How Should Turbine Handle the
1750 Favor Reward?

By Ralsu

Okay. It's pretty clear by now that Dungeons & Dragons Online
players are unhappy with the Turbine's reward for reaching 1750 Favor.
The situation is so bad that I haven't even bothered to include the
1750 reward in my href="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=267">Favor
System guide. I know the reward is going to change in some way. The
question is just how it will change.

The Back Story

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, let me get
you caught up. First, Turbine has some forums that go along with DDO.
If you don't know about the controversy surrounding the 1750 Favor
reward, you haven't been on those forums in a long time. Nobody's
trying to blame you for avoiding the flames and whining that dominates
the official forums. Hey, that's why we have some href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=17">lovely DDO
forums right here at Ten Ton Hammer!



Now to the dirt. Turbine recognized that many players would be
faithfully playing the same character long after it was capped. These
people would certainly achieve 1750 favor with the many patrons
throughout Stormreach. Wanted to pay homage to these dedicated
subscribers, Turbine decided to reward these people by letting them
roll new characters with 32 Ability buy points at creation (28 is
standard) on the server with the character who reached 1750 favor. This
was a win-win scenario for Turbine. Their idea enticed players to
continue playing to reach the 1750 favor mark even after having
completed all content. It also encouraged players already at 1750 favor
to start new characters and complete the content another time.

Problem? We Have #@$%^&* Problems!

While I commend Turbine for attempting to dangle a carrot before the
player base, the original concept had a number of flaws:

1. It rewarded someone for playing a single character a lengthy time
   by forcing him to create a new character to reap the reward.
2. It forced someone with a server full of characters to delete one
   in order to reap the reward.
3. It gave many forum readers the impression that Turbine only cares
   about making us play longer and not at all about making us play for
   enjoyment.
4. It reminded us of the href="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=246">Drow
   for the Money saga a little too much.

The forums erupted with posts expressing great anguish and rending of
garments. People cited all of the problems I've mentioned above, and
their dismay over this proposal made them focus harder on all of the
little things that annoyed them about DDO. In short, this one problem
was magnifying everything
wrong with DDO.

Round 2

It turns out that not all forum users who lodge complaints are whiny
babies who moan to see their words on a screen. Some, thankfully, offer
suggestions for solving the problems they site. In the case of the 1750
favor rewards, the community quickly gravitated toward demanding that
the option a +4 tome be given to the character who earned the 1750
favor. The argument was that if the reward was for playing a single
character to dazzling lengths, the reward should go to that character.



Turbine countered that a +4 tome would be wildly imbalanced because it
could equal far more to Ability scores that 4 buy points at creation.
The reasoning was that 4 buy points might net only a single Ability
point depending on the score it was being added to. Turbine's solution
was to change the idea of a +4 tome to a +2 tome. Reasonable players
felt this was a splendid compromise for the character with all of that
favor.

The Door is Ajar

Even though Turbine did a terrific job of listening to its player base,
the problem of the 1750 favor reward remains unresolved. The +2 tome is
only an option for the character with 1750 favor. A good number of
players believe that the only fair way to handle things is for all
existing characters (on the server where the they earn 1750 favor) to
get the chance to use a +2 tome and all newly created characters (on
that server) get the originally proposed +4 buy points. Without the +2
tomes, they say, their alts are all less than optimal. They feel they
must roll new characters in order to keep up with the challenges that
will come in Module 3.



For now, Turbine has not budged from their second proposal. Do they
feel like they have correctly responded to the issue that the reward
should help the main character who earns 1750 favor? Do they believe
that the notion that the +4 buy points make any alts on the server
useless? When I next speak to the folks at Turbine, I'll ask them these
questions. But I don't want to be one of the whiners who offers nothing
but sour words.

---

I need you to vote on a solution.
cellspacing="2">
style="vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(219, 201, 125);">

How should Turbine handle the 1750 Favor Reward?

• Don't let people push you around! Stick to your original
  plan of +4 buy points for new characters.
• The current method is just fine.
• Give us +2 tomes for all existing characters and +4 buy
  points for new ones. I don't want to have to reroll all of my alts!
• Do away with this reward all together. It's causing too
  much trouble!
• Try something completely different (explain).