Please revise this new unfriendly, endless grinding commendation system or may lose PvMP players at least on the Creep side, such as myself and my friend that plays with me. The costs are very unbalanced for different ranks. It disencourage new players to join the Creep side.
I'm pretty certain no one will buy tier 3 perks anymore without thinking twice about refilling 200 DP per freep level. But then again DP is on its way to be forcely replaced for TP in the future for active players, which is horrible for the gameplay and the players, as DP are a very valuable and fun addition to play the game and actually enjoying being VIP as I am.
I certanly do not consider a VIP re-subscription after my plan ends with all these nonsense.
Edit: Thumb down pic for Commendation/DP system current situation
Current implementation of commendations is completely terrible. And to make it even worse, freeps need less total to get complete audacity (they even get the first few ranks cheaper. Only the last 2 ranks cost more than creeps do, the first 4 are cheaper, and it's a total of 1,000 less for freeps. That might not seem like a lot, but creeps also need these to buy skills and traits.
It needs to be fixed by either bringing destiny back and having that still be the way for creeps to purchase skills. They can even leave traits to have commendation requirement so there is some time to acquire them just like freeps need to (but the price on skins really needs to come down). If not bringing back Destiny, then let creeps purchase their skills with gold, and still leave traits for commendations.
And the whole chicken play part of this... Come on, Turbine, at least think about what you are doing for once.
Just adding my chirp. I'm only a R8 freep almost R9 but will not be going to play there till the issue is resolved. Lol, I know it's not gonna happen but really that area is the only reason I am VIP. Please change it back or try something else cause it's painfully clear noone likes the change. I will keep the faith for now
*Amen Stigger32
Last edited by MitchTheReap; Mar 15 2012 at 05:51 PM.
Reason: used past tense instead of present for being VIP :)
I too will not be playing creep side until this is sorted. It is just way to discouraging. I tried again last night. But with every quest I handed in. Plus the average amount for Freep kills. After an hour of grind I only had 750ish commendations.
No thanks.
Progress demands development of individuality; mediocrity seeks perpetuation in standardization.
Chicken play (a nice, all-levels PvE diversion) costs commendations (a PvP-only currency) to access now? You can't be serious...
It appears the very last chicken play quest (Free Range?) has a 500 Commie cost now, though a blue name said they were looking at it. So it might be a bug.
It appears the very last chicken play quest (Free Range?) has a 500 Commie cost now, though a blue name said they were looking at it. So it might be a bug.
One would hope that's a bug. Yeesh.
Thanks for the update.
"Sam thinks it a queer place, but I think he likes it, too." - Frodo
"If you're in advertising or marketing, kill yourself." - Bill Hicks
In my opinion, the whole having no commendations thing (and creeps with less armour, and other things like it) wont last long. I mean you go play for an hour for 750 points, but so what this is the beggining of a new currency, and i think you have to look at from being a new player and not a veteran. New players will be fine with this currency with the larger pay outs from getting maps, older players just have to work through it (shouldn't be hard if you are already r6+, if not you might still have maps to complete).
other than that, the new way of getting Destiny Points(DP) seem bogus from my point of view. new players will have to go level a freep about 5 levels a day to have enough DP to buy perks for about one day (1000DP). I feel like others that mainly play creep side would be forced to play freep side. I dont think eveyone want to have to do a bunch of quest so that they can buy perks for creep side (As i would not want to). Therefore i suggest there be a way to make DP on creep side as well as freep side, it only makes sense.
Last edited by jedimindtrick3.0; Mar 15 2012 at 06:26 PM.
I know I'm probably just adding to the complaints but I was told something that offended me in game and I really need to vent.
I'm not one to complain, I rarely post to the forums and rarely say negative things IG but the Commendations system has really taken a lot of the fun out of PvMP for me.
I play 1-2 hours at most a day on average, less some weeks, and during that time, I very rarely had to PvE in order to enjoy the Moors. I don't have a freep above lvl 52 and really just play pvp to blow off some steam at the end of my days.
When I complained about the comm system, I was told I had a "silver spoon" mentality. This came from a high ranked creep that seems to have quite a lot of time to grind the moors. It's taken me 4 months to get my warg to R5... that was the challenge, pvping and grouping up to take outposts/keeps. The thrill of the fight was when there were counter attacks or defending keeps from attacks. It was fun to group up and rewarding to do the major quests like keeps or outposts. Side quests or PvE were optional in order to get a few more infamy or destiny for a skill/rank.
Now most of the high ranked creeps were shooting down the complaint saying that comm gain should be a challenge blah blah blah. That's great for them, they can spend 8 hours grinding quests... I don't WANT to. I want to pvp... Now, I was also told that the rates of gain for pvp comms are the same... um, no. If you figure that grouping up to fight pvp you'd get maybe double digits destiny for kills sure, but when you figure that fighting to flip a keep or outpost (something that is a challenge and is made even more so by opposition) is only giving out 100 comms rather than a 1000? Very much not worth the time sink. Grouping to pvp is really ridiculously not worth it too, I was getting 7-8 comms per pvp kill in a group. I solo'd 1 freep in that time and only got 27 comms... I fought a Warden outside of a group with 5 other freeps last night for 15 minutes and only got 34. How is that equal?
My major complaint here is the comm rewards. You get more infamy than comms, meaning you ~HAVE~ to grind pve in order to buy your skills. 2000 for a rank 1 skill is insane when the comm output is only 750 an hour while you're doing quests. If I wanted to grind quests, I'd work on my freep. The 750 an hour or whatever figure people are using is IF you have maps to get around quickly and you're a fairly high ranked creep, which I don't and I'm not. I was on for an hour today, doing the few quests I knew and only got 250 comms. At this rate it'll take me about 5-10 days just to buy that R1 skill. When you figure the costs for Audacity (6000 for rank 2 Audacity) It's going to take me nearly a month just to get enough for that. How is that enjoyable? It's not a challenge anymore, it's just boring.
What's the point? Without that R1 skill, (Shadow stance? or whatever it's called) PvE is going to take longer. I'm not going to sit there for hours on end, I don't have time for that. I preferred it when getting a rank was the challenge. Creepside is tough enough as it is with all of the skills, why is it now almost impossible for me to get the skills I need in order to even be 1/2 viable in pvp?
I never really understood when people threatened to turn off subscriptions and such, I enjoyed lots of the aspects of the game. Now, I do. Mine is off until something changes, the game has become far less enjoyable for me. Thanks for the good times Turbine, up until now I've really enjoyed it.
What's the point? Without that R1 skill, (Shadow stance? or whatever it's called) PvE is going to take longer. I'm not going to sit there for hours on end, I don't have time for that. I preferred it when getting a rank was the challenge. Creepside is tough enough as it is with all of the skills, why is it now almost impossible for me to get the skills I need in order to even be 1/2 viable in pvp?
[...]
As was said in a previous post, F2P games can make money in the following 3 ways:
Turbine can't apply 1) to the Moors. There is no content to sell (besides the basic Creep classes), only a few repeatable quests.
Turbine has, for the moment at least, ruled out a wholesale switch to 2), P2W.
That leaves 3). But, the grind in the Moors has been too easy, with DP falling like rain. So, remove DP, and introduce a rarer currency that entails longer grinds for skills. Then add skills, or Comm boosters in the store that reduce the grind.
We can't conclusively say this is what is happening to the Moors. But if the Comm grind isn't eased, and skills and Comm boosts show up in the store, then that will be the smoking gun.
I don't usually repeat myself but I think in reply to the last posters comments and mine about the commendation rates I would this once:
The whole currency system as a whole seems OK. It's the rate of work vs reward that is the killer. Here is my suggestions.
1:Make all commendations awarded EQUAL the amount of infamy you get from killing or participating in the kill of a Freep/Creep. With a 10% bonus if you were in a group.
2:ALL creep skill commendation costs should be 1/3 - 1/2 of what they presently are. Scale it upwards in cost vs rank. i.e R1 class skill cost = 750 Commendations. And a R10 skill cost say 7500 Commendations.
3: Make skill commendation costs lower as you outrank them. If I were a R4 reaver that didn't get X R1 skill it should be cheaper for me than if I were R1. Example: @R1 = 750 commendations. If I were to get that same skill @R4 = 150 commendations.
Progress demands development of individuality; mediocrity seeks perpetuation in standardization.
In my opinion, the whole having no commendations thing (and creeps with less armour, and other things like it) wont last long. I mean you go play for an hour for 750 points, but so what this is the beggining of a new currency, and i think you have to look at from being a new player and not a veteran. New players will be fine with this currency with the larger pay outs from getting maps, older players just have to work through it (shouldn't be hard if you are already r6+, if not you might still have maps to complete).
other than that, the new way of getting Destiny Points(DP) seem bogus from my point of view. new players will have to go level a freep about 5 levels a day to have enough DP to buy perks for about one day (1000DP). I feel like others that mainly play creep side would be forced to play freep side. I dont think eveyone want to have to do a bunch of quest so that they can buy perks for creep side (As i would not want to). Therefore i suggest there be a way to make DP on creep side as well as freep side, it only makes sense.
It was pretty clear last night watching OOC (briefly) that players arent happy with the change. You might have sound logic, but again the implementation wasnt good (should have allowed an exchange of DP for commies). The kicker is, and no one seems to have factored it in yet, will be the "seasons" wait until this audacity grind resets. Lets take a look....
Seasons
Besides the various pacing changes Audacity brings to PvMP, it is an opportunity to create a seasonal rotation. Veteran players will be able to rank their Audacity higher and higher, while the potency of low rank Audacity will keep new players viable.
At some point in the future, likely the next expansion, we will increase the max Audacity rank. The bonuses that Audacity grants will then be re-distributed so that the new max rank provides the same defense bonuses the old max rank did. New PvMP gear with +2 Audacity will be made available for Freeps, and Creeps will be able to purchase past rank 7. Lastly, we will balance the defense values at the now lower ranks to provide enough potency to stay viable. This should make entering the Ettenmoors for new players easier, while providing ample advancement opportunities to veteran players!
Literally that means that the audacity benefits your getting now will reset (redistributed) so the new max rank provides the same bonus as the old max rank. So you hit 7, the next "season" you will have the benefits of R7 and your grind reduced. This is to inspire more PvP, but its counter intuitive to the game engine as a whole, one would have thought that scaling the rewards (like virtues) would have been better. Again, decent ideas here, fail implementation = alienation of more players (good job Dev!!!!!)
Here's how it should have gone:
1. DP could be exchanged for commies: That would have shut people up, lower the return fine but give them the ability to get something for the time they invested prior.
2. Audacity should have been creep only: Let the freeps have their PvE damage just make the creeps able to mitigate it. Didnt do that, so we now have, yet again an unbalanced system due to the damage output of freeps.
3. Forget seasons: Who the hell is going to be psyched about having their audacity lowered after the grind? What genius thought that up ?
Less players will PvP, logged last night saw people talking about Gw2.... Leave it to turbine to come up with a workable solution to an issue (audacity) but fail at the implementation.
-progression
-gets people on the map
-easily obtainable (ie not Raid drop) armor option for freeps in the moors
-shared comms freep/creep for those with toons on both sides
-moors specific armor can be used by devs to tweak balance
-PvE comms moves people and potential action around the map - we're not all standing at stab/ec
Comms Negatives:
-pricing - out of whack for new creeps, and some hefty costs for creeps who need to catch up on new lower rank skills
-PvE:PvP balance - need to be careful that PvE isn't so efficient that people PvE and actively avoid PvP
-shared freep/creep - combined with no faction lockout, we seem to be getting lots of flipping now, and many freeps just farming comms on new creeps - over time this may work itself out
-seems to be a bit of a deterrent for rolling Alts and/or keeping them competitive as well as an impediment for casual players participating in the moors.
All in all pricing and/or acquisition rate(source) needs to be reviewed....especially if the intention is that we run into this grind with every update/season.
1. DP could be exchanged for commies: That would have shut people up, lower the return fine but give them the ability to get something for the time they invested prior.
Just a minor quibble: this suggestion may have only shut up the "vets". Newer creeps would still be facing the daunting task of trying to earn enough commendations to become competitive by buying their early skills and enough audacity to survive for more than a few seconds.
Just a minor quibble: this suggestion may have only shut up the "vets". Newer creeps would still be facing the daunting task of trying to earn enough commendations to become competitive by buying their early skills and enough audacity to survive for more than a few seconds.
Reasonable quibble. I think the important thing is to give the player a choice, plenty of creeps and freeps paid dues to get the DP and I concede a lot of it was likely earned from PvE play. Still better to give something then nothing. It’s still no win for turbine but this doesn’t appear to have won over many fans anyway.
I always believe giving the customer more, when they want more is a good thing. I don’t know there numbers they are likely doing very well financially and assuming things said here are factual they have thousands of players coming in every day. Alienating a few people that play in the moors likely won’t have a significant impact on the business, what’s more important is the comparative functionality to the competition.
I believe them when they say they care about the game, and I believe they want to make a good product. I do not believe they give 2 monkeys about the players of the game though, it’s about the product not the consumer of it.
I know I'm not going to be saying anything that hasn't already been said in this thread, but here it goes anyway: Shortly before Update 6 I started a new Weaver for the Moors. This is my very first attempt at PvMP, which I had been curious to try out for quite a while. Since I was brand new, I decided to mostly focus on PvE quests at first since I wasn't brave enough to try full PvP yet, and I figured some infamy/rewards would be useful. I only was able to go out a couple of times, so I didn't get very far before Update 6. So, last night I decide to try it again, because I was curious to see the changes. I managed to do several more of the PvE quests, even earning one of the maps, and I noticed that I was earning commendations for each quest, so I thought that was good. Eventually, I earned enough infamy to get to Rank 1, which was very nice.
Where it stopped being nice, however, was when I looked at the trainer/barter to see what I could do with my commendations now that I had leveled up in Rank. After all my questing, I have maybe 650 {EDIT: it's only 250!} commendations (most from the map) -- but the prices for any of the skills *started* at 1000 and went up from there. This felt completely demoralizing and I logged off of my Weaver and honestly I don't know if I'll go back.
In the "normal" part of the game, when you level up, you expect to be able to go to your trainer and acquire your shiny new skills to try out. Sure, at low levels getting those first few skills might cost more silver and copper than you immediately have on hand, but it isn't too hard to sell some vendor trash to make up the deficit. The prices aren't so crazy to make you think that you'll have to wait until you've done a significant greater amount of playing/leveling before you can acquire new abilities. This is part of the character progression that keeps you going. The way commendations are currently being handled, though, throws a huge wrench into this for someone like me trying to level up a new creep. As it is, I feel like there is a huge catch-22 that would prevent me from making any progress at all. I certainly hope that this system gets revisited.
Last edited by DanteIL; Mar 19 2012 at 11:21 AM.
Reason: Because I overestimated how many Commendations I actually had!
The chief blame for silly Commendation costs, particularly for low ranks, must surely be given to the "testers" on Bullroarer. Why wasn't this brought to light?
"'Ai! ai!' wailed Legolas. 'A Rune-Keeper! A Rune-Keeper is come!'
Gimli stared with wide eyes. 'Tolkien's Bane!' he cried, and letting his axe fall he covered his face."
The chief blame for silly Commendation costs, particularly for low ranks, must surely be given to the "testers" on Bullroarer. Why wasn't this brought to light?
From what l saw, the costs were brought up.*
I'm not sure what you expect (or anyone expects) from BR testing these days, since the recent trend is to open BR for a few days about two weeks from the release date, virtually guaranteeing that nothing will (or even can) be changed as a result of BR feedback.
*I mean "brought up" as in "the issue was mentioned", not as in "the costs were raised".
"Sam thinks it a queer place, but I think he likes it, too." - Frodo
"If you're in advertising or marketing, kill yourself." - Bill Hicks
It's a bait and switch. They don't care about the PVP currency.
They only care about having completely removed the ability to attain more destiny at level cap - anywhere. It makes their greedy little pockets say "nummy".
It's like the opposite of the Godfather: "Just when I get sucked back in, they push me away."
I'm going to miss DP perks... I didn't even use them for PVP, I saved them for the weekly PVE raids - dread removal, mitigations, damage buffs, all of it.
Taking away something I've been using for years for raiding with no good replacement (no, I'm not using store buffs, screw that) is sorely disappointing.
Just wanted to post my irritation at not being able to earn any DPs any longer for PVE play. Turned in several challenge Moria quests I had not turned in and see I earned nothing much from them now whereas the DP perk was a nice bonus in the past. Won't be long till all the DPs are used up - oh but wait I see this little coin symbol next to all of them that I can use to purchase perks now - yeah. Wasn't one of the 'benefits' of being a VIP compared to premium and free supposed to be the ability to spend DPs. Whats the point if you can't earn them. Greedy greedy greedy. Stuff like this is really not necessary Turbine.
What I have to add is nothing new that has not been said already but wanted to be counted as one that is not happy how they implemented this.
1. This did not reduce pve but increased it. We now have keeps flipping like mad from all the flippers turning the map blue, red, blue, red.
2. Now we have new creep toons made to only farm deeds for the bonus commendations adding to pve instead of pvp. Bad idea making commendations shared creep/freep side.
3. The price of skills/traits is way to high compared to the payout of pvp/pve rewards on creep side. 7500 commendations for a skin are you kidding me? Players can not get new skills because they don't have enough commendations and you think they will spend that on a skin.
Commendations are a good idea but very poorly implemented. If these changes were all about the store and forcing players to buy from the store I have a better ideas to get you $$ and not look so bad.
1. Create a new pvp map and sell it.
2. Create new monster classes.
3. Make pvmp freep side premium and sell character slots for pvmp.
4. Add the new monster skins to the store.
These are just a few but I think you would get more positive feed back for this than what your trying to do now.
The commendation costs of skills to a rank 0 creep may be in the order of ten times greater than a rank 0 creep's capacity to earn them. Previously skills were gated by rank, now they are gated by rank and affordability. Why do creeps even have gold anymore? Maybe creeps should purchase skills with gold and spend commendations on audacity, pots and brands? The present implementation of commendations is frankly broken, costs should scale with rank.
for these 37 pages of common hatred I feel I have to post from the other side
As someone who considers himself as a pvmp veteran: I like the commendation idea. I like there is something hard in the game it must be earned through blood and sweat and past glory does not take place in that. The only problem I see is pricing of low rank goods (skills, corruptions, skins, freep cloaks etc.) where amounts should be scaled to fit the commendations income of these ranks. If addressed promptly (up to 2 weeks from U6 release) I feel it as a standard release-baby sitting process of every sw rollout.
It's a bait and switch. They don't care about the PVP currency.
They only care about having completely removed the ability to attain more destiny at level cap - anywhere. It makes their greedy little pockets say "nummy".
It's like the opposite of the Godfather: "Just when I get sucked back in, they push me away."
Your bait and switch = my distraction. But yes the DP loss is a notable one, however turbine would be foolish if they think it got lost in the U6 pie eyed wonderment of the fan boys. It didnt, VIP is having a perk reduced its confusing why, other then the moors what reason is there to keep a sub?
Spent more time in the moors this weekend, people still talking about GW2. I logged after taking a 6.2k dev crit on a epic conclusion. Audacity didnt help, the problem with the moors (increased freep dps) hasnt been fixed. We've been distracted.
for these 37 pages of common hatred I feel I have to post from the other side
As someone who considers himself as a pvmp veteran: I like the commendation idea. I like there is something hard in the game it must be earned through blood and sweat and past glory does not take place in that. The only problem I see is pricing of low rank goods (skills, corruptions, skins, freep cloaks etc.) where amounts should be scaled to fit the commendations income of these ranks. If addressed promptly (up to 2 weeks from U6 release) I feel it as a standard release-baby sitting process of every sw rollout.
Thats cool and Its nice to have an alternative opinion. the problem is this new currency wasnt desired, I dont recall anyone clamoring for it over the last 2 years, you? So one has to ask themselves with the issues in the moors why would they implement a change that people didnt ask for?
every pvp with rewards need a currency for those rewards, nothing like that existed in lotro so I see a 100% reason to introduce commendations .. DP system was not set properly and very soon took out of currency borders because it was too easy to obtain
I think I am beginning to understand why they removed Destiny Point rewards from PvE quests. Note how the chicken quests have bugs that refer to Commendations and one quest requires Commendations to play. It looks like the the developers just replaced Destiny Point rewards with Commendation rewards wherever they existed in the game (except your current wallet stock). But when they had PvE quests that rewarded Destiny Points they had to remove the reward so that players couldn't earn 2000 Commendations by running Grand Stairs or by scooping scat in Enedwaith.
All in all, it seems like a rushed implementation.
I do think it kinda makes sense for them to have replaced Destiny Points with Commendations for PvMP rewards, since it would be really hard to balance between new players and veterans who have huge Destiny Point stockpiles. The cost for low-rank creep skills still might be too high, though.
I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. ~ Faramir
I do think it kinda makes sense for them to have replaced Destiny Points with Commendations for PvMP rewards, since it would be really hard to balance between new players and veterans who have huge Destiny Point stockpiles. The cost for low-rank creep skills still might be too high, though.
Okay sure but that does not mean they need to change how DP's are used in PVE play. Make commendations required for the moors and DPs for PVE play can be left unchanged. I'm sure there is a coding issue required to do this but then take the time to write the code and then implement this change. Like others said above where were all the complaints from players in the forums about having to earn and use DP's in the moors that they had to rush out this change. Changing things for the purpose of advancing the store is all I can assume.
Thats cool and Its nice to have an alternative opinion. the problem is this new currency wasnt desired, I dont recall anyone clamoring for it over the last 2 years, you? So one has to ask themselves with the issues in the moors why would they implement a change that people didnt ask for?
As a PvMP veteran, why do you think they did it?
Also why did they screw over casual players which is a large majority of the creep player base?
Over 100k infamy grind per creep/freep pvp character to obtain skills, pots, skins and audacity.
I've 3 creeps at r9 thats roughly 300k infamy to kit them out, I've pvp'ed for nearly 5 years and now those other 2 classes are redundant. I'm focusing on getting my main, my defiler his audacity. I've spent a week roughly 1 - 2 hours a night doing quests/pvp and I've only obtained 6.5k commendations. By the time I get r7 audacity most of the freeps will have gained theirs by the clear imbalance that is evident in dps output, so how are my other 2 creeps supposed to competite against the imbalance and freeps with r7 audacity?
Reward people for the time spent in the moors! Awesome idea! Build it around a currency and offer it to the side with a clear advantage = creep side getting seriously farmed Soon(TM).
Also why did they screw over casual players which is a large majority of the creep player base?
Over 100k infamy grind per creep/freep pvp character to obtain skills, pots, skins and audacity.
I've 3 creeps at r9 thats roughly 300k infamy to kit them out, I've pvp'ed for nearly 5 years and now those other 2 classes are redundant. I'm focusing on getting my main, my defiler his audacity. I've spent a week roughly 1 - 2 hours a night doing quests/pvp and I've only obtained 6.5k commendations. By the time I get r7 audacity most of the freeps will have gained theirs by the clear imbalance that is evident in dps output, so how are my other 2 creeps supposed to competite against the imbalance and freeps with r7 audacity?
Reward people for the time spent in the moors! Awesome idea! Build it around a currency and offer it to the side with a clear advantage = creep side getting seriously farmed Soon(TM).
I am a casual player, 5 hours a week in the moors tops. When I look at these changes I measure them against a few things:
1.What have players been asking for/complaining about for the last 3-6 months 2.What’s the direction of the PvE game 3.What are competitors doing
Of the three it appears to me this was a way to counter competitors. TOR came out and poof we now have dev attention. Where were they a year ago? I also believe that turbine cares a great deal about their product and have a vision for it. The player’s wants are secondary as there is enough consumption to warrant the product first approach (for now). The problem as I see it is commendations are a workable solution for creep side only if audacity was creep side only.
The problem in the moors is the massive damage done by PvE freep builds. So you give creeps a way to better their mitigations via audacity. Make them grind for it fine but allowing it on both sides is basically ridiculous and does little to help the PvP other then penalize those who ground prior.
With these new Commendation tokens we have to use to buy everything now, I was wondering how about making creep skins free on ranking or just 100 commies? It makes no sense to over charge a skin that doesn't even add to your character apart from it looks cool, and with skills costing so much I really doubt no one is going to save up for a rank skill (which is 7.5K!!!) while there's skills to buy.
Expect creeps to buy the rank 1 skin at rank 9 when all the skills are bought if the price stays the same!