Epic Level & Iconic TR

[Loromir]

Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play.

I think you have missed the boat here. Heroic TR is basically something folks have been doing because they feel there is nothing else to do. I really don't think leaving Heroic TR as is will prevent people from playing Epic content. Most people are ambivilous of the perks heoric TR offer now anyway. Heroic Completionist is hardly a big deal anymore compared to pre MOTU.

Most people are going to still want the biggest and the best, and that will come with EPIC TR. Nothing about the current TR system will make people want to EPIC TR any less.

I think you are overestimating the value of Heroic TR. One year ago...that was end-game...today, it is just another small step in the overall process.

I really think you guys have devised a pretty good system, with the exception of the loss of Destinies in Heroic and Iconic TR.

[Citzen_Gkar]

Who short is the planning there? 1 month out??

It's for "this year" and is in Update 20.

Update 19 is scheduled to hit at the end of August. So that puts the window for this between late Sept and late Dec.

3-6 months is a very short time in program development. I can only hope that it gets bumped out of update 20 so that they can more seriously address the shortcomings of the new system.

[TBot1234]

The question is: Why is it necessary to reset the ED XP when your do the Epic TR or heroic TR? This is the part of the plan I don't understand. What does it hurt for it to stay? You still have to level all the way to 28 on your next life to get another Epic PL. Having the ED XP still present would not change that. I just don't see any reason you need to reset the ED XP to make the Epic TR and Epic PL system work.I agree. They should keep ED XP completely separate from the any kind of TR process. It is not necessary.

[Citzen_Gkar]

I think you have missed the boat here. Heroic TR is basically something folks have been doing because they feel there is nothing else to do.

Actually I do it largely to break up the ED grind lol

I like to TR, get a couple EDs filled out, then TR again. Rinse and repeat. Of course that doesn't work in this system at at all. I'm not sure if there is any future in the game for me or not with this change.

[Urgforum]

Thank you for the additional post, Piloto.

However, I am still anxious to know if sphere unlocks will be preserved across TRs, and you have not addressed this question. If that is preserved, I think I can just about live with the other changes (as long as I can still choose to start at level 1 if I want, say to play with a friend new to the game). But say I am a first life character, I level up to 20, I start out in a particular sphere, but the destiny I actually want to "bond" is way on the other side of the map. When I eventually decide to ETR on this character, and level up in another class, will I then have access to all the destinies I unlocked in my first life, or will I be limited to the destinies adjacent to the "bonded" destiny?

[Postumus]

Also, to answer a couple of additional questions:

1. With the current design, after this system goes live, going through a Heroic TR will burn non-bonded epic destiny XP, but the character will be compensated for the burned XP. In other words, Heroic TR will work just like Epic TR except it will be available at level 20 instead of level cap and it will not grant Epic past life feats. Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play. You should use Heroic TR if you’d like to reincarnate at level 20 and want the benefits that Heroic TR gives (build points, past life feat). Otherwise, you should consider continuing up to level cap and reincarnating from there where you will get all the benefits of Heroic TR plus the additional benefit of Epic TR (epic past life feats).


I think that is a fair exchange. I wouldn't be upset to lose two or three trees of EDs if they were converted to heroic xps at a one-to-one or two-to-one rate.




2. Currently, store bought Fate Points will be preserved after reincarnation. This will not change. We are investigating ways to somehow preserve regular in-game earned Fate Points, but, behind the scenes, they are different than store bought ones, so it is not completely certain that we will be able to preserve them. If we cannot preserve them, we will look for ways to compensate a character for them.



I don't think in-game fate points should carry over after an ETR. That would be similar to carrying over all your earned feats or enhancement points when you HTR.


I still think losing all epic EDs for an HTR is unnecessary and discourages players who like to run to level cap then TR from playing EDs. Why bother with levels 20+ if everything earned after 20 is lost? Personally I enjoy playing my characters from 1-25, playing all the content one time and then TRing. I can max one ED tree, then gain some points in one or two others, then TR before I'm bored of grinding epic level quests. By the time I get back to 20 on my next life, it's a nice to look forward to all the EDs I've already unlocked, so I can level up in new ones as I level up to 25.


And thanks for soliciting our feedback and interacting with us on this topic. Some of us really appreciate that.

[Loromir]

Actually I do it largely to break up the ED grind lol

I like to TR, get a couple EDs filled out, then TR again. Rinse and repeat. Of course that doesn't work in this system at at all. I'm not sure if there is any future in the game for me or not with this change.

But do you really TR because it make your character that much more uber? I'm guessing not. It is just something else to do. With the carrot of an ED past life feat hanging out there, are you going to waste time on an Heroic TR when you could just go for the Epic version instead?

I think turbine has got it all wrong when they think people will ignore epic content to continue playing 2011's end game.

[Ovrad]

Leveling 1-15 is fun.

leveling up EDs sucks.

Fixed that for you. Progression for 15-20 is slowed to a crawl on a TR2+, and I don't even want to know how many times I've ran those quests.

If there's any sort of xp level skipping, I much rather have it at the end than the beginning.

[SilkofDrasnia]

I get where you are coming from and I agree, you need to trade something to get something when you TR.

But 2 things:

1) Like has been said numerous times... leave Heroic TR alone. If you want people to play epic levels, make epic content (including a Raid or two), don't try and shoe horn people into things.

2) Grandfather in people who already have destinies unlocked. At first I feared things would be over powered, but on second thought I doubt there are that many players out there with multiple characters with max destinies (personally I only know people who have 1 character like that) Let us keep our current (max) destinies and then let the grind for nice past lives feats begin. It will also give us something to do while we wait for your pitiful "expansion" to come about, but if I'm going to lose my ED's, then why the heck should I play epic levels?

Without considering these two things you will drive away even your most loyal customers and defenders (such as me). I don't want to grind destinies now, why the heck would I want to do it EACH LIFE.


Yup.

* Heroic TR has nothing to do what so ever with Epic Destines. The key word is EPIC. The incentive to heroic TR is for the heroic PLs which are not so great now and getting more build points/elite quest unlock. You get the normal heroic bonuses and keep your Epic Destines, just like now, you do not get epic perks from HTR. This is non negotiable in my book and I think in most other peoples book as well.

*When you Epic TR at cap you lose all epic xp. My preference would be you go back to level 20 which is where epic levels start in my book but I could swallow going back to level one. You do not lose any Epic Destiny XP UNLESS you bond one to get the past life associated with it. You only lose the destiny xp for the one destiny you have bonded. If you choose not to bond any you do not get the past life bonus but can get the 38 point build bonus. If you choose to bond one destiny you lose 2 fate points seeing as you have just lost 5 destiny levels but you regain them when you re-level that destiny



The incentive to Epic Tr is the get the epic past lives, which I presume will be very very nice. It is fair because each epic past life costs you one maxed out destiny worth of xp and re-leveling to cap. Also each Epic TR should give you the benefit of a heroic TR.

ETR you get: 32, 34, 36 or 38 point build (depending on which life your on) you get a heroic heroic past life (depending on which class you currently are) you also get an Epic past life IF you choose to bond one maxed out destiny if not you don't get a epic past life.

This way there's plenty of reason to TR regardless of whether you are new or a veteran player with maxed out destinies. You encourage epic play via the ETR and its bonuses. You encourage the new system without penalizing players for using YOUR OLD system.

I think most would not care if we don't skip the heroic levels.

I mean right now you seem to want to penalize current players for using your system as if we had cheated somehow and then reward us by allowing us to skip half the game (heroic levels). There is no logic to this.

HTR you get: everything you get currently on live and keep your epic destiny xp fate points but nothing else.

[Grubbby]

Actually I do it largely to break up the ED grind lol

I like to TR, get a couple EDs filled out, then TR again. Rinse and repeat. Of course that doesn't work in this system at at all. I'm not sure if there is any future in the game for me or not with this change.

Why doesnt this work in the new system? I must be missing something, because that seems to me to be the style that does work with the new system. You switch to doing EPIC TR's, cap out one off destiny each life. Spend most of the time in your "good" destiny leveling to 28. Switch to the destiny you want to bond this life while doing easy quests (say normals). Other than the fact that you may already have multiple capped destinies, this style of play seems to be well supported by the new model.

The style of play this doesn't support is those of us who want to knock things out once and for all and then move on to the next thing. I stopped TRing on most of my active toons in order to finish their twists. Because my style of play works better when I can finish something and move on. It may be a mind numbing grind. But its a mind numbing grind that will be over in a few days or weeks and I'll move on with a permanently better toon. So, I already have 4/1/1 twists on all my active melees and 4/2/1 on my arcanes, even ones that have never TRed at all, because destinys and twists were permanent and they could be finished in a discrete amount of time.

[GoldyGopher]

Late to the party, I know, not that I was trying to be fashionably late rather I took my son on Vacation before he had to spend much of the summer with his mother.

I read the original post and several hundred comments but I want to start at the beginning.

The TR process is currently broke and IMHO Turbine should start by fixing those issues before complicating the whole process.

Passive Past Life
Check out the DDO Wiki for complete details (http://ddowiki.com/page/Past_life#Past_Life_Feats)
Barbarian 10 additional HP. Really I mean in a game where melees are expected to be in excess of 1000 HP that small bump of 10 HP is well ...
Bard +1 Song, +2 Saves vs. Enchantment and Illusion
Cleric ... Wizard
All of those need to be looked at and re-worked. I am not sure what would make the passive past life feats more effective without making them over powered.
Barbarian should give Toughness as an example.

The next issue is the Active Past Life Feats, which require use of a feat also need some work.

Now let is look at the big problem.
28 vs. 32 vs. 34 vs. 36 and now vs. 38 point builds
Many people get caught saying the bigger number must be substantially better, which is not always the case.
Because players have to spend those points when creating a character what does those additional points actually accomplish.

In a two stat class players will spend a majority of their points in two class, for example Strength and Constitution in many fighter builds with dexterity and intelligence getting minimal points and maybe a point or two in wisdom.
Adding 4 points to 32 allows 3 additional points (1 point in the stat) in either strength or Constitution and one point in intelligence or wisdom.
Adding another 2 points (34). Well it can't be used in Primary Stats and the secondary stats probably will end up with an odd score and ...
Okay add another 2 points (36). Well you can up of your primary and one dump stat...
38 ... Well...

In three stat class the additional points are valuable when going from 28 to 32 and again at 36.
In four stat builds the additional points are valuable at 33 and 37 points.

When I say valuable I am talking about meaningful increases of "primary" stats to a useful number (increments of two). Increasing Charisma by one point on a Half-Orc Barbarian is a useful as... [insert joke here]

Might I suggest taking a completely different approach to past life point increases. Rather than increase stat points in a build allow players to increase a stat based upon their past life.

Artificers - Either Intelligence of Dexterity
Barbarian - Either Constitution or Strength
Bard - Either Charisma or Intelligence
Cleric - Either Charisma or Wisdom
Druid - Either Charisma or Wisdom
Favored Soul - Either Charisma or Wisdom
Fighter - Either Constitution or Strength
Monk - Either Dexterity or Wisdom
Paladin - Either Charisma or Constitution
Ranger - Either Dexterity or Wisdom
Rogue - Either Dexterity or Intelligence
Sorcerer - Charisma
Wizard - Intelligence

You may increase only use the increase once per past life to a maximum of three times. Thus if I was on my fifth life I could choose any of the past four lives for my first stat increase, and then any of the remaining three past lives for my second, and either of the remaining two past lives for my third.

When it comes to Epic TR instead of +1 to a stat point make it +2 to a stat point based upon Sphere and the bonded Epic Destiny.
Arcane - Charisma or Intelligence
Divine - Charisma or Wisdom
Martial - Dexterity or Strength
Primal - Constitution or Wisdom


While this is not a complete thought it is more along what I would be advocating.

I have no issue with the XP costs of subsequent lives see the ddo wiki (http://ddowiki.com/page/Experience_points_after_Reincarnation(s)) the problem is more about a lack of available XP available in the level 15 to 18 range depending on how you break it down. If you were to dramatically increase the amount of XP in this level range, thinking adding another Vale of Twilight, Amrath, Reaver's Reach and you'd just be scratching the surface of the issue. Currently if I have to run Monastery of the Scorpion or Enter the Kobold one more time...

[Varinox]

1. With the current design, after this system goes live, going through a Heroic TR will burn non-bonded epic destiny XP, but the character will be compensated for the burned XP. In other words, Heroic TR will work just like Epic TR except it will be available at level 20 instead of level cap and it will not grant Epic past life feats. Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play. You should use Heroic TR if you’d like to reincarnate at level 20 and want the benefits that Heroic TR gives (build points, past life feat). Otherwise, you should consider continuing up to level cap and reincarnating from there where you will get all the benefits of Heroic TR plus the additional benefit of Epic TR (epic past life feats).

Epic Destinies were sold with the explicit understanding that any progress made in them would NOT be lost when you used a True Reincarnation, changing that after a lot of people have bought them and maxed them out is a very bad idea!

I would suggest instead that there is a dividing line between Heroic TR and Epic TR

Heroic TR should not remove any Epic Destiny Progress, at all! and start the character back at level 1, with the Heroic past life feat

Epic TR should remove all Destiny progress (unless it is locked) and start the character at level 1 with the bonus from any Epic destiny XP that was lost, potentially letting them start from level 20, with the Heroic past life feat, Epic Past life feat and Destiny past life feat, making Epic TR more enticing for the potential extra benefits, but not forcing people to use it unless they want to.

This way you would keep the Current system of Heroic TR working as is, which is fine, and doesn't need to be changed, while also introducing the Optional extra of Epic TR.

Choices are good, forcing people to loose what they worked hard for is bad.

[Postumus]

I think you have missed the boat here. Heroic TR is basically something folks have been doing because they feel there is nothing else to do. I really don't think leaving Heroic TR as is will prevent people from playing Epic content. Most people are ambivilous of the perks heoric TR offer now anyway. Heroic Completionist is hardly a big deal anymore compared to pre MOTU.

Most people are going to still want the biggest and the best, and that will come with EPIC TR. Nothing about the current TR system will make people want to EPIC TR any less.

I think you are overestimating the value of Heroic TR. One year ago...that was end-game...today, it is just another small step in the overall process.

I really think you guys have devised a pretty good system, with the exception of the loss of Destinies in Heroic and Iconic TR.


I can only speak for myself (not MOST PEOPLE or EVERYONE or ALL FOLKS like so many posters who seem to have this ability) but I HTR because I think the content is fun to replay as another class/race combination, not because I'm trying to eke out every possible iota of perceived power possible.

[SisAmethyst]

Hi Piloto,

first of all thanks for trying to listen,


...This could mean, for example, that a character with a large number of destinies maxed out could immediately level back up to level 20 even as a third life character. Again, this is just an example of one of the things we are considering, but it’s a definite possibility.

While this may already sound better for players who not have any or only a couple ED maxed, it is still lacking for players who have more then 3 or 4 EDs. Don't forget that this epic advantage only apply one time and we still need to relevel them. Not to mention unlocked fate points and unlocked EDs.

Also the low levels in heroic are not the issue for a TR, it is the higher levels. Some people proposed tokens, others proposed that you apply the XP top-down. In other words if I had earned 551K epic XP on a 2nd TR they would be applied as soon as I hit level 19 to cap me at level 20, instead of pushing me to level 8. Or to make it easier, create tokens a 100k that can be applied at whatever level we want for each 100k epic XP. Dunno, there are probably even better ideas out there, including just to not change the heroic TR at all.

Additional you didn't said anything about unlocked EDs. Meaning if I unlocked an ED in the tree and I TR, loosing all my progress I have to unlock it again and play as a Fighter in the Magister ED? All the changes would be less cruel if we could save earned fate points and directly start in the ED we want without traversing through the whole planetarium.

After all I don't understand your incentive. I mean why would someone ever again consider heroic TR if the epic TR bind an ED and give a past life. A player would always be better of to get to cap and do the epic TR instead of first completing all heroci TR. If you hate that old heroic TR system that much why you not shut it down? No, this isn't what I want, but I just don't get what you try to accomplish with your changes.

[Postumus]

Epic Destinies were sold with the explicit understanding that any progress made in them would NOT be lost when you used a True Reincarnation, changing that after a lot of people have bought them and maxed them out is a very bad idea!

I would suggest instead that there is a dividing line between Heroic TR and Epic TR

Heroic TR should not remove any Epic Destiny Progress, at all! and start the character back at level 1, with the Heroic past life feat

Epic TR should remove all Destiny progress (unless it is locked) and start the character at level 1 with the bonus from any Epic destiny XP that was lost, potentially letting them start from level 20, with the Heroic past life feat, Epic Past life feat and Destiny past life feat, making Epic TR more enticing for the potential extra benefits, but not forcing people to use it unless they want to.

This way you would keep the Current system of Heroic TR working as is, which is fine, and doesn't need to be changed, while also introducing the Optional extra of Epic TR.

Choices are good, forcing people to loose what they worked hard for is bad.


Well said.

[BurnerD]

In the 7 years I've been playing the game this takes the cake for a change to the game.

I don't understand the need to kill the ED xp. In order to bond more than one you have to TR anyway correct?
The only way to get the past life feats is to bond them so what real advantage does someone have who has them maxxed already? OK they get the twists and the ability to switch between destinies, BUT THEY ALREADY EARNED THIS! If they have to run another life to bond a second destiny isn't that enough?

I only have one character out of 24 that is close to having his ED's done.... I only play a few hours a night 3-4 days a week. I don't grind them on one or two quests.... this wipes out months and months of effort. Since it is my main I would like to continue to play him and tr hm, but not if this goes through.

7 years of VIP, both expansions, and a reasonable amount of cash spent outside of that....
I have for the most part accepted the changes over the years and given the devs the benefit of the doubt, but this is a tough one to swallow. Giving me heroic xp for a life or two to grind out the destinies I already have done again will suck....

I will certainly wait and see how this plays out, but never before have I been this disappointed by a potential change in this game.

[Citzen_Gkar]

Why doesnt this work in the new system? I must be missing something, because that seems to me to be the style that does work with the new system. You switch to doing EPIC TR's, cap out one off destiny each life. Spend most of the time in your "good" destiny leveling to 28.

Because previously I could earn several EDs and twist points per life. Now I can only earn one. I don't intend to TR 11 times on every character tyvm.

[Tscheuss]

Bah, sorry... with the inability to edit posts at the moment... I meant tokens were btc, not stones!

I manage to edit posts by right-clicking Edit button and opening in new tab. Kludgy, but it works. :D

[SilkofDrasnia]

Epic Destinies were sold with the explicit understanding that any progress made in them would NOT be lost when you used a True Reincarnation, changing that after a lot of people have bought them and maxed them out is a very bad idea!

I would suggest instead that there is a dividing line between Heroic TR and Epic TR

Heroic TR should not remove any Epic Destiny Progress, at all! and start the character back at level 1, with the Heroic past life feat

Epic TR should remove all Destiny progress (unless it is locked) and start the character at level 1 with the bonus from any Epic destiny XP that was lost, potentially letting them start from level 20, with the Heroic past life feat, Epic Past life feat and Destiny past life feat, making Epic TR more enticing for the potential extra benefits, but not forcing people to use it unless they want to.

This way you would keep the Current system of Heroic TR working as is, which is fine, and doesn't need to be changed, while also introducing the Optional extra of Epic TR.

Choices are good, forcing people to loose what they worked hard for is bad.

There is a flaw in this though. If ETR and HTR is separate logic would dictate so are the levels. Heroic levels would be 1 to 20 and epic lvl would be 20 to 28. Therefore an ETR should send you back to level 20 not level one seeing as level 20 is the crossover level from heroic to epic levels.

This would also mean logic dictates you get no "heroic" TR advantages in a ETR which in turn may discourage epic play.

[Flavilandile]

Ok, I'm going to try to be constructive...
You know it's tough to be constructive when what you have in front of you is a wall that doesn't understand. Anyway, I have a crowbar and a sledgehammer that I usually use for rockhounding... I'm sure I can put them to some other use.


Hi. Thanks again for your feedback and opinions on the proposed design of the new Epic TR. Here are some of the things the team is currently thinking about.


You can think of things, but you should always keep in mind that you are paid by the customers ( that's us forum posters by the way ).
From that, it's not difficult to think that keeping the customer happy is something important.

Right now the suggested mechanism you're trying to force down our throat is not making us happy.
Unhappy customers go elsewhere... in D&D genre case, we have that brand new game called Neverwinter Online.
Even if it's 4th Edition ( bleh ), even if it's dumbed down, and the combat system is crappy as hell, it looks more and more interesting as weeks go.
Why ?

Because between the NGE... erm... Enhancement Crash... erm Enhancement Pass that is going to be rammed forcefully down our throat with ShadowFail Conspiracy, even if we didn't want it, and this change to TR, you've managed to make the game unappealing.

The NGE is going to kill lots of characters that will have no other choice but to TR, it's also the last straw for a lot of divines that are going to TR into non divine so that they won't become Hjealbots. Most of them are capped at 25, and have one or more Epic Destinies capped too...

Now you're telling us that you are going to wipe Destinies upon TR ( which is the exact opposite of what you ( Turbine ) were telling us since last year.... or maybe you can't find a Fix for the lost EDs that a few people encountered and you decided that it was WAI and that you were initially wrong )

Lets continue : ( I'm probably going to be disconnected at least once or twice while I type that... thanks to yet another crappy update )



We understand your concern about losing Epic Destiny XP upon reincarnation and not getting enough in return.


It's not a return problem, it's a net loss problem and a turncoat problem... We have been told by YOU ( Turbine ) , several time that loosing Epic Destinies upon TR was not WAI. As such it was clear for us that we could develop our characters going through destinies without any problem and then TR... and upon reaching 20 again we would get back our destinies. Now you're telling us it's not supposed to happen.



So, we are investigating some different possibilities in regard to what a character gets after they reincarnate with Epic TR. We’d like to offer a system where the character gets credit for every XP they “burn” from an epic destiny. One scenario for this is that Epic Destiny XP will be converted to heroic XP (using a formula that adjusts for the different rates at which heroic and epic XP are gained). This converted XP would then be used to level up your reincarnated character. This could mean, for example, that a character with a large number of destinies maxed out could immediately level back up to level 20 even as a third life character. Again, this is just an example of one of the things we are considering, but it’s a definite possibility.

That's not what we want... nor what we asked for.




Also, to answer a couple of additional questions:

1. With the current design, after this system goes live, going through a Heroic TR will burn non-bonded epic destiny XP, but the character will be compensated for the burned XP. In other words, Heroic TR will work just like Epic TR except it will be available at level 20 instead of level cap and it will not grant Epic past life feats.


See above...



Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play.


See Above, your forum is fubared, it's impossible to find old threads in it, but it's there, written several time, by both MadFloyd and Gazebo IIRC.
I don't see how it avoid epic level play, especially as right now Epic level is somewhat limited... With MoTU you killed LVL 20 endgame but you didn't provide any LVL 25 Endgame worth it.

At LVL 20 we were regularly doing the Epic Quests and raids, and all the other raids ( Shroud, Hound, VoD, Tod, MA, LoB )
So we had 15+ Epic Quests and 2 Epic Raids ( Queen and Velah ) as well as all the LVL 16+ Raids and the LVL 18+ quests. ( 20/30 more quests )

Right now we have :
- all the above, except that they haven't been updated and present no interest to run. And the LVL 18/20 quests are not relevant anymore, so they are not run once you're beyond 20. The Seal/Scroll/Shard mechanism is the biggest deterrent there... Why bother grinding for stuff that is not best in slot anymore ?

- The Eveningstar chain... well you run it once to get the stupid flag done, then you just farm the two Drow City quests everybody knows about.
Why bother with farming Demonweb, where you waste hours getting to quests. Why bother farming Underdark quests where you waste hours going there ? if you looked at things when LoB and MA came out everybody told you ( Turbine ) that these two raids would be forgotten fast once we had items or they were made irrelevant... well it's the case now, we either have the items or they are irrelevant... but in any case nobody is bothering wasting almost an hour to fight through the manufactory to reach those two raids.

- Gianthold, same as Eveningstar, people did the quests once for Favor, Relics, and Flagging.... then they Farmed Tor for Scales.
Now they just farm Piker's Fate Redux ( yes, when we reach 28 it's going to be a new Piker's Fate... and it will be relevant, as it will be the highest raid in game ).

You wonder why people are not playing epic level ? And you came to the conclusion that it's the Destiny XP that make them avoid Epic Level Questing ?
Well from my point of view as a player, I don't reach the same conclusion... For me people are TRing over and over and over because there is NOT ENOUGH INTERESTING CONTENT AT END GAME to keep us busy. ( And no Lloth Navel Bashing is NOT INTERESTING CONTENT... especially with the ******** drop rate on commendations and items. )



You should use Heroic TR if you’d like to reincarnate at level 20 and want the benefits that Heroic TR gives (build points, past life feat). Otherwise, you should consider continuing up to level cap and reincarnating from there where you will get all the benefits of Heroic TR plus the additional benefit of Epic TR (epic past life feats).

Right now nobody is going to TR anymore ( except upon reaching 20 ) because they don't want to get shafted of their destinies.
You're just planning on killing TR ( heroic and epic... well epic will be stillborn, and heroic will be murdered )



2. Currently, store bought Fate Points will be preserved after reincarnation. This will not change. We are investigating ways to somehow preserve regular in-game earned Fate Points, but, behind the scenes, they are different than store bought ones, so it is not completely certain that we will be able to preserve them. If we cannot preserve them, we will look for ways to compensate a character for them.

If you want I'm sure several of us are willing to help you create the relevant dabase views, triggers and queries so that it can be done.
It cannot be more complex than a subscription database for IN services in Telecom... or a SAP Oracle database... Some of us works with that kind of stuff everyday.

[Candela90]

Why EDs should not be removed:
1) We payed for it - with cash or TP - and while selling it it was said theyre like now - forever. It justt doesnt feel fair to have them wiped out after that.
2) We are playing certain classes - and leveling destiny which is not at all helpfull to us (like arcane sphere for melee) is not fun. Its tireding. Game supposed to be fun
3) Some people maxed them out - a lot of ppl - so loosing 20 millions of xp is not fun also.

Why ETR shouldnt put you on lvl 1.
1) Heroic TR is supposed to reset heroic lvls - so equally - epic TR should reset epic lvls. Not heroic also.
2) People who made completionist or grinded thro some lives - its not a great deal for them to have to repeat 11 times heroic lives. Thats just stupid.
3) Unfairness towards ppl who TRed and made past lifes earlier - I mean back then for TR you got only past life, and now you cant get past life + other bonuses - when lets be honest... hitting 20-25 is not a hard work - its raiding with guilds and friends, getting epic gear - for most playerbase its most fun than running quests over and over on heroic for xp.
4) Right now putting raid group together is not that easy besides these 3-4 hours when most players play - but still sometimes its not easy. Why? Because a lot of players TR and is below lvl 20. Well... after this change everyone will be in TR cycle and getting good group for raids and epic elites with max lvl and eds is going to be impossible. And more ppl will be unable to attend raids because theyll be too low lvl.


To sum up:
1) People who play a lot will rage and some of them will probably stop playing.
2) There will be a lot of players for whom the grind will be too much so theyll have no motivation to play.
3) There will be even less ppl on end game than it is now.

[Darkrok]

Because previously I could earn several EDs and twist points per life. Now I can only earn one. I don't intend to TR 11 times on every character tyvm.

And this is a very good point. There are a lot of players that actually enjoy the heroic levels more than the epic levels. They still play the epic levels though each time they cap...sometimes a long time...sometimes just long enough to get 20 tokens and TR again. This effectively kills the game for them, or at least the epic part of it. They're forced into the epic TR system when what they really want is to use the current heroic TR system. Just another example where coupling heroic TR'ing to ED xp is a failure as a concept.

[Scrag]

Passive Past Life
Check out the DDO Wiki for complete details (http://ddowiki.com/page/Past_life#Past_Life_Feats)
Barbarian 10 additional HP. Really I mean in a game where melees are expected to be in excess of 1000 HP that small bump of 10

You might want to revisit _enhancements_ when you talk about past life _feats_.
I am a total noob, and even I know that a barb pl feat means I can take all the toughness _enhancements_ for free. Thats 80 hp, not 10, and its a feat in my pocket that I didn't burn pointlessly on toughness. All said enhancements say "requirement, toughness feat _or_ barbarian past life". IMO, that blows. I HATE being forced to burn a feat on toughness.

[Darkrok]

You might want to revisit _enhancements_ when you talk about past life _feats_.
I am a total noob, and even I know that a barb pl feat means I can take all the toughness _enhancements_ for free. Thats 80 hp, not 10, and its a feat in my pocket that I didn't burn pointlessly on toughness. All said enhancements say "requirement, toughness feat _or_ barbarian past life". IMO, that blows. I HATE being forced to burn a feat on toughness.

That's the active barbarian past life feat that grants the toughness enhancements. This means it still costs you a feat.

[rosedarkthorn]

Yup.

*Heroic TR has nothing to do what so ever with Epic Destines. The key word is EPIC. The incentive to heroic TR is for the heroic PLs which are not so great now and getting more build points/elite quest unlock. You get the normal heroic bonuses and keep your Epic Destines, just like now, you do not get epic perks from ETR. This is non negotiable in my book and I think in most other peoples book as well.

*When you Epic TR at cap you lose all epic xp. My preference would be you go back to level 20 which is where epic levels start in my book but I could swallow going back to level one. You do not lose any Epic Destiny XP UNLESS you bond one to get the past life associated with it. You only lose the destiny xp for the one destiny you have bonded. If you choose not to bond any you do not get the past life bonus but can get the 38 point build bonus. If you choose to bond one destiny you lose 2 fate points seeing as you have just lost 5 destiny levels but you regain them when you re-level that destiny

I could live with this, although if you Epic TR, I believe you should start at level 20, not level 1.

[Darkrok]

I could live with this, although if you Epic TR, I believe you should start at level 20, not level 1.

If I understand correctly the reason they're doing level 1 is that they're granting you both the Epic and Heroic TR. Now, one could argue those shouldn't be coupled and I wouldn't necessarily disagree but just wanted to point out what I perceive their reasoning to be in this case.

[magn0liafan]

Just my two coppers as a player who has not not maxed even one ED yet (I have them) and thus dosent have a pony in that other race:

I like the proposed changes to the ED system. It sounds like a much more fleshed out and functional system than the original that will add variety to the game.

So. You like the thought that people who have spent at least 7 days to grind out those destines would lose the majority of those progress. Absolutely brilliant.

[SilkofDrasnia]

I could live with this, although if you Epic TR, I believe you should start at level 20, not level 1.

Right I would like that too but would be willing to start back at level one *as long as doing so gives you the HTR bonuses* and this would encourage people to use the ETR more than the HTR thereby encouraging epic play as this *seems* to be their objective.

[Teh_Troll]

Because previously I could earn several EDs and twist points per life. Now I can only earn one. I don't intend to TR 11 times on every character tyvm.

You won't. You'll join the rest of us in not TRing anymore EVER.

Until the game shuts down at least.

[MarcusCleardawn]

Questions:

1. If you guys are determined to nuke our Epic Destiny Experience, are you going to still insist that we have to travel through the spheres?

2. If we still have to travel through the spheres, what serves as our starting point?

3. If you can retain multiple Destinies by Karmic Bonding through multiple TR's can you use those as bridge destinies?

4. Assuming as has been intimated that earned Fate Points are going to be zapped, will I get new Fate points be re-awarded upon getting to Epic Level? I.e. if I karmically bonded a lvl 5 destiny, then TR and make it to 20 again, I now have a lvl 5 destiny, will I be awarded the normal Fate Points for having 5 levels of a destiny?

5. Why the necessity of zapping Epic Destiny Experience at all?

[Lithic]

Hi. Thanks again for your feedback and opinions on the proposed design of the new Epic TR. Here are some of the things the team is currently thinking about.

We understand your concern about losing Epic Destiny XP upon reincarnation and not getting enough in return. So, we are investigating some different possibilities in regard to what a character gets after they reincarnate with Epic TR. We’d like to offer a system where the character gets credit for every XP they “burn” from an epic destiny. One scenario for this is that Epic Destiny XP will be converted to heroic XP (using a formula that adjusts for the different rates at which heroic and epic XP are gained). This converted XP would then be used to level up your reincarnated character. This could mean, for example, that a character with a large number of destinies maxed out could immediately level back up to level 20 even as a third life character. Again, this is just an example of one of the things we are considering, but it’s a definite possibility.
.

I'm rather torn about the whole starting with more EXP after a TR thing. The lowbie levels are really where a TR character shines brightest and I really enjoy the early to mid game. Personally I would prefer if the epic destiny exp were converted to a bonus % buff that lasts until level 20, with it's magnitude adjusted accordingly. Note that this should be an overall exp bonus like the exp pots, rather than a base exp bonus like exp bonus days, otherwise you are really screwing over the bravery streakers in favor of the ones who farm high base exp quests over and over and over and zzzz and over. This would allow people to play every level, but the more of a bonus you start with, the more you can pick and choose your favorite quests.

I use to wish that past lives would give a stacking 5-10% stacking bonus exp so that future TR's would be faster, and this would accomplish something similar.

As for adjusting the TR exp curves, if you make it a base % increase that is equal among all levels, then you make TRing much more pleasant. 1.5x for a first TR, 2.5x for every other would be pretty reasonable without cutting much of the total exp. Even making it so you end up needing exactly the same exp total to hit 20 as now would still be much better as long as it is a static increase for every level rather than an exponential curve. Sure you don't get to higher levels as fast, but you move lots of exp to the lower levels and away from quest-poor levels (or levels where there are enough quests, but where the exp/min is atrociously low like in shavarath and the house cannith quests).

[GermanicusMaximus]

You're just planning on killing TR ( heroic and epic... well epic will be stillborn, and heroic will be murdered )


Exactly this.

People who are saying "Don't delete all Epic Destiny XP on Heroic TR, but its OK to do so on Epic TR", are for the most part saying "I never plan to Epic TR". If it breaks Heroic TR, it breaks Epic TR. Its really not a great idea to invest the time to put a new feature into the game, only to have a large number of people avoid it simply because it has a bad design.

[FestusHood]

TL:DRL: Make your end-game better if you want people to play it. People not playing it now is your fault for making it so lame.

I'm going to disagree with you a bit on this. I don't dislike endgame. I enjoy playing the epic level stuff. I just enjoy tr'ing a little bit more. Best of all is having both as an option.

If this system had been introduced soon after ed's had come out, there wouldn't really be a problem. It actually completely matches my playstyle. You level up a couple of ed's, lock one in, then tr and get a bonus.

The problem is, that it wasn't put in shortly after ed's were. It won't even be put in soon starting from now. It will retroactively destroy all epic leveling that has been done, and will be done, from the time ed's came out until this system goes live.

I never actually want my character to be 'done'. For me, that would mean that he was retired. Dead, essentially. May as well delete him to open another slot. If the only option to avoid ed wiping is to never tr, then once i finished leveling ed's, my characters would all be done. And for me, that would be when the game over screen pops up.

[AlteredState]

Questions:

5. Why the necessity of zapping Epic Destiny Experience at all?

If I were to guess, XP pots.

[memloch]

First I would like to say I love the game and very rarely post on the forum. This proposal is out of whack.

My first question is if you Epic TR do you still get the heroic Past life feat as well as the epic past life Feat?

I see no reason at all to touch ED XP in either Heroic or Epic TR systems. Who cares if you have all EDs or not. You are only using one at a time with 3 twists. To TR is to redo lower level content over again to break up the boredom of the end game. At least that is why I do it.

The new proposal of using ED XP to give you levels in the new life is really for the most part of use in the first Epic TR. I say this because who would grind all the EDs over again if you are going to lose it anyways. So this really gives us nothing.

So I am pleading that you just leave ED XP alone.

[ArcaneArcher52689]

Hi. Thanks again for your feedback and opinions on the proposed design of the new Epic TR. Here are some of the things the team is currently thinking about.

We understand your concern about losing Epic Destiny XP upon reincarnation and not getting enough in return. So, we are investigating some different possibilities in regard to what a character gets after they reincarnate with Epic TR. We’d like to offer a system where the character gets credit for every XP they “burn” from an epic destiny. One scenario for this is that Epic Destiny XP will be converted to heroic XP (using a formula that adjusts for the different rates at which heroic and epic XP are gained). This converted XP would then be used to level up your reincarnated character. This could mean, for example, that a character with a large number of destinies maxed out could immediately level back up to level 20 even as a third life character. Again, this is just an example of one of the things we are considering, but it’s a definite possibility.

Also, to answer a couple of additional questions:

1. With the current design, after this system goes live, going through a Heroic TR will burn non-bonded epic destiny XP, but the character will be compensated for the burned XP. In other words, Heroic TR will work just like Epic TR except it will be available at level 20 instead of level cap and it will not grant Epic past life feats. Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play. You should use Heroic TR if you’d like to reincarnate at level 20 and want the benefits that Heroic TR gives (build points, past life feat). Otherwise, you should consider continuing up to level cap and reincarnating from there where you will get all the benefits of Heroic TR plus the additional benefit of Epic TR (epic past life feats).

2. Currently, store bought Fate Points will be preserved after reincarnation. This will not change. We are investigating ways to somehow preserve regular in-game earned Fate Points, but, behind the scenes, they are different than store bought ones, so it is not completely certain that we will be able to preserve them. If we cannot preserve them, we will look for ways to compensate a character for them.

Stay tuned for more info and explanations of this new system proposal early next week.


Question: will iconics be able to undergo epic TR? I just realized as I read this that neither glin's nor your post ever mention that combination. However, if iconics must level to 28 in order to reincarnate, they should be allowed to epic TR, since they'll have at least one capped destiny.

Next question: you mentioned your plans/concerns with fate points(thank you for looking into keeping them), but what are the current plans for unlocked destinies?

I know it's been mentioned before, but I have a character that used 3 keys to get my artificer right into shiradi(not what I was planning, but my then gf decided that they'd be a nice gift)

So, that's over 3k tp right there. Is there anyway you can make sure that once a destiny is "unlocked" it remains "unlocked" through epic TR?

[Permian]

Questions:

5. Why the necessity of zapping Epic Destiny Experience at all?

It actually is not necessary in the least. Instead of leaving the epic XP system and the destiny XP systems separated, which is logical to most that have replied, they are tossing destiny XP into the grinder along with epic and heroic XP. It's basically guaranteed from Piloto's post that all destiny XP will be gone for anyone who TRs at any point after this system is implemented and this is not going to change. It has been written by the development so, imo, everyone (who isn't leaving) should start planning appropriately. And I personally wouldn't go throw a bunch of effort into farming ANYTHING at this point until this stuff goes through.

I believe we will all be playing a brand new game basically and based upon the dev responses I'm going to go ahead and accept it as fact. Historically this has been the case.

[Deadlock]

1. With the current design, after this system goes live, going through a Heroic TR will burn non-bonded epic destiny XP, but the character will be compensated for the burned XP. In other words, Heroic TR will work just like Epic TR except it will be available at level 20 instead of level cap and it will not grant Epic past life feats. Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play. You should use Heroic TR if you’d like to reincarnate at level 20 and want the benefits that Heroic TR gives (build points, past life feat). Otherwise, you should consider continuing up to level cap and reincarnating from there where you will get all the benefits of Heroic TR plus the additional benefit of Epic TR (epic past life feats).


This is where you are 100% wrong and indicates that you guys need to have a fundamental rethink. This kinda leaves me dumbfounded, and for a Scottish guy with a couple of beers in him, that's saying something.

Your proposal to wipe ED XP on a Heroic TR is what will create the divide. The reasons for this are both basic and obvious.

Up to now you can do your Heroic lives, and spend whatever amount of time you like doing Epic content before you choose to TR again. You do this in the knowledge that you can put some points into your ED's and build them up over time. This is a massive plus.

So as we have it right now, there is no disincentive to doing Epic content on your character even when you fully intend to TR it again at some point.

Your proposal changes this completely and leave only two sensible options:
1. Heroic TR as soon as you hit 20 and ignore all Epic content.
2. Continue on to Epic TR at level 28.

So you are removing the option for people to spend some time in Epic until they have completed all of their Heroic TR, unless they are fully prepared to commit to capping at 28 regardless of how much grind that involves.

Take a step back from this and look at it again. You have no reason to touch Heroic TR in any way whatsoever. Don't mess with a system that works. Invest your time and energies in the new systems that you are proposing. Listen to the players who have more experience of how the game is actually played than you do.

EDIT: PS - Welcome to the forums.

[ForumAccess]

We understand your concern about losing Epic Destiny XP upon reincarnation and not getting enough in return. So, we are investigating some different possibilities in regard to what a character gets after they reincarnate with Epic TR. We’d like to offer a system where the character gets credit for every XP they “burn” from an epic destiny.

Rather than simply starting at a higher level, what about an 'XP buff' that persists for the entirety of the next life. It could offer a percentage increase on all XP earned, just like XP potions do, with the percentage adjusted based on how significant the 'XP burn' was. This way people get an XP return on their investment, but it is not front loaded causing you to miss all of the low level stuff that is much more plentiful.


2. Currently, store bought Fate Points will be preserved after reincarnation. This will not change. We are investigating ways to somehow preserve regular in-game earned Fate Points, but, behind the scenes, they are different than store bought ones, so it is not completely certain that we will be able to preserve them. If we cannot preserve them, we will look for ways to compensate a character for them.

So, if this system works out people would be able to retain their Fate Points, and then earn even more as they re-level their Epic Destinies? That alone would entirely take the wind out of everyone's sails over this, seeing as the entire point of leveling off EDs is to gain Fate Points, and if the system works this way then it will allow them to earn even more Fate Points. Not to mention it would make the Tomes of Fate no longer such a pay-to-win item, since there would be an in game way to duplicate their effect.

[Teh_Troll]

Exactly this.

People who are saying "Don't delete all Epic Destiny XP on Heroic TR, but its OK to do so on Epic TR", are for the most part saying "I never plan to Epic TR". If it breaks Heroic TR, it breaks Epic TR. Its really not a great idea to invest the time to put a new feature into the game, only to have a large number of people avoid it simply because it has a bad design.

The question is how many pages full of nerd-rage will it take to sink in that this whole idea is a big bucket of fail?

We're at 40 now. 50? 100?

There's no point in changing a system people love and that makes Turbine money if it's going to kill the only aspect of the game that keeps it afloat.

People will stop TRing, this will lead to them eventually stop playing.

[danotmano1998]

Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play.

Or maybe what it does is NOT take away your hard work for epic leveling you have chosen to do.


See, here's the base problem. ED's as they are work just fine. EXCEPT for the part that you have to grind your way through who-knows-how-many million xp to get to the one you actually WANT. This is unpleasant. It's like telling us we have to play as a gimped sorcerer for x levels if we want to play a barbarian. But... We do that because that is the system.

Now you're telling us that you're going to take all that and throw it in the trash if we want to do a heroic TR?
Sorry, no. There is nothing you can give us to "make up" for that.



You should use Heroic TR if you’d like to reincarnate at level 20 and want the benefits that Heroic TR gives (build points, past life feat).

Which we do! yippe!
Now in order to do that, you're telling us we have to obliterate x million xp as well? Seriously?

*tap tap*
Is this thing even on?



2. Currently, store bought Fate Points will be preserved after reincarnation. This will not change. We are investigating ways to somehow preserve regular in-game earned Fate Points, but, behind the scenes, they are different than store bought ones, so it is not completely certain that we will be able to preserve them. If we cannot preserve them, we will look for ways to compensate a character for them.

SO you guys can't figure out the code? Come on.
Or is it... Your bosses say no?



Stay tuned for more info and explanations of this new system proposal early next week.


Sigh..

Bottom line:
Leave Heroic TR'ing alone.

Here, let me repeat that.
L.E.A.V.E. I.T. A.L.O.N.E.

Just fix the ridiculously low xp on the 18-20 quests available and poof!
Lookie there, I just saved you guys tons of work AND made the customers happy.

[Darkrok]

If I were to guess, XP pots.

Which brings up an interesting point. I spent turbine points for a single 30% xp pot for my ED farming. Now, I know that's a small amount but I'm sure there are people out there that have spent many times that on xp pots for ED farming. The reason I spent that is that I knew once I got that xp I'd never have to do that grind again. Now it's taken away in direct contradiction of previous dev promises.

Also, many people have suggested retaining twist points as a compromise. That's not enough. The problem with that solution is that players are expected to have certain twists to run their toon. I can think of twists from every side-sphere that are critical to toons depending on class/race/gear. Specifically Brace for Impact from Unyielding Sentinel, Energy Sheath from Draconic Incarnation, and Rejuvenating Cocoon from Primal Avatar. Even if I start out with a single bonded destiny and full twist points I'm nowhere near being able to twist appropriate abilities.

Simply put, the dev's need to step up and honor their promise. They need to keep heroic TR and ED xp separate. There is no middle ground that will keep me happy as a customer and I'm pretty sure I'm not in the minority on that.

[MrkGrismer]

Hi. Thanks again for your feedback and opinions on the proposed design of the new Epic TR. Here are some of the things the team is currently thinking about.

We understand your concern about losing Epic Destiny XP upon reincarnation and not getting enough in return. So, we are investigating some different possibilities in regard to what a character gets after they reincarnate with Epic TR. We’d like to offer a system where the character gets credit for every XP they “burn” from an epic destiny. One scenario for this is that Epic Destiny XP will be converted to heroic XP (using a formula that adjusts for the different rates at which heroic and epic XP are gained). This converted XP would then be used to level up your reincarnated character. This could mean, for example, that a character with a large number of destinies maxed out could immediately level back up to level 20 even as a third life character. Again, this is just an example of one of the things we are considering, but it’s a definite possibility.

Also, to answer a couple of additional questions:

1. With the current design, after this system goes live, going through a Heroic TR will burn non-bonded epic destiny XP, but the character will be compensated for the burned XP. In other words, Heroic TR will work just like Epic TR except it will be available at level 20 instead of level cap and it will not grant Epic past life feats. Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play. You should use Heroic TR if you’d like to reincarnate at level 20 and want the benefits that Heroic TR gives (build points, past life feat). Otherwise, you should consider continuing up to level cap and reincarnating from there where you will get all the benefits of Heroic TR plus the additional benefit of Epic TR (epic past life feats).

2. Currently, store bought Fate Points will be preserved after reincarnation. This will not change. We are investigating ways to somehow preserve regular in-game earned Fate Points, but, behind the scenes, they are different than store bought ones, so it is not completely certain that we will be able to preserve them. If we cannot preserve them, we will look for ways to compensate a character for them.

Stay tuned for more info and explanations of this new system proposal early next week.

If you compensate with an extra fate point for each maxed and non-bonded ED I bet people will be jumping in line to do it.

[Darkrok]

If you compensate with an extra fate point for each maxed and non-bonded ED I bet people will be jumping in line to do it.

Not me. Not interested. My only compensation I'm interested in is separating heroic TR from ED xp the way it's been since release. I'm not compromising. My compromise would be to ignore all TR options in the game.

[Teh_Troll]

I'm going to disagree with you a bit on this. I don't dislike endgame. I enjoy playing the epic level stuff. I just enjoy tr'ing a little bit more. Best of all is having both as an option.


I do to but you cannot refute the reality (though Fanbois have for months when I've been complaining about the lack of end-game). Look a the who list, look at LFMs. End game is dead.

I love end-game it's fun, but ther raid scene is dead, that drop rates suck, and too many builds have been marginalized to the point of being crappy.

This again is 100% Turbine's fault.

If they want people to play end-game, make end-game more fun to play. Right now it's not more fun than Heroic leveling.

[HAL]

If you see the later posts here (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/418543-Epic-Level-amp-Iconic-TR?p=5022060&viewfull=1#post5022060), you'll see further proposals on how you can Epic TR and start at a range of levels. I like the idea of being able to start at level 1, 4 or 7 with or without the Advantage boost. That to me is a much better set of options and gives fair compensation for the loss of ED XP.

Are you saying that you want more than one heroic rank per ED rank and also saying that you want to start at level 1 at the same time? I'm not sure how you can make that work.

Following the best suggestion I've come across from Tscheuss, you would have the option of starting at Level 1, if you choose to, or using your full Advantage and starting at level 18, or a number of options inbetween.

If you're trying to come up with a solution where you can Epic TR but the cost is removed just because we already have our ED's capped then I'll happily disagree with your opinion on how it should be. I'm happy with there being a cost to Epic TRing, I'm even happy with the proposed cost, but I would like to see the compensation increased as described in the linked post. I would also like the ED Past Lives to be powerful enough to further compensate for the additional effort in gaining them.

It seems that you are wedded to the idea that the "reward" for your ED ranks must be Heroic ranks. I am not wedded to that idea - perhaps there are other perks that you can get instead. Or I read an idea of gaining an "item" that you can use at any point in Heroic leveling to give you X experience. That idea is something I was thinking about as well. Although I don't agree with it being a static number of XP no matter how many XP it took you to attain the ED rank in question. I think it should be a sliding scale.

The point is that there can be other methods of compensation that might be more valuable to people who aren't trying to just grind past lives as quickly as possible. Maybe instead of only one compensation you could choose between one that supports quick grinding of Past Lives (like the Heroic Ranks) and one that supports someone who just wants to play the game.

[Permian]

Which brings up an interesting point. I spent turbine points for a single 30% xp pot for my ED farming. Now, I know that's a small amount but I'm sure there are people out there that have spent many times that on xp pots for ED farming. The reason I spent that is that I knew once I got that xp I'd never have to do that grind again. Now it's taken away in direct contradiction of previous dev promises.

This is one of the other reasons I'm so ticked off too. I'll admit that I used way more XP pots *gulp*, even sovereign ones, just to get through the tedious/ultra-boring grind...Makes me sick that I will most likely never see a return for that investment in any way.

[Tscheuss]

Uhuh, we got that bit already :)

But are you are suggesting that this is part of the intended design? That it's intentional that you won't be able to obtain 3x past lives on all of the 4 iconic classes (never mind any future additions)?

You might want to rethink that :)

We're not asking for an Iconic Completionist Feat here, we're simply talking about the basic ability to take all of the possible Iconic Past Lives if we decide that's something we want to do.

I'm 99.999% sure that this is what they intended, but the way it's been described this wouldn't be possible. So it should be a very, very straight forward thing to clarify :) I'm not asking anyone to put their nuts in a vice here, just clarify a few simple points. The complex stuff we can worry about another day :)

Iconic TR only requires level cap (28); it does not require any ED, bonded or not.

[EllisDee37]

We understand your concern about losing Epic Destiny XP upon reincarnation and not getting enough in return.This completely misses the point of the complaints. Acquiring destiny xp isn't fun. Full stop. There is no amount of "getting something in return" that I would consider compensation for losing destiny xp. I simply will not tr again. Ever.


So, we are investigating some different possibilities in regard to what a character gets after they reincarnate with Epic TR.This one sentence makes it clear that you guys are committed to losing destiny xp on heroic tr. That's an epic fail regardless of the rewards. Literally, epic fail. heh. But seriously, this is a non-starter, a deal-breaker. You've just ensured I will never tr my characters again, which in turns greatly reduces the amount of playtime available to me since what I find fun is TRing, with a few weeks/couple months at cap in between.


One scenario for this is that Epic Destiny XP will be converted to heroic XP (using a formula that adjusts for the different rates at which heroic and epic XP are gained). This converted XP would then be used to level up your reincarnated character. This could mean, for example, that a character with a large number of destinies maxed out could immediately level back up to level 20 even as a third life character.I would HATE this. Let me rephrase: I WILL hate this, because this is clearly the path you're choosing and nothing will dissuade you.

Skipping content is not a perk; it's a penalty. I like playing all content. That's why the bravery bonus is such genius. Because it gives incentive to play all content, which in turn greatly extends the life of the game. Skipping content shortens the life of the game. The only reason I can think of that you guys are doing this is to give disincentive to run all content in an effort to reduce free TP earned through favor.


Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play.You really, really, really don't get it, do you? Having heroic TR wipe out destiny xp is a STRONG incentive to avoid epic level play, because it's all lost. It's when heroic tr preserves destiny xp that you have incentive to actually play some epic content before tring again.

It boggles my mind that you guys don't understand or refuse to see this. I mean, seriously, you honestly think that heroic tr wiping destiny xp is an incentive to do epic play? For realsies?

[Teh_Troll]

So what you are basically saying is to play only the epics and I just wonder why.....

DDO has been trying to shove epic down people throats for years and it's always been fail. it's never been as good as the heroic game.



At this point i am not even angry...I am just sad...sad about the direction this game is taking.

I'm actually rather amused. I'm not really a nerd-raging lunatic, I just play one on the forums.

[FestusHood]

Actually I do it largely to break up the ED grind lol

I like to TR, get a couple EDs filled out, then TR again. Rinse and repeat. Of course that doesn't work in this system at at all. I'm not sure if there is any future in the game for me or not with this change.

I think the new system matches this style of play very well. What it doesn't do is account for already having done this.

[droid327]

OK, so lets break the problem down into postulates and find a solution that addresses it better:

1) XP shouldnt carry over from one life to the next, except the XP you specifically "bond".

2) You should get a reward for all the XP you give up that's commensurate with the work you put in

3) TRing should be a way to keep old content fresh, rather than letting it become obsolete to most of the playerbase as the level cap goes up

Everyone agree with me so far? OK, well here's the problems:

The current system breaks the first condition, because you keep your Destiny XP when you TR

The current proposal breaks the second condition, because you dont get nearly enough back for losing 10 maxed Destinies.

Epic Advantage, as described, breaks the third rule because you start out every subsequent life 1 level higher, until you're starting at L12 (L20 for Iconics)

Solution: Every bonded Epic Destiny rank you hold upon TR gives you a permanent 1% bonus to Heroic and Epic XP for the entirety of your next life. Unbonded ranks give you a 3% bonus.

So a character with 11 fully bonded destinies would start a life with a 55% bonus to XP, every quest every time, on top of everything else (like the 20% Tome bonus). A character who's bonding one Destiny and burning 10 would get (5% bonded + 150% burned) = 155% bonus XP for the entire next life.

That fulfills all 3 criteria: makes you burn your XP between lives, gives you a commensurate reward for burned XP as well as a smaller reward for bonded XP, and doesnt lock you out from meaningful play in lower level content.

I think a permanent 155% bonus would be worth the burned XP, since you could use that bonus to earn back the Epic XP at a faster rate, as well as shooting back up through L1-28 a lot easier. Even if you just get every destiny back up to bridge point (Tier 3/4) that's still another 120% XP bonus for your following life.

Plus, it continues to provide an incentive to play Epic characters beyond maxing one Destiny, since any additional ranks they earn net them another 3% each next life. And it gives you a slightly smaller but permanent XP advantage (5% per life) as you Epic TR through more and more lives.

[magn0liafan]

Epic Advantage Proposal

1.)Burn X ENTIRE destinies, X must be greater than 0. At least two Destines need to be capped for this, and one of them is bound, generating the Epic Past Life feat for the bound destiny.

2.)Keep all Fate Points.

3.)Gain Heroic XP equal to the amount of XP burned at a rate of 1:1. Should this XP put you over the level cap, the remaining is converted into Epic Destiny XP at a 2:1 ratio. (Old:New)

4.)Epic Destines can only be burned on Epic True Reincarnation. The Heroic Reincarnation process does not affect Epic Destnies in any way, shape, or form.

5.)Iconic True Reincarnation Recieves all the benefits of Epic True Reincarnation, aside from the following: Heroic XP is gained at a rate of 1 point earned for every 2 points burned. New Epic Destiny XP is still earned at a rate of 1 point earned for every 2 points earned.

6.)Both Epic and Iconic True Reincarnation allows characters to begin with 38 point builds.

7.)Epic and Iconic True Reincarnation remain on a 7 day timer. Lesser Reincarnations and Heroic True Reincarnations remain on a 3 day timer. Epic Destiny Progress is NOT tied to Heroic True Reincarnation or Lesser Reincarnation. No Epic Destiny Progress will be lost for Lesser Reincarnation or Heroic True Reincarnation.

[Systern]

Or, you made your bed, now lie in it... whichever adage works for you.

Hi Piloto! Welcome to the DDO Forums, and thank you for developing.

I think a little history is in order... Last year, when Menace was being developed and sold, things pretty much went like this: (in Dev Diary format ;))

Turbine: "We're raising the level cap again! But things will be different this time."
Fanbase: "Cool. The previous 4 raises to cap have been added to F2P, so that's kinda cool."
Turbine: "Well, see, This level cap raise is actually a different XP system!"
Fanbase: "What? Why? Why aren't you just extending the system that's already in place?"
Turbine: "If we did that, we'd be expected to do stuff like come up with Prestige IV ranks and stuff, and we hate bards and some classes so much that we can't even be bothered to come up with Prestige IIIs for them."
Turbine: "Plus, if we did that, you guys already expect us to give the cap increase. But this way, we get to give you the levels and sell you the enhancements!"
Fanbase: "Hunh? What? That's bogus dude!"
Turbine: "Yup! And to extort sales from you, we're gunna make the levels generic and not class levels."
Fanbase: "I won't pay for that."
Turbine: "What if we make the enhancements OP?"
Fanbase: "No, really, still won't pay for that."
Turbine: "How about if we make them persist, like tomes?"
Fanbase: "Okay, maybe..."


So, yea, here it is, a year later, and you have the money from last years sales... Now, do you really think reneging on all that and slapping your customers in the face, laughing while counting the money you conned out of them is a good business idea?

You sold us a separate XP system, keep it separate.
You sold us challenges citing that it's a non-penalized form of XP, and renegged on that too.
You sold us Owlbear pets riding the success of the panther, and it doesn't even work.
You're saying that Update 19 will be released unfinished, but you'll Add to it later (Like the current, unfinished prestige system, for years)
You're saying that the Skill Augments not finished in U17, that would replace Guild Augment functionality is coming at a later date.
Your proposed implementation for certain prestige trees is to move the level 12 Prestige II ability to a capstone.


(snip)

Oh, and another major design problem you've introduced is that as mob CR scales, their saves, to-hit, and hp increase in a parabolic curve, but since changing over to the epic generic levels player ability increases on a logarithmic curve. The disparity between these two is already why you see wizards in magister refusing to run Gianthold. We can't keep up, because you set it up that way.

(snip)


Last edited by Cordovan; 06-14-2013 at 03:57 PM. Reason: removing insults

Turbine, you need to finish your existing grand sweeping projects before undertaking this one. You have demonstrated that you do not go back to things unfinshed after deadline.

Note: Cordovan removed the opinion of post-WB ownership, but didn't deny that they hate bards :)

[HAL]

I also think that anyone who ETRs should lose ALL epic XPs and EDs (not fate points though) except for the ones they've bonded. No grandfathering for the shearing/rustedblades/pre-change epic challenge grinders who maxxed them out in a weekend or two. No grandfathering for players who have earned their EDs over many months through playing all the 40-odd epic level quests a few times each and from slayers because they enjoyed doing it like me. It's just the price of epic TRing.

Sorry, I gained EDs through normal play because Turbine assured me that they would remain through TR. Making that statement and then not compensating me for my effort is not acceptable to me. I don't think it will be acceptable to a lot of other people as well.

This plus the disappointment that WILL result from the enhancement pass could equal DDO's own NGE. Do you think that it will survive?

[HAL]

1. With the current design, after this system goes live, going through a Heroic TR will burn non-bonded epic destiny XP, but the character will be compensated for the burned XP. In other words, Heroic TR will work just like Epic TR except it will be available at level 20 instead of level cap and it will not grant Epic past life feats. Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play. You should use Heroic TR if you’d like to reincarnate at level 20 and want the benefits that Heroic TR gives (build points, past life feat). Otherwise, you should consider continuing up to level cap and reincarnating from there where you will get all the benefits of Heroic TR plus the additional benefit of Epic TR (epic past life feats).

It seems like this is the answer to what happens to the ED xp of those who have many or are capped: you get low level Heroic Ranks. Yay, no thank you.

[EllisDee37]

All I need to know is this: When will this go live? I need to finish all tring on all alts I have rolled up (and now, because of this, EVER WILL roll up) before this goes live to avoid getting screwed by this horrible design change.

As long as I get my tring in before then I'll be good to go. Of course, by then I'll just have that last life to finish leveling, and then, well, the boredom and monotony will set in since I'll only be able to run endgame content instead of the 250 heroic quests, so I guess I can start looking for a new game.

I just need to know the release date. It will also help me get used to the idea of leaving ddo if I have a firm "you get 2 more months to play" kind of timerframe.

[fourrumtest]

The question is how many pages full of nerd-rage will it take to sink in that this whole idea is a big bucket of fail?

We're at 40 now. 50? 100?

There's no point in changing a system people love and that makes Turbine money if it's going to kill the only aspect of the game that keeps it afloat.

People will stop TRing, this will lead to them eventually stop playing.

no number of pages will be enough, see guildrenown decay, enhancements, bugs, account security, forums, crafting, customer service.

been trying to figure out the real reason for this thread. my guess is sales are low for the new adventurepack, oops i mean expansion.

[Robai]

I vote yes for this:
1) when Heroic TR you lose no ED xp at all (i.e. please don't change this)
2) when Epic TR you lose just the bonded ED's xp (i.e. all other EDs xp remains).
3) raise needed xp for ETR1, more for ETR2. Cap it at ETR2 (i.e. xp needed: ETR2 = ETR3 = ETR4 = ...).
4) you lose some EDs points in other EDs though, because by 3) after ETR1 xp need for ED cap is higher now, but you don't lose xp, just the xp cap was increased (and thus the xp needed for ED's point was increased too).

[Teh_Troll]

no number of pages will be enough, see guildrenown decay, enhancements, bugs, account security, forums, crafting, customer service.

been trying to figure out the real reason for this thread. my guess is sales are low for the new adventurepack, oops i mean expansion.

I'm wondering if our reaction is catching them by surprise?

Did they think this would be embraced as a good idea?

[HAL]

Listen to the players who have more experience of how the game is actually played than you do.

I'll definitely agree with this point.

[Permian]

I'm wondering if our reaction is catching them by surprise?

Did they think this would be embraced as a good idea?

After the most recent post it's blatantly obvious they have no intention of letting us keep destiny xp. I have no faith that this will change.

[GoldyGopher]

You might want to revisit _enhancements_ when you talk about past life _feats_.
I am a total noob, and even I know that a barb pl feat means I can take all the toughness _enhancements_ for free. Thats 80 hp, not 10, and its a feat in my pocket that I didn't burn pointlessly on toughness. All said enhancements say "requirement, toughness feat _or_ barbarian past life". IMO, that blows. I HATE being forced to burn a feat on toughness.

It's not 80 HP for free, it 10HP for free and access to another 70HP (or more) IF you have the availability of the Toughness Enhancements available to you for 10 Action Points (or more).
While you may not like having to spend a Feat on Toughness many/most players who build melees do regardless of which life they are on. But that is another argument all together.

[Targal]

1. With the current design... ...Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play...

How dose it mean that TR with preserving ED XP is avoiding epic level play? Yes, ED is powerful, It's true, but the real power of ED is synergied by the higher epic level of the character, not Epic Destiny. They can't avoid their epic level play. Also, Don't you know It's painful that They should change their Epic Destiny to all of non-related class ED such as Wizard for Exalted Angel, Artificer for Primal Avatar, plus without ToF Points? If you gonna keep ppl's ToF Points, They won't be got that much mad.

[Cordovan]

I would HATE this. Let me rephrase: I WILL hate this, because this is clearly the path you're choosing and nothing will dissuade you.

Wrong. Please, remember that this is more of a brainstorming session than it is a set in stone announcement about what's coming.

Additionally, while we appreciate people's passionate opinions about this issue, the amount of rage in this thread needs to be lowered. Nothing is set in stone. Repeat:

NOTHING IS SET IN STONE.

I have frequently read on the forums that folks would like to see more back and forth with the developers in regards to hot issues undergoing development work. This is your chance to do so in a way that doesn't amount to screaming in someone's face. Keep in mind that there's a lot of discussion taking place based on your feedback, but a lot of that discussion will not be made public until it's in a state to put out there as a possibility or an idea being put forward for feedback.

[Ceruleus]

1. With the current design, after this system goes live, going through a Heroic TR will burn non-bonded epic destiny XP, but the character will be compensated for the burned XP. In other words, Heroic TR will work just like Epic TR except it will be available at level 20 instead of level cap and it will not grant Epic past life feats. Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play. You should use Heroic TR if you’d like to reincarnate at level 20 and want the benefits that Heroic TR gives (build points, past life feat). Otherwise, you should consider continuing up to level cap and reincarnating from there where you will get all the benefits of Heroic TR plus the additional benefit of Epic TR (epic past life feats).
Hi,
The problem with this reasoning is that you cannot compare heroic leveling with epic leveling. Getting xp for EDs is a very unrewarding task, as most EDs have nothing good to offer a class. In addition, if you are leveling an ED, then you are going to be a liability in Epic Elites. There two factors together are what causes people to grind high xp quests over and over at cap. It would be awesome if we could run EEs and still get xp. But we cannot.

If this were to be implemented as is, I imagine most people that have maxed their EDs would not TR ever again. However, TRing is one of the few things that keeps this game fresh for a lot of veterans. As it stands there are only two raids worth running at end-game. With the expansion not having any raids, I imagine all the relevant gear from the quests in the expansion will be acquired in a month or two. We will then be in a situation where there is no content where we need gear from, and the prospect of losing +21 million xp if we decide to TR.

Can you see how that would make a lot of people leave the game?

[Darkrok]

After the most recent post it's blatantly obvious they have no intention of letting us keep destiny xp. I have no faith that this will change.

My only glimmer of hope is the only time I've seen the community so united against a change was raid loot being used in Cannith crafting. The players that actually play the game understood how damaging that change would have been to the community, they spoke up loud and clear, and the change was taken out. I'm hoping if we keep stating calmly and decisively that we simply won't take part in the changes they're proposing that it will finally sink in and they'll realize that they're completely wrong in this case as well.

Ultimately it's Turbine's decision about whether to listen to us or not. However it's our decision about whether to reward them with our hard earned money, whether to tell these cautionary tales in every single group (especially when TR'ing with new players), to encourage these new players to avoid all of Turbine's overpriced and unnecessary (and in the cases of xp pots used to level ED's pure thievery) store options, to speak out to gaming web sites and let them know how Turbine is treating their customers, to take to Twitter and Facebook (especially Twitter where Turbine has no say about what we post) and spread the word about how Turbine is treating their customers. In short, it's our choice as customers to make sure Turbine is sorry for treating their customers so poorly.

Edit: After Cordovan's latest post I'm going to call my previous paragraph 'setting phasers to kill'. I'm willing to keep the phasers set to stun for the time being. But my patience is running thin - more toward the Kirk level of patience than Picard at the moment.

[EllisDee37]

Wrong. Please, remember that this is more of a brainstorming session than it is a set in stone announcement about what's coming.

Additionally, while we appreciate people's passionate opinions about this issue, the amount of rage in this thread needs to be lowered. Nothing is set in stone. Repeat:

NOTHING IS SET IN STONE.

I have frequently read on the forums that folks would like to see more back and forth with the developers in regards to hot issues undergoing development work. This is your chance to do so in a way that doesn't amount to screaming in someone's face. Keep in mind that there's a lot of discussion taking place based on your feedback, but a lot of that discussion will not be made public until it's in a state to put out there as a possibility or an idea being put forward for feedback.I flat-out don't believe you.

Tell you what, raise the cannith challenge xp like you said you would last year and I'll consider giving you the benefit of the doubt on this issue. Remember that? How you guys easily nerfed challenge xp twice in a week with the flip of a switch, no update or server downtime needed, but then you said you'd raise it back except that the "formula was complicated to balance" and that you're working on it but it likely won't happen by the end of the year 2012. That was last August you said that.

[Darkrok]

Wrong. Please, remember that this is more of a brainstorming session than it is a set in stone announcement about what's coming.

Additionally, while we appreciate people's passionate opinions about this issue, the amount of rage in this thread needs to be lowered. Nothing is set in stone. Repeat:

NOTHING IS SET IN STONE.

I have frequently read on the forums that folks would like to see more back and forth with the developers in regards to hot issues undergoing development work. This is your chance to do so in a way that doesn't amount to screaming in someone's face. Keep in mind that there's a lot of discussion taking place based on your feedback, but a lot of that discussion will not be made public until it's in a state to put out there as a possibility or an idea being put forward for feedback.

Track record is what it is Cordovan. I will say that I've still got my phasers set to stun so to speak simply out of giving you guys the benefit of the doubt. But I loathe being lied to and wiping ED xp on a heroic TR is tantamount to being lied to. Everything else is negotiable to me. I have principles though and I won't sell them out for a game, no matter how enjoyable.

Edit: The only other time I've been this angry about the way you guys treated customers is when you were advertising Artificers as being free to VIP's while not having any way in game of VIP's opening up Artificers. I actually cancelled my sub at that point and was ready to walk away and in that case you made it right (enough) by removing the misleading ads. This time there really is only one right though - giving players the choice whether to wipe ED xp on heroic TR's just like we were promised from the beginning.

[Targal]

I would get sick If I gonna do get ED XP again and again to get ToF Points... just make a way to keep them, ToF Points.

[Systern]

Wrong. Please, remember that this is more of a brainstorming session than it is a set in stone announcement about what's coming.

Additionally, while we appreciate people's passionate opinions about this issue, the amount of rage in this thread needs to be lowered. Nothing is set in stone. Repeat:

NOTHING IS SET IN STONE.

I have frequently read on the forums that folks would like to see more back and forth with the developers in regards to hot issues undergoing development work. This is your chance to do so in a way that doesn't amount to screaming in someone's face. Keep in mind that there's a lot of discussion taking place based on your feedback, but a lot of that discussion will not be made public until it's in a state to put out there as a possibility or an idea being put forward for feedback.

Okay, if nothing is set in stone, then the first thing that really needs to change is the release date. Push it out. U20 is too soon. U19 and U17 really NEED to be finished first.


And Jerry, I apologize for my above tirade... not the substance, but the presentation...

[Permian]

My only glimmer of hope is the only time I've seen the community so united against a change was raid loot being used in Cannith crafting. The players that actually play the game understood how damaging that change would have been to the community, they spoke up loud and clear, and the change was taken out. I'm hoping if we keep stating calmly and decisively that we simply won't take part in the changes they're proposing that it will finally sink in and they'll realize that they're completely wrong in this case as well.

Ultimately it's Turbine's decision about whether to listen to us or not. However it's our decision about whether to reward them with our hard earned money, whether to tell these cautionary tales in every single group (especially when TR'ing with new players), to encourage these new players to avoid all of Turbine's overpriced and unnecessary (and in the cases of xp pots used to level ED's pure thievery) store options, to speak out to gaming web sites and let them know how Turbine is treating their customers, to take to Twitter and Facebook (especially Twitter where Turbine has no say about what we post) and spread the word about how Turbine is treating their customers. In short, it's our choice as customers to make sure Turbine is sorry for treating their customers so poorly.

Trust me, I sincerely hope that the flood of responses continues and I will continue to spread the word in game through channels and even LFMs if I have to, in order to try to activate the non-forum users (as I once was, I just have more time to do it now) to get involved.

[GermanicusMaximus]

The question is how many pages full of nerd-rage will it take to sink in that this whole idea is a big bucket of fail?

We're at 40 now. 50? 100?


I forget, was it 1,000 or 2,000 posts that were required before "Hard to Kill" was killed? :D

Of course, the devs then just broke Wail and never bothered to fix it.

As I told you early in this thread, Turbine can troll its customers far more effectively than you can troll Turbine.

We can beg and plead, but by now, we should all know how this is going to turn out.

Now, where is my King of Trolls bunny gif? I think we all need to see it again as a reminder. :D

[HAL]

The question is how many pages full of nerd-rage will it take to sink in that this whole idea is a big bucket of fail?

We're at 40 now. 50? 100?

There's no point in changing a system people love and that makes Turbine money if it's going to kill the only aspect of the game that keeps it afloat.

People will stop TRing, this will lead to them eventually stop playing.

This:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/418543-Epic-Level-amp-Iconic-TR?p=5022458&viewfull=1#post5022458

[QuickSlick79]

2. Currently, store bought Fate Points will be preserved after reincarnation. This will not change. We are investigating ways to somehow preserve regular in-game earned Fate Points, but, behind the scenes, they are different than store bought ones, so it is not completely certain that we will be able to preserve them. If we cannot preserve them, we will look for ways to compensate a character for them.

.

This is the part of your response that shakes me to the bone with frustration. I mean, the WHOLE response was pretty bad if only because it sounded like you guys have a SET position.

I know Cordovan wants to tell us to be nice but come on. Are you still not understanding? These choices you are making do not sit well with your player base. It is a HUGE friction of a reaction to these "changes." Your communication with us isn't helping alleviate our fears.

It's been a while. You have to admit. I know you wanna say you are trying, and TRUST ME, I can see the attempts. The problem is, we are so used to you being Missing In Action and not getting responses. You can't start communicating with us after such a long time absent and expect a smooth transition.

We are angry. We are angry you do not listen, and we are angry about all of these idea's you seem to have that make us, your customers, feel invalid, cheated, and abused.

We are very sorry if our pain causes you offense.

But let me see if I understand this correctly. You are telling me...you don't understand your OWN Fate Point code? The ONLY bit of the code you understand is the code you SELL IN THE STORE!? So your base code means nothing? Understanding the rules for your EPIC LEVEL ABILITIES are what...? Not important? Fate Points play right in with Epic Level Experience. If your reaction to our questions is basically...

"Uh, we don't know WHAT will happen with our code when we try this. In fact, we didn't even PLAN for it. When we though about Epic Experience, we said, hey, you know that thing that people grind for more power? Let's just forget about that." I mean, why even TRY to touch GAME MECHANICS when you don't even know your code well enough to keep it stable FOR CHANGES.

This is probably why every Friday when you touch your code for a loot bonus people can't log on for hours. Or it could be something else, who knows"?

For what its worth, I LIKE starting over at level 1. So, during this whole Brainstorm deal, since you seem DEAD SET on your idea's and CLEARLY wont second think what is OVERABUNDANTLY being expressed try and think about the people who are just plain SATISFIED with how Heroic TR works, and don't change a **** thing for it. LEAVE my ED experience, fate points, ALL OF IT alone.

Use your little Epic Advantage thing for people who want a Feat for giving up all experience in that Destiny Tree. Pretty simple idea. Or wait...is that the problem? Does the code have to be overly complicated to fit into the system?

Do none of our ideas work for you because you know what you are being ORDERED to implement and what JUST WONT code in?

You seem to know our Fate Points are in limbo land. What else do you know you have NO CLUE how to work with? Maybe make a list of all the crazy in your program, go through, FIX IT, and then try releasing "expansions". Maybe then, people will trust you, trust your game, and trust what you say.

Cause after automatically billing people, constantly locking us out of the game, and proving you have no interest in applying feedback....I'm still mighty skeptical.

But continuing to chide us like angry children sure is working. Keep that up.

[Sentinnel]

All I need to know is this: When will this go live? I need to finish all tring on all alts I have rolled up (and now, because of this, EVER WILL roll up) before this goes live to avoid getting screwed by this horrible design change.

As long as I get my tring in before then I'll be good to go. Of course, by then I'll just have that last life to finish leveling, and then, well, the boredom and monotony will set in since I'll only be able to run endgame content instead of the 250 heroic quests, so I guess I can start looking for a new game.

I just need to know the release date. It will also help me get used to the idea of leaving ddo if I have a firm "you get 2 more months to play" kind of timerframe.

Couldn't have said it better myself. I just hate thinking about how much money I have spent since 2006 on this game and in the end may leave it in this bitter state. With that kind of investment I feel like there should be something more. But I guess I just need to look at this like paying for cable TV. I get some entertainment, albeit lame and short-lived.

Peace.

[Darkrok]

Trust me, I sincerely hope that the flood of responses continues and I will continue to spread the word in game through channels and even LFMs if I have to, in order to try to activate the non-forum users (as I once was, I just have more time to do it now) to get involved.

I would say based on Cordovan's latest post that we at least owe it to the dev's to watch our tone in channels, LFM's, groups, etc. I'm not saying we shouldn't continue to spread the word about what's going on. And I'm not saying that Turbine's track record is good. But Turbine isn't one person...and the xpac's sales have plenty of time to be tanked by 'setting the phasers to kill'. Giving Turbine a week to respond with something that isn't, "we don't care what we promised, we're going to do what we want, throw you a small bone, and you'll shut up and enjoy it" isn't going to kill any of us. To be clear though, all of the responses so far fall into that category as they don't address the main problem - xp promised to be permanent is being made non-permanent within the existing system of heroic tr'ing.

[memloch]

Currently a player can Heroic TR anywhere from lvl 20 to lvl 25. This allows many of us players to play some Epic content before we TR.

With the current proposed system there is actually no reason to play epic lvls if your plan is to heroic TR. I believe you will find that after some time the lower lvl epic levels will have fewer players available for grouping etc. I know many of my toons will avoid epic levels until all the heroic past lifes wanted are complete.

[fourrumtest]

I flat-out don't believe you.

Tell you what, raise the cannith challenge xp like you said you would last year and I'll consider giving you the benefit of the doubt on this issue. Remember that? How you guys easily nerfed challenge xp twice in a week with the flip of a switch, no update or server downtime needed, but then you said you'd raise it back except that the "formula was complicated to balance" and that you're working on it but it likely won't happen by the end of the year 2012. That was last August you said that.

this a thousand times this. what about those quality of life fixes? the game is more buggy than when they ere announced. try keeping a promise, or multiple promises if you expect us to believe anything turbine says.

[danotmano1998]

Wrong. Please, remember that this is more of a brainstorming session than it is a set in stone announcement about what's coming.

Additionally, while we appreciate people's passionate opinions about this issue, the amount of rage in this thread needs to be lowered. Nothing is set in stone. Repeat:

NOTHING IS SET IN STONE.

I have frequently read on the forums that folks would like to see more back and forth with the developers in regards to hot issues undergoing development work. This is your chance to do so in a way that doesn't amount to screaming in someone's face. Keep in mind that there's a lot of discussion taking place based on your feedback, but a lot of that discussion will not be made public until it's in a state to put out there as a possibility or an idea being put forward for feedback.


Ok, fair enough!

Thank you for the early in to post our concerns.
Please go back to the drawing board, there are plenty of options to choose from that WONT alienate the people who enjoy the game.
Thank you for your efforts.

[Grubbby]

Wrong. Please, remember that this is more of a brainstorming session than it is a set in stone announcement about what's coming.

Additionally, while we appreciate people's passionate opinions about this issue, the amount of rage in this thread needs to be lowered. Nothing is set in stone. Repeat:

NOTHING IS SET IN STONE.

I have frequently read on the forums that folks would like to see more back and forth with the developers in regards to hot issues undergoing development work. This is your chance to do so in a way that doesn't amount to screaming in someone's face. Keep in mind that there's a lot of discussion taking place based on your feedback, but a lot of that discussion will not be made public until it's in a state to put out there as a possibility or an idea being put forward for feedback.

This doesn't feel like a discussion with the dev's. There is almost no back and forth, and so far the couple of dev posts feel like a clarification of the in-motion plans, not a brain storming session.

My reading of Piloto's posts are that the dev feeling is that this is a compensation issue. That means to me that they think they are on the right track and that they just need to find a fair price. Compensationj needs to be considered fair by both sides, and as you can read into some of the "passionate" replies, the only compensation some people would accept is leaving ED xp alone.

I'm willing to listen to the compensation offers, and depending on the details, I might even choose to accept the loss of my ED XP on some toons. But being forced to swap (as opposed to accepting an option to swap) what were permanent improvements to my toon when I paid the price to earn them is a difficult opening position.

[HAL]

Wrong. Please, remember that this is more of a brainstorming session than it is a set in stone announcement about what's coming.

Additionally, while we appreciate people's passionate opinions about this issue, the amount of rage in this thread needs to be lowered. Nothing is set in stone. Repeat:

NOTHING IS SET IN STONE.

I have frequently read on the forums that folks would like to see more back and forth with the developers in regards to hot issues undergoing development work. This is your chance to do so in a way that doesn't amount to screaming in someone's face. Keep in mind that there's a lot of discussion taking place based on your feedback, but a lot of that discussion will not be made public until it's in a state to put out there as a possibility or an idea being put forward for feedback.

The single developer reply we received in the 48+ hours since the "announcement" post that actually addresses the loss of ED xp has only confirmed the part that we are all upset about and given reasons why it needs to happen. There was no language that it is even possible that it will change. If what you are saying above is true - that it is not set in stone - maybe someone needs to review what Piloto posts before it ends up on the forums. Because Piloto is contradicting what you're saying here.

[thegreatfox]

On my main toon I spent a lot of time (talking months here) farming out every single destiny level so I could get the fate points, bought a tome so I could get even more, and then LRed to change my build based on abilities I acquired in the destinies that made my capstone less appealing. And when I LRed, I lost all my destiny progress. All of it, into the void. I was pretty perturbed at that. So instead of quitting I spent another few months trying to get my xp back and once I had farmed up 6 destinies again I finally learned of someone who got their xp back through a ticket and HALLELUJAH it was true! And I could finally enjoy my end build for that life.

That was not my final life however; I have at LEAST 3 more lives planned out for that one toon alone (and at least 2 for my alt), and now you are saying all that xp that I worked to gain twice is going to be wiped out, not as a bug, but intentionally? All the hours of mind numbing farming in the same quest over and over and over again, gone?

Just don't do it.

[Charononus]

Wrong. Please, remember that this is more of a brainstorming session than it is a set in stone announcement about what's coming.

Additionally, while we appreciate people's passionate opinions about this issue, the amount of rage in this thread needs to be lowered. Nothing is set in stone. Repeat:

NOTHING IS SET IN STONE.

I have frequently read on the forums that folks would like to see more back and forth with the developers in regards to hot issues undergoing development work. This is your chance to do so in a way that doesn't amount to screaming in someone's face. Keep in mind that there's a lot of discussion taking place based on your feedback, but a lot of that discussion will not be made public until it's in a state to put out there as a possibility or an idea being put forward for feedback.

You're working against past track record. Don't expect us to believe that things have the possibility of changing now until you demonstrate that you're listening. It's the saying fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. We've been fooled once, you don't have the reputation to be believed at this point.

[SilkofDrasnia]

*snip*

Additionally, while we appreciate people's passionate opinions about this issue, the amount of rage in this thread needs to be lowered. Nothing is set in stone. Repeat:

*snip*

Many of us have given you some decent rage free feedback and it's all mostly variants of the same thing you are being told over and over and over.

Take what is in red in the quote here and think about it. This should pretty much tell you what people think about the base idea of losing all destiny xp and how it is being recieved.

TBH I think the rage is being handled very very well. Oh and please don't think this is a "kneejerk" reaction on most peoples part because it is not!

[dejafu]

Hey, um, guys? I think we should be focusing on this part of Piloto's post a LOT more:



2. Currently, store bought Fate Points will be preserved after reincarnation. This will not change. We are investigating ways to somehow preserve regular in-game earned Fate Points, but, behind the scenes, they are different than store bought ones, so it is not completely certain that we will be able to preserve them. If we cannot preserve them, we will look for ways to compensate a character for them.


Okay, so here's my perspective at least: If you can make sure that we keep already-earned Fate Points (maybe grant us a special Tome of Fate +however many fate points we've earned so far that's automatically deposited in our inventory after TR), then my main issue with wiping the ED XP is solved. Actually, scratch that - it won't just be solved, I'll be thrilled. A way to earn more Fate Points? YES! Please! Those are the primary reason by far that I ground out all those EDs, let me keep them (and let me earn even more), and I'll be there with bells on.

Mind you, if this is something that isn't possible to do from a coding angle, then I'm back to "royally miffed about losing my EDs." Seriously, I'm having a hard time imagining any other form of "compensation" that could balance that loss out.

[Darkrok]

I'm willing to listen to the compensation offers, and depending on the details, I might even choose to accept the loss of my ED XP on some toons. But being forced to swap (as opposed to accepting an option to swap) what were permanent improvements to my toon when I paid the price to earn them is a difficult opening position.

Right, and in even shorter fashion: If the dev's feel that they want everyone to give up their ED xp then make the compensation compelling and then make it optional. If you make the carrot big enough you won't need the stick and the few people that decide to opt out won't really effect the game being played the way you want it to be played.


The single developer reply we received in the 48+ hours since the "announcement" post that actually addresses the loss of ED xp has only confirmed the part that we are all upset about and given reasons why it needs to happen. There was no language that it is even possible that it will change. If what you are saying above is true - that it is not set in stone - maybe someone needs to review what Piloto posts before it ends up on the forums.

Exactly. While I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt Piloto's post simply left no doubt at all. And silence isn't an option either. I'm not willing to allow Turbine to lie to their long-term players, placate us with promises of 'we'll work something out that will fix this for you' just long enough to milk everyone out of the money for the xpac, and then apologize 3 or 4 months from now when they finally tell us they're wiping our ED xp on a heroic TR by saying, "sorry, we just had to do it. We tried!" I'm not going to wait that long before I set the phasers to kill and start gunning for Turbine's reputation on social media and in game. I won't go there yet because they do need time to come up with an alternative that makes the suits happy but I won't give them a pass long enough to let them get away with the lie either.

[GeoffWatson]

The news on TRing is horribly demoralising.

What's the point of running Epics?
Sure, most are fun to play, but what keeps most MMO players playing is the sense of accomplishment.

XP? Lost when TRing.
Loot? Level 28 adventures will probably have better loot.

Losing all Destiny XP when doing a old-style TR is unacceptable.
You really think getting a few thousand XP in exchange for millions of XP is remotely fair? Make it optional.

Geoff.

[ArcaneArcher52689]

This is the part of your response that shakes me to the bone with frustration. I mean, the WHOLE response was pretty bad if only because it sounded like you guys have a SET position.

I know Cordovan wants to tell us to be nice but come on. Are you still not understanding? These choices you are making do not sit well with your player base. It is a HUGE friction of a reaction to these "changes." Your communication with us isn't helping alleviate our fears.

It's been a while. You have to admit. I know you wanna say you are trying, and TRUST ME, I can see the attempts. The problem is, we are so used to you being Missing In Action and not getting responses. You can't start communicating with us after such a long time absent and expect a smooth transition.

We are angry. We are angry you do not listen, and we are angry about all of these idea's you seem to have that make us, your customers, feel invalid, cheated, and abused.

We are very sorry if our pain causes you offense.

But let me see if I understand this correctly. You are telling me...you don't understand your OWN Fate Point code? The ONLY bit of the code you understand is the code you SELL IN THE STORE!? So your base code means nothing? Understanding the rules for your EPIC LEVEL ABILITIES are what...? Not important? Fate Points play right in with Epic Level Experience. If your reaction to our questions is basically...

"Uh, we don't know WHAT will happen with our code when we try this. In fact, we didn't even PLAN for it. When we though about Epic Experience, we said, hey, you know that thing that people grind for more power? Let's just forget about that." I mean, why even TRY to touch GAME MECHANICS when you don't even know your code well enough to keep it stable FOR CHANGES.

This is probably why every Friday when you touch your code for a loot bonus people can't log on for hours. Or it could be something else, who knows"?

For what its worth, I LIKE starting over at level 1. So, during this whole Brainstorm deal, since you seem DEAD SET on your idea's and CLEARLY wont second think what is OVERABUNDANTLY being expressed try and think about the people who are just plain SATISFIED with how Heroic TR works, and don't change a **** thing for it. LEAVE my ED experience, fate points, ALL OF IT alone.

Use your little Epic Advantage thing for people who want a Feat for giving up all experience in that Destiny Tree. Pretty simple idea. Or wait...is that the problem? Does the code have to be overly complicated to fit into the system?

Do none of our ideas work for you because you know what you are being ORDERED to implement and what JUST WONT code in?

You seem to know our Fate Points are in limbo land. What else do you know you have NO CLUE how to work with? Maybe make a list of all the crazy in your program, go through, FIX IT, and then try releasing "expansions". Maybe then, people will trust you, trust your game, and trust what you say.

Cause after automatically billing people, constantly locking us out of the game, and proving you have no interest in applying feedback....I'm still mighty skeptical.

But continuing to chide us like angry children sure is working. Keep that up.

Maybe if posts like this, that look like they were written by an angry child, weren't here, they wouldn't have to treat us that way? I've seen plenty (plenty!) of perfectly reasonable, well thought out responses in this thread. But this is the equivalent of going into McDonald's and yelling your head off because thy screwed up your meal. Is it bad? Yes. Is it their fault? Probably. Do you have to act that way? No. Could you accomplish just as much, if not more by being polite? Probably.

Also, piloto might not be responsible for fate point code. Or the fate point code in its current implementation may not support the carrying over of "earned" fate points, and they are currently trying to rewrite/reimplement the code to make it work. I'm guessing store bought fate points carry over because their a tag marked on your character, similar to store bought inventory, or even stat tomes.

[Drwaz99]

Wrong. Please, remember that this is more of a brainstorming session than it is a set in stone announcement about what's coming.

Additionally, while we appreciate people's passionate opinions about this issue, the amount of rage in this thread needs to be lowered. Nothing is set in stone. Repeat:

NOTHING IS SET IN STONE.

I have frequently read on the forums that folks would like to see more back and forth with the developers in regards to hot issues undergoing development work. This is your chance to do so in a way that doesn't amount to screaming in someone's face. Keep in mind that there's a lot of discussion taking place based on your feedback, but a lot of that discussion will not be made public until it's in a state to put out there as a possibility or an idea being put forward for feedback.

What your seeing is years and years of pent up frustration and anger at Turbine broken promises, lies and 'switch a roos'. Nobody believes you when you say it isn't set in stone. Turbine has called wolf far to many times. And if you do not like the amount of rage present here, maybe pass along the idea of following thru with things and keeping promises.

Turbine is to blame for the rage. It's well placed rage and the fact that you don't like it is good. DO NOT BLAME US! Maybe, finally there will be some degree of change.

[Charononus]

Maybe if posts like this, that look like they were written by an angry child, weren't here, they wouldn't have to treat us that way? I've seen plenty (plenty!) of perfectly reasonable, well thought out responses in this thread. But this is the equivalent of going into McDonald's and yelling your head off because thy screwed up your meal. Is it bad? Yes. Is it their fault? Probably. Do you have to act that way? No. Could you accomplish just as much, if not more by being polite? Probably.

Also, piloto might not be responsible for fate point code. Or the fate point code in its current implementation may not support the carrying over of "earned" fate points, and they are currently trying to rewrite/reimplement the code to make it work. I'm guessing store bought fate points carry over because their a tag marked on your character, similar to store bought inventory, or even stat tomes.

While complete raging doesn't fix anything neither does being a turbine apologist. Blaming players like you are is a horrible thing to do.

[EllisDee37]

Since directly explaining why this proposed mechanic is bad, maybe an anecdote will help explain it:

My current alt is a first life fighter/cleric, who intends to use Legendary Dreadnought while twisting in Sense Weakness, Rejuvenation cocoon, and brace for impact. That's a 4/1/1 twist spread, meaning I need 45 destiny levels. With 11 destinies that's level 4 (1.08 million xp each) in 10 of them with my main destiny capped. As a fighter I plan on 3 fighter past lives for +3 tactical dc. He's currently level 18, about to hit 20.

So since I hate rusted blades/impossible demands farming so much -- there isn't a single minute's worth of fun in the 18 solid hours it takes to farm that much destiny xp -- I'd planned to do his destiny farming differently. 3 million to cap at 25, I decided to do 3 destinies to 4 each life. That's just enough to get all my fates set up just as I hit 25 on his final life. Perfect plan, or so I thought.

Every variation of the proposed change ruins this plan. If I'm not on his final life when the change goes live I lose all my destinies, forcing me back to the only part of this game I legitimately hate: destiny farming for the sake of destiny farming.

Bonding doesn't help me in the slightest. If I decided to just wait on this, his first life, and just get him to cap with LD capped and wait to bond it and then do my first tr, that means I have to cap every destiny I want to mine for fate points. That's DOUBLE the xp. Instead of 1,080,000 xp to get to level 4, I now have to get 1,900,000 to get to level 5. I have never once gone past 4 in a destiny solely for fate points, AND I NEVER WILL. 15 fate points is all I get to work with because doubling the xp required for 1 more destiny level is ridiculously not worth my time.

The proposed system -- and every variation of it the devs have hinted at -- utterly ruin the game for me. Let me put it this way: I WANT to start every tr at level 1 with 0 xp, because I WANT to play all content each life. That's what makes the game fun for me.

The only acceptable way for me to tr higher than level 1 with 0 xp would be an epic tr where I choose a destiny (that I fully cap with 1.9 million xp) to get a past life from, that one destiny gets zeroed while all my other destinies remain unchanged. I then start the new life back at level 20 with 0 epic xp. That's it. That's the list.

There are many ways to implement a tr system, but two dealbreakers for me are: 1) I do not want to start higher than level 1, and 2) I do not view losing my fate points as a viable path. If I lose fate points, I"M NOT DOING IT.

[Monkey_Archer]

. One scenario for this is that Epic Destiny XP will be converted to heroic XP (using a formula that adjusts for the different rates at which heroic and epic XP are gained). This converted XP would then be used to level up your reincarnated character. This could mean, for example, that a character with a large number of destinies maxed out could immediately level back up to level 20 even as a third life character. Again, this is just an example of one of the things we are considering, but it’s a definite possibility.

I've 20-capped around 20 characters and done just as many TR lives. I'm no stranger to grinding, but this scenario would result in me never TRing any character with ED xp. 3 Reasons:



When I TR I want to start at level one. I want to play the game as a new character. I want to run the content of DDO. Actual content. Quests. Fun stuff. Actually playing the game instead of sitting at a drawing board.
I don't want to push a button and magically gain a past life feat and free XP. I don't want to skip 99% of the game's content. I don't want to go back to grinding out ED xp running the same quest 200 times. The epic past life feat could be god-mode and it still wouldn't be worth it.
There is not nearly enough epic content to justify skipping all heroic content. Thats just a fact. This system would work, and would be accepted by 99% of the whole DDO community if we get around 50 new epic quests and 10 raids to actually support real endgame play and the ED xp requirements.


I'll make the same suggestion countless others have, and what most of the DDO community would logically think and epic TR means:

-reset all heroic xp
-reset one destiny + epic xp
-get a heroic pastlife
-get an epic destiny past life

Epic advantage and bonding... kill them with fire... plz...

[GermanicusMaximus]

I'm wondering if our reaction is catching them by surprise?

Did they think this would be embraced as a good idea?

As should be evident to anyone who has read many of my posts, I have a fairly low opinion of the DDO development team. Having said that, even I don't believe they are being taken by surprise by the response they are getting. They knew exactly what kind of feedback they would get, and had a game plan up front for dealing with it.

They have a final design in mind. They know exactly what they will, and will not, compromise on, and probably have a schedule for when they will announce any "concessions" they are willing to offer.

Anyone who believes the development team was caught totally unaware of where this would lead must think that the development team is completely clueless.

[Gkar]

You won't. You'll join the rest of us in not TRing anymore EVER.

Until the game shuts down at least.

Uh...I believe that's what I said originally... that plus, I'm not sure if there is enough to interest me at 21+ and only 21+ that I won't just quit. It's a shame to lose 2/3 of the game content, some of which I quite enjoy.

[Teh_Troll]

Wrong. Please, remember that this is more of a brainstorming session than it is a set in stone announcement about what's coming.

Additionally, while we appreciate people's passionate opinions about this issue, the amount of rage in this thread needs to be lowered. Nothing is set in stone. Repeat:

NOTHING IS SET IN STONE.

I


The actually developers are not budging on the Heroic TR destroying ED XP. This is 100% not acceptable and a deal-breaker for many of us if you think we'd ever TR again.

I'm sorry but there can be no bending on this issue.

[Charononus]

As should be evident to anyone who has read many of my posts, I have a fairly low opinion of the DDO development team. Having said that, even I don't believe they are being taken by surprise by the response they are getting. They knew exactly what kind of feedback they would get, and had a game plan up front for dealing with it.

They have a final design in mind. They know exactly what they will, and will not, compromise on, and probably have a schedule for when they will announce any "concessions" they are willing to offer.

Anyone who believes the development team was totally caught unaware of where this would lead must think that the development team is completely clueless.

I'm honestly unsure I alternate constantly between:

You being right and that any concessions are a conspiracy.

They're completely clueless.

Warner Brothers wants to have ddo lose money and close so they can use it as a tax write off and gain effective money that way.

[barecm]

Here is an idea.... How about leaving what is NOT broken alone and focus on what IS broken or not working? Focus on making all the epic destiny skills work right, release the enhancement pass we have been waiting years and years for, start chipping away at the litany of bugs and broken stuff that have been listed over and over again on these forums. You wonder why there is such a backlash to dumb ideas like proposed here in this thread, it is becuase there are so many other things that demand attention and we get a non-player friendly revamp of a system that isn't broken. It is frustrating to no end. We have not asked for and do not need this. More content, bug fixes, enhancement pass, epic destiny fixes. This is all stuff that VIPs like myself have been paying for in addition to the premium for the last expansion over the years that still don't work. Fix that them and then worry about reworking other aspects of the game that are not broken.

[Monkey_Archer]

The news on TRing is horribly demoralising.

What's the point of running Epics?
Sure, most are fun to play, but what keeps most MMO players playing is the sense of accomplishment.

XP? Lost when TRing.
Loot? Level 28 adventures will probably have better loot.

Losing all Destiny XP when doing a old-style TR is unacceptable.
You really think getting a few thousand XP in exchange for millions of XP is remotely fair? Make it optional.

Geoff.

Demoralized is probably what I see most when people talk about this epic TR stuff. While I still really do appreciate turbine making an effort to communicate these types of changes well before they happen, the response post implying that only minor changes will be made is, as you say, demoralizing.

[ArcaneArcher52689]

While complete raging doesn't fix anything neither does being a turbine apologist. Blaming players like you are is a horrible thing to do.

Actually, while I normally side with turbine on lots of things, I happen to agree that at the very least, heroic tr should not reset ED exp.

That comment was specifically directed to the "stop treating us like children" remark. And sorry, many of the posts in this thread look like nothing more than children whining. It's another to take that out on someone. All I did was mention why we(the playerbase) might be treated that way, and why the response to fate points was the way it was.

And if someone walked into the restaurant I was at screaming and carrying on, I might blame the restaurant for making a mistake, but I'd blame the customer for his/her behavior too.

[Deadlock]

It seems that you are wedded to the idea that the "reward" for your ED ranks must be Heroic ranks. I am not wedded to that idea - perhaps there are other perks that you can get instead. Or I read an idea of gaining an "item" that you can use at any point in Heroic leveling to give you X experience. That idea is something I was thinking about as well. Although I don't agree with it being a static number of XP no matter how many XP it took you to attain the ED rank in question. I think it should be a sliding scale.

The point is that there can be other methods of compensation that might be more valuable to people who aren't trying to just grind past lives as quickly as possible. Maybe instead of only one compensation you could choose between one that supports quick grinding of Past Lives (like the Heroic Ranks) and one that supports someone who just wants to play the game.

I'm all in favour of choices and options. Give us viable alternative and put it on the table. Please provide more specific details and we can discuss.

It's clear from Piloto's last post that either he hasn't read the replies in this thread yet to see the overwhelming and justified outcry against their initial proposal to wipe ED XP on a Heroic TR, or they've read it and they don't really understand why we are all in agreement that this is a bad idea.

So that tells me that, if we are to have any hope of providing alternatives, then we'll need to do some of the design work ourselves, rather than just rejecting their proposals and waiting on them to come up with an alternative. Please provide details of your solution.

[Teh_Troll]

Please provide details of your solution.


Scrap the whole project.

Do nothing.

That is much better than what is being proposed.

[Gkar]

Wrong. Please, remember that this is more of a brainstorming session than it is a set in stone announcement about what's coming.

Additionally, while we appreciate people's passionate opinions about this issue, the amount of rage in this thread needs to be lowered. Nothing is set in stone. Repeat:

NOTHING IS SET IN STONE.

I have frequently read on the forums that folks would like to see more back and forth with the developers in regards to hot issues undergoing development work. This is your chance to do so in a way that doesn't amount to screaming in someone's face. Keep in mind that there's a lot of discussion taking place based on your feedback, but a lot of that discussion will not be made public until it's in a state to put out there as a possibility or an idea being put forward for feedback.

Then let me ask you a direct question. If truly nothing is set in stone, are you willing to abandon the idea of losing all Epic XP on Epic and Heroic TR. Nothing else you say will lower the temperature because the posts so far indicate that the one dev kind enough to comment says he gets it but is 100% missing the point and is NOT getting what we are saying, at all.

[Teh_Troll]

Then let me ask you a direct question. If truly nothing is set in stone, are you willing to abandon the idea of losing all Epic XP on Epic and Heroic TR. Nothing else you say will lower the temperature because the posts so far indicate that the one dev kind enough to comment says he gets it but is 100% missing the point and is NOT getting what we are saying, at all.

You will not get an answer to this question.

[Tyrande]

Hi. Thanks again for your feedback and opinions on the proposed design of the new Epic TR. Here are some of the things the team is currently thinking about.

Thank you for chipping in again. Honestly, I think you had better equip yourselves with upgraded Pale Lavender Ioun Stones, Jewel Cloak and may be a Fire Shield: Cold spell as well since the passion heat in this thread is intense.



We understand your concern about losing Epic Destiny XP upon reincarnation and not getting enough in return. So, we are investigating some different possibilities [...]

How about this for a possibility? Since people are passionate about not loosing Epic Destiny XP:
Let people keep what they earned. Instead, disable the Epic Destiny abilities in trees that are unbound which is not supposed to be able to activate upon Epic Destiny Reincarnation until the right character levels are achieved?

e.g. Tier 1 abilities requiring level 20+, Tier 2 abilities require 21, Tier 3 => 22, Tier 4 => 23 and so on. This is just an example. This way, there is a compromise between what players have earned versus what you are trying to achieve. This is just an example... may be make it total character Epic XP % based (i.e. XP after 20 not based on level)

Perhaps making the Epic Advantage an optional choice. Only Compensating heroic XP for Epic Destiny XP and loose all those Epic Destiny XP earned which are unbound if the player choose to pick up Epic Advantage.

For Heroic True Incarnation, the Epic Advantage option should be automatically turned off and the functionality will be verbatim to what is happening previously. Of course, the restrictions to use whatever ED ability already earned are still in place as per the e.g. above.



Also, to answer a couple of additional questions:
1. [...]

2. Currently, store bought Fate Points will be preserved after reincarnation. This will not change. We are investigating ways to somehow preserve regular in-game earned Fate Points, but, behind the scenes, they are different than store bought ones, so it is not completely certain that we will be able to preserve them. If we cannot preserve them, we will look for ways to compensate a character for them.

Yes, please. I have characters that have purchased Tomes of Fate and would like to keep earned fate points if technologically possible.



Stay tuned for more info and explanations of this new system proposal early next week.

Perhaps you should buy yourselves some fire insurance before you make your proposal next week. ;)

[Grailhawk]

Hi. Thanks again for your feedback and opinions on the proposed design of the new Epic TR. Here are some of the things the team is currently thinking about.

We understand your concern about losing Epic Destiny XP upon reincarnation and not getting enough in return. So, we are investigating some different possibilities in regard to what a character gets after they reincarnate with Epic TR. We’d like to offer a system where the character gets credit for every XP they “burn” from an epic destiny. One scenario for this is that Epic Destiny XP will be converted to heroic XP (using a formula that adjusts for the different rates at which heroic and epic XP are gained). This converted XP would then be used to level up your reincarnated character. This could mean, for example, that a character with a large number of destinies maxed out could immediately level back up to level 20 even as a third life character. Again, this is just an example of one of the things we are considering, but it’s a definite possibility.

Also, to answer a couple of additional questions:

1. With the current design, after this system goes live, going through a Heroic TR will burn non-bonded epic destiny XP, but the character will be compensated for the burned XP. In other words, Heroic TR will work just like Epic TR except it will be available at level 20 instead of level cap and it will not grant Epic past life feats. Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play. You should use Heroic TR if you’d like to reincarnate at level 20 and want the benefits that Heroic TR gives (build points, past life feat). Otherwise, you should consider continuing up to level cap and reincarnating from there where you will get all the benefits of Heroic TR plus the additional benefit of Epic TR (epic past life feats).

2. Currently, store bought Fate Points will be preserved after reincarnation. This will not change. We are investigating ways to somehow preserve regular in-game earned Fate Points, but, behind the scenes, they are different than store bought ones, so it is not completely certain that we will be able to preserve them. If we cannot preserve them, we will look for ways to compensate a character for them.

Stay tuned for more info and explanations of this new system proposal early next week.


If your as set on wiping out player ED XP as this post makes it seam you are here are 3 things that might help you not totally ruin this game

1) Keep Fate Points through TR.

2) Some mechanic to make the ED grind fun. i.e. pass XP to a different destiny then the one you are actively using.

3) Epic PL feat that are worth getting. e.g. +10% max hp bonus from each Sentinel, +5% Damage bonus from each Fury

Do ALL of those making ETR appealing enough that there's no point in HTR and maybe you get lucky and don't loose to many people. Good Luck.

[rest]

Nothing is set in stone. Repeat:

NOTHING IS SET IN STONE.

I don't believe you. Repeat:

I DON'T BELIEVE YOU.

How many times have we heard that, and still stuff is put out broken and ridiculous? You don't have any credibility anymore. Not with me, at any rate. And if this thread is any indication, not with a whole lot of people.

Hey let's talk about the "alpha" enhancements getting partially installed on the live build, and your inability (or unwillingness) to do something about it. Why are spell crits still messed up? Why do clerics still have "obslete enhancement" or whatever the hell it's called?

I think that all these proposed changes to the TR system are lame. They are penalizing players who were told BY THE HEAD DEVELOPER that Epic Destiny XP would persist through TRs and decided to max it out once, so they never had to do it again. Hell there was a bug where ED XP was lost via TRs and you all initiated a fix for it. So then you shouldn't have fixed it because you are planning to remove that XP on TR.

You're not moving the goal line, you're changing the game. You're the kid who, when getting shot with a laser when playing with other kids, suddenly has a laser proof shield. You don't like the way people are playing "your" game, so you make it different in an effort to FORCE people to play how you want. Yeah. I get it. It's a game that you built and we play it but, because we DO play and are passionate about it, it's our game too.

I really feel like you took a look at how people play the game and decided that "That's not how people are allowed to play! Let's change everything so it matches exactly with my vision." There's a oft-repeated phrase out there "No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy." At this point, I feel like you're treating your playing and paying customers are "the enemy". Sure you might have a great grand plan in your mind about how the game is going to work and how people are going to play it but people, being people, find ways to do what they want to do within the framework of the system you laid out. Until you start introducing arbitrary changes to force them to conform to how you think they should play (dungeon alert, "alpha" cleric enhancements et al.) the game.

I will say that I'm glad there is more Turbine activity on the forum. I was starting to believe that everyone had left for all the other TB games, since there was a dearth of ANY Turbine activity on the forums. Be it from developers or our "community specialists". I put that in quotes because you have to interract with your community to become a specialist at it. Even the 3rd party places where I was very resistant to tread (twitter) has been quiet on the staff front.

[oradafu]

Wrong. Please, remember that this is more of a brainstorming session than it is a set in stone announcement about what's coming.

Additionally, while we appreciate people's passionate opinions about this issue, the amount of rage in this thread needs to be lowered. Nothing is set in stone. Repeat:

NOTHING IS SET IN STONE.

I have frequently read on the forums that folks would like to see more back and forth with the developers in regards to hot issues undergoing development work. This is your chance to do so in a way that doesn't amount to screaming in someone's face. Keep in mind that there's a lot of discussion taking place based on your feedback, but a lot of that discussion will not be made public until it's in a state to put out there as a possibility or an idea being put forward for feedback.

Can you give one example where the Devs have changed their course of action after they have stated more than once that they are moving in a certain direction? I cannot not. Not once. And so far when have the original post and two additional posts stating that they will continue in the direction that 99% of the feedback has been negative. Granted, Piloto's reply hasn't been completely condensing as "I or We know better than you the players want" that we voice disappointment in a certain little dev's weapon design....but it's pretty darn close.

[Darkrok]

Then let me ask you a direct question. If truly nothing is set in stone, are you willing to abandon the idea of losing all Epic XP on Epic and Heroic TR. Nothing else you say will lower the temperature because the posts so far indicate that the one dev kind enough to comment says he gets it but is 100% missing the point and is NOT getting what we are saying, at all.

Exactly. The only other suggestion I've seen that would work is a 1:1 xp pool that all the lost ED xp goes into. This 1:1 xp pool could be used at the player's discretion for heroic, epic, or epic destiny progression.

So yes, when we heroic TR we lose all ED xp. BUT if we want to we can level back to 20 normally and immediately empty that pool to level back up all of our Epic Destinies. Or if we'd rather do so we could use 4.3 million of that 20 million or so banked xp to get right back to 20, use another 4 or 5 million (or whatever it costs) to level directly to 28, and the remaining 12 million or so to unlock every epic destiny in the trees to level 3 or 4 if that's the route we wanted to go. Basically, the experience we earned playing the game the way Turbine intended should not be taken away. Not with a 2:1 deal. Not in a nothing deal. Nothing but returning all of the xp spent in farming in terrible destinies and either doing the same crappy quests over and over or doing glorified piking as the sorc with a spell set intended for Shiradi running in Legendary Dreadnaught.

This suggestion was hinted at by a Turbine employee off the boards. They mentioned it as heroic xp only but that's a non-starter. But if for some reason Turbine absolutely has to wipe ED xp to fix some unknown exploits but can give us the xp points back in a 1-1 fashion to spend later on anything we want (with the hope on their part being that we'll burn it off on 4 heroic past lives...which I personally would ;) but the option to just spend it again to repurchase the exact same ED's) then that would be completely fine as well. It's basically making a required system that's functionally an optional system. The only reason I could see this being needed would be to squelch some weird exploits but if that's really what the goal is then this system would be fine. It gives MORE options...not less. And all we're asking for is to have the same options after the update as we had before the update.

[Teh_Troll]

Can you give one example where the Devs have changed their course of action after they have stated more than once that they are moving in a certain direction?

- "hard to kill"
- "Madstone boots"
- Offerwall
- Raid loot as crafting ingredients.

there are a few other small things.

All required MASSIVE amounts of nerd-rage to get Turbine to listen.

[rest]

- "hard to kill"
- "Madstone boots"
- Offerwall
- Raid loot as crafting ingredients.

there are a few other small things.

All required MASSIVE amounts of nerd-rage to get Turbine to listen.

Offer wall is a bad example, as it took gaming news sites to bust Turbine's chops to get it removed. Not due to customer's security concerns, but because of bad press.

[Darkrok]

Can you give one example where the Devs have changed their course of action after they have stated more than once that they are moving in a certain direction? I cannot not. Not once. And so far when have the original post and two additional posts stating that they will continue in the direction that 99% of the feedback has been negative. Granted, Piloto's reply hasn't been completely condensing as "I or We know better than you the players want" that we voice disappointment in a certain little dev's weapon design....but it's pretty darn close.

I can actually give one example: raid loot in Cannith Crafting. I'm hoping the result is the same here...that the dev's realize this is a dealbreaker for people and change gears.


Since directly explaining why this proposed mechanic is bad, maybe an anecdote will help explain it:

SNIP

Every variation of the proposed change ruins this plan. If I'm not on his final life when the change goes live I lose all my destinies, forcing me back to the only part of this game I legitimately hate: destiny farming for the sake of destiny farming.

And this is why everyone needs to stop posting their own pet solutions that fix their problem and deal with the fact that any solution that tries to massage the suggested system leaves someone out in the cold. Heroic TR'ing needs to leave ED xp alone. It's that simple. Anything that lacks the option to end up heroic TR'ing and getting back all of your ED xp is a non-starter.

[Darkrok]

Offer wall is a bad example, as it took gaming news sites to bust Turbine's chops to get it removed. Not due to customer's security concerns, but because of bad press.

Which is what I'm afraid it will take now. Turbine's players setting the phasers to kill, taking to social media, and making enough of a ruckus that gaming news sites take notice and bust Turbine's chops. I'd say we hold off for now but not for any more than a week or two.

[Cordovan]

This thread has been read quite a bit by the dev team and other folks directly, and we'll be continuing this discussion throughout the coming days and weeks. Please remember to keep things civil and not insult each other or the Turbine development team.

[LeslieWest_GuitarGod]

This is not Cordovan's fault guys. He's not a developer, not a decision maker. At ALL. All he can do is relay a message given to him by the decision makers (manager types above the developers). WB and Turbine suits.

They are killing this game from the inside out. We are not participating in a discussion, we are just listening to ourselves type.

Jerry, please get the devs to spend a few more minutes here (Piloto's response is a great start).. interact with the playerbase.

Lets get this site reverted or fixed and welcome people back. Too many community members left this site in... droves. Many ViPs. The few left, or coming back to have a voice in this thread are not happy for the most part, because they know this is set in stone. Why? Remember the last brainstorm, enhancement pass? Stone.

This is happening. Sure the details can change... but INTERACT with the playerbase. Show us the "proposal" can change.

[knightgf]

I just wanted to say that right now, I like the current TR system as it is; the idea of having my epic destinies available to me as they were before I TR'ed at level 20 is a great incentive for me to level. In a way, heroic TR currently extends to aid epic characters as well. Take that away, and you give TR'ing less value. Much less value, I might add. I understand the idea of giving up epic destiny XP for something cool, but giving up epic destiny XP should be a choice, not a side effect of a regular, heroic TR.

The way I see it:

- Heroic TR should not touch epic destiny XP unless you want it to.
- Epic TR should touch epic destiny XP, although the way it should depends on how you want it to be carried out. If it directly affects your epic destiny, fine. If it just simply sets you back to 20, then idk...more details would be needed.

[Teh_Troll]

I don't believe you. Repeat:

I DON'T BELIEVE YOU.

How many times have we heard that, and still stuff is put out broken and ridiculous? You don't have any credibility anymore. Not with me, at any rate. And if this thread is any indication, not with a whole lot of people.

Hey let's talk about the "alpha" enhancements getting partially installed on the live build, and your inability (or unwillingness) to do something about it. Why are spell crits still messed up? Why do clerics still have "obslete enhancement" or whatever the hell it's called?

I think that all these proposed changes to the TR system are lame. They are penalizing players who were told BY THE HEAD DEVELOPER that Epic Destiny XP would persist through TRs and decided to max it out once, so they never had to do it again. Hell there was a bug where ED XP was lost via TRs and you all initiated a fix for it. So then you shouldn't have fixed it because you are planning to remove that XP on TR.

You're not moving the goal line, you're changing the game. You're the kid who, when getting shot with a laser when playing with other kids, suddenly has a laser proof shield. You don't like the way people are playing "your" game, so you make it different in an effort to FORCE people to play how you want. Yeah. I get it. It's a game that you built and we play it but, because we DO play and are passionate about it, it's our game too.

I really feel like you took a look at how people play the game and decided that "That's not how people are allowed to play! Let's change everything so it matches exactly with my vision." There's a oft-repeated phrase out there "No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy." At this point, I feel like you're treating your playing and paying customers are "the enemy". Sure you might have a great grand plan in your mind about how the game is going to work and how people are going to play it but people, being people, find ways to do what they want to do within the framework of the system you laid out. Until you start introducing arbitrary changes to force them to conform to how you think they should play (dungeon alert, "alpha" cleric enhancements et al.) the game.

I will say that I'm glad there is more Turbine activity on the forum. I was starting to believe that everyone had left for all the other TB games, since there was a dearth of ANY Turbine activity on the forums. Be it from developers or our "community specialists". I put that in quotes because you have to interract with your community to become a specialist at it. Even the 3rd party places where I was very resistant to tread (twitter) has been quiet on the staff front.

Dang I wish I could fit this in my signature . . .

[Postumus]

And this is a very good point. There are a lot of players that actually enjoy the heroic levels more than the epic levels. They still play the epic levels though each time they cap...sometimes a long time...sometimes just long enough to get 20 tokens and TR again. This effectively kills the game for them, or at least the epic part of it. They're forced into the epic TR system when what they really want is to use the current heroic TR system. Just another example where coupling heroic TR'ing to ED xp is a failure as a concept.


What a load of hyperbolic nonsense. It doesn't 'kill the game' for them. I'm exactly one of those types of players who likes to earn a few EDs per life and it certainly wouldn't 'kill the game' for me in any way, I'd just plan things out differently.


When will posters realize that the threats, hyperbole, and melodrama only serve to drown out any worthwhile points they actually have? Do you think anyone is going to seriously entertain any constructive criticism offered when it's book-ended by 'this kills the game' and 'failure as a concept'? Ranting isn't feedback. Well it is feedback in a way... the same way Bill Bixby turning into a green Lou Ferigno is feedback. What are you supposed to do with that?

[mikarddo]

Hi. Thanks again for your feedback and opinions on the proposed design of the new Epic TR. Here are some of the things the team is currently thinking about.

We understand your concern about losing Epic Destiny XP upon reincarnation and not getting enough in return. So, we are investigating some different possibilities in regard to what a character gets after they reincarnate with Epic TR. We’d like to offer a system where the character gets credit for every XP they “burn” from an epic destiny. One scenario for this is that Epic Destiny XP will be converted to heroic XP (using a formula that adjusts for the different rates at which heroic and epic XP are gained). This converted XP would then be used to level up your reincarnated character. This could mean, for example, that a character with a large number of destinies maxed out could immediately level back up to level 20 even as a third life character. Again, this is just an example of one of the things we are considering, but it’s a definite possibility.

Also, to answer a couple of additional questions:

1. With the current design, after this system goes live, going through a Heroic TR will burn non-bonded epic destiny XP, but the character will be compensated for the burned XP. In other words, Heroic TR will work just like Epic TR except it will be available at level 20 instead of level cap and it will not grant Epic past life feats. Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play. You should use Heroic TR if you’d like to reincarnate at level 20 and want the benefits that Heroic TR gives (build points, past life feat). Otherwise, you should consider continuing up to level cap and reincarnating from there where you will get all the benefits of Heroic TR plus the additional benefit of Epic TR (epic past life feats).

2. Currently, store bought Fate Points will be preserved after reincarnation. This will not change. We are investigating ways to somehow preserve regular in-game earned Fate Points, but, behind the scenes, they are different than store bought ones, so it is not completely certain that we will be able to preserve them. If we cannot preserve them, we will look for ways to compensate a character for them.

Stay tuned for more info and explanations of this new system proposal early next week.

Dear Piloto

Thank you for taking the time to communicate with us - thats definitely appreciated.

I still think the proposed system is in error in mixing up heroic and epic TR but seeing I and others have already posted our reasons many times in this thread I shall refrain from doing so again.

Instead I will go into the idea you have presented and work with it rather than oppose it to try to migitate the damage.

1) Fate points absolutely need to carry over if you wipe ED xp. Thats crucial. Please dont try to blame technical difficulties either. Decide if you want that to happen or not by design and explain your decision. If you decide to keep fate points as you should then I am sure your talented coders will work that out.

2) You have yet to comment if unlocked spheres / destinies will remain unlocked after a TR. I sincerely hope so - including because people may have spent Keys to unlock some of those. Please think carefully on this one and then let us know what you have come up with.

3) I am happy to see that you acknowledge that "1 heroic rank per 1 epic ED rank applies from level 1" is far, far too little compensation. Now, 10 unbound destinies equal 50 ranks and you mention that should be enough to get to level 20 on a 3rd life. Lets add even a little more and say that each rank of ED xp lost should yield 100k xp. Now, dont apply that in one lump and definitely not at level 1. Instead give the player something with charges that each add 100k xp - one charge per ED rank. Make those charges useable one at a time at any time the player wants to - including during epic levels.

If you do these 3 things I think you might be unto something somewhat reasonable. Not as reasonable as leaving ED xp alone but if you absolutely feel the need to reset ED xp these 3 items should migitate the damage done by doing so in an acceptable manner.

I am looking forward to the info you present early next week - hoping obviously that you adress the 3 points I have presented here.

Sincerely
Jan Sorensen

[Postumus]

This thread has been read quite a bit by the dev team and other folks directly, and we'll be continuing this discussion throughout the coming days and weeks. Please remember to keep things civil and not insult each other or the Turbine development team.

Hopefully the dev team is able to read between the nerd-rage lines (or at least find the nerdrage amusing). There is some decent feedback buried in here, but some folks have a hard time expressing themselves. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pdWAcK6Eh8)

[Charononus]

What a load of hyperbolic nonsense. It doesn't 'kill the game' for them. I'm exactly one of those types of players who likes to earn a few EDs per life and it certainly wouldn't 'kill the game' for me in any way, I'd just plan things out differently.


When will posters realize that the threats, hyperbole, and melodrama only serve to drown out any worthwhile points they actually have? Do you think anyone is going to seriously entertain any constructive criticism offered when it's book-ended by 'this kills the game' and 'failure as a concept'? Ranting isn't feedback. Well it is feedback in a way... the same way Bill Bixby turning into a green Lou Ferigno is feedback. What are you supposed to do with that?

Killing the game is valid feedback, what you are seeing is people reacting to changes that make them want to quit the game in disgust. Please look up the changes with swg that happened. Turbine is making decisions so mind bogglingly similar that I just can't believe it. It's like they don't understand that history can repeat.

[Fnordian]

Thanks for replying! :)


Hi. Thanks again for your feedback and opinions on the proposed design of the new Epic TR. Here are some of the things the team is currently thinking about.

We understand your concern about losing Epic Destiny XP upon reincarnation and not getting enough in return. So, we are investigating some different possibilities in regard to what a character gets after they reincarnate with Epic TR. We’d like to offer a system where the character gets credit for every XP they “burn” from an epic destiny. One scenario for this is that Epic Destiny XP will be converted to heroic XP (using a formula that adjusts for the different rates at which heroic and epic XP are gained). This converted XP would then be used to level up your reincarnated character. This could mean, for example, that a character with a large number of destinies maxed out could immediately level back up to level 20 even as a third life character. Again, this is just an example of one of the things we are considering, but it’s a definite possibility.


Only problems are:

Most players who TR also enjoy replaying the Heroic content, so immediately leveling back to level 20 may actually be a disincentive to TR for many people.
Most players who play Epic content enjoy gaining Epic Destinies (and indeed this becomes the primary goal for many) but find that with the high Epic XP needed (and especially with somewhat limited epic content), it can become a major grind to gain them.
Playing Epic content, gaining some EDs and TRing, to be able to continue gaining more EDs (after once again reaching level 20) is what people enjoy. They don't enjoy the idea of starting EDs over again.
Resetting Epic Destiny XP upon TRing means players will avoid playing Epic content if they want to TR. And if they do play Epic content, they'll avoid TRing.
Players aren't looking for better compensation for losing Epic ED. Rather, they want to continue playing as they're playing now and not lose it upon TRing.





Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play.

No offense, but I think you have this backwards. The current system provides a reason for people to continue playing Epic content and TRing to play it again and again and again until they gain all the Epic Destinies they can.

Removing Epic XP after a TR provides an incentive to avoid epic level play because the progress they make is lost when they TR. And even the proposed Epic TR only keeps progress in one Destiny.




Also, to answer a couple of additional questions:

1. With the current design, after this system goes live, going through a Heroic TR will burn non-bonded epic destiny XP, but the character will be compensated for the burned XP. In other words, Heroic TR will work just like Epic TR except it will be available at level 20 instead of level cap and it will not grant Epic past life feats. Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play. You should use Heroic TR if you’d like to reincarnate at level 20 and want the benefits that Heroic TR gives (build points, past life feat). Otherwise, you should consider continuing up to level cap and reincarnating from there where you will get all the benefits of Heroic TR plus the additional benefit of Epic TR (epic past life feats).

2. Currently, store bought Fate Points will be preserved after reincarnation. This will not change. We are investigating ways to somehow preserve regular in-game earned Fate Points, but, behind the scenes, they are different than store bought ones, so it is not completely certain that we will be able to preserve them. If we cannot preserve them, we will look for ways to compensate a character for them.

Stay tuned for more info and explanations of this new system proposal early next week.


I would like to second the suggestions made by GermanicusMaximus:


If I were designing the changes

1) Heroic TR would stay exactly as it is today
2) Epic TR would return a character to level 20, resetting the currently active Epic Destiny XP in return for the past life bonus associated with it, and leave all other Epic Destiny XP unchanged.
3) Just drop the "Epic Advantage" XP kludge
4) Epic Destinies are already "bonded", as per the promise when MotU was released last year. Rules were set out for TRing, which as far as I am concerned apply to all types of TRs
5) Iconic TR? Sorry, don't have an opinion.

What Germanicus proposes seems sensible and would preserve the fun for players while still allowing the introduction of Epic Reincarnation and Epic Past Lives.

[Charononus]

Hopefully the dev team is able to read between the nerd-rage lines (or at least find the nerdrage amusing). There is some decent feedback buried in here, but some folks have a hard time expressing themselves. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pdWAcK6Eh8)

So instead of raging at the changes you rage at other players, yeah you're really productive.

[Postumus]

So. You like the thought that people who have spent at least 7 days to grind out those destines would lose the majority of those progress. Absolutely brilliant.


Am I supposed to feel sorry for people who ran rusted blades 10,000 times to max EDs? Barking. Tree. Up the wrong.

[GermanicusMaximus]

Scrap the whole project.

Do nothing.

That is much better than what is being proposed.

I think he was asking about the current topic, not the enhancement pass. :D

[Charononus]

Am I supposed to feel sorry for people who ran rusted blades 10,000 times to max EDs? Barking. Tree. Up the wrong.

So they don't play the way you like and must be punished, sounds like you are a lovely human being.

[rest]

Am I supposed to feel sorry for people who ran rusted blades 10,000 times to max EDs? Barking. Tree. Up the wrong.

What about people, like me, who didn't XP farm and just made sure to never run an epic quest more than twice before I capped so I wouldn't get penalties and got my ED XP through the quests I actually enjoy playing? Are they better or worse than someone who XP farmed?

[Postumus]

So instead of raging at the changes you rage at other players, yeah you're really productive.


Asking the devs to try to work past the useless noise to get the worthwhile information is counterproductive? Seriously? LOL.

[MartinusWyllt]

Thanks for replying! :)
...
No offense, but I think you have this backwards. The current system provides a reason for people to continue playing Epic content and TRing to play it again and again and again until they gain all the Epic Destinies they can.

Removing Epic XP after a TR provides an incentive to avoid epic level play because the progress they make is lost when they TR. And even the proposed Epic TR only keeps progress in one Destiny...

Agreed.

Though if Turbine insists on making this, losing all destiny xp on heroic TR, maybe they can consider decoupling classes and destiny spheres so that we can take whatever destiny we want? This way we could "lock" a preferred destiny to a particular toon and build from there over subsequent epic TRs regardless of what life we happen to be on at the time.

[Teh_Troll]

So they don't play the way you like and must be punished, sounds like you are a lovely human being.

Just put him on ignore and the forums make more sense.

[SirValentine]

We understand your concern about losing Epic Destiny XP upon reincarnation...


Based on your further comments, although clearly you understand THAT we have concern, I'm not sure that you UNDERSTAND our concern.

As I understand your proposal: Person "A" has one destiny at maximum. Person "B" has 11 destines at maximum. Both Epic TR. Both get exactly 1 Destiny Past Life. Person "A" "bonds" his single destiny, and loses nothing else. Person "B" somehow also loses all destiny XP from 10 destinies that are not really involved in the process. This is inherently unfair. And you're actively punishing people for having put time and effort into your game. The conern is NOT that we're not getting enough silly little bonus Heroic XP in return. I, for one, don't give a hoot about that.



With the current design, after this system goes live, going through a Heroic TR will burn non-bonded epic destiny XP
<snip>
Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play.


You have that completely backwards.

Right now, there is no problem with hitting 20 and playing Epic for a while, because none of that Epic Destiny XP is wasted. It's super-flexible with your TRing timetable. You can spread your Epic Destiny leveling out as you choose between TRs. It's actually quite elegant. (The only way it would be better is if raid counters were preserved across TRs, too, so you could accumulate toward your 20th completion between TRs.)

Your new system would take away all that flexibility, and cause what you say you're trying to prevent. ANY time spent after hitting level 20 is wasted, as all that Epic XP would go bye-bye. You're pretty much forced into immediate TR at 20, or else going all the way to 28. There's no flexibility or middle ground.

Wait...is that the plan? To try to kill off Heroic TR and have ONLY Epic TR, by putting in this huge disincentive for Heroic TR?



Currently, store bought Fate Points will be preserved after reincarnation. This will not change. We are investigating ways to somehow preserve regular in-game earned Fate Points, but, behind the scenes, they are different than store bought ones


Where exactly do Fate Points from Tomes of Fate that were not purchased from the store fit in?

[Postumus]

What about people, like me, who didn't XP farm and just made sure to never run an epic quest more than twice before I capped so I wouldn't get penalties and got my ED XP through the quests I actually enjoy playing?


You mean like I did? Simple, if this gets implemented as is, don't TR if you don't want to lose any EDs. I won't TR the guys with lots of ED, and I probably will TR the guys with few EDs. Hopefully they'll listen to feedback and not burn epic xps when we HTR. But they absolutely should burn epic xps when we ETR.



Are they better or worse than someone who XP farmed?

Why would you think one group of players is 'better' or 'worse'? I just don't feel sorry for players who CHOOSE to grind grind grind grind grind grind, then freak out when something changes that they didn't expect to change (which is extremely short-sighted in DDO) whether it is gear, spells, class, whatever.


It's also another reason not to play that way. Playing for 'power' is fraught with disappointment. Something always changes that makes your optimized build/gear less optimal eventually. Forum people know that, there is no reason to expect things not to change based on the history of this game. But then maybe some of these people thought 'the game is dead' so Turbine wouldn't ever upgrade it again? They gambled and lost. Re-roll.

[Dhalgren]

What about people, like me, who didn't XP farm and just made sure to never run an epic quest more than twice before I capped so I wouldn't get penalties and got my ED XP through the quests I actually enjoy playing? Are they better or worse than someone who XP farmed?

Or people like me, who have been doing a TR and then spending some time playing epics (not farming, just playing) to level an ED or two, then TRing again, and so on? I've made it from Magister to Shiradi and am working on GMoF and I'd be pretty burned if continuing to play the way we've been playing in my static group resulted in me suddenly losing all that accumulated ED progress.

I am pretty sure that doesn't make me crazy and I hope it doesn't make me a bad person.

[MackR]

Why not give TRs extra Feats?

The way it stands now, you just get your passive feats for free, but your active ones have to be taken out of your (already sparse) feat total. If you TR several times, I personally think you should have extra slots for all those active feats or regular ones if you need them. This would not be unreasonable to me.

Take, for instance, someone who plays casters (like me :-) )... If you TRed as a Sorc and as a Wizard, you get the passive feats, which help a bit, but if you wanted the Elemental Ray or the SLA Magic Missile, you have to sacrifice one of your regular feats, which is really a bit difficult to spare, especially if your current life is, say, a Sorc which just doesn't get that many feats to begin with.

If you gave a bonus feat for every past life the character had in a different class, they could take the active feats or even the meta-magics or class feats they need and it really wouldn't affect game balance, as these things are dependent upon your caster level. It would just save you some Spell Points. If you used them for other (regular) feats, it would make your TRs progressively tougher and more in line with a character that had lived multiple times- i.e. every time you TRed as a different class, you had memories of how to do things that each class taught, instead of giving up a standard feat for an active PL feat, which really only helps at low to mid-level anyway.

As far as Epic TR goes, why not allow the Twists of Fate to carry over to the new life at heroic level as well? Unless this conflicts with the "bonding" thing you are working on, this would add a bit of variety to builds and even make multi-class builds a bit more like the pen-and-paper game and wouldn't affect game balance a lot, as many of those abilities are level restricted. You could even put a level restriction on how often you get those. (first at third level, second at 7th, third at 11th, or even make them dependent upon which tier Twist they are).

I really think TRs should be tougher than they are, especially considering how much work it takes to reach 20 and then start all over.

TY for reading this! I hope it is coherent enough to make sense! :-D

[EllisDee37]

You mean like I did? Simple, if this gets implemented as is, don't TR if you don't want to lose any EDs. I won't TR the guys with lots of EDYes, exactly. You've isolated the problem precisely.

[Postumus]

So they don't play the way you like and must be punished, sounds like you are a lovely human being.

You don't like that I disagree with you so you imply I am NOT a lovely human being? Interesting choice.


Phrase of the day: Pyschological Projection. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection)

[Raithe]

...they don't really understand why we are all in agreement that this is a bad idea.


I will agree that pretty much their entire development plan they proposed in this discussion thread is a bad idea. I am in no way in agreement with you, however, as my reasons for thinking it a bad idea are way different than yours.

You are merely concerned with absolute character power, as is typical for people who play DDO. Relative power (the thing that actually controls how gameplay works) will change only mildly, as game-wide changes have this "side-effect" of affecting everyone equally. So while most everyone here is having epileptic attacks that their intense character grind was marginalized, I'm yawning and simply wondering why they would do that - how does it change gameplay?

Well, lets start with the semi-good parts:
1) Giving you credit for your destiny levels pushes your TR past new player levels, allowing new players to start "fresh"
2) You don't feel entirely cheated out of past XP earned
3) It gives past grinders a new set of goals to grind (grinders usually like grind as long as it doesn't counteract prior grind)

Now lets start on the long list of bad things (many of which are chiefly why I would call the whole thing a mess)
1) Larger gaps between high-grind and low-grind characters. Forcing grind to be "relevant" in typical groups is going to cut your potential client base down significantly.
2) As others have objected, it allocates a smaller set of quests to grinding activities (I don't have much of a problem with this)
3) Loss/trivialization of character class identity (by promoting TRs) - players tend to be better at some classes than others, so pushing people to play almost every class to achieve power in one leads to a lot of "Gandalf sucks as a barbarian" scenarios
4) Increases power creep when actual gameplay had already been marginalized to Hades and back
5) Gives long term grinders more grind (see #3 in semi-good section) so they might stick around longer (thereby repelling new grinders, let alone non-grinders)
6) Increases game complexity when new players are already swamped with info
7) It will most likely increase the occurrence of bugs and exploits

I would probably add that it shows a pretty much "clueless" level of understanding towards their game and existing player base, as well, but that is a symptom to apply to the givers of the message, not the message itself.

[maddmatt70]

Am I supposed to feel sorry for people who ran rusted blades 10,000 times to max EDs? Barking. Tree. Up the wrong.

I have guildies that ground the rusted blades or something similiar to death and others that refused to and did not farm anything, but still worked extremely hard to get destiny xp. Both groups suffer because so much time that they spent is for naught.

Yeah there is the same 10-15 posters posting too much with nothing new to add which frequently happens on the forums regardless of that this is one of worst decisions that I have seen made by the marketing/developers in DDO and this can not be overstated. The posters are correctly highly skeptical that Turbine will change their plan because quite frankly after years and years they very rarely do change plans despite feedback from the playerbase.

I do not know if there is a real feasible alternative. Perhaps something as simple as you keep all of your destiny xp, fate points, etc., but do not get the epic past lives unless you tr and re-grind the destiny xp for that particular destiny and you can just select one destiny epic past live per life - throughout all of this you still keep all your fate points and epic destiny xp.

[Postumus]

Yes, exactly. You've isolated the problem precisely.

Beats the alternative of threatening to quit, or actually quitting. I don't make the rules. I don't like all the rules. I just play the game. Move the goal posts, I'll keep playing. Change the scoring system, I'll keep playing. Change the rules, I'll keep playing.


I could sit in a pool of my own tears, or publicly shake my fist in anger at the gods, or take it out on everyone who doesn't think like me, or I can adapt and overcome and keep having fun. Isn't that what games are for? To have fun?

We could try to sensibly, calmly get our points across without attacking other people for disagreeing with us or for having a different perspective, but lets just keep screaming about the enhancements, and the proposed TR changes, and bugs, and whatever whine-de-jour, and keep declaring DDO dead/dying/dust, and keep threatening to quit the game you supposedly quit months ago... that method really seems to be working.

[PsychoBlonde]

Or people like me, who have been doing a TR and then spending some time playing epics (not farming, just playing) to level an ED or two, then TRing again, and so on? I've made it from Magister to Shiradi and am working on GMoF and I'd be pretty burned if continuing to play the way we've been playing in my static group resulted in me suddenly losing all that accumulated ED progress.

I am pretty sure that doesn't make me crazy and I hope it doesn't make me a bad person.

I still don't grasp exactly how this proposed system of theirs is going to work, but yeah, I will NOT be pleased if taking my completionist with all destinies complete to 38-point build means I have to re-grind ALL of my destinies. Technically, I ought to get retroactive 38-point build on that character because I have made a practice of leveling her to 25 to fill out her destinies as I got past lives.

I don't understand what it means that your ED levels will convert to "Heroic Ranks". Does that mean that if I have 50 ED levels outside my "bonded" ED, when I TR that character I will start at rank 50, i.e. level 11? I can't make any coherent criticism of this crazed system because I don't comprehend what the heck is meant by most of this jargon.

[Systern]

This thread has been read quite a bit by the dev team and other folks directly, and we'll be continuing this discussion throughout the coming days and weeks. Please remember to keep things civil and not insult each other or the Turbine development team.

I wasn't! I was insulting Turbine management!

:D


(p.s. Jerry, please read your PMs... or at least the one I sent ;))

[EllisDee37]

and keep threatening to quit the game you supposedly quit months ago...I'm sorry, what?

[Xionanx]

Wrong. Please, remember that this is more of a brainstorming session than it is a set in stone announcement about what's coming.

Additionally, while we appreciate people's passionate opinions about this issue, the amount of rage in this thread needs to be lowered. Nothing is set in stone. Repeat:

NOTHING IS SET IN STONE.

I have frequently read on the forums that folks would like to see more back and forth with the developers in regards to hot issues undergoing development work. This is your chance to do so in a way that doesn't amount to screaming in someone's face. Keep in mind that there's a lot of discussion taking place based on your feedback, but a lot of that discussion will not be made public until it's in a state to put out there as a possibility or an idea being put forward for feedback.

Just speaking from a place of experience with Turbine, but its always been: Here are some proposed changes and we dont care what you think your getting them no matter how they screw you.

Players WARNED YOU about TR XP CURVES hurting the game in the long run YEARS AGO. We WARNED YOU about power creep, we WARNED YOU about CANNITH CRAFTING XP vs REWARD issues, so on and so forth.

The fact that Turbine continues to ignore the games who play the game, SOME OF WHICH HAVE MORE YEARS EXPERIENCE PLAYING GAMES THEN I'M SURE SOME OF THE EMPLOYEES AT TURBINE HAVE DEVELOPING THEM. Seriously, I have been playing Console/PC/tabletop games since 1983, I think I KNOW A THING OR TWO ABOUT A FAIR AND BALANCED SYSTEM; and I'm sure there are plenty of other players here in the same boat.

Yeah, we may not get "paid" for our opinions, but you'd be hard pressed to find a better group of people to ask about design changes and frankly it amazes me that month after month, year after year, GOOD SOLUTIONS ARE IGNORED OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

So.. you'll excuse me if I take what was presented about the coming update 20 as a "just throwing this out for feedback" and more of a "this is what we are going to do so deal with it".. ,kind of post.

[Qhualor]

This thread has been read quite a bit by the dev team and other folks directly, and we'll be continuing this discussion throughout the coming days and weeks. Please remember to keep things civil and not insult each other or the Turbine development team.

I don't have a problem with losing destiny xp. I have a problem with re-leveling through those destinies, especially the ones that have no use for my character, to re-earn fate points and twist what I want again. it really doesn't take that long to level through a destiny, especially if you do the xp/min way which probably takes the average person a few hours and going by my personal experience with it. for me personally and I will dare assume for some players as well, that when I level through these destinies my character feels under powered and I don't think she would be much use in a group running anything other than heroic and EH/EN content. its almost like there should be a quest designed specifically for those ED farming. it takes a long long time to earn the fate points you want and it would be pointless for people to do that if they plan on TRing that character. even if I wasn't going to TR my character for another 6 months, I wouldn't go through the painful process for fate points when I would have to do again anyways. its long, its tedious and its boring.

I believe epic advantage should be scrapped. epic xp should be for epics, not heroics. to some, its a good thing as they can skip low levels that they have run many, many times and they only care about the past lives. I just don't understand how bonding a destiny and using the levels to go towards heroic xp has anything to do with D&D. I see it as potential Turbine profit and another way to make some players a little happier with what appears to be less grind, but that's it.

I also fear how this could affect the lower level population and activity. skipping those low levels when a lot of people TR for different reasons, means less vet experienced players in groups with new players. maybe this means less griefing on both ends and BB wouldn't be set so much as the standard so new players can learn the game at an easier difficulty. maybe it means more frustrated players unable to figure out the game and even more poor builds making their way into the mid levels that are less likely to re-roll or take helpful advice because they made it that far doing "just fine". im rooting for the positive side but I do have my doubts.

im glad that past lives are getting attention and I hope some needed changes to the heroic versions will be done. some, I believe, are in need of tweaking. my 2 cents on that is I think epic past lives should be an extension to the heroic versions that are universal for the class. I believe they should be a nice little bonus like the heroic ones, but it should be worth TRing for them and not just for the extra 2 points.

if im going to epic TR, than that's fine if I lose all my levels in destinies like I would in heroic. but there needs to be a way to keep our twists and points. if there can be a compromise on that, there would be a lot less upset players and doom level will decrease significantly. this is the most talked about thing in the game right now and many players are worried about what could happen. what decisions are made about TRing and epic xp could potentially change the direction of DDO and I actually fear the worst. my tinfoil hat makes me wise :)

[Tscheuss]

In my experience, most people with this attitude aren't very good players and tend to look for excuses to avoid situations where this will become apparent to others. I've seen it time and time again on these forums, often from some of the most vocal and trollish posters, who often chime in with their opinions regarding parts of the game even they themsleves admit they prefer to avoid. TR'ing is just a safer, less challenging form of grind, that allows people to stay in their comfort zones.

Ad hominem much?

[PermaBanned]

Wrong. Please, remember that this is more of a brainstorming session than it is a set in stone announcement about what's coming.

Additionally, while we appreciate people's passionate opinions about this issue, the amount of rage in this thread needs to be lowered. Nothing is set in stone. Repeat:

NOTHING IS SET IN STONE.

I have frequently read on the forums that folks would like to see more back and forth with the developers in regards to hot issues undergoing development work. This is your chance to do so in a way that doesn't amount to screaming in someone's face. Keep in mind that there's a lot of discussion taking place based on your feedback, but a lot of that discussion will not be made public until it's in a state to put out there as a possibility or an idea being put forward for feedback.

While I'm sure we're all very glad to hear that "nothing's set in stone," I do hope you'll ("you" being generic to Turbine in general) understand if we have our doubts. While Turbine has at times dropped or altered it's plans in response to player out-cry, it has certainly seemed to be on a "few and far between" basis.

Many of us are eagerly awaiting the next preview version of the enhancement pass as a sort of test of your willingness to respond to our feedback and concerns.

While toning down the rage to engage in clear headed reasonable discussion is of course a better way to conduct ourselves, the shear amount of rage it's self should be a communication of the populations general opinion on the issue at hand. Perhaps start a "Let's Talk: TR/ETR" thread to host a fresh, more civil discussion? Perhaps as a thread starter include a synopsis of the proposed changes and our concerns & suggestions thus far; minus the 42 pages of rage.

Please also be sure to pass on those discussing this issue the other threads that have been running in the general forum. There are some very quality ideas there as well.

[Cryohazard]

Yeah, we may not get "paid" for our opinions, but you'd be hard pressed to find a better group of people to ask about design changes and frankly it amazes me that month after month, year after year, GOOD SOLUTIONS ARE IGNORED OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

This. My biggest pet peeve in recent years.

What was that long forgotten Turbine mantra? Oh man, its been a while...but I think it went...yeah, think it went something like this:

"Turbine: Powered by our Fans"

Devs, (or managers, admin, WB beancounters, whoever) you guys used to be capable of regularly putting out a good product that pleased the player base. I'm restating the obvious here, but coding up stuff that players have clearly stated that they DO NOT want does not make your fans very happy. This is the core reason why you have been losing subscribers and the game feels like its on life-support.

I don't know where this miscommunication originated from, nor am I going to speculate, but it has GOT to stop.Despite what you've been saying recently, it truly does feel like you guys have a completely different gameplan for the game than what the players have been wanting. When is it going to stop? How much power do you have to lose from your fans before you "get" it?

Nowadays, it seems like you've changed your mantra and haven't told us:

"Turbine: When our <beep> hits our fans"

[jeralla]

I don't often post on the forums but I want to add my voice to the outrage. I have a level 25 toon that's been sitting at 25 waiting for the new levels. I purchased MOTU and am very happy I did. I've postponed buying Shadowfell as I wasn't convinced pre-purchase was a good idea. The proposed TR changes have made me even less inclined to buy it.

There is now zero incentive to log on to my level 25 toon. I have 3 maxed destinies plus all the in-between destinies I needed to move between them. In the months before this update is live what do I do with this toon? There is now no point in leveling the destinies if it will all be wiped out on TR'ing. I was moving between destinies to have as many maxed as possible for future lives.
That's pointless right now.

If I don't buy Shadowfell then I have only the choice of heroic TR'ing and losing ALL my ED XP.

What really makes me angry, as others have pointed out, is the way we were told that ED's would persist through TR'ing so we planned out toons lives accordingly. You take our money Turbine then change the rules on us.
Unacceptable!

Let us keep the ED's we have already earned and give us some incentive to play in the coming months.

[Ravand]

...because they were not part of the "official" thread, I will cut and paste from a topic I started in the general discussion regarding real life money being spent on leveling epic destinies. The replies to this topic brought up other good points as well.


I did not see keys of destiny addressed in the dev tracker, only purchased fate points.

Does anyone know what the impact of the proposed TR system will have on keys of destiny? I am a casual player who purchased a couple of keys to avoid the grind. I justified this because they were on sale, I believed it was a one time purchase, and I could go back in "fill in" the destinies later if I got bored or needed the fate points. It only had to be done once per character, right?

The description of the proposed Epic TRing does not address what happens to the keys. As someone who has a heck of a lot less to lose than others if the system is implemented as proposed, I will be ticked if my money is flushed down the toilet when I TR.

If I missed it, I would appreciate being pointed in the right direction. If not, I would appreciate the devs addressing this at some point.

[Atremus]

OK, another idea:

Those with extra Epic Destiny XP get to put it into a Epic Experience Bank at the first Epic TR (and only the first Epic TR.) It can only be used on Epic XP (and thus ED's) after a TR and it must persist through a few TR cycles. Assuming we will need about 5M XP to cap Level 28 [from Level 20] once they adjust the XP scales, we could use that Epic XP bank to bang out L20-28 3 or 4 times rapidly and keep TRing. This would give the players a decent return on their TIME, and give the Devs a mechanism to implement the loss of EDXP on TR.


That would work out to a 3:1 or 4:1 rate in DDO's favor, but still grants us 6 PL's (3 Heroic / 3 Epic) in the process at the 3:1 rate.

[Cetus]

I don't believe you. Repeat:

I DON'T BELIEVE YOU.

How many times have we heard that, and still stuff is put out broken and ridiculous? You don't have any credibility anymore. Not with me, at any rate. And if this thread is any indication, not with a whole lot of people.

Hey let's talk about the "alpha" enhancements getting partially installed on the live build, and your inability (or unwillingness) to do something about it. Why are spell crits still messed up? Why do clerics still have "obslete enhancement" or whatever the hell it's called?

I think that all these proposed changes to the TR system are lame. They are penalizing players who were told BY THE HEAD DEVELOPER that Epic Destiny XP would persist through TRs and decided to max it out once, so they never had to do it again. Hell there was a bug where ED XP was lost via TRs and you all initiated a fix for it. So then you shouldn't have fixed it because you are planning to remove that XP on TR.

You're not moving the goal line, you're changing the game. You're the kid who, when getting shot with a laser when playing with other kids, suddenly has a laser proof shield. You don't like the way people are playing "your" game, so you make it different in an effort to FORCE people to play how you want. Yeah. I get it. It's a game that you built and we play it but, because we DO play and are passionate about it, it's our game too.

I really feel like you took a look at how people play the game and decided that "That's not how people are allowed to play! Let's change everything so it matches exactly with my vision." There's a oft-repeated phrase out there "No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy." At this point, I feel like you're treating your playing and paying customers are "the enemy". Sure you might have a great grand plan in your mind about how the game is going to work and how people are going to play it but people, being people, find ways to do what they want to do within the framework of the system you laid out. Until you start introducing arbitrary changes to force them to conform to how you think they should play (dungeon alert, "alpha" cleric enhancements et al.) the game.

I will say that I'm glad there is more Turbine activity on the forum. I was starting to believe that everyone had left for all the other TB games, since there was a dearth of ANY Turbine activity on the forums. Be it from developers or our "community specialists". I put that in quotes because you have to interract with your community to become a specialist at it. Even the 3rd party places where I was very resistant to tread (twitter) has been quiet on the staff front.

I love you

[Silverleafeon]

This thread has been read quite a bit by the dev team and other folks directly, and we'll be continuing this discussion throughout the coming days and weeks. Please remember to keep things civil and not insult each other or the Turbine development team.

Thanks for the opportunity to let us input things early.
Thanks DDO staffers for reading this thread.

Hello DDO staffers,

The current epic destinies when used have a lot of abilities not
taken due to lack to points to spend on them.

I would seem to work out fine, if you simply add a dozenish
more points to spend, raising the epic destiny level at the same
time.

One probably would have to work out Ininates from level 6 thru 8,
but other than that, just more points to spend would be enough.

If you introduced this about the time you introduce Epic TRing,
then suddenly nobody has a completely capped Epic Destiny anymore.

Cheers and good luck,
FAwngate of Khyber


And with this, I have other things to do as I feel I have said all can think upon the subject...

[Deadlock]

Scrap the whole project.

Do nothing.

That is much better than what is being proposed.

There's nothing wrong with the concept of Epic TRing and being able to TR into Iconic.

When I first read it, my initial reactions were: Excellent, another 12 Iconic Past Life Feats, 11 ED Past Lifes and Epic Completionist to aim for.

It's then when you start to pick apart the detail and realise that they said that you lose your ED XP on "all" TRing that major alarm bells started ringing. It wasn't until I thought about it further that I realised why the automatic alarm bells were ringing.

This won't affect my main in any way. I'll Epic TR into Iconics, cap them and repeat until I have all Iconic Past Lifes and ED's available. This will affect my alts, my guildies and everyone else who might want to get some Heroic Past Lives under their belt.

The frustrating thing is that all they have to do is confirm clearly and concisely that on reflection Heroic TRing will remain exactly as it is and will not affect ED XP, only Epic TRing will affect this, and they solve lot of the problems I see with this. Maybe they need more time next week to have these meetings and come back to us once they realise why it is such a bad idea, and understand that we can see that even if they can't.

They're so close to having this workable and attractive to practically everybody (you'll never actually please everybody). If they were miles away it would be less frustrating, but they are so damned close to having this as something excellent.

[moops]

This is not Cordovan's fault guys. He's not a developer, not a decision maker. At ALL. All he can do is relay a message given to him by the decision makers (manager types above the developers). WB and Turbine suits.

They are killing this game from the inside out. We are not participating in a discussion, we are just listening to ourselves type.



I've decided that it is actually their plan to sytematically get rid of either a certain player base or just run the game into the ground. I actually imagine them laughing at this.

How to kill a game?

1-Make Divines pretty awful in new enhancement pass so no one really wants to play them--this doesn't effect power gamers as they will just TR into something else, but new people and casuals tend to think that they need divines in a group, and the lack of them makes more people not log in as often.

2-Hmm not enough people stopped playing over the enhancment alpha, lets mess up Spellpower AND the Forums at the same time so people can't even log in to complain, hahaha.

3-Oh you know what will really get a lot of people to quit? lets change the name of our update, to an expansion, and not even put a RAID in it, and charge too much for it.

4-Ok Ok guys, still some die hard DDO lovers out there...I know what will get them to abandon the game, Lets erase their EDs if they TR--heck, even the store bought stuff too!! OMG hahaha, there will be so much rage over this...who would stick around?


And in affect, they have eliminated Endgame....Oh I tried to play without half the enhancements on my Cleric, not fun, and the amount of End Game players dwindeled by the day...my user chats nearly empty. This here, made a ghost town.

[Deadlock]

Can you give one example where the Devs have changed their course of action after they have stated more than once that they are moving in a certain direction? I cannot not. Not once.

Madstone boots nerf
Losing ED XP when you TR in it's earliest form
Tomes persisting through TRing


That's 3 off the top of my head. We're into the weekend now and maybe those guys need some chillout time to reflect on the week that's been, catch up with the posts on this and other threads now they've been unchained from their cubicles. Hopefully they'll have the discussions next week and review this thing with fresh eyes and come back to us with some good news.

[AlmGhandi]

Wrong. Please, remember that this is more of a brainstorming session than it is a set in stone announcement about what's coming.

[U][B]NOTHING IS SET IN STONE.



Targetting update 20? Enhancement pass coming with the xpac? How much time do we have before it is set in stone?

[Deadlock]

This thread has been read quite a bit by the dev team and other folks directly, and we'll be continuing this discussion throughout the coming days and weeks. Please remember to keep things civil and not insult each other or the Turbine development team.

Have a good weekend man. See you next week for more of the same :) Hopefully you'll have some good news for us.

[lostgunman]

Alright, so, to sum up:

*EDs will have their own PL feats.
*Epic TRs grant the ED-PL for the Bonded ED and erase ED XP for non-bonded EDs.
*Epic TRs will allow up to 38-pt builds.
*Regular TRs will function as normal...EXCEPT...
*ALL TRs will offer "Epic Advantage," one heroic rank per ED level gained.
*LRs will now create 32-pt builds
*Iconics get their own PL feats.
*You can TR into an Iconic (Nae's third life will be a Shadar-Kai, thank you).
*GRs are being eliminated.
*XP per TR might be reworked (please and thank you).

Sounds reasonable.

Honestly, good set of ideas...I like it.

[Darkrok]

To the people saying that a lot of the posts in here are hyperbole:

If I say that a change would kill the game that could be hyperbole. If I think the change is bad and say it would kill the game then you're right, that is hyperbole. If I think the change will quite literally kill the game and I say it will kill that game, that's honest feedback. Some of my comments have been of the actionable feedback variety. Some have been simply non-actionable feedback. None has, in my opinion, been hyperbole. I would 100% be done spending money with Turbine if this goes live as suggested. I would definitely encourage people in game to do the same as well as to not get too tied to any progress on their toons because tomorrow it could be some other part of our character's progression getting removed. And I would definitely give my strong opinion about Turbine to anyone that asked for it. That's not hyperbole. That's the feedback from a disappointed customer.

While this particular post doesn't have any alternatives presented, I and others have given plenty. The posts in between? That's people making it clear what the consequences would be if those alternatives are ignored.

I said that on day 1 I was in shock. Day 2 I was angry. Now, 3 days out, I'm motivated. I view this as a big business (and make no mistake, Turbine is a big business in that they answer to Warner Bros.) abusing its customers and figuring they have no recourse. I wouldn't stand for that regardless of what business it was pulling it and when I'm one of those customers I'm definitely going to make a stink about it. If I don't it's tantamount to giving tacit approval of their abuses.

And before someone whips out some real hyperbole about 'PRISM' or 'famine in Africa' - yes, there are bigger issues. And I spend far more time on those bigger issues than I do on this one. But this is the one to which this forum is dedicated so all of my time here is spent on this issue. My priorities are just fine...no need to come in with the sermon. ;)

So for the tl;dr:
1) Saying a change would kill the game for certain groups of gamers isn't hyperbole if you believe it to be true.
2) Games have died and often it has been because of bad decisions by the developers.
3) It is reasonable then to make a statement that you feel a proposed change could kill a game.

[emtp]

Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play.

You do relize that ed were promised and sold as staying though TR. so the weird thing is that you think it is okay to go back on your word as a company. Really this will be of limted effect on me as a player. I have never tr and only have one or 2 ed maxed on any toon. but when I got the ed I was told there were persistent. To me this means that I should have to worry about you guys changing your minds. Now I know I should be used to this, only one raid in motu, this xpac thing were supposed to be bta were in fact btc and you as a company had the gall to say that was the way it should be. I have had a few customer support issues and some were good some not so good and some out right bad. BUT the 2nd MOTU raid okay wasn't good so you scraped it, but were is it now could it not be fixed. Why make thing btc when sold as bta. Honesty is more important then some rule you think should be. If the player base cant trust you then they wont trust you with their money. IT is a simple as that. This is the seond time after an xpac has been sold you tell us thing that make the player base angery. With MOTU we moved on this I don't think will be forgiven as easly.

[MartinusWyllt]

...If I think the change is bad and say it would kill the game then you're right, that is hyperbole.


If I think the change will quite literally kill the game and I say it will kill that game, that's honest feedback.....

You actually think there is a difference between these two sentences?

You don't have the data to know anything will "literally kill the game"....so, yes, hyperbolic and your honest feedback *simultaneously*.

[CEastwood]

Can only say that on reading through the threads I consider this a poorly received proposal. Be brave and review this - people have invested too much time in optimising their EDs

[GermanicusMaximus]

What about people, like me, who didn't XP farm and just made sure to never run an epic quest more than twice before I capped so I wouldn't get penalties and got my ED XP through the quests I actually enjoy playing? Are they better or worse than someone who XP farmed?

I appears that you have accomplished more in game than he has, so it seems quite obvious that you are evil. :D

[GermanicusMaximus]

Just put him on ignore and the forums make more sense.

Yes, but the down side is that an enormous amount of entertainment value would be lost. :D

[rosedarkthorn]

If I understand correctly the reason they're doing level 1 is that they're granting you both the Epic and Heroic TR. Now, one could argue those shouldn't be coupled and I wouldn't necessarily disagree but just wanted to point out what I perceive their reasoning to be in this case.

If that was the case, I could live with that too. I just perceive and epic TR to be directly to do with epic xp.

[debo]

Something I haven't read. Are epic destiny past lifes going to be max stacking x3 like heroic past lifes passives?

It seems to me the best way if not would be to take 1 life each time to cap with atleast 1 maxed destiny to "bond" it.

[Sebastrd]

Hi. Thanks again for your feedback and opinions on the proposed design of the new Epic TR. Here are some of the things the team is currently thinking about.

We understand your concern about losing Epic Destiny XP upon reincarnation and not getting enough in return. So, we are investigating some different possibilities in regard to what a character gets after they reincarnate with Epic TR. We’d like to offer a system where the character gets credit for every XP they “burn” from an epic destiny. One scenario for this is that Epic Destiny XP will be converted to heroic XP (using a formula that adjusts for the different rates at which heroic and epic XP are gained). This converted XP would then be used to level up your reincarnated character. This could mean, for example, that a character with a large number of destinies maxed out could immediately level back up to level 20 even as a third life character. Again, this is just an example of one of the things we are considering, but it’s a definite possibility.

Unfortunately, that is still just unacceptable. I TR because I like levelling to 20. What I don't want to do is is re-grind epic destiny XP.

What if, instead of epic true reincarnating everything, we can TR one ED at a time - basically the opposite of the "bonding" system in the works. I'd like to see three TR options in the future.



Heroic True Reincarnation (requires True Druidic Heart of Wood): the current heroic TR remaining completely unchanged. Character starts over at level one, gains a past-life feat, epic destinies are unaffected.
Epic Destiny True Reincarnation (requires a True Druidic Heart of Destiny): A 28th level character with a bonded destiny starts over from level 20 with the bonded destiny "absorbed" as a destiny past-life feat and that destiny reset to zero. All other destinies remain unchanged.
Legend of the Undying (requires a True Druidic Heart of the Undying): A 28th level character with a bonded destiny starts over at level one and gains a past-life feat. At level 20 their bonded destiny past-life feat kicks in and that destiny is reset to zero. All other destinies remain unchanged.

[Raithe]

There's nothing wrong with the concept of Epic TRing and being able to TR into Iconic.


Yes, there is *something* wrong with it.

In standard RPG conceptualization, character development is given in stages called "levels" because they want characters (and NPCs) of a similar level to be able to play together and against each other in a meaningful manner. Past lives circumvent this system. If you have had 28 prior lives, when you are level "11" you are REALLY level 20, and when you are level 20, with full EDs and everything else, you are REALLY level 40 on a relative scale.

Admittedly, they have also made a system where running an elite level "11" quest is REALLY level 16, and so forth, but I don't think it takes much logic at all to rip that system to shreds. Typically, the argument that occurs in an MMO is about lateral (diversity of mechanics) character development versus vertical gear/power treadmills. It's very seldom a debate about being able to circumvent gameplay entirely through poorly conceived mechanics like past lives. DDO is a very "special" place.

[Ryiah]

Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play.

I believe it is likely you do not play your own game or perhaps are simply ignorant of how most non-Turbine people play it. If you did you would understand how incorrect this statement is. I have been running multiple characters through multiple TRs. Prior to this announcement I would spend a few days in the Epic level range running end game content. Flagging for raids and running them every life helps to ease the monotony of TRing. These changes though threaten to penalize anyone who has been doing this by telling them their time spent earning XP was a complete waste.

As it stands, if these changes go through, I will stop running Epic content until I have finished TRing each character.

[merentha]

Hi. Thanks again for your feedback and opinions on the proposed design of the new Epic TR. Here are some of the things the team is currently thinking about.

We understand your concern about losing Epic Destiny XP upon reincarnation and not getting enough in return. So, we are investigating some different possibilities in regard to what a character gets after they reincarnate with Epic TR. We’d like to offer a system where the character gets credit for every XP they “burn” from an epic destiny. One scenario for this is that Epic Destiny XP will be converted to heroic XP (using a formula that adjusts for the different rates at which heroic and epic XP are gained). This converted XP would then be used to level up your reincarnated character. This could mean, for example, that a character with a large number of destinies maxed out could immediately level back up to level 20 even as a third life character. Again, this is just an example of one of the things we are considering, but it’s a definite possibility.

Also, to answer a couple of additional questions:

1. With the current design, after this system goes live, going through a Heroic TR will burn non-bonded epic destiny XP, but the character will be compensated for the burned XP. In other words, Heroic TR will work just like Epic TR except it will be available at level 20 instead of level cap and it will not grant Epic past life feats. Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play. You should use Heroic TR if you’d like to reincarnate at level 20 and want the benefits that Heroic TR gives (build points, past life feat). Otherwise, you should consider continuing up to level cap and reincarnating from there where you will get all the benefits of Heroic TR plus the additional benefit of Epic TR (epic past life feats).

2. Currently, store bought Fate Points will be preserved after reincarnation. This will not change. We are investigating ways to somehow preserve regular in-game earned Fate Points, but, behind the scenes, they are different than store bought ones, so it is not completely certain that we will be able to preserve them. If we cannot preserve them, we will look for ways to compensate a character for them.

Stay tuned for more info and explanations of this new system proposal early next week.

The bold portion is what I'm responding to at this point. This idea isn't too horrible for someone wanting to farm a past life towards completionist but they don't look forward to playing the class (due to style preference, gear, etc). You could stay at cap and farm the XP to shoot to 20 in advance via destinies in a class you like, then TR hit 20 and at that point Heroic TR (you'd not lose ED xp at this point since you didn't farm it). This would be one way to burn a Bard (or caster life) for a melee player working towards completionist.

I certainly hope this spends a couple months on Lamannia and we can use the Dojo to experiment with the Epic and Heroic TR with the 'burned' destiny xp towards heroic xp on next life idea (assuming I am understanding any of this).

[HAL]

Okay, so here's my perspective at least: If you can make sure that we keep already-earned Fate Points (maybe grant us a special Tome of Fate +however many fate points we've earned so far that's automatically deposited in our inventory after TR), then my main issue with wiping the ED XP is solved. Actually, scratch that - it won't just be solved, I'll be thrilled. A way to earn more Fate Points? YES! Please! Those are the primary reason by far that I ground out all those EDs, let me keep them (and let me earn even more), and I'll be there with bells on.

Perhaps you aren't concerned that when you TR you will no longer have access to those other EDs that you earned, but I will. No, this will not do it for me. I want to keep what I already earned and was told would not go away.

[magn0liafan]

This being what you were referencing...

We’d like to offer a system where the character gets credit for every XP they “burn” from an epic destiny. One scenario for this is that Epic Destiny XP will be converted to heroic XP (using a formula that adjusts for the different rates at which heroic and epic XP are gained). This converted XP would then be used to level up your reincarnated character. This could mean, for example, that a character with a large number of destinies maxed out could immediately level back up to level 20 even as a third life character.
with this statement....

The bold portion is what I'm responding to at this point. This idea isn't too horrible for someone wanting to farm a past life towards completionist but they don't look forward to playing the class (due to style preference, gear, etc). You could stay at cap and farm the XP to shoot to 20 in advance via destinies in a class you like, then TR hit 20 and at that point Heroic TR (you'd not lose ED xp at this point since you didn't farm it). This would be one way to burn a Bard (or caster life) for a melee player working towards completionist.
solicits my response:

Here's the thing, though. There are people who are still working on Completionist that have farmed out all of the Epic Destines for Fate Points. The so called "advantage" isn't really that much of an advantage, as they'd have to regrind those Epic Destines once again. I've done number crunching previously in this thread, using what seems to be the most common "grinding" place for Epic Destines: The House of Rusted Blades. Some people who are soloing this take up to 7 minutes to complete. It Provides (on Elite) 14,327 XP. To Grind using those figures for XP and time, as well as the requirement of 21.78 MILLION XP needed for all 11 of the Epic Destinies, it works out to roughly 7 days, 9 hours, and 22 minutes of gameplay.

You're telling me that there's nothing wrong with people losing that?

[Citzen_Gkar]

You will not get an answer to this question.

I know....

[Citzen_Gkar]

Can you give one example where the Devs have changed their course of action after they have stated more than once that they are moving in a certain direction? I cannot not. Not once.

Actually I can. The best example is the change to the Death Penalty. While they were set in stone that the old XP death penalty would be replaced with something else, they made substantial changes to their plans for both item damage and debuff and turned something completely gamebreaking into something that was reasonable, and in its own way an interesting mechanic (just picture getting permanent damage on your raid items because you died, that was originally possible)

Now I don't know of course if any of those devs still work at Turbine....but I hope that someone in that organization the realization that cooperating with players can achieve the results the devs want while actually making it playable.

[Raithe]

Now I don't know of course if any of those devs still work at Turbine....but I hope that someone in that organization the realization that cooperating with players can achieve the results the devs want while actually making it playable.

Yes, because fixing the death penalty in Module 6, something players would have highly promoted, saved the game from a long decline (3 whole updates later) to the point that they decided to go free-to-play (something to which most players objected). Oh, and when they went free-to-play they "dropped" in popularity to the third most popular MMO of the time.

"Cooperating" with players is done on a sincere as well as superficial level in all sorts of games and most every MMO. It rarely turns out to be a good idea, especially because I don't agree with you about what those changes should be.

[Postumus]

Can you give one example where the Devs have changed their course of action after they have stated more than once that they are moving in a certain direction?


Cannith Crafting. Although it wasn't an improvement. (you can take paralyzing off of your kama and put it... sigh.. I can't even say it without tearing up)

Madstone boots.

Reducing the blade damage in Shroud after it was fixed to WAI.

After a few more beers, I'm sure I could think of more.



I cannot not. Not once. And so far when have the original post and two additional posts stating that they will continue in the direction that 99% of the feedback has been negative.


Hyperbole does not help your cause, it undermines it. 99% of the feedback has not been 'negative.' There are over a dozen posters who have stated they like certain elements of the proposed TR changes or don't mind the changes. But there have been numerous posts by the same posters saying the same thing over and over and attacking anyone who dares offer an opinion contrary to theirs (what else is new).


Pro tip: Calling people names and yelling louder does not make one's argument better, but it does speak volumes about the person doing so.

[Gremmlynn]

Hi. Thanks again for your feedback and opinions on the proposed design of the new Epic TR. Here are some of the things the team is currently thinking about.

We understand your concern about losing Epic Destiny XP upon reincarnation and not getting enough in return. So, we are investigating some different possibilities in regard to what a character gets after they reincarnate with Epic TR. We’d like to offer a system where the character gets credit for every XP they “burn” from an epic destiny. One scenario for this is that Epic Destiny XP will be converted to heroic XP (using a formula that adjusts for the different rates at which heroic and epic XP are gained). This converted XP would then be used to level up your reincarnated character. This could mean, for example, that a character with a large number of destinies maxed out could immediately level back up to level 20 even as a third life character. Again, this is just an example of one of the things we are considering, but it’s a definite possibility.

Also, to answer a couple of additional questions:

1. With the current design, after this system goes live, going through a Heroic TR will burn non-bonded epic destiny XP, but the character will be compensated for the burned XP. In other words, Heroic TR will work just like Epic TR except it will be available at level 20 instead of level cap and it will not grant Epic past life feats. Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play. You should use Heroic TR if you’d like to reincarnate at level 20 and want the benefits that Heroic TR gives (build points, past life feat). Otherwise, you should consider continuing up to level cap and reincarnating from there where you will get all the benefits of Heroic TR plus the additional benefit of Epic TR (epic past life feats). Well goodie, I get to trade xp that for a large part were a real pain to gain as it was in a destiny that was near worthless to my build, for xp that are actually fun to gain. Just so next life I only have to do 10/11's of that painful grind over to get back to where I was. This would actually make it more likely that I would skip actually playing epic levels. While I might level through them, I certainly see little reason to do more than that as recapping any unbonded destinies to get the twists to do so every life is simply not appealing to me.



2. Currently, store bought Fate Points will be preserved after reincarnation. This will not change. We are investigating ways to somehow preserve regular in-game earned Fate Points, but, behind the scenes, they are different than store bought ones, so it is not completely certain that we will be able to preserve them. If we cannot preserve them, we will look for ways to compensate a character for them.

Stay tuned for more info and explanations of this new system proposal early next week.It seems to me you are making a system that only works for those at the extremes. For those who never TR it changes nothing. For those who, basically play just to TR it works out sort of okay as just getting back to cap can viably be done without twists.

But for those of us that are more likely to TR more for a change of pace than anything else, it really sucks. We basically are being given the option to trade what we actually want to do, take a break from end game, for having to redo what we really don't, redo all those off destinies we need to get our twists back.

Allowing heroic TRing to retain EDs will give us the option to take a break without the atrocious cost of regrinding all those off destinies when the break is over. But it seems you are more worried about what content devourers will be capable of doing with the system than you are what effect it has on the game play of your more mainstream customers.

Of course, reforming the whole ED grind could also be a good way to solve this problem. Get rid of the silly links between destinies and restrictions on where one can start and allow anyone to access any destiny at any time. Lock in fate points once earned, though not necessarily allowing the reuse of the same destiny levels to earn more.

With this, after I get back from my break I would only need to re-level those destinies I plan to use and partially re-level those I plan to just use twists from.

[Charononus]

Pro tip: Calling people names and yelling louder does not make one's argument better, but it does speak volumes about the person doing so.
pot kettle

You insult everyone that maxed ed's in most of your posts. You are one of the most hypocritical posters in this thread.

[Citzen_Gkar]

Yes, because fixing the death penalty in Module 6, something players would have highly promoted, saved the game from a long decline (3 whole updates later) to the point that they decided to go free-to-play (something to which most players objected). Oh, and when they went free-to-play they "dropped" in popularity to the third most popular MMO of the time.

"Cooperating" with players is done on a sincere as well as superficial level in all sorts of games and most every MMO. It rarely turns out to be a good idea, especially because I don't agree with you about what those changes should be.

You do know what caused the Long Silence right? It had nothing to do with the game itself.

[Tscheuss]

You do know what caused the Long Silence right? It had nothing to do with the game itself.

Alfred Hitchcock??

[Missing_Minds]

Wrong. Please, remember that this is more of a brainstorming session than it is a set in stone announcement about what's coming.

Additionally, while we appreciate people's passionate opinions about this issue, the amount of rage in this thread needs to be lowered. Nothing is set in stone. Repeat:

NOTHING IS SET IN STONE.

I have frequently read on the forums that folks would like to see more back and forth with the developers in regards to hot issues undergoing development work. This is your chance to do so in a way that doesn't amount to screaming in someone's face. Keep in mind that there's a lot of discussion taking place based on your feedback, but a lot of that discussion will not be made public until it's in a state to put out there as a possibility or an idea being put forward for feedback.

Fact: when the producer comes out and says something, historically it is too **** late to make any changes.

So what did you expect, esp when it is NOT stated at any time until right now that it is up for discussion?

[Postumus]

Now I don't know of course if any of those devs still work at Turbine....but I hope that someone in that organization the realization that cooperating with players can achieve the results the devs want while actually making it playable.


But cooperate with which players? The ones who screech loudest on the forums? Sometimes they make concessions to those players (see Madstone boots). They also make changes all the time based on player feedback forum people never see. That, too, is a form of cooperation.


I think it is a bit silly to think people just sit in an ivory tower and dream up ways to scerw over the player population, but yet there are NUMEROUS posts (including this very thread) where players make this claim. Should Turbine listen to them? How much credence does one give the crazy guy with the sandwich board screaming about the end of the world? More than the guy with a calm, reasoned reply?


I think Turbine will listen to the feedback, which they said they are doing (they solicited after all), but they certainly won't make every single change demanded in this thread (many which conflict). But if they even change a few things, that's cooperation isn't it? I think they will make some changes, but I also hope they don't just cater to a small crowd of power grinders simply because they are yelling the loudest. Again.

[Citzen_Gkar]

Fact: when the producer comes out and says something, historically it is too **** late to make any changes.

So what did you expect, esp when it is NOT stated at any time until right now that it is up for discussion?

Additional fact:

And when the only dev response so far before the mod response was basically "So we are open to talk about what you should get in exchange for losing all your XP/ED XP" that doesn't make you feel like the first part was mutable.

[Postumus]

"Cooperating" with players is done on a sincere as well as superficial level in all sorts of games and most every MMO. It rarely turns out to be a good idea, especially because I don't agree with you about what those changes should be.

Absolutely.

[sir_smacks_alot]

I have been playing since this game was new. Never have I felt the need to post anything on the forums before this proposed change.

Ok now here are some concerns I have about this system.

1) The player base has been told that epic destinies were separate from level period. not just heroic xp but from heroic level but also epic level.

2) The end game was designed to be played with those epic destinies and twists of fate. Meaning that most epic elite content is out of reach to anyone not having those.

3) When I spend the time to go through a past life no matter what it is I get a past life feat for that then I only lose that experience and I go on to play as something totally different.

The problems I see with this and how it will work are that if I went through the time doing all of the destinies then I get a pst life for one and lose the rest of them. I don't come back as something totally different with a little more power. I come back as something maybe the same and maybe different but with a ton less power. at which point I receive a past life for one of the destinies I already did. This makes no sense to me at all.

I would be willing to work with something where I would lose the destiny I want the past life in, but not this.

Only way I can see that it would make sense to make me grind the xp to hit 20 again then grind the xp to hit 28 and start over while only gaining the past life for one destiny is a reversal of the way the xp curve works for TRs as it is. Maybe I might do it if I could do lives for less xp than it takes a first life toon. I have been there I have done that I do it over again all the time. I have incentive under current system to do so. Under proposed system I have no more incentive to do it seeing as I will be less powerful when I reach 20 again.

Side note why does it take more experience to do what we have already done than it takes the first time? Seemed like a backwards mechanic anyway to begin with.

[Missing_Minds]

Additional fact:

And when the only dev response so far before the mod response was basically "So we are open to talk about what you should get in exchange for losing all your XP/ED XP" that doesn't make you feel like the first part was mutable.

Not when it feels like E3 for Turbine.

Oh crude, we screwed up. What can we do now?

Just let it happen, Gkar. It will be over soon.

[Postumus]

pot kettle

You insult everyone that maxed ed's in most of your posts.


Nope, not even once. If you infer insult from a statement like "I have no sympathy for people who ran rusted blades 10,000 times and choose to TR" that is YOUR issue.


Go back and look at your last three posts responding to me: personal attack, personal attack, personal attack and fabrication. You are acting like someone who wants to get this thread closed. If you keep up with the personal attacks it probably will be.

[Postumus]

I have been playing since this game was new. Never have I felt the need to post anything on the forums before this proposed change.

Ok now here are some concerns I have about this system.

1) The player base has been told that epic destinies were separate from level period. not just heroic xp but from heroic level but also epic level.

2) The end game was designed to be played with those epic destinies and twists of fate. Meaning that most epic elite content is out of reach to anyone not having those.

3) When I spend the time to go through a past life no matter what it is I get a past life feat for that then I only lose that experience and I go on to play as something totally different.

The problems I see with this and how it will work are that if I went through the time doing all of the destinies then I get a pst life for one and lose the rest of them. I don't come back as something totally different with a little more power. I come back as something maybe the same and maybe different but with a ton less power. at which point I receive a past life for one of the destinies I already did. This makes no sense to me at all.

I would be willing to work with something where I would lose the destiny I want the past life in, but not this.

Only way I can see that it would make sense to make me grind the xp to hit 20 again then grind the xp to hit 28 and start over while only gaining the past life for one destiny is a reversal of the way the xp curve works for TRs as it is. Maybe I might do it if I could do lives for less xp than it takes a first life toon. I have been there I have done that I do it over again all the time. I have incentive under current system to do so. Under proposed system I have no more incentive to do it seeing as I will be less powerful when I reach 20 again.

Side note why does it take more experience to do what we have already done than it takes the first time? Seemed like a backwards mechanic anyway to begin with.


GREAT points.

[Tscheuss]

It has been made clear that the devs are paying attention to this thread.

It is also clear that the elephant in the room is the undercompensated loss of unbound ED XP.

I am guessing that the devs have a good reason for wanting to wipe pre-existing ED XP, while also providing a way to make it permanent once again. :@

So, compensate each FIRST ETR with 1M XP Stones for every one million unbound ED XP, and put them in the TR cache. BtC and usable only on said character, but they can be moved to normal storage, and unused stones shall survive subsequent TR's; the player can spend them when he/she will.

This should silence the majority of the objections to the new TR mechanic.

(But then, should and would don't build any bridges. ;))

[BOgre]

This thread has been read quite a bit by the dev team and other folks directly, and we'll be continuing this discussion throughout the coming days and weeks. Please remember to keep things civil and not insult each other or the Turbine development team.

Thank you. I'm confident that this early dialogue will help us to all get where we want to be. Please pass on much thanks to the team for stepping into the frying pan.

[abrownbear9108]

what will be happening in regards to people who have bought Keys of Fate to unlock destiny's without having to grind the lvls of the linking destiny's? by that i mean, will the keys get refunded on TR or lost completely or will they be preserved the same as tomes?

Edit: i havent previously searched for info on this and didnt want to read through 45+ pages to try to find info

[Ivan_Milic]

Losing all my ed xp when I tr will either make me not tr anymore or I will stop playing the game.
This is very bad idea, turbine trying to go the easy way and hurt players.

[sir_smacks_alot]

what will be happening in regards to people who have bought Keys of Fate to unlock destiny's without having to grind the lvls of the linking destiny's? by that i mean, will the keys get refunded on TR or lost completely or will they be preserved the same as tomes?

Edit: i havent previously searched for info on this and didnt want to read through 45+ pages to try to find information

So far as I have seen there have been no responses to how keys of fate will be handled

[Gremmlynn]

Turbine is working pretty hard to craft a far more complicated system than would seem indicated. Given that excess complexity, one does have to ask what are the additional considerations which would lead to such contortions? Possibilities include

1) Trying to level the playing field between new and veteran players, by resetting as much veteran player progress as you think you can get away with.

2) Trying to generate additional grind, likely to offset declining revenue associated with a declining game population over the last year.

To me this, as well as how the enhancement pass is being presented, seems to indicate DDO is going into caretaker mode. This just seems like an attempt to build a giant hamster wheel to try to replace the need for new content. While the enhancement alpha seems to be a case of the devs being told to take everything they have worked on towards enhancements and cram it into the matrix left over from ED development, with minimal time wasted on adjusting that matrix, and get it out.

I'm guessing once these things are done most DDO systems and playable content developers will be working on other games with just enough left to keep DDO a viable venue to sell store items.

[maddong]

I think losing unbonded destinies is a great way to expand the playerbase.

Here is a suggestion that builds on that:

In the TR revamp start granting "bonded past life feats." On your first TR in the new system convert "unbonded past life feats" into 1 starting rank per past life. Completionists will rejoice at the free xp that makes their first follow up TR fly by.

[sir_smacks_alot]

What if we were allowed to do these epic TRs with reduced xp.? Then we could do the life while playing the content we actually enjoy.

I think that would also possibly have a few positive effects on the game as a whole.

1) the people who refuse to TR because of the grind would be more inclined to do it.

2) those new players who cant get a group because most TRs with multiple lives wont take them because of possible xp loss from them dying, or because it may slow them down on the mega xp grind would be more welcome.

3) We could play what content we enjoy without significant grinding of the same quests over and over and over.

4) adventures that people may find fun, but not worth the xp to do them may get visited again.

[Deadlock]

Yes, there is *something* wrong with it.

In standard RPG conceptualization, character development is given in stages called "levels" because they want characters (and NPCs) of a similar level to be able to play together and against each other in a meaningful manner. Past lives circumvent this system. If you have had 28 prior lives, when you are level "11" you are REALLY level 20, and when you are level 20, with full EDs and everything else, you are REALLY level 40 on a relative scale.

Admittedly, they have also made a system where running an elite level "11" quest is REALLY level 16, and so forth, but I don't think it takes much logic at all to rip that system to shreds. Typically, the argument that occurs in an MMO is about lateral (diversity of mechanics) character development versus vertical gear/power treadmills. It's very seldom a debate about being able to circumvent gameplay entirely through poorly conceived mechanics like past lives. DDO is a very "special" place.

As with a number of your posts, I don't really get the point you're trying to make.

Einstein hit the relativity thing square on the head, so I'll apologise if I'm not following your version quite so clearly.

If you're trying to reveal to us that DDO isn't 100% true to old school D&D in terms of creature HD, especially on higher difficulties, then that news is 7 years old and that ship sailed a long time ago.

If you completely disagree with the whole notion of Epic TRing then you'll be happy to sign up to my previous proposal that no content in the game should be scaled on the assumption that you have any ED Past lives and that the whole thing should remain 100% optional. Those that want to invest the time can do so freely, and those that don't won't be disadvantaged in any way.

[luvirini]

1. With the current design, after this system goes live, going through a Heroic TR will burn non-bonded epic destiny XP, but the character will be compensated for the burned XP. In other words, Heroic TR will work just like Epic TR except it will be available at level 20 instead of level cap and it will not grant Epic past life feats. Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play. You should use Heroic TR if you’d like to reincarnate at level 20 and want the benefits that Heroic TR gives (build points, past life feat). Otherwise, you should consider continuing up to level cap and reincarnating from there where you will get all the benefits of Heroic TR plus the additional benefit of Epic TR (epic past life feats).


in parts:

With the current design, after this system goes live, going through a Heroic TR will burn non-bonded epic destiny XP

So will not TR any character with epic XP unless the epic TR bonds all destinies XP at once, then will likely done ONE epic TR on few characters.


but the character will be compensated for the burned XP

Not an issue, as the compensation of few ranks in the beginning is totally meaningless half an hour saved (as you need to get your coin lord and house K favor early on anyway so getting few ranks will not help), so the compensation is simply not worth it.


In other words, Heroic TR will work just like Epic TR except it will be available at level 20 instead of level cap and it will not grant Epic past life feats.

So please allow us to do this then, without losing existing ED progress.


Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play

The incentive today to avoid epic play is the stupid epic quests, not rewards, EDs give nice rewards if one played epic quests. So unless you make 50 more epic quests in the expansion to get the variety we have in heroic play.. it is not going to change much.


You should use Heroic TR if you’d like to reincarnate at level 20 and want the benefits that Heroic TR gives (build points, past life feat).

And yet there are quite many characters with ED xp that are mostly played in 1-20 content, you are trying to force those characters to play ONLY level 1-20 content and Never epics and there is no incentive ever for such to play any epic quest after that.


Otherwise, you should consider continuing up to level cap and reincarnating from there where you will get all the benefits of Heroic TR plus the additional benefit of Epic TR (epic past life feats).

That would require me to play quite many of those stupid epic quests.

If a single epic TR allows me to lock all destinies then will likely hate it but play then to 28 once and then stay in the 1-20 game as no reason ever to play any epic quests after that.

If a single epic TR will not lock all destinies XP then no character that has epic XP will likely even again TR and will be saying in 1-20 game with the characters that do not have any epic XP as they have no incentive to ever go above either so they will stop at 20 or be TRed from there if I feel like still playing after my completionist cannot be played further.


So lets look at my characters with epic xp:

My completionist: Level 15 (17th life now) with quite many EDs(6?) at level 4.
Current system: TRing every time a new destiny hits level 4, then next round take them from 4 to cap.
Proposed system: If the epic TR locks all epic XP for all destinies will epic TR once and then always TR immediately after reaching 20, not bothering with more epic quests ever as most epic quests are just boring.(yey! really "epic" quest when enemies have 20000 hit points instead of 200, but act exactly the same)
If epic TR only locks only one destiny xp: will do a last life(greeting the expansion about level 1) and then be shelved.

My wizard/rogue 25(third life) with most epic destinies at 4-5:
Current system: eventually planning to TR to get third wizard past life, no special hurry as epic play is boring so not much played as instakills are all broken one way or another today.
Proposed system:Never TR again, unless the epic TR will Lock the epic XP of all destinies. So will likely greet the expansion at level 1 and eventually played up to 20 then likely stuck there.

My sorcerer 25(first life), few(4?) destinies at 4-5:
Current system: not played much because epics are boring and sorcerers are broken with the spell crit thing.
Propsed system: Not TRing either and not running either.

My wizard/rogue 22(first life) one destiny at 4 and some other at 3 or similar:
Current system: eventually planning to TR to get wizard past lifes, no special hurry as epic play is boring so not much played as instakills are all broken one way or another today.
Proposed system:Never TR again, unless the epic TR will Lock the epic XP of all destinies and in that case the TR will likely be in few years. So will likely greet the expansion at level 1 and eventually played up to about 20 then likely stuck there.

My wizard/rogue 19(second life) one destiny at 4 and some other at 3 or similar:
Current system: eventually planning to TR to get wizard past lifes, no special hurry as epic play is boring so not much played as instakills are all broken one way or another today.
Proposed system:Never TR again, unless the epic TR will Lock the epic XP of all destinies and in that case the TR will likely be in few years. So will likely greet the expansion at level 1 and eventually played up to about 20 then likely stuck there.

My paladin/fighter 20(first life): one destiny at 4:
Current system: eventually TR to get a better paladin build and paladin past life.
Proposed system:Never TR again, unless the epic TR will Lock the epic XP of all destinies and in that case the TR will likely be in few years. So will likely greet the expansion at level 1 and eventually played up to about 20 again then likely stuck there again as currently.

My bard/barbarian/rogue 23 (first life): one destiny 5, other 2:
Current system: Not playing, as bards are kind of really boring in epics.
Proposed system: same.

And after they are all back at 20.. (few months), I guess it is back to making new alts, the thing that TR:ing fixed for me. and once the maximum number of character slots reached, I guess it is time to go play some other game.

Currently I have been having fun TRing my completionist, as there are loads of quests at lower levels and only very few epic quests that feel the same.

[Deadlock]

Perhaps you aren't concerned that when you TR you will no longer have access to those other EDs that you earned, but I will. No, this will not do it for me. I want to keep what I already earned and was told would not go away.

And if they give us the Heroic TR system exactly as it is right now, then you have that, and Turbine are true to what you were previously told.

And if you choose to engage in a new Epic TR system then you are clear on the costs involved.

This seems like the most sensible solution any way you look at it - let people continue to do what they've been doing unaffected by any changes, or allow people to take part in a new system where the costs are clear upfront. Win-win.

[Deadlock]

To me this, as well as how the enhancement pass is being presented, seems to indicate DDO is going into caretaker mode.

Because every product that goes into a non-developmental maintenance-only phase invest heavily in revising their enhancement system, new expansions and introduce new systems for TRing. Gotcha.

[GoRinNoSho]

My 2cp on the TR changes.

Epic Reincarnation:

- Once a destiny is bonded, it remains bonded. (Per system described, less possible "advantage" per destiny bonded)

Heroic Reincarnation:

- Provide an option to trade ED experience on a per ED basis at snowy side Korthos.

The vendor would be amongst the other trainers and be an Epic Retrainer.

Possible ideas would be to have a slider/percentage on each available destiny or a binary button.

- This would provide the possibility of releveling an Epic Destiny appropriate for the class. Ex. Monk heroic TRs and trades in some GMoF ED experience to speed up Korthos time and be able to recoup that experience after 20. All other destinies are left as-is. When he/she hits 20 they can recap GMoF and play a class focused/more enjoyable class destiny pair for experience.

If only available at snowy side, then a player has a cut off point that they can control.
- Players debating the advantage can run snowy korthos (without access to TR cache gear) and gain experience to cover 1 to 3 or 4. (Part of the concern being trading 90k ED experience (Level 5 rank) for 1,100 heroic experience (rank at level 1))
- Players not interested in trading in destiny experience can simply avoid the trainer or swap to sunny side Korthos.
- The slider would give the player the ability to get some use out of Level 5 rank 5 experience on TR since there is currently no benefit to "going to 6."
- As more destinies are bonded, those sliders are no longer available.

- Need to add more runway? Add more classes/destinies or add an orthogonal advancement system. (See Mathom, profession systems, housing/trophies etc.)

-----

I would ask that any more instances of changing an established system allow the player to opt in/out where feasible.

Things like weapon speed to double strike, twf off hand chance, helplessness, vorpal, disease/poison immunity, fortification, leaving the die system (to hit changes) has taken established features/rules and thrown them out the window. Those changes have come with a cost that the player base feels more than the dev team.

[Gremmlynn]

Right now nobody is going to TR anymore ( except upon reaching 20 ) because they don't want to get shafted of their destinies.
You're just planning on killing TR ( heroic and epic... well epic will be stillborn, and heroic will be murdered ) Well actually, I think they are trying to kill heroic Tr as it's, in their minds, an obsolete system that circumvents playing the end game. As far as epic TR goes, they seem to be going for an all or nothing approach, hoping players mostly choose the all option. TRing will no longer be something players do as the mood hits them, at least not until they have done it enough to have all destinies bonded. They will basically have to choose to either play to TR or go ahead and do the destinies and forgo ever TRing. After all, playing their game is serious business with no room for doing what you feel like doing, just what the system designates for you to do.

[Phemt81]

I gotta admit i am quite glad someone liked my idea about new past life rewards, or just had a very similar one...

On the other hand, i must ask (BETTER if it was already asked) : no bugfixes? :(

[Raithe]

If you're trying to reveal to us that DDO isn't 100% true to old school D&D...


Nope. It has nothing to do with D&D mechanics in particular, and that concept was what tripped you up on being able to understand what I wrote. This is about the core nature of RPGs in general, even brand new ones fresh off the presses. Leveling systems are only useful and necessary if they separate characters and NPCs by power level. If a character's level does not predict its power, there is zero need for levels. All ability and skill increases could be done as "tomes." You should ask yourself why you yourself might look and care about a character's level. What is wrong with overpowered loot and past lives is, precisely, that you can no longer tell by a character's level what its power level is likely to be.



...then you'll be happy to sign up to my previous proposal that no content in the game should be scaled on the assumption that you have any ED Past lives and that the whole thing should remain 100% optional...

If I were currently a designer on an MMO, and I read this from a player, I would be strongly tempted to filter anything else that person had to say on any gaming subject. You are basically saying "let's have GOD mode, but only for the people that really want it." It's the people that WANT god mode that are primarily the reason you would want to prevent having such an option.

[Loraven]

"Adjust the XP curve in Epic levels for multi-life TR to avoid the dramatic escalating grind"

am I missing something? so far all epic levels grow at same exp rate regardless of which life you're on...do you mean the heroic 3rd life & beyond won't need 2 mill to 20? whew yay! I'm a completionist on my 6th life and I've been playing for 3 years. I've got a full-time job sadly, will I have to get to lvl 28 now or lose my ED's? Really? :P

[noinfo]

Hi. Thanks again for your feedback and opinions on the proposed design of the new Epic TR. Here are some of the things the team is currently thinking about.

We understand your concern about losing Epic Destiny XP upon reincarnation and not getting enough in return. So, we are investigating some different possibilities in regard to what a character gets after they reincarnate with Epic TR. We’d like to offer a system where the character gets credit for every XP they “burn” from an epic destiny. One scenario for this is that Epic Destiny XP will be converted to heroic XP (using a formula that adjusts for the different rates at which heroic and epic XP are gained). This converted XP would then be used to level up your reincarnated character. This could mean, for example, that a character with a large number of destinies maxed out could immediately level back up to level 20 even as a third life character. Again, this is just an example of one of the things we are considering, but it’s a definite possibility.

Also, to answer a couple of additional questions:

1. With the current design, after this system goes live, going through a Heroic TR will burn non-bonded epic destiny XP, but the character will be compensated for the burned XP. In other words, Heroic TR will work just like Epic TR except it will be available at level 20 instead of level cap and it will not grant Epic past life feats. Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play. You should use Heroic TR if you’d like to reincarnate at level 20 and want the benefits that Heroic TR gives (build points, past life feat). Otherwise, you should consider continuing up to level cap and reincarnating from there where you will get all the benefits of Heroic TR plus the additional benefit of Epic TR (epic past life feats).

2. Currently, store bought Fate Points will be preserved after reincarnation. This will not change. We are investigating ways to somehow preserve regular in-game earned Fate Points, but, behind the scenes, they are different than store bought ones, so it is not completely certain that we will be able to preserve them. If we cannot preserve them, we will look for ways to compensate a character for them.

Stay tuned for more info and explanations of this new system proposal early next week.

This is still an extremely poor option. Compensation of "Heroic" Exp to the pain of levelling through destinies in their current tree based system is painful and just not fun. Epic should restart at level 20 regardless, keeping it completely separate from heroic. Having to open up spheres just to reach whatever destiny you want is just plain annoying, as well. Give us the choice of the ED we want the past life of and have us start at level 20 with that entire sphere reset. Leave the others intact. Don't bother with "bonded" destinies.

[Arnhelm]

Hi. Thanks again for your feedback and opinions on the proposed design of the new Epic TR. Here are some of the things the team is currently thinking about.

We understand your concern about losing Epic Destiny XP upon reincarnation and not getting enough in return. So, we are investigating some different possibilities in regard to what a character gets after they reincarnate with Epic TR. We’d like to offer a system where the character gets credit for every XP they “burn” from an epic destiny. One scenario for this is that Epic Destiny XP will be converted to heroic XP (using a formula that adjusts for the different rates at which heroic and epic XP are gained). This converted XP would then be used to level up your reincarnated character. This could mean, for example, that a character with a large number of destinies maxed out could immediately level back up to level 20 even as a third life character. Again, this is just an example of one of the things we are considering, but it’s a definite possibility.

Also, to answer a couple of additional questions:

1. With the current design, after this system goes live, going through a Heroic TR will burn non-bonded epic destiny XP, but the character will be compensated for the burned XP. In other words, Heroic TR will work just like Epic TR except it will be available at level 20 instead of level cap and it will not grant Epic past life feats. Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play. You should use Heroic TR if you’d like to reincarnate at level 20 and want the benefits that Heroic TR gives (build points, past life feat). Otherwise, you should consider continuing up to level cap and reincarnating from there where you will get all the benefits of Heroic TR plus the additional benefit of Epic TR (epic past life feats).

2. Currently, store bought Fate Points will be preserved after reincarnation. This will not change. We are investigating ways to somehow preserve regular in-game earned Fate Points, but, behind the scenes, they are different than store bought ones, so it is not completely certain that we will be able to preserve them. If we cannot preserve them, we will look for ways to compensate a character for them.

Stay tuned for more info and explanations of this new system proposal early next week.


Wrong. Please, remember that this is more of a brainstorming session than it is a set in stone announcement about what's coming.

Additionally, while we appreciate people's passionate opinions about this issue, the amount of rage in this thread needs to be lowered. Nothing is set in stone. Repeat:

NOTHING IS SET IN STONE.

I have frequently read on the forums that folks would like to see more back and forth with the developers in regards to hot issues undergoing development work. This is your chance to do so in a way that doesn't amount to screaming in someone's face. Keep in mind that there's a lot of discussion taking place based on your feedback, but a lot of that discussion will not be made public until it's in a state to put out there as a possibility or an idea being put forward for feedback.
Cordovan, I have a lot of respect for you and the effort you put into your work here. However, reading Piloto's quote above yours I can only gather that no matter what we say on these forums, the Epic Destiny xp loss is going to happen with TR's. There is no mention in his post about other possibilities, only that different forms of compensation for Epic Destiny xp loss are being considered. At least, that's how I read it.

[Cyr]

Because every product that goes into a non-developmental maintenance-only phase invest heavily in revising their enhancement system, new expansions and introduce new systems for TRing. Gotcha.

I would hardly call the paltry 'xpack' content or the threadbare enhancement pass a heavy investment. They had longer then many players have played the game to work on the enhancement pass and it still does not even have unique racial PrEs or three+ PrEs per class as described in the initial design goal years ago. This is just them putting a few man hours into pushing it out. Same goes for the xpack...the amount of content is not very impressive at all and taken over the development time from gianthold's development cycle (read ONE one room raid added for an update) to the time the xpack releases you have 14 new quests and one new one room raid. Not exactly a short period of time since High Road to xpack release (with high road being hardly massive either and the pack before being equally paltry)

I am fully convinced that DDO has for some time been in it's winding down phase and is now entering the milking the diehards who will not leave no matter what you do phase.

[Qhualor]

Well actually, I think they are trying to kill heroic Tr as it's, in their minds, an obsolete system that circumvents playing the end game. As far as epic TR goes, they seem to be going for an all or nothing approach, hoping players mostly choose the all option. TRing will no longer be something players do as the mood hits them, at least not until they have done it enough to have all destinies bonded. They will basically have to choose to either play to TR or go ahead and do the destinies and forgo ever TRing. After all, playing their game is serious business with no room for doing what you feel like doing, just what the system designates for you to do.

it does seem like they are killing off heroic TR, doesn't it? I mean, with Skipping Stones and the proposed TR system, I could think up some juicy tinfoil hat conspiracy theories.

I would be surprised if that really is the case though. TRing I know must be a big money maker for Turbine. theres a lot of people who buy, in varying quantities, xp pots, hearts of wood, bank space for extra storage, gold seal hires, cakes, etc . if Turbine wants to focus more on end game and expansions and keep getting players to spend money on that stuff, than they would need to do a better job across the board with quality, promises, quantity and grind. players would need and want to stay at end game, but we always want our characters to be more powerful, so we want TRing to always be an option that makes sense. the boredom, I believe, would settle in much faster for a lot of players because Turbine cant grind out content fast enough.

I only need 3 more fate points to finish ED farming. prior to that I leveled myself on hard BB from 20-25. by 25 I had ran most of the quests in the game and my character is flagged for every raid, except LOB/MA. prior to that I spent 9 months on a TR train gaining 7 lives with already 2 lives from the start. up until the ED farming, I was playing every day, all night. I have a lot of catching up to do in the gear department, but if im forced to weigh the pros and cons of TRing, ill choose not to TR and eventually get bored after im "caught up". I suspect that would be pretty much the case for a lot of people by feeling it wouldn't be worth the trouble of TRing. a lot of people like to TR and a lot of people TR for that extra character power. I wonder how many power gamers it would take to keep DDO going when, I believe, the average player wont find TRing to be worth it and get bored eventually at "end game"?

[HatsuharuZ]

I'd suggest making it so that only experience from the "bonded" destiny is lost when one undergoes an Epic TR, then gains the past life feat and a number of experience points. At the very least, it would be nice to be able to skip the harbor and marketplace quests.

Also...

One of the flaws of the epic destiny system is the amount of time one has to spend getting experience in an ED that does not benefit ones' character. Now, if it's really necessary for players to lose any of those experience points, then something needs to change in the system in order to reduce the amount of grinding. Some suggestions:

1) Make it so that epic levels give caster levels for any spell-casting classes, and uncouple caster levels from ED levels.

2) Remove the ED level requirements for getting from one ED sphere to another, put in connections between spheres so that on one has to go through the martial sphere unless they want to, or get rid of the map entirely.

3) Somehow make twist of fate slots easier to aquire and/or upgrade. Perhaps you could give out fate points when leveling up instead of with ED levels?

[Andoris]

---- Warning: Long post, read at your own risk ----

Development Team,

I was fortunate enough to meet with a bunch of you at PAX East this year and know from that experience that you are a great bunch of folks (who I would be happy to drink with anytime btw). From those conversations I understand your dismay that players hit lvl 25 and then proceeded to max out epic destinies, when you intention was that people hit 25, play with destiny’s that are complementary and then TR into another class, hit 25 and max out destiny’s that are complementary to that class. The proposal put forward by Glin is completely consistent with that thinking. Had it gone live a year ago, many in the community would see it as a great idea – unfortunately, hindsight is 20-20 and the water is over the dam on epic destinies (yes, I did just use two idioms in the same sentence).

I understand both sides of the issue. You believed that you were designing a system that would keep players busy for a long time. The flaw in your logic is that many players get a build in mind and then farm out the Past Lives, Gear, Destinies, and Fate Points to realize that build.

Your player base (which has a higher percentage of “spreadsheet gamers” due to the wealth of options and choices that DDO give us over other MMOs) saw a number of twistable abilities, three slots, and the requirement to farm a number of (in some cases) useless destinies to unlock those abilities, allowing them to create the toon that they created on paper (character planners, spreadsheets, etc.). The result was fairly predictable knowing your player base, and was done in the most efficient method possible (in many cases).

Now we are at a crossroads. You are planning to implement a system solves your problem, but in doing so creates considerable angst among the player base. The player are enraged because they spent considerable time (and money) to get the fate points necessary to get the twists their builds called for, and now they are being told that that investment was for naught and are understandably upset due to the revelation.
So where do we go from here?

Option 1: Implement the TR changes exactly as implemented in Glin’s post.

Advantages:
1 - Development team achieves their goal of having ED completion a (very) long-term goal
2 – Potential ability to sell more ‘shortcuts’ (xp pots/tomes, stones, tomes of fate) in the store increasing short-term revenue

Disadvantages:
1 – Significant numbers of players with advanced progress in EDs will refuse to TR, depriving new players of an active base of existing players to group with eventually this will make the game severely unfriendly to new players leading to the decline of the game.
2 – Epic Advantage will enable veteran players to skip the lower levels again depriving new players of an active player base to group with.
3 – Reduction in TRing by Veteran players, reducing the purchase of xp pots, stones, and True hearts that are consumed during that process (personally this and raid timers is where most of my purchases go these days).
4 – Significant customer dis-satisfaction on the part of the existing player (which are more important than ever if you are making it difficult for new players to get into the game).

Option 2: Community suggestion to have the TR process only reset the ‘bonded’ destiny

Advantages:
1 - Development team achieves their goal of having ED completion a (very) long-term goal as many vets will want the new TR benefits to improve their toons (achieves similar effect as option 1, but in a different and more player friendly way)
2 – Allows players that have put the time/effort/money into grinding out fate points to keep the majority of what they invested while leveling
3 – Functionally the same as Option 1 for players that have not yet invested in EDs

Disadvantages:
1 – Fewer overall ED Past life’s / per player on average will likely be ran do to the lack of need to bind all ED’s to reclaim fate points (although overall ED PLs will likely be higher as many will chose to opt out completely with Option 1)
2 – Epic Advantage will enable veteran players to skip the lower levels again depriving new players of an active player base to group with.

Option 3: Community suggestion to make epic advantage optional.

Advantages:
1 – Gives players maximum flexibility
2 – Allows players that have put the time/effort/money into grinding out fate points to keep the they invested while TRing

Disadvantages:
1 – Unless ED Pls are vastly overpowered, they will likely never be considered
2 – Epic Advantage will enable veteran players to skip the lower levels again depriving new players of an active player base to group with.
3 – High likelihood that epic PLs will not achieve any of the projects goals

Option 4: Recommended Option - Similar to Option 2, except remove the free ranks from epic advantage – this removes the primary disadvantage of option 2 (not keeping all content active) with all the benefits. If you really want to give an xp boost make it a percentage basis, but honestly I don’t think it is necessary if you only make us re-earn one ED at a time, and bonuses given for that effort (in the form of epic PLs). Players are happy, Dev goals are achieved, many xp pots/tomes/stones will still be bought due to the bonus from ED PLs, and the game will remain active at all levels.

If you can give additional clarity on the outcome that you are attempting to achieve with these changes I can refine my analysis to suit. In the absence of that, I made the assumption that the goal was to maintain a growing a healthy game, while maximizing revenue.

Thank you for reading

-Ash

[Tscheuss]

If they implement EDTR such that one starts over at level 1 (level 15 for Iconic), then there would really no longer be a "wrong" or "off" destiny, unless one fails to plan. Should one choose to pursue ED PL's, then the choice of class should complement the next target ED or sphere.

From what I have read, it seems that those who chose to level up Magister on a melee, or Dreadnought on a caster, were not showing much interest in TR'ing in the first place.

Also, from what I am reading, it seems the real fast-track for EDTR runs is to cycle through the Iconics for their PL's x3. Two birds with one stone, nicht wehr?

[Cleanincubus]

Didn't read the entire thread, so I'm not sure if this was brought up yet.

But no love for "regular" Epic TR? As in those of us who have Adventure Packs, that include Epic content, even though we choose not to purchase the Epic Destinies?

Personally, I'd much rather spend my money to get more content, rather than Epic Destinies (a pay-to-win of sorts IMHO). So I, and players like myself, get nothing for our Epic levels? Our time is completely wasted, other than items we get to use again once we hit lvl 20 in our next life?

Doesn't seem fair, if the Developers are going to spend so much time creating a new Epic TR system (& Iconic TR), rather than creating new content. Seems like a HUGE waste of time, especially after reading most of the comments I did actually read. Appears the easiest thing to do is just do nothing. Nothing as in allow players to keep their Epic Destinies after they TR, and keep Epic TR the same as Heroic TR in all other regards. Otherwise make Epic TR'ing beneficial to ALL players, and not just those who have Epic Destinies.

[oradafu]

Cordovan, I have a lot of respect for you and the effort you put into your work here. However, reading Piloto's quote above yours I can only gather that no matter what we say on these forums, the Epic Destiny xp loss is going to happen with TR's. There is no mention in his post about other possibilities, only that different forms of compensation for Epic Destiny xp loss are being considered. At least, that's how I read it.

It does seem that there will be no budging from the loss of ED XP, as you said. Which is really sad, since we were told that we would not loss ED XP when they were trying to sell the ED system to us. As can be seen here in one of Turbine's promotions of Epic Destinies: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:W_WKRWlcUGkJ:www.ddo.com/en/ddogameinfo/developer-diaries/2121-epic-de+ddo+epic+destiny+round+table&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us



Steve: With Menace of the Underdark we're making a clear distinction between Heroic and Epic levels. From Epic levels 21 to 25 there are no Heroic class levels or Enhancements; it's all focused on Epic levels and additional customization through swappable Epic Destinies. Heroic levels still use Enhancements to help shape a character, of course.

David: Where it gets extra interesting is we're allowing players to swap and level Epic Destinies independently of one another.

Kyle: What are the drawbacks of swapping an Epic Destiny, if any?

Ian: It's actually beneficial to swap, sooner or later. We want to encourage players to swap between Epic Destinies, which is why any progress made in any Epic Destiny is shelved until you switch back to it.

and...




David: In case anyone is wondering, any Epic Destiny progress made on a character will remain even after True Reincarnation. Until reaching level 20 again, you can't restart work on Epic Destinies. Until you re-level to 20, all Epic Destiny progress on that character is paused.

Max Nichols: Also, like re-doing a character through True Reincarnation, if you take an Epic Destiny and later decide it's not for you, it's not a dead-end. You can always branch out in another direction. You're never locked into any Epic Destiny, and eventually you can unlock them all.


It's just bad form to state that things will work one way to help sell it, then turn around change the rules completely from the way they were pitched to the consumer.

[oradafu]

Didn't read the entire thread, so I'm not sure if this was brought up yet.

But no love for "regular" Epic TR? As in those of us who have Adventure Packs, that include Epic content, even though we choose not to purchase the Epic Destinies?

Personally, I'd much rather spend my money to get more content, rather than Epic Destinies (a pay-to-win of sorts IMHO). So I, and players like myself, get nothing for our Epic levels? Our time is completely wasted, other than items we get to use again once we hit lvl 20 in our next life?

Doesn't seem fair, if the Developers are going to spend so much time creating a new Epic TR system (& Iconic TR), rather than creating new content. Seems like a HUGE waste of time, especially after reading most of the comments I did actually read. Appears the easiest thing to do is just do nothing. Nothing as in allow players to keep their Epic Destinies after they TR, and keep Epic TR the same as Heroic TR in all other regards. Otherwise make Epic TR'ing beneficial to ALL players, and not just those who have Epic Destinies.

Apparently you missed the memo that Turbine wants players to now focus almost strictly on their new endgame: the grinding and re-grinding of 21.78 million XP for Epic Destinies. It doesn't matter that there's not enough content to keep players interested from levels 20 to 25 (soon to be 28). It doesn't matter that many classes and builds don't mesh with certain EDs making the ED grind even less unfun than the EDs that do work well. It doesn't matter that some people, like you, aren't interested in EDs at all. It doesn't matter that some people don't care about epic levels and/or quests and prefer the Heroic levels and quests. It doesn't matter for a whole set of other reasons...

They want everyone to stop playing in the Heroic levels and focus on the ED grind. Welcome to the new endgame.

[sir_smacks_alot]

When epic levels were introduced there was a line drawn. Epic level are totally different than heroic levels. similarly epic destinies are independent of epic level. That is the way thins were set up.

Since these distinctions were made why should an epic TR have anything to do with a heroic TR?

When I look at my character sheet I show X amount heroic levels per class up to 20 levels then I see X amount epic levels.

If the point is to get us to play end game then let us start at 20 again level to 28 then go back to 20 and repeat as many times as we like.

If the point is to get us to play the whole game again with this proposed change then at least let us level through each past life with decreased xp instead of the over inflated mess you have now.

I don't mind past lives, in fact I have done roughly 30 (sorry not spread sheet type and I stopped counting long ago)
if I can enjoy the game instead of worrying about grinding I will be more inclined to do so and would actually invite more new players along without the fear of them slowing me down, or costing me xp. I would be more likely to take the time to do things I feel are fun instead of grinding the high xp quests over and over and over. (by the way not many if any of the high xp/min quests are the fun ones) All in all I would probably not be so against all of this if there was no need for me to grind. I could play the game and enjoy my time getting my epic destinies back, Maybe this might actually get me to try new builds I would like to test while doing past lives if I didn't fear the grind on a build im not happy with.

I sincerely love the game and hope the developers can come up with something to please the most people possible.

[SilkofDrasnia]

---- Warning: Long post, read at your own risk ----

Development Team,

I was fortunate enough to meet with a bunch of you at PAX East this year and know from that experience that you are a great bunch of folks (who I would be happy to drink with anytime btw). From those conversations I understand your dismay that players hit lvl 25 and then proceeded to max out epic destinies, when you intention was that people hit 25, play with destiny’s that are complementary and then TR into another class, hit 25 and max out destiny’s that are complementary to that class. The proposal put forward by Glin is completely consistent with that thinking. Had it gone live a year ago, many in the community would see it as a great idea – unfortunately, hindsight is 20-20 and the water is over the dam on epic destinies (yes, I did just use two idioms in the same sentence).

I understand both sides of the issue. You believed that you were designing a system that would keep players busy for a long time. The flaw in your logic is that many players get a build in mind and then farm out the Past Lives, Gear, Destinies, and Fate Points to realize that build.

Your player base (which has a higher percentage of “spreadsheet gamers” due to the wealth of options and choices that DDO give us over other MMOs) saw a number of twistable abilities, three slots, and the requirement to farm a number of (in some cases) useless destinies to unlock those abilities, allowing them to create the toon that they created on paper (character planners, spreadsheets, etc.). The result was fairly predictable knowing your player base, and was done in the most efficient method possible (in many cases).

Now we are at a crossroads. You are planning to implement a system solves your problem, but in doing so creates considerable angst among the player base. The player are enraged because they spent considerable time (and money) to get the fate points necessary to get the twists their builds called for, and now they are being told that that investment was for naught and are understandably upset due to the revelation.
So where do we go from here?

Option 1: Implement the TR changes exactly as implemented in Glin’s post.

Advantages:
1 - Development team achieves their goal of having ED completion a (very) long-term goal
2 – Potential ability to sell more ‘shortcuts’ (xp pots/tomes, stones, tomes of fate) in the store increasing short-term revenue

Disadvantages:
1 – Significant numbers of players with advanced progress in EDs will refuse to TR, depriving new players of an active base of existing players to group with eventually this will make the game severely unfriendly to new players leading to the decline of the game.
2 – Epic Advantage will enable veteran players to skip the lower levels again depriving new players of an active player base to group with.
3 – Reduction in TRing by Veteran players, reducing the purchase of xp pots, stones, and True hearts that are consumed during that process (personally this and raid timers is where most of my purchases go these days).
4 – Significant customer dis-satisfaction on the part of the existing player (which are more important than ever if you are making it difficult for new players to get into the game).

Option 2: Community suggestion to have the TR process only reset the ‘bonded’ destiny

Advantages:
1 - Development team achieves their goal of having ED completion a (very) long-term goal as many vets will want the new TR benefits to improve their toons (achieves similar effect as option 1, but in a different and more player friendly way)
2 – Allows players that have put the time/effort/money into grinding out fate points to keep the majority of what they invested while leveling
3 – Functionally the same as Option 1 for players that have not yet invested in EDs

Disadvantages:
1 – Fewer overall ED Past life’s / per player on average will likely be ran do to the lack of need to bind all ED’s to reclaim fate points (although overall ED PLs will likely be higher as many will chose to opt out completely with Option 1)
2 – Epic Advantage will enable veteran players to skip the lower levels again depriving new players of an active player base to group with.

Option 3: Community suggestion to make epic advantage optional.

Advantages:
1 – Gives players maximum flexibility
2 – Allows players that have put the time/effort/money into grinding out fate points to keep the they invested while TRing

Disadvantages:
1 – Unless ED Pls are vastly overpowered, they will likely never be considered
2 – Epic Advantage will enable veteran players to skip the lower levels again depriving new players of an active player base to group with.
3 – High likelihood that epic PLs will not achieve any of the projects goals

Option 4: Recommended Option - Similar to Option 2, except remove the free ranks from epic advantage – this removes the primary disadvantage of option 2 (not keeping all content active) with all the benefits. If you really want to give an xp boost make it a percentage basis, but honestly I don’t think it is necessary if you only make us re-earn one ED at a time, and bonuses given for that effort (in the form of epic PLs). Players are happy, Dev goals are achieved, many xp pots/tomes/stones will still be bought due to the bonus from ED PLs, and the game will remain active at all levels.

If you can give additional clarity on the outcome that you are attempting to achieve with these changes I can refine my analysis to suit. In the absence of that, I made the assumption that the goal was to maintain a growing a healthy game, while maximizing revenue.

Thank you for reading

-Ash

I like this post, the devs should read it. I am really partial to option 2/4 but then ..lol (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/418543-Epic-Level-amp-Iconic-TR?p=5022378#post5022378).

I should note in my post I would have thought it obvious most peeps wouldn't care if we don't get any xp from the bonded destiny xp we would lose, alternately we could get just a few ranks from that one lvl 5 bonded destiny alternately we could choose to not use it as well.

One question in option 2/4 when you bond a destiny you say we get ED past life do we also get the heroic past life? I think we should. I am of the opinion A HTR should give what we currently get when we TR (the heroic bonuses) and a ETR should give us both the HTR stuff and the ETR bonuses.

Great post btw makes things clear and simple and hopefully the devs/management will see how very very bad for the game option one would be!

[samthedagger]

Okay, now that I have caught up with this thread, I am going to post my thoughts because this is something I care about.

I find myself sharing the sentiments of the vast majority of other players here in that I like most of what has been posted about the upcoming changes EXCEPT THE LOSS OF EPIC DESTINY XP. Here is the issue, the way I see it. The new system is not a bad deal for new players. They can join the game just as the new Epic TR system is coming out and not have to worry about losing much form Epic Destinies because honestly, the rules aren't that bad for them. They can level up to 28 then do an Epic TR with only 2 or 3 EDs capped (not sure how the final XP tally will look at this point but that is what I am estimating) and they only lose 1 or two EDs worth of XP when they TR. On the other hand, those of us with characters who have capped ALL of their EDs have put a fair amount of time into it. Giving them some conversion of Heroic experience when they TR is just not acceptable for the amount of time they have put into it.

Here are a few rhetorical questions to consider. Can you cap all existing EDs in a single weekend? Yes, I have done it. Here's how it worked. I played one quest (House of Rusted Blades) from Friday night all through to Sunday evening with few a breaks in between. That was a lot of time, but the reward was worth it. I can do about the same with taking a TR from 1 to 20 (if I really want to). Do I want to do this all the time? No, not at all. Standing on top of a bell for a 2 minutes then fighting the same boss for thirty seconds repeated over the course of about 40 hours is not a lot of fun. But at the time, I was promised that when I TR, I will never have to level up my EDs again, so I considered it a worthy investment of my time. Now in compensation you are offering some bonus heroic XP for losing almost all of those 40 hours of work if I choose to TR again (and it was work, it was not much fun at all).

When I TR, I gain a tangible benefit each time I do it. Now at a leisurely pace (for me), I can TR once every two weeks. That benefit is useful to me for my entire next life from 1-20. Epic is a different ball game. Playing epic difficulties is very challenging without playing with a maxed out ED. And I am not talking about challenging in an exciting and interesting way. It is challenging in a resource intensive way. I have to use Yugo pots, Major mnemonic pots, loads of scrolls, etc. However if I am in capped destiny none of those resources are necessary. So every time I have to change over to a new destiny I am hamstringing myself. I don't think you've been clear on the bonded EDs, but if what you have implied is correct my bonded ED feat might not be useful to me unless I am in that ED. Even if it is otherwise useful, I am not playing the same as I was when I was doing Heroic TRs. Heroic TRs increase in power with each TR throughout the leveling process so that it is actually easier to level from 1-20 with each life. Epic TRs are going to be relatively weak in power compared Heroic TRs in this respect because the vast majority of your power in Epic content is derived from your EDs and those precious twists.

I think you need to take an entirely different tack with this. Reward us for EACH Epic Destiny that we have capped. For each Epic Destiny we have capped, give us an ED passive past life feat or bonus ranks (that can exceed the maximum) for that Epic Destiny or something like that. That way it isn't a complete waste of time. Translating ED experience earned in a previous life into heroic ranks is not an acceptable trade-off for me or almost everyone else posting to this thread and probably playing the game as well. Here are some examples:

1) After an Epic TR, all capped Epic Destinies grant a passive past life feat. Make the feats minor but tangible benefits which make leveling in your next life through epic levels easier much like TRing grants minor but tangible benefits which make leveling easier. It therefore gives a greater benefit to those who capped all of their destinies over someone who has capped only two or three, which is quite fair, considering that those who capped all 11 spent a lot more time than someone who capped two or three. Some examples: Exalted Angel grants +1 divine spellcaster level and +10 positive and light spellpower. Legendary Dreadnought grants +1 [W] damage on all tactical feat attacks. Draconic Incarnation grants +1 arcane caster level and +10 to all energy spellpower. Primal Avatar grants all hirelings, summoned creatures, and companions +2 to attack, damage, and saving throws and +10 PRR.

2) After an Epic TR, you are given at least 1 bonus rank in each Epic Destiny which you have capped which allows you to exceed the standard maximum rank limit.

3) In addition the benefits of a bonded Epic Destiny and associated passive life feat for that bonded ED, after an Epic TR, you are granted 1 bonus rank for each level which you previously earned in Epic Destinies. For example, if you leveled an ED up to level 5 in a previous life, you would begin the next life as rank 5 (starting rank of 0 + 5) in that ED. So if all your EDs were capped when you Epic TRd, all of your EDs would automatically start at level 1 with four ranks to spend. If you repeat the process of capping all EDs again, your next life all EDs would start at rank 10 (starting rank 0 + 10). And so on, until eventually at your sixth Epic TR would would automatically start at rank 29 in all Epic Destinies and never have to worry about leveling up EDs again.

4) Let us keep all Fate Points earned in a previous life (which are really the main reasons we leveled the "useless" destinies in the first place). In addition, either A: give Epic TRs an additional twist slot (with the same EDP cost as the third twist slot) for each bonded ED up to maximum of six twist slots OR B: give Epic TRs the ability to twist in +1 extra tier for each Epic TR (to a maximum of tier six) keeping the existing tier cost formula for each twist slot (so slot one would cost 1/2/3/4/5/6, slot two would cost 2/3/4/5/6/7 and slot three would cost 3/4/5/6/7/8).

[samthedagger]

I will also post as a corollary that I agree with those who say that simply making Heroic TR an option which does NOT erase ED XP an option would be completely acceptable. Thus, if you want to simply perform a Heroic TR in the way in which the game is currently working, then you may. You start off at level 1 and keep all your ED XP. If you are willing to accept to the loss of all ED XP and do the Epic TR, then you have that option of using the Epic TR. I see no need to do away with Heroic TR the way it is currently implemented. Leave Epic TR solely for those who don't mind losing their ED XP or those who have already achieved Completionist or Uber Completionist and want to simply move on to the next XP grind.

[ycheese123]

There is absolutely nothing you could possibly implement to make losing all my hard earned ED's okay for me. Nothing.

This.

[Ytteri]

2. Currently, store bought Fate Points will be preserved after reincarnation. This will not change. We are investigating ways to somehow preserve regular in-game earned Fate Points, but, behind the scenes, they are different than store bought ones, so it is not completely certain that we will be able to preserve them. If we cannot preserve them, we will look for ways to compensate a character for them.

If you're insistent on having TR remove epic xp, preserving fate points is an absolute must. I can't even imagine any other compensation that would justify an epic TR without them. The fate points represent months of work for most people. And it was months of tedious work, doing Rusted Blades literally hundreds of times.

But preserving fate points makes losing the epic xp kind of ok, since fate points are the major reason that people went through that work in the first place. There really can't be any substitute.

I would also suggest that any destinies that were unlocked during a first life remain unlocked after TR, so say an arcane who took the magister past life can immediately jump into Shiradi (provided it was unlocked in the previous life) when he gets to 20 even though he has no epic xp at all.

[SisAmethyst]

...

Option 1: Implement the TR changes exactly as implemented in Glin’s post.
...
Option 2: Community suggestion to have the TR process only reset the ‘bonded’ destiny
...
Option 3: Community suggestion to make epic advantage optional.
...
Option 4: Recommended Option - Similar to Option 2, except remove the free ranks from epic advantage – this removes the primary disadvantage of option 2 (not keeping all content active) with all the benefits.
...

Well it seems some players really enjoy the lower levels and TR to play that content again. Other players want to focus more at the higher level but TR to get some advantages in form of PL. Some players aren't concerned about loosing their ED while others wouldn't want to replay a caster ED on a melee character and vice versa. I like your sum up, but it's probably hard to get everybody in one boat.

You could even add an option 5, where you get XP stones a 100K XP for each 100K XP in the ED tree, that could be used whenever the player want to. Or add the trainer from Lamannia into the real world, that propose you your banked XP in chunks when you request them. E.g. to skip some level content he dislike, not provide enough quests or to catch up with buddies. But still what is with fate points, destiny keys etc.?

I guess if we leave heroic TR untouched players could opt for running the heroic game all over again, while the other players with epic TR would lose the ED XP but would earn EPL and due to the epic advantage could skip most of the low level content. While in the lower levels I do play also with new guild members that not yet have any character above 10, so this is an other reason to play that heroic part. It give choices, and more choices are always good.

Probably Turbine had seen that they sold a lot of Otto Boxes and maybe assumed everybody want to skip the heroic content which lead to the idea of the epic advantage. However with the current proposed system I don't see how heroic TR make sense at all anymore in the future as one would loose more then on an epic TR. However there is just not enough interesting epic content out yet to go to 28. In other words would stop the TRing for the next foreseeable future.

[SirShen]

It has been made clear that the devs are paying attention to this thread.

It is also clear that the elephant in the room is the undercompensated loss of unbound ED XP.

I am guessing that the devs have a good reason for wanting to wipe pre-existing ED XP, while also providing a way to make it permanent once again. :@

So, compensate each FIRST ETR with 1M XP Stones for every one million unbound ED XP, and put them in the TR cache. BtC and usable only on said character, but they can be moved to normal storage, and unused stones shall survive subsequent TR's; the player can spend them when he/she will.

This should silence the majority of the objections to the new TR mechanic.

(But then, should and would don't build any bridges. ;))

Now this idea i like. XP stones that you can use at any time on your TR.

[Singular]

Hi. Thanks again for your feedback and opinions on the proposed design of the new Epic TR. Here are some of the things the team is currently thinking about.

We understand your concern about losing Epic Destiny XP upon reincarnation and not getting enough in return. So, we are investigating some different possibilities in regard to what a character gets after they reincarnate with Epic TR. We’d like to offer a system where the character gets credit for every XP they “burn” from an epic destiny. One scenario for this is that Epic Destiny XP will be converted to heroic XP (using a formula that adjusts for the different rates at which heroic and epic XP are gained). This converted XP would then be used to level up your reincarnated character. This could mean, for example, that a character with a large number of destinies maxed out could immediately level back up to level 20 even as a third life character. Again, this is just an example of one of the things we are considering, but it’s a definite possibility.

I like this idea. However, I'd like it, as someone suggested, through the form of "xp stones." That way, we could play where we enjoy, and skip levels we consider grindy (most players would skip 18-20). Granting 1 million xp stones per million epic xp (or however you calculate that based on your Epic:Heroic conversion) produces the additional benefit of increased player control - always a positive.

If the experience we get is added on, without our input or choice, we are simply getting a "free" past life for the epic xp. Yes, we'd get to pick the life (whatever class we consider boring, I guess), but it would remove the tangible benefit of 1) having one or more xp stones and 2) choosing when to use them.


Also, to answer a couple of additional questions:

1. With the current design, after this system goes live, going through a Heroic TR will burn non-bonded epic destiny XP, but the character will be compensated for the burned XP. In other words, Heroic TR will work just like Epic TR except it will be available at level 20 instead of level cap and it will not grant Epic past life feats. Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play. You should use Heroic TR if you’d like to reincarnate at level 20 and want the benefits that Heroic TR gives (build points, past life feat). Otherwise, you should consider continuing up to level cap and reincarnating from there where you will get all the benefits of Heroic TR plus the additional benefit of Epic TR (epic past life feats).

Well, that's good to know. You're creating this scenario:

1. Players who want their EDs and endgame content have to purchase the latest expansion, or become Heroic TR-only.
2. We should get our Heroic TRing done now, b/c our EDs will remain up until Update 20
3. There may be no real point in doing endgame for experience right now, but we could work on bringing our alts up to cap if we don't plan on TRing them. So it's a great time to farm EDs on non-mains that will never TR, but a bad time to work on our mains.


2. Currently, store bought Fate Points will be preserved after reincarnation. This will not change. We are investigating ways to somehow preserve regular in-game earned Fate Points, but, behind the scenes, they are different than store bought ones, so it is not completely certain that we will be able to preserve them. If we cannot preserve them, we will look for ways to compensate a character for them.

Stay tuned for more info and explanations of this new system proposal early next week.

It's good you're aware of these issues. I'm not really sure how I feel about keeping the fate points, to be honest. If I'm going to trade in my ED experience for palpable heroic benefit, it's not so bad to earn them all again if the grind is minimized through enjoyable content. On the other hand, I don't want to play every single class/ED to cap, then do it again. That's too much work.

In light of the grind being too much work, it would be nice to keep my current earned fate points.

[Yalinaa]

I will also post as a corollary that I agree with those who say that simply making Heroic TR an option which does NOT erase ED XP an option would be completely acceptable. Thus, if you want to simply perform a Heroic TR in the way in which the game is currently working, then you may. You start off at level 1 and keep all your ED XP. If you are willing to accept to the loss of all ED XP and do the Epic TR, then you have that option of using the Epic TR. I see no need to do away with Heroic TR the way it is currently implemented. Leave Epic TR solely for those who don't mind losing their ED XP or those who have already achieved Completionist or Uber Completionist and want to simply move on to the next XP grind.

If you loose ED XP in every kind of TR except heroic TR, the majority of the players would simply do only heroic TR. Piloto already wrote it, they don't like us playing on heroic levels, they want us to play their (crappy) end game content. So the real question is, why they want us to stop playing on heroic levels? It's about their ego? Or is just about Turbine based in Boston, and it looks like they replace a Brady for a Tebow, so they wanna toss their frustrations and anger to us??:)

[DDOForumAccount]

Under the current system, player1, player2 and player3 are free to TR or play around epic content, at their leisure.

With the new system, player1 who likes (heroic) TR will probably ignore epic content totally, leaving that part of the game untouched. He will TR the second he reaches 20, ignoring epic content.

Player2 does epics, enough that even the thought of losing all the progress prevents any TR forever. He stays at 28.

Player3 gets to 28, notices that any further time spent in epics is a waste of time, so he TR:s soon, ignoring any further epic content until the next life.


Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play.

Maybe so, but even hinting about the losing of epic destinies creates a strong incentive to avoid epic play right now. After the fact it will only maintain that incentive to a part of the population (players 1 and somewhat player3 in my example).

This separation is not a good thing. Player1 and player2 will never ever ever be in the same party. Players 1 and 3 might meet by luck, but if they try to TR at the same time, odds are one of them will start so far apart due to the epic disadvantage, that they won't be able to play together. Players 2 and 3 will be able to party together for a few quests, when player3 has progressed through most of the epic levels, but for levels from 1 to 24-25 he will not party with player2.

TL;DR
If gaining further epic exp is lost (converted to heroic, whatever), there's no point making more epic exp. Removing any incentive to play epics is a weird way to try to promote epic level play.

[Ertay]

Wow. I left almost a year ago (when the enhancement pass was right around the corner, yea) and just now chimed in to see what the new expansion was going to be about, to find this. Turbine at it's best really. Seriously, *** where you guys thinking with that?

So anybody who TRs in the future is going to enjoy trading millions of xp for some ranks starting at level one? Think for a moment, what do I get when I do epic TRs in the future, when I didn't just start with a fully leveled tree? I get to start at ****ing level 2? For real? That shaves off about 15 minutes off the whole TR process. The thought that this is complete bullcrap should really have occured to anyone even taking as long as to write this ****.

Anyway, guess I'll just turn around and leave again...

[oradafu]

Under the current system, player1, player2 and player3 are free to TR or play around epic content, at their leisure.

With the new system, player1 who likes (heroic) TR will probably ignore epic content totally, leaving that part of the game untouched. He will TR the second he reaches 20, ignoring epic content.

Player2 does epics, enough that even the thought of losing all the progress prevents any TR forever. He stays at 28.

Player3 gets to 28, notices that any further time spent in epics is a waste of time, so he TR:s soon, ignoring any further epic content until the next life.



Maybe so, but even hinting about the losing of epic destinies creates a strong incentive to avoid epic play right now. After the fact it will only maintain that incentive to a part of the population (players 1 and somewhat player3 in my example).

This separation is not a good thing. Player1 and player2 will never ever ever be in the same party. Players 1 and 3 might meet by luck, but if they try to TR at the same time, odds are one of them will start so far apart due to the epic disadvantage, that they won't be able to play together. Players 2 and 3 will be able to party together for a few quests, when player3 has progressed through most of the epic levels, but for levels from 1 to 24-25 he will not party with player2.

TL;DR
If gaining further epic exp is lost (converted to heroic, whatever), there's no point making more epic exp. Removing any incentive to play epics is a weird way to try to promote epic level play.

I think you have explained succinctly how the Devs are once again splitting the playerbase by causing the Epic Destiny XP to disappear. This would be at least the third time that I can recall the Devs splitting the playerbase of the game.

First, it was the introduction of the Bravery Bonus, which I really do blame the destruction of running PUGs. Prior to the BB, most players didn't care if a new/inexperienced player joined the group as long as they were competent. Prior to the BB, many players didn't care if someone was overlevel, since the loss of XP wasn't too big of a deal.

Second, it was the addition of epic levels, in my opinion. I know alot of people are going to disagree with me, but adding epic levels split the playerbase in several ways. The Devs kept the segregation of heroic players from entering Epic quests. Additionally, the Devs didn't raise the horrible XP in the upper heroics, so level 20 toons bolt from horrible heroic XP quests for the better epic XP quests. The extra 5 levels also stretched the playerbase enough that it utterly gutted all the raids. Even with overlevel penalty hits, raids such as Reaver's Fate, Shroud and (to a lesser degree) Abbot enjoyed some health runs as being part of the endgame run. Today, you're lucky if you can find any of these raids (along with VoD, ToD and HoX) be ran at 1/5th the rate what they were prior to the introduction of Epic levels. Yes, there are some other factors like better loot in Epics also, but Epic levels should have never been introduced, especially since they EDs. If EDs were just added without the Epic levels, I strongly believe that the playerbase would be healthier.

Third...well, I don't need to explain how removing ED XP when players TR or Epic TR will split the playerbase again, since DDOForumAccount did a pretty good job.

[geoffhanna]

Include Iconics in the TR cycle (with Iconic Past Life Feats)




Two questions:


If you build an Iconic that is a Paladin and then TR, do you earn an Iconic past life feat or a Paladin past life feat? (Or both?)
If Iconic past lives exists, does that mean Heroic Completionists must earn them to stay Completionists?



If this has already been answered, my apologies, but 25 pages means I can't read this whole thread.

[kwyjibo_lol]

1. With the current design, after this system goes live, going through a Heroic TR will burn non-bonded epic destiny XP, but the character will be compensated for the burned XP. In other words, Heroic TR will work just like Epic TR except it will be available at level 20 instead of level cap and it will not grant Epic past life feats. Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play. You should use Heroic TR if you’d like to reincarnate at level 20 and want the benefits that Heroic TR gives (build points, past life feat). Otherwise, you should consider continuing up to level cap and reincarnating from there where you will get all the benefits of Heroic TR plus the additional benefit of Epic TR (epic past life feats).


I strongly suggest that you people reconsider this position and keep it as it is for heroic TR'ing!

[Urgforum]

1. With the current design, after this system goes live, going through a Heroic TR will burn non-bonded epic destiny XP, but the character will be compensated for the burned XP. In other words, Heroic TR will work just like Epic TR except it will be available at level 20 instead of level cap and it will not grant Epic past life feats. Allowing Heroic TR to preserve ED XP sort of short-circuits the system, providing a weird incentive to avoid epic level play. You should use Heroic TR if you’d like to reincarnate at level 20 and want the benefits that Heroic TR gives (build points, past life feat). Otherwise, you should consider continuing up to level cap and reincarnating from there where you will get all the benefits of Heroic TR plus the additional benefit of Epic TR (epic past life feats).

Allowing Heroic TR to continue working the way TR currently does isn't an incentive to avoid epic level play. My first level 20 character has been playing around with epic stuff while staying 20 so it is in range to group with guildies in their upper teens. Our guild is very small and few people have high level characters so we decided to park at 20 for maximum ability to group together. The idea was to max out a destiny complementary to my current life, then when I have a second character reach 20, TR into a class complementary to the next ED I want to work on, rinse and repeat, TRing when I reach cap or get bored of my current build or just whenever I'm ready to.

We were told that we could do this. Our ED progress would be preserved, so we could progress them at our leisure and enjoy a balance between heroic and elite content. It was an explicit design feature.

Now that explicit design feature, I'm told, is being taken away. I will have no reason to play epic level stuff in between leveling. I'll reach 20 and TR, except maybe every few lives when I want to "burn in" a specific ED. This won't make me play epic stuff more, it will make me play epic stuff LESS.

Heroic TR works fine the way it is. It's not broken and it doesn't need fixing (except the 18-20 leveling slump which could be addressed a number of different ways). I don't want to start at level 4 while my 10th life friend with 55 destiny levels starts at 12 and my other friend who's just trying the game for the first time starts at 1.

If I want an Epic Destiny past life, yes, wipe my epic destiny exp! That makes sense! I'm giving up my current experience in order to earn a past life feat and start again fresh.

If I want a heroic past life, wipe my character exp. That makes sense! But leave my EDs the way they are so I can enjoy them as much or as little as I can between lives and still feel I am making progress. You know, the way they were explicitly designed.

Also, please give us an answer regarding sphere unlocks and whether they will be preserved when ED experience is wiped.

[ycheese123]

So basically you guys are butthurt that we farmed the same 2 quests to max our destinies, you're scared that everyone is going to TR because the new content is going to suck?, there's NO NEW RAID(s), we have no destinies to level during the climb to lvl28, and people are going to be bored...

So to keep us playing/purchasing your new epic content and punish us for grinding 2 quests for EDs you make TR'ing less appealing by having ED xp wipe upon doing it. And hey, now we have more Destinies to level again so that keeps us playing some more too! Congratulations! You have made TR'ing less appealing for sure. I don't care what "compensation" you come up with; you could give me a 40pt build, let me keep fate points, level straight to 20, and I still wouldn't TR after U20. I want the fully unlocked EDs I spent time unlocking. And I wanted to start to TR'ing my main to completionist for fun, and now I guess that's not gonna happen. If I want to play him I'll be stuck playing your stupid new Forgotten Realms content that doesn't include a raid. That's what you want right? Again, congratulations on accomplishing your goal. I didn't buy the expansion though, and I'm glad, as I think this is going to make me not want to play at all. Ahh, I feel better now.


If you loose ED XP in every kind of TR except heroic TR, the majority of the players would simply do only heroic TR. Piloto already wrote it, they don't like us playing on heroic levels, they want us to play their (crappy) end game content.

Bingo.

[Cauthey_No_CCInfo]

Here it is for me, Turbine. Simply stated:

If you are going to take away my Epic Destiny work that I have completed upon Herioc TR, I will not play anymore. If I do not play anymore, it is likely that the 5 RL friends of mine in my guild will also not play anymore. I believe that perhaps 3 of them are VIP subscribers.

I realize that this amount of monetary loss is not enough to sway you from your current development plans. But, I think it would be very foolish to not consider the larger scale reprecussions of pressing on with a plan that has recieved such a negative response with the player community.


Somehow, I get the impression that you and your staff sincerely think that we want this. I liken it to the following analogy:

"It's FUN to go shopping at the grocery store to replace all of the food in your refrigerator and freezer after a power outage!! We have witnessed that our customers LOVE to shop from scratch, despite the anger and frustration of the lost time/money from everything they have stored up being ruined."

Please do not unplug my Epic Destiny freezer, Turbine. If you do, I will NOT be returning to restock it again. :(

[Cauthey_No_CCInfo]

This is not Cordovan's fault guys. He's not a developer, not a decision maker. At ALL. All he can do is relay a message given to him by the decision makers (manager types above the developers). WB and Turbine suits.

They are killing this game from the inside out. We are not participating in a discussion, we are just listening to ourselves type.

Jerry, please get the devs to spend a few more minutes here (Piloto's response is a great start).. interact with the playerbase.

Lets get this site reverted or fixed and welcome people back. Too many community members left this site in... droves. Many ViPs. The few left, or coming back to have a voice in this thread are not happy for the most part, because they know this is set in stone. Why? Remember the last brainstorm, enhancement pass? Stone.

This is happening. Sure the details can change... but INTERACT with the playerbase. Show us the "proposal" can change.

Leslie - they ARE talking to us and engaging us. Right now. In this thread. Please do not misuse this opportunity to be positive and constructive.

[Citzen_Gkar]

Not when it feels like E3 for Turbine.

Oh crude, we screwed up. What can we do now?

Just let it happen, Gkar. It will be over soon.

You know last night I logged into one of my Epic characters. Sat there for a couple minutes, realized there was no reason to play them since they already had one destiny maxed, and then parked them until U20. I guess I have 4 parked characters now.

I switched to my L14...but its on its second life so when it hits 20 I have to park it since it also has more than one ED done...

I have 3 more characters that don't have any EDs done. I guess I could get them up to 1 ED each before I'm out of characters to play.

Yeah, I think I'm about to run out of things to do in this game.

[darchow_the_raven]

I personally don't find any of Glin's post appealing.

[Citzen_Gkar]

It is also clear that the elephant in the room is the undercompensated loss of unbound ED XP.

Actually I'm not totally sure that's the white elephant. People are upset about the ED XP loss because the ED XP system sucks the big one. To make people happy they would probably have to:

1) Do something to grandfather the old ED XP from before U20
2) Change the ED XP system to detach ED XP from your active destiny. Let me designate 1 ED as my active for the purpose of abilities and 1 ED as active for the purpose of receiving XP. This would make the entire Epic game more fun, and thus people wouldn't be so very protective of their ED XP. And frankly making the game more fun without any reduction in work is a good thing period. Make it so and the devs are heros and will revitalize epics.



So, compensate each FIRST ETR with 1M XP Stones for every one million unbound ED XP, and put them in the TR cache. BtC and usable only on said character, but they can be moved to normal storage, and unused stones shall survive subsequent TR's; the player can spend them when he/she will.

This would be a good way to deal with my item #1 above. It still doesn't however fix the longer term problem with the ED/TR mechanic they are proposing.

[serenityangel]

First of all, would like to thank the developer Piloto for his post which seemed inteded to "clarify" the OP post and the general discussions they had intended with this idea. The OP certainly needed clarification and more elaboration to the concerns we as your fanbase had to the idea.

Secondly, I'd like to thank Cordovan for keeping the forum mostly civil on an expressedly explosive topic.

Finally, I believe the developers can see that aspects of their idea is not going to be as beneficial to their game as they originally thought. I don't believe there is much we all can do but wait until they bring a second proposal for their idea. We as the community have proposed many fine alternatives and have very legitimate concerns about products we've bought in the DDO store. We see that the tomes of fate will be preserved no matter what system comes out, but say the keys of destiny.. not so much. I think the developers have much to think about in next few weeks given the passion of the thread.

I'm just going to give the heads up though where I think I personally gonna draw the red line. If heroic TRs begins to wipe Destiny XP, I think that might be it. A game's fanbase is ever fickle and it's a credit you kept some of us for so long, but enacting that is gonna turn TRing into a treadmill and not an exploration of all the experiences in DDO that it was meant to be. I challenge to simplify the rules you have, fix the bugs, and create content (monsters, quests, raids, etc).. not new rules and regulations of how to play a game (new xp system, new tr system, new auction system, new XYZ systems).

Posted enough for now, see you all when it hits Lammaland~

[Ralmeth]

One issue I have not seen addressed that myself and everyone I know that's played in epics agrees to: It's not fun to play in an epic destiny that has nothing to do with your character. Since the developers are proposing a change to the epic destiny system, why not change the system to address this issue?

[DOA666]

Loving where you are headed with this Devs!

I don't think much tweaking is needed except to allow reincarnation(other then TR'ing) to keep existing epic destiny levels for those not wanting to TR. Those that want to TR need to suck it up. That's why TR isn't for everyone.

Other change (I think it's mandatory) is to give both Heroic and Epic Completionist feats to characters as an auto feat. People can't fit in all the feats for a build as it is let alone handicapping them by removing a feat to be able to select the completionist feat. This is probably the second reason behind "the grind" as to why people don't go for completionist.

Regards

Krumper
PS - Could we have some more moderators who police these forums? Some of these people who post on these forums need a good kick in the rear. It chases away people who would post but fear a flaming from someone having a bad hair day.

[Mellkor]

One issue I have not seen addressed that myself and everyone I know that's played in epics agrees to: It's not fun to play in an epic destiny that has nothing to do with your character. Since the developers are proposing a change to the epic destiny system, why not change the system to address this issue?

I do not see this as an "issue" at all. If it is not fun to be in a destiny that has nothing to do with your character, then don't go in it! There is no reason to do so, besides self interest.

[Mellkor]

Loving where you are headed with this Devs!

I don't think much tweaking is needed except to allow reincarnation(other then TR'ing) to keep existing epic destiny levels for those not wanting to TR. Those that want to TR need to suck it up. That's why TR isn't for everyone.

Other change (I think it's mandatory) is to give both Heroic and Epic Completionist feats to characters as an auto feat. People can't fit in all the feats for a build as it is let alone handicapping them by removing a feat to be able to select the completionist feat. This is probably the second reason behind "the grind" as to why people don't go for completionist.

Regards

Krumper
PS - Could we have some more moderators who police these forums? Some of these people who post on these forums need a good kick in the rear. It chases away people who would post but fear a flaming from someone having a bad hair day.

It boggles my mind as to why completionist is not a free additional feat as well. For work of that magnitude, even one free feat is kind of lame, IMO.

The current "reward" of having access to the completionist feat that must be taken instead of a regular feat is downright insulting! I do not bother to try for completionist for this reason!

[Geister]

So having read through most of this thread I know what the players want (myself included) and I can guess as to what Turbine wants so lets lay out those two points of view:

Players - We don't want to lose what we already have. We don't want to regrind ED's no matter how much heroic EXP gets thrown at us. We are terrified of losing our fate points.

Turbine - It would be silly to introduce a epic TR if some of the player base has most of if not all the requirements done already. We want people to earn a Epic past life feat starting with this new system. ED's are an integral part of the Epic TR process. People should have to play in the destiny they are going to TR that life. (Turbine feel free to chime in if I missed something)

So the question now is how can we keep the most people happy?
That's easy - stop using the stick and reach for a carrot.

I propose 3 main changes to the original proposal:

1. ED exp up through the current rank 5 is kept intact through all TR's - effect: players are happy and the sticky fate point issue is avoided!

2. Add a 6th rank to each ED (does not have to be a real rank that grants fate points) - this rank would take more XP to unlock than the lower 5 ranks. The EXP requirement would be something like a fresh 20 with no ED exp would have to make this ED his primary ED for 6 or so out of the 8 epic levels to get it caped (leaves a little wiggle room to branch out some). The carrot at the top of this tree does not need to be huge but i think something for people that are not planing to TR should be there. A few possibilities would be: Auto grants the past life feat gained by that destiny while in that destiny - 2 to 4 more points to spend in that destiny - a cosmetic armor kit that corresponds with that destiny - something else. The EXP for the 6th rank is reset upon TR unless it is the epic destiny that gets locked in. Effect: In order to achieve a Epic TR in a destiny, players would need to spend a significant amount of time in that destiny even if it is currently rank 5.

3. The Epic advantage would need to change since ED ranks are kept. Epic advantage only works for ED's that have been locked in place through epic TR. This should be handled just like veteran status. Put people on the ship and let them decide how many levels they want auto granted up to the maximum they have unlocked.

[Xorm]

I don't understand why the fuss, the solution is really easy, Leave heroic reincarnates as they are, and add in a new and improved Epic TR. If someone is level 28 with maxed destinys, and wants to TR the obtain a heroic TR. IF they WANT to get the epic TR past lives, then they go with the new Epic TR's. The Epic TR's could have the advantage of counting as both a Heroic and Epic TR. Simple enough in my mind.

*prepares for the onslaught of backlash*

[DDOForumAccount]

I do not see this as an "issue" at all. If it is not fun to be in a destiny that has nothing to do with your character, then don't go in it! There is no reason to do so, besides self interest.

The devs have just stated, that their goal is to get people to play epic more. This is precisely the issue at hand. Either you're in a maxed destiny (fun) and don't gain exp (not fun), or you swap to a bad destiny (not fun) to get more exp (fun). When your choises are fun+not_fun or not_fun+fun, the choise easily becomes heroic TR, where you start over and get some perks (fun) and gain exp with a slightly better toon than the previous run (fun). Epic: 50% fun, heroic: 100% fun.

[Citzen_Gkar]

I do not see this as an "issue" at all. If it is not fun to be in a destiny that has nothing to do with your character, then don't go in it! There is no reason to do so, besides self interest.

You haven't run ED have you? The system is designed for force you to run destinies that have nothing to do with your character in order to be able to run destinies that are for your character.

[Calinthus]

Ok, first things first. I love playing this game. I've made many friends in DDO, and questing with them just plain rocks. That being said. You. Have. Got. To. Be. Frakking. Kidding. Me. Regrind all my ED's? Go through all that again?!?I don't grind quests with the intention of just leveling my character or ED's. I have spent a long time building my ED's (even the ones I didn't like), just so I wouldn't have to do it again. Now, you're saying all that was for nothing?!? I love playing DDO, but, if you guys insist on things like this (not a huge fan of the new enhancements either), I'll stop playing. I've spent quite a lot of real money on this game, and will continue to do so. If it remains fun. Though, at this point, I'm seriously thinking about going and making a Jedi.

[Permian]

I don't understand why the fuss, the solution is really easy, Leave heroic reincarnates as they are, and add in a new and improved Epic TR. If someone is level 28 with maxed destinys, and wants to TR the obtain a heroic TR. IF they WANT to get the epic TR past lives, then they go with the new Epic TR's. The Epic TR's could have the advantage of counting as both a Heroic and Epic TR. Simple enough in my mind.

*prepares for the onslaught of backlash*

You're entitled. It's just not as easy as you think it is and I'm not saying that as an insult. I'm still writing up some detailed feedback that will hopefully be considered. Hey, at least you didn't come on here and call people whiners as some others have done. So thanks for not doing that.

[AlmGhandi]

Allowing Heroic TR to continue working the way TR currently does isn't an incentive to avoid epic level play.

Funny you should say that!

The thing I enjoy most is the 3-11 quests... although my favourite quest in the whole game is "lords of dust" - because I have been a gnomon fan forever! (how else can I use my Halfling Bane weapons... (they are explicitly banned from Guild PVP)).

I have... after 8 lives finally been persuaded to do epic stuff (10 days ago or so)... start farming destinies.... and now this news.
So it is back to ->20 and TR for the foreseeable future... but this isn't what I paid for. Any chance of my money back?

EDIT: It would be really helpful to hear what the devs are trying to achieve? Do they want to make things more fun? Do they want to be able to sell more store items? Do they want to level the playing field for the massive(??) influx of new players because of FR content and NWO suckage?

I am all in favour of more communication, but this has been presented much as a "FACT"... with an included deadline (U20). Past experience has shown that even the major bugs seen on LAM have made it to Live... so I think the dev team can understand we don't take their "nothing is set in stone" seriously. They have a lot of work to do to get over that reputation... and the fact that some of the DDO community team seem to be spending more time on other turbine forums does nothing to make me feel better.

If DDO is going into caretaker mode.... then so be it. Just don't ruin it all for us with lots of new, hastily (what is the timeframe between now - allegedly only in the "talking about" phase - and U20???) constructed stuff. Those of us that are playing the game, are playing it how it is.

[Thumbed_Servant]

One of the MOST upsetting factors in the proposed change: We were given the rule that Epic Destinies WOULD carry over through a TR and therefore many players went out and played and played and played with the express purpose of capping all destinies knowing they would never lose the investment of time, and now it is proposed to reverse this and those who spent this time will lose that investment. This is VERY poorly thought out. A complete reversal of a position that will cost many people much much time invested is a horrible idea.

I am also at this time feeling the depressing thought of, "Why should I quest my epic toons if they have maxed a destiny?" If I quest them more, they gain more destinies that will be evaporated should I TR. And yet, why would I TR now if I don't get to bond my capped destiny at this time and I don't get the Epic Past Life feat? If I tr now, I'll get the Heroic Past Life feat that I would also get along side an Epic Past Life feat if I waited and TR'd once the new Epic TR is available but not the Epic Past Life feat nor a bonded destiny, so maybe I shouldn't play the toon at all to only later lose my time invested when the new system comes out?

EDIT: I wanted to sum up the feeling here....It feels as though we were have been lead on, or at least have had a SERIOUS promise (the promise that Epic Destinies would carry through TRs) broken. It feels like an injustice.