Epic Level & Iconic TR

[DOA666]

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.

Appreciate your attempts to come up with an idea, however, as I read your proposal and if I am reading this correctly, you want people that haven't touched ED's to do double the normal amount of XP just so they can EPIC TR and allow epic veterans(people who have the ED already complete) can keep the existing ED benefits. Wouldn't this turn away new people to the game? It seems a little excessive to require that much xp for an ED to be completed.

I really think the solution is easier then people make it out to be(except if Dev's have further benefits planned based upon Epic Destiny's giving benefits). If you want to Epic TR and get the benefits of Epic TR'ing .. you wear the price for it just like you do with a heroic TR at present. Those that don't want to Epic TR should be allowed to reincarnate (everything but epic TR) while still keeping their epic destiny's as they are each time. It solves the problem for those wanting to keep their Epic Destiny's.

Krumper

[Robai]

Since this topic has so many messages and I have edited my post then I'll post it again, because I think that's the true solution for ED xp imo.

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).
Anyone disagree with this suggestion?

[DOA666]

Since this topic has so many messages and I have edited my post then I'll post it again, because I think that's the true solution for ED xp imo.

Anyone disagree with this suggestion?

I think you have point 2 around the wrong way .. I think it should read -

2) when Epic TR you lose just the unbonded ED's xp (i.e. all other bonded EDs xp remains)


Krumper

[Geister]

Appreciate your attempts to come up with an idea, however, as I read your proposal and if I am reading this correctly, you want people that haven't touched ED's to do double the normal amount of XP just so they can EPIC TR and allow epic veterans(people who have the ED already complete) can keep the existing ED benefits. Wouldn't this turn away new people to the game? It seems a little excessive to require that much xp for an ED to be completed.

I really think the solution is easier then people make it out to be(except if Dev's have further benefits planned based upon Epic Destiny's giving benefits). If you want to Epic TR and get the benefits of Epic TR'ing .. you wear the price for it just like you do with a heroic TR at present. Those that don't want to Epic TR should be allowed to reincarnate (everything but epic TR) while still keeping their epic destiny's as they are each time. It solves the problem for those wanting to keep their Epic Destiny's.

Krumper

You miss the point. yes it will take more EXP to get the destiny caped to be able to epic TR but you will still get it 2-3 levels BEFORE you hit the level 28 epic cap. All you have to do extra is stay in that ED a little longer then someone that already has it caped.

[Robai]

I think you have point 2 around the wrong way .. I think it should read -

2) when Epic TR you lose just the unbonded ED's xp (i.e. all other bonded EDs xp remains)


Krumper

I think only one ED can be made bonded. And after Epic TR you get bonuses from that bonded ED (like a feat or more ED points or whatever bonus).
That's why:
- all other EDs xp should remain untouched
- you lose xp only from the bonded ED when ETR
- xp cap for that bonded ED (I mean bonded in previous life just before ETR) should be raised (other EDs xp cap stay untouched until you bond them and ETR).

[Cableman]

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.

I can live with this as long as Fate Points are preserved. I'm looking forward to how this turns out.

[Delacroix21]

I have maxed out all my EDs for the fate points and to test for broken abilities (which there still quite a few) through over 847 house of rusted blades quests. Just take that in for a second ok? Over 800 runs of a quests (20k per run, 1,884,000xp to cap, 7 destinies to cap as i capped the other 2 while leveling to 25).


That was with a greater epic tome of learning and being a VIP.


Now I am not going to use caps and yell at you, but you tell me what is fun about running the same quest 847 times? Could I have run other quests to level? No, the xp rewards from other quests aren't worth it, not for a grind of this magnitude. And that's what you have made this TR system, a GRIND. It's not fun, not fun at all. It WOULD be fun if TR actually gave you BONUS xp making leveling from 1-20 a second, third, etc. time faster then normal. But instead you made it cost extra xp with quest repeat penalties, turning leveling up from fun to a well planned and strategized grind that new players are. Excluded from because they will slow you down and thus increase the GRIND.


I keep using caps on the word GRIND to emphasize the point that there is nothing "fun" about a GRIND. Running 1 quest over 847 times seems insane, and yet you are setting up yet another TR system that expects me to do it all over again. I earned over 20,000,000 XP for all my GRINDING, and I want it all back.


Give us a "stone of 100,000"XP for every 100,000xp we have in our other EDs when we TR, that can be used to either level up in heroic levels, or in epic levels. Give these stones even after the update so people don't say: "well I capped th ED I want, better Epic TR now or any and all my efforts leveling are a waste of time"



Lastly, allow epic xp to be earned in a "pool" that can be SPENT on ANY ED. I am so tire of seeing fighters etc. in a magister ED just to level it. Make the game more fun, let us level EDs less painfully than live.

[Atremus]

I think only one ED can be made bonded. And after Epic TR you get bonuses from that bonded ED (like a feat or more ED points or whatever bonus).
That's why:
- all other EDs xp should remain untouched
- you lose xp only from the bonded ED when ETR
- xp cap for that bonded ED (I mean bonded in previous life just before ETR) should be raised (other EDs xp cap stay untouched until you bond them and ETR).



This would be awesome. It really should be this.

Sadly we need more bank space, content and raids more than Epic TR. Perhaps we can get it all?

[AlmGhandi]

It's all coming this year.
:(

[Atremus]

Lol

[Delacroix21]

Also as a tip, lets try something new and instead of you choosing the compensation you think is fair, let the game community vote on it.


I spent countless hours running the same quest 847 times for my fate point. You guys figure out that "internal code" on your end to please preserve those points, as I strongly doubt the compensation you come up with will match that. Since you allready hinted that the XP given when TRing will be "adjusted" to heroic levels, meaning severely nerfed.


Giving me enough xp to tr level from 1-20 does NOT make up for my 847 house of rusted blades runs. Giving me xp stones to use as i see fit (equal to what I burning) is fair.

[Teh_Troll]

So I go out last night . . . go to sleep . . . wake up and hit "Man of Steel" . . . and we're now at over 50 pages of "hell no!" to these inane ideas?

Our point's made Turbine. Under no conditions is it okay for Heroic TR to blank out ED XP.

[DOA666]

You miss the point. yes it will take more EXP to get the destiny caped to be able to epic TR but you will still get it 2-3 levels BEFORE you hit the level 28 epic cap. All you have to do extra is stay in that ED a little longer then someone that already has it caped.

Ok I have posted a few times as a warm up in the past hour. Start rant ...

This is only my opinion and I appreciate that 95%(yeah yeah I made this stat up :P) of people wont agree with me however I will lay my cards on the table. Yes, I will get bent over and yes, I will have to get the doctor to give me forum ointment for a flaming rear end by differing opinions.

I think keeping all the Destiny's XP for those wanting to Epic TR cheapens what TR'ing is about and more importantly cheapens what I have achieved. I just wanted it on the record for Dev's to read as everyone else has wept over keeping their Epic Destiny xp in this thread. I am now weeping over keeping TR'ing meaningful as TR'ing means something to those that have done it and others look up to people who have achieved it.

I agree mentally I will feel like I have been kicked in the head by turbine when I see it all my Epic Destiny's reset after doing my first Epic TR. But I will know its going to happen and I can make a conscious decision to forgo it for greater TR riches.

The people that want the benefits of TR'ing, but don't want to put in the grind to get it, will always look for a cheap and nasty way to obtain it without grinding it out like TR's have done in the past. Sitting at level 25 repeatedly getting XP from the same quest in your maxed out sets of gear isn't grinding. That would be like a heroic reincarnation (pretty flower with an aura?!!!?) starting again at lvl 20 and giving them 4.378million XP to gain with 3 skills/spells from another class on top of their current class/es.

You can not tell me that Epic XP is hard to gain.


Krumper
PS - Thank you anyone that read my full post. I am sorry I have a no refund policy for the time you spent reading it if you don't agree with it.

[Postumus]

I have maxed out all my EDs for the fate points and to test for broken abilities (which there still quite a few) through over 847 house of rusted blades quests. Just take that in for a second ok? Over 800 runs of a quests (20k per run, 1,884,000xp to cap, 7 destinies to cap as i capped the other 2 while leveling to 25).


Now I am not going to use caps and yell at you, but you tell me what is fun about running the same quest 847 times? Could I have run other quests to level? No, the xp rewards from other quests aren't worth it, not for a grind of this magnitude.


I think this argument, which keeps getting repeated as though it is something substantial, is a bad argument. Mainly because you absolutely could have run other quests to get the xps, yet you eschewed them for xp/min runs. Arguing that the max xp/min quest is the only possible quest to run is subjective and demonstrably untrue as there are players like me who have run rusted blades MAYBE five times and I'm getting close to maxing my EDs.





Running 1 quest over 847 times seems insane, and yet you are setting up yet another TR system that expects me to do it all over again. I earned over 20,000,000 XP for all my GRINDING, and I want it all back.


I agree that running the same quest 847 times seems insane. It certainly requires a level of boredom suppression very few people are capable of. I'm not capable of it. But that was your choice. You calculated the fastest way to grind xps and you chose to do it that way. You have the advantage of being able to use those destinies for a long time, but you also are subject to the risks all early adopters face: any changes to the system will hit you first and probably hardest.


I've chosen to do it the long way... run everything once or twice, TR then do it again. If anything I have put in a lot more time and effort into acquiring my EDs than someone who ran 7 minute runs of rusted blades over and over. I have a lot more to lose than you if these changes occur as originally posted.


But even if this system gets implemented without any changes, no one is FORCING me or you or any other player to re-grind all the epic xps. They are presenting us with a choice we didn't have before for epic TR: burn 80% of your epic xps for an epic past life bonus or don't burn them and keep all of them.


I honestly think they will change the heroic TR so we don't have to burn all of our epic xps. But even if they don't, no one is FORCING me or you or anyone else to burn those xps. We still have a choice: burn them and TR or keep them and don't TR.
Yeah that choice is a huge change, and not a welcome one, but I'll just choose not to heroic TR any guys with a ton of EDs I don't want to lose.




Lastly, allow epic xp to be earned in a "pool" that can be SPENT on ANY ED. I am so tire of seeing fighters etc. in a magister ED just to level it. Make the game more fun, let us level EDs less painfully than live.


This is an interesting suggestion. I was thinking along the lines of once our ED trees have been unlocked, even after we ETR or HTR, those trees all remain accessible so we don't have to repeat destinies we don't enjoy playing. We'd still have to re-earn our xps and fate points, but we wouldn't have to re-run through Shadowdancer to get access to the magister spheres, etc. We could make any destiny active that we had previously unlocked.

[Earthbound Misfit]

well, I guess the good news is I won't have to read 50+ pages of every thread when you all quit :)

give me an extra twist for each etr, that'll probably help. or more realistically, 1 extra twist for 3 etr's. free, not using fate points

[AlmGhandi]

wake up and hit "Man of Steel" . . .

Don't hit the "man of steel" 'cos Viagra only works when you want it to....

Update 20 is coming and there seems to be nothing we can do.

EDIT: (well I edited my thought process...even it it isn't a real edit)

I really, really think that the DDO community needs to get a grip on itself and start paying attention to who posts what. Maybe we even need a different color scheme.

Glin is not a "dev" he is an executive producer.
(for reasons of transparency I demand... DEMAND to know where Fernando now is... googling him does not help much)
Cordovan is not a "dev" he is a community guy.
Tolero is now busy with other forums? (AC2?)
MajMal is not a dev... he is the poor guy/gal/kobold that is stuck in QA.
and so on.... and so on...

I think maybe even using different colors for different people... so we know what is what. And who is who.
And maybe they should change the "dev tracker" so that it is just the "posts from turbine employees"...

Then we would know how to evaluate the posts and the info.

Who is in charge now? If GLIN says "make TR so that everyone has to become an Elf" then do we all have to be elves?
Who has the final say in anything/everything? Where does the buck stop..?

[Postumus]

Ok I have posted a few times as a warm up in the past hour. Start rant ...

This is only my opinion and I appreciate that 95%(yeah yeah I made this stat up :P) of people wont agree with me however I will lay my cards on the table. Yes, I will get bent over and yes, I will have to get the doctor to give me forum ointment for a flaming rear end by differing opinions.

I think keeping all the Destiny's XP for those wanting to Epic TR cheapens what TR'ing is about and more importantly cheapens what I have achieved. I just wanted it on the record for Dev's to read as everyone else has wept over keeping their Epic Destiny xp in this thread. I am now weeping over keeping TR'ing meaningful as TR'ing means something to those that have done it and others look up to people who have achieved it.

I agree mentally I will feel like I have been kicked in the head by turbine when I see it all my Epic Destiny's reset after doing my first Epic TR. But I will know its going to happen and I can make a conscious decision to forgo it for greater TR riches.

The people that want the benefits of TR'ing, but don't want to put in the grind to get it, will always look for a cheap and nasty way to obtain it without grinding it out like TR's have done in the past. Sitting at level 25 repeatedly getting XP from the same quest in your maxed out sets of gear isn't grinding. That would be like a heroic reincarnation (pretty flower with an aura?!!!?) starting again at lvl 20 and giving them 4.378million XP to gain with 3 skills/spells from another class on top of their current class/es.

You can not tell me that Epic XP is hard to gain.


Krumper
PS - Thank you anyone that read my full post. I am sorry I have a no refund policy for the time you spent reading it if you don't agree with it.


Very well said. I feel the same way. +1


I also think it undermines some of these posters argument when they say "I SPENT SEVEN DAYS grinding epic xps to max out my EDs!" If anything that screams it is far, far too easy to max out EDs and something needs to change.

[DogMania]

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.

LOL So it wasn't funny when I was disabling the trap when u pulled the switch and spiked me to Death, Man we have had a lot of fun and I just hope it does not end

[AlmGhandi]

Very well said. I feel the same way. +1

+1 doesn't give any plusses in the new forums...
at least as far as I know.

[DOA666]

This would be awesome. It really should be this.

Sadly we need more bank space, content and raids more than Epic TR. Perhaps we can get it all?

I would love a TR cache upgrade e.g. some sort of ordering of TR cache by level or name or even a search feature like in inventory would be nice.

How about splitting the current cache into a Heroic TR Cache and an Epic TR Cache.. one for gear 20 and under one for over 20 ... 3 windows on screen..... a roll up window feature would fix it or failing that (this is a wish request right?) a bank window with 3 tabs, Shared Bank and the TR caches - Heroic and Epic with multiple tabs under each....room to charge for increased number of Epic cache tabs in the ddostore ..

[AlmGhandi]

I would love a TR cache upgrade e.g. some sort of ordering of TR cache by level or name or even a search feature like in inventory would be nice.



Hey if they can do that then all is forgiven. I don't need my destiny xp anyway... :/

[magn0liafan]

I have maxed out all my EDs for the fate points and to test for broken abilities (which there still quite a few) through over 847 house of rusted blades quests. Just take that in for a second ok? Over 800 runs of a quests (20k per run, 1,884,000xp to cap, 7 destinies to cap as i capped the other 2 while leveling to 25).


... Last I checked, it was 1,980,000 to cap, which would, with your numbers be an additional five runs per destiny. Sorry. Number Cruncher here.

[Raithe]

Do they want to level the playing field for the massive(??) influx of new players because of FR content and NWO suckage?


NWO and DDO are not really even the same category of game, and I wouldn't call either one a real MMO. NWO is a hack-and-slash arcade-style adventure. DDO is a dungeon-crawling first person shooter (FPS). I really don't think a lot of people left DDO for NWO specifically, even if they left and then went and played Neverwinter.

DDO went into maintenance mode during that 3-day outage, after which I could tell the connections and computing power of the servers had been diminished. It is now teetering on the edge of server shutdown, because unlike Asheron's Call where there may have been some tight social ties and severe nostalgia for times past - DDO has been a miserable game design mess since the day it was conceived. In fact, the ENTIRE MMO industry is in a similar situation, with even World of Warcraft losing subscribers during a four year stretch that the internet increased in size by a factor of 10.

Turbine itself seems to have no more interest in MMO gaming. Their latest product, if you go to www.turbine.com, is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) called "Infinite Crisis."

The sad part is that the demand for RPGs is still pretty high. J.R.R. Tolkien basically set the framework for the RPG, and the films based on his stories have grossed almost four billion dollars (the Hobbit, 300 million). The problem, as can be seen in this thread, is that the people who show up to make sure they get what they want, are the very people that drive millions of potential RPG customers away. I have seen it happen in no less than a dozen MMOs over the last seven years.

So keep complaining about your lost investment of grinding, grueling work. The rest of us will lament the loss of play.

[Permian]

I'm not trying to recreate the wheel with this post, I'm providing this feedback to the Turbine team for consideration along with all of the other excellent feedback and ideas that others have provided. Much of the information may be similar in fact but I haven't read every post in detail. I had to take a breather from my previous posts and let my mind settle a bit so here goes.

The reason that I am not including rolling over any unbound epic destiny XP is because I am convinced, until I hear otherwise and specifically, that if we epic TR or heroic TR, we are going to lose the unbound destiny XP. I've just accepted that based on Turbine responses, including the "nothing is in stone, it's just a discussion" reply. For an epic TR system based on the destiny trees to function properly, this is the only table that Turbine has available to implement such a system. That is the only XP that is tied directly to a specific possible past life (active or passive), outside of the general epic level XP. I'm playing a bit of devil's advocate here too so please try to use an open mind if you're still reading.

It's difficult to try to factor in people wanting to keep fate points for destinies that they will be losing when they epic TR. I can see that we should get to keep any purchased fate points, that was the whole point of buying them. Another huge problem (no pun intended) is for those of us, and there are many, who invested actual money in XP pots or loot gems or anything else to speed up the process of getting through the destinies we wanted or maxing all destinies on specific toons. Turbine, simply from a moral perspective and not a legal one (it's your game) need to provide some sort of equal reimbursement to everyone who played into the old system. It's morally wrong to sell people a product like this. If I purchase any product with specific features that enticed me to purchase that product, I wouldn't want those features to suddenly start dissolving before my eyes. /rant off

One thing that should be considered from a gamers point of view is to make the lower level epic content relevant to the whole epic system by:

1) Increase the amount of XP awarded as most of those quests are not worth the XP/time invested.

2) Adjust or remove the epic Above Level penalty in all epic content because with level 28 content on the horizon that gap is going to widen for epic content available to run.

3) Make the old epic gear a little more relevant.

We are sick to death of being corralled into running a minute number of quests in order to get our toons where we want them to be. This is by choice but it's what logically makes the most sense for XP/minute. Most folks blow through the low level epics on their way to cap and never go back, if they ever run them at all.


- Heroic TR -
I see a couple of possibilities for this one:

1) Character levels to 20 and TRs to get any heroic past life (passive or active) feat that they need to *complete a build. Destiny tree stays intact until the character either chooses to activate the tree and continue to level cap. This would also apply as a one-time deal to any currently cap'/maxed destiny toons.

2) Character chooses level to 28 and chooses to heroic TR. All XP is reset, including any unbound destiny XP, in order to gain a heroic past life and an epic past life for whatever bound and cap'd destiny that character had at the time of TR. The only scenario I can think of for anyone to want to do this would be only to get to play/farm the new content. Other than that there really is no incentive to do this. Note: fate points addressed in Epic TR

Make heroic past lives more useful and drop the purchase of completionist as this purchasable feat is honestly lame. It makes the idea of completionist less appealing overall and is more of a penalty for some builds than it is a benefit.

- Epic TR -

1) Level 28 character TRs and starts back at level 20. The current heroic build remains and the epic XP and unbound XP destiny are reset. ****All toons who currently have cap'd destinies automatically receive the passive epic past-life for those destinies when that character is TR'd and receives the active bound destiny past-life.**** This provides incentive for characters to continue to play epic content in its current form and provide a workable solution for future development. Active epic past-life feats would really need to be worth taking, not an after-thought.

2) Fate points - All purchased fate points remain forever. The fate point and twist system currently provides zero incentive to anyone who plans on performing an epic TR. The only situation where this system works in my mind is for the player who is working on their final life for that build and that's about it. Why would I want to grind out millions of XP in destinies for I tiny payout of low-level ranks if I chose to heroic TR? This has already been asked and some suggestions have already been provided in previous posts. This would only be a one-time payout for anyone that has cap'd all destinies and decides to heroic TR and seems that this would be unavoidable.

- Iconics-

This is a tough one, especially since they work off of 2 different systems. What happens to my heroic character once I TR it into or out of the Iconic system and the same question applies to TR'ing an iconic into the heroic system? If I TR my heroic completionist into the Iconic system does that mean that I need to complete those 4 new class past-lives for some unforeseen and new completionist type feat? I can see that happening but I do feel that this should be some sort of special reward for a heroic completionist to complete the Iconic completionist path. Maybe provide +4 stats instead of +2 along with the passive Iconic past lives? Food for thought. Some ideas:

1) When I TR into the Iconic system with a heroic I would think that my toon would start at level 15 (or would I be forced to start at level 1?) and I would have to follow the epic TR system in order to gain the passive past lives and the option of a more powerful than heroic active past life. Again, I would be resetting my unbound destiny XP and following the system previously provided.

2) When I TR into a heroic from an iconic I'm assuming I would be starting at level 1 in all cases in the heroic system and I'll provide some detail in the next paragraph. I could keep TR'ing in the heroic system until I got the necessary passive or active past lives that I needed for that build. When I'm finished with the heroic path I could TR back into the Iconic path if necessary and start leveling at 15.

These Iconic path ideas at least provide room for any future iconic classes that may be introduced in the future. Hopefully you Turbine and anyone else who is still reading can see that this opens an enormous number of opportunities for builds and provides at least some incentive to pursue such paths.

One more thing. In the future please try to look much further down the road before performing hard resets on your community. All of this anguish could easily have been avoided had the epic TR system been implemented at the time of epic level and destiny introduction. People are going to leave the game over this, that's a guarantee. I will not. My only hope at this point, because I really do love the game that much is that this type of major event won't happen again. In my line of work this is not only scope creep, it's an enormous project flaw that would get a contractor in some insanely large amount of legal trouble and that is not a threat, just sayin'.

*complete - Nothing is and ever will be complete or static in any MMO and can be changed at any time by the company who owns the game, regardless of the backlash from its community.

[GermanicusMaximus]

I am now weeping over keeping TR'ing meaningful as TR'ing means something to those that have done it and others look up to people who have achieved it.

I think you are grossly over estimating how much respect other people have for you simply because you have TRed. Rezerging lowbie trash multiple times is primarily a measure of

1) How much free time you have
2) How few other interesting activities you have in your life
3) How plump and cushy is the seat cushion of the chair on which you sit

[Ryiah]

Mainly because you absolutely could have run other quests to get the xps, yet you eschewed them for xp/min runs.

The point he was trying to make, which apparently sailed right over your head, is that it took hundreds of runs. Hundreds of runs that are now effectively worthless and will have to be repeated if he chooses to TR. That he choose the fastest method to get it done does not invalidate his statement.

[GermanicusMaximus]

If GLIN says "make TR so that everyone has to become an Elf" then do we all have to be elves?

Of course not. As some people have pointed out in this thread, TRing is a choice. :D

For some people, any bad game mechanic is OK as long as

1) It doesn't affect their immediate plans
2) see #1

Of course, games littered with poor game mechanics are at a competitive disadvantage in the market place, which may mean they soon have an activity level similar to Asheron's Call.

[Ryiah]

Of course, games littered with poor game mechanics are at a competitive disadvantage in the market place, which may mean they soon have an activity level similar to Asheron's Call.

On the bright side that might hopefully mean the game enters a stage where the developers simply focus on keeping the servers running and don't invest any resources in crazy ideas like this one.

[Braegan]

Well not to be left out from voicing my opinion...

After reading and thinking alot on it, I think the proposed plan is how it should have been released. However, it is far to late to make a change like this as it stands now. Basically, you are taking away something we understood to be permanent to give us another way to make it permanent. What guarantee do we have that another year down the line you won't introduce a super-duper bonded destiny system that we have to scrap all our bonded eds to achieve?

Now, I understand things change and evolve, etc. I've adapted to quite a number of changes since day 1. But, this is an unacceptable change as proposed. Regardless of how I got that ED xp (so long as it didn't involve breaking EULA) to translate that into some paultry low level xp that takes an afternoon of harbor zerging to garner goes beyond saying we are getting the short end of the stick. This change makes about as much sense as saying: "Hey, we wanted to raise the level cap to 28 but we can't. So instead when we flip the switch everyone is going to "gain" -5 levels so you feel like the cap just got moved up!"

As far as deciding never to TR again and ignore this new proposed "feature," well that's an option for most of my characters. However, I have one completionist. Which means at some point another class will be released and I'll have to decide to give up the feat or redo all my EDs. That is not a choice that should ever be forced unto a player. The mere thought of it has tarnished my enthusiam of the game more then anything I can recall.

Now that I've gotten my rant down with. My opinion on how it should be rolled out. The system seems refined and polished version with ability to make some more improvements on our characters. When released all characters that currently have a maxxed out destiny should automatically have those destinies bonded. There is no amount of ED xp loss that I find acceptable, nor is there any compensation I can think of that would make me ok with it. That would leave us the choice to stay as we are or to embark on this Epic TR journey for the ED PL (whatever those will be) and the extra 2 build points. Trust me when I say this, most of the folks that ground out completionist and/or max destinies will go through and get all the ED PLs if you don't take away what they have already achieved. If you do take it away, the morale of this games player base will sink to an all time low. Lastly, I would also like to see Epic TR a 20 - cap journey rather then 1 - cap. It just makes more sense as it differs from a heroic tr since we are going for an ED PL and not a heroic one.

[sir_smacks_alot]

LOL So it wasn't funny when I was disabling the trap when u pulled the switch and spiked me to Death, Man we have had a lot of fun and I just hope it does not end

I kill you at every chance I get but after 10 lives you dont seem to get the idea that its funny to me

[Delacroix21]

Part of the problem here is a serious disconnect between the Dev's and the player base.


Glin, Cordovan, Piollto etc. I am sure you guys have "played around" with characters in DDO, but that is not the same as leveling a character from 1-25, leveling up several EDs (because perhaps your class ED stinks compared to others, yes this is STILL an issue), and then TRing not once but twice so you can truly experience the grind you have created for a 2nd TR character.


You guys really need to do that to reconnect with your player base. I have a strong feeling after you do this you will make a broad range of changes, fixes for broken abilities etc. in line with what the players have themselves been asking for.


Here is what you will experience=
1. TRing once kinda stinks, twice feels like torture
2. Slayer areas offer no xp benefit beyond finding all the explorers/notes, kill 1,500 mobs for a laughable amount of xp? Kill count potions that dont even double or triple kills when the xp is this low?
3. Several EDs seem so weak compared to others.
4. So hard to find groups when leveling or a new player (TRing did NOT fix this at all, its a carefully planned grind, not a group with whoever as you level)
5. Saves begin to get ridiculous in Epic content
6. AC still seems rather meaningless even with the changes
7. Pure ranged combat still not viable
8. Many bugs still plague this game
9. Unless you have a decent amount of time to play, logging in you wont accomplish anything (a regular MMO you can log in for 5 mins and kill a few mobs for xp at least, Slayer area dont reward enough to be worth your time)
10. +3-5w abilities only favor weapons with larger damage dice (2-handers 5x1d20= +5-100 vs 5x1d6= +5-30) and should be +100-200% damage instead to benefit everyone equally
11. The DDO store sells mostly junk, look how money is POURING into the Neverwinter store, and that game is in Beta!
12. Adding powers to players in this game only appears to come from Grinding XP (the collapse of EQ 1 after AAs grinding is no clue?)

[LordDunmore]

Noticed in guild chat this morning.

"We seem to have lost a lot of members recently from the guild".
"Yes. A lot of them have told me and other guildies that they have been frustrated by all the bugs and lack of quality control. Now, with the new 'proposal' of loosing Epic XP, that was the last straw.'

I personally have not heard anyone specifically say they are leaving because of the proposed changes, but if the perception, even if 'not in stone' is there, it's causing harmful impact to the game and of course Turbine's bottom line.

Turbine, something official needs to be done, and done soon to stop the bleeding of your player base.

[Delacroix21]

Noticed in guild chat this morning.

"We seem to have lost a lot of members recently from the guild".
"Yes. A lot of them have told me and other guildies that they have been frustrated by all the bugs and lack of quality control. Now, with the new 'proposal' of loosing Epic XP, that was the last straw.'

I personally have not heard anyone specifically say they are leaving because of the proposed changes, but if the perception, even if 'not in stone' is there, it's causing harmful impact to the game and of course Turbine's bottom line.

Turbine, something official needs to be done, and done soon to stop the bleeding of your player base.

This is true, you guys need to seriously start listening to your player base and adding polls we can vote on for proposed changes, I have been seeing a mass exodus and Neverwinter is fun, but Elder Scrolls online looks amazing!

[DOA666]

I think you are grossly over estimating how much respect other people have for you simply because you have TRed. Rezerging lowbie trash multiple times is primarily a measure of

1) How much free time you have
2) How few other interesting activities you have in your life
3) How plump and cushy is the seat cushion of the chair on which you sit

Jumping to the assumption of respect was a huge leap for you. Respect is something you earn not something you gain from time spent on forums posting wild assumptions in silly numbered lists. Please put your petty attack aside and think about the way people 'look up to' TR's because they are able to put so much time into playing DDO. They put them on a pedestal for what they would like to do but cant. That is my point.

My personal insomnia case in point proves your assumptions wrong. Have you stopped preening yourself after your post Mr Rooster?

[auntjobiska]

Here is a question:

Has anyone thought about what will happen to the people who are part way through a TR life when this hits?

Will they get to level 20 and find all their ED xp has gone without any choice?

AJ

[ForumAccess]

Please put your petty attack aside and think about the way people 'look up to' TR's because they are able to put so much time into playing DDO. They put them on a pedestal for what they would like to do but cant. That is my point.

This is not an 'attack', but a sincere statement about what looks like a rather serious problem. No one looks up to TRs at all. It does not take anything special to get TR wings. And the idea of honoring someone for having a lot of free time on their hands to play online video games, well more often than not it is the other way around.

DDO is a great hobby. But that is all that it is, a game. If an online game is more than that to someone, they should probably take a step back and reevaluate a few things.

[Permian]

Here is a question:

Has anyone thought about what will happen to the people who are part way through a TR life when this hits?

Will they get to level 20 and find all their ED xp has gone without any choice?

AJ

This is not an official response from Turbine but I threw them an idea in my previous WoT.

1) Character levels to 20 and TRs to get any heroic past life (passive or active) feat that they need to *complete a build. Destiny tree stays intact until the character either chooses to activate the tree and continue to level cap. This would also apply as a one-time deal to any currently cap'/maxed destiny toons.

[Delacroix21]

I still think we should really focus on giving Stones of Experience 100,000xp for every 100,000xp earned in EDs that can be used whenever.


I like playing with my capped friends, I hate leaving them to TR. Let me earn XP when I am capped that can make me TR faster, and people who save the XP stones when capped get double benefit of raising ED XP and epic XP, it all works out! =)


To clarify=
Using stones of 100,000xp at levels 1-19 helps you level fater (EDs untouched)

Using stones of 100,000xp at levels 20-28 increases both Level xp and ED xp. Double benefit (but required xp at these levels is higher anyway)



P.S. you can also add these Stones to DDO store for a nice cash inflow =)

[MarcusCleardawn]

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



Dear Cordovan,

If this is more of a brainstorming session then perhaps the Development Team would be willing to share what their objectives were in changing the system?

Seems to me, that there are dozens of people here on the Forums anxious to pour uncompensated hours into brainstorming alternative means of resolving whatever it is that prompted you guys to change the way TRing works. Seems that they would be more likely to provide suggestions that you might actually use if they knew what things to include in their suggestions.

Peace

[Seikojin]

For me, meh, I like the features and even if my ED's are wiped per reincarnation, I won't mind. It isn't like the grind is that long for ED's.

I think a choice between Epic TR and normal TR would be the best mitigation. Have Kruz have a 4th dialog option?

[sandypaws]

Rather than wiping the entire ED set, how about: When reincarnating, prompt the person to designate which ED they want to use for their epic reincarnation, and wipe the exp only from that ED.

[StupendoThug]

I long ago gave up trying to understand or influence the DDO design process or the endless forum snarffling.
My only comment: The proposed system, as stated in the first post of the thread, goes against what was advertised for EDs since day 1. It's so awful, I have no words. 110% sure to just uninstall if that comes to pass.

[Talonrage]

Personally, you shouldn't loose the ED xp's when doing any type of TR. What they SHOULD do is keep the idea of making lvl 28 TR's bond a ED and then any bonded ED add it's level to the new starting ranking of the tr's life and each additional tr life afterwards.

For instance..

TR at level 28 and bond FotW with 5 levels unlocked. The new tr starts with 5 ranks (level 2).
TR at level 28 and bond EA with 5 levels unlocked. The new tr starts with 10 ranks (level 3).
TR at 20. No bonding of a new destany and start with 10 ranks again.
TR at 28 and bond LD with 5 levels unlocked. The new tr starts with 15 ranks (level 4).

Additionally, add in the option NOT to start at a higher rank if you so choose.

[droid327]

Please remember to ... not insult ... the Turbine development team.

Hi. Welcome to the Internet! You must be new here :)

Seriously, you should better than to call attention to insults. Dont feed the trolls, just ignore the attacks and focus on the meaningful suggestions.

[Gremmlynn]

Jumping to the assumption of respect was a huge leap for you. Respect is something you earn not something you gain from time spent on forums posting wild assumptions in silly numbered lists. Please put your petty attack aside and think about the way people 'look up to' TR's because they are able to put so much time into playing DDO. They put them on a pedestal for what they would like to do but cant. That is my point.

My personal insomnia case in point proves your assumptions wrong. Have you stopped preening yourself after your post Mr Rooster?Not to put to fine a point on it, but the only people "who look up to" TRs are those that are so new they haven't figured out that capping and starting over is no big chore.

If you were to say completionist, then yes that is a achievement worthy of some respect. For tenacity at the very least.

[Tscheuss]

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.

When I multi-classed PnP, the DM would grant XP for each class separately based on how much each was used in an encounter. If I rushed my Ftr/Rog into combat and killed mobs outright, I got Ftr xp, but no Rog xp because I didn't use any Rogue skills. The same thing applies here; why should anyone get XP for an ED that is not active? Just because you don't like it? If an ED doesn't synergize with your build, then you have the option of TR'ing to a more appropriate build before leveling up said ED. It just adds another phase of planning to character development. Otherwise, sure, go ahead and run your melee with Magister, but remember it was your choice to do so in the first place.



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.

Actually, it does. Level to 20, set the boring or unfun ED to active, then burn two 1M XP stones. Poof! the unfun ED is now capped. :)

[Candela90]

Ill honestly say Im tired of all TR thingy in ddo.
Its great if u get bored with character and want to change to different race and/or class but... As sth giving more power its just not fun. I mean if it was 3 trs giving more power - thats ok. But if you have more character going thro the same over and over is just boring.
And take lots of time.
TRing is thing that really makes me ... well... there are moments when I just want to stop playing because "Ill never be able to get the past lifes I need to be better e.g. caster, and completionist? for me its like 3-4 years of constant playing - no chances".
Heroic TR is one thing - past lifes are not that :must have:.
But considering there should be recompensate for 20 millions of lost xp when ETR and all fate points - the benefits will be big. So ppl who wont do it will stay a lot behind others who will do it.

Theres so many games with no TRs or such things - and they keep players playing with end game content.
I miss times when there was like 6+ epic packs worth running on end game. I miss times when epics couldnt be bought - when getting them was achievment because it needed scroll+seal+shard+item.
Right now the end game is fot+citw+TR.

Please devs - you do great job with new quests - I love these little shadow monsters in the new lvl 15 quests - theyre really amazing.
Stop with this TR absurd and focus on creating lots of lvl 25-28 epics to make real end game.

Because of TRing ddo feels more like job than game - when you know youre 10 lifes from your final - fun build it just feels tireding.

I know - no ones forces me to TR. But when I build a character I like - you make changes to game which makes my character useless... and then I am forced to TR once again.
And now Ill also loose all my ED when its not my fault I have to TR.
Im kinda tired of developers changing their vision of game and how things work over and over and over making it impossible to plan a character and just play with it for fun.

I make DC based wizzard - puff - epic ward, no monsters instant killable. So what I can do when instantkills are what I specced for? I TR.
Then epic ward is deleted - good thing but I already did TR. So to come bk to my favourite first toon I have to TR once again.
Then I settle on some character. Puff.
AC/PPR/to-hit/dodge changes - its ok, I cant say I dont like them. But it makes me have to remake all my character to not be one-shotted.
Then - puff - soon to be enhancements change hanging in SOON future - I dont know what to do with my character now...
Then the new enhancements are switched somewhere to absatract future - puff EDS.
So OK - I buy them and farm them to max.
And TR to mage.
PUFF - wail not working, crit line not working. So TR again.. thi time to FVS.
Puff - ETR changes hanging.

Come on.. I feel like Im on some sort of rollercoaster.
What makes DDO special is possibility to make unique character and to plan it on your own.
Its hard to do when everything is changing so fast.
And its taking away all my fun cause I never feel like I accomplished something. Theres always so much more work to do - before I can just go and sit on cap and simply raid and epic quest with friends.
Much more work to do is good - but doing the same work like with TR over and over again is not fun. Being forced to do it because of game changes over and over is also not fun. Being forced to give up a lot (like EDs) during it is even less fun.

Devs... just make up your mind about what you wanna do with the game and tell us already instead of doing what you do now...

[~Sai_Haloode]

I am just gonna say one thing: You are killing the game. If you want to add more grind then at least do it fairly for all playstyles, including the end game ones. How about let capped characters still gain experience indefinetely and then reward a ratio of that xp into a new TR, whenever the player wishes to TR?

That way you could stay capped, and eventually, without the sense of grind, you might buy yourself a good portion or all of your next life.

Why punish endgamers SO MUCH?

ATM: 10% of the servers are capped characters, what will happen after those briliant ideas of yours? 1% of server capped?

WHY on hell do you want to punish the old players THAT much in order to go into the same emetic quests that we been doing the last 7 years over and over again?

All I am saying is give us a window, a fair one.

[Tscheuss]

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.

Wrong. You have direct access to a destiny that enhances your class. However, if you want to build levels in other destinies without TR'ing, you need to unlock them the hard way. Grinding an ED that does not fit your build is frustrating, but we who did it made the choice to do so.

Personally, I had a more enjoyable time of it when I realized I was stepping on my own foot, and then TR'd to a different build that could take advantage of the next ED runs I made. :D

[AtomicMew]

I have nothing more to add to the destiny XP loss, other than wholeheartedly agreeing with all the criticism. But I'd like to address a few lesser issues that may have been lost in the ensuing ragestorm.


We are eager to begin production on this system and appreciate the many players that are eager to see us fulfill the end game potential that the TR system presents. With these changes we are also keeping a long-term view for TR, such as how to expand the Epic Destiny system and continue to support level cap growth in the future.
TR is NOT end game, it's just a grind to distract players from the LACK OF end game. I don't really know how to say this more emphatically. It is TOTALLY unacceptable for you guys not to understand this. What you should do is just scrap this crappy TR system. Just scrap it outright and focus on giving us awesome new areas, quests and raids, as even suggested by one of the more respectable devs.

It is more than obvious to everyone that the purpose of expanding the TR system is to extract more XP elixir, hearts and otto box store purchases. Please, have more pride in your work and stop forcing on us garbage pay2win microtransactions that we didn't originally need before you changed game mechanics for us to need it. Don't you think you folks have done enough damage in the past year already to this once awesome game?


The team is thrilled that DDO continues to grow, innovate, and provide a great D&D experience.
Saying that DDO "continues to grow" is a flat out lie. How do you continue to be so dishonest to your customers like this, seriously. It is a fact that the server active population has been drastically reduced in the past 1-2 years by as much as 40-60%. Besides anecdotal experience by pretty much everyone with a clue, this is backed up by LOTS of data from DDOracle, among a few other sites.

[Qhualor]

Wrong. You have direct access to a destiny that enhances your class. However, if you want to build levels in other destinies without TR'ing, you need to unlock them the hard way. Grinding an ED that does not fit your build is frustrating, but we who did it made the choice to do so.

Personally, I had a more enjoyable time of it when I realized I was stepping on my own foot, and then TR'd to a different build that could take advantage of the next ED runs I made. :D

you do realize people run Magister destiny on their fighter because they are earning fate points for twists right? leveling through a destiny really isn't a long process. a lot of the complaints are about players who have already capped out those destinies as a result of earning fate points and access to things to twist out in other destinies. this possible change would wipe all that mind numbing and hundreds of hours of work just to TR and than have to do all that work again. it would be one thing if this change was implemented a year ago.

[Disgruntled175]

You want this to be an option, right? That means it has to be optional so first off you would need to disable it relating to heroic TR. By the way, some people don't bypass or skip epic as some half assed exploit. They don't like the content, or maybe the current epic rules. They may well have skipped epic since epic hit ddo but now they have to? And to get what they already have? How can you possible consider that reasonable excluding that you saw dollars?

Next issue is the Epic TR itself. DO NOT rescind your word on this. Your credibility will be absolute garbage, and it has already taken some hits, from that point on. How about Epic TR being linked to Epic lvls and I mean Epic lvls not Epic Destinies. Then you aren't a liar. Then the players don't have to miss lvls they enjoy. Then players don't have to regrind Destinies but do need to grind xp per Epic life.

Caveat to the above, make sure you don't make lvl 28 xp requirements stupidly high. Fair xp to 28 is highly advised if you want you system used. The past life feat incidentally should be able to be chosen from existing maxed destinies. This isn't unfair, it is what used to be known as a reward for hard work, some nowadays will no doubt call anything like that "OP". The term is far too overused.

Of course you can ignore all this and do what you want. I will vote even in the absence of any apparent right to do so. :)

[Deadlock]

NWO and DDO are not really even the same category of game, and I wouldn't call either one a real MMO. NWO is a hack-and-slash arcade-style adventure. DDO is a dungeon-crawling first person shooter (FPS). I really don't think a lot of people left DDO for NWO specifically, even if they left and then went and played Neverwinter.

DDO went into maintenance mode during that 3-day outage, after which I could tell the connections and computing power of the servers had been diminished. It is now teetering on the edge of server shutdown, because unlike Asheron's Call where there may have been some tight social ties and severe nostalgia for times past - DDO has been a miserable game design mess since the day it was conceived. In fact, the ENTIRE MMO industry is in a similar situation, with even World of Warcraft losing subscribers during a four year stretch that the internet increased in size by a factor of 10.

Turbine itself seems to have no more interest in MMO gaming. Their latest product, if you go to www.turbine.com, is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) called "Infinite Crisis."

The sad part is that the demand for RPGs is still pretty high. J.R.R. Tolkien basically set the framework for the RPG, and the films based on his stories have grossed almost four billion dollars (the Hobbit, 300 million). The problem, as can be seen in this thread, is that the people who show up to make sure they get what they want, are the very people that drive millions of potential RPG customers away. I have seen it happen in no less than a dozen MMOs over the last seven years.

So keep complaining about your lost investment of grinding, grueling work. The rest of us will lament the loss of play.

Another thought provoking and constructive post from your good self. If you can accurately predict exactly when the world will end, it'll save us all a lot of hassle, thanks in advance.

While you lament whatever you want and trot out the list of previously doomed products you have been involved with, the rest of us will try and come up with actual solutions that Turbine can implement. Like how we can end up with a a sensible Epic and Iconic TR that doesn't screw the whole Heroic TR system we currently have.

Lets try and concentrate on the topic on hand, and keep esoteric theories on the future of MMO's to another thread that you're free to start.

[PermaBanned]

As the stated intentions of adding Epic True Reincarntaion into the game is to encourage people to spend more time running Epic quests, I believe the following will achieve that goal while still maintaining the spirit (and promises) of the existing True Reincarnation system; without unduly punishing -or offering any advantage to- those who have already spent the time and effort of filling out their destiny map.

With Epic True Reincarnation, we are introducing a new completionist track: Epic Completionist. Using an Epic Heart of Wood will start your character over at level 20. ETR will wipe all epic level(20-cap) xp, as well as the xp of your chosen (active and "maxed") destiny. You receive a destiny past life feat from the wiped destiny. All other (non-active) destinies will survive the ETR process. ETR will not provide a class past life.

"Epic Advantage" would be scrapped as unnecessary/not applicable under the ^above^ system.

Iconic True Reincarnation should be blended with Heroic True Reincarnation. Just as Veteran status only applies to a standard "first life," so does an Iconics' starting at level 15. Upon Heroic Reincarnation, Iconic Heros will start at level 1 and acquire the appropriate Iconic past life feat.

Thoughts?

[Tscheuss]

Personally, you shouldn't loose the ED xp's when doing any type of TR. What they SHOULD do is keep the idea of making lvl 28 TR's bond a ED and then any bonded ED add it's level to the new starting ranking of the tr's life and each additional tr life afterwards.

For instance..

TR at level 28 and bond FotW with 5 levels unlocked. The new tr starts with 5 ranks (level 2).
TR at level 28 and bond EA with 5 levels unlocked. The new tr starts with 10 ranks (level 3).
TR at 20. No bonding of a new destany and start with 10 ranks again.
TR at 28 and bond LD with 5 levels unlocked. The new tr starts with 15 ranks (level 4).

Additionally, add in the option NOT to start at a higher rank if you so choose.

Nice. I like this option, too. :)

[oradafu]

You want this to be an option, right? That means it has to be optional so first off you would need to disable it relating to heroic TR. By the way, some people don't bypass or skip epic as some half assed exploit. They don't like the content, or maybe the current epic rules. They may well have skipped epic since epic hit ddo but now they have to? And to get what they already have? How can you possible consider that reasonable excluding that you saw dollars?



You know, this is one of the things that I've been pondering. Apparently Turbine got the numbers that show that people aren't sticking around in the Epic levels and are focusing on Heroic levels. Now this could be for several reasons, such as not enough Epic content, dislike of Epic content, still building the perfect character for end game, preferring the journey more than the endgame, etc. So instead of focusing on things such as padding the Epic levels with more quests or variety of quests for the available levels or fixing raids (which are pretty much dead) so that they all become part of the endgame, they decided to raise the level cap another 3 levels to stretch out the thin XP already available to both level up Epic levels and EDs, while also penalizing players who enjoy a different portion of the game. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

[Tscheuss]

you do realize people run Magister destiny on their fighter because they are earning fate points for twists right? leveling through a destiny really isn't a long process. a lot of the complaints are about players who have already capped out those destinies as a result of earning fate points and access to things to twist out in other destinies. this possible change would wipe all that mind numbing and hundreds of hours of work just to TR and than have to do all that work again. it would be one thing if this change was implemented a year ago.

I understand, and I agree with you; however, that is not what my previous post was addressing.

[Tscheuss]

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.


Wrong. You have direct access to a destiny that enhances your class. However, if you want to build levels in other destinies without TR'ing, you need to unlock them the hard way. Grinding an ED that does not fit your build is frustrating, but we who did it made the choice to do so.

Personally, I had a more enjoyable time of it when I realized I was stepping on my own foot, and then TR'd to a different build that could take advantage of the next ED runs I made. :D


you do realize people run Magister destiny on their fighter because they are earning fate points for twists right? leveling through a destiny really isn't a long process. a lot of the complaints are about players who have already capped out those destinies as a result of earning fate points and access to things to twist out in other destinies. this possible change would wipe all that mind numbing and hundreds of hours of work just to TR and than have to do all that work again. it would be one thing if this change was implemented a year ago.


I understand, and I agree with you; however, that is not what my previous post was addressing.

I was responding to Citzen_Gkar's assertion that the ED system is designed to force people to run ED's that are incompatible with their toon's class.

[fraterp]

You seem closed to alternatives because its a coding/implementation issue that breaks your existing system, but statements were already made that its merely a brainstorm session right now and no actual work has been done. So if nothing is set in stone why is your creation resisting all offers to reshape it into a more acceptable form?

All this talk of compensation only reinforces the feeling that the initial proposal is not a proposal but in fact the final incarnation of update 20. Which means further posts from game officials are just lip-service to try to prevent a community meltdown. If this assumption is wrong then please prove it with an official response that amounts to more than 'we hear your concerns, so we're trying to think of new shineys to distract you from the fact that we're going to go ahead and do it anyway, neener neener'. (Not necessarily in a response to my post, just whenever you decide to chime up again)

While I don't think theres anything wrong with players that window farmed RB to get their destiny xp - I didn't. So when I say please keep Heroic TR completely separate from epic destiny experience, I'm not trying to save myself "a weekend of grinding", as some members put it. I'm trying to preserve the epic advancements I've earned on multiple characters via multiple TR's stretching all the way back to the summer of 2012.

Give special attention to the grandfather idea put forth near the beginning of this thread. Because if you continue to shrug off our pleas then you have to at least *not* punish the players who bought MoTU and believed you when you said that this exact scenario would never happen. Anything less is an outright deal-breaker and I promise you will feel it in your proverbial wallet.

I've been a VIP for 4 years. 5/6 of my guild members have been VIP for just as long if not longer. Quitting is something none of us ever discussed. Now its a very real topic amongst us. My friends list is TR buddies and EE players that I've known throughout those years and many of them are talking about quitting too. And its not a rage quit. Its the reluctant "well you just broke my favorite toy so I'm gonna go wander around and find something else to do" kind of quit.

READ: To the vast majority of your user-base, you are punishing them for spending their money on your product. If its not obvious by now how dangerous of a move that could be, then push on and watch what happens.


~Alyssa Dawnfire, Leader of Vicious Cycle - Sarlona server.

[1Soulless1]

Thank you very much for posting 'the new plan' Glin. I know it was not met with the expectation you where hoping but dems the breaks sometimes.


I believe if you implemented this when Ed's where first released it would of been met with a lot more positive feedback then you are getting now. I know I would of been all for it. The deal breaker is 'Epic Destiny xp will not be tied to True Reincarnating' comment that was made to the player base when MoTUD was released. Now after a year of people grinding fate points for twists you want to pull the rug out from under us and have us start again in the hope we will buy Epic Tomes of Learning, 50% xp pots and the new Epic Tr heart (which you have not said one way or the other will drop in game or be able to be bought with tokens like True Hearts are) so we can get back to where our characters are now.

IF normal Heroic Tr'ing was not tied to loosing Epic Destiny xp, I wouldn't care one way or the other. I could CHOOSE to Epic TR for the Epic Past Lives or I could CHOOSE to heroic TR for the normal Past Lives and keep what I worked for. Not offering the choice is in my humble opinion the deal breaker. Making us loose the ED xp when we heroic TR is just silly. Why does it have to be done this way. Are you trying to tell us the code for DDO is so borked that it WILL NOT work any other way and that it HAS to be done this way?

The only question I have for you Glin is this since I am not the producer of a MMO, do you believe that this will bring in more players who will spend more money that the amount of players you WILL loose over this and the money they spend?

Unless as some one said before WB is trying to kill off DDO/Turbine for a tax write off....but that is a whole other topic and thread.

[Oberon_Shrader]

After reading many pages of this thread, I thought I'd just like to throw in my two cents. But first, a short warning to Turbine and their marketing team. This is not personal, nor meant as an attack; I really love DDO as a game and it's really the only game that I regularly play.

I see that many people are complaining about the loss of EDs and/or XP. I think these are really just representative of time. Gaining XP take time, whether you actively grind for those EDs or just play along and get it as you go. Considering that when EDs were introduced we were told they would be persistent through lives, many people put a very considerable time investment into their character's EDs. It's really not the XP or EDs that we don't want to lose, it's the time. If we lose that, its been wasted. Wasting people's time is one of the top ways companies alienate and lose customers.

Turbine is a business, we all know that, and they want to find ways to make money. But basic marketing teaches not to alienate your customer and in this case, especially not your core target market: long-term players.

Another basic rule of dealing with customers: satisfying customer expectations isn't enough, a company should go above and beyond expectations to create a sense that the customer is getting more than from the company than just what is necessary.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" would apply here.

Now some suggestions for how Epic TR should work:

1) Leaver EDs alone. Turbine told us they would be persistent and so they should be. One exception, which is
2) to reset the one active ED to zero XP and give us a feat for it.
3) Reset Epic and Heroic Level XP (not the EDs, mind you) and give us some credit in heroic levels for that lost Epic XP (just to make the grind back up shorter).
4) Reduce the cost of True Hearts so that there is less incentive to grind a free one and more incentive to buy one in the store! After all, they're a digital product, it's not like you have to make them or anything!

Maybe these suggestions aren't perfect, but I think it's a simple solution that would have minimal impact on current playability (is that a word?).

[Orratti]

I have one last question that you may want to go ahead and consider now before you end up deciding sometime in the future that something along these lines needs to be done to, you know, make sure that latest expansion gets bought.

When you epic Tr do you plan to make the experience requirements go up like heroic Trs? I saw that only 2 more build points will be added. So I'm assuming that all epic Trs will have the same experience requirements for each Tr. Do you think that is prudent considering that you will probaly be wanting to sell content and higher levels again at some point in the future? After all needing more xp for a Tr certainly helps sell content and a little thinking in advance can save a lot of backlash.

[maddmatt70]

I do not think the devs are going to read all of this, but I am going to throw out a fact situation that I do not think has been posted about which is going to occur again and again which is another infuriating detractor from Glin's proposal. Say I true reincarnate a melee 3 times and pick up the epic past lives for grandmaster, dreadnaught, and fury. I then level the character up to 28 in the build I want. I have no desire to get other epic past lives really so I get all the fate points, twists, and generally get other epic destinies then the three I have bonded. I stay at 28 for 9 months or so and then for some reason I either want to check out another build or Turbine nerfs the build I have or what have you. I then have the choice of trring again and losing all the non bonded destinies, twists and fate points that I gained or stay as is. What a terrible decision to put a player in. That is a ton of work that constantly needs to be done everytime a character is levelled up to 28. Really Devs come on man...

[Ryiah]

The team is thrilled that DDO continues to grow, innovate, and provide a great D&D experience.

There is nothing innovative about adding more grind and invalidating the progress players have made. A lot of MMOs from Asia already do this far better than you.

[Delacroix21]

There is a lot of rage both in the forums and in voice chat of every pug i join, and it makes me sad.


I really love ddo, its unique combat system and character building has captured my heart. That being said i really hate the TR system, and i know many others do to. I am sad and upset to hear that this is what you envision as the future of ddo and that so much focus has been placed on it.


I appreciate the fact that you presented these proposed changes to us rather than just implementing them. I am ashamed of my initial rage posts and those of others. I feel the anger and frustration brought upon by the current TR grind has lead to this, and the last thing people wanted was more TR grinding, and so the pot finally boiled over.


I sincerely hope you guys not only change your plans about epic TR, but revisit the grind of current TR system as well. New players need to feel like they can level to cap and be just as viable (after some gearing) as veteran players. Making them feel that the gap between their fresh lvl 28 and the multiple TR/epic TR character is even larger prevents many people from joining the game. This is what AAs did to everquest 1, and it killed that game. Please revisit this idea and TR grind in general.



P.S. i like you guys, i really do. I also appreciate ddo as the work of art that it is. Lets fix these flaws and prevent new ones. :)

[LeslieWest_GuitarGod]

We do not need new systems like this, with so much still broken.

Fix bugs and add tons of new quests and new monsters. Go crazy and add a new class. THIS would draw people back into DDO and raise eyebrows of those here who've stayed the course.

The direction of DDO has gone in 2013, plain out SUCKS. This idea, which probably won't see the light of day until well into 2014, is a sign that 2014 will be just as bad as it has been in 2013.

Fix bugs and add tons of new quests and new monsters. Why go through all the trouble changing the game, the rules, the promises, yet never fixing the real problem... that the game is STALE.

[Dreemz]

I haven't read all the pages but it seems clear that the current suggestion for ED from the dev team is gonna make a lot of people angry.

Take the XP for example, 5 ranks for a full ED lost is a bit sad. Should it be made to 1/4 of the XP you have you'll get a top XP rate close to a full 20 level 3+ TR life. But if you give XP to ED TR´s a lot of the lower level are gonna be empty of people, it might be better if you can find a way to give back that don't make all the "old" people scream and still have them running the harbor quests. Maybe simply give a XP boost on a new life that´s counted vs the ED XP you lost? Maybe you'll need to have a full sphere maxed out to lock in a single ED from that part and only lose the XP in the current sphere? That way you might not even have to give out XP as it then requires all that XP to make a ED.

For Iconic heroes will it be a separate TR system so you don't get a "Race", class and a ED at the same time?
Or will it be a benefit to only make Iconic TRs from now on? It might even be that the Iconic past life feats counts as a class, that way you'll have at least 3 more "classes" to the game compared to now.

Would be fun to get more posts from the dev team like the Piloto post. To keep the community in the dark about this might be a bad ide.

[jam78]

My thoughts on all this is Fate points.

I dont think its the capped destinys that are the problem, I have unlocked lvl 3/2/1 Twists with my lvl 25, how did i do this...i grinded out hours on 2min runs on rusted blades, now that is fair enough and i would hate to lose them earned fate points, but do i deserve 5 ranks in exalted angel etc for never ever truly running that destiny...I dont think i do.

So my point is try to keep the fate points, re do the destinys and you will only concentrate on the destinys you truly need then Tr them for Feat, seems simple enough (hopefully you will unlock more fate points on the way back up).

If anyone truly did run them destinys to cap I tip my hat, and that would be horrible (but i doubt anyone in DDO has done that!)

[LadyKoneko]

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:

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


And that is some of the problem. It's been mentioned that this is estimated to be update 20, in August update 18 is coming out... So while yes, I know all of us are thankful that we're getting a say, and *hopefully* our concerns are heard... but more than that, that the updated (as listed) will not go into place.

Many of us are passionate because we like this game, we like the people, we like the challenge, we.. etc you get the point. We are passionate because we have worked so hard on our characters, just as you Devs do to bring us new content. Yes it can be bugy, yes it has it's issues, but I'm nothing going into that.. it's not the heart of the discussion.

It's just hard to unwind when suddenly everything most people have worked towards is going to be wiped? People have been working towards competitionist, getting their twists, finishing out their EDs (whether for prestige or twists doesn't matter).. this idea changes everything...

Just as I'm sure a few Dev's didn't like the reaction/feedback to their hard work. The initial responses where, more or less, ripping the initial idea to shreds... that's exactly what the first post said to players. Congrats we're chopping up all your hard work... I do hope we can come to a solution that will appease players of all ages and types, that the Devs can create.

[Gabrael]

... **** browser destroyed my long post...

tl;dr

always felt weird that you kept the ED when you TRed, like a huge boost in power waiting for you as soon you hit lvl 20, didn't whine at the time, but still would preffer this. sucks for out ED, but I'm fine with this.

lower xp curve and banked xp for the TR is great to lessen the blow, but I wouldn't drop the xp curve of the ED themselves, just the Epic levels. Currently, you can get a max ED by lvl 23-24, since you have to wait 28 for the epic TR, you gonna maybe max 2-3-4 ED by then.

Iconinc past life ED need to be bonus feat NOT needed for the completionist, since the Iconic still use the lvls from the other classes.
However, i'd like if you got the class past life feat that goes with your iconic, if you are a lvl 20 paladin Bladesword, you get the past life for Paladin, and for Bladesword

[PermaBanned]

How about this:

As the stated intentions of adding Epic True Reincarntaion into the game is to encourage people to spend more time running Epic quests, I believe the following will achieve that goal while still maintaining the spirit (and promises) of the existing True Reincarnation system; without unduly punishing -or offering undue advantage to- those who have already spent the time and effort of filling out their destiny map.

With Epic True Reincarnation, we are introducing a new completionist track: Epic Completionist. Using an Epic Heart of Wood will cause your Epic character to be reborn at level 1. ETR will wipe all heroic & epic level xp, as well as the xp of your chosen (active and "maxed") destiny. You receive both a class and a destiny past life feat from this process. All other (non-active) destinies will survive the ETR process. Epic True Reincarnation will be available to Iconic Heros, and will provide the appropriate Iconic past life in place of a class past life.

Iconic True Reincarnation will be blended with Heroic True Reincarnation. Just as Veteran status only applies to a standard "first life," so does an Iconics' starting at level 15. Upon (Epic or Heroic) True Reincarnation, Iconic Heros will start at level 1 and acquire the appropriate Iconic past life feat.

Both forms of True Reincarnation will reset quest completion counters as the standard True Reincarnation already does.

As the "Epic Advantage" seemed to be compensatory for loosing all "unbonded" destiny xp, under the above system that would no longer be happening, I would suggest scrapping that part of the idea.

Thoughts?

[SisAmethyst]

I do not think the devs are going to read all of this, but I am going to throw out a fact situation that I do not think has been posted about which is going to occur again and again which is another infuriating detractor from Glin's proposal. Say I true reincarnate a melee 3 times and pick up the epic past lives for grandmaster, dreadnaught, and fury.
I then level the character up to 28 in the build I want. I have no desire to get other epic past lives really so I get all the fate points, twists, and generally get other epic destinies then the three I have bonded.

I stay at 28 for 9 months or so and then for some reason I either want to check out another build or Turbine nerfs the build I have or what have you. I then have the choice of trring again and losing all the non bonded destinies, twists and fate points that I gained or stay as is.

What a terrible decision to put a player in. That is a ton of work that constantly needs to be done everytime a character is levelled up to 28. Really Devs come on man...

That will most likely actually happen with the enhancement pass. You will get an incentive to TR that characters. Welcome to the choice of not TRing an under-performant build or loosing all EDs ... such rejoice ;)

[SisAmethyst]

...
If anyone truly did run them destinys to cap I tip my hat, and that would be horrible (but i doubt anyone in DDO has done that!)

Well I could say otherwise around. I tip my hat for running the same quest a gazillion of times which I think is mind blowing. Some of the buddies I TR with have run till around 24/25 to venture a little bit into the so called end-game and earned EDs along the way, then TRed again. Some players using additional the stones, the TR process goes like in no time like that and not even having any repeatition penalties.

[SisAmethyst]

As the stated intentions of adding Epic True Reincarntaion into the game is to encourage people to spend more time running Epic quests, I believe the following will achieve that goal while still maintaining the spirit (and promises) of the existing True Reincarnation system; without unduly punishing -or offering undue advantage to- those who have already spent the time and effort of filling out their destiny map.

...

Thoughts?

It exist a method named "the 5 why's", and the starting question would be "Why players not run epic content?". My bet is, that the root cause isn't the existance of the current heroic TR, so there is zero reason to turn on that wheel.

I personally have far less issues with the proposed epic TR including the the epic advantage, but with the changes to the heroic TR, as it would be a choice I can make. Now the choice would be probably only to not TR that character again, however that doesn't necessairly mean I would play more epic content.

[Hendrik]

There is a lot of rage both in the forums and in voice chat of every pug i join, and it makes me sad.




Out of the 12 people pulled into my groups yesterday, 11 of them has the TR/ETR info totally WRONG! They were listening to others who were giving out false info, and basing views off those people.

All 11 were far less upset when they actually got FACTUAL info explained to them by someone with a level head.

[Ironclans_evil_twin]

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

Useless noise is how I would define every non rational defense of this terrible game mechanic where some just rips others and dismisses their time and investment playing the game. Constantly characterizing people who don't play the way you do as wrong or less important than you are is just arrogant and dismissive. IMO you should stop confusing the dismissive and patronizing altitude you have towards other people as the "call to reason" you seem to think it is and realize that it looks toadying and sychopantic even to someone who has defended Turbine in the past and will again in the future when I see it as reasonable.

Not the first time I've observed this " people who play the game differently than I do, are invalid" thing from you. If you want to keep saying that in so many words no one can stop you, but please stop pretending your posts are a call to reason when they aren't anything more that an emotional reaction.

[Edit] typos was racing phones battery to see who could finish first.

[Charononus]

Out of the 12 people pulled into my groups yesterday, 11 of them has the TR/ETR info totally WRONG! They were listening to others who were giving out false info, and basing views off those people.

All 11 were far less upset when they actually got FACTUAL info explained to them by someone with a level head.

So how'd you lie to them? I just finished uninstalling over this. I'll keep checking this thread hoping they (Turbine) grow a brain, but since I doubt that will happen it'll probably be permanent.

[Towrn]

Lets say this stays as is.

You will have made many people angry and not have listened to us again. Some may leave, some won't.

Now it is spring 2015 and you say you are adding 3 new Epic Destinies.

People have just finished their characters, AGAIN. They did it your way, losing all of their ED exp and fate points to Epic TR for Epic Completionist and re-grinding all of the ED exp and fate points.

Now they have to do it all over, once again.

The people who didn't leave the first time most likely will if there is a second time.

Just something to think about before you roll out something that almost EVERYONE that has posted says they dislike.

[ForumAccess]

Now it is spring 2015 and you say you are adding 3 new Epic Destinies.

People have just finished their characters, AGAIN. They did it your way, losing all of their ED exp and fate points to Epic TR for Epic Completionist and re-grinding all of the ED exp and fate points.

Now they have to do it all over, once again.

There are a lot of reasons to be upset about these changes, but I really do not see how this is one of those. First off, they have stated that they intend for Fate Points to be retained, unless there is some technical reason why they are unable to do so. Second, as an Epic Completionist all preexisting EDs would be bonded, meaning you do not lose any of them when you do your ETRs for any newly added EDs.

The system as described actually seems quite good. It is just the reversing of the decisions that were said to be final when the ED system was first released that is screwing over many people who have already been participating in the ED system for nearly a year before the rules were changed on them that is a problem. And if they are able to retain their Fate Points as Piloto said is the intention then there is only really the matter of Keys of Destiny being unfairly removed, which is still a valid complaint but one that is much easier to live with.

And, of course, if they prove unable to retain the earned Fate Points then I don't think that there is any kind of compensation at all that will keep a massive number of people from leaving over this.....

[Propane]

Hay peps!

I have been following these thread and wanted to add my thoughts to this discussion.

I was very disappointed by the preview of the Enhancement changes on Lamannia. The level and types of changes presented in the preview were a turn off to me and greatly reduced my desire to play the game know what changes are coming.

The discussion about the proposed changed to TR and Epic TR have completely taken the wind out of my sails – I do not find any value at all in any of the proposals and it would take away even more fun out of the game. This is first time since I started playing that I am serious considering finding another game.

A few bullet points of what I am thinking…

1) Please don’t mess with the current LV 1-18 game play – it seems to be rolling along well – no need to change anything – allowing any TR’s to skip these levels is a bad plan (lots of quest, helping other learn the game, etc…)

2) Not allowing TR’s at LV 20 will be a mistake – lots of people are happy at heroic levels and want little to do with epics (or don’t want to pay for epics) don’t take that way.

3) The LV 18-22 game play is rough. LV 20 brings what seems like a new / different playing field – LV 18 and 19’s can’t go a lot places the LV 20’s can so there is often a split in these groups of players - the XP needed to go from 18 to 20 a TR is a lot – worst part of the grind at any level. When the level cap was 20, Raiding would allow you to cost from 18 to 20 (TOD, VOD, Hound, Shroud, etc) – now those are rarely ran for XP or at all. (big problem here)

4) Taking away ED XP is totally unacceptable- lots of people will be gone forever. This could single handily kill this game by having a lot of people quite at the same time

5) Raiding needs to be fixed. I would love to see the old raids touched up an released on EPIC levels – enhance N,H,E – make them more stepped… 20, 22, 24 LV for example. YES need to add new raids as well- the new raids don’t always need to be at the level cap either

6) I would love to see a special token drop in raids that can be collected and used in a barter system. A nice collection of rare items (TOD boot ingredients, high level special crafting ingredients, EPIC updates / augments / seals / etc.) Give people a reason to run all the raids by allowing them to take steps towards a common goal.

7) To help with the LV 20 – max ED – 3 full twist character “unbalancing” the level 20-25 game play – I would meter in the twists. At 20 you can switch / access any of your ED – have all your fate points - but not be allowed to twist anything. At 21 you get 1 allowed twist, at 23, the 2nd and at 25 the third.

8) When you EPIC TR – grant a few fate points (3-6) for use in next life. This would encourage TRing without senseless fate pint grinding.

9) Allow an EPIC TR to gain another twist (LV 27ish)


I am looking forward to more Dev conversation on this topic!

Thanks,

Propane.

[Anzanel]

Losing all the EDs that I spent too many hours grinding for? All sorts of DO NOT WANT to that!

Like someone else brought up before me, what about the twists of fate and fate points? If I'm a Wizard and I want to twist in Endless Faith from the Exalted Angel ED for example, I have the fate points (even bought the +2 tome), but I'll have to re-grind the path from Magister to Exalted Angel every life if I want to stack caster lives/epic lives?

Also, with the higher lvl cap of 28, players who do plan on grinding out eTRs might start to plan their leveling/quests more thoroughly if there aren't enough epic quests to go around. So we may have 1) more grind, and 2) people being more picky about the quests they run, when they run them, and with whom. It'll be just like TR'ing used to be years ago! (Except now you'll lose EDs instead of tomes.) Of course this is just speculation at this point, but what if?

Ever since I've heard about this, I've felt like playing a whole lot less. I still run raids and all, but now DDO has become more of a boredom buster and socializing experience, instead of the game where I used to strive to make my character as good as possible. I've always wanted to keep pushing my main character to new heights, but if this happens, I just don't think it'll be worth the effort. Looking at some of this thread, I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. I REALLY hope Turbine re-considers the whole ED loss upon TR issue.

[Varinox]

Having had time to think about it I am still upset with the idea that Heroic TR will wipe Epic Destinies, I haven't been grinding them, instead I've been working on them slowly.

For Example My Wizard started on Magister, and I found I couldn't train the line I wanted because it was all locked up behind the Spell Focus feat which I don't generally bother with, also prevents it being of any use to My Artificer, so I started working my way towards Shiradi, Currently TR'd and levelling, but all wasted effort.

My Rogue was happy with Shadowdancer but I was planning on twisting in Fast healing from Fury of the Wild, Currently TR'd and levelling, but all wasted effort.

My Artificer was stuck with the Arcane choices none of which appealed, so I was forced to work through Fatesinger (UGH!) to get to Shadowdancer which is more complamentary to my playstyle, with the intent of working towards Shiradi, to see what I could twist in from there, Currently level 20 with Capped Epic XP, because I use him primarily for running all Cannith challenges, but I also enjoy some EPic content on him, but the Destiny work is all wasted effort if he wants to Heroic TR.

I Preordered MotU and Shadowfell Conspiracy though personally I don't bother with Epic Levels, I prefer the class based systems of the Heroic levels, only time I've levelled beyond 20 was before I TR'd my characters. I do enjoy working on the Epic Destinies however. With the New level cap I was considering Levelling beyond 20, as I would likely miss out on a lot of the Expansion content if I didn't.

What loosing Epic Destiny progress means to me if I want to Heroic TR my characters is simply that I won't bother working on the Epic Destinies or any Epic content beyond the Cannith Challenges, for a long time to come.

[AZgreentea]

And I know that I've been one of the strongest voices here against everything but it bears saying this:
I think that I and most of the people strongly against this actually agree with you.

The only problem is that it wasn't in place to begin with and because of that they have people that it will take a ton more than an 'epic advantage' to compensate.

I can definitely agree with that. If the proposed system had been the first one put into place, it would have been both accepted and popular. I would even say that if the current system had been proposed second, it would have been considered over powered.

Unfortunately, it didnt happen that way.

[Standal]

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 think preservation of fate points is the absolute requirement of this system. Nobody maxed out ED's to get xp. We maxed it to get fate points and the twists that come with them. All of my following comments are based on preservation of existing fate points.

Epic destiny XP and unbound EDs -- please burn them. I can't currently get more fate points because I can't gain more destiny levels. Please let me Epic TR and get more fate points and better twists. Even if your Epic past life feats are terrible, I probably won't care. As long as we are allowed to relevel unbound EDs and get more fate points, this is a great system. With a little bit of planning before my TR, I will have the proper destiny or destinies bound for an epic TR and will be able to roll into the primary destiny for my TR with some twists in play.

The current endgame is broken. Once you have maxxed out destinies your character can become different, but not better. When you hit 20, you are essentially a max power toon that is just rolling through content. As long as I can get more fate points per life, every TR will be giving me some incremental advantage.

It appears that finally the devs are addressing the heroic TR system. I have a greater heroic XP tome and am geared to run elite BB throughout. I don't run any quest more than 3 times until level 17. The XP in Amrath, Cannith, and Inspired Quarter is designed for a level 20 cap game. The cap will shortly be 28. The XP for quests in these areas should be increased by a factor of 3. You don't need to change anything else about Heroic XP.

[GermanicusMaximus]

So how'd you lie to them? I just finished uninstalling over this. I'll keep checking this thread hoping they (Turbine) grow a brain, but since I doubt that will happen it'll probably be permanent.

When I saw his post, I did start to wonder just what "false info" was being handed out by everyone but Hendrik. Were people saying that upon TR, your build would be reset to 28 points, all past life feats would be removed, and your TR cache vaporized? If so, then I can see why Hendrik was able to calm them. :D

[Deadlock]

Lets say this stays as is.

You will have made many people angry and not have listened to us again. Some may leave, some won't.

Now it is spring 2015 and you say you are adding 3 new Epic Destinies.

People have just finished their characters, AGAIN. They did it your way, losing all of their ED exp and fate points to Epic TR for Epic Completionist and re-grinding all of the ED exp and fate points.

Now they have to do it all over, once again.

The people who didn't leave the first time most likely will if there is a second time.

Just something to think about before you roll out something that almost EVERYONE that has posted says they dislike.

Kinda but not quite. Difference is that you will now have bonded all of your previous Destinies, so you will only need to Epic TR to pick up the 3 new ones if that's what you decide to do.

Contrary to how it's described, you don't actually automatically lose Completionist when a new class is introduced, you only lose it when you TR and find out that you no longer qualify to pick it up. I'm hoping that they keep Epic Completionist consistent with Heroic Completionist when it comes to this ... *cough* and they make Heroic Completionist an auto-granted feat.

[mute_mayhem]

Out of the 12 people pulled into my groups yesterday, 11 of them has the TR/ETR info totally WRONG! They were listening to others who were giving out false info, and basing views off those people.

All 11 were far less upset when they actually got FACTUAL info explained to them by a turbine fanboi.

ftfy



Easy fix for all the nerdrage, just forget about the idea of wiping EDs on an heroic TR. Which means the majority of people I know won't bother with ETR, but hey keep making a system practically no one will use. It's not like we have a shortage of end-game content or a multitude of bugs in the game.

[mikarddo]

Three things should happen that will make your idea reasonable concerning ED xp.

1) Fate Points have to carry over during a TR *
2) Unlocked Destinies have to remain unlocked during a TR
3) Add a way to earn xp in a non-active Destiny even at a reduced rate (say 33%)

Add these 3 things and you have a superb system. 1) and 2) are absolutely essential while 3) is simply good, common sense to make the game more fun to play.

* If you want to allow players to add more points of fate after a TR then cool - but I rather doubt that.
Technically, I hence suggest you "mark" each unbound rank of ED that has been earned before the TR. After the TR those unbound ranks are lost but still "marked". When calculating the number of fate points the character has you count currently earned ranks as well as the marked ranks that are not currently earned. That way you have an incremental system still wrt fate points despite wiping the xp.

[Merlin-ator]

Been mulling this over for awhile... I don't think this is a real suggestion. I think this is something really awful to contrast with a bad, but still proposed, change. Remember the Great Nerfing in U14? They told us that the mobs would be immune to insta-kills, stat damage, and level drain. Then they backpedaled and just increased the cooldown for CoD, FoD, and made Wail very dangerous for the common squishy wizard to use. They also snuck the AC and poison/disease change by in the same time period we were mad about that. This is a fairly common strategy for things like getting around various censorship/ratings boards, presenting a very bad or extreme idea to make a less extreme one seem reasonable by comparison. This is such a moronic idea, even by Turbine's standards, that it can't possibly be a real suggestion.

[Towrn]

Lets say this stays as is.

You will have made many people angry and not have listened to us again. Some may leave, some won't.

Now it is spring 2015 and you say you are adding 3 new Epic Destinies.

People have just finished their characters, AGAIN. They did it your way, losing all of their ED exp and fate points to Epic TR for Epic Completionist and re-grinding all of the ED exp and fate points.

Now they have to do it all over, once again.

The people who didn't leave the first time most likely will if there is a second time.

Just something to think about before you roll out something that almost EVERYONE that has posted says they dislike.

A friend pointed out to me, as a few of you have, that this entire post was off base and I immediately knew why. That is what I get for posting before I've had coffee.

Sorry for the complete epic failure on my part to continue adding positively to the thread :)

[Delacroix21]

A few goals for Epic Destiny TR:

[LIST]
Adjust the XP curve in Epic levels for multi-life TR to avoid the dramatic escalating grind

What else?

Here are some changes we’re currently exploring:


[LIST]
Reincarnation cooldown timer reduced to 3 days.
Reincarnation XP curves smoothed to ease penalties for multiple lives.
.


Why should there be a XP penalty in the first place with the TR system. It should be penalizing enough to start over at level 1. Increasing the amount of time spent going from level 1-28 to over double is horrible.


I think the problem here is the belief that the current TR system is well liked by the community. You see tons of TR characters and falsely assume that the current system is fun and well received, yet the vast majority do it due to the lack of options at level cap. Very few people enjoy TR, very few. The increased XP changes the fun leveling experience from 1-20 to "a grind" as you yourself stated above. Everyone knows that there is nothing FUN about a grind.


The new system you want to put in place is going to be a grind as well, DDO is becoming a game where you level from 1-28 over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, and at a massive XP penalty.


The focus at level cap should be end game raids, and epics, not on constantly starting over at level 1. I would also like an option where I can earn XP at level cap playing with my friends that can be used when TRing to zap me back in the 20s. If you think that this will effect grouping at lower levels with new players you are very much wrong. Due to XP penalties and repeat quest penalties TR characters DO NOT group with new players, you can't risk them slowing down your enormous grind. This is WELL KNOWN and needs to be addressed somehow.


The best thing I can think of to help smooth the horror that is more and more TRing is to REMOVE the XP penalty of TRing, and INCREASE the first time run bonuses of quests so TRs don't just run the same small list of quests every life (which epic TR will make even more mind numbing).

[Tscheuss]

Can we keep them separated?

Make Epic TR necessary to get ED PL, and roll back to 20. No class change.

Heroic TR as it is now. Necessary for class change, and as such, also necessary for TR into Iconic.

Have an option at Kruz dialog for doing both together.


OR

If Epic TR does include Heroic TR, have Kruz check for Heroic PL's.

Should he find all Heroic PL's in character, then offer choice between starting at level 1 (15 for Iconic) with class change

OR starting at level 20 without a class change.

[Inoukchuk]

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.

Good to hear, thanks Cordovan. I would urge the team to take the rage in this forum very seriously though. I think the players all sense that this change could be the breaking point for the game. Other issues have already made pugging difficult in the game, but this change could result in losing a third of the player base, or worse, and that could be the 1000lb bolder that broke the camel's back.

[Delacroix21]

I used to like leveling a new character from 1-20, TR XP penalty now makes me hate it.


I LOVE the quest chains in Eveningstar, please don't make hate them too with a large XP penalty. :(

[redoubt]

Do not introduce a system that makes us redo our epic destinies.

Sure, bond one at a time if you like, but don't make us re-earn the destiny xp. Leveling up to 28 and then TRing again should be plenty to bond another destiny.

Next, for those with completionist, how are you taking into account that TRing through more heroic lives that gain nothing?


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 hope you realize that while we appreciate the heads up on this, most of us in the community are a bit skeptical now. More than once the community has cried out for turbine not to do something and the company has done it anyway. This is why many are upset. Once turbine announces something is in the "planning" stage it goes through... Surprise us with the enhancement pass and actually incorporate our inputs into the new system and maybe you will see less doom-saying in the future.

I appreciate you being here and reading the comments. I hope that this time will be different, but I'm not ready to start holding my breath yet...

[Tscheuss]

...
Next, for those with completionist, how are you taking into account that TRing through more heroic lives that gain nothing?

...

There will be four Iconics with Iconic PL's that can stack three times each = 12 runs. There are only 11 ED's atm. TR'ing through Iconic lives will get them Iconic PL's AND ED PL's.

[Teh_Troll]

So where are we on page 55? Anyone defending this stupid change besides the completely insane?

[Inoukchuk]

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

I don't see this.... at all. I have a couple of capped toons that have done NOTHING but epic level content since reaching 20 (except for a bit of loot or favor farming). If by "avoid epic level play" you really mean "avoid grinding off destinies for mind-numbing hours and not enjoy it" then we're on the same page, but I don't really see anyone avoiding epic content unless it's to grind past lives; which this proposed change does not even prevent.

One of the big issues here that the dev team has not (and likely will not publicly) addressed (but needs to be aware of) is the broken trust issue. - We were told our ED XP would not go away - Changing that makes you into liars, and nobody likes feeling lied to and betrayed. If EDs worked like this in the first place people would have done things differently, but investing so much time and effort based on what we were told, then having it taken away makes people VERY angry. Some of that anger is at what they are losing, but make no mistake that much of that anger is from the feeling of betrayal. Therefor, the smaller the change here the better.

[redspecter23]

So where are we on page 55? Anyone defending this stupid change besides the completely insane?

I think it's important to know what the devs goals are for this new system. We were presented a system, but not the goals of that system. It's hard to come to a compromise that the devs will be happy with if we don't know the goal they're trying to reach. By reading between the lines, this is what I've come up with.

They do not want people TR'ing at a "half way point". They want "real" TR to be done at level 28.

They want to eliminate or apply a disencentive to heroic TR so that people will be encouraged to level to 28 before doing a TR. In the proposed system, there are many more positives to an epic TR than there are to a heroic TR. You gain all the same advantages of a heroic TR but with the epic bonuses added on.

This is where their reluctance to retain heroic TR destiny xp comes from. They do not want any sort of incentive for heroic TR over epic TR. They want you to epic TR. They clearly didn't realize how much that is a sticking point for many players. They perhaps were hoping players would be so happy with the epic TR system that they would all basically have no use for heroic TR any more.

There are a few issues with this line of thinking. Players feel there is a massive difference in game play between heroic and epic. It's a different style of game and some players don't want to play epic and any suggestion from the devs that these sort of players should be encouraged to play epic more often is seen as a lack of understanding their playstyles. These players don't necessarily want to epic TR. They are still happy using heroic TR as they have been. Any incentive of epic TR isn't an incentive to players that perfer heroic content. It certainly doesn't make up for the change in heroic TR mechanics.

Players don't want to pay more for epic TR if it's basically meant as a replacement for heroic TR as it seems that is Turbine's intention. By "pay more" I mean both DDO store cost and/or in game grind cost. This issue could be eliminated if epic TR simply uses the same TR hearts that we currently use or uses the same cost. Until Turbine tells us about cost/availability of the new hearts, this is an unknown variable. Our feedback will be less accurate for each unknown variable in the equation.

Sorry, this post is getting a bit long now, but my point is that by examining Turbine's goals and combining it with our breaking points, we could come to a compromise.

Turbine's Goals
1. Turbine doesn't want anyone to have any incentive to heroic TR compared to epic TR. They would prefer players level up to 28, then epic TR, eliminating their old widget (True Heart of Wood) and introducing a new widget (with new cost and availability).
2. Turbine does want to reduce the grind associated with an epic TR (and heroic TR).
3. Turbine does want a destiny reset on all players that undergo a TR.
4. Turbine is flexible on "epic advantage".
5. Turbine is flexible on fate points.

Player Goals
1. Some players do not like epic and therefore are against a disincentive to heroic TR.
2. Many players agree that epic TR is almost a good idea. The main breaking points are twofold. Firstly, the reneging on Turbine's part about epic destiny xp carrying through a TR and the complete removal of any player effort put into the destinies. I consider these two very different points, but probably the two most important for Turbine to address.
3. Players for the most part are very much in favor of some sort of reduced grind, whether it comes from an easier xp curve or epic advantage, but it's important that epic advantage be optional for many players as it could effect their playgroups if they don't start at the same point.
4. Many players would be much less annoyed by the removal of all destinies if fate points are retained. Some players want the potential to accumulate even more fate points, though this doesn't seem to be a make or break point.

Anyway, this is what I've taken from the 50 or so pages here. It covers most of the major concerns on both sides and I think any proposal that can cover all these concerns could be seen as a great compromise.
We can use this knowledge to come up with a system that pleases the greatest number of players

[Teh_Troll]

You want people to TR at 28 instead of 20?

give twice the benefit.

Problem solved.

No need to mess with EDs at all.

This is a simple issue with a simple solution.

[redspecter23]

You want people to TR at 28 instead of 20?

give twice the benefit.

Problem solved.

No need to mess with EDs at all.

This is a simple issue with a simple solution.

Well to be fair, they are offering twice the benefit. Heroic past life and Destiny past life. It's the destiny removal that's the issue here. You are gaining a double benefit, but the cost is just way too high initially.

[Atremus]

So where are we on page 55? Anyone defending this stupid change besides the completely insane?

New cosmetic pet: the burning pitchfork!!! It only costs 3 tier 5 epic destinies...






Player Goals
1. Some players do not like epic and therefore are against a disincentive to heroic TR.
2. Many players agree that epic TR is almost a good idea. The main breaking points are twofold. Firstly, the reneging on Turbine's part about epic destiny xp carrying through a TR and the complete removal of any player effort put into the destinies. I consider these two very different points, but probably the two most important for Turbine to address.
3. Players for the most part are very much in favor of some sort of reduced grind, whether it comes from an easier xp curve or epic advantage, but it's important that epic advantage be optional for many players as it could effect their playgroups if they don't start at the same point.
4. Many players would be much less annoyed by the removal of all destinies if fate points are retained. Some players want the potential to accumulate even more fate points, though this doesn't seem to be a make or break point.



I also hope that turbine will give us plenty of content to get from Level25 to Level28 in this process as weel. I also hope that they don't decided to raise the level cap to 40 and create another gimmick TR system that invalidates all of the work that they are doing here.....

[redspecter23]

I hope that turbine will give us plent of content to get from Level25 to Level28 in this process as weel. I also hope that they don't decided to raise the level cap to 40 and create another gimmick TR system that invalidates all of the work that they are doing here.....

Hopefully that issue is meant to be addressed at least party by the potential adjustment to the xp curves. I'd like to think that they know that will be an issue and are tweaking the curve so that we will have enough content to get us to 28. Until we have more info on that particular issue, I don't want to sharpen up my pitchfork just yet. They could easily mess it up, but there is no solid proposal yet to offer any reaction to. Past experience tells me they have offered excess grind in particular areas (level 18-20) on purpose in order to sell grind removal pots, er xp pots in the store. This is my only logical conclusion to the abysmal xp offered in Amrath and Cannith. The devs are quite aware that it's too low, but can't raise it due to the potential loss of store pots. The problem with that thought process is that I'm not buying a pot and running that low xp content. I'm simply just ignoring that content altogether. It's not a great way to design a game, but this game now has a monetary issue that the devs need to work with unfortunately. In the old days of monthly subscription, there would be little to no reason to design poor xp quests into the endgame on purpose.

[Tscheuss]

I am pretty sure Turbine is well aware of how we feel about the ED XP issue by now.

That probably fits under the question of how the proposed changes will affect our playing style.

Sadly, this issue has distracted most of us from another important question:


What ideas might we have for ED PL feats?

Only a small number of people have offered anything in that vein. Can we focus discussion on this, now?

[Deadlock]

I used to like leveling a new character from 1-20, TR XP penalty now makes me hate it.


I LOVE the quest chains in Eveningstar, please don't make hate them too with a large XP penalty. :(

If you consider it to be a discount for 1st and 2nd lifers, then it's a lot easier to plan your levelling appropriately :)

There's seriously no need to reduce the Heroic XP curve though, when you've got people already doing them in 3 days, or in a weekend with a stone of experience, then there's no reason to.

[Deadlock]

You want people to TR at 28 instead of 20?

give twice the benefit.

Problem solved.

No need to mess with EDs at all.

This is a simple issue with a simple solution.

Picking up an Iconic Past Life Feat and an ED Past Life Feat would work as twice the benefit, that's certainly what I'm planning to do with how I think it'll work when it goes live.

And that's fair enough if you choose to Epic TR and are interested in picking up the Epic Completionist Feat. It's touching anything to do with Heroic TRing that's the sticking point.

[Tscheuss]

I would hate for this to get lost. Tyrande gives us a place to start re ED PL suggestions. :D



True. What is more to gain when you have gained every level and every destiny and every twist? D&D is unlimited and I think DDO should be.

As for destiny feats, here are some of my ideas:

Past Life: Magister: You were a Magister in an epic past life. You occasionally find yourself the urge to have acquired more information from good arcane spell books. You now have +5 DC, +5 Spell Penetration, +50 Negative Spell Power and have learnt the Epic Spell Seed: Dispel

Past Life: Draconic Incarnation: You were a Draconic Incarnate in an epic past life. You occasionally find yourself dreaming of giving bad breath to others. You now have +50 base Spell Power from of the color of your draconic heritage and also acquired the Epic Spell Seed: Energy

Past Life: Fate Singer:You were a Fate Singer in an epic past life. You occasionally find yourselves inspiring people to do the best in their jobs. You now have +50 Sonic Spell Power and all your crowd control spells and songs are double(?) in length. (*spells stack with extend metamagic feat)

Past Life: Shadowdancer:You were a Shadowdancer in an epic past life. People have a hard to time keep track of you and instead found your shadows. You now have an additional +5 to your Assassinate DC; and can cast the special Shadow Training IV dimension door 5 times per rest (without using spell points), 3 minutes cool down.

Past Life: Grandmaster of Flowers:You were a Grandmaster of Flowers in an epic past life. You were a Ki Master and occasionally you find yourselves aware of the free flow of Ki in your body. You now have +50 base Force Spell Power and +50 additional Ki upon resting.

Past Life: Exalted Angel:You were an exalted angel in an epic past life. You occasionally found yourselves judging and smiting evil. You now have +50 base Light Spell Power and also acquired the Epic Spell Seed: Heal.

Past Life: Unyielding Sentinel:You were an unyielding sentinel in an epic past life. You occasionally dream of providing stunts and shield other people from hurting. You now have +50 Positive Spell Power and also acquired the Epic Spell Seed: Ward.

Past Life: Legendary Dreadnought:You were a legendary dreadnought in an epic past life. You occasionally dream of blitzing through a full dungeon leaving a bloody trail. You now have +5 Tactical DC to your tactical skills (stun, trip, sunder) and +5 damage with your melee weapons

Past Life: Shiradi Champion:You were a Shiradi Champion in an epic past life. You thought you were a fey Eladrin in your dreams and excel in ranged attacks. You gained +5 ranged damage and +5 untyped spell damage per cast. Additionally, you gained the Epic Spell Seed: Reflect.

Past Life: Fury of the Wild:You were a barbaric wild folk in an epic past life. You occasionally found yourselves behave wildly and dream about masters of pain delivery and reception. Every hit you inflict a shaken effect and enemies have a random 10%(?) chance of frozen in place in awe of your prowess.

Past Life: Primal Avatar:You were a primal avatar in an epic past life. You occasionally found yourselves have the urge to play around with fury animals and imagined yourselves being wrapped in green natural goodness. Any pets, summons, hireling you have 15% alacrity and +5 levels. You also gained the Epic Spell Seed: Life.



Epic Destiny Completionist: +2 to every skills, Ability (stat points), DR, PRR, Doublestrike, Spell Power that does not require a feat like regular heroic completionist and is an automatic built-in feat once the conditions are met. Your TR wings are now golden in color rather than white for regular TR people. Requires: Every Bond Epic Destiny Past Life. New Destinies when released will automatically turned off Epic Destiny Completionist from your feats list.

He went to the effort of addressing this part of the OP. Can we show him the respect of considering his thoughts instead of burying them, please?

[redspecter23]

I am pretty sure Turbine is well aware of how we feel about the ED XP issue by now.

That probably fits under the question of how the proposed changes will affect our playing style.

Sadly, this issue has distracted most of us from another important question:


What ideas might we have for ED PL feats?

Only a small number of people have offered anything in that vein. Can we focus discussion on this, now?

Destiny Past Life Feats

Dreadnaught - your tactical abilities have their cooldown reduced by 20%
Grandmaster - you may use wisdom for all your tactics instead of strength if wisdom bonus is higher
Shadowdancer - when you kill an enemy, 1% chance to annihilate their soul, dealing 100d6 negative damage to all mobs in wide radius and heal you 100d6 hp.
Fury of the Wild - while raged, your weapons gain vorpal
Primal Avatar - while shapeshifted, unarmed or 2 weapon fighting, your attacks deal +1 [w]
Shiradi - 7% chance to produce a random effect on any ranged/spell attack.
Magister - Summons/hireling all come into play with resist 50 (all elements), +4 to all ability scores, haste, shield, greater heroism, rage, +50 PRR, +100%hp, +30 dc to their offensive tactics and spells. You gain +1 dc to your spells
Draconic - once per day you can shapeshift into a dragon for 30 seconds (think Tor dragons)
Fatesinger - your songs have a 50% chance to apply hp/sp regen effect
Sentinel - Any item or effect that adds AC/dodge/PRR to your character has that increased by 1.
Exalted Angel - Every time you cast a single target heal spell on an ally, you have a 5% chance to apply a sunburst type effect to mobs, centered on that ally.

Just some initial thoughts thrown down here.

[oradafu]

There are a few issues with this line of thinking. Players feel there is a massive difference in game play between heroic and epic. It's a different style of game and some players don't want to play epic and any suggestion from the devs that these sort of players should be encouraged to play epic more often is seen as a lack of understanding their playstyles. These players don't necessarily want to epic TR. They are still happy using heroic TR as they have been. Any incentive of epic TR isn't an incentive to players that perfer heroic content. It certainly doesn't make up for the change in heroic TR mechanics.

Redspecter's whole post is something that the Devs need to pay attention to. I would like to expand a bit on the above paragraph in Redspecter's post because I don't think the Devs really understand how different heroic and epic play is. And before I begin, yes Epic Normal and Epic Hard aren't difficult to beat since the can be soloed by most players, but still there are things that need to be addressed.

Epic mobs are bloated HP and many of the tools given to melees don't scale. When there are mobs with +10k HP, doing an extra 100 damage on vorpal hits (not just with vorpals but other abilities also) means nothing. Additionally, instant killing these mobs when they are less than 1000 HP is just a joke because the mob would be dead in the next few swings anyway. So for melees, beating down epic mobs is just a longer process than the heroic mobs since melees abilities don't scale.

Summons don't scale in Epics. Since MOTU was released (or just prior to its release), summons got broken in both Epics and heroic quests. Hezrou demons could actually last in Epics before the changes to summons. Air elementals.were useful and lasted in Epics also. Some of the other summons also worked. Today, I think the only summons that are decent in Epics are a few of the Xoriat summons and the Epic Thaarak Hound (or at least that's what I've heard since personally getting Sand Epics is near impossible). Unless something has changed since I last played in Magister, even the Epic summons are impotent wastes of SP. I know I lost complete interest in the Epic Summons when the Succubus didn't have any CC and spent all her time doing almost no melee damage.

Are bards even useful in Epics outside of buffing? I've always heard that bards don't work in Epics because CCing Epic mobs with the bards abilities don't work. If Bards can work in epics, that's definitely not the perception that I see in game. In Epics, bards appear to have the single role of buffing everyone else and that's pretty much it.

Then there's the DC caster that appears to be dead in Epics. Instead all casters need to be in Shiradi to be useful. If this isn't true, it's at least that's the perception--much like the former meme all rogues must be Assassins to join group. BTW, there's only one type of caster that can avoid the Martial sphere to get to Shiradi.

I'm sure I'm missing some of other stuff that sets Epic appear from heroic quests that might be turning some players away from doing Epics. I know I've ran into some players who haven't tried Epics since before MOTU, so they still have that perception of epics also. These are also the same people who avoid Epics because of the Scroll/Seal/Shards, and to be truthful most Epic players avoid those quests because grinding for those inferior Epic items is futile.

[Tscheuss]

Destiny Past Life Feats

Dreadnaught - your tactical abilities have their cooldown reduced by 20%
Grandmaster - you may use wisdom for all your tactics instead of strength if wisdom bonus is higher
Shadowdancer - when you kill an enemy, 1% chance to annihilate their soul, dealing 100d6 negative damage to all mobs in wide radius and heal you 100d6 hp.
Fury of the Wild - while raged, your weapons gain vorpal
Primal Avatar - while shapeshifted, unarmed or 2 weapon fighting, your attacks deal +1 [w]
Shiradi - 7% chance to produce a random effect on any ranged/spell attack.
Magister - Summons/hireling all come into play with resist 50 (all elements), +4 to all ability scores, haste, shield, greater heroism, rage, +50 PRR, +100%hp, +30 dc to their offensive tactics and spells. You gain +1 dc to your spells
Draconic - once per day you can shapeshift into a dragon for 30 seconds (think Tor dragons)
Fatesinger - your songs have a 50% chance to apply hp/sp regen effect
Sentinel - Any item or effect that adds AC/dodge/PRR to your character has that increased by 1.
Exalted Angel - Every time you cast a single target heal spell on an ally, you have a 5% chance to apply a sunburst type effect to mobs, centered on that ally.

Just some initial thoughts thrown down here.

Nice, I see you have been giving it some thought. :)

I particularly like the one for Shadowdancer.

Fury is a little limited, though. As proposed, ED PL's are stackable X3.

Maybe a new type of Vorpal for epic levels?

Heroic Vorpal only adds 100 hp dmg on mobs with 1000+ HP
First Fury PL grants Epic Vorpal while raging - +200 hp dmg on mobs with 2000+ HP
Second grants Epic Vorpal while raging - +300 hp dmg on mobs with 3000+ HP
Third grants Epic Vorpal while raging - +400 hp dmg on mobs with 4000+ HP
In short, Fury PL grants Epic Vorpal, which gives +1000 to max Vorpal cap and +100 to damage done to mobs with HP over cap.

It has been a while since I have run epics, so numbers may need to be adjusted to be appropriate for epic mob HP levels.
What do you think?

[oradafu]

I would hate for this to get lost. Tyrande gives us a place to start re ED PL suggestions. :D

He went to the effort of addressing this part of the OP. Can we show him the respect of considering his thoughts instead of burying them, please?

I'll speak for myself, but if the ED XP gets wiped then the rest of what Glin revealed has little concern for me since it will be a game killer for me, even though I like most of everything else he's proposed.

Besides, how can we give suggestions for the ED Past Life when we haven't been told much about them? Do we automatically acquire them at level 1 or must we wait to level 20? Will the ED Past Life be passive feat or do we only get a chance of purchasing the feat or will it be both (like the current Past Life feats)? Will these ED Past Life feats be acquirable multiple times?

It's kind of silly for us to give suggestions on what the ED Past Life feats should be when we haven't been given such basic information. It's even sillier for Glin to ask for our input on the feats without giving us the basic information as when the ED Past Life feats will start affecting players.

[GermanicusMaximus]

So where are we on page 55? Anyone defending this stupid change besides the completely insane?

You simply don't understand the proposal. Go find Hendrik, and he will explain to you why you are confused. :D

And really, the broken concept of erasing all Epic Destiny XP upon Epic or Heroic TR needs to be settled before worrying about the details of Epic past life feats. If virtually no one is going to Epic TR because they would have all of their Epic Destiny XP arbitrarily reset, it really doesn't matter what the past life feats are.

[Standal]

If you consider it to be a discount for 1st and 2nd lifers, then it's a lot easier to plan your levelling appropriately :)

There's seriously no need to reduce the Heroic XP curve though, when you've got people already doing them in 3 days, or in a weekend with a stone of experience, then there's no reason to.

Levels 18-20 take far too long to complete. That was fine when the game was level cap 20, but if we're now really going to be playing a level 28 game, something needs to be done. It's ridiculous that level 18-20 takes as long as it does. It doesn't matter if some power gamer is doing it in 3 days. He may be doing everything faster than almost everybody else, but he's spending too much time between 18-20.

I do agree that current XP cap is OK. The problem isn't so much that the XP required is too great; it's that the XP/quest is too small. Increasing the amount of XP per quest in the Inspired Quarter, Reign of Madness, Cannith, and Amrath would make the TR grind a lot more palatable.

[Inoukchuk]

Nice, I see you have been giving it some thought. :)

I particularly like the one for Shadowdancer.

Fury is a little limited, though. As proposed, ED PL's are stackable X3.

Maybe a new type of Vorpal for epic levels?

Heroic Vorpal only adds 100 hp dmg on mobs with 1000+ HP
First Fury PL grants Epic Vorpal while raging - +200 hp dmg on mobs with 2000+ HP
Second grants Epic Vorpal while raging - +300 hp dmg on mobs with 3000+ HP
Third grants Epic Vorpal while raging - +400 hp dmg on mobs with 4000+ HP
In short, Fury PL grants Epic Vorpal, which gives +1000 to max Vorpal cap and +100 to damage done to mobs with HP over cap.

It has been a while since I have run epics, so numbers may need to be adjusted to be appropriate for epic mob HP levels.
What do you think?

What do I think? I think talking about this is a pointless distraction. At the moment (virtually) nobody cares about these feats since nobody will want to TR after this awful change. Rather than focusing on what type of power creep you'd like to see implemented that invalidates any non-multi-Epic-TR build, let's focus on the real problem at hand.

Sorry to be harsh, but ... you asked what I think.

[redspecter23]

If you consider it to be a discount for 1st and 2nd lifers, then it's a lot easier to plan your levelling appropriately :)

There's seriously no need to reduce the Heroic XP curve though, when you've got people already doing them in 3 days, or in a weekend with a stone of experience, then there's no reason to.

I find the issue is not so much the time it takes to get from 1 to 20 or from 1 to 25. My issue is that from 1-16 is a breeze. 16-18 is a bit more effort and some grind. 18-20 is a large amount of time and grind. 20-22 is fast as lightning. 22-24 a bit slower. 24-25 longish (but still nothing compared to 18-20).

So hopefully by "smoothing the curve" you lose that massive grind bump in the 18-20 range without making the whole thing an easy button with zero grind or effort. Take some of the 18-20 bump and spread it around while also adding 26-28. I can see the whole thing taking about the same amount of time, but with a steady increase instead of the "want to shoot yourself in the head because of the grind" 18-20 being the worst part of any full TR from 1 - 28.

[oradafu]

Levels 18-20 take far too long to complete. That was fine when the game was level cap 20, but if we're now really going to be playing a level 28 game, something needs to be done. It's ridiculous that level 18-20 takes as long as it does. It doesn't matter if some power gamer is doing it in 3 days. He may be doing everything faster than almost everybody else, but he's spending too much time between 18-20.

I do agree that current XP cap is OK. The problem isn't so much that the XP required is too great; it's that the XP/quest is too small. Increasing the amount of XP per quest in the Inspired Quarter, Reign of Madness, Cannith, and Amrath would make the TR grind a lot more palatable.

This is pretty much how I feel also. The Devs kept the XP low for the upper Heroics to extend the endgame when the cap was 20. However, they didn't adjust and continue to not adjust the XP for those quests since MOTU came out.

From what I read in Glin's posts, the Devs aren't thinking about boosting the XP in these quests, but leveling out the XP across the board. If this is the case, I think they are just going to add a new XP problem in Heroics. Let's say they flatten the XP needed for upper heroic levels but bump up the lower and/or mid heroic levels. This will present a new problem in both areas, in my mind. In the lower levels, the XP needed can't be boosted too much, because quest give junk XP. Even though several of the quests from levels give decent XP, the mid-heroic levels have some of the least populated quest selection in the game. If the repeat penalty isn't fixed and the XP needed to get to level 28 increases to any degree, the mid-heroics (GH and Sands) are going to become the new XP problem area if players want to cap.

I've pointed it out before, but the number of quests from levels 12 to 19 is half the number found from level 1 to 11. Additionally, the current number of quests from 20 to 25 is half that of 12 to 19, yet it's the upper heroic quests that continue to have junk XP.

Edit: Blah. Apparently the new censors came in and made a word bad. Next thing you know, they'll censor the word "saTURDay"

[redspecter23]

This is pretty much how I feel also. The Devs kept the XP low for the upper Heroics to extend the endgame when the cap was 20. However, they didn't adjust and continue to not adjust the XP for those quests since MOTU came out.

From what I read in Glin's posts, the Devs aren't thinking about boosting the XP in these quests, but leveling out the XP across the board. If this is the case, I think they are just going to add a new XP problem in Heroics. Let's say they flatten the XP needed for upper heroic levels but bump up the lower and/or mid heroic levels. This will present a new problem in both areas, in my mind. In the lower levels, the XP needed can't be boosted too much, because quest give junk XP. Even though several of the quests from levels give decent XP, the mid-heroic levels have some of the least populated quest selection in the game. If the repeat penalty isn't fixed and the XP needed to get to level 28 increases to any degree, the mid-heroics (GH and Sands) are going to become the new XP problem area if players want to cap.

I've pointed it out before, but the number of quests from levels 12 to 19 is half the number found from level 1 to 11. Additionally, the current number of quests from 20 to 25 is half that of 12 to 19, yet it's the upper heroic quests that continue to have junk XP.

Edit: Blah. Apparently the new censors came in and made a word bad. Next thing you know, they'll censor the word "saTURDay"

My even larger worry is that they'll mess around with too many popular xp midrange quests in the process. I'm all for some adjustments to quests like VoN3 and Shadow Crypt, but there is a careful balance here that needs to be closely monitored. If those are to be lowered, then others in a similar level range need to be adjusted upward to fill the void. I just hope the entire xp system doesn't get Turbined.

[Qhualor]

Levels 18-20 take far too long to complete. That was fine when the game was level cap 20, but if we're now really going to be playing a level 28 game, something needs to be done. It's ridiculous that level 18-20 takes as long as it does. It doesn't matter if some power gamer is doing it in 3 days. He may be doing everything faster than almost everybody else, but he's spending too much time between 18-20.

I do agree that current XP cap is OK. The problem isn't so much that the XP required is too great; it's that the XP/quest is too small. Increasing the amount of XP per quest in the Inspired Quarter, Reign of Madness, Cannith, and Amrath would make the TR grind a lot more palatable.

wile I will agree that quests like in IQ and Cannith reward little xp, I cant agree that 18-20 takes as long to level through as some say. I could see if you don't have all the packs or have completed or farmed out all quests up to 18, but I know its been suggested by me and many others that not touching Vale until 18 makes it so much easier, which is not hard to do with elite BB. by doing that and still having Refuge, plus the easy to farm IQ quests if you don't mind doing that (I only do them 3 times max each E/H/N), plus I do think Amrath xp is not bad and you can skip Invasion if you want to keep elite BB. I do little farming in that level range and I consider it downhill when I do hit 18. with all that said, I wouldn't be against adding more quests with better xp rewards in that level range.

[redspecter23]

wile I will agree that quests like in IQ and Cannith reward little xp, I cant agree that 18-20 takes as long to level through as some say. I could see if you don't have all the packs or have completed or farmed out all quests up to 18, but I know its been suggested by me and many others that not touching Vale until 18 makes it so much easier, which is not hard to do with elite BB. by doing that and still having Refuge, plus the easy to farm IQ quests if you don't mind doing that (I only do them 3 times max each E/H/N), plus I do think Amrath xp is not bad and you can skip Invasion if you want to keep elite BB. I do little farming in that level range and I consider it downhill when I do hit 18. with all that said, I wouldn't be against adding more quests with better xp rewards in that level range.

There is a problem with the system when you are encouraged by the math involved to save level 16 quests to run when you are effectively aiming for level 20. Personally I'd rather be running level 18/19/20 content in order to chase level 20. You are correct that saving those quests leads to a more efficient leveling process, but it's the entire concept of having to bank lower level good xp quests that I'm bothered by.

[Lycurgus]

I think it's important to know what the devs goals are for this new system.

Just speculating, but it seems possible that the goal of thenew system is to improve player retention and is based upon the assumption thatdeclines in player retention are due to player boredom at cap. Regrinding epicdestinies in an epic TR system has the same smell as the Eveningstar challengelottery, meant to be a huge time sink that keeps players on a treadmill.Unfortunately, that isn’t something they could admit on a public forum even ifit were true.

[redspecter23]

Just speculating, but it seems possible that the goal of thenew system is to improve player retention and is based upon the assumption thatdeclines in player retention are due to player boredom at cap. Regrinding epicdestinies in an epic TR system has the same smell as the Eveningstar challengelottery, meant to be a huge time sink that keeps players on a treadmill.Unfortunately, that isn’t something they could admit on a public forum even ifit were true.

I really hope their overall goal is player retention. Any other goal seems counter productive from a making money point of view. That should be a goal of all implemented systems and game updates. Any system or update that threatens to lose income from lost players faster than the increased income from retained players should obviously be retooled (if resources are available) or scrapped (if there are not enough resources to fix it).

From a pure cash income point of view, the loss of players who aren't spending any money is of no consequence. What is often lost in the calculation is the negative PR that goes along with losing players, whether or not they cause any direct profit loss.

[gildamor]

Absolutely dreadful ideas.

First implement the 38 point build for existing completionists.
Make the completionist feat PASSIVE so it can fit into any class or build.
Improve the existing past life feats, some are really lame.

Epic Completionist. No one is going to want to grind out destinies over and over. Even a completionist.

In my opinion, enhance existing completionist track which naturally explores all aspects(classes) of the game, and lose the Epic completionist idea.

Yambu. Completionist. Cannith.

[Charononus]

Nice, I see you have been giving it some thought. :)

I particularly like the one for Shadowdancer.

Fury is a little limited, though. As proposed, ED PL's are stackable X3.

Maybe a new type of Vorpal for epic levels?

Heroic Vorpal only adds 100 hp dmg on mobs with 1000+ HP
First Fury PL grants Epic Vorpal while raging - +200 hp dmg on mobs with 2000+ HP
Second grants Epic Vorpal while raging - +300 hp dmg on mobs with 3000+ HP
Third grants Epic Vorpal while raging - +400 hp dmg on mobs with 4000+ HP
In short, Fury PL grants Epic Vorpal, which gives +1000 to max Vorpal cap and +100 to damage done to mobs with HP over cap.

It has been a while since I have run epics, so numbers may need to be adjusted to be appropriate for epic mob HP levels.
What do you think?
I think it doesn't matter, the rest of the changes are so bad that past life feats are completely unimportant at this point. Who cares what the feats are when I've talked to people I know that play and out of people I've talked 90% will quit the game from the other changes. It's like complaining you've got a paper cut while looking up at a nuke falling on your head.

[CorinBrightbane]

Well to be fair, they are offering twice the benefit. Heroic past life and Destiny past life. It's the destiny removal that's the issue here. You are gaining a double benefit, but the cost is just way too high initially.


I realize this is a smaller percentage of the player base. But I'm curious what the Dev's have in mind here. I've read a bunch of this thread but not all....as it gets a little depressing to read some of it. My question is this.

Are past life tr's wasted when the new system comes out. If I can level and get a heroic past life and an epic past life feat why would I tr now? I'm on life 30 and it seems wasteful to tr again now. Yes I have all Ed's maxed as well.


i agree with what are the goals. Heroic tr is 1-20. Why does epic tr involve destinies. Why not have a destiny tr for destinies.....sets your active destiny to 0, and epic tr be just that....tr your epic levels...I.e 20-28

I for one don't have an interest in playing 1-28 thirty more times......

[EllisDee37]

Devs, I think I know why you're wanting to wipe destiny xp: Because once a character maxes their destinies, if that xp is retained on TR they have NOTHING to keep playing for in terms of xp goals.

There is a solution to address this that should achieve the goals you want while not also alienating your playerbase. It's been mentioned several times already in this thread, but worth repeating:

An epic tr wipes the currently active maxed destiny, leaving the other destinies untouched. This epic tr grants a free passive past life feat based on the destiny you just wiped. (Where you actually start the next life: level 1, level 20, or somewhere in between, is less of an issue for both players and devs.)

This alternative to the dev proposal still gives incentive for veteran grinders to re-grind all 11 destinies over 11 lives. It's important to note that the dev-proposed system, where all unbonded destinies get reset each tr, has the exact same development goal: incentive to re-grind all 11 destinies over 11 lives. So this alternative gives the same amount of "new treadmill", it just does it in a way that won't also give HUGE incentive to never tr again, as the dev proposal does.

Additionally, does the dev proposal incentivize epic tring the same destiny more than once? This alternative proposal does, in the form of stacking 3x passive past life feats just like heroic tr. That's 11x3 or 33 more lives to completely max out your destiny past lives. It seems to me that the dev proposal CAN'T match this amount of new treadmill because as I read it, after 11 epic trs you literally cannot epic tr a 12th time since you no longer have an unbonded destiny to epic tr.

While it's arrogant to ask, I would love a dev response to this particular idea. It doesn't have to be my post; many people have offered up the same (or very similar) idea. It seems to me that it both a) achieves the devs' design goals, and b) answers the core objection of the players.

[Delacroix21]

Why is there so much focus on re-rolling to get an increase in power? Are the future plans for DDO always going to have a focus on TR grinding?


Cordovan and Glin: can you guys work on a system that lets capped players collect TR benefits?



i don't want to reroll my character, leave my friends behind, and play classes i don't even like to increase in power. At least the Everquest AA system allowed you to grow in power at the level cap rather than start all over. I want my character to grow in power at end game just like everyone else, why is the only way to do that involve starting over at level 1 and grinding the only way?



P.S. Cordovan, Glin, Piolotto please start posting in this thread again, your silence makes us feel that you are not listening to us. You guys need to engage with the. Community more rather than run off at the first sign of rage posting.

[EllisDee37]

(Where you actually start the next life: level 1, level 20, or somewhere in between, is less of an issue for both players and devs.)I would normally edit this into my previous post but I wanted to try and reduce the wall of textness of it.

In terms of shortening an epic tr's grind, I think a better approach would be to start at 1 and lessen the xp requirements. Like, say, an epic tr gives you the first or even second life xp requirements. That's far preferable to skipping content by starting out at level 11.

For back-of-the-napkin numbers, a third life starting at 11 needs 3.4 million xp to cap but has essentially skipped "half" of the heroic content. Why not just start them at 1 but only require the 3.1 million xp to cap of a second life?

[redoubt]

Leave heroic TR alone. From any point in levels 20-xx it should work exactly as it does today and NOT affect epic destinies in ANY way.

Add your Epic TR. At level 28 with your active ED max'd out. Do an epic TR. This can take you back to level 1 and give both a past life from your heroic levels and a past life from your active max'd out destiny. OR you can go back to level 20 and only get the past life from your active max'd out destiny.

The only XP you should EVER have to re-earn is your xp to gain levels.

[Coyopa]

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.

To be fair when it comes to their code, the fate points probably just use a flag: one to show it was store-purchased and one for everything else. As a developer myself, this is probably how I would have done it, too - especially since they clearly had not previously taken the time to think about how this TR system they are planning would work. (Furthermore, why would they take that time since it was planned for "eventually" and not even "soon (tm)"?)

Do not make the mistake of thinking I agree with their overall decisions, but as regards the fate points, I think the problems they face in making them persistent are fair. They will probably have to implement a third flag and then write some code that basically says "Set $flag to $value when $event occurs", and then they have to go modify the logic to not award additional fate points when you are leveling your destinies again (unless they want to enable that, which would be simpler unless they have their code calculate how many bonded destiny levels you have, then change the flag on the corresponding number of fate points [which would probably be the easiest solution]).



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.

Yep, pretty much this. They are basically saying that all the time and money I sank into leveling destinies was pointless. I feel rather robbed of the money I spent to purchase the points used to purchase experience elixirs to speed up the destiny leveling process. I only did all that because of the premise (and promise) that my destiny experience was not going to be reset when I TR'd.



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.

Completely agree. Leave the heroic TR'ing alone. Let us participate in your destiny experience wiping scheme if we want to. I probably will eventually want to, too, but I do not want to be forced. I was hoping to get my wife playing the game later this year and I liked the option of TR'ing a character to play with her (probably my rogue), even though I know she and I were both going to start new druids first.

Personally, I am not a completionist. I do not see the value in being completionist and I have neither the time nor the desire to do even Epic Completionist. The "epic advantage" is not an advantage in the case of TR'ing to play the game with my wife. I also do not consider it an advantage when I TR just to TR - because I also like leveling from level 1. I like revisiting all the low level content and playing through the game again. Please do not take that away from me.

Your reasoning for wiping destiny experience seems to be "You all are too powerful now that you have all the destinies done", which makes no sense because the people who have lots of time are going to end up back at that level anyway - with the addition of past life feats to make them MORE powerful.

Be forewarned: If you insist on wiping destiny experience, you are going to lose a LOT of customers. I have already canceled my subscription and it expires on 23 Jul (and in spite of the fact I forked over 50 bucks for your latest expansion). I dislike your proposed change THAT MUCH that I basically threw away my pre-purchase. I'm still hanging around and logging in a bit for now (but far less than I was - so thanks for the extra free time) and I am waiting to see what happens with this decision. If you reverse course, I will probably resubscribe. If not, you save me 10 bucks a month and force me to find something else to do with my free time.

[SteeleTrueheart]

Classic turbine con.

Step 1. Want to add a bad system you know your players will hate
(epic TR that will reset all destiny XP already earned, in some cases unlocked with money via shears)

Step 2. Propose a really bad system twice as bad as the one you really want.
(Even heroic TR will reset epic destiny XP, even though we should know they would never go ahead with that since they historically put a lot of effort to fix people who had been in that very situation via bugs and have said for a year TR will not reset your destiny XP.)

Step. 3 Pretend you listened to your players and implement what you really wanted.

'revert' heroic TR to not reset epic destiny XP but have EpicTR continue to reset it with maybe a slightly enhanced epic advantage.

Step 4 receive praise from the deluded for 'listening' to your customers

Implement what you wanted in the first place by first proposing a completely unreasonable stance and then negotiating down to the level you really wanted and make your negotiating party feel like they have won significant concessions. Thereby making them feel good about doing exactly what you wanted.

[Tscheuss]

Nice, I see you have been giving it some thought. :)

I particularly like the one for Shadowdancer.

Fury is a little limited, though. As proposed, ED PL's are stackable X3.

Maybe a new type of Vorpal for epic levels?

Heroic Vorpal only adds 100 hp dmg on mobs with 1000+ HP
First Fury PL grants Epic Vorpal while raging - +200 hp dmg on mobs with 2000+ HP
Second grants Epic Vorpal while raging - +300 hp dmg on mobs with 3000+ HP
Third grants Epic Vorpal while raging - +400 hp dmg on mobs with 4000+ HP
In short, Fury PL grants Epic Vorpal, which gives +1000 to max Vorpal cap and +100 to damage done to mobs with HP over cap.

It has been a while since I have run epics, so numbers may need to be adjusted to be appropriate for epic mob HP levels.
What do you think?

My mistake. Iconic PL's are stackable X3, not ED PL's. :o

But still, can we get an Epic Vorpal?

[Tscheuss]

I think it doesn't matter, the rest of the changes are so bad that past life feats are completely unimportant at this point. Who cares what the feats are when I've talked to people I know that play and out of people I've talked 90% will quit the game from the other changes. It's like complaining you've got a paper cut while looking up at a nuke falling on your head.

Perhaps, but will happen will happen. So my toon with maxed ED's never sees TR. Then my TR'd toon with no ED investment will be the new main.

[Deadlock]

P.S. Cordovan, Glin, Piolotto please start posting in this thread again, your silence makes us feel that you are not listening to us. You guys need to engage with the. Community more rather than run off at the first sign of rage posting.

It's the weekend man :) Give them a chance to get back to their padded cubicles on Monday and strap on their flak jacket and tinfoil helmets.

[Delacroix21]

It's the weekend man :) Give them a chance to get back to their padded cubicles on Monday and strap on their flak jacket and tinfoil helmets.

Oops I forgot about this. :)


That being said i hope they personally address my question: is the future of DDO always going to have a big focus on constant re leveling from 1-28?



I want a system that gives me the benefits of TR while being level capped (where my friends are!). Maybe through a XP bank system i can use towards a TR (at a penalty perhaps due to higher level quests offering more xp). That way i can still TR, but can hopefully bank enough XP to skip the levels of 1-20. I LOVE the 20+ quests, I am SO sick to death of the earlier ones that Turbine keeps making me run through TR.

[GermanicusMaximus]

Classic turbine con.

Step 1. Want to add a bad system you know your players will hate
(epic TR that will reset all destiny XP already earned, in some cases unlocked with money via shears)

Step 2. Propose a really bad system twice as bad as the one you really want.
(Even heroic TR will reset epic destiny XP, even though we should know they would never go ahead with that since they historically put a lot of effort to fix people who had been in that very situation via bugs and have said for a year TR will not reset your destiny XP.)

Step. 3 Pretend you listened to your players and implement what you really wanted.

'revert' heroic TR to not reset epic destiny XP but have EpicTR continue to reset it with maybe a slightly enhanced epic advantage.

Step 4 receive praise from the deluded for 'listening' to your customers

Implement what you wanted in the first place by first proposing a completely unreasonable stance and then negotiating down to the level you really wanted and make your negotiating party feel like they have won significant concessions. Thereby making them feel good about doing exactly what you wanted.

Pretty much this.

I see a few people in this thread trying to work a "compromise". Its simply laughable. Compromises are negotiated when both parties have leverage. People running around constantly saying "I <3 Turbine!" have no negotiating leverage. Their cash is already tallied up as a sure thing by Turbine, and really, why wouldn't it be?

For their sake, I certainly hope these people don't have to do much "negotiating" in real life. They are probably the people who walk into a car dealership and ask "Can I buy this for list price?"

[SofiaNRage]

There's so much fail in this proposal, I don't know where to start.
There's nothing that would compensate for losing 2 million XP farmed per tree if I TR a character.
Iconic shouldn't have anything to do with non-iconic TR'ing and vice versa
Epic levels are generic levels so there is NO specific feat to gain by TR'ing
Current Epic levels require the same XP after TR'ing, new system seems to imply that this amount will increase similar in nature to how heroic XP requirement increases after TR'ing
To lose 2 million+ XP from each ED seems like a waste of time, even if I am getting a past life feat for the active? or one of the maxed out ? EDs
Does this mean I lose fate points?

Reducing TR timer to 3 days-this is almost pointless, as it is a rare person that can regain the 4+million xp need to recap a legend build in 3 days or less.
Iconic Characters being able to LR/TR is just another nail in the coffin for both Eberron and non-Iconic characters. Might as well shut down Eberron if this goes active.

If this proposal goes through this will be the straw that makes me leave DDO, its the last FU to me from the devs for all the time I've spent building my characters, just to see it all gone to waste.

[oradafu]

Classic turbine con.

Step 1. Want to add a bad system you know your players will hate
(epic TR that will reset all destiny XP already earned, in some cases unlocked with money via shears)

Step 2. Propose a really bad system twice as bad as the one you really want.
(Even heroic TR will reset epic destiny XP, even though we should know they would never go ahead with that since they historically put a lot of effort to fix people who had been in that very situation via bugs and have said for a year TR will not reset your destiny XP.)

Step. 3 Pretend you listened to your players and implement what you really wanted.

'revert' heroic TR to not reset epic destiny XP but have EpicTR continue to reset it with maybe a slightly enhanced epic advantage.

Step 4 receive praise from the deluded for 'listening' to your customers

Implement what you wanted in the first place by first proposing a completely unreasonable stance and then negotiating down to the level you really wanted and make your negotiating party feel like they have won significant concessions. Thereby making them feel good about doing exactly what you wanted.


Pretty much this.

I see a few people in this thread trying to work a "compromise". Its simply laughable. Compromises are negotiated when both parties have leverage. People running around constantly saying "I <3 Turbine!" have no negotiating leverage. Their cash is already tallied up as a sure thing by Turbine, and really, why wouldn't it be?

For their sake, I certainly hope these people don't have to do much "negotiating" in real life. They are probably the people who walk into a car dealership and ask "Can I buy this for list price?"

I have to pretty much agree with both of you. I see alot of people trying to "compromise" with the "don't touch Heroic TR but do what you like with Epic TR". My gut feeling is that's what the Devs were planning all along. But we were told that if we bought Epic Destinies that the ED XP will not be reset or affected by both Heroic AND Epic XP.

Besides it doesn't matter the TR treadmill is still the same for everyone even if the ED XP stays. If the ED XP stays, the only real advantage that people who have ED XP over those who don't is that they bypass re-leveling horrible EDs for their class and build, if they have already done those EDs. These players still have to finish leveling the EDs if they haven't capped then. And for players who have capped EDs, they still have to TR 11 times to become a Epic completionist, which is exactly the same amount of time needed for people who haven't touched EDs yet. So there's absolutely no reason to reset ED XP at all, except to punish players who actually believed what the Devs statement that ED XP would not be reset.



That being said i hope they personally address my question: is the future of DDO always going to have a big focus on constant re leveling from 1-28?



I really don't think anyone at Turbine knows what the future of the game is. We're being told that with the new Epic and Iconic TRs will make our characters more powerful, and it sounds like there's a chance that the Iconic TR past life might even stack multiple times. But four months ago the Devs nerfed the Epic Claws of the Bracers for being too overpowered because it had an untyped/universal +4 damage?! So there doesn't appear to be a plan at all right now...

[maitremechant]

Well here's a few things that i would like to share... I am playing ddo from the 1st week of release. Having done all past lives x3 on a character, here is how i see your idea of the new Epic TR system.

1- Epic destinies removal: Removing a feature that people already paid for, either with xp pots or with ddo store items doesn't make much sense. It would also KILL the fun and the rewards we farmed for so many hours, it would have been for nothing!

2-Epic Completionist feature: Well if you have gone through all true reincarnations x3 already like me, i know that not a lot of people have done that but as it is, the idea of starting again from korthos lvl 1 to 20 and get nothing out of it is awfully scary and far from fun! As any non tr capped toon would benefit from it having both the normal pl + the epic, it is penalysing people that have already done it or paid for it.

Suggestions:

1- Do not remove any xp grind that people did with the the destinies as it was said stay after TRs... (Keep the promises you made)

2- Start from 20 to 28. Not mixing epic TR with non-epic TR seems like a fair idea i would say. It is EPIC after all...

3- General: If you want to keep people interested, add balanced new features, quests and put yourself not only in the newcomer's skin but also all types of players. As the old hardcore gamer, i know that the challenge to please us all is all but easy. Though, a way to keep people interested would be in my opinion to give benefits on all types of players without breaking or unbalancing what is already accomplished! Like the actual tr system.. .1st life 1.9m ... 3rd life 4,378 but we all get something at the end.

4- Try to keep in mind that the point of the game must be that is it fun doing it! As tring is nothing but a grinding feature as i am a grinder myself, i mean as it is, making it too exaustive is not the way to go! Adding balanced features, quests, classes and items actually are the real deal that we really all hope for!

5 In short, make more efforts by fixing the bugs before releasing new content, there are still so many unresolved issues, a rethink the filtering of bugs priorities is a necessity.

(Long version) Sticky ladders, citw bugs, bugged feats ana's pathing, Epic desert drops are so low it is virtually impossible to make some of them after a year of ransacking each week on 2 toons. If i would say 1 seal and shard drop out of a random list of 54 items and pull of 1 seal,shard out of 20 chest on eh or EE, it is so closer to a lottery than an actual grind and get especially with a feature including ransack per week.

Another issue that i would like to say as it is most likely the most annoying feature in ddo... (LAG). For the information, i have a high end computer with a 60 meg download and 10 meg upload. Fix the server delay, i mean, even with 40 ping, it has been like that forever, you shoot at on mob that moves sideways... if you want to hit it... You have to shoot as if it was about 0.8 second ahead of where you actually see the mob and that even if you are meleeing... I think that when your character dies is the most easy way to actually see how long it takes for the game to process the information to what is really happening. Well i play bf3 and other mmo's like neverwinter, swtor, and even lotro and i never see that much server delay ever.

Coming back to the nice feaures, the new completionist feat seems like a good idea but the general re-balancing of the game and fixing the bugs are the real priority... keep up the good work on good ideas like as the game still need to be developped but also try to listen to the community... Beside the casual hate messages, so many of us have clever ideas and suggestions, i think that putting REAL attention to it would be a very good start.

Thank you

[Thrudh]

I would hate for this to get lost. Tyrande gives us a place to start re ED PL suggestions. :D

He went to the effort of addressing this part of the OP. Can we show him the respect of considering his thoughts instead of burying them, please?

They are stupid over-powered... +5 to DCs? Those are no longer slight bonuses; those are requirements to play or be gimp.

[EllisDee37]

They are stupid over-powered... +5 to DCs? Those are no longer slight bonuses; those are requirements to play or be gimp.Agreed.

As an example, I was thinking more along the lines of Legendary Dreadnought being +1 tactical DCs & +2 seeker per epic past life, stackable 3 times.

[anatomyofaghost]

I have purposefully avoided posting on the forums since the game account/forum account merger but I feel it's important that our opinions be heard. The proposed TR/eTR makeover is terrible and is alienating and punitive towards anyone who has actually chosen to invest heavily in the development of a character. Apologies for the wall of text that follows, but to expand on that:

The elephant in the room is the poor design of Epic Destiny leveling in the first place. Forcing people into gimp themselves by taking destinies that are neither fun or appropriate for their character build just to grind through the
twists of fate is something that really needs to be reevaluated or redesigned. In fact the Epic Destiny system on a whole, while really promising, still feels unfinished with multiple bugs still present (Dreadnaught skills constantly going on timer or doing nothing, you are not facing errors galore, consume having never worked correctly, inaccurate info still present in descriptions, summer smoke sometimes buffing enemies, trying to use any point blank spells etc), epic moments that are bordering on pointless (I'm looking at you Unyielding Sentinel & Shadowdancer) and it's been nearly a year.

When these first came out we were assured by a producer that don't worry, to make up for the terrible grind you'll only ever have to do these once because you'll never lose that time invested in the Destinies, so I really do hope you can understand the outcry over the perceived backpeddling.

Gimping your character with a useless destiny makes questing and leveling them a chore, so of course the player base quickly found the quickest XP/min ratio quests and we ground out destinies that way because honestly, the alternative was unfun and tedious. Now we're going to lose all that?

I have 5 lives on my main toon and I have to say with this new system I would likely never TR that character ever again.

I want to be helpful and provide some useful feedback and I really don't want to be negative but... There is a long history of the Devs picking things up and leaving them unfinished, and that's what really scares me with these proposed changes.

Before the Underdark expansion it was mentioned by the Devs that the house Cannith challenges were going to be "rebalanced." They've been nerfed what, three times now for XP, making them so absurdly pointless and to make matters worse the over level penalty is so severe now with epic levels they're a farce. The scaling (which was going to be addressed and is as of yet still untouched) is so terrible no one groups for these quests, so instead of them being easier with more people it actually becomes a chore to party and play with others. How is that good design?

You artificially capped the treasure chest drops after exploits. You assured us that all of this would be looked at, and yet there hasn't been any news about this in almost a year.

I feel bad for anyone who paid for the challenge packs as they were advertised as good 5 or 10 minute pickup quests for casual players and the price of the pack was justified because they gave decent, non-degrading XP. These are now by far some of the worst XP per minute quests in the entire game. We were also told that the Eveningstar challenge collectibles would be changed to BTA instead of BTC. We're almost at the 2nd expansion now and we're still waiting for that to be changed.

There are broken feats, broken enhancements, obsolete but required enhancements, a pretty scary looking pigeon-holing enhancement pass looming in the distance that in its current form will pretty much spell the end of viable multi-class builds, quests closed for months, string table errors everywhere, broken caster levels, line of sight problems and all we seem to see is unfinished content rushed out the door way too fast or changes made to content that nobody ever complained about. Could you give us a little insight into what your goals are?

There is still massive, automatic and unavoidable dungeon alert orange/red in Shavarath quests after years of those quests being available. Why?

The secondary Shroud quests where we pick up portal fragments etc. have been broken since release. Why?

Desert epic items, despite being looked at repeatedly, are still essentially impossible to make. Why?

Why hasn't the Titan raid been looked at yet?

We have a new augment system that feeds off epic tokens but at the same time there seems to be a deliberate attempt to make them harder to acquire. What is the reasoning behind this? What is the intended goal? Instead of adding token fragments to Faerun quests like you should have from the very start to keep up consistency, we see retroactive nerfing to quests that nobody ever complained about. Servants of the Overlord's optional chest (listed as extreme difficulty!) now drops absolutely nothing but vendor trash on epics! Finishing this on epic hard was challenging and finishing it on epic elite was an ordeal. Now there's zero incentive to even bother. Devil Assault, a 30 minute investment minimum, can now routinely leave absolutely no fragments or tokens, even on epic hard. Why?

You added augment slots onto all the Caught in the Web raid loot for anyone willing to endure the massive commendation grind, and yet there's no way to get the tokens required for the augment slots in Faerun. Why?

Cannith crafting is now an afterthought and a neglected system almost completely outclassed by the new augment system. Why?

We have piles and piles and piles of BTC and BTA gear but no bank or inventory slots to accommodate the bloat. Why?

Now you're going to completely pull the carpet out from underneath us with TRing and punish the dedicated folks who have decided to heavily invest in a character enough to work on them in the long term by screwing them out of 20 million XP worth of destinies? Is this an attempt to balance power creep? Slow down end game? Does Kobold still hate us? What's your reasoning behind this? Don't tease us with doom and then offer no further details regarding the trade-
offs/incentives for doing this!

This veered a little off-topic and I apologize for that, but really with all these issues going unaddressed and unanswered after you've been telling us "we'll look into it" or that "we will be adjusting XXX or YYY after it goes live" and then you never revisit things that remain broken for years now, or even worse you let us preview things, we find problems with it and you completely ignore our feedback and let it go to live broken anyway... can anyone really not see why the community is cynical?

Is it not obvious why we get upset when there's sweeping and seemingly arbitrary changes proposed to the game that do not add to it in any productive or enjoyable way?

If you're looking for feedback these are the issues that matter to me, and a great deal of my friends as well. All we're really looking for is some consistency or at least some shred of direction from you to help us understand what you're trying to do. How can we provide you with useful feedback if we have no idea what it is you're trying to accomplish?


tl;dr version: please, PLEASE scrap the proposed changes to TR and eTR and start over based on player input and feedback. You have an active and eager community telling you what it wants, please take advantage of that! Sorry if I was incoherent!

[redoubt]

One of the biggest misrepresentation in this proposed farce is the "epic advantage".

So trade a level of ED for a rank of heroic? Really? Hundreds of thousands of xp from epic to get ranks that cost just a few thousand each?

Don't do it.

Listen to your players before the only thing left to listen to are crickets...

[Oberon_Shrader]

With Epic True Reincarnation, we are introducing a new completionist track: Epic Completionist. Using an Epic Heart of Wood will cause your Epic character to be reborn at level 1. ETR will wipe all heroic & epic level xp, as well as the xp of your chosen (active and "maxed") destiny. You receive both a class and a destiny past life feat from this process. All other (non-active) destinies will survive the ETR process. Epic True Reincarnation will be available to Iconic Heros, and will provide the appropriate Iconic past life in place of a class past life.

As the "Epic Advantage" seemed to be compensatory for loosing all "unbonded" destiny xp, under the above system that would no longer be happening, I would suggest scrapping that part of the idea.

Thoughts?

This seems like a good and simple idea and similar to what I wrote above. I like it.

[QuickSlick79]

I have purposefully avoided posting on the forums since the game account/forum account merger but I feel it's important that our opinions be heard. The proposed TR/eTR makeover is terrible and is alienating and punitive towards anyone who has actually chosen to invest heavily in the development of a character. Apologies for the wall of text that follows, but to expand on that:

The elephant in the room is the poor design of Epic Destiny leveling in the first place. Forcing people into gimp themselves by taking destinies that are neither fun or appropriate for their character build just to grind through the
twists of fate is something that really needs to be reevaluated or redesigned. In fact the Epic Destiny system on a whole, while really promising, still feels unfinished with multiple bugs still present (Dreadnaught skills constantly going on timer or doing nothing, you are not facing errors galore, consume having never worked correctly, inaccurate info still present in descriptions, summer smoke sometimes buffing enemies, trying to use any point blank spells etc), epic moments that are bordering on pointless (I'm looking at you Unyielding Sentinel & Shadowdancer) and it's been nearly a year.

When these first came out we were assured by a producer that don't worry, to make up for the terrible grind you'll only ever have to do these once because you'll never lose that time invested in the Destinies, so I really do hope you can understand the outcry over the perceived backpeddling.

Gimping your character with a useless destiny makes questing and leveling them a chore, so of course the player base quickly found the quickest XP/min ratio quests and we ground out destinies that way because honestly, the alternative was unfun and tedious. Now we're going to lose all that?

I have 5 lives on my main toon and I have to say with this new system I would likely never TR that character ever again.

I want to be helpful and provide some useful feedback and I really don't want to be negative but... There is a long history of the Devs picking things up and leaving them unfinished, and that's what really scares me with these proposed changes.

Before the Underdark expansion it was mentioned by the Devs that the house Cannith challenges were going to be "rebalanced." They've been nerfed what, three times now for XP, making them so absurdly pointless and to make matters worse the over level penalty is so severe now with epic levels they're a farce. The scaling (which was going to be addressed and is as of yet still untouched) is so terrible no one groups for these quests, so instead of them being easier with more people it actually becomes a chore to party and play with others. How is that good design?

You artificially capped the treasure chest drops after exploits. You assured us that all of this would be looked at, and yet there hasn't been any news about this in almost a year.

I feel bad for anyone who paid for the challenge packs as they were advertised as good 5 or 10 minute pickup quests for casual players and the price of the pack was justified because they gave decent, non-degrading XP. These are now by far some of the worst XP per minute quests in the entire game. We were also told that the Eveningstar challenge collectibles would be changed to BTA instead of BTC. We're almost at the 2nd expansion now and we're still waiting for that to be changed.

There are broken feats, broken enhancements, obsolete but required enhancements, a pretty scary looking pigeon-holing enhancement pass looming in the distance that in its current form will pretty much spell the end of viable multi-class builds, quests closed for months, string table errors everywhere, broken caster levels, line of sight problems and all we seem to see is unfinished content rushed out the door way too fast or changes made to content that nobody ever complained about. Could you give us a little insight into what your goals are?

There is still massive, automatic and unavoidable dungeon alert orange/red in Shavarath quests after years of those quests being available. Why?

The secondary Shroud quests where we pick up portal fragments etc. have been broken since release. Why?

Desert epic items, despite being looked at repeatedly, are still essentially impossible to make. Why?

Why hasn't the Titan raid been looked at yet?

We have a new augment system that feeds off epic tokens but at the same time there seems to be a deliberate attempt to make them harder to acquire. What is the reasoning behind this? What is the intended goal? Instead of adding token fragments to Faerun quests like you should have from the very start to keep up consistency, we see retroactive nerfing to quests that nobody ever complained about. Servants of the Overlord's optional chest (listed as extreme difficulty!) now drops absolutely nothing but vendor trash on epics! Finishing this on epic hard was challenging and finishing it on epic elite was an ordeal. Now there's zero incentive to even bother. Devil Assault, a 30 minute investment minimum, can now routinely leave absolutely no fragments or tokens, even on epic hard. Why?

You added augment slots onto all the Caught in the Web raid loot for anyone willing to endure the massive commendation grind, and yet there's no way to get the tokens required for the augment slots in Faerun. Why?

Cannith crafting is now an afterthought and a neglected system almost completely outclassed by the new augment system. Why?

We have piles and piles and piles of BTC and BTA gear but no bank or inventory slots to accommodate the bloat. Why?

Now you're going to completely pull the carpet out from underneath us with TRing and punish the dedicated folks who have decided to heavily invest in a character enough to work on them in the long term by screwing them out of 20 million XP worth of destinies? Is this an attempt to balance power creep? Slow down end game? Does Kobold still hate us? What's your reasoning behind this? Don't tease us with doom and then offer no further details regarding the trade-
offs/incentives for doing this!

This veered a little off-topic and I apologize for that, but really with all these issues going unaddressed and unanswered after you've been telling us "we'll look into it" or that "we will be adjusting XXX or YYY after it goes live" and then you never revisit things that remain broken for years now, or even worse you let us preview things, we find problems with it and you completely ignore our feedback and let it go to live broken anyway... can anyone really not see why the community is cynical?

Is it not obvious why we get upset when there's sweeping and seemingly arbitrary changes proposed to the game that do not add to it in any productive or enjoyable way?

If you're looking for feedback these are the issues that matter to me, and a great deal of my friends as well. All we're really looking for is some consistency or at least some shred of direction from you to help us understand what you're trying to do. How can we provide you with useful feedback if we have no idea what it is you're trying to accomplish?


tl;dr version: please, PLEASE scrap the proposed changes to TR and eTR and start over based on player input and feedback. You have an active and eager community telling you what it wants, please take advantage of that! Sorry if I was incoherent!

This, ALL of this. A million times over. Probably one of the best presented and well drafted reasoning behind the outrage I have yet to see.

My anger has cooled and tempered into a solid depression. I play only one of my characters now, and with little joy. I am terrified and feel trapped to touch any of my other projects. I feel their work is invalidated and pointless. Guild chat is somber, and many of the people I group with on a regular basis have all but vanished...for now.

If you were looking to amp up the tone with excitement with the presentation of these changes Turbine I hope you see how far off the ball from pleasing your players you are.

This wonderful "discussion" we've had with those in charge of our enjoyment has been less than disappointing.

"But Quick" You might say. "It IS the weekend after all. Let them enjoy it." Uhm, why and how do you think that is deserved? It is the weekend, the game should be alive as possible. I don't see that on my server.

We have gotten little to no response from our concerns, and the little communication we have had has been less than helpful or convincing. Why make such a big announcement and then choose to be mum for a weekend? Why start up a conversation with the player base right before you choose to take a break?

Classic Turbine, making us wait to suffer. How do they feel like it's ok? Why are they not pumped to share/defend/explain their idea's if they are so overjoyed and thrilled to see their game "grow" as they put it.

I certainly don't feel like a player. I feel like a nuisance and an after thought. DM's have to put on a good show. Why? Because if they don't they still have hours upon hours around a table to deal with their dissatisfied players. Turbine, as our DM's, seem to feel like it's okay to poke and provoke us and then vanish, they seem to feel like putting distance between themselves and the players is ok and things will smooth in their absence.

Too many of us have great memories, too many of us are more than happy to sit around and wait, too many of us are ready to continue throwing our concerns at the wall until they are heard. And you can bet there is a PLETHORA of angry players who have LONG withstanding LISTS of your terrible moves that have served only to disappoint.

There's your update on my feelings. Because I know you care. So hopefully you heard.

[Delacroix21]

Gamers will allways want to increase the power of their toons, and this is the system you have created for them to do that= A MASSIVE GRIND.


Said it before, will say it again, there is nothing fun about a grind.


No more TRs period! Come up with a way that we can increase the power of our toons at level cap, don't force constant re-rolls. If you cant scrap the TR system, than allow characters to "bank" xp at level cap that can be used when TRing to skip as many levels as they can bank (possibly even level from 1-28 in one go).

[Orratti]

Just speculating, but it seems possible that the goal of thenew system is to improve player retention and is based upon the assumption thatdeclines in player retention are due to player boredom at cap. Regrinding epicdestinies in an epic TR system has the same smell as the Eveningstar challengelottery, meant to be a huge time sink that keeps players on a treadmill.Unfortunately, that isn’t something they could admit on a public forum even ifit were true.

Loss of player retention comes from screwing with the basic mechanics of the game. Either to force players to follow an "intended" method of play or just as often from listening to the playerbase itself. Now we can include monetary reasons as well to the list.

Player retention is pretty easy really for this game. The community itself brings it, build variety brings it, continuing self challenge brings it, love of the game brings it. Grind doesn't. People do grind yes but they do it for personal goals as self challenge. It has no mass appeal in itself.

Every single facet of what actually causes player retention has been attacked at some point in the history of the game. Some have been attacked several times over.

[mikarddo]

I am pretty sure Turbine is well aware of how we feel about the ED XP issue by now.

That probably fits under the question of how the proposed changes will affect our playing style.

Sadly, this issue has distracted most of us from another important question:


What ideas might we have for ED PL feats?

Only a small number of people have offered anything in that vein. Can we focus discussion on this, now?

Imho such dabate is best left till after the rest is better known. As long as the "cost" is unacceptable to most if not all players than debating the rewards will only serve to cloud the issue. Focus on the main issue before moving on to the sides issues as far as I am concerned.

[SSFWEl]

I have purposefully avoided posting on the forums since the game account/forum account merger but I feel it's important that our opinions be heard. The proposed TR/eTR makeover is terrible and is alienating and punitive towards anyone who has actually chosen to invest heavily in the development of a character. Apologies for the wall of text that follows, but to expand on that:

SNIP



THIS!
Excellent and exceedingly coherent post. Thanks for taking the time to craft this post.

Devs, please, pay attention to the posters here. There is a huge number of very very smart people here, whom work in all sorts of high level professions. People who are also developers, team leaders, Ph.D.s (raises hand), and other professions, whom are worth listening too.

The reasons there are so many of these in DDO, are the "reasons" you are trying to kill. DON'T!

Just... LISTEN. Please.

Or you really will lose players. The NGE were not a fantasy, it did happen. And DDO is not immune.

[Raist1280]

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.


THIS. Very much this is the crux of the issue; the fact that we were explicitly told that destiny xp would persist through tr, and now we are being told "it won't any more"...

[Deadlock]

That being said i hope they personally address my question: is the future of DDO always going to have a big focus on constant re leveling from 1-28?

I want a system that gives me the benefits of TR while being level capped (where my friends are!). Maybe through a XP bank system i can use towards a TR (at a penalty perhaps due to higher level quests offering more xp). That way i can still TR, but can hopefully bank enough XP to skip the levels of 1-20. I LOVE the 20+ quests, I am SO sick to death of the earlier ones that Turbine keeps making me run through TR.

The future should be in providing engaging and immersive storylines while building layers of complexity and providing multiple options for players on how they choose to spend their time in DDO. So long as they don't try and dumb the whole thing down or railroad people down a single track then they'll continue to be successful.

If you want the benefit of the past-life providing by TRing then you need to TR, if you want Completionist then you need to TR to get it. You should't get something without earning it. But the key here is to remember that this is optional. You're not forced to do anything, and you shouldn't feel that you are. There have been enough threads that say that ED's provide far more power than Past Lives, so arguably, TRing is even more optional than before and you can argue about the relative power of Past Lives rather than Epic Destinies.

Having said that, Turbine's current proposal on the table would allow you to do what you want, but not right away. If you cap at 28 and choose to Epic TR into an Iconic then you will start at level 15 and then gain whatever Advantage Ranks from the ED Ranks you have. So that will help you avoid the lower level quests if you're determined not to do them. You'll presumably lose your favour, so you'll need to do something to regain your inventory and bank space. You need to keep in mind that a lot of players, myself included, still enjoy a lot of the low level quest no matter how many times we've done them. A lot of the earlier content has some great design elements to it, where some of the later content just becomes a repetitive and uncreative hack-about.

[Deadlock]

We're being told that with the new Epic and Iconic TRs will make our characters more powerful, and it sounds like there's a chance that the Iconic TR past life might even stack multiple times.

There's more than a chance of it if you read what the OP says:



Iconic True Reincarnation

That’s right; Iconics will have their own form of True Reincarnation, earning their own unique set of past-life feats. You will also be able to TR from any character into an Iconic, which begins at level 15, like normal. Epic Advantage also works on both ends, as well, transferring ED XP earned in your Iconic life, and, if you TR into an Iconic, adding XP on top of your level 15 starting XP. Can be taken at Level Cap (Level 28 with Shadowfell Conspiracy)

Grants an Iconic Past Life Feat that can stack up to 3x
Adds 2 build points up a 36 point build
Earns ranks from Epic Advantage



So that's 4 iconics for a total of 12 Past Lives if you want them. Assuming you can Epic TR an Iconic, this sounds to me like you can cap an Iconic and then Epic TR into another Iconic and start again at 15+ gaining an Iconic Past Life and an Epic Destiny Past Life in the process. This is why I'm not overly concerned about having to rebond my ED's, it'll happen automatically when doing my Iconic lives.

[bowwer]

Let me start by saying I like the proposed changes I don't even mind giving up my ED exp. But the playerbase wants a choice and they should get it. I remember when TR first came out I personally had no desire what so ever to grind a life that cost more xp I thought it was nuts. But as it gradually started to catch on I got on board now I have a completionist with plans for another in the future. (well if you don't ruin tr'ing that is)

All that being said if you give the players a choice they may not jump right in to the new system, but if the rewards are good enough and other people are doing it the playerbase will get on board. If you continue with your proposed changes, ill seriously be concerned about the future of the game.

I have takin some burnout breaks before and had RL pull me away from the game but never have I considered quitting until this, and its not about nerdrage or the new system as I stated in the beginning I like it, its about bad business. If you lie to your customer and treat them poorly you'll lose them.

[Iriale]

No, please. Not mess with heroic TR and epic destinies. You sell us that ED's would persist through TR'ing.

You should:

1. Fix bugs, fix bugs, and fix more bugs. You are creating new bugs over old bugs. Last updates were overloaded of bugs. It’s annoying. I’m very tired.
2. Revamp the epic caster level system. The pnp spell system was created for the 1-20 level play. If you give us 28 levels you need change the maximux spell CL. Maybe is hour for creating true epic classes. If you want new systems- this is better than erase our EDs
3. Give us better store options. Bta (not btc) bags, any class of sort in ingredient bags and TR cache (and bank, please, but first for ingredient bags and TR cache)
4. Less btc items or more space
5. Create new (adventuring) content. 10 quests are not an expansion. An expansion should be bigger

And then we will talk about new systems. But first fix the actual ones.


If you stick with the epic TR idea:

- Heroic TR should stay as now.
- Epic TR erase destinies but we will start at level 20. Epic TR for epic play and heroic TR for heroic play. We can do heroic TR and have our EDs. Change the ED mechanic. We need gain experience in other destiny while we stay in an useful destiny.


Uh… never play a low-level iconic? I don’t like the whole iconic concept. I wish that you given to us new races and sub-races for the current races. But ok. I do not have to buy them. They are optional.

[Silverleafeon]

So that's 4 iconics for a total of 12 Past Lives if you want them. Assuming you can Epic TR an Iconic, this sounds to me like you can cap an Iconic and then Epic TR into another Iconic and start again at 15+ gaining an Iconic Past Life and an Epic Destiny Past Life in the process. This is why I'm not overly concerned about having to rebond my ED's, it'll happen automatically when doing my Iconic lives.

Along with another 18 fate points, provided fate points continue to accumulate.
Even if you have to put a fate box(es) in or TR cache that we click to receive our fate points.

Making the character's twists now 4 / 4 / 3 instead of the current 4 / 2 / 1

Also epic destinies need to remain unlocked that were previously unlocked.
If you want to refund keys and unlock everyone's map, so be it.

These two are not requests, they must be granted.

[Tscheuss]

There's more than a chance of it if you read what the OP says:



So that's 4 iconics for a total of 12 Past Lives if you want them. Assuming you can Epic TR an Iconic, this sounds to me like you can cap an Iconic and then Epic TR into another Iconic and start again at 15+ gaining an Iconic Past Life and an Epic Destiny Past Life in the process. This is why I'm not overly concerned about having to rebond my ED's, it'll happen automatically when doing my Iconic lives.

This.

It's not the end of the world. :)

[Dandonk]

This.

It's not the end of the world. :)

Not everyone feels like doing 12 more lives on all their characters, just to keep having what they have now.

[Tscheuss]

Not everyone feels like doing 12 more lives on all their characters, just to keep having what they have now.

Then don't. TR is a choice; it is not mandatory.

[Tscheuss]

I wonder whether Epic Advantage will stop at level 20 for a fresh Iconic, or go as high as 26.

Perhaps a couple of extra sneak dice and/or reduced Shadow charge requirement for Shadowdancer PL?

[QuickSlick79]

Then don't. TR is a choice; it is not mandatory.

It's not really about it being a "choice" or not "mandatory".

It is about taking what was once a "choice" and taking away from it's versatility. Taking a Swiss Army Knife or similar Multi-Tool is a choice over a blunt club. TR was once a Swiss Army Knife, now they wan't to make it a club.

You could do SO much with TR. Replay levels of the class you liked, play the class you love with a different build, or try something completely different or completely experimental. Work it out through to 20, see what other madness you could do with Epic Destinies.

Now...since Heroic and Epic game content is so different and is handled on SUCH different scales (as it is with regular DnD) all the blood, sweat, and toil you put into a build through 20 can change drastically and evolve in such beautiful and interesting ways into Epics. The journey from Epic Destiny growth is just as thought out and sometimes long as the road from 1-20. That map looks like a constellation almost, a plethora of options.

But all those options will get wiped if you wanna try and fall back on the tried and true methods for playing out your character in this game. Now (they are planning it so that), should you choose to try and revisit anything, or try a new corner...you either roll a fresh toon and focus it strictly on that area...or you keep yourself with one big project that is EITHER train TR'ing 1-20, OR staying forever at Epic levels to fill their Epic Destiny map.

This is a narrowing of what you call "choice" for no good reason.

That's kinda the core of the frustration here. It's all rose tinted glasses with an explanation and hope, but at it's core when applied to the reality of how we play the game...the majority echoes it is just ill planned. We hope it will change.

And I see many thrilling ways it could, and things could evolve in a way we can all get excited over again, instead of demoralized.

[SilkofDrasnia]

Then don't. TR is a choice; it is not mandatory.


I think the devs and people like you are missing the point. We understand it a choice but this effectively is saying because we grinded out destines before u20 we are going to be penalized for it via them removing our "work" thus making us waste our time trying to improve out toons.

If you can't see this your not even trying, it's like them saying we are going to change how completionist works. Instead of just TRing you need to do an extra step in the TR process and since you TRed and got your XX amount of PL when this "extra step didn't exist" we are going to take this away from you like you didn't do it and you will have to regrind those PL using the new "method" or lose your completionist. We know it sucks but it's okay though as you "don't have to do it".


The above is vastly different than them adding a new class and saying to keep completionist you need to get that PL as this doesn't invalidate your previous efforts.

[Dandonk]

Then don't. TR is a choice; it is not mandatory.

Ah, so because I have grinded out my EDs, I don't get to have TR as a choice? That sounds... reasonable, or something.

[Tscheuss]

Feel free to review my posts in this thread before questioning whether I get the point. This thread is full of opinions, many good, a few cracked, but all have served to let the devs know our concerns.

In the end, they will do what they will do. They will listen, or they won't. They will give in to our demands, offer a compromise we can all deal with, or just continue on with their original plans without change. That is their choice.

And the same goes for each of us. We will continue to play as we will, we will adjust our play style to the new structure, or we will quit and move on to another game. This is our choice.

We can demand that they do things our way, and we will probably alienate them.

We can ask them not to tear apart this world of which we are so fond; maybe they will reconsider.

In the end, they will modify and add to the game as they see fit.

We will play, or not, as we see fit.

I am too tired to rage, even though I fear there may be no game to return to when I graduate.

My guild, my friends, are not limited to DDO. They explore, investigate, invest in, and even create other games.

Where they play, I will find a place.

In the end, friends are what make the game special.

Be well. :)

[Deadlock]

Also epic destinies need to remain unlocked that were previously unlocked.

Even if they made this the "reward" for capping a destiny, it gives you a reason to take that extra bit from of XP from level 5 at 1,500,000 XP and cap at 1,980,000 XP.

It would mean that everyone who has all of their destines already capped, would have a completely free run across the ED map to spend their ED XP in while levelling to 28.

It would also give people an option on what to do with their ED XP beyond the 1,980,000 XP that they will be spending anyway to cap out a destiny each life so they don't feel that they are completely wasting their time.

EDIT: Should say that this unlock would persist through subsequent TRing too.

[Deadlock]

Ah, so because I have grinded out my EDs, I don't get to have TR as a choice? That sounds... reasonable, or something.

Tscheuss has already posted that he's in agreement with the suggestion that Heroic TR will not affect ED XP in any way.

So this just leaves Epic TR as a choice, and this one I have to agree with.

Whatever the cost will be to Epic TR, it'll be a new option with a cost that we know about in advance. And it'll be entirely optional as you can continue to Heroic TR without losing any ED XP.

[Teh_Troll]

Then don't. TR is a choice; it is not mandatory.

And we won't.

Ever.

And Turbine will never get any more money from us for hearts and XP pots.

Please tell me again how this idea isn't the stupidest thing since New Coke?

[Citzen_Gkar]

Tscheuss has already posted that he's in agreement with the suggestion that Heroic TR will not affect ED XP in any way.

So this just leaves Epic TR as a choice, and this one I have to agree with.

Whatever the cost will be to Epic TR, it'll be a new option with a cost that we know about in advance. And it'll be entirely optional as you can continue to Heroic TR without losing any ED XP.

That is only true if they grandfather all completed EDs as of U20 launch day (or hell, even an arbitrary future date they announce today like July 1 or August 1) as bonded AND paths unlocked by paid ED keys stay unlocked on ETR. Otherwise we did not know about this in advance as you say.

[Nissebror]

Tscheuss has already posted that he's in agreement with the suggestion that Heroic TR will not affect ED XP in any way.

So this just leaves Epic TR as a choice, and this one I have to agree with.

Whatever the cost will be to Epic TR, it'll be a new option with a cost that we know about in advance. And it'll be entirely optional as you can continue to Heroic TR without losing any ED XP.

1. Heroic TR should not in anyway influence Epic TR
2. I like the idea that ONLY the ED you TR in get wiped

[Teh_Troll]

1. Heroic TR should not in anyway influence Epic TR
2. I like the idea that ONLY the ED you TR in get wiped

/signed.

This gets Teh_Troll seal of approval.

[Deadlock]

That is only true if they grandfather all completed EDs as of U20 launch day (or hell, even an arbitrary future date they announce today like July 1 or August 1) as bonded AND paths unlocked by paid ED keys stay unlocked on ETR. Otherwise we did not know about this in advance as you say.

Realistically, I can't see them allowing us to insta-bond 11 ED's at once just because we currently have them all capped.

I'm not saying that I wouldn't be in favour of it, it would suit me just fine, but I'm not arguing that they should do this because I don't think it's likely.

If the purpose of Epic TRing was only to let us TR into Iconic classes and it was more about the journey to 28 then maybe this would be viable, as the Epic Destiny journey would be a sideshow, but as a major part of it seems to be to gain a number of ED Past Life Feats, I can't see them granting you 11 in one shot ... on the day it's released. Instant upgrade with 11 Past Life Feats and Epic Completionist? Won't happen.

There's a proposal on the latest DDOCast about bonding and resetting one destiny at a time that I can follow. I'm still not sure if I'm convinced by the idea that you only lose one ED per Epic TR, but I can follow the argument that if you only gain one ED Past Life at a time, then the cost for this should be a single fixed cost. It does have the advantage that if you only lose one ED worth, then people who haven't capped out every ED yet can still bump them along through subsequent Epic TRing rather than losing everything each time, or through subsequent Heroic TRing and not losing anything each time. It also addresses the issue that your total ED Levels would only drop by 5 each time you Epic TR so it does solve the problem with Fate Points not being completely wiped out.

See www.ddocast.com for details.

[Candela90]

I still prefer no ETR at all
OR
ETR to lvl 20 - may be all destiny wipe. And stackable ONCE past life from ED.
I dont want to have to do heroic lifes once again...

[Darkrok]

There's a proposal on the latest DDOCast about bonding and resetting one destiny at a time that I can follow. I'm still not sure if I'm convinced by the idea that you only lose one ED per Epic TR, but I can follow the argument that if you only gain one ED Past Life at a time, then the cost for this should be a single fixed cost. It does have the advantage that if you only lose one ED worth, then people who haven't capped out every ED yet can still bump them along through subsequent Epic TRing rather than losing everything each time, or through subsequent Heroic TRing and not losing anything each time. It also addresses the issue that your total ED Levels would only drop by 5 each time you Epic TR so it does solve the problem with Fate Points not being completely wiped out.

See www.ddocast.com for details.

Exactly this on the Epic TR end. Someone that's got 0 Epic Destinies maxed would need to Epic TR 11 times to get all their epic destinies bonded. They would get to keep everything they earned if they played the game Turbine's new way. They would never lose ED xp.

All people are asking for is the same path and the same approach to ED xp for existing capped toons as the new players get. They want to be able to Epic TR 11 times to get all their epic destinies bonded. They want to keep everything they've earned playing the game Turbine's new way (as of when they maxed their ED's). They're willing to lose ED xp...but only the ED xp they're working on at the time, not the entire tree.

None of that goes to the main point though - heroic TR'ing shouldn't have anything to do with anything epic. It should completely leave it alone.

[SilkofDrasnia]

Realistically, I can't see them allowing us to insta-bond 11 ED's at once just because we currently have them all capped.

I'm not saying that I wouldn't be in favour of it, it would suit me just fine, but I'm not arguing that they should do this because I don't think it's likely.

If the purpose of Epic TRing was only to let us TR into Iconic classes and it was more about the journey to 28 then maybe this would be viable, as the Epic Destiny journey would be a sideshow, but as a major part of it seems to be to gain a number of ED Past Life Feats, I can't see them granting you 11 in one shot ... on the day it's released. Instant upgrade with 11 Past Life Feats and Epic Completionist? Won't happen.



There's a proposal on the latest DDOCast about bonding and resetting one destiny at a time that I can follow. I'm still not sure if I'm convinced by the idea that you only lose one ED per Epic TR, but I can follow the argument that if you only gain one ED Past Life at a time, then the cost for this should be a single fixed cost. It does have the advantage that if you only lose one ED worth, then people who haven't capped out every ED yet can still bump them along through subsequent Epic TRing rather than losing everything each time, or through subsequent Heroic TRing and not losing anything each time. It also addresses the issue that your total ED Levels would only drop by 5 each time you Epic TR so it does solve the problem with Fate Points not being completely wiped out.

See www.ddocast.com for details.

Agreed, I don't see them doing this either but then like as your next paragraph says some of us have suggested alternate compromises.

See here (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/418543-Epic-Level-amp-Iconic-TR?p=5022378&viewfull=1#post5022378) or see Andoris post (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/418543-Epic-Level-amp-Iconic-TR?p=5022837&viewfull=1#post5022837)

[Teh_Troll]

See www.ddocast.com for details.

These guys speak for NOBODY. They don't speak for the players and they sure as hell don't speak for the developers.

[barecm]

I am just trying to understand why this change? Was there somehting wrong happening with the TR system now? I have to assume it has to do with purchasing more things from the DDO store, but complete re-working a system that is not really broken seems a bit futile and wasteful to me. There are a ton of other things that could use the cycles wasted on this.

[Deadlock]

These guys speak for NOBODY. They don't speak for the players and they sure as hell don't speak for the developers.

They don't claim to. And I'm not suggesting that they have any influence with Turbine either.

Although Cordovan gave up some of his weekend time a few weeks ago to pop on and have a chat, so we know that he at least watches it and has participated in the past.

Likewise, they don't claim to be experts on the game mechanics either, but they're maybe more representative of the majority of players rather than some of the more hardcore who inhabit the forums.

I find it interesting to hear an opinion that isn't my own and you need to remember that these folks do this live every week. Occasionally they'll come out with the wrong number for something or mis-quote the detail of a Feat or an item, but to me that just make the whole thing more human. And remember this is done live, if you've never done any live broadcasting then you might not appreciate the difference it makes.

They do however manage to speak with a fairly level head and try and offer something constructive which not everyone on the forum manages to do.

[Teh_Troll]

They do however manage to speak with a fairly level head and try and offer something constructive which not everyone on the forum manages to do.

Level-heads are over-rated.

I'm listening to the cast and even these guys has slagging these terrible ideas.

[Arnhelm]

Everything I want to say has now been said, sometimes quite well, by other posters here.

Sadly, what I've seen of the DDO Producer/Developer viewpoints expressed in this thread, Cordovan's statement "nothing is written in stone" notwithstanding, indicates there is no give on Epic Destiny loss for Epic and Heroic TR'ing come U20. That system will most likely be implemented come U20. I hope I'm wrong on my viewpoint.

As has been noted, discussion of other aspects of the proposed, and to me probable, new TR system are moot until that point is settled. Some of the ideas presented in this thread would, in my opinion, make very nice additions to an Epic TR system, regardless of how it is implemented.

As has also been expressed quite well by many posters on this thread, the feelings of anger at, betrayal by, and loss of trust in Turbine's management for DDO continue to grow within the player base. Why DDO management appears, to me, to be intent on destroying what was, and still is to a great extent, a most engaging and enjoyable game for my play style is beyond my ability to reason out.

'Nuff said.

[SirValentine]

the system you have created for them to do that= A MASSIVE GRIND.

Said it before, will say it again, there is nothing fun about a grind.

No more TRs period!


You don't speak for everyone. I quite enjoy TRing, as it currently exists. Getting to replay the varied lower level content is fun. And ever since the awesome Bravery Bonus and ability to open Elite on TRs was introduced, TRing became very fun.

Of course if they really follow through on this screw-people-who-actually-used-their-Epic-Destiny-system Epic TR proposal, I not only won't TR, I won't play anymore, or (and pay attention here, Turbine), PAY anymore.

[Cloista]

First of all I want to preface this with the fact that I don't TR, it's a mechanic that I appreciate but personally don't have time for, I much prefer late/endgame play, I usually only roll a new character to play with someone specific or try out some cool sounding build, both of which makes the extra XP required and loss of a capped character too much of a negative for me.

However, I do think the current proposals for changes to the TR system are complete and utter tosh.

Here's my take on what would 'work', having read a lot of counter proposals from players.

True Reincarnation : No Changes.
Iconic Reincarnation : As TR but allows TRing into an Iconic. Due to the fast tracking to 15, could feasibly cost a little more than TR hearts. Iconics grant Past Life: Iconic.
Epic Destiny Reincarnation : Available at 28. Fast tracks next life to 20. Grants an ED past life for the active, XP capped destiny, Does NOT grant a class or Iconic Past Life. Clears all Destiny XP, but importantly: Retains Fate Points and all previous Destiny unlocks. Can Bond 1 ED to not be reset Each life (Must be capped, not the ED that will give you a past life, does not carry over (Bonding a ED for next EDR clears previous bond), in essence is there to provide instant Twists). 1st ED Past Life unlocks Tier 5 Twists in that Destiny, 2nd grants Tier 6 Twists. Potential for 6/6/6 Twist setup given enough grinding (though that would be an insane grind).

Epic Destiny Completionist: Grants the Core Abilities of your Bonded Destiny whilst not in that Destiny.


As a late/endgame player who has ground out some but not all Destinies that Epic Destiny Reincarnation would appeal to me as it would effectively just reset my Destinies while leaving Fate Points untouched, offering a different way of farming Fate Points.

[Teh_Troll]

. . . PAY anymore.

Appealing to Turbine's wallet is the only thing that'll work.

this proposed change will cost Turbine more money that it'll earn.

less people will TR, not more.

Less people will run epics as running them is pointless until you are done with your heroic lives.

the proposed change is madness.

[GermanicusMaximus]

Realistically, I can't see them allowing us to insta-bond 11 ED's at once just because we currently have them all capped.

I'm not saying that I wouldn't be in favour of it, it would suit me just fine, but I'm not arguing that they should do this because I don't think it's likely.

If the purpose of Epic TRing was only to let us TR into Iconic classes and it was more about the journey to 28 then maybe this would be viable, as the Epic Destiny journey would be a sideshow, but as a major part of it seems to be to gain a number of ED Past Life Feats, I can't see them granting you 11 in one shot ... on the day it's released. Instant upgrade with 11 Past Life Feats and Epic Completionist? Won't happen.



Agreed, it seems completely unbalanced, as unbalanced as wiping multiple Epic Destinies in order to get one Epic Destiny past life.




There's a proposal on the latest DDOCast about bonding and resetting one destiny at a time that I can follow. I'm still not sure if I'm convinced by the idea that you only lose one ED per Epic TR, but I can follow the argument that if you only gain one ED Past Life at a time, then the cost for this should be a single fixed cost. It does have the advantage that if you only lose one ED worth, then people who haven't capped out every ED yet can still bump them along through subsequent Epic TRing rather than losing everything each time, or through subsequent Heroic TRing and not losing anything each time. It also addresses the issue that your total ED Levels would only drop by 5 each time you Epic TR so it does solve the problem with Fate Points not being completely wiped out.

See www.ddocast.com for details.

I didn't watch the podcast (the DDOCast in general seems more geared for the under 12 crowd in terms of its intellectual level), but its nice to see that you are starting to catch up to the point many of us have been at since day 1 of this discussion.

A one for one trade (Epic Destiny XP for Epic Destiny past life) is a very balanced design, which is why a number of us believe it is the correct approach.

The other balanced approach, which would properly reward the people who have already capped all the Epic Destinies, would be to simply require all destinies be capped for the first Epic TR for everyone, not just those who have already worked on Epic Destinies for the past year. However, I certainly would not recommend that design, as it appears to be unrealistic, as unrealistic as expecting those who have already capped all their Epic Destinies to accept a total wipe of Epic Destiny XP in exchange for one past life.

[Silverleafeon]

Politely requesting the you seriously consider raising the level of epic destinies to 10 right as you implement this.

I look at all my completely maxed epic destinies and see them over half empty.

That right side has some +1s that would be real handy to take,
but we don't cause we don't even have enough points to spend on the good stuff.

On my angel destiny I count 11 points I really want to spend more on,
plus 10 points spent on the side bar, plus lots of kind of nice stuff
that I could spend points on but don't have to.

This would be so easy to implement except for the inanates level 6 thru 10.

Hey, it would be uber expansion even without the inanates, or if the inantes
where generic.

What would be an easy inanate to add?
You brainstorm that, thank you.

But please consider, as my "completed" epic destinies look very empty.

I can count between 30 and 41 points to spend in some of them
would make me much happier with them.

And think, I don't want to be level 30 (everyone knows the level cap is
going to 30 sometime in the next 2 years) and only have +5 caster levels
on my Angel Destiny.


Also please make nimbus of light increment my endless aura / reborn in light,
especially if any nimbus of light SLAs show up.


Fawn is at the point that she does not feel like going back to korthos again,
but if she can Iconic TR/ETR to level 15 + bonus xp towards near 20, she would feel
much more comfortable about that.

[Silverleafeon]

And if you do this, which logically you are planning to, nobody has a capped epic destiny....

[Deadlock]

I didn't watch the podcast (the DDOCast in general seems more geared for the under 12 crowd in terms of its intellectual level), but its nice to see that you are starting to catch up to the point many of us have been at since day 1 of this discussion.

You think that anyone could actually catch up with your awesome genius? I didn't think that you considered it possible.

But to be clear, I've not changed my opinion that losing unbonded ED XP when you Epic TR isn't an issue, provided that Heroic TRing doesn't touch your Epic XP in any way. I referenced the ddocast because they explained their proposal clearly. Maybe if you had done the same with less nerdrage I could have realised that you broadly share their preference for the new Epic TR system?

I can cope with the loss and will regain the ED XP over multiple Iconic Lives. Maybe when you lose your misplaced sense of entitlement and consider that the loss of ED XP that's on the table isn't a personal attack aimed at you.

Now you can either continue to bicker with me and I'll happily reply to you all day long, or you can make an effort to keep it constructive if you have something to say?

[Silverleafeon]

Politely requesting that you eliminate all past life feats costing a feat to take.

Take it from an expert, I don't like spending a feat on completionist, and its uber.
I rarely if ever took a second past life active feat.

Politely requesting that all those neat and not so neat ideas get recycled into
the numerous ideas you will need to build new past lives.

Politely requesting you make past lives scale better.

Politely requesting that if you do not make the fate points accumulate being earn,
you go way way overboard in your compensation instead, realizing that if you
increase the epic destiny level cap to 10, and increase the epic destinies available
by 2, then the potential to earn fate points each life would be around
13 minus bound epic destines time 10 = 120 divided by 3 = 40 ish fate points.
(It is so obvious to me that the epic destines levels are going to be increased to 10;
be bold and go ahead and do it, even if you have to add innates afterwards.)

Politely requesting that you expand twist slots a lot.
Twists are wildly popular.

[Silverleafeon]

A compromise offer:

Epic Destiny Past Life also grants 10 Fate points.
Reset fate points to zero each TR.

No lower than that, a baker's dozen would be nicer.

This would eliminate the grind of we need to max every epic destiny
each life for maximum fate points, so I like it.

For those of you who think I am crazy, do the math yourself
then ponder it all out.


A compromise offer:

Get rid of unlocking epic destinies.
Take the keys out of the DDO store.
Computer track down all key purchases and refund TP.

[Silverleafeon]

Please don't increase the epic destiny level cap to 10+ now,
so people don't compound the problem.

Please increase it to 10+ when you implement this.

Been predicting for months that the epic destinies are going up someday.
I know its true, you know its true, be bold and do it.

[Silverleafeon]

As a late/endgame player who has ground out some but not all Destinies that Epic Destiny Reincarnation would appeal to me as it would effectively just reset my Destinies while leaving Fate Points untouched, offering a different way of farming Fate Points.

Fate points are the goddess of epics, maybe someday folks will realize that...

[Deadlock]

Politely requesting that you eliminate all past life feats costing a feat to take.

Take it from an expert, I don't like spending a feat on completionist, and its uber.
I rarely if ever took a second past life active feat.


Arcane Initiate and Arcane Prodigy are nice, have used Berserkers Fury for the stacking rage bonusses too.

Would it be too soon to suggest these get recycled into an auto-grant on the 3rd or 4th completion of a heroic class? Or an option at Fred to trade a passive past life feat for an active past life feat?

[Silverleafeon]

Arcane Initiate and Arcane Prodigy are nice, have used Berserkers Fury for the stacking rage bonusses too.
Except for monk for the better fists, you just named all the past lives worth considering.
The rest are near junk.

Would it be too soon to suggest these get recycled into an auto-grant on the 3rd or 4th completion of a heroic class? Or an option at Fred to trade a passive past life feat for an active past life feat?
If DDO wants us to TR more, then they should strongly consider some auto grants.

Should uber completionist offer more than completionist?

Should two or three past lives offer an special auto grant?

It would be nice.

Most casters will get 3 wizard lives done for the spell pen.

A lot of melee will be 3 fighter lives done for the combat DC.

[GermanicusMaximus]

You think that anyone could actually catch up with your awesome genius?

Thank you for the kind words, but I believe you are somewhat overstating the case.



But to be clear, I've not changed my opinion that losing unbonded ED XP when you Epic TR isn't an issue, provided that Heroic TRing doesn't touch your Epic XP in any way. I referenced the ddocast because they explained their proposal clearly. Maybe if you had done the same with less nerdrage I could have realised that you broadly share their preference for the new Epic TR system?


I crafted my opinions so that the average reader would be able to understand them. You may want to check my posting history on this thread. Multiple rereads of them might be of assistance to you, although if you required the DDOCast in order to understand the concepts, even the multiple rereads might not achieve the desired affect.

Nerdrage? Perhaps you could have just posted DooooMMM!!!!eleven a few times, and elevated(?) the discussion to the same level.

And lets be clear, you recently posted that you believe that DDO could survive another 20 years. That alone marks your personal opinion on the game in general, or any one of its mechanics, as one that a lot of people will not take seriously.


Maybe when you lose your misplaced sense of entitlement and consider that the loss of ED XP that's on the table isn't a personal attack aimed at you.


Why would I construe someone who uses phrases like "misplaced sense of entitlement" as engaging in personal attacks? I am sure that you are merely doing the best that you can.



Now you can either continue to bicker with me and I'll happily reply to you all day long, or you can make an effort to be more constructive if you have something to say?

You are hardly in a position to lecture anyone about being constructive. Endlessly apologizing for Turbine does not somehow make you constructive.

If you feel threatened by my objective assessments of how Turbine is failing to handle the game on multiple levels, I would suggest that you find an alternate venue to work through those feelings. Or, you can bicker at me endlessly all day in this thread. You should not, however, expect that I will reciprocate endlessly, as I have a life outside of this game and my self image is not tied to this game. These are goals which you might want to consider for yourself.

[Silverleafeon]

If you choose to make all legend life xp equal to the xp of a second life toon,
or some other reduced xp plan, I as an uber completionist would not be upset or jealous.

Whether you should do that or not I will not debate.

[Cloista]

Fate points are the goddess of epics, maybe someday folks will realize that...



I do, which is exactly why I suggested what I did. Couldn't give a stuff if you clear the XP from Destinies I don't use, as long as I have atleast 1 non-active destiny to provide twists (hence my modified idea with the Bonding) and don't wipe my fate points and actually give me the ability to acquire more and more.

[forummuleonly]

How much longer is the DDO staff going to not "discuss" anything in this "Official Turbine Discussion"?

I appreciate very much Glin posting this thread (I would say to engage with the players, but there has been no engagement as yet to speak of from the Devs, Piloto didn't 'engage' he commented) so that players can DISUSS with him the changes and whatnot, but frankly, like all the oither threads, this seems from an outsider looking in to have been nothing but a bone tossed to the players with no care, thought, or regards to actually do anything but give us a place to type to empty air.

How about a new sub-forum for things like this? Official Turbine Don't Care Thoughts.

That way there is no expectation of a 'Discussion'. We only get to see what you Devs are thinking, the whole time knowing you will never actually post past the OP of a thread.

[oradafu]

Arcane Initiate and Arcane Prodigy are nice, have used Berserkers Fury for the stacking rage bonusses too.



Except for monk for the better fists, you just named all the past lives worth considering.
The rest are near junk.


I'd also include the Past Life: Sneak of Shadows as being a nice boost for the +1 to all skills and the sneak attack damage clicky for boss fights.

Besides those five feats, the past life feats just aren't impressive enough to pick up. Additionally, a number of them give nothing to the base class, with Paladin and Ranger being in the forefront of useless to the base class.

[Silverleafeon]

I am sick and tired of paying a feat slot for past life feats.

In my final life, I actually, yes actually strongly considered not taking the completionist feat.

There are so many normal feats that are really important to have.

When we add a few more nice epic feats, and don't deny that more nice epics are
coming, then the little bit of wiggle space we have at the moment will disappear again.


Why not something like:

Monk past life, you gain +1 at level one, and an additional plus 1 at each ten
character levels gained thereafter. Your unarmed damage is increased by +0.33 [W]

Probably not quite right, but this addresses several issues at once.
The lack of scaling bonuses, elimination of the purchasable feat,
and making monks more interested in TRing.


If DDO wants us to TR, then lets do it right.

You want cows to move to another pasture, you don't chase them thru the gate,
lest you get trampled. You go to the barn, open a nice big bag of feed and
stick some in a metal bucket. You go to the gate, open it and rattle the bucket,
you go to the feed trough in the new pasture and dump three bags of feed in it.


quote: I will never TR again unless they make the benefits really uber

quote: I hate legend life xp

[Silverleafeon]

How much longer is the DDO staff going to not "discuss" anything in this "Official Turbine Discussion"?

Ok, a bit of insight on how these things work without saying more than I can.

The gods have seen that our paths have strayed from the ancient text.

The gods have sent holy decrees to mankind.
High priest Glin showed us the gilded leaves.

Our riot has got the gods attention.
Please villagers watch your language but keep your pitchforks handy.

The gods of DDO are watching.
Glin cannot do anything that these gods will not allow.

It takes time for Glin to communicate back and forth with the gods.

It takes time to speak in godesse.
The gods ponder, but anything worth saying is best spoken in godesse.


Already the gods stir, you can feel it deep in the soil of eberron...

[Silverleafeon]

I do, which is exactly why I suggested what I did. Couldn't give a stuff if you clear the XP from Destinies I don't use, as long as I have atleast 1 non-active destiny to provide twists (hence my modified idea with the Bonding) and don't wipe my fate points and actually give me the ability to acquire more and more.

Nods in agreement.

Hey, Fawn is willing to walk up to Fred and click yes to the option:

"Would you like to dump all you Epic Destiny Xp in the trash can right now with no
benefits?"

[Loromir]

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.



Note...I'm not screaming here....I am a Turbine fan. I love DDO and hope it's lifespan at least matches that of Asherron's call.

With that being said, the one real dev reply on this subjuect seemed to point out that losing destinies during heroic TR was an important feature of the new TR system. The ONE and only reply to the nerdrage going on in this thread didn't give us any hope that the specific Idea of losing destinies in this fashion was negotiable. Instead he (Piloto) spent more time explaining why this would happen and didn't give us comfort that it is possible that this idea could be taken off the table.

If someone at turbine would tell us: "We hear you and are truly considering taking this feature (Loss of Destinies in heroic TR) off the table, people might actaully feel better. We know nothing is written in stone, but it seems there might be some stong opinions on the development team that may have overall veto power over the loud protests here in the fourms.

Make us feel better. Make us think you are truly listening to us.

[Silverleafeon]

With that being said, the one real dev reply on this subjuect seemed to point out that losing destinies during heroic TR was an important feature of the new TR system.
Masterly of the English language takes a life time.
Reread his post carefully. I had to reread it before I saw this:

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

and not getting enough in return.....


Later on, he does not say we will be doing thus, but simply:


1. With the current design, after this system goes live, going through a Heroic TR

Indicating that things are being considered.

I know its a bit hard to see, but it has taken me many years to learn to write,
and still multiple rewriting to get a solid copy.

[Silverleafeon]

Ok, a bit of insight on how these things work without saying more than I can.

The gods have seen that our paths have strayed from the ancient text.

The gods have sent holy decrees to mankind.
High priest Glin showed us the gilded leaves.

Our riot has got the gods attention.
Please villagers watch your language but keep your pitchforks handy.

The gods of DDO are watching.
Glin cannot do anything that these gods will not allow.

It takes time for Glin to communicate back and forth with the gods.

It takes time to speak in godesse.
The gods ponder, but anything worth saying is best spoken in godesse.


Already the gods stir, you can feel it deep in the soil of eberron...

Quoting myself cause well, because, but...

Anyway, time to do other stuff, thanks for listening everyone.

[Tscheuss]

Nice one, Silver. :D

Welcome all to Monday morning. It will probably take the devs most of today (and maybe some of tomorrow) to go through all these pages, discuss the content among themselves, and then formulate something worth saying.

Patience can be nice. Give them time to rev back up from their weekend. ;)

[Permian]

Masterly of the English language takes a life time.
Reread his post carefully. I had to reread it before I saw this:


Thank you very much for my new signature :) I couldn't resist. It






is






AWESOME!!

[Deadlock]

If you feel threatened by my objective assessments of how Turbine is failing to handle the game on multiple levels, I would suggest that you find an alternate venue to work through those feelings. Or, you can bicker at me endlessly all day in this thread. You should not, however, expect that I will reciprocate endlessly, as I have a life outside of this game and my self image is not tied to this game. These are goals which you might want to consider for yourself.

Your objectionable assessments are noted. I can only repeat to you the same mantra that I repeat to the developers who report to me - "Don't come to me with your problems, come to me with your solutions.". Now that may seem harsh but when you have 20 developers who, like your good self are very clever and erudite individuals, you encourage them to do a bit of thinking for themselves before they come to you with a problem. This way, at least they come to you with something like a potential solution whether you agree with it or not. Simply turning up at my door and telling me that you're stuck is a non-starter. Likewise when I read pointless criticism with no alternatives on the forums it rubs me the wrong way. Maybe that demonstrates a lack of patience on my part.

But be sure that I'll give your life advice all of the time that it deserves, and I'm delighted to hear that you do not need validation based on your leisure activities. If I ever find myself sinking to these levels of low self-esteem, I'll be sure to think on you and give myself a shake. After all, if such lofty goals work for you then who's to say who else this wisdom may help.

Have we advanced the discussion any?

[Darkrok]

A little off-topic but my suggestion for past life feats would be the following:
1) Completionist should shift to a free feat. If the dev's want they could put this in the next time everyone has to TR to re-earn the Completionist feat.
2) Either the third or fourth copy of a past life would grant the active feat as an automatic feat. I would set it to third but if the dev's are uncomfortable with that then a fourth would be acceptable as well. Or even an epic TR...one epic TR would, on the heroic end, grant the active past life feat as an auto-grant.

Just a couple ideas off the top of my head to both avoid power creep, reward more grind, and depending on the route Turbine took possibly give a reason to epic TR.

[Inoukchuk]

A little off-topic but my suggestion for past life feats would be the following:
1) Completionist should shift to a free feat. If the dev's want they could put this in the next time everyone has to TR to re-earn the Completionist feat.
2) Either the third or fourth copy of a past life would grant the active feat as an automatic feat. I would set it to third but if the dev's are uncomfortable with that then a fourth would be acceptable as well. Or even an epic TR...one epic TR would, on the heroic end, grant the active past life feat as an auto-grant.

Just a couple ideas off the top of my head to both avoid power creep, reward more grind, and depending on the route Turbine took possibly give a reason to epic TR.

While it's important to promote re-playability it is also to remember an account for the negative effects of power creep. Giving completionists 13 new free (active) feats would further push the upper reaches of the game, setting the standards for top content even harder and therefore further out of reach of average players, much less new players, which in turn discourages new players from joining/staying when they realize how far behind they are the curve and how long it will take to catch up. This needs to be considered when adding any new TR mechanics as well. Retaining loyal customers is important, but so is attracting and retaining new customers.

But I appreciate your line of thought!

[moonprophet]

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?


I agree that threats are not necessary, however. here are my concerns. I trade time and money for character and game progression. If I pay the money and put in the time to achieve progression in the game, I should be fairly compensated if that is taken away from me at no fault of my own. I have been playing since about 2006 I believe and have seen the game go through numerous dramatic changes. This is the first time that character development earned through gameplay has been on the chopping block. Unless what I am reading is being misinterpreted, it seems that all of the time I have spent thus far earning epic destiny xp and fate points is completely wasted, and I will not be compensated for my time and money.

I am a 43 year old father, husband, homeowner, and small businessman. My time is valuable to me and in short supply. I play this game because I enjoy it, and gain satisfaction from achieving in-game goals. I stop watching a television program or reading a book once it becomes unenjoyable (sp?). The same rules apply to my online gaming habits.

[Darkrok]

While it's important to promote re-playability it is also to remember an account for the negative effects of power creep. Giving completionists 13 new free (active) feats would further push the upper reaches of the game, setting the standards for top content even harder and therefore further out of reach of average players, much less new players, which in turn discourages new players from joining/staying when they realize how far behind they are the curve and how long it will take to catch up. This needs to be considered when adding any new TR mechanics as well. Retaining loyal customers is important, but so is attracting and retaining new customers.

But I appreciate your line of thought!

I agree with you and think it certainly could be overpowered...whether that's dealt with through extending the grind or just not using that idea would be up to the dev's but it's another thought for everyone that wants extra past life feats. You could even limit the number of slots to put those feats in but still require a certain number of past lives in that class to use a 'free' slot.

[Grosbeak07]

Devs - Love the back and forth banter in this thread.

Player Responses: 1,202
Turbine Responses: 9*

*and I'm including Cordovan's please don't say mean things to the devs, their egos are fragile and we can only coax them out of their holes every few months posts.

[eonfreon]

Perhaps this has been covered already, but I'm just wondering about something.

If the goal of TRing is to make players re-play the content and thus add longevity to it, why does any ED have to be wiped?

If the idea is that you have to ETR to gain the ED PL, then presumably you will ETR as long as there are ED PL's that you want.

We have 11 EDs currently. If a player has a character that wants every ED PL, he would have to ETR 11 times. Most players won't want that many, but some will.

So players who want those ED PLs will already have to re-level several times. It doesn't make sense that after they ETR several times, that that's when they then go on and "complete" the ED trees.

Really, no matter the TR, all EDs should be preserved. The ETR should be about getting ED PLs. It should not be about "locking" in what is already locked in. I understand that Turbine wants to prolong the endgame, which unfortunately is very very small, but essentailly forcing the regrinding of EDs constantly will just get tiring.

And how the hell will Turbine balance a game like this? With people all over the place in terms of Past Lives and available EDs and Twists?

The TR process was sold long ago as a minor thing to keep people playing while waiting for new endgame content. Somewhere along the lines Turbine got lazy and decided to make that an endgame focus. And now they want to expand that even further.

There is no need for Turbine to invalidate their promises. They can still achieve a desirable "grind" without changing the rules and backpaddling on their word.

[Deadlock]

While it's important to promote re-playability it is also to remember an account for the negative effects of power creep. Giving completionists 13 new free (active) feats would further push the upper reaches of the game, setting the standards for top content even harder and therefore further out of reach of average players, much less new players, which in turn discourages new players from joining/staying when they realize how far behind they are the curve and how long it will take to catch up. This needs to be considered when adding any new TR mechanics as well. Retaining loyal customers is important, but so is attracting and retaining new customers.

But I appreciate your line of thought!

Not every past life provides a benefit for every build, so it's not really 13 feats that you would be able to use at any one time. You might get something from 4 or 5 at the most. And none of these would actually be game breaking in any way. But I'm hoping that it's not something we need to worry about for now.

If we can get Heroic Completionist and the new Epic Completionist confirmed as being auto-granted then maybe we can bring this up again some time in the future :)

[moonprophet]

.....to making epic tr relevant without destroying heroic TR is to

1) leave heroic TR alone.

2) Grant an additional EPIC past life feat if you epic TR in addition to what you already get for a heroic TR.

3) Leave the EPIC destiny system AS IS.

4) As an additional incentive, create prestige enhancement lines that are only available if you EPIC TR while a particular class and/or completed epic destiny is your primary.


....lastly, leave the current enhancement system for heroic levels alone. It isn't broken. Don't waste developer time "fixing" it when that time could be spent improving quality control, adding content, adding playable races/classes, designing new feats, writing the new game engine that will keep this game relevant another 7-8 years, ect.....

[moonprophet]

...the goal is for new players to stick around and become veteran players. if the needs of the veteran players are ignored, what incentive does a new player have for sticking around? And if the new player has no incentive for sticking around, why bother becoming a new player in the first place? Seems like something worth running up the flagpole.

[SilkofDrasnia]

Thank you very much for my new signature :) I couldn't resist. It






is






AWESOME!!

Teehee, talk about foot in mouth heh lmao

[barecm]

To further some of the points here... I don't LIKE TR, but I do like being able to fix mistakes without losing all the gear I have accumulated. Also, when there are changes that affect certain builds, I can TR and change my build. It allows for a lot more flexibility than there was before the TR system. Also, some of the past life bonuses are pretty nice to have. I do not like replaying old content, but it is a means to an end when it comes to TR for me.The bigger question I have is why the change? I think the current TR / LR system works great. I have not done a GR, but I am sure there is a case for that as well.

[Rathic]

Why not handle epic TR the same way as Heroic?

Pick ONE destiny to TR
that ONE destiny is reset to zero (all others untouched)
Gain feat/point/whatever for that destiny
reset heroic level to 15(or 1 but seriously is that necessary?)
The ONE destiny that was TR'd requires more exp to cap out(up to double after 2 times) next time around.
I don't understand the need for this Bonding concept... scrap it
Nerdrage solved
wow that was hard :p

[Yan_PL]

How I see it:
1. Make Heroic TR and Destiny Bonding independent from each other.
2. Grant bonus ability point of choice (not build point, _ability_ point of choice added after build points are spent) for TRing past lvl 25 and 2nd one for TRing at 28, thus rewarding character directly for burning more XP with something more than often-useless build points. Alternatively, grant a stance-like feat giving a stacking + to stat of choice, exchangable at shrine (or perhaps at Fred's).
3. Make Destiny bonding reset a single sphere instead of whole tree (by the time we get to this, I'm hoping cleric destiny will be ready), but that it can be done only if the whole sphere is capped - example - having 1980k xp in Fatesinger, Draconic, and Magister, one could Bond one of those destinies, thus getting "Epic benefit" from it.

38 point build isn't really worth burning 6.6 mil xp more. Bonus ability point, however... Ability point of choice is worth a lot more than 2 build points.

[Glin]

The team has been having some further design discussions, based on feedback from this thread. It seems important to state - they recognize that several players are already very invested in Epic Destinies, this was absolutely part of the early design discussions. There are a couple Epic game-play solutions in debate that we’ll be sharing with you as well. There won’t be any flash decisions made as design changes are considered, between posts we will be spending a lot of time reviewing the many directions the system can take players, as we are a few months away from starting development.

Thank you for sharing your feedback, reactions and ideas with us. More to come soon, and I'd expect, over the coming weeks as well.

~Erik
@producerglin

[Coyopa]

How I see it:
1. Make Heroic TR and Destiny Bonding independent from each other.
2. Grant bonus ability point of choice (not build point, _ability_ point of choice added after build points are spent) for TRing past lvl 25 and 2nd one for TRing at 28, thus rewarding character directly for burning more XP with something more than often-useless build points. Alternatively, grant a stance-like feat giving a stacking + to stat of choice, exchangable at shrine (or perhaps at Fred's).
3. Make Destiny bonding reset a single sphere instead of whole tree (by the time we get to this, I'm hoping cleric destiny will be ready), but that it can be done only if the whole sphere is capped - example - having 1980k xp in Fatesinger, Draconic, and Magister, one could Bond one of those destinies, thus getting "Epic benefit" from it.

38 point build isn't really worth burning 6.6 mil xp more. Bonus ability point, however... Ability point of choice is worth a lot more than 2 build points.

THIS is an idea I would get behind. Being granted 2 extra ability points for burning 27 million experience would be worth it to me - EVEN IF I GOT NOTHING ELSE. I wouldn't be able to cap my rogue's other destinies fast enough to take advantage of this - or my monk's or my druid's! On top of that, you can level-gate the extra ability points for all I care. I do not have to have them at level one (but that would be A W E S O M E). Give me one at level 3 or 4 and the other at level 7 or 8 and I would still be excited about that.

Also, something that is not being talked about much in this thread, get rid of the permanent quest repetition penalties. Put them on a ransack timer or something. We are going to need them to go away (or you are going to have to restore the challenge experience) in order to get to level 28.

[darkrune]

More to come soon™

FTFY

Seriously though thanks for listening (or at least pretending to to the short term)!

[Coyopa]

The team has been having some further design discussions, based on feedback from this thread. It seems important to state - they recognize that several players are already very invested in Epic Destinies, this was absolutely part of the early design discussions. There are a couple Epic game-play solutions in debate that we’ll be sharing with you as well. There won’t be any flash decisions made as design changes are considered, between posts we will be spending a lot of time reviewing the many directions the system can take players, as we are a few months away from starting development.

Thank you for sharing your feedback, reactions and ideas with us. More to come soon, and I'd expect, over the coming weeks as well.

~Erik
@producerglin

Thanks for this update! It is really appreciated. The fact you said this is several months from actually starting development makes me feel a lot better, too, because your thread-starting post made it seem like this was in the pipeline already and well on its way. Watch out, though: Keep this up and I might have to resubscribe!

[Darkrok]

The team has been having some further design discussions, based on feedback from this thread. It seems important to state - they recognize that several players are already very invested in Epic Destinies, this was absolutely part of the early design discussions. There are a couple Epic game-play solutions in debate that we’ll be sharing with you as well. There won’t be any flash decisions made as design changes are considered, between posts we will be spending a lot of time reviewing the many directions the system can take players, as we are a few months away from starting development.

Thank you for sharing your feedback, reactions and ideas with us. More to come soon, and I'd expect, over the coming weeks as well.

~Erik
@producerglin

The only thing worse than forcing through this system would have been rushing to create a system to replace it that was even worse. All I ask from my own perspective is that we get a chance to say something about whatever options the team is considering before it goes in to production. There should be enough feedback here (with varying levels of rage involved) to give the development team an idea of where the most active forumites mindset is at least if not the majority of DDO players. I'm definitely looking forward to some solutions that make everyone happy (or at least happier than they are now).

[Towrn]

The team has been having some further design discussions, based on feedback from this thread. It seems important to state - they recognize that several players are already very invested in Epic Destinies, this was absolutely part of the early design discussions. There are a couple Epic game-play solutions in debate that we’ll be sharing with you as well. There won’t be any flash decisions made as design changes are considered, between posts we will be spending a lot of time reviewing the many directions the system can take players, as we are a few months away from starting development.

Thank you for sharing your feedback, reactions and ideas with us. More to come soon, and I'd expect, over the coming weeks as well.

~Erik
@producerglin

Glin:

Thanks for replying and for stating that this is not even in development yet. There have been so many good ideas thrown around in this thread.

Please don't lose any more credibility with the DDO faithful. Please listen to us and give us something that we can look forward to continue paying and playing for.

I have said since the game's third week, I will be here until you guys turn out the lights, but not all feel this way. Don't make us lose any more Vets OR new players.

Take your good concept and re-work it with the player base's help and make it good content.

Please and Thank You!
~Towrn~

[Drwaz99]

The team has been having some further design discussions, based on feedback from this thread. It seems important to state - they recognize that several players are already very invested in Epic Destinies, this was absolutely part of the early design discussions. There are a couple Epic game-play solutions in debate that we’ll be sharing with you as well. There won’t be any flash decisions made as design changes are considered, between posts we will be spending a lot of time reviewing the many directions the system can take players, as we are a few months away from starting development.

Thank you for sharing your feedback, reactions and ideas with us. More to come soon, and I'd expect, over the coming weeks as well.

~Erik
@producerglin

Thanks for posting but you certainly said a whole bunch of nothing with a whole bunch of words.

I'd also be keen to rephrase "several players are already very invested in ED's" into "Most if not all players are already very invested in ED's". They have after all been out for over a year.

[Tharlak]

The team has been having some further design discussions, based on feedback from this thread. It seems important to state - they recognize that several players are already very invested in Epic Destinies, this was absolutely part of the early design discussions. There are a couple Epic game-play solutions in debate that we’ll be sharing with you as well. There won’t be any flash decisions made as design changes are considered, between posts we will be spending a lot of time reviewing the many directions the system can take players, as we are a few months away from starting development.

Thank you for sharing your feedback, reactions and ideas with us. More to come soon, and I'd expect, over the coming weeks as well.

~Erik
@producerglin

Glin, thanks for the response and at least the willingness to bring these types of changes up early to the community.

But I need to ask. Why are you making these changes? Certainly this is not a "Hey, I bet the players would like to get an epic feat in exchange for all their farmed ED XP" kind of thought that you are putting out there. There is a "problem" for Turbine that you are trying to solve.

I did not read all the post in the last 60+ pages, but read quite the number. Folks are of course theorizing why Turbine is doing this, and conspiracy theories certainly develop. So why not skip past all that and let us know what the issue is that is driving you towards these systems.

Again, it's clear that this is not being done because the players want it. If that was the case the responses from the Turbine team would have been more in line with "What?!? You don't want to lose all your ED XP. Ok, we won't do this then, we were just trying to help." Also, every statement that came after the initial was about modifying what the trade off would be for the loss of all the ED XP. So at the end you, Turbine, feel it's necessary that all ED XP is removed. So, can you tell us why? Are you trying to increase the amount of epics being run, or dissuade TRing, or reduce the power from twists, or...

If we know the why, not just a guess, perhaps we could shape our comments better. Or at least understand the path you are on.

[Glin]

I'd also be keen to rephrase "several players are already very invested in ED's" into "Most if not all players are already very invested in ED's". They have after all been out for over a year.

Actually "several" may be overstating when we are talking about maxing out all EDs. There is a good portion of players that focus on TR, and others that run only to cap picking up a couple ED's then roll an Alt. There are also casual players that don't play every week and take a very long time to take a character through content.

There are a lot of things to consider when we are adding to a system like TR that impacts so many play styles. I don't expect we will be able to put all the detail into dev posts, but we are trying to respond to the things that are causing the most concern.

[mikarddo]

The team has been having some further design discussions, based on feedback from this thread. It seems important to state - they recognize that several players are already very invested in Epic Destinies, this was absolutely part of the early design discussions. There are a couple Epic game-play solutions in debate that we’ll be sharing with you as well. There won’t be any flash decisions made as design changes are considered, between posts we will be spending a lot of time reviewing the many directions the system can take players, as we are a few months away from starting development.

Thank you for sharing your feedback, reactions and ideas with us. More to come soon, and I'd expect, over the coming weeks as well.

~Erik
@producerglin

Thank you for the reply. I am looking forward to a more substantial reply from the team within a few days - you can hardly afford not to.

[Deadlock]

The team has been having some further design discussions, based on feedback from this thread. It seems important to state - they recognize that several players are already very invested in Epic Destinies, this was absolutely part of the early design discussions. There are a couple Epic game-play solutions in debate that we’ll be sharing with you as well. There won’t be any flash decisions made as design changes are considered, between posts we will be spending a lot of time reviewing the many directions the system can take players, as we are a few months away from starting development.

Thank you for sharing your feedback, reactions and ideas with us. More to come soon, and I'd expect, over the coming weeks as well.

~Erik
@producerglin

Thanks for the update. I'm guessing there's some script that you can run to extract data on character ED levels to compile some stats on the actual impact this would have on active characters? Total ED levels, number of capped destines, which are active?

Hopefully the highlighted section won't mean that we will have a lot of time between updates on this? I think most people would consider it extremely useful if we could get some feedback on things that have been revised or taken off the table completely. The main ones for me have to be:
1. Heroic TRing should not affect ED XP in any way at all, can you let us know if at some point this gets agreed by the design team?
2. You stated that you need an unbonded ED to Epic TR, but that only allows for 11 Epic TRs, will this be revised so that you can Epic TR at level cap regardless of whether you have an unbonded ED and still pick up the relevant Past Life Feats?
3. You will be able to Epic TR into an Iconic character, when you then cap that character, will you be able to Epic TR it again and pick up an Iconic Past Life Feat and an Epic Destiny Past Life Feat, and Epic TR into another Iconic character?

I understand that things are not set in stone and that any answers given are subject to change, but if at some point we could get clarity on these three issues, I think a lot of the current concern and drama would disappear.

[Deadlock]

Actually "several" may be overstating when we are talking about maxing out all EDs. There is a good portion of players that focus on TR, and others that run only to cap picking up a couple ED's then roll an Alt. There are also casual players that don't play every week and take a very long time to take a character through content.

There are a lot of things to consider when we are adding to a system like TR that impacts so many play styles. I don't expect we will be able to put all the detail into dev posts, but we are trying to respond to the things that are causing the most concern.

That's actually encouraging to hear. Allowing players to retain their Epic Destiny XP through Heroic TRing would allow these people to build them up over time and over multiple lives if that is what they choose to do.

Not changing the current Heroic TR system would definitely be the lowest impact and at the same time the most popular solution.

If It Aint Broke ... Occam's Razor .... KISS Principle ... all apply :)

[Dhalgren]

Actually "several" may be overstating when we are talking about maxing out all EDs. There is a good portion of players that focus on TR, and others that run only to cap picking up a couple ED's then roll an Alt. There are also casual players that don't play every week and take a very long time to take a character through content.

There are a lot of things to consider when we are adding to a system like TR that impacts so many play styles. I don't expect we will be able to put all the detail into dev posts, but we are trying to respond to the things that are causing the most concern.

I don't believe we need to talk about maxing out all EDs in order to be talking about being "very invested".

I certainly have not maxed them all out, but I do have quite a bit of time and energy invested in the system and would be very upset to see that lost for the sake of a heroic TR.

[MarcusCleardawn]

....

We are also making balance changes to compensate for the fact that the system goes into higher levels, and we expect that parts of the design summary will seem less harsh once these details are better understood. We’ll be reading discussion in this thread and will continue to post here with more details as we go (such as details regarding Fate Points, Completionist, and the exact effects of turning in your Epic Destiny xp on your new life).

Forgive the truncation, but the underlined part is a concern that I think not yet addressed. "Balance changes" are pretty ominous and are very important in answering the question "what should epic past life feats be" and "what compensation is enough?"

Once upon a time, +1 to hit was a relevant buff, now it's not even a rounding error. +1 to hit when it was a full 5% bonus was a real thing, now +1 to hit is less than 1%.

Once upon a time, +3 armor class was a huge deal (why else would people grind the Titan raid except for the chattering ring? and why now it's hardly ever run and many new players don't even know it exists), now not so much.

What form will these "balance changes" take? Hard to kill? The changes to metamagics/introduction of spellpower? The "new combat system"/everyone has some armor class, but most damage mitigation is from displacement clickies and ghostly items anyway regardless of build, class, or other equipment? The wounding of puncturing nerf? The current caster situation where it seems only Shiradi casters are at all viable because Wail is still broken, the current critical spell chance, implement spellpower bug, sky high saves of mobs, and the great proliferation of spell resistance and evasion?

For my other .02 plat, I will never do the sphere unlocking grind again.

[Teh_Troll]

The team has been having some further design discussions, based on feedback from this thread. It seems important to state - they recognize that several players are already very invested in Epic Destinies, this was absolutely part of the early design discussions. There are a couple Epic game-play solutions in debate that we’ll be sharing with you as well. There won’t be any flash decisions made as design changes are considered, between posts we will be spending a lot of time reviewing the many directions the system can take players, as we are a few months away from starting development.

Thank you for sharing your feedback, reactions and ideas with us. More to come soon, and I'd expect, over the coming weeks as well.

~Erik
@producerglin

Translation: kiss your EDs goodbye on heroic TR.

[Coyopa]

Actually "several" may be overstating when we are talking about maxing out all EDs. There is a good portion of players that focus on TR, and others that run only to cap picking up a couple ED's then roll an Alt. There are also casual players that don't play every week and take a very long time to take a character through content.

There are a lot of things to consider when we are adding to a system like TR that impacts so many play styles. I don't expect we will be able to put all the detail into dev posts, but we are trying to respond to the things that are causing the most concern.

OK, except you are again missing the forest for the trees, so to speak. You do not have to have max'd all destinies to be considered "very invested" in destinies.

[Teh_Troll]

Actually "several" may be overstating when we are talking about maxing out all EDs. There is a good portion of players that focus on TR, and others that run only to cap picking up a couple ED's then roll an Alt. There are also casual players that don't play every week and take a very long time to take a character through content.

There are a lot of things to consider when we are adding to a system like TR that impacts so many play styles. I don't expect we will be able to put all the detail into dev posts, but we are trying to respond to the things that are causing the most concern.

Point blank: are you still intending on blanking out ED XP on heroic TR?

We'll take a non-answer as a "yes."

Our reply will be to never TR again.

And maybe try some straight talk for a a change? You're not that good at corporate double-speak.

[Atremus]

I think this is the first time that we have been able to collaborate on a game system without having it forced onto the players. Please be awesome Glin

[Systern]

The team has been having some further design discussions, based on feedback from this thread. It seems important to state - they recognize that several players are already very invested in Epic Destinies, this was absolutely part of the early design discussions. There are a couple Epic game-play solutions in debate that we’ll be sharing with you as well. There won’t be any flash decisions made as design changes are considered, between posts we will be spending a lot of time reviewing the many directions the system can take players, as we are a few months away from starting development.

Thank you for sharing your feedback, reactions and ideas with us. More to come soon, and I'd expect, over the coming weeks as well.

~Erik
@producerglin

Several players are very invested in epic destinies? Update 20 should hit A YEAR AND A HALF after their release. Everyone that purchased them is invested in some form or another. I've done my destinies over multiple TR lives, and while I don't have any character with maxxed out destinies, I have 1 that's at 46/55 levels, one at 42/55 levels, and a couple more that have 15+. How can we not be invested?

The entire Destiny system is not sustainable nor scalable. You're raising the cap from level 25 to 28, but the Destiny enhancement system is still capped at 6 tiers that peak before the level cap. The actual levels provide little power per the destiny design. Either a character stagnates through the final levels or takes a drop in efficacy to progress another destiny in the pursuit of Fate Points.

The future difference between a today's level 25 character and Update 19 or 20's level 28 characters is One Feat, and +2 to-hit. Completely underwhelming.


Just like the only "technical limitation" in providing more inventory space is not a limitation on lists, dictionaries, resultsets, sort algorithms or any data-type; but on the UI's presentation. The Enhancement pass and Destiny trees are the major limitation on extending the system.

So, Next year when you want to raise the level cap again... what will you do?

[Gljosh]

Actually "several" may be overstating when we are talking about maxing out all EDs. There is a good portion of players that focus on TR, and others that run only to cap picking up a couple ED's then roll an Alt. There are also casual players that don't play every week and take a very long time to take a character through content.

There are a lot of things to consider when we are adding to a system like TR that impacts so many play styles. I don't expect we will be able to put all the detail into dev posts, but we are trying to respond to the things that are causing the most concern.

I TR a lot (1 character), I have barely even touched Eveningstar, not with my 25 Monk Life, 25 FvS Life, 25 Druid Life, 25 Druid/monk, and I doubt my 25 Sorc/Monk Life will touch most of Eveningstar. I do like the idea of other Past Life Feats and look forward to making a Bladeforged Iconic Char (I don't own Warforged) as well as the Iconic Elf. That being said I have spent sometime going through the ED spheres and building my Twists (Yes I bought the Tome as well). I would prefer to not have to make that trek again Exalted Angel to Shirardi is not that fun. Playing levels 1~8 on a TR are fun, would 4~8 be better maybe, but then I would have ZERO NEED FOR A MASTER GIFT AUGMENT.

[magn0liafan]

And we won't.

Ever.

And Turbine will never get any more money from us for hearts and XP pots.

Please tell me again how this idea isn't the stupidest thing since New Coke?

I don't know man... Crystal Pepsi was pretty stupid...

[Hutoth]

Several players have maxed out all EDs.
There is a good portion of players that focus on TR,
others run only to cap picking up a couple ED's then roll an Alt.
There are also casual players that don't play every week and take a very long time to take a character through content.



I've been unlocking as many destinies as possible, and have maxed only a few across several toons, while unlocking whole swathes of them (taking to levels 3 & 4). AND I like TR'ing. Where do I fit in this?


There are a lot of things to consider when we are adding to a system like TR that impacts so many play styles.

"Adding to" the system?
You're adding a new Type of Reincarnation.
Don't change the existing ones: Epic TR doesn't screw up Lesser and Greater Reincarnation, so why must it screw up True Reincarnation?
Just add the new Epic TR and leave the existing Heroic TR alone. End of problem, thread shrinks by 90%.

[HAL]

Actually "several" may be overstating when we are talking about maxing out all EDs. There is a good portion of players that focus on TR, and others that run only to cap picking up a couple ED's then roll an Alt. There are also casual players that don't play every week and take a very long time to take a character through content.

There are a lot of things to consider when we are adding to a system like TR that impacts so many play styles. I don't expect we will be able to put all the detail into dev posts, but we are trying to respond to the things that are causing the most concern.

Some of us realize that you can see your own metrics on this. More important than how many is that the players with lots of EDs or capped EDs are some of your most dedicated players. Many of them also sound like they are high monetary supporters. And finally many of them are very vocal on the forums. Although they might not be a majority, since they are so vocal and dedicated it would still be logical to consider carefully what is going to be done with all their work. Future players will not like to see a bad ending to this promise that we can keep our EDs through TR and then taking that away.

[Cableman]

Point blank: are you still intending on blanking out ED XP on heroic TR?

We'll take a non-answer as a "yes."

Our reply will be to never TR again.

And maybe try some straight talk for a a change? You're not that good at corporate double-speak.

Do you speak for everyone? I'll continue to TR, I can live with the proposed system. Being able to keep all destiny's on a TR is like me asking to have all the powers of my past lives at my disposal while TR'ing.

[Piloto]

Hi.
Just wanted to touch base with you all again on this. Your feedback during this early stage of development for this system has definitely been helpful. And I’ll reiterate that because we are early in the process, we haven’t locked anything down. Now on to some additional info.

We have multiple goals with a system like this, such as:
• Give players the new option of TR-ing at level cap.
• Give players more things to achieve with a high level TR type character (like epic destiny past life feats and build points).
• Allow Iconic Hero characters to use the reincarnation system.
• Optimize the system to help people have a good play experience. (This is a tough one, because there are different opinions on what a “good play experience” is, but this could mean giving incentives to concentrate on different Epic Destinies than were played in the previous life, for example.)
• And as a less design-oriented but equally important goal: If changes are needed that affect players’ current investment, compensate them for the changes.

If we can arrive at a place in a given system where we can accomplish all or many of the goals in a way that is good for the game, short term and long term, then that’s a great solution. Many systems, however, are of sufficient complexity to make this a very interesting balancing act. But even with that complexity, it’s still possible to have a good solution. It just takes some time and iteration to get there. This was one of the reasons to start this thread and see what people thought about the new system and the first design proposal.

So, here’s some more info on a couple of options we are currently considering.

Option 1: XP “Bank” System
When Epic TR-ing, a character selects one ED to bond and then transfers all other ED XP into an XP Bank that can be used at any time to level through heroic levels. Example: A character has five maxed ED’s at level 28. They Epic TR, bond one ED, and then get roughly enough XP to take them back to level 20 in their new life and still have, let’s say, 1,000,000 XP left over to use in their following heroic life (to use at whatever level they want). This option could also come with a onetime opportunity to bond multiple ED’s in one TR (to help those invested in the current system to transfer to the new).

Option 2: Keep Epic Destiny XP System
When Epic TR-ing, a character selects one maxed out ED that he/she will acquire the Past Life feat for. This Epic Destiny is then flagged. (Starting out, you cannot get more than one copy of each ED’s past life feat.) The character then starts at level 1, but all ED XP is preserved at whatever levels it was at.

We are considering more than just these two options, but we thought you might like to know a bit about what we are currently thinking. Thanks again.

[Delacroix21]

Piolotto, can we also add a XP banking system at level cap that people can use towards a TR? Perhaps at a penalty due to quests offering more xp at those levels?


I want people to enjoy playing at the level cap rather than quickly TR. most of my friends play at cap and I hate leaving them to TR.


There isn't really "a choice" when it comes to TR. if you want bonus DCs and extra stat points its the only option available. Can we add alternative options?

[Cableman]

Option 1: XP “Bank” System
When Epic TR-ing, a character selects one ED to bond and then transfers all other ED XP into an XP Bank that can be used at any time to level through heroic levels. Example: A character has five maxed ED’s at level 28. They Epic TR, bond one ED, and then get roughly enough XP to take them back to level 20 in their new life and still have, let’s say, 1,000,000 XP left over to use in their following heroic life (to use at whatever level they want). This option could also come with a onetime opportunity to bond multiple ED’s in one TR (to help those invested in the current system to transfer to the new).


So you're going to reimburse Epic XP on a 1:1 scale even though Epic XP comes with about a 300% bonus? You will have people just farming Epic XP, cashing it in for Heroic just to run Epic again. Rinse, repeat and more than likely you will see your first epic completionist in less than a month.



Option 2: Keep Epic Destiny XP System
When Epic TR-ing, a character selects one maxed out ED that he/she will acquire the Past Life feat for. This Epic Destiny is then flagged. (Starting out, you cannot get more than one copy of each ED’s past life feat.) The character then starts at level 1, but all ED XP is preserved at whatever levels it was at.


Everyone will max their destiny's prior to U20 so that they can retain their power while leveling to 28. Maybe not as fast as the first option, unless epic advantage is included.

I'd say option 1 but only reimburse Epic XP on at a 33% rate.

[Drwaz99]

Actually "several" may be overstating when we are talking about maxing out all EDs. There is a good portion of players that focus on TR, and others that run only to cap picking up a couple ED's then roll an Alt. There are also casual players that don't play every week and take a very long time to take a character through content.

There are a lot of things to consider when we are adding to a system like TR that impacts so many play styles. I don't expect we will be able to put all the detail into dev posts, but we are trying to respond to the things that are causing the most concern.

Frankly, there was nothing in your post stating that heavily invested was to mean "maxed out destinies". Heavily invested isn't just some number of XP points. It's time played. Frustration dealt with since there is a ever widening gap between the XP needed to achieve 25 (and then the rest of the ED's if you so choose) and the availability of content (having to run the same stuff over and over and over)

If you have the statistics to tell me only a relatively small portion of the global population goes past their initial ED's on the way to 25, you must have the statistics on how certain quests are ran to "ease" the never-ending rug burn that is ED XP grinding.

Yes, you said you will "investigate" into easing the XP curves. Adjusting quest XP, etc, etc. Things that have been said for a long, long time and over and over with no fruition (House C challenges for one example). It's not hard to see why people are very skeptical. Especially when you post vague updates that might motivate some, but in reality contain no actual facts, just generalizations.

[redspecter23]

Option 1: XP “Bank” System
When Epic TR-ing, a character selects one ED to bond and then transfers all other ED XP into an XP Bank that can be used at any time to level through heroic levels. Example: A character has five maxed ED’s at level 28. They Epic TR, bond one ED, and then get roughly enough XP to take them back to level 20 in their new life and still have, let’s say, 1,000,000 XP left over to use in their following heroic life (to use at whatever level they want). This option could also come with a onetime opportunity to bond multiple ED’s in one TR (to help those invested in the current system to transfer to the new).

Option 2: Keep Epic Destiny XP System
When Epic TR-ing, a character selects one maxed out ED that he/she will acquire the Past Life feat for. This Epic Destiny is then flagged. (Starting out, you cannot get more than one copy of each ED’s past life feat.) The character then starts at level 1, but all ED XP is preserved at whatever levels it was at.

We are considering more than just these two options, but we thought you might like to know a bit about what we are currently thinking. Thanks again.

I think Option 1 seems like the way I'd prefer to see it happen, though others I'm sure will disagree. With 5 destinies maxed, that's an investment of just under 10 million destiny xp. In your example this translates into capping the next life at 20 with 1 million left over or 5.3 million heroic xp (assuming the xp curve remains the same). A 50% xp retention is rather fair considering that heroic xp/min is lower than epic xp/min typically. Any concern about time wasted on destiny xp is theoretically covered by this proposal, though you trade heroic grind out for destiny grind which was already ground out once before. The real deal maker here is the opportunity to bind multiple destines at once. More details would be necessary here. Are we talking all destinies? Or perhaps one sphere? Or just a couple? Is a past life awarded for each bonded destiny? Or will be be simply marking them so they don't disappear and each destiny must be worked on separately for a past life? Also is "epic advantage" still on the table with this proposal or is it scrapped in favor of this?

Option 2 will likely be the more popular option. No detrimental effect on epic destinies at all, but every life starts again at 1 and goes up to 28. Again, it would be important to know if epic advantage is still in effect or would the retention of all destiny xp make that unnecessary? This option ends up being more overall grind as there is no xp bank, but you also don't lose as much right off the start with your first epic TR.

Which option is "better" hinges on how your proposed one shot multiple binding works in option one and how epic advantage factors in.

[anatomyofaghost]

Hi.

Option 1: XP “Bank” System
When Epic TR-ing, a character selects one ED to bond and then transfers all other ED XP into an XP Bank that can be used at any time to level through heroic levels. Example: A character has five maxed ED’s at level 28. They Epic TR, bond one ED, and then get roughly enough XP to take them back to level 20 in their new life and still have, let’s say, 1,000,000 XP left over to use in their following heroic life (to use at whatever level they want). This option could also come with a onetime opportunity to bond multiple ED’s in one TR (to help those invested in the current system to transfer to the new).



You have 60 pages of posts telling you not to do this. You guys have this completely backwards; nobody ever, ever, in a million years or a thousand hells will ever want to regrind all of that XP over again unless the rewards were something absurdly overpowered and game-breaking, and we don't want that so let's all agree to not go there.

Instead of losing ALL their ED experience, why don't you do it this way: You "bond" one destiny during epic TR to yourself, and you lose all the XP in that destiny. Preferably, that would be a destiny you want to play as you level up in your next life. You keep all your other destinies intact, but can bank all the XP from your bonded destiny and count that towards your next life.

This way, you're only rolling one (or depending on how much XP we end up needing to recap with the increased max level, maybe this should be two EDs, your next life after that you can do two bonded EDs, a greater and a lesser, but likely no more than that) or two destinies over again, something to do while you level up, and hopefully most characters have at least two destinies they can make work for them. That to me seems like an acceptable trade-off for some extra power.

This way you get to keep this XP banking idea you seem to really want while not punishing everyone with the horrific grind that is leveling a useless ED for your class.

Now if you can just let us not have to purchase past life feats like Completionist...

Credit where credit is due bit: I think this idea or most of the basic outlines of it was proposed by someone earlier in this thread (but there's 60+ pages now and I can't find it), it's an amazing concept so credit to you good sir or madam! :P

[Carpone]

Option 2: Keep Epic Destiny XP System
When Epic TR-ing, a character selects one maxed out ED that he/she will acquire the Past Life feat for. This Epic Destiny is then flagged. (Starting out, you cannot get more than one copy of each ED’s past life feat.) The character then starts at level 1, but all ED XP is preserved at whatever levels it was at.
This option is reasonable. The other options presented so far are not acceptable.

[amnota]

Actually "several" may be overstating when we are talking about maxing out all EDs. There is a good portion of players that focus on TR, and others that run only to cap picking up a couple ED's then roll an Alt. There are also casual players that don't play every week and take a very long time to take a character through content.

There are a lot of things to consider when we are adding to a system like TR that impacts so many play styles. I don't expect we will be able to put all the detail into dev posts, but we are trying to respond to the things that are causing the most concern.

There are also players that have completionists that have been that way for 2 years plus and have max'd ED's. These players should not just be thrown under the bus.

[magn0liafan]

*edited for article/noun agreement


Hi.
Just wanted to touch base with you all again on this. Your feedback during this early stage of development for this system has definitely been helpful. And I’ll reiterate that because we are early in the process, we haven’t locked anything down. Now on to some additional info.

I find it reassuring to know that you are in the early stages of developing this process. This tells me that you are at the state where you have the highest capacity to flexibility.


We have multiple goals with a system like this, such as:
• Give players the new option of TR-ing at level cap.
• Give players more things to achieve with a high level TR type character (like epic destiny past life feats and build points).
• Allow Iconic Hero characters to use the reincarnation system.
• Optimize the system to help people have a good play experience. (This is a tough one, because there are different opinions on what a “good play experience” is, but this could mean giving incentives to concentrate on different Epic Destinies than were played in the previous life, for example.)
• And as a less design-oriented but equally important goal: If changes are needed that affect players’ current investment, compensate them for the changes.

So far, nothing is directly mentioned about the proposed changes toward Heroic True Reincarnation, which, from what I can tell, is the source of most of the negative reception of the original proposal. A definitive statement (read as a yes or no) on whether Heroic True Reincarnation (or for that matter, Lesser Reincarnation) will affect Epic Destinies will either A.)assuage the majority of those complaining about this change or B.)further infuriate the individuals who are opposed to these proposed changes to HEROIC True (and Lesser) Reincarnation, depending, of course, on whether the answer is "yes" or "no".


If we can arrive at a place in a given system where we can accomplish all or many of the goals in a way that is good for the game, short term and long term, then that’s a great solution. Many systems, however, are of sufficient complexity to make this a very interesting balancing act. But even with that complexity, it’s still possible to have a good solution. It just takes some time and iteration to get there. This was one of the reasons to start this thread and see what people thought about the new system and the first design proposal.

So, here’s some more info on a couple of options we are currently considering.

Option 1: XP “Bank” System
When Epic TR-ing, a character selects one ED to bond and then transfers all other ED XP into an XP Bank that can be used at any time to level through heroic levels. Example: A character has five maxed ED’s at level 28. They Epic TR, bond one ED, and then get roughly enough XP to take them back to level 20 in their new life and still have, let’s say, 1,000,000 XP left over to use in their following heroic life (to use at whatever level they want). This option could also come with a onetime opportunity to bond multiple ED’s in one TR (to help those invested in the current system to transfer to the new).

Option 2: Keep Epic Destiny XP System
When Epic TR-ing, a character selects one maxed out ED that he/she will acquire the Past Life feat for. This Epic Destiny is then flagged. (Starting out, you cannot get more than one copy of each ED’s past life feat.) The character then starts at level 1, but all ED XP is preserved at whatever levels it was at.

First, I would like to point out that since the descriptions of the options specifically deal with Epic TR, my responses are solely based on the idea of using these options solely for Epic TR. My main suggestion for Heroic TR or LR would be to leave them where they currently are.

While the first option isn't quite as bad as the original "ranks for levels" idea, some individuals may not see it as that great of a trade, unless if you were to conclusively include the part of this proposal dealing with the one time only option to bond multiple EDs and provide Epic Past Life feats for ALL bonded EDs with this option.

The second option is most likely going to be the better received of the two, depending on how you plan on re-balancing the XP grind for reincarnated characters. I do like the fact that the pre-expansion quests did add an option for those who might be having trouble with the 18-20 part of the Heroic Grind, and adding some content for this level range might be enough to sell this option entirely.


We are considering more than just these two options, but we thought you might like to know a bit about what we are currently thinking. Thanks again.

Again, I'm glad to hear some more definitive answers. Questions that I would suggest addressing, in order of importance would be:

1.)Will Epic Destinies be affected by Heroic TR?
2.)How will earned fate points be affected by this system?
3.)Do you have any content planned for a.)assisting players stuck in the level 18-20 range and b.)for characters levels 25-28? If so, do you have a time table for that content?

Thank you for demonstrating your awareness of the forumite feedback.