongoing efforts to bring an end game back for players who feel it has been lacking. The players who enjoy that have made it clear that our normal content updates are consumed too rapidly to "count" as a true end game. We are introducing systems to satisfy players who want a deep and satisfying progression and reward system that will allow them to have goals for quite some time. If this update is ruined by exploits or methods to circumvent the content it will ruin the fun for all of those people that are looking for that long term end game play.

Our design goals are currently focused on end game play more so than game economy. This is why we have designed the system to keep the ingredients, at least initially, as bound to account. This allows us to track the accumulation of ingredients and items and acts to mitigate the collateral damage of potential exploits. This still allows players to move ingredients to alternate characters that need them, while acting as a preventive measure against new or previously unknown (by us) methods of duplication.

Sev~

You have over a year (or should I say years) to address this. Making this the reason for breaking a perfect and proven system should not be the way to go. All games have gone through their duping phases, but usually they fix the problems instead of taking the drastic step of making everything untradeable. Things like this just kills the player economy.

Even if you are unable to fix your race condition problems (usually the root cause of duping bugs), you can always use a non-object approach to the problem like a currency system for your tradable mats. So long as you don't have object creation and deletion involved in your transfer, you should have no duping problems.

I personally prefer to see this being pushed out till next year (even though I know you won't lol) and done right than the current proposal. Keep BTC shards and leave mats tradable. Your current approach breaks the very thing that gives the shroud its longevity. The following post explains why :

Agreed, Varg this is a seemingly minor but vital point: GS has longevity partially because of the binding status of shards... it allows ings to be freely traded but characters must actually do shroud to make items (because of the BTC shards of power).

One of the very reasons that Heroic Shroud has had such longevity and LFM filling potential is the fact that EVERYONE needs mutliple shards of power/Great power/Supreme power.

It's not a minor point, it's the lynchpin of the system. The keystone... if you remove it you subtly break the formula that lead to the original success.

With it: you can have an economy item (tradable ings) without it you can't. With it people re-run shroud several times on EVERY alt, and they may run it even more to sell ings, without it they only need run shroud on 1 character and will never repeat it for extra ings because they can't be sold.

[dunklezhan]

This update represents our ongoing efforts to bring an end game back for players who feel it has been lacking. The players who enjoy that have made it clear that our normal content updates are consumed too rapidly to "count" as a true end game. We are introducing systems to satisfy players who want a deep and satisfying progression and reward system that will allow them to have goals for quite some time. If this update is ruined by exploits or methods to circumvent the content it will ruin the fun for all of those people that are looking for that long term end game play.

Sev~

OK so I understand the anti-duping thing, I really do. But I still disagree with not having anything available for trade between players. I appreciate its to stop dupers, but as I'm not one of them the impact to me is simply taking away the trade-with-others minigame. I don't blame you particularly, I blame the dupers for being the reason I can't have nice things... but I wish I understood why this game is so prone to duping that we have to exclude a player driven economy entirely rather than finding some more reliable method to stop the duping. I suspect you do too, I know you don't do these things just to **** me off - but I'm a bit ****ed off anyway.

But also, how can you say the words I quoted above about consuming things too rapidly and still allow raid timer bypass to carry on as they are for end game raids? How does that fit with the design goal above? All that says to me is "people blow through stuff really fast and we daren't deny timers - so the only way to give a raid-loot system longevity is to make it grindy as hell and don't let people help each other except by teaming up to do the raid itself'. Again, I accept the outcome - but I really, really dislike it.

Contributing factors for longevity in terms of 'I've got my loot, I'm done now'*:
-Is there any new loot that's better?
-Drop rate compared to finished product?
-How frequently can I run the raid?
-How easy it is to get any of the new loot without actually running the content?


The first one is in theory easy to control. Its certainly 100% in Turbine's power to control. The second very hard to predict, and you probably expect to tweak over time. The third is fairly straightforward though, surely? If I can run the raid often, I will get loot faster, and I will be done faster.

The last one is a fine balance, like the first one: If I can trade everything, I can buy my loot from the AH, if I can trade nothing I'm going to accumulate a lot of **** I don't need, most likely. The right balance is somewhere in between. I don't really understand for example, why ingredients couldn't be BTA or BTC and the item blanks unbound. Being able to buy blanks just shortcuts the first few runs, but you still need to do those runs to make the augments.



*that is to say: ignoring "fun", which doesn't seem to help keep raids going for some reason or people would still be running Titan and Heroic HoX. I also ignored 'how puggable is it' which is kinda important, but isn't really to do with loot.

[Robbenklopper]

...[*]Handwraps are not included in Legendary Green Steel in Update 29. We wanted to get the revamp of handwrap technology in for Update 29, but that's a fairly massive task and just couldn't be done. We understand this is quite frustrating for some players. ...

Yes ... indeed it is Vargouille! And as you know an "planning" on overwork wraps and Monk at all at some far distant future, its far behind so much, please think again about putting in some "competive" named wraps in the meanwhile (and please drop that "deadly" idea on it and put in something useful like someone else mentioned before).

Thx in advance

[slarden]

• You collect Codex Runes (name subject to change) by completing Legendary Shroud.
  
  • These are used to craft Blank weapons and equipment, and to deal with the Legendary Taint of Shavarath on Equipment.
  • You get more Codex Runes on Hard and even more on Elite.
  • These are BTA.
  • These might be used as turn-ins for other kinds of rewards (such as you might have found on a 20th reward list).

I have mixed thoughts about the codex runes, but it's mostly positive

Positives
- Encourages running the raids on higher difficulties
- BTA so you aren't punished for switching to a character with specific abilities needed for the raid
- Persists through TR so you don't feel stuck waiting to TR until you hit 20 runs of all the raids
- If the raid doesn't have much of interest for a specific character, it's still worth running to shared runes with other characters

Negatives
- Only one: most people run DOJ EN simply because of lag and it's less forgiving during lag spikes (less likely to lag fail). So if the new raids have the same type or lag it will take longer to get items if most people don't want to run above EN due to lag. If the drop rates are good like DOJ it's fine. If they are bad like MOD it's going to be annoying if the raids are laggy and people are running EN due to lag.

[Robbenklopper]

The DDO player base has had, for a while, a dedicated group that pursues methods to duplicate items or ways to re-use items. We've worked hard to close these loop holes so these activities don't ruin the economy or devalue the accomplishments of our general player base and we are constantly vigilant for the methods by which these exploits might be accomplished.

I get that it can be fun to occasionally use cheat codes or use a godmode to rampage through a game, particularly when it is single player and no one's experience is being ruined. It's not cool, however, or good for the game when those activities spill into the rest of the game and ruin the fun for people legitimately playing the game. It devalues their accomplishments and thus their experiences in the game and destroys any sense of economy and fair play. This is why we have pursued and worked to eliminate these exploits.

This update represents our ongoing efforts to bring an end game back for players who feel it has been lacking. The players who enjoy that have made it clear that our normal content updates are consumed too rapidly to "count" as a true end game. We are introducing systems to satisfy players who want a deep and satisfying progression and reward system that will allow them to have goals for quite some time. If this update is ruined by exploits or methods to circumvent the content it will ruin the fun for all of those people that are looking for that long term end game play.

Our design goals are currently focused on end game play more so than game economy. This is why we have designed the system to keep the ingredients, at least initially, as bound to account. This allows us to track the accumulation of ingredients and items and acts to mitigate the collateral damage of potential exploits. This still allows players to move ingredients to alternate characters that need them, while acting as a preventive measure against new or previously unknown (by us) methods of duplication.

Sev~

Ofc we don´t want any dupers, but please tell me (absolute noob when it´s about programming):
Don´t you have some Kind of "Duper-Police" or Kind of binary-ammount-realtime-comparison-software when values e.g. double out of the blue on accounts? Not comprehensible Increasing stacking numbers of whatever can´t be detected?
It´s not like that everyone and my uncle Bob are doing this, so you guys can know about These "dedicated" People very clearly(?). Then please react.

[slarden]

The DDO player base has had, for a while, a dedicated group that pursues methods to duplicate items or ways to re-use items. We've worked hard to close these loop holes so these activities don't ruin the economy or devalue the accomplishments of our general player base and we are constantly vigilant for the methods by which these exploits might be accomplished.

I get that it can be fun to occasionally use cheat codes or use a godmode to rampage through a game, particularly when it is single player and no one's experience is being ruined. It's not cool, however, or good for the game when those activities spill into the rest of the game and ruin the fun for people legitimately playing the game. It devalues their accomplishments and thus their experiences in the game and destroys any sense of economy and fair play. This is why we have pursued and worked to eliminate these exploits.

This update represents our ongoing efforts to bring an end game back for players who feel it has been lacking. The players who enjoy that have made it clear that our normal content updates are consumed too rapidly to "count" as a true end game. We are introducing systems to satisfy players who want a deep and satisfying progression and reward system that will allow them to have goals for quite some time. If this update is ruined by exploits or methods to circumvent the content it will ruin the fun for all of those people that are looking for that long term end game play.

Our design goals are currently focused on end game play more so than game economy. This is why we have designed the system to keep the ingredients, at least initially, as bound to account. This allows us to track the accumulation of ingredients and items and acts to mitigate the collateral damage of potential exploits. This still allows players to move ingredients to alternate characters that need them, while acting as a preventive measure against new or previously unknown (by us) methods of duplication.

Sev~

I definitely understand this with ingredients and I am ok with all the ingredients/runes being BTA. I think you should throw the people that want to sell items a bone and start having some rare unbound items drop with extremely rare drop rates on LE difficulty. Something like jibbers blade or something with a cool clickie that doesn't add power but will be highly coveted.

[IronClan]

Lets dive deeper into this.

Deathwyrm/FP has a Heroic GS like system
Ingredients are ingots and Scales (Red/Shadow) freely tradable
Shards are Phlogiston's BTC

Fundamentally very similar to GS, except the Shards are more important as you need 30 of them. These items were heavily Duped, obviously, even the Phlogs. Ingots and Scales that flooded the market are still available in big stacks and made building Shadow Armor/Robes and TF blanks and T1's and T2 utterly trivial.

A brand new character can literally build fully upgraded Shadow armor and a T2 TF weapon the first time they set foot on the forge.

Phlogs were mostly contained via binding status, though they were passable in guild chests via additional exploit, this was not widely known and contained to a few raiding guilds on my server.

If everything had been BTA how much less negative impact would there have been on DW and FP? well Fire peaks was much less impacted because at the time no one really had caught on to just how nice Draconic Re-invigoration is on a boosting melee and TWF was much less popular besides so the time was not ripe for it to get popular, it surged in popularity much more recently.

Now FP is run more often than DW, red scales were much less duped. If I had to throw an estimate of popularity out there I'd say DW is kinda like CitW pre-raiders box levels of popularity (in my estimation) which is to say: you can find one or so most nights. Sometimes not.

With BTA ingots and Scales people would have had to run more DW just to make ShadowGuardian and other popular Shadowscale. Just to make T0 T1 and T2 TF weapons... With Unbound they have all become completely trivial and have IMO worsened the game for EVERYONE. IMO it's a good thing to phase TF out with LGS, perhaps in the future they can improve TF and add some new BTA ingredients to the raids to rejuvenate the content.

So despite preferring BTC shards and unbound Ings of the Heroic GS system; I can see the logic in making it all bound... it appears this decision was made with forethought and analysis of "lessons learned" I can't fault the Dev's for that.