Astral Shards and Spectral Scales

Nimueh

Member
Hello!

I've recently swapped servers and before I moved I decided to buy the most profitable items off the shard exchange in an effort to move my astral shards to another server, after researching both servers I found one of the most cost effective items at the time were spectral scales, so after loading up on around 400-500 shards worth of scales I was ready to swap servers and off I went!

Alas my father head health issues so I had to take a road trip and go to take care, after returning to the game almost 2 weeks later I login, buy some shards so I could post the scales I bought and discover - they're now bound!

So the first thing I did was contact support attempting to explain my situation, I did not understand the reasoning behind an ingredient that's been around since the beginning of the night revels to become randomly bound, especially when every other ingredient from the event remains unbound.

To which the response was as follows:

Rob Smith (Standing Stone Games Help)

Oct 29, 2023, 4:56 PM PDT
Greetings,

As it was an initial oversight, reports regarding older night revel ingredients for sale on the astral shard market brought up both in ticket and on forums enforced the patching for older ingredients and rusted keys to prevent the issue of sales. Standing Stone Games reserves the right to modify the binding as it is seen as fit.

Ok, so he confirms it was an oversight and it was an attempt to fix the fact people were selling prior years ingredients and scamming people.

So I state that These are not older ingredients or rusted keys, these are current ingredients for the current event.

And then inquire about possibly just reimbursing some astral shards due to what he stated was an oversight on their part. I feel that is not unfair especially considering the fact it would be of no cost to them to return the currency to me, after all I have been a long time paying player of the game that has referred several other paying customers their way.

To which I get the response

Rob Smith (Standing Stone Games Help)
Oct 30, 2023, 1:20 PM PDT
Greetings,

Thank you for the inquiry. As the team had been changing older ingredients, it does not necessarily mean that the newer ingredients being bound as well is considered an oversight, after conversing with the rest of the team this was an intentional change to the item which we cannot compensate for.

So what I gather from this is, Rob doesn't know if it is an oversight or not and I am still down over $35 worth of a premium currency I paid for.

I don't know if anything will come of this post but it was Rob's suggestion to post here so what do you guys think?
 

cdbd3rd

Well-known member
Binding the out-dated ingredients was a good thing. (I won't reiterate my opinion that ingredients shouldn't expire at all - tho I guess I just did. )

Not sure why they decided to bind current ingredients in the process. No one asked for that.

Sadly, this is probably going to go down in history as another case where normal folks become collateral damage caused by scammers and other miscreants.
 

Onyxia2016

Well-known member
I do not know the table structure of DDO's item database but having worked on other games of this kind, I am betting there is a flag to classify an items bound state/type. Chances are someone included the item ID of the normal scales in the list with all the old item ID's.

Simple fix is to updated the flag on the normal item ID so it is once again unbound. This would likely need a server reboot for the change to take affect.

As for the OP situation, I say the shards should be reimbursed since the change to the item in question was not announced in advanced. Not that anyone in support will listen to what I think.
 

DDO Gaming

Well-known member
Hello!

I've recently swapped servers and before I moved I decided to buy the most profitable items off the shard exchange in an effort to move my astral shards to another server, after researching both servers I found one of the most cost effective items at the time were spectral scales, so after loading up on around 400-500 shards worth of scales I was ready to swap servers and off I went!
Spectral scales went BTA maybe 2 weeks ago, there was an official statement to this effect. You should explain the situation to SSG and try to get your astral shards reimbursed
 

Nimueh

Member
Spectral scales went BTA maybe 2 weeks ago, there was an official statement to this effect. You should explain the situation to SSG and try to get your astral shards reimbursed

I tried, their responses I pasted in quotes, the guy flip flopped then pretty much said pound sand.

Great company. Glad I've been supporting it for the majority of my life.
 

Phoenicis

Savage's Husband
The Scales were bound because there was an exploit that allowed people to get hundreds in a single run.

Rather than banning everyone who MIGHT have been involved, because it was possible that someone with alot of scales had gained them legitimately, they bound all scales to character.

At least, that's my educated guess from things I've read in various places.
 

Blaster

Active member
Phoenicis is correct about the exploit allowing for 100+ scales per run. You can find the release notes for the change here.
 
Top