The first of the Developer Diaries for Update 6 came out yesterday, centered around a new currency that will be used solely in PvMP: Commendations. Commendations will be replacing Destiny Points as the currency to purchase skills, weapons, consumables, etc. while Destiny Points will be limited to “…strictly a “perk” currency that will only be acquired through leveling.” Commendations will be utilized by both Creeps and Freeps, will be primarily gained through PvMP combat, and will be capped at 10,000 in order to “…create a PvMP Seasons mechanic that encourages/requires player investment with each content update.” The changes that will implement commendations will be rolled out starting in Update 6 and continue through Update 7.
Some of the highlights of the changes include:
- All players will start at 0 commendations
- PvMP quests that previously gave Destiny Points will reward Commendations.
- Defeating Players will result in ~50 Commendations
- The current contribution and diminishing return system will be used for the time being
- Post-Update 6
- Commendation swill be divided equally between all contributing players.
- “Diminishing Returns are applied each time a player is defeated within 60s of retreating. Each defeat within 60s of retreating reduces that player’s Commendation value by 20% with a maximum reduction of 90%.”
- Armor will no longer have a Rank requirement. However, the Rank requirement for jewelry, weapons, off-hands, mounts, etc. will remain in-place.
- The PvMP gear will be useable outside of the Ettenmoors, but the intention is that those items will be more effective in PvMP than in PvE.
- All existing Ettenmoor and Ettendeep barter tokens will be converted over to Commendations in Update 6.
My Opinion
I’ll start by stating what Kelsan says the main purpose of Commendations is:
PvMP was in need of a unified currency system that allowed PvMP players to progress in Monster-play without needing to PvE. Destiny was always intended to be the PvMP currency, but due to easy accrual and limited sinks we have ended up with extremely bloated Destiny pools. In order to accomplish our goals and not impact the PvE experience, we need to create a new currency specifically for use in PvMP.
The intention of this change is to create a sustainable currency that prohibits exploitive behavior, encourages active participation with each content update, and places the primary source of PvMP advancement on PvMP combat.
That being said, after reading what some heavy PvMP participants had as their Destiny Pools, I tend to agree that something needed to be done with the currency system to make it more balanced. However, I also wrestle with the fact that people who have such high Destiny Pools are the people who make Monster Play what it is. They are the people who enjoy it the most and who are usually the guiding forces in the Ettenmoors. And my hope is that with this change that they don’t find themselves being “hurt” and that their enjoyment of Monster Play will carry them through this new “grind”. One player in the official feedback thread suggested that players be allowed to purchase Commendations with their Destiny Points or to have some other form of compensation as they don’t usually play Freep-side. And while I’m not sure if this would work from a balance perspective I can’t help but feel for these guys who see their admittedly vast pools of Destiny Points as somewhat meaningless to them now.
As a PvE player I also take a look at this and can’t help but feel that I’m potentially being cheated a bit as well. I now cannot use PvMP to renew my Destiny Points, which I in-turn use to purchase perks. Ketani was kind enough to inform me that there are dungeon dailies in Moira that can be done in order to obtain Destiny Points, and that Elb has lately been running those instances to earn more points. So, as long as those stay in-tact then PvE players will still have a viable way to “renew” their Destiny Point pools; it just may be on a slower rate than they are used to. (Or it could be faster if you’re horrible at PvMP like I am!) Hopefully, we can hear back from Kelsan or someone else from Turbine soon on whether or not those quests will in fact still reward Destiny Points.
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February 17, 2012 at 10:12 am
While I don’t agree with most of these changes being improvements, I am glad that they are moving to a single currency system instead of needing several. I will no longer HAVE to go to delving just to upgrade some skills and traits. Also I am glad that Turbine is paying attention to monster play again even though I wish they would have spent their time on a new zone, this is still nice.
February 17, 2012 at 1:38 pm
Definitely eliminating the PvE aspect of PvMP will be great.
February 17, 2012 at 4:38 pm
Hopefully in addition to making these mods they’re preparing a new PvMP region.
February 17, 2012 at 10:19 am
coughswtorcough
February 17, 2012 at 10:28 am
I think another thing they need to do is to allow F2P players into the Moors on the Freep side. Monster play is something that does not interest me, but I’d love to be able to take my toons back out there now that I’ve dropped my account to premium.
If they would make the Moors content similar to the other zones where you pay a one-time, account-wide TP fee, I would certainly go back out there for some PVP action.
February 17, 2012 at 11:05 am
@ Vraeden- I think that many people would also like that and this creates a problem. Right now the number of players on each side is about even yet I think if Freeps got open to F2P there would be such an influx that it would make Creeps emmensily outnumbered and would break the zone. I could be wrong about this but I just have a feeling.
February 17, 2012 at 11:12 am
They also said that would happen when they opened creep side up a while ago. It swayed one way for a while but it eventually balanced out (generally).
February 17, 2012 at 11:20 am
They opened up creepside to F2P while I was still VIP, and on Elendilmir it seemed like the map was all red, all the time.
Maybe it was because there was an influx of creeps at the time, but I remember being in a full 24-person raid one night and we were getting rolled by two and three creep raids at a time. We killed a lot of creeps (mostly because I think many of the new creeps who were F2P didn’t have much experience in PVP), but we were consistently outnumbered 2 and 3 to 1.
I’m sure the number of F2P creeps has leveled off, and maybe it’s different on other servers, but I think it would be nice to open Freepside back up to F2P accounts.
And as Nerves said, after a while, the number of Freeps and creeps will level out.
February 17, 2012 at 12:21 pm
Well at least on Landroval, when the freeps reached the level cap, they started slamming us creeps, most of the f2p creeps quit and never came back, but I’m premium and pvmp is all i use dp on, what now?
February 18, 2012 at 12:11 pm
@Vraeden- I was going more along the lines of the fact that I think people like to be Freep side way more then creep and if they opened the other side it could be bad for the combat…I could definately be wrong but I have a feeling a lot of people don’t do PvMP because they have to play a monster.
February 17, 2012 at 12:20 pm
I wonder if the new “seasons” mechanic isn’t a way to make Freepside PvMP available to premium/free-to-play accounts. I could easily imagine Turbine selling a PvMP “season pass” in the point store.
February 17, 2012 at 1:39 pm
That’s an interesting though, Joshua.
February 17, 2012 at 11:11 am
What I would like to see is destiny point rewards for the new instances as well as the old. I don’t frequently run the moria instances as I don’t have a whole lot of time to play, so when I am playing I am raiding, or working on making other toons raid-ready, running old instances for DP is not a top priority.
February 17, 2012 at 11:56 am
I’m almost certain that the reason they have not opened it to be a zone you can buy is because they would lose several VIP subscriptions by doing so. I know several people just on my server alone who only subscribe for PvP.
I mean, once you’ve done all the endgame content, PvMP is really the only thing left for you to do. Most of Creepside is F2P or Premium, and I suspect that if freepside was allowed to go moors as F2P then you would see a large number of dropped subscriptions.
That would mean a loss of many for PvMP. Which would in turn mean that PvMP gets less attention or possibly goes away altogether.
February 17, 2012 at 12:59 pm
I have not been out in the ‘Moors in a long time but when I do roll a creep the first thing I do is focus on my maps. You have to pve for those (unless that’s changed, too?). Most of my pvmp was on Windfola but I’ve creeped on Silverlode and Elendilmir as well. You need your maps to stay with your groups else when you’ve got a good fight going on, there’s a chance you’re going to be moving around via the rez circle. I’ve been in raids where you weren’t allowed to join if you didn’t have at least one tier of your maps but many where they wanted you to have your poor maps done. When the raid can move together it’s much more effective. Saying you shouldn’t need to pve so you can pvp makes no sense to me.
The ‘currency cap’ seems like an unfair limit. I think the most destiny I’ve ever had at one time was 300k and I know that sounds like a lot but I’m not sure how that unbalances anything. At the time there was nothing to spend it on creep side until I ranked up again. Maybe unfair is the wrong word. It feels, to me, like going to the doctor for a bum ankle and he spends his time examining your finger instead. I don’t see what changing the currency and putting a cap on it fixes.
Creeps were told they were getting a new zone. They’d look at the classes. And I know some of that is going on. But a new currency? Really? It just seems odd. When they’ve retooled currencies for pve I’ve always thought it was a good thing in that it frees up space. The wallet was awesome for this. It simplifies, too in that we don’t have a bazillion different coins and tokens to keep track of. I just don’t get how a new ‘simplified’ system will be a boon to the ‘Moors. Frankly I’ve had more of a bother keeping track of elf ears and hobbit feet than currency for traits and skills.
February 17, 2012 at 2:06 pm
From reading the feedback I think that the fact that PvMP is getting a new currency over other improvements is what’s really getting people down. It may be the first step in a scheduled plan, but like someone said that if it is then the lack of communication is horrible.
February 17, 2012 at 9:23 pm
We all seemed so happy when the post was made promising better communication to players in the future. I believed Turbine would hold to that, at least for a while. I really expected a response from them today and was even prepared for their answers to confirm our fears rather than our hopes. Never have I been so disappointed to be wrong about a company.
Providing an answer about the DP quests on the PvE side of the game, or giving some reassurance that there will be other dev diaries soon to explain other PvMP improvements is probably harder than any of us would want it to be, but today’s silence was deafening.
February 18, 2012 at 12:46 am
The only response I saw was Rick saying people would still have DP when they logged in after the currency change. Confused me because I thought I read your destiny would be converted to the new system. And something about spending now before it happens. I’m on a serious roll for misreading though so I maybe didn’t get it right?
February 18, 2012 at 9:20 am
I think a few people misread it that way, which prompted Sapience’s response. It is only the barter token currencies in the ‘moors that are being converted over to commendations when this goes live. The DP you have gained already will remain untouched on your account.
The “spend it now” bit was saying that if you want to buy anything in the ‘moors with your destiny, do it now, because it won’t be a currency there anymore after the change.
Part of what has some people upset is that they may have been saving up their DP in order to buy a skill that required a higher rank. Now, if they don’t reach that rank by U6, that work was wasted.
February 17, 2012 at 1:14 pm
One of the primary reasons I even go to the moors is to accumulate Destiny Points for use out in the PvE world. This change will certainly reduce my motivation to go there.
If there are many others out there like myself, you will see a reduction in people going PvMPing.
I am not at all happy with the change. Of course, if you’re correct and there is a more efficient way to gain Destiny Points then one can’t complain about that. However you can still complain about being stuck in Moria instances which will get very boring after awhile, instead of being able to spend one’s time in a more varied and fun activity like PvMP to earn Destiny.
February 17, 2012 at 3:03 pm
Agreed. If this is part of a larger plan then ok but to come out with this before other stuff they’ve said is just odd.
February 17, 2012 at 3:59 pm
I have not been in the moors for 2 years, sounds like I better spend those destiny points before the change.
February 17, 2012 at 4:22 pm
off-topic-
does anyone know the reason why my creeps log on faster than my freeps? just curious
February 17, 2012 at 6:33 pm
Not sure but maybe because creeps don’t have the storage and other client side … stuff … to load with the character like freeps do. Know what I’m trying to say just not sure how to say it.
February 17, 2012 at 5:00 pm
Figured this post by Sapience made today (2/17 at 11:16AM) would be helpful to throw out there – “Not a single destiny point will be lost by any player. When you log in after update 6 you will still have them.”
(Source: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?445416-Destiny-points-after-U6&p=5993153#post5993153 )
February 19, 2012 at 9:09 am
Easy aquisition and limited sinks for DP’s! Simpler ways to adress that if it’s really an issue.
If DP’s are seen as too easy to gain them reduce the rate of gain, similarly if there are limited sinks then maybe add some more into game. Prevent bloated DP pools by capping the number an account can have. Altoholics will gain substantially more than those who focus on one character and might well use far less. I have access to DP’s but honestly cant recall any time when I regularly use or even remember about them.
Currency changes can been seen as devs fiddling with things to justify their pay that month, change for the sake of change rather than working on things that players have been asking about, housing revamp, new pvmp zone, etc. However this may be the first step towards newer stuff within the moors, maybe beyond. If that is the case then jury’s out if not then they’re doing change for the sake of it nothing more.
One thing they could have added was an option to convert DP into TP, although the bean counters wouldnt like another ingame option to get “free” TP’s via playing the game.
February 20, 2012 at 9:51 am
“The PvMP gear will be useable outside of the Ettenmoors, but the intention is that those items will be more effective in PvMP than in PvE. ”
Here we go down the slippery slope.
I strongly urge WB/Turbine not to get the two parts of the game confused. The day things that are desired/needed to be top ranked in PvE are only available through PvMP is the day that I give up the game. The two facets of the game are so different they should really be two seperate games. Please, do not blur the line between the two worlds.
February 23, 2012 at 3:05 pm
The rank 8 captain banner that has the stats (for the captain) identical to the War banner but has a buff that’s +1.3k physical and tactical mitigation has been in the ‘Moors since RoI went live.
If I understand the changes correctly, it should be easier for non-’Moors captains to get (in theory).
February 23, 2012 at 3:03 pm
The thing that frustrates me the most about this change is that it completely shoots the viability of DP for PvE.
The most frequent usage of that system is to buy off on defeat dread, but at 1.5k DP a pop, that’s not going to happen again after U6.