A Look at 2024, Year of the Dragon! - Producer's Letter

[The Blonde]

Please take the discussion about the nature of nerfs and such out of this thread, which is about the producer's letter. Thanks!

How come this post is missing from the Staff Tracker?

 

[Gyuma Bei]

So since Myth Drannor is part of this.. Will there be any Curse of the Azure Bonds?

I'd assume stuff from the entire Pool of Radiance adventures (Curse of the Azure Bonds, Hillsfar, Secret of the Silver Blades, Pool of Darkness, Ruins) will be in it or at least referenced. It's also possible the Eye of the Beholder stuff might make it in (particularly EoB 3: Assault on Myth Drannor) for the dungeons.

But I'd really want an Alias and/or Dragonbait Hirelings. Given Alias has multiple clones out there (and are all blessed with unaging), it's not a stretch. I wouldn't care if the AI isn't the smartest. Just having a legit D&D legendary hireling is cool.

 

[Dandonk]

So since Myth Drannor is part of this.. Will there be any Curse of the Azure Bonds?

Oooh! The Mulmaster Beholder Corps!

 

[PaleFox]

I find that Tolero has grown as a producer. The kick-off letter really shows confidence.
The timeline given is in line with what we have had last year, both on the packs, expansions and the something extra.

I hope the Dragon archetype is something that combines elemental spell power with alignment spell powers, sort of mix and match.

 

[Lacci]

This might just be cynical me, but if 2024 doesn´t see a rework of the UI and fixes in the monster/hireling AI, I don´t care about any of the new adventures as I won´t be seeing them...

 

[Ivor]

It would be neat if one of the things added for the year of the dragon was a Dragonborn Iconic Hero. It could be given metallic dragon ancestries to differentiate it from the current non-iconic dragonborn race.

 

[Tolero]

Bottle of Mist in DDO store when? People have only been asking for three years.

This one is in progress and I’m hoping to have it early in the year. Getting it to work turned out to be more complex than we thought (delivering the item was easy, but getting the teleporting interface to then respect more than one source of “I got ravenloft access” turned out to need more engineering).

 

[Tolero]

Woo! This was a blast last year. Once you are able to hint to the day(s) that activities will happen... the more further notice for travel planning, the better

Yeah as soon as we have the day/time confirmed we’ll let folks know, we had a lot of fun too!

 

[Tolero]

Any chance we can get a hint on the dragon themed archetype? Off the top of my head I can really only think of:
Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer and Way of the Ascending Dragon Monk.

Both of which, while neat, I feel like would ultimately end up stepping on the toes of Draconic Incarnation/Dragonborn.

I’m still catching up on the thread but as best I can tell no one has guessed the first one (I’m still reading though so someone could have guessed deeper in the thread). You won’t have to wait too long though, it’ll be on Lamannia soon.

Whoa! Thank you for offering the Producer's Letter much earlier than expected.

Epic Destiny Balance Pass = Uh oh

Hmm. Not going to the astral plane after all? So what was the Illithid business about? To invade or not to invade, that is the question.

I am very hopeful for the return of serious adventures. Two adventure packs and an expansion in the same year is potentially awesome.

Year of dragin stabin will make Vexa happy.

After being driven back so successfully, the Illithid’s are reconsidering their approach. They weren’t expecting your world to be as capable of deterring them. Unless their Elder Brain is defeated though, they are ultimately still a threat.

 

[Stoner81]

This one is in progress and I’m hoping to have it early in the year. Getting it to work turned out to be more complex than we thought (delivering the item was easy, but getting the teleporting interface to then respect more than one source of “I got ravenloft access” turned out to need more engineering).

This is beyond awesome news so thank you! One question though I have is this... will the item in the store be character specific (multiple character purchase) or will it be an account wide upgrade (so a one time purchase)?

I know multiple people who are chomping at the bit about this and have been for years!

Stoner81.

 

[Kimbere]

As it should be. I would imagine the developers who literally can get into the code of the game would know better than just players about balance. It's quite literally their jobs!

Oh you sweet summer child...

 

[Kimbere]

Like all things, some like change and some don't.
If HCL goes away, many raiders will cheer, and many players will leave.
Not sure if the trade off will be worth it.
Just to be clear in advance, removal of HCL will lose a measurable chunk of the player base and after a year, they will not come back.
It is what it is.

Source?

Because from what I can see on the audit site, the *total* population of all servers combined increases by maybe 150ish players each HCL, then pretty quickly tapers back down to pre-HCL within a month or two.

So HCL increases total player population by ~10% for roughly 1/3 of the year. Doesn't seem to be a huge deal in the grand scheme of things. Maybe it matters a little more if we assume that the average per-player spend for HCL is higher than Live servers, but still...

Then consider that HCL puts a hit on the LFMs and grouping scenes on the live servers which serves to frustrate non-HCL players, likely causing a small number of them to quit DDO each HCL. This creates a downward total population trend long-term, which is obviously bad for business.

Now consider, how many returning (or potentially even new) players and more importantly how much income will SSG generate by focusing the dev time on the new things for the Live servers mentioned in the Producer's Letter instead of another HCL? Add in some potential retention of Live server players who would have otherwise left during the next HCL.

Taking all this into account, it's easily possible that the long-term net population loss of no HCL probably isn't as large as some people are making it out to be.

Balance that against the income generation and potential new/returning players and current Live server player retention and the whole "no HCL, the sky is falling" thing might not be as big a deal as people think.

 

[Vyder]

I see the dimensional augment bag from sharn expansion is in the store will the dimensional hireling folder from saltmarsh be added to the store?

 

[Ying]

Imbalances are fine. They're the nature of MMOs and they keep things exciting; I don't need every build to do X damage at all times if they have Y gear. We don't need every build to have good AoE, single target, insta-kills, defenses, etc. etc. all at once. We'll never have true balance.

Agreed. Balanced games are boring.

 

[Phaaze]

Im guessing that 2 new archs are:

Barb: Warrior Skald greatclubs

Sorc: dragon disciple or dragonheart mage

 

[Altra]

Tolero, have you given any thought to selling the permanent hirelings that are no longer available?
Had to ask since you're working on the bottle of mist. Thank you SO much for that!

 

[Mordenkainen]

Tolero, it's Rogues isn't it? Some kind of Rogue Dragon-themed archetype.

 

[rabidfox]

Dragon priests where either cleric or FvS will finally be able to have an immunity strip and breath attack.

 

[Mordenkainen]

Can anyone go through the thread and determine which classes were not mentioned since Tolero's post #149?

 

[Yamani]

Dragon Lords, just cause it sounds the coolest.