Honestly very disappointing. Would have loved things like a summonable Pigeon to access your mail from anywhere, or a permanent Airship Beacon (as long as you're VIP). Or maybe a free backpack tab for as long as you're VIP. Also, same as the VIP XP bonus, maybe a Guild Renown/Remnant boost as well. Heck, give VIP toggleable Waterbreathing/Featherfall - it saves yourself a bit of gear swap, and falls under the "neat" category without being too disruptive.
An inventoy item that gives you your guilds airship buffs would be amazing. Would want it to be targetable for me or my pet though. Or else I would still have to run there for my wolf.
Here is what would excite me and would likely get more VIP subscriptions: A Cosmetics Tab (much like mounts) so that cosmetics doesn't take up inventory or bank storage. A Potions Belt that gives us 10 quick slot that do not take up inventory. All spell casters to cast spells at normal SP but not need ingredients (again frees up personal inventory and makes us not have to worry about running out of ingredients). All ranged characters get to stack ammo as 1000 instead of 100 (again saves on inventory). All melee characters can always restore weapons to 100% durability while on VIP.
I love DDO and I pay for VIP on two accounts and I always give the team the benefit of grace because it’s a hard job, but this reward feels like phoning it in.
Great video. Glad to see people unhappy with this dumpster fire of a program lol. I wrote a big thing on the forums so won't take up too much space here. I think the 12-month plan is just inherently wrong for DDO. They're trying to copy a battlepass from other, successful games, but not realizing it needs a free track (silver rolls don't count) and incentives to play daily. I think 99% of people that vip'd in the past, did it the entire time they played. It wasn't a month here, a month there, it was something they had for years while they played. Of course there might be rare exceptions for PC breaking, deployment, new baby, etc., but I can't imagine that was often. It's like they had several board meetings trying to fix this problem that DIDN'T EXIST, of people not vip-ing for consecutive months. This whole thing should just be frontloaded and have everything from day 1. And then on top of that, maybe one of those bags every 3 months, but with all GOOD things. Not hearts you can easily get in game or tiny things like bypass timers. The whole thing just feels like they wanted to give us more bonuses, but were determined to give us LESS than humanly possible. Making every "bonus" as dragged down and kicked as they could. Need to subscribe for multiple months, bad choices, only available while vip, have to collect, have to re-collect, etc.
I think there are a decent number of people who only subscribe to VIP during hardcore seasons, which is why hardcore is so profitable for DDO and why they run them fairly often (including giving only two weeks notice). So DDO management likely looked at that and decided to make the VIP program encourage people to keep up subscriptions constantly. Of course, for all the reasons Strimtom and others have laid out, they managed to do it in an exceedingly underwhelming way that will almost certainly not succeed in getting people who don't already subscribe continuously to start doing it.
Strim, thanks for clarifying. I had initially thought ALL of the items in each VIP bag was given and while I haven't had a use for much of those I thought, well that's a buncha stuff so, cool I guess. But yikes. I am coming up on my 1 year resub in May and I don't think I'll be bothering again. All your points are valid and I appreciate you sharing them with us all.
Also, I did sub to ESO for a year or so, I even stayed subbed because I was worried about all the shit in my crafting storage. Huge convenience. Those LOTRO things sound great as well. Yeah this is a big nothing burger. They can do better for sure.
With how many times they've brought back daily gold rolls, I'm surprised that's not in the program somewhere. And better Gold Seal Hirelings, like while you're VIP they can be used without CD. Personally my gripe is opening Reaper & Elite is boring without VIP, a problem you'll face a lot if you make alts. I want a positive thing from VIP, not just avoiding that annoyance. Opening not being account wide or at least server wide is kinda ridiculous! Like the video for a penny of publicity
When you Reincarnate you get to do Hard on all quests... and when you Reincarnate again you get Elite/Reaper on all quests... so if you stop bein' an Alt-a-holic... that's always an option.
@@Nimoot I have a reincarnation train character too, it's not like you can always dodge annoying game design through skill & knowledge. There are interesting nuances to debate like grouping for openers could be seen as a valid solution. It's pretty much what I do for every quest if I can't open; and when I can open, I toggle on the auto group option. But even if I tried really hard to do it, I can't use logic to counter people's feelings in good faith or agree that it's just a playstyle issue. As if playing multiple characters or trying new things without always sticking to the Heroic & Epic leveling grind as a non VIP is unreasonable. Also as you said, if you DO have the reincarnating main and can open anyway, that part of VIP is just useless if you just play that character. So you're getting around an annoying system if you're VIP for alting, but if you don't alt then why be VIP? I wouldn't mind if opening was PART of the deal, but for that to be pretty much the only big benefit is crazy. Then as this video's shown the ideas that SSG have put out for VIP are morsels compared to what they've done in LOTRO and what other games do
The best VIP reward would be a VIP-only teleport NPC, like the Farseers that exist already, that can teleport you to all the xpac places, ADQ, Stormreaver, etc.
I'm with you Strimtom, it's insulting and Standing stone is making it EXTREMELY clear how important their VIP's are! The point is to piss off their already existing VIPs to the point where they stop being VIP. They don't address people that have been VIPs since VIP was a thing either
Kinda crazy I'm more excited about the 'Year of the Dragon' rewards. New content, good rewards, and nearly everything tailor made for it. Like these feel like Battlepass rewards for other games just sprinkled through a whole ass year.
The thing I have to ask is why get VIP at all? If you caught any of the codes that gave the quest packs then you have most of what VIP does. At this point I think they are asking you to pay $15 a month just to not have to run the same dungeon 3 times just to max it out. If you grabbed the adventure pack coupon then you may as well just save the money and buy the expansions. If I told someone who wasn't really into DDO already that they spent $15 a month on a subscription and then they have to spend another $25-$30 just for 12 quests they would be confused what they were spending money on. Other MMOs give you so much more for the same price. For $30 you can get two whole expansions with new class builds, mechanics, story, and maps with content for all types of players in Guild Wars 2. They do all that without also asking for a subscription. What I'm trying to get at is that if old adventure packs are given away in promotional coupons then VIP should get access to older expansions. I'm not saying that they get the newest content when it drops, but when it goes to the store for DDO points VIPs should get it. You pay to rent the expansions and if you are subbed for long enough the bonus points let you buy it to own forever if you want.
It’s $8.25 a month for VIP in the US. I’m good with that to run quests at any level and for the basic perks. I play pretty much daily so that’s .28 cents. I can’t even get a snickers bar for that unless it’s 1977 hahaha. Do I love this silly program? No-it’s silly! But I’ll enjoy having the cosmetic/mount rewards. I’d love a cloak that shows how many years I’ve been a player, I’d like a VIP lounge with exclusive buffs…but I’m still gonna be VIP whether they are creative or not with these “programs”.
@@r8chlletters You are actively arguing against your best interests if you are already going to be subscribed. Most people who pay for a sub don't pay the bulk discount. You can buy candy bars in bulk for 30 cents each and if I don't eat a candy bar each day I don't lose any of the value if I take a break or just don't feel like eating one that day. You are arguing against you getting better value for stuff you pay for. In my example I talked about someone new to the game who is paying the normal price and still hits random pay walls. That actually happens. I have gotten multiple friends to try DDO and whenever they walk up to a dungeon they wanted to run just to be told to spend even more money just killed the fun for them. That is why I brought up other MMOs. They are competing with other MMOs to be worth people's money and time. Your MMO will die out eventually unless you can convince new people to pay for something. I can get more value from almost anywhere else in the market. I love DDO. There isn't an MMO like it, but it is crazy to tell someone that all $15 a month gets you is stuff that is free in other games and not the actual game content.
Some on this thread said something similar, but it boils down to this: it feels like they were thinking this is more than we had yesterday so whatever it is it must be good
The biggest problem I see is the regular vip bags are just not something to look forward to, it's all stuff you can get with not many points and not really things you look forward to using. Then the 8 month one has discovery potions which are extremely limited in availability competing with things you can buy equivalents to, so discovery pots are inherently biased towards by such a degree it makes little sense having it compete with other options.
Why no rewards for the past? I've been VIP since April '06 with 2 short breaks. I'm around 150 months deep in this game and will continue my subscription. This has zero impact on my future VIP intentions either way. But it sure seems like they are being as creative as possible in finding ways to give us nothing. Imagine how difficult it must be to be one of the game's rep's and try to promote these rewards with a straight face. I love you all in the DDO community and I appreciate all the work of everyone. See ya in game soon Strim!
Thanks Strimtom. I have to agree with everything you said. I am actually astounded that LOTR's has some of the things you just showed and DDO has none of that.
And started it on the heels of a free program for everyone for the Year of the Dragon…weird if you ask me and truly terrible timing. The anniversary party is the time to honor VIPs with exclusive and fun things they can enjoy and show off.
he makes a good point about how nice the lord of the rings online VIP rewards are by comparison it is clear that the ddo team is in early design process for the loyalty rewards and they don't want the cumulative reward bonus to become too strong and too big across years. the design they've chosen is awkward and bulky and clearly could be optimized and more convenient, which is bad. However, this gives them lots of chance to "fix" the design later after they've experimented and they could completely rewrite the thing later plus i want to support the company whether or not i am playing the game regularly, so i am more than happy to pay
A HUGE perk would be if you are VIP, you can see which toons have mail on the character selection screen instead of having to log in to each character. Hmm. . .sounds like that might also reduce the load on the servers from having to cycle through all of my toons every two weeks on each server. Another HUGE perk would be being able to mail stuff while not at a mailbox (which LOTRO gives).
This is embarrassing. The amazing five (and another five!) shared bank slots feels like a kind of slap in the face what with how the most awful thing about DDO has always been (to me) inventory management. It gets worse every year. Look at something like ESO: unlimited crafting storage is the main selling point for many subscribers. Give me ten bank slots per month of veterancy and pause the slots outside VIP, you'll get a 12 month sub.
They should do something with Expansion Packs for VIPs, i.e. giving out Menace and Shadowfell as a signup bonus and for every 12 month you get a Shop Token to get the Mists, Sharn or Saltmarsh (in order) or to upgrade Mists, Sharn or Saltmarsh (in order). You can only have one Shop Token at a time and every year or every 2 expansions, they should move expansions into other areas of this, i.e. in 2025 you also get Mists as a signup bonus and you can get or upgrade Feywild. This of course in addition to everything else you already get plus that pile of meh...
Honestly I just wish they would sell fan bundle upgrades to past expansions so we could get the teleport items, hirelings, summons, mounts and pets. I just want to go to Ravenloft more easily!!! That bundle was before my time sadly…
VIP is most likely most beneficial to new players, and for hardcore league. Just the ability to open at any difficulty directly in hardcore league is a huge advantage.
At the end of the day I'm paying for a game that lags and desyncs very regularly, especially as an overseas player. More often than not my spells consume spell points but fizzile into nothingness, or attacks just don't register. Not having that would be a greater reward than all of this put together.
Also you didnt understand: for FVS, bards, warlock you can exchange at trainer without cooldown. For wizards/clerics/druids etc it's just "any public area" instead of just tavern. A little convenience
I feel like an easier way to sell the current list of rewards is not make it a monthly thing. If you buy a year of subscription you should just immediately get every single reward you would have gotten if you were paying for the sub each month. The 1% bonus to named chest loot could read 'get 1% per month you've subscribed so far up to 15%, stacks with other similar effects'. It seems like a lot of these things were trying to aim low because they already give you perks and wanted to just sprinkle more on top.
I'm sort of shocked at how bad this is? Like, Final Fantasy XIV has this in it, and the sub isn't optional. There's SO many games they could look at for how to build a tempting subscription model. The final fantasy loyalty system gives you these (plus a different pet each month), every few months for your first 36 months. Below are just the first year's benefits. 1. Character cosmetic changer 2. beach attire costume 3. mount 4. cosmetic mount armor for chocobos 5. mount 6. 2 pets, another set of chocobo cosmetic gear, and tickets that remove fast travel costs.
You can see the effort that has gone into this and can totally see why it has been over a year in the making... no really. If SSG are going to treat us like this they probably shouldn't have bothered and just left it well alone.
It was weird to me they launched this a month after the year of the dragon program…seems reactionary. VIPs just need to know their $100 is actually worth something. I’d have loved some groovy exclusive new stuff like sovereign versions of boots to remnants and loot rolls etc. They really missed a trick here.
"We will be doing away with the requirement that you remain VIP in order to summon/use the trail or mount, once you've acquired it, it's yours." - Cordovan
The bags are meh and so is the temporary durability +10% after 4 months of vip lol. Also a lot of the stuff like the mount/foot prints you lose when you stop VIP that's disapointing. They could have offered much better things like when doing a heroic TR you have the option of starting at level 1, 4 or 7. Even passively reducing the raid cool down timer, or giving a random chance of dropping epic/legendary crafting mats including the ones that only drop in raids.
IMO, this is the lamest thing I've seen for VIPS. Still not worth it when it comes down to it. Also, if it starts in May, will that be month 1 for everyone or will we have to continue VIP to finish the first year? For example my VIP started Feb which would make May my third month of the year. And what about that "1st time sign up 5 shared bank space. What about those of us that have been VIPs? Do we get them too?
Imagine all the time SSG staff have spent on this sh1tshow... perhaps this time when this change falls on its face, they may rethink about how they consider community feedback? Yeah, right. A year ago, it was +1000 sentient xp and not 300.
DDO in general gives lip service to customer loyalty programs. Its like they throw us a chunk of iron pyrite and expect us to treat it like pure gold, Even though they tell us what it is.
SSG relies on the inconveniences of the game to make money. If they cleaned stuff up and streamlined the game for player convenience, they'd make probably 20% less revenue, and of course they don't want to lose that. The 'clunkiness' is good business for them, and they know the diehards have already put so much money in to the game and their characters/account that they can't pull out now, and will weather SSGs continued fecal precipitation.
Guild Wars 2 has an account crafting storage just like that, it includes storage for things that maybe wouldn't be considered crafting materials in other games. Super convenient buttons to vacuum everything right into it, but I dont think there's a way to make it unlimited size (maybe they added that since I stopped playing). You pay premium currency to make it bigger. Crafting material storage is now one of those things that I sorely miss in any game that doesn't have it. Not a fan of inventory management and crafting materials are the worst for messy inventory in most games. I would 100% pay for VIP even if convenient crafting material storage was the only thing it gave.
With my latest return to the game about 2 months ago i found a couple hundred discovery pots (10%s) and have been using them constantly , not really sure it makes a difference.
Id like to have vip give the ability to give at least one other person a questpass while you are grouped up. Nothing worse than trying to get a friend into the game without the code. Only solution is to have multiple burner accounts with the code on hand lol
Agree with everything you said, you made laugh at the end. I'm not vip since I think a year ago. Might go vip on a few days when I get paid for the daily rolls but anything on this list makes me want to sub for more than this dailiy gold roll month, which I will only get at half duration son I'm still considering. 10%xp is ok but not really that noticeable, and opening on elite on first life not really a game changer, I prefer to just rush to quests on normal and then hard and after that I can always open on whatever dif I want. If I want the favor fast I just wait until I'm on epics and open them on elite, most quests have elite dif nowadays anyway. What would make me want to vip would be a really boosted rightaway bank space and inventory space, daily gold rolls more often or at least weekly but for every character, a token that lets you port anywhere including guild airship, free respec of feats or enhancement/destiny, free transfer a year, good xp tomes once a year, supreme ability tomes once a year, etc. Things that can save you the grind time but actually meaningfull and not things that you can get on just a few days of playing the game for onyl one char once a year... really insulting vip "loyalty" rewards.
Dev's either don't understand that players want quality of life enhancements, or just don't care. Other than the shared bank space, there is nothing that I'm losing by walking away from my subscription. Currently I've 17 days, until my sub ends, at which point it will NOT be continued.
Reinforces my choice to purchase content packages from the day they made the option available. This would have been enticing if the monthly VIP sub gave credit toward expansions. Premium all the way! :P
f2p guy here. Interesting rewards, but ultimately pointless. It's not that I don't have an alt account where I bought some expansions and some points. I like f2p for the challenge. I'm also very much against visual masking or obscuring my equipment with all sort of wacky christmas lights since I mostly solo and I want to see on my character if I forgot to swap back from my haggle hat or my nightrevels robe. I always repair every time I visit a shop and sell stuff, because I have played low level 6 str gnome alchemists or wisdom monks even after tomes kicked in I still feel better if I have order in my bags. Fast legs feed the wolf, not a full backpack! It would be something I'd be thinking about if I didn't take DDO points as some sort of a metaprogression currency like for example the gold you get in Vampire Survivors. That being said DDO is a great game and since the covid code in 2020 I've been obsessed. I kinda feel guilty for not playing my premium account but it just feels like cheating.
Yes, subscriptions aren't very effective. The challenge lies in providing a unique offering that is hard to find elsewhere. Offering convenience can be helpful, but most people will only see it as a band-aid solution. In the long run, it's less expensive to just purchase the expansion, quests, races, and character slots so that they are not locked once you discontinue your subscription. I wouldn't offer them anything that can't be removed or blocked from using, like character slots; instead, I would let them keep it until they are reborn. It should provide features like infinite glamering (reverts on reborn or lost of vip), cosmetic storage, or a private server for subscribers only (If it could reduce lag). The alternative is to break the game by selling gold spins and powerful items, but eventually the game will start to resemble a pay-to-win game.
Unlimited inventory slots (and a better management system). Thats the answer to get and keep people on VIP. People play this game because they want to spend their time PLAYING THE GAME. The biggest non-game time suck is inventory and mule management. Give us an unlimited bank so we can get rid of mules. Give us a better inventory management so we can search for items and even item stats so we don't have to shift between the wiki and the game. The mule management of LOTR that Strim mentions at 17 minutes is nice but not enough. Give us more time to play the game and less time to play the spreadsheet and we will VIP forever! These VIP rewards are shit and not even new shit in most cases, just shit we get from daily dice. Thanks as always for the review Strim!
I have 2 problems with the rewards, first of they are meh, second is the mounts and cosmetics disappear if you turn off vip after waiting a long time getting them. When I have vip it won't be fore loyalty rewards
Agreed, this is poorly designed. I feel like a marketing person got this task rather than a game designer. It will have no impact on whether I am subscribed or not.
Half of these rewards are kinda insulting, even just "VIP now gets daily gold roll" and bumping it to 1k points a month would be better than this system.
I know I'm in the minority, but I actually liked the daily gold roll. I would have much rather had that. Sure, I had to remember to log in every day, but I didn't have to talk to anyone and I got it on every server so one of my alts could get it as well.
This was an actual well thought out and intelligent critique of the new vip system. I agree, this stuff is meh at best, its not a real boon exactly. I was hoping for something more interesting such as perhaps a 10% store discount on all sales, or maybe the mount is permanent not just when vip, something really worth thinking about going vip for people. I have been vip for the last 17 years because I want to support the game, but since the advent of adventure packs, I have felt like its gotten less important and I was looking forward to seeing what they came up with to make it more interesting to continue doing so. I love ddo, but I have been losing interest with it over the last few years, and something like this does nothing to reignite my interest. This may be the last year I buy the year long vip. Maybe I will just buy vip for a month or so when I do actually play.
It's insulting and Standing stone or more EG7 should be fully ashamed!...They aren't even addressing those that have been VIP since it was a thing. They did say they wanted to show how much they value us..I guess they are telling us what they think of us.
Totally agree with our take. Almost all of these bonuses do nothing for me in how I play the game. Some free stuff is cool, but super lackluster. Even double ddo points all year would be better.
Didn’t they run these ideas through the Player’s Council before advertising it? I have so much plat that i’m happy to pay to repair my armour. Such strange ideas…😅
The funny thing about the item durability "perk" is that it would have been useful back in the Turbine days. There was a time when the best items weren't all bound, and could take permanent damage. I still have an almost-destroyed Royal Guard Mask that I had bind to a character with the Stone of Change ritual to keep it usable.
God i am so glad you brought up eso plus. Its honestly probably the best vip program in an mmo I've ever experienced. SSG come on, your old Turbine DNA is showing a little
This doesn't make me mad enough to cancel my VIP or anything, there's some mildly interesting stuff in here, but... i really doubt this would make me get VIP if I didn't have it already.
Yeah same. Like I'm not going to cancel because I like the VIP I have, but these bonuses and weird and I just can't see someone who didn't have VIP going "Oh damn, I didn't have VIP before, but now I can get 10% item wear reduction? Gotta sub for 4 months!" I just cannot for the life of me pinpoint who this is targeted towards.
@@Strimtom For real. Right now the real benefits of VIP are: Extra XP, skip 1 saga quest, open elite+ first life. Nothing here really compares to that, enough that I think it would move the needle. Even the mount, which looks super cool, is like. Look I coulda bought the cool panther mount for $80 and kept it for ever! But instead you want me to pay $100 and wait 1 year to get a temporary mount? Like, what are they thinking?
I've played since 06' when you were required to subscribe to play the game before being passed to SSG from Turbine. I gladly paid that for years and would continue to do so if it had any benefit. I recently had a brain fart and re-upped my sub and it gave me no benefits. I thought I'd have access to the new Vecna raid and literally could do everything I did before as a non premium player.
I have been playing DDO now for a couple weeks. I have looked at the shop quite a few times and I am so shocked at all the prices on this older game. I get charging for new content. But the price on old and very old content, classes, races, bank space, money shared space, etc etc etc its so crazy how much everything costs. I have almost quit many times and its never been for anything in game, its always been frustration over the locked behind big $$. It is just draining my soul thinking about it. I found your video and was excited thinking oh man maybe there is some hope, maybe I will go VIP and have the want to play some more. But I think I will just go elswhere untill the game is so dead there forced to lower there prices. I know they give out free stuff or very cheap stuff/conent once a year. Unfortunatley I just missed that earlier this year. BTW thank you for your time with not just this but with all of your build guids too. I hope DDO see your video and make some big changes to there monitary systtem soon. Old old content should be free, mimddle age content should be half the price it is now and go ahead charge full price for the new content. Also would recomend offering more changes to Premium accounts, more things they keep from having gone VIP
Hi Strim, wanted to say thank you for the beginner basics videos. Started playing 2 weeks ago and DDO has quickly become my favorite game. Are there any plans to continue the series? (Warlock needing a video since it's free now etc) Seeing other new and returning players every other day in the DDO Discord and there's a lot of stuff we just don't know (What campaign packs are recommended to get first, etc.) May I ask for a follow up to Beginner Basics (Intermediate Inquiries or something lol) for players that have the basics down, and wanting to expand further with premium classes, things to do before at lvl.20 to get started in the mid/late game etc. Highly agree with the views on the rewards. Even as new player that just subbed a few days ago these feel forgettable aside from the trail/mount.
Can't say I'm much interested in LOTRO but it's always interesting to see how LOTRO seems to get treatment that DDO just doesn't. Really makes the DDO fans feel snubbed. LOTRO characters can blink, LOTRO has UI scaling, LOTRO has a decent VIP reward. SSG really seems to hate DDO.
The free +20 heart every year is decent. The small VIP bag is a complete miss. The ability to prepare spells anywhere was the nice QoL boost I was expecting, so it's welcome. The bonus is MORE applicable to prepared casters. Non-prepared casters need to go to their trainer and still need to pay money. Prepared casters no longer need to enter a Tavern or rest at a shrine to prepare spells. The %loot boost is almost meaningless. I'd rather see a "If you reroll a chest, guarantee a named item". You paid shards, you should get something for your effort. It's still gambling that SHOULD by all rights be illegal, but it's less gambling than the current system.
Yeah, I did vip then found out I could not do certain quests. So I stopped doing it. Just get past lives, get your turbine points then buy the pack later with the points. I am free to play. Vip is a joke. Oh you lose it if you are not vip. I had to buy a pack to play a toon I created as vip to even log into it.
I've been playing since day 1 and this program is sooo super lame. there is nothing of any worth that you can't get easily or just wait for certain weekends for or whatever. I will still be VIP, but this is like a kick in the head. storage is the worst and most expensive thing in the game, give us real storage and not 5 slots, really? come on SSG, get it together please. We need new players and need them to stay playing. This might turn them off.
The only thing that I saw that was mildly decent was swapping spells in a public. More quality of life things like that would have felt much better. I also agree signing up for a year of vip should automatically give the cosmetics up front. It Blows my mind that spending the money for a year gets you no mount for 11 months then you can use it for 1 month before they take it away. I pay vip to support the game anyway but this program doesn't feel like a reward for doing so.
While I agree that some of these are underwhelming (the VIP Bag of Many Things in particular), I don't agree that these are all bad. For one, I will greatly appreciate both the extra shared storage (can never get enough of this) and the stacking 1% named loot drop chance buff (which we'll likely see again in "year 2" for 2%, and so on). The durability buff is also a nice convenience that will stack over many years. Re: Crafting Tokens, they allow us to select an ingredient of our choice, which can be very helpful. As to why the 10% crafting boost isn't just in base VIP, I presume it's so they can again stack it for 20% in year 2, etc. Re: the cosmetics, I believe these now no longer require VIP to use. Once you unlock them, they're yours to keep. Arguably this could/should be applied to all of the other unlocks. The incentive to keep VIPing is to unlock more buffs (or higher tiers of them) and additional cosmetics. I don't think it needs a disincentive. Re: VIP Bag of Many Things, the SXP will now be 6,000, which is a major improvement (300 was insultingly low, though apparently an error). That's probably the most attractive thing from the list now. Re: Greater VIP Bag of Many Things, I like the choices there (and yes, they are the top end potions, and they don't stack with existing ones). I do think, however, that one of the other lesser Bags of Many Things should be changed to a Greater one, ideally so you get one at month 5 and month 10. Part of the issue with the Bag of Many Things is that it's there three times, so if the items inside aren't great, it feels like three "dud" months. Swapping one over to Greater would make a major difference. Re: year 2 onwards, it will likely include a repeat of some or all of these buffs and bonuses (points, bags, char slot, durability, crafting, loot drop, and storage), with the cosmetics changing to new variants (which should remain exclusive to VIP -- i.e. all cloud mount variants should show that someone earned them from VIP and nowhere else). There is the possibility, however, that they can offer different or more attractive rewards for later years. For example, year 5 could offer 1k bonus DDO Points instead of 500, rewarding longer-term VIPs with even more things. This would also be a good way to offer more Greater VIP Bags of Many Things. As for how to claim them, players will always claim the next available month for them -- i.e. if you miss month 1 and then sign up, you still claim month 1 while others are claiming month 2. You'll essentially always be one month behind (until or unless they add a catch-up item in Store, which is a distinct possibility). This means that when it comes to year 2, you will be claiming month 12 of year 1 while others are claiming month 1 of year 2 (or month 13, if you will). The list will just grow, not reset, and no one will miss out on stuff -- they'll just be potentially behind others in claiming stuff. This also raises another point: folks need to actually claim their rewards by logging in (which does help login numbers) each month or they will be behind yet again. Overall, I think this is a good system that could just benefit from a few tweaks (having already been tweaked and improved from earlier plans). It's certainly better than what we've had before, and coupled with the periodic months of daily gold rolls, it does seem like SSG is making an effort to thank and reward VIPs. With the devaluing of VIP by giving away so many quest packs for free (not a bad thing in and of itself), this is long overdue.
They had a year, maybe a year and a half and they come up with this crap. A reward is not a reward if the reward gets taken away after you earn it. It's just complete bollocks. Why are they such complete jerks to players of DDO compared to LotRO? We even get screwed with the cosmetic system. It's like they treat us DDO players as an afterthought. Pisses me off no end >:(
Strimtom, you are not wrong. In a word this program is "underwhelming". Personally, I feel a bit slighted by the effort. I returned to the game, recently, after 15 years. Its a better game than it was and it was a good game, but does feel nickel and dimey and these VIP 'bonuses" typify that. I played quite a bit of both LOTRO (Life-time subscription) and ESO and I'll use ESO as an example, as a VIP in ESO I never thought about day-to-day purchases or dealing with my inventory, certainly not to the extent that I do in DDO which is pretty constant. In the end, DDO game play, while dated graphically, is superior to ESO but the rl economy as a factor is frustrating.
@@Strimtom Thanks for letting me know, friend! Has there been a time frame for UI scaling? I did a google search, but all I could find is the 2024 DDO letter, and didn't see a roadmap.
Having played other games... tuning in to see what this was about, and the majority of those things seems like they should be account wide and every month, just beefed up VIP program benefits. Just like with ESO etc, but different benefits. So, should get one of those bags each month, should get a constant 10% durability reduction (SHOULD be no durability, period though) at all times, should have a cosmetic each month that is yours forever, etc. And, then have all expansions except the most recent one included in the VIP. This looks like crap. It honestly makes me just not care much about DDO even more. I used to absolutely love this game, but whoever is in charge of it now has been kinda driving it into the ground.
10:56 "In case you want to support the game" I snorted so derisively, someone said bless you in discord cuz they thought I sneezed. The way these devs barf garbage like this out, I wouldn't support them with a truckload of manure if their garden was dying. 12:51 Christ I choked on my tongue...
I'm blown away by how useless some of these items are. While watching your video I was playing salt marsh and in one hour picked up four 1,000 point sentient XP drops. But for VIP I will get 300 after 2 months. Does this make any sense whatsoever? Am I going to be overpowered now that I just added a fraction of a percent to my weapons sentient XP? As an example...
I think you nailed it. I'm VIP and have been for years, but if I wasn't then this wouldn't entice me to spend the money. Also, what happens after a year? Are they just going to recycle the same crap? Oh great, another cloud to ride. This loyalty program fell short of my expectations. Come on DDO, you can do better than this.
I don’t have skin in the game but we absolutely need to bring back subscription MMORPGS. Maybe I’m old school but the days of FF11 was my first long time subscription and introduced me to it. No micro transactions, just expansions you need to buy. The gaming industry has tanked and every single game is about max profits. I truly believe the newer gamers 25+ have some odd distaste with this. They believe all games should be 100% free or buy once and that’s it. Your “Free” game has millions of small “Bag slots, mounts, XP boost, skins with stats” etc. Share holders know this so they market the game this way. Maybe down the road this will change but I highly doubt it.
sorry this is trash..yeah I said it. Rewards should be permanent and much better than this dumpsterfire. I was already thinking of downgrading...so this is probably gonna happen after this .
Honestly very disappointing. Would have loved things like a summonable Pigeon to access your mail from anywhere, or a permanent Airship Beacon (as long as you're VIP). Or maybe a free backpack tab for as long as you're VIP. Also, same as the VIP XP bonus, maybe a Guild Renown/Remnant boost as well. Heck, give VIP toggleable Waterbreathing/Featherfall - it saves yourself a bit of gear swap, and falls under the "neat" category without being too disruptive.
its like they dont even play the game
This is the level of creativity I had hoped for (sigh).
An inventoy item that gives you your guilds airship buffs would be amazing. Would want it to be targetable for me or my pet though. Or else I would still have to run there for my wolf.
a free reroll on all chests while VIP would be cool. Way better than 1% and its not something you need to remember to talk to someone to obtain
ot perhaps a given number of rerolls per month? Great idea!
Here is what would excite me and would likely get more VIP subscriptions: A Cosmetics Tab (much like mounts) so that cosmetics doesn't take up inventory or bank storage. A Potions Belt that gives us 10 quick slot that do not take up inventory. All spell casters to cast spells at normal SP but not need ingredients (again frees up personal inventory and makes us not have to worry about running out of ingredients). All ranged characters get to stack ammo as 1000 instead of 100 (again saves on inventory). All melee characters can always restore weapons to 100% durability while on VIP.
I love DDO and I pay for VIP on two accounts and I always give the team the benefit of grace because it’s a hard job, but this reward feels like phoning it in.
Reading the list of rewards felt a lot like interacting with someone who was trying to low-ball me on something I posted on Craigslist.
😂
Great video. Glad to see people unhappy with this dumpster fire of a program lol. I wrote a big thing on the forums so won't take up too much space here.
I think the 12-month plan is just inherently wrong for DDO. They're trying to copy a battlepass from other, successful games, but not realizing it needs a free track (silver rolls don't count) and incentives to play daily. I think 99% of people that vip'd in the past, did it the entire time they played. It wasn't a month here, a month there, it was something they had for years while they played. Of course there might be rare exceptions for PC breaking, deployment, new baby, etc., but I can't imagine that was often.
It's like they had several board meetings trying to fix this problem that DIDN'T EXIST, of people not vip-ing for consecutive months. This whole thing should just be frontloaded and have everything from day 1. And then on top of that, maybe one of those bags every 3 months, but with all GOOD things. Not hearts you can easily get in game or tiny things like bypass timers.
The whole thing just feels like they wanted to give us more bonuses, but were determined to give us LESS than humanly possible. Making every "bonus" as dragged down and kicked as they could. Need to subscribe for multiple months, bad choices, only available while vip, have to collect, have to re-collect, etc.
I think there are a decent number of people who only subscribe to VIP during hardcore seasons, which is why hardcore is so profitable for DDO and why they run them fairly often (including giving only two weeks notice). So DDO management likely looked at that and decided to make the VIP program encourage people to keep up subscriptions constantly. Of course, for all the reasons Strimtom and others have laid out, they managed to do it in an exceedingly underwhelming way that will almost certainly not succeed in getting people who don't already subscribe continuously to start doing it.
Strim, thanks for clarifying. I had initially thought ALL of the items in each VIP bag was given and while I haven't had a use for much of those I thought, well that's a buncha stuff so, cool I guess. But yikes. I am coming up on my 1 year resub in May and I don't think I'll be bothering again. All your points are valid and I appreciate you sharing them with us all.
Also, I did sub to ESO for a year or so, I even stayed subbed because I was worried about all the shit in my crafting storage. Huge convenience. Those LOTRO things sound great as well. Yeah this is a big nothing burger. They can do better for sure.
With how many times they've brought back daily gold rolls, I'm surprised that's not in the program somewhere. And better Gold Seal Hirelings, like while you're VIP they can be used without CD. Personally my gripe is opening Reaper & Elite is boring without VIP, a problem you'll face a lot if you make alts. I want a positive thing from VIP, not just avoiding that annoyance. Opening not being account wide or at least server wide is kinda ridiculous! Like the video for a penny of publicity
When you Reincarnate you get to do Hard on all quests... and when you Reincarnate again you get Elite/Reaper on all quests... so if you stop bein' an Alt-a-holic... that's always an option.
@@Nimoot Or if you're _really_ an alt-a-holic. Don't ask how many characters I have on life 3+.
@@Nimoot I have a reincarnation train character too, it's not like you can always dodge annoying game design through skill & knowledge. There are interesting nuances to debate like grouping for openers could be seen as a valid solution. It's pretty much what I do for every quest if I can't open; and when I can open, I toggle on the auto group option. But even if I tried really hard to do it, I can't use logic to counter people's feelings in good faith or agree that it's just a playstyle issue. As if playing multiple characters or trying new things without always sticking to the Heroic & Epic leveling grind as a non VIP is unreasonable. Also as you said, if you DO have the reincarnating main and can open anyway, that part of VIP is just useless if you just play that character. So you're getting around an annoying system if you're VIP for alting, but if you don't alt then why be VIP? I wouldn't mind if opening was PART of the deal, but for that to be pretty much the only big benefit is crazy. Then as this video's shown the ideas that SSG have put out for VIP are morsels compared to what they've done in LOTRO and what other games do
The best VIP reward would be a VIP-only teleport NPC, like the Farseers that exist already, that can teleport you to all the xpac places, ADQ, Stormreaver, etc.
I'm with you Strimtom, it's insulting and Standing stone is making it EXTREMELY clear how important their VIP's are! The point is to piss off their already existing VIPs to the point where they stop being VIP. They don't address people that have been VIPs since VIP was a thing either
Kinda crazy I'm more excited about the 'Year of the Dragon' rewards. New content, good rewards, and nearly everything tailor made for it. Like these feel like Battlepass rewards for other games just sprinkled through a whole ass year.
The thing I have to ask is why get VIP at all? If you caught any of the codes that gave the quest packs then you have most of what VIP does. At this point I think they are asking you to pay $15 a month just to not have to run the same dungeon 3 times just to max it out. If you grabbed the adventure pack coupon then you may as well just save the money and buy the expansions. If I told someone who wasn't really into DDO already that they spent $15 a month on a subscription and then they have to spend another $25-$30 just for 12 quests they would be confused what they were spending money on. Other MMOs give you so much more for the same price. For $30 you can get two whole expansions with new class builds, mechanics, story, and maps with content for all types of players in Guild Wars 2. They do all that without also asking for a subscription.
What I'm trying to get at is that if old adventure packs are given away in promotional coupons then VIP should get access to older expansions. I'm not saying that they get the newest content when it drops, but when it goes to the store for DDO points VIPs should get it. You pay to rent the expansions and if you are subbed for long enough the bonus points let you buy it to own forever if you want.
It’s $8.25 a month for VIP in the US. I’m good with that to run quests at any level and for the basic perks. I play pretty much daily so that’s .28 cents. I can’t even get a snickers bar for that unless it’s 1977 hahaha. Do I love this silly program? No-it’s silly! But I’ll enjoy having the cosmetic/mount rewards. I’d love a cloak that shows how many years I’ve been a player, I’d like a VIP lounge with exclusive buffs…but I’m still gonna be VIP whether they are creative or not with these “programs”.
@@r8chlletters You are actively arguing against your best interests if you are already going to be subscribed. Most people who pay for a sub don't pay the bulk discount. You can buy candy bars in bulk for 30 cents each and if I don't eat a candy bar each day I don't lose any of the value if I take a break or just don't feel like eating one that day. You are arguing against you getting better value for stuff you pay for.
In my example I talked about someone new to the game who is paying the normal price and still hits random pay walls. That actually happens. I have gotten multiple friends to try DDO and whenever they walk up to a dungeon they wanted to run just to be told to spend even more money just killed the fun for them. That is why I brought up other MMOs. They are competing with other MMOs to be worth people's money and time. Your MMO will die out eventually unless you can convince new people to pay for something. I can get more value from almost anywhere else in the market.
I love DDO. There isn't an MMO like it, but it is crazy to tell someone that all $15 a month gets you is stuff that is free in other games and not the actual game content.
Some on this thread said something similar, but it boils down to this: it feels like they were thinking this is more than we had yesterday so whatever it is it must be good
The biggest problem I see is the regular vip bags are just not something to look forward to, it's all stuff you can get with not many points and not really things you look forward to using.
Then the 8 month one has discovery potions which are extremely limited in availability competing with things you can buy equivalents to, so discovery pots are inherently biased towards by such a degree it makes little sense having it compete with other options.
Why no rewards for the past? I've been VIP since April '06 with 2 short breaks. I'm around 150 months deep in this game and will continue my subscription. This has zero impact on my future VIP intentions either way. But it sure seems like they are being as creative as possible in finding ways to give us nothing. Imagine how difficult it must be to be one of the game's rep's and try to promote these rewards with a straight face. I love you all in the DDO community and I appreciate all the work of everyone. See ya in game soon Strim!
Thanks Strimtom. I have to agree with everything you said. I am actually astounded that LOTR's has some of the things you just showed and DDO has none of that.
Yeah, it’s wild that the two games are by the same company when they sometimes so unfortunately different.
The normal bag of many things could definitely be juiced up a bit lol.
or a lot
really shocking that they looked at the list from before, that everyone hated, and put a little bit of paint on it and said 'ok thats fine lol'.
And started it on the heels of a free program for everyone for the Year of the Dragon…weird if you ask me and truly terrible timing. The anniversary party is the time to honor VIPs with exclusive and fun things they can enjoy and show off.
he makes a good point about how nice the lord of the rings online VIP rewards are by comparison
it is clear that the ddo team is in early design process for the loyalty rewards and they don't want the cumulative reward bonus to become too strong and too big across years. the design they've chosen is awkward and bulky and clearly could be optimized and more convenient, which is bad. However, this gives them lots of chance to "fix" the design later after they've experimented and they could completely rewrite the thing later
plus i want to support the company whether or not i am playing the game regularly, so i am more than happy to pay
A HUGE perk would be if you are VIP, you can see which toons have mail on the character selection screen instead of having to log in to each character. Hmm. . .sounds like that might also reduce the load on the servers from having to cycle through all of my toons every two weeks on each server. Another HUGE perk would be being able to mail stuff while not at a mailbox (which LOTRO gives).
This is embarrassing. The amazing five (and another five!) shared bank slots feels like a kind of slap in the face what with how the most awful thing about DDO has always been (to me) inventory management. It gets worse every year. Look at something like ESO: unlimited crafting storage is the main selling point for many subscribers. Give me ten bank slots per month of veterancy and pause the slots outside VIP, you'll get a 12 month sub.
With docent glsmers being(except for named) broken, the mirror gets devalued
They should do something with Expansion Packs for VIPs, i.e. giving out Menace and Shadowfell as a signup bonus and for every 12 month you get a Shop Token to get the Mists, Sharn or Saltmarsh (in order) or to upgrade Mists, Sharn or Saltmarsh (in order). You can only have one Shop Token at a time and every year or every 2 expansions, they should move expansions into other areas of this, i.e. in 2025 you also get Mists as a signup bonus and you can get or upgrade Feywild. This of course in addition to everything else you already get plus that pile of meh...
Honestly I just wish they would sell fan bundle upgrades to past expansions so we could get the teleport items, hirelings, summons, mounts and pets. I just want to go to Ravenloft more easily!!! That bundle was before my time sadly…
Wow... I didn't know it was April Fools today. That is bafflingly bad.
VIP is most likely most beneficial to new players, and for hardcore league. Just the ability to open at any difficulty directly in hardcore league is a huge advantage.
At the end of the day I'm paying for a game that lags and desyncs very regularly, especially as an overseas player. More often than not my spells consume spell points but fizzile into nothingness, or attacks just don't register. Not having that would be a greater reward than all of this put together.
Also you didnt understand:
for FVS, bards, warlock you can exchange at trainer without cooldown.
For wizards/clerics/druids etc it's just "any public area" instead of just tavern. A little convenience
there is a 3 day cooldown for f2p for exchanging the spells on your halfcasters.
They missed the mark on a perfect opportunity
This feels pretty bad.
I feel like an easier way to sell the current list of rewards is not make it a monthly thing. If you buy a year of subscription you should just immediately get every single reward you would have gotten if you were paying for the sub each month. The 1% bonus to named chest loot could read 'get 1% per month you've subscribed so far up to 15%, stacks with other similar effects'. It seems like a lot of these things were trying to aim low because they already give you perks and wanted to just sprinkle more on top.
honestly not sure how they aren't embarrassed to put this out. do they even play this game???
I'm sort of shocked at how bad this is? Like, Final Fantasy XIV has this in it, and the sub isn't optional. There's SO many games they could look at for how to build a tempting subscription model.
The final fantasy loyalty system gives you these (plus a different pet each month), every few months for your first 36 months. Below are just the first year's benefits.
1. Character cosmetic changer
2. beach attire costume
3. mount
4. cosmetic mount armor for chocobos
5. mount
6. 2 pets, another set of chocobo cosmetic gear, and tickets that remove fast travel costs.
Pathetic is how I describe the VIP program
Yikes =( I had high hopes that they would improve the quality of life on the VIP perks, but alas, it seems disappointing.
You can see the effort that has gone into this and can totally see why it has been over a year in the making... no really. If SSG are going to treat us like this they probably shouldn't have bothered and just left it well alone.
It was weird to me they launched this a month after the year of the dragon program…seems reactionary. VIPs just need to know their $100 is actually worth something. I’d have loved some groovy exclusive new stuff like sovereign versions of boots to remnants and loot rolls etc. They really missed a trick here.
At one time I had a regular VIP subscription but it lapsed a couple of years ago and none of these "perks" would convince me to re-subscribe.
I usually get 3 months when a HC league drops. So I guess I over time will get a little out this... It will not change how much I do VIP though.
That sigh at the enf tells it all 😄
"We will be doing away with the requirement that you remain VIP in order to summon/use the trail or mount, once you've acquired it, it's yours." - Cordovan
Well, that's certainly an improvement.
The bags are meh and so is the temporary durability +10% after 4 months of vip lol. Also a lot of the stuff like the mount/foot prints you lose when you stop VIP that's disapointing. They could have offered much better things like when doing a heroic TR you have the option of starting at level 1, 4 or 7. Even passively reducing the raid cool down timer, or giving a random chance of dropping epic/legendary crafting mats including the ones that only drop in raids.
I wonder if you have to keep claiming the footprints every TR like you do now for the red and gold footprints-that is truly irritating.
IMO, this is the lamest thing I've seen for VIPS. Still not worth it when it comes down to it. Also, if it starts in May, will that be month 1 for everyone or will we have to continue VIP to finish the first year? For example my VIP started Feb which would make May my third month of the year. And what about that "1st time sign up 5 shared bank space. What about those of us that have been VIPs? Do we get them too?
Imagine all the time SSG staff have spent on this sh1tshow... perhaps this time when this change falls on its face, they may rethink about how they consider community feedback? Yeah, right. A year ago, it was +1000 sentient xp and not 300.
DDO in general gives lip service to customer loyalty programs. Its like they throw us a chunk of iron pyrite and expect us to treat it like pure gold, Even though they tell us what it is.
SSG relies on the inconveniences of the game to make money. If they cleaned stuff up and streamlined the game for player convenience, they'd make probably 20% less revenue, and of course they don't want to lose that. The 'clunkiness' is good business for them, and they know the diehards have already put so much money in to the game and their characters/account that they can't pull out now, and will weather SSGs continued fecal precipitation.
Really good video and insights on this topic, Strimtom! Thank you!
Guild Wars 2 has an account crafting storage just like that, it includes storage for things that maybe wouldn't be considered crafting materials in other games. Super convenient buttons to vacuum everything right into it, but I dont think there's a way to make it unlimited size (maybe they added that since I stopped playing). You pay premium currency to make it bigger.
Crafting material storage is now one of those things that I sorely miss in any game that doesn't have it. Not a fan of inventory management and crafting materials are the worst for messy inventory in most games. I would 100% pay for VIP even if convenient crafting material storage was the only thing it gave.
OMG they have this already in LOTRO ??? Just insanely funnier/better? Just insane imho.
Thanks for going over this. I had missed the news otherwise.
With my latest return to the game about 2 months ago i found a couple hundred discovery pots (10%s) and have been using them constantly , not really sure it makes a difference.
Id like to have vip give the ability to give at least one other person a questpass while you are grouped up. Nothing worse than trying to get a friend into the game without the code. Only solution is to have multiple burner accounts with the code on hand lol
Agree with everything you said, you made laugh at the end. I'm not vip since I think a year ago. Might go vip on a few days when I get paid for the daily rolls but anything on this list makes me want to sub for more than this dailiy gold roll month, which I will only get at half duration son I'm still considering. 10%xp is ok but not really that noticeable, and opening on elite on first life not really a game changer, I prefer to just rush to quests on normal and then hard and after that I can always open on whatever dif I want. If I want the favor fast I just wait until I'm on epics and open them on elite, most quests have elite dif nowadays anyway.
What would make me want to vip would be a really boosted rightaway bank space and inventory space, daily gold rolls more often or at least weekly but for every character, a token that lets you port anywhere including guild airship, free respec of feats or enhancement/destiny, free transfer a year, good xp tomes once a year, supreme ability tomes once a year, etc. Things that can save you the grind time but actually meaningfull and not things that you can get on just a few days of playing the game for onyl one char once a year... really insulting vip "loyalty" rewards.
Wow, SSG, what are you thinking!?
DDO designers clueless about making money? I for one, am shocked
Dev's either don't understand that players want quality of life enhancements, or just don't care. Other than the shared bank space, there is nothing that I'm losing by walking away from my subscription. Currently I've 17 days, until my sub ends, at which point it will NOT be continued.
Reinforces my choice to purchase content packages from the day they made the option available. This would have been enticing if the monthly VIP sub gave credit toward expansions. Premium all the way! :P
f2p guy here. Interesting rewards, but ultimately pointless. It's not that I don't have an alt account where I bought some expansions and some points. I like f2p for the challenge.
I'm also very much against visual masking or obscuring my equipment with all sort of wacky christmas lights since I mostly solo and I want to see on my character if I forgot to swap back from my haggle hat or my nightrevels robe.
I always repair every time I visit a shop and sell stuff, because I have played low level 6 str gnome alchemists or wisdom monks even after tomes kicked in I still feel better if I have order in my bags. Fast legs feed the wolf, not a full backpack!
It would be something I'd be thinking about if I didn't take DDO points as some sort of a metaprogression currency like for example the gold you get in Vampire Survivors.
That being said DDO is a great game and since the covid code in 2020 I've been obsessed. I kinda feel guilty for not playing my premium account but it just feels like cheating.
Yes, subscriptions aren't very effective. The challenge lies in providing a unique offering that is hard to find elsewhere. Offering convenience can be helpful, but most people will only see it as a band-aid solution. In the long run, it's less expensive to just purchase the expansion, quests, races, and character slots so that they are not locked once you discontinue your subscription.
I wouldn't offer them anything that can't be removed or blocked from using, like character slots; instead, I would let them keep it until they are reborn. It should provide features like infinite glamering (reverts on reborn or lost of vip), cosmetic storage, or a private server for subscribers only (If it could reduce lag).
The alternative is to break the game by selling gold spins and powerful items, but eventually the game will start to resemble a pay-to-win game.
I stopped 6 accounts of VIP when they were to be renewed this February, nothing in this makes me want to renew.
So, you lose all your 'loyalty' rewards as soon as you stop subbing? I guess the loyalty goes in one direction only.
Unlimited inventory slots (and a better management system). Thats the answer to get and keep people on VIP.
People play this game because they want to spend their time PLAYING THE GAME. The biggest non-game time suck is inventory and mule management. Give us an unlimited bank so we can get rid of mules. Give us a better inventory management so we can search for items and even item stats so we don't have to shift between the wiki and the game. The mule management of LOTR that Strim mentions at 17 minutes is nice but not enough. Give us more time to play the game and less time to play the spreadsheet and we will VIP forever!
These VIP rewards are shit and not even new shit in most cases, just shit we get from daily dice.
Thanks as always for the review Strim!
I have 2 problems with the rewards, first of they are meh, second is the mounts and cosmetics disappear if you turn off vip after waiting a long time getting them.
When I have vip it won't be fore loyalty rewards
Agreed, this is poorly designed. I feel like a marketing person got this task rather than a game designer. It will have no impact on whether I am subscribed or not.
The "We don't care about VIPs program"... I'm done with VIP after being one for many years. They just don't care about this revenue stream apparently.
Half of these rewards are kinda insulting, even just "VIP now gets daily gold roll" and bumping it to 1k points a month would be better than this system.
I know I'm in the minority, but I actually liked the daily gold roll. I would have much rather had that. Sure, I had to remember to log in every day, but I didn't have to talk to anyone and I got it on every server so one of my alts could get it as well.
This was an actual well thought out and intelligent critique of the new vip system. I agree, this stuff is meh at best, its not a real boon exactly. I was hoping for something more interesting such as perhaps a 10% store discount on all sales, or maybe the mount is permanent not just when vip, something really worth thinking about going vip for people. I have been vip for the last 17 years because I want to support the game, but since the advent of adventure packs, I have felt like its gotten less important and I was looking forward to seeing what they came up with to make it more interesting to continue doing so. I love ddo, but I have been losing interest with it over the last few years, and something like this does nothing to reignite my interest. This may be the last year I buy the year long vip. Maybe I will just buy vip for a month or so when I do actually play.
the crafting token is written below. Also the fact you need a vendor for the trail is written below
This is so bad it's laughable. They've out of touch.
It's insulting and Standing stone or more EG7 should be fully ashamed!...They aren't even addressing those that have been VIP since it was a thing. They did say they wanted to show how much they value us..I guess they are telling us what they think of us.
Totally agree with our take. Almost all of these bonuses do nothing for me in how I play the game. Some free stuff is cool, but super lackluster. Even double ddo points all year would be better.
Yeah, if they we're like "VIP is 1k points now instead of 500" I think this would have been really well received, instead of this odd loyalty program.
Simple and impactful is what was needed.
I wanted stuff like teleport to quest or bigger bank space (like 2x) or stuff like that...
Or treat all BtC items as BtA while VIP.
Didn’t they run these ideas through the Player’s Council before advertising it?
I have so much plat that i’m happy to pay to repair my armour. Such strange ideas…😅
They ran these ideas through the whole playerbase last year. I'm surprised it didn't change since then.
The funny thing about the item durability "perk" is that it would have been useful back in the Turbine days. There was a time when the best items weren't all bound, and could take permanent damage. I still have an almost-destroyed Royal Guard Mask that I had bind to a character with the Stone of Change ritual to keep it usable.
God i am so glad you brought up eso plus. Its honestly probably the best vip program in an mmo I've ever experienced. SSG come on, your old Turbine DNA is showing a little
This doesn't make me mad enough to cancel my VIP or anything, there's some mildly interesting stuff in here, but... i really doubt this would make me get VIP if I didn't have it already.
Yeah same. Like I'm not going to cancel because I like the VIP I have, but these bonuses and weird and I just can't see someone who didn't have VIP going "Oh damn, I didn't have VIP before, but now I can get 10% item wear reduction? Gotta sub for 4 months!"
I just cannot for the life of me pinpoint who this is targeted towards.
@@Strimtom For real. Right now the real benefits of VIP are: Extra XP, skip 1 saga quest, open elite+ first life. Nothing here really compares to that, enough that I think it would move the needle.
Even the mount, which looks super cool, is like. Look I coulda bought the cool panther mount for $80 and kept it for ever! But instead you want me to pay $100 and wait 1 year to get a temporary mount?
Like, what are they thinking?
I've played since 06' when you were required to subscribe to play the game before being passed to SSG from Turbine. I gladly paid that for years and would continue to do so if it had any benefit. I recently had a brain fart and re-upped my sub and it gave me no benefits. I thought I'd have access to the new Vecna raid and literally could do everything I did before as a non premium player.
I have been playing DDO now for a couple weeks. I have looked at the shop quite a few times and I am so shocked at all the prices on this older game. I get charging for new content. But the price on old and very old content, classes, races, bank space, money shared space, etc etc etc its so crazy how much everything costs. I have almost quit many times and its never been for anything in game, its always been frustration over the locked behind big $$. It is just draining my soul thinking about it. I found your video and was excited thinking oh man maybe there is some hope, maybe I will go VIP and have the want to play some more. But I think I will just go elswhere untill the game is so dead there forced to lower there prices. I know they give out free stuff or very cheap stuff/conent once a year. Unfortunatley I just missed that earlier this year. BTW thank you for your time with not just this but with all of your build guids too. I hope DDO see your video and make some big changes to there monitary systtem soon. Old old content should be free, mimddle age content should be half the price it is now and go ahead charge full price for the new content. Also would recomend offering more changes to Premium accounts, more things they keep from having gone VIP
I have absolutely no interest in 84.61% of these VIP Loyalty Rewards.
Hi Strim, wanted to say thank you for the beginner basics videos. Started playing 2 weeks ago and DDO has quickly become my favorite game.
Are there any plans to continue the series? (Warlock needing a video since it's free now etc) Seeing other new and returning players every other day in the DDO Discord and there's a lot of stuff we just don't know (What campaign packs are recommended to get first, etc.)
May I ask for a follow up to Beginner Basics (Intermediate Inquiries or something lol) for players that have the basics down, and wanting to expand further with premium classes, things to do before at lvl.20 to get started in the mid/late game etc.
Highly agree with the views on the rewards. Even as new player that just subbed a few days ago these feel forgettable aside from the trail/mount.
Who are they using as a sounding board for these ideas? Can't be the Player Council.
Can't say I'm much interested in LOTRO but it's always interesting to see how LOTRO seems to get treatment that DDO just doesn't. Really makes the DDO fans feel snubbed. LOTRO characters can blink, LOTRO has UI scaling, LOTRO has a decent VIP reward. SSG really seems to hate DDO.
The free +20 heart every year is decent.
The small VIP bag is a complete miss.
The ability to prepare spells anywhere was the nice QoL boost I was expecting, so it's welcome. The bonus is MORE applicable to prepared casters. Non-prepared casters need to go to their trainer and still need to pay money. Prepared casters no longer need to enter a Tavern or rest at a shrine to prepare spells.
The %loot boost is almost meaningless. I'd rather see a "If you reroll a chest, guarantee a named item". You paid shards, you should get something for your effort. It's still gambling that SHOULD by all rights be illegal, but it's less gambling than the current system.
Maybe of enough vips quit their subscription then ssg will actually care to make it something that's attractive enough to get them back
Yeah, I did vip then found out I could not do certain quests. So I stopped doing it. Just get past lives, get your turbine points then buy the pack later with the points. I am free to play. Vip is a joke.
Oh you lose it if you are not vip. I had to buy a pack to play a toon I created as vip to even log into it.
I've been playing since day 1 and this program is sooo super lame. there is nothing of any worth that you can't get easily or just wait for certain weekends for or whatever. I will still be VIP, but this is like a kick in the head. storage is the worst and most expensive thing in the game, give us real storage and not 5 slots, really? come on SSG, get it together please. We need new players and need them to stay playing. This might turn them off.
The only thing that I saw that was mildly decent was swapping spells in a public. More quality of life things like that would have felt much better. I also agree signing up for a year of vip should automatically give the cosmetics up front. It Blows my mind that spending the money for a year gets you no mount for 11 months then you can use it for 1 month before they take it away. I pay vip to support the game anyway but this program doesn't feel like a reward for doing so.
SSG staff should learn from the quest titled "The Tide Turns". Nowadays, players are your dad. Be nicer to your daddy.
also with lotro VIP: mail access from anywhere, and swift travel access.
While I agree that some of these are underwhelming (the VIP Bag of Many Things in particular), I don't agree that these are all bad. For one, I will greatly appreciate both the extra shared storage (can never get enough of this) and the stacking 1% named loot drop chance buff (which we'll likely see again in "year 2" for 2%, and so on). The durability buff is also a nice convenience that will stack over many years.
Re: Crafting Tokens, they allow us to select an ingredient of our choice, which can be very helpful. As to why the 10% crafting boost isn't just in base VIP, I presume it's so they can again stack it for 20% in year 2, etc.
Re: the cosmetics, I believe these now no longer require VIP to use. Once you unlock them, they're yours to keep. Arguably this could/should be applied to all of the other unlocks. The incentive to keep VIPing is to unlock more buffs (or higher tiers of them) and additional cosmetics. I don't think it needs a disincentive.
Re: VIP Bag of Many Things, the SXP will now be 6,000, which is a major improvement (300 was insultingly low, though apparently an error). That's probably the most attractive thing from the list now.
Re: Greater VIP Bag of Many Things, I like the choices there (and yes, they are the top end potions, and they don't stack with existing ones). I do think, however, that one of the other lesser Bags of Many Things should be changed to a Greater one, ideally so you get one at month 5 and month 10. Part of the issue with the Bag of Many Things is that it's there three times, so if the items inside aren't great, it feels like three "dud" months. Swapping one over to Greater would make a major difference.
Re: year 2 onwards, it will likely include a repeat of some or all of these buffs and bonuses (points, bags, char slot, durability, crafting, loot drop, and storage), with the cosmetics changing to new variants (which should remain exclusive to VIP -- i.e. all cloud mount variants should show that someone earned them from VIP and nowhere else). There is the possibility, however, that they can offer different or more attractive rewards for later years. For example, year 5 could offer 1k bonus DDO Points instead of 500, rewarding longer-term VIPs with even more things. This would also be a good way to offer more Greater VIP Bags of Many Things.
As for how to claim them, players will always claim the next available month for them -- i.e. if you miss month 1 and then sign up, you still claim month 1 while others are claiming month 2. You'll essentially always be one month behind (until or unless they add a catch-up item in Store, which is a distinct possibility). This means that when it comes to year 2, you will be claiming month 12 of year 1 while others are claiming month 1 of year 2 (or month 13, if you will). The list will just grow, not reset, and no one will miss out on stuff -- they'll just be potentially behind others in claiming stuff. This also raises another point: folks need to actually claim their rewards by logging in (which does help login numbers) each month or they will be behind yet again.
Overall, I think this is a good system that could just benefit from a few tweaks (having already been tweaked and improved from earlier plans). It's certainly better than what we've had before, and coupled with the periodic months of daily gold rolls, it does seem like SSG is making an effort to thank and reward VIPs. With the devaluing of VIP by giving away so many quest packs for free (not a bad thing in and of itself), this is long overdue.
They had a year, maybe a year and a half and they come up with this crap. A reward is not a reward if the reward gets taken away after you earn it. It's just complete bollocks. Why are they such complete jerks to players of DDO compared to LotRO? We even get screwed with the cosmetic system. It's like they treat us DDO players as an afterthought. Pisses me off no end >:(
I think it was actually more than 2 years but the fellow responsible for design and implementation died.
@@r8chlletters I belive you are right, but I was trying to convince myself that it was only a year and a half ;)
What about a small discount on new expansions for VIP
Strimtom, you are not wrong. In a word this program is "underwhelming". Personally, I feel a bit slighted by the effort. I returned to the game, recently, after 15 years. Its a better game than it was and it was a good game, but does feel nickel and dimey and these VIP 'bonuses" typify that. I played quite a bit of both LOTRO (Life-time subscription) and ESO and I'll use ESO as an example, as a VIP in ESO I never thought about day-to-day purchases or dealing with my inventory, certainly not to the extent that I do in DDO which is pretty constant. In the end, DDO game play, while dated graphically, is superior to ESO but the rl economy as a factor is frustrating.
Oh neat, DDO still is alive! Did they ever fix small text eyestrain if you play in 4k?
They actually did this VIP update instead of doing that. UI scaling is coming later.
@@Strimtom Thanks for letting me know, friend! Has there been a time frame for UI scaling? I did a google search, but all I could find is the 2024 DDO letter, and didn't see a roadmap.
Having played other games... tuning in to see what this was about, and the majority of those things seems like they should be account wide and every month, just beefed up VIP program benefits. Just like with ESO etc, but different benefits. So, should get one of those bags each month, should get a constant 10% durability reduction (SHOULD be no durability, period though) at all times, should have a cosmetic each month that is yours forever, etc.
And, then have all expansions except the most recent one included in the VIP. This looks like crap. It honestly makes me just not care much about DDO even more. I used to absolutely love this game, but whoever is in charge of it now has been kinda driving it into the ground.
10:56 "In case you want to support the game"
I snorted so derisively, someone said bless you in discord cuz they thought I sneezed. The way these devs barf garbage like this out, I wouldn't support them with a truckload of manure if their garden was dying.
12:51 Christ I choked on my tongue...
I'm blown away by how useless some of these items are. While watching your video I was playing salt marsh and in one hour picked up four 1,000 point sentient XP drops. But for VIP I will get 300 after 2 months. Does this make any sense whatsoever? Am I going to be overpowered now that I just added a fraction of a percent to my weapons sentient XP? As an example...
Is there any benefit to being a long time VIP. I have been a VIP since the game started. Nothing for that?
Cant find it now, but saw a vid from January and hope you're doing better now. hugs. Just want to say hang in these are very tough times.
I think you nailed it. I'm VIP and have been for years, but if I wasn't then this wouldn't entice me to spend the money. Also, what happens after a year? Are they just going to recycle the same crap? Oh great, another cloud to ride. This loyalty program fell short of my expectations. Come on DDO, you can do better than this.
Would be easier to give permanent cozmo's for a one year VIP purchase.
I don’t have skin in the game but we absolutely need to bring back subscription MMORPGS. Maybe I’m old school but the days of FF11 was my first long time subscription and introduced me to it. No micro transactions, just expansions you need to buy. The gaming industry has tanked and every single game is about max profits. I truly believe the newer gamers 25+ have some odd distaste with this. They believe all games should be 100% free or buy once and that’s it. Your “Free” game has millions of small “Bag slots, mounts, XP boost, skins with stats” etc. Share holders know this so they market the game this way. Maybe down the road this will change but I highly doubt it.
sorry this is trash..yeah I said it. Rewards should be permanent and much better than this dumpsterfire. I was already thinking of downgrading...so this is probably gonna happen after this .