Thread: Update 6: Commendations Developer Diary

I really wish they would make a seperate thread for the DP buff argument so the actual COMMENDATIONS could be discussed here.

Originally Posted by KingOfBlackarrows

I really wish they would make a seperate thread for the DP buff argument so the actual COMMENDATIONS could be discussed here.

Yea I apologize here as I've comented plenty, I'm not really invested in the actual PvMP commentary, but when we took the discussion of the DP portion to general discussion it was placed back here. So mostly Turbines fault on that one really, they probably thought they would have to deal with this DP PvE stuff after the fact. I dunno how to link stuff being computer illiterate but if you look for the last locked thread in General discussion yu should see it.

Edit: Thread title is About Destiny Point Change with Update 6 , its currently the 2nd latest locked thread.

Originally Posted by Loth_Don

Originally Posted by Spordo

Which is exactly how it has to be in my opinion. Otherwise the inflation would still be there and the rewards (Audacity in this case) would be trivial again. You're still a veteran, you still have your skills, maps, rank and what not. Being rewarded just for having been in the game longer than somebody else just undermines the system they are trying to change.

Destiny points aren't earned merely by being in the game longer. You have to accomplish certain things. The guy with 2 million destiny points accomplished a lot and seems to have spent very little. I have 250,000 destiny points currently(or to put it in a different perspective, 125 keep/outpost captures or Lt. An slayings), but I've spent a lot of destiny points on upgrading my r10, 2 r8 and 3 r7 monster players. Now when commendations come I'm being told those 250,000 destiny points will not work for upgrading my monster at all. To earn commendations I'll have to do the exact same things I did before to earn destiny points- defeat players(~50 per while grouped) and quest in the Ettenmoors(between 20-100 per).

So:

1. Commendations are earned much faster through player defeat than by questing(~200 commendations from a solo kill v. 100 commendations from a keep capture quest). This is the opposite of how destiny points are currently earned in PvMP( ~100 destiny points from a solo kill (iirc) v. 2000 destiny points from a keep capture quest).

2. The top quest reward for commendations is 100. The top quest reward for destiny points is 2000. Thus questwise a conversion of 20-1 seems appropriate. Since questing was the primary source of destiny points, this seems fair to me.

3. Commendations earned from defeats seems to be roughly twice current destiny point acquisition from defeats. But percentage of destiny points in most players pools is likely rather low, doubling commendations for that dp seems to both be going in the wrong direction and a worthless endeavor.

So a fair conversion isn't hard to approximate. But you have a currency cap now to deal with. My solution: players after conversion can't earn more commendations if they are over the cap. Simple and fair IMO. But if they want to go a bit harsher, they can say that anything over 10,000 commendations after the conversion is lost. Not as nice, but nicer than no conversion at all- you get nothing.

I wasn't complaining about the ratio you were suggesting, I was complaining about the whole idea of rewarding someone just for having played the game for a long time. Which makes no sense at all. As I see it, the goal is to make current activity worth something, not reward 5yr old achievements. There's also the issue of balancing the PvMP when it comes to the new Audacity-stat. If people can just max out Audacity 5min after the server goes up, what incentive is there for anyone to actually play?

Originally Posted by Loth_Don

So we aren't getting this for one simple reason: Audacity. Dev's want players to all start out at the 'bottom'. Despite that being unfair, that is not why I personally am even bothering to post in this thread. I'm bothering to post because my personal nemesis in this game is doing the same exact thing over and over again.

Don't be mistaken- I have a tolerance for repetition. Just look at my previously mentioned characters. But 250,000 dp looks to be worth about 12,500 commendations- that'll be enough to equip just one of my 8 lvl 75 or a couple nice things for my 7 lvl 65+'s characters with something decent. But I'll be getting nothing at U6. Okay, not fair but I can handle that. So what does turbine want me to do- oh the exact same things I did to earn the destiny points I can't use? Now that's when I get pissed. 5 years I've played in the 'moors. I and everyone else who has earned destiny points is going to have that taken away and are being asked to pretend that never happened and just do it all over again not because we cheated, or its totally different or something, but because they are putting in a new reward and they want everyone to start fresh- except what we have to DO to get it won't be fresh in the slightest(just capture 125 more keeps! or get 250 more raid kills! just to be able to get what you should of had converted in the first place O.O)- 5 years on the same map!!!!

How is it unfair that everybody is starting with the same basic premises (in regard to Audacity ONLY)?

Ok, so what you're complaining about is that gaining Commendations will be repetitive and based on the exact same thing you're doing in PvMP anyways. Yet you claim to have a tolerance for repetition? How is your 5 years taken away? Will your rank be reset? Are you loosing your skills? Are they resetting the servers so that everybody is booted down to lvl 1 noobs in the starting areas again? No, they are simply adding a new stat which everybody has an equal shot at getting.

Originally Posted by roufneck

Can you explain the "new ways" part please? In fact just a statement that we will be able to acquire it in game and not having to buy it in store would be enough.

On a side note: I don't see any problems with obtaining destiny points with daily / weekly quests like we do right now.

EDIT: Reading the quote again and your answer is already in there. "Through game play". As long as this doesn't mean obtaining TP's and spending it in store it would do it for me.

Stat tomes are available "through game play", yet it is not even remotely practical to try and acquire them in such a way. This is part of the reason people are so unhappy about the change to DP... some vague future system that will allow perks to be acquired "through game play" is meaningless.

Question.. any chance you could turn the current "Collect 10/15/25 Tokens of Valour" Quests in GV into something like Collect "5000 and 10000 renown" and give commendations as a reward? 5000 renown for an daily quest and a 10000 renown for an weekly quest, once done you will receive some number of commendations.

Originally Posted by Lestache

Odd. I'm already getting 90-100 Commendations per Warzone...

QFT

I think this statement sums up the relevance of any Turbine changes in LOTRO PvMP at this time.

Good job.

(Although I am finding my Commando gets more Commendations than my Scoundrel; when will the game designers balance the Commendation disparity between DPS and healing rewards in a WZ, um....oh yeah I meant that for the forums of the game I'm actually *playing* my bad...)

<missing SoA days....would come back for that vibe...>

Originally Posted by Drucrew

<missing SoA days....would come back for that vibe...>

That was when PvMP was at it's apex in this game, and it's been all downhill since then. I miss the days when I could join up with the Creep raid, and see two CRaids v two FRaids going at it, with keeps and hotspots playing a somewhat strategic value out in the 'Moors.

My hope is that the commendations give us what we need to bring those back.

My main concern regarding commendations is that if they are required for the gear and improving Audacity, then Moors will probably degrade into a 1 vs 1 spot. Even now, when renown is the only incentive to 1 vs 1 one, there is more sparring going on than I would like to see. And with the new rules most people would be like: "Ok, let me get all the items and Audacity first, and then start real PvP".

Did we ever get confirmation that Destiny will still be given out for PVE quests, or will it be "just leveling" as Kelsen said in the Dev Diary?

Originally Posted by TheStormKing

Did we ever get confirmation that Destiny will still be given out for PVE quests, or will it be "just leveling" as Kelsen said in the Dev Diary?

We did get confirmation that only leveling will award Destiny. We also got confirmation that Destiny will eventually be completely phased out.

No further feedback from Turbine? Hmm guess my hope was misplaced. I guess the outcry here is insufficient to provoke a change in plans OR getting information up and down the internal approvals chain takes longer...

So can anyone say "we are considering what you have said and will give you a response soon(tm)" or is this issue with the Destiny Perks / Store money grab just going to be ignored in the hope it quietly fades away?

Originally Posted by aardnebby

No further feedback from Turbine? Hmm guess my hope was misplaced. I guess the outcry here is insufficient to provoke a change in plans OR getting information up and down the internal approvals chain takes longer...

So can anyone say "we are considering what you have said and will give you a response soon(tm)" or is this issue with the Destiny Perks / Store money grab just going to be ignored in the hope it quietly fades away?

Of all the threads in the Official Discussion Forums, this is the third longest, yet the youngest of the top 3.

That has got to get some attention.

Now 1 week later... still no response from turbine?

Ignore/Forgot/Waiting for approval to post?

I think it's ignore. VIPs get slammed by Destiny "phasing out", no workable replacement but they are going ahead anyway because ooh, if you run out of DP there is always the store...

Originally Posted by aardnebby

Now 1 week later... still no response from turbine?

Ignore/Forgot/Waiting for approval to post?

I think it's ignore. VIPs get slammed by Destiny "phasing out", no workable replacement but they are going ahead anyway because ooh, if you run out of DP there is always the store...

Destiny isn't going away yet. It's just essentially being removed from the moors. When they do have something firm in place to replace destiny, then they'll start talking about what it is and how it will be done. But at this point it's probably pretty early in that planning process and there is likely not anything firm in place, and maybe not even a timeline. I would guess they are shooting to have it done at the RoR expansion, and convert destiny to whatever the new system is at that point, in which case it would be logical that they would talk about it when that approaches. There really isn't any reason for them to talk about it, and it's likely they don't have anything firm to say that won't change anyways.

I'd expect it will likely be September, or maybe even later, before you're going to get anything close to the answers that you're wanting now.

Originally Posted by sirwillow

Destiny isn't going away yet. It's just essentially being removed from the moors. When they do have something firm in place to replace destiny, then they'll start talking about what it is and how it will be done. But at this point it's probably pretty early in that planning process and there is likely not anything firm in place, and maybe not even a timeline. I would guess they are shooting to have it done at the RoR expansion, and convert destiny to whatever the new system is at that point, in which case it would be logical that they would talk about it when that approaches. There really isn't any reason for them to talk about it, and it's likely they don't have anything firm to say that won't change anyways.

I'd expect it will likely be September, or maybe even later, before you're going to get anything close to the answers that you're wanting now.

If that were the case, then I would submit that the better way to treat your customers would be to not remove any aspect of DP until the new perk system is introduced. At the very least they could leave the PvE quest reward DP as attainable until the new system is ready to take over.

I just started to play as a creep. What I read here about new changes.. I think it's good time to level my Reaver quickly to spend as many DP as possilble. What do you think?

Originally Posted by shann81

I just started to play as a creep. What I read here about new changes.. I think it's good time to level my Reaver quickly to spend as many DP as possilble. What do you think?

I think that as a creep, it won't matter much whether you level before or after the Commendations are implemented..

Originally Posted by shann81

I just started to play as a creep. What I read here about new changes.. I think it's good time to level my Reaver quickly to spend as many DP as possilble. What do you think?

As it says in the Dev Diary, spend those destiny points on the skills and abilities now. When update 6 hits and it switches over to commendations your balance available is going to be '0'. You'll still have destiny points, but you wont be able to spend them on skills in the moors anymore. So the more you can buy in advance the better if that's what you're wanting to do with your DP.

Originally Posted by shann81

I just started to play as a creep. What I read here about new changes.. I think it's good time to level my Reaver quickly to spend as many DP as possilble. What do you think?

It's also a good time to get your new reaver into a group and go into the DoF and begin collecting stones. Those will be converted to commedations in your wallet.

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...nversion-rates

You'll want to accumulate as many of those as you can to help you when we transition.

Some pics of Commendations cost:










In dof you get absolutely nothing now. Only money and, uhm, some trash items.

Originally Posted by Faileon

Some pics of Commendations cost:










In dof you get absolutely nothing now. Only money and, uhm, some trash items.

4k per stack huh? The caps at 10k right? So you'll only be able to buy 2 stacks at a time then head back out to get your 8000 commedations.... Seems pricey to me. How was your ability to get commedations from the landscape? I mean could you PvE enough to get a good rate of return? I know its not designed that way just curious on how its playing

Originally Posted by Faileon

In dof you get absolutely nothing now. Only money and, uhm, some trash items.

Normal mobs only drops trash. But signatures and higher can drop vendor pots and barter pots. They can also drop "Freep Pots" which creeps can't use...

Turbine has basically made DoF pointless with U6.

Originally Posted by Thorgrum

4k per stack huh? The caps at 10k right? So you'll only be able to buy 2 stacks at a time then head back out to get your 8000 commedations...

Looks to me like the consumables cost 125 per stack of 10, so the 100 from doing a single outpost covers most of a stack.

Originally Posted by Thorgrum

4k per stack huh? The caps at 10k right? So you'll only be able to buy 2 stacks at a time then head back out to get your 8000 commedations.... Seems pricey to me. How was your ability to get commedations from the landscape? I mean could you PvE enough to get a good rate of return? I know its not designed that way just curious on how its playing

no its 125 per stack
but how I see dof will be unsless.. So seems I go farm dof for 1 week, and make huge supply

Originally Posted by Theandil

no its 125 per stack
but how I see dof will be unsless.. So seems I go farm dof for 1 week, and make huge supply

Especially for spiders. Don't know how about wargs, but spiders are getting 3 new skills. Even though I am r12 with all skills, I'll need to buy them these new Commendations :/. I need to spend 10k for those 3 skills total and then a looot more for audacity. Good I have at least 5k Dulls somewhere, I hope 1 dull = 2 commendation points.

haha, yeah I read it the wrong way. I had a flash back to Kuwait, it was like reading arabic....

My big concern now is that KB deeds give commendations. It seems tier 2's give 1000 commendations, and I don't think anyone will be able to see how many tier 3+ give.

I've finished countless of these deeds.. probably enough to earn me 30k+ commendations. Do we not recieve any benefits from these or will we be compensated?

Originally Posted by KingOfBlackarrows

My big concern now is that KB deeds give commendations. It seems tier 2's give 1000 commendations, and I don't think anyone will be able to see how many tier 3+ give.

Wow if this is true it really puts non-dps classes at a disadvantage!

Originally Posted by KingOfBlackarrows

My big concern now is that KB deeds give commendations. It seems tier 2's give 1000 commendations, and I don't think anyone will be able to see how many tier 3+ give.

I've finished countless of these deeds.. probably enough to earn me 30k+ commendations. Do we not recieve any benefits from these or will we be compensated?

Don't hold your breath. I assume that it'll work much the same way that PvE deeds did during the transition to F2P: for those of us who'd completed a large number of PvE deeds and were hoping to be given retroactive credit for them, we were basically told, "that's not going to happen, but you're free to level one or more new toons and earn the TP that way."

I could be wrong, but I doubt it - the new system doesn't seem designed to provide any extra reward to veteran players after the transition.

Originally Posted by Lestache

Don't hold your breath. I assume that it'll work much the same way that PvE deeds did during the transition to F2P: for those of us who'd completed a large number of PvE deeds and were hoping to be given retroactive credit for them, we were basically told, "that's not going to happen, but you're free to level one or more new toons and earn the TP that way."

I could be wrong, but I doubt it - the new system doesn't seem designed to provide any extra reward to veteran players after the transition.

I remember getting a whole lot of TP for all the deeds I had already completed when f2p went live, so I'm not sure what you're talking about.

But it would be very nice to get a blue name response just to answer the question of whether it is planned to award at least part of these commendations retroactively or not.

Originally Posted by KingOfBlackarrows

I remember getting a whole lot of TP for all the deeds I had already completed when f2p went live, so I'm not sure what you're talking about.

But it would be very nice to get a blue name response just to answer the question of whether it is planned to award at least part of these commendations retroactively or not.

You obviously arn't a completionist or you'd know the long list of massive snub Turbine likes to give it's dedicated, long-term players....

Originally Posted by soccercake7

You obviously arn't a completionist or you'd know the long list of massive snub Turbine likes to give it's dedicated, long-term players....

No, I'm a creep. I'm very well versed in the snub Turbine seems to give it's long time subscribers. However I'm also basking in the attention that we've been getting with this next upcoming update, so maybe I'm a little more hopeful than the general PvE crowd who have always been spoiled.

Originally Posted by KingOfBlackarrows

I remember getting a whole lot of TP for all the deeds I had already completed when f2p went live, so I'm not sure what you're talking about.

But it would be very nice to get a blue name response just to answer the question of whether it is planned to award at least part of these commendations retroactively or not.

You received exactly zero TP for the deeds you'd completed prior to FTP going live. The TP you received was given for some combination of you being a paid subscriber prior to F2P, your type of subscription, and how long you'd been a subscriber. (Lifetime Founder VIPs received the most, I believe.)

It was made clear to us prior to F2P that we would receive nothing for deeds already completed.

The whole issue I have isn't about Commendations. It's how they are using Commendations (as a "bait and switch" tactic) to destroy a VIP perk. In other words, a perk that members have to PAY for, is effectively being phased out til its dead in the water.

I stopped posting in this thread a week ago. Its pretty clear that Devs are not going to respond to it with more than a couple one liners.

So if you want an unofficial response, I'll do my best to provide one as officially as I can.


YES, We are phasing out VIP DP PERKS in order to INCREASE SALES in the STORE.

Originally Posted by Lestache

You received exactly zero TP for the deeds you'd completed prior to FTP going live. The TP you received was given for some combination of you being a paid subscriber prior to F2P, your type of subscription, and how long you'd been a subscriber. (Lifetime Founder VIPs received the most, I believe.)

It was made clear to us prior to F2P that we would receive nothing for deeds already completed.

Mostly true. However they also at the time added in a large number of deeds, particularly ones for rep levels, that many people auto-finished when f2p went live, and so people that had done what was necessary for those deeds already then immediately finished them and got the tp awards for them. Thats where the confusion comes from. Those TP awards were for new deeds, not for old ones.

Originally Posted by Kurtdg21

The whole issue I have isn't about Commendations. It's how they are using Commendations (as a "bait and switch" tactic) to destroy a VIP perk. In other words, a perk that members have to PAY for, is effectively being phased out til its dead in the water.

I stopped posting in this thread a week ago. Its pretty clear that Devs are not going to respond to it with more than a couple one liners.

So if you want an unofficial response, I'll do my best to provide one as officially as I can.


YES, We are phasing out VIP DP PERKS in order to INCREASE SALES in the STORE.

Well put, exactly what I was thinking.

Originally Posted by Beaniemooch

As a PVE player I don't see this as the fault of PvMP players. They did not request a currency change, they've asked for a number of other things which I may or may not agree with but has nothing to do with the changes taking place.

I think most players are able to see where this comes from. We are seeing a change in currency that incentivizes those who spend cash for turbine points. We will not take away the toys you have, but we have removed the toybox. If you want more toys when these are gone, that requires a trip to the store.

Quite. You don't have to be a cynic to understand this is just more nickle and diming monetizing of in-game features. You can bet your bottom tp that the new system will be a variant of low-chance drops. I'd bet the same tp that one fine update we'll notice that the dp costs of perks have gone through the roof and sooner or later the whole system will be shut down.

To be honest it would not surprise me if a year passes without in-skirmish summoning of skirmish soldiers going the same store token/barter item route.

Originally Posted by Zombie Columbus

but we feel that PvMP armor is more of a necessity than an achievement

Is this not a bit hypocritical seeing that creep skills are still rank gated. In my opinion the fundamental skills of a character are MUCH more vital than armor. I don't disagree with removing the rank gate of freep armor because I think it will draw more freeps in general out to the moors but I think with how the commendation system seems to be working, creep skills should also have their rank requirements removed. I know this would hurt the store profits slightly but lets face it turbine.. most of the profit in that area has probably already passed. It's also not the easiest thing in the world to earn a lot of commendations so I think many will still get fed up with the grind and will go to the store for skills..

please?

Why bother to change the name of something if you are keeping it ... Seems a lot of the changes for Updates #6 is just a process of renaming things.

IMO you should work on New content and stop renaming Old content.

This is not a complain post, I just want to see if i got things straight. And see if I should see the moors in any way viable after U6, as a part of my lotro experience if my situation doesn't change. If the answer is no, i won't loose a second of sleep over it, but i just like to know as more options are always nice.

My situation (being 100% honest here and not painting is prettier then it is): Premium player that will only buy and spend TP's for/on PVE content and her freeps, ever. So if the store is a must for me, the answer is already no. PVP just does not interest me enough to spend money on though i would be willing to spend some time if it's viable (I am ok with it being subpar to VIP creeps and creeps that do spend tp's on it, that's only fair.)
I would have preferred taking my cappy to the moors, but that's VIP only (and rightly so... VIP's need something just for them). I will never become VIP till Paypal becomes a way to buy VIP time (if still desired by then) as that is plain and simply due to circumstance my only option to actually pay for it (I can buy TP's easily enough). Also means my only current way (till U6) to spend DP was by upgrading my creep skills and such which only can be done when i get the correct rank (still rank 0, so nothing been able to be bought for DP yet).

Are the following statements true?
1. So this whole change to commendations only effects my only reaver creepy rank 0 (see why i won't loose any sleep over it?
2. So basically for me come tomorrow for all sense and purposes DP doesn't exist anymore (which for me already was the case for PVE anyway).
3. Everything for creeps as premium player to be bought in the moors has to be done with commendations/gold and i can just get the stuff on the vendors there. (And store but I ain't doing that, so I will dismiss this option from now on)
4. Commendations can be gotten by solo pve questing in the moors but it will be very ineffective compared to actual pvp?
5. The main way to get commendations is the actual pvp... aka kill freeps.
6. So basically the only real viable way to rank and get commendations is to pvp... aka kill the enemy, the freep player.

Sounds logical... but here is the true question it all boils down too:

7. Is or isn't Moors play for me viable come Update 6 (aka can i improve my creep in any meaningful way without it taking restrictively forever)? Or will it just mean an endless string of personal defeats without any return as i won't actually be able to get a kill in leading to commendations and leveling.

My only "true" pvp experience was being one shotted by freeps by an arrow to the back, dead before even knowing what hit me. I think I only hit a freep 3 times in my creep time... and that just tickled them (did their morale-bar actually move? If i squint my eyes... maybe) before i was made goo on the floor in 0,3 seconds. That wasn't much fun actually, but with pve and dp I could in theory, although slowely, atleast work myself up eventually to a bit more lasting/viable.
Ok... so join a raid. But I can't see myself teaming up or even anywhere wanted in a raid (by myself included), till i become at least semi-helpful. I don't want to bother other people till i get that status. That sucks out the fun for me. I can live with being not the top-dog, but i don't want to feel like a mere handicap to all involved. (well not the opposing freeps ofcourse. I'm sure they love me splat goes the reaver)