Epic Destinies

[sirgog]

The CRs of current epic content will vary based on their overall difficulty such that it affects the amount of XP awarded. That said, the Epic Elite will not vary per dungeon (this would require a substantial amount of dev time that we would prefer to spend on new content).

So just to clarify that:

You'll use feedback from players, completion speeds, successful completion rate, monster stats and your own gut feelings to say that, say, the present live server version Epic Bargain of Blood (arguably the easiest epic) is CR 21 and present live Epic Servants of the Overlord (arguably the hardest 6-player epic) is CR 25.

Then you'll adjust mob stats so that 'new epic hard' BoB has similar but slightly lower mob/trap stats and call it a CR 20 or 21 dungeon, and do the same for 'new epic hard' SOTO and call it a CR 24 dungeon. CR 37 Drow Warriors might fall to CR 35, losing ~10% HP, 2 SR, 1-2 to each save, 4-5 points of To-Hit, and have damage dice dropped from (guessing here) 4d12 to 4d10. A trap that is DC 49 for ~320 damage (Lords of Dust epic blade traps) might become DC 46 for ~270 damage. And a boss with ~90000hp (Crateos in Snitch) might have a haircut to 70000.

And for 'new epic elite' you'll be across-the-board upping mob stats in a similar fashion rather than adding new 'surprises' like the Dread Hex Wraiths in Wiz-King?

(AFK, plotting XP farming strategies for Epic Claw of Vulkoor...)

[shadereaper33]

Getting additional epic destinies unlocked is more enjoyable if you are already at level 25.

You can group with other 25's and not worry about losing xp -50% for 4 levels under if you are 21 or no xp if you are still 20.

ML 25 weapons and gear available to you.

Level 22 and up content can still be run at elite for no xp loss so its not like you are really limiting your xp options that much.

So, if they were to get rid of the power leveling penalty once you hit 20, as well as the over level penalty, would you still have the problem with re-running the content? A lot of this discussion is based upon personal preference, which means that making it fair and enjoyable for all parties will be difficult at best. Personally, I like the actual leveling process, and would be greatly dismayed if levels 21-25 were just handed to me on a TR. Another question I have for those of you on the other side of the discussion, Would you be making the same arguments if they changed the TR requirement from level 20 to level 25?

[MadFloyd]

So just to clarify that:

You'll use feedback from players, completion speeds, successful completion rate, monster stats and your own gut feelings to say that, say, the present live server version Epic Bargain of Blood (arguably the easiest epic) is CR 21 and present live Epic Servants of the Overlord (arguably the hardest 6-player epic) is CR 25.

Then you'll adjust mob stats so that 'new epic hard' BoB has similar but slightly lower mob/trap stats and call it a CR 20 or 21 dungeon, and do the same for 'new epic hard' SOTO and call it a CR 24 dungeon. CR 37 Drow Warriors might fall to CR 35, losing ~10% HP, 2 SR, 1-2 to each save, 4-5 points of To-Hit, and have damage dice dropped from (guessing here) 4d12 to 4d10. A trap that is DC 49 for ~320 damage (Lords of Dust epic blade traps) might become DC 46 for ~270 damage. And a boss with ~90000hp (Crateos in Snitch) might have a haircut to 70000.

And for 'new epic elite' you'll be across-the-board upping mob stats in a similar fashion rather than adding new 'surprises' like the Dread Hex Wraiths in Wiz-King?

(AFK, plotting XP farming strategies for Epic Claw of Vulkoor...)

Something like that, yes.

[shadereaper33]

Oh the answer is simple, grinding all the content at 25 is way more enjoyable than grinding them at 21, 22, or 23.

Well, to counter this, I enjoy grinding content more while I am still leveling rather than while I am level cap. That said, our two views on this completely contradict each other. At the risk of being too snarky, why should turbine cater to your desires more than mine, or conversely, why should they cater to my desires more than yours? Honestly, if we are going to have a productive discussion about this topic, you have to bring more to the table than simply "I want this, because I think its more fun".

[Cetus]

Can you elaborate on this?

Its a psychological reason for me. Why get completionist? Why triple out on past lives? Why acquire all the epic gear? Why applaud the tome retention change?

The answer is that I feel very satisfied when I take my completionist fully decked out epic fighter into epic lord of blades and know that I gave my 100%. Even if I fail, I have no excuse.

Doing content at levels 21, 22, 23, or 24 that can be done at 25 with the knowledge that I am being forced to go through this grind *again* is infuriating.

There is just no reason to have to do the grind to unlock all of your epic destiny's at anything under level 25 other than that some of you developers find it unacceptable to have your epic levels get retained because you decide to TR.

Think of the tome retention. We are TR'ing and get punished for it by losing our hard earned tomes. Now, we are TR'ing and getting punished for it partially by losing our epic level xp. We gain nothing in return to level 21-25 any amount of extra time, and therefore spend more time away from the peak of your power.

Thats just the way I feel.

[danotmano1998]

So how does Epic Destinies relate to Epic Levels?

If I have all my destinies unlocked, then TR...
At 21, do I have full epic destiny powers, and the ability to unlock more?

I understand lvls 21-25 you get the feats, skills(maybe), etc..

But are the destinies woven with levels like the current Action Points are?
So you have to be lvl 22 for this power, 23 for that one, etc?

[shadereaper33]

Its a psychological reason for me. Why get completionist? Why triple out on past lives? Why acquire all the epic gear? Why applaud the tome retention change?

The answer is that I feel very satisfied when I take my completionist fully decked out epic fighter into epic lord of blades and know that I gave my 100%. Even if I fail, I have no excuse.

Doing content at levels 21, 22, 23, or 24 that can be done at 25 with the knowledge that I am being forced to go through this grind *again* is infuriating.

There is just no reason to have to do the grind to unlock all of your epic destiny's at anything under level 25 other than that some of you developers find it unacceptable to have your epic levels get retained because you decide to TR.

Think of the tome retention. We are TR'ing and get punished for it by losing our hard earned tomes. Now, we are TR'ing and getting punished for it partially by losing our epic level xp. We gain nothing in return to level 21-25 any amount of extra time, and therefore spend more time away from the peak of your power.

Thats just the way I feel.

Based on that argument, why even add epic levels at all? Why not keep the level cap at 20 and simply add the epic destiny system? Or if you do add the epic levels, why not just give everyone level 25 automatically? I understand that this is your opinion, and you are fully entitled to it, but from my perspective it sounds like a very selfish outlook. If you find grinding out 21-25 more than once to infuriating, then why do it more than once? Why not just go 1-20, TR, 1-20, TR over and over until you have all your past lives and then go 20-25? It seems like that would fix your issue without requiring the devs to completely change the way they have the epic levels set up.

[Cetus]

Well, to counter this, I enjoy grinding content more while I am still leveling rather than while I am level cap. That said, our two views on this completely contradict each other. At the risk of being too snarky, why should turbine cater to your desires more than mine, or conversely, why should they cater to my desires more than yours? Honestly, if we are going to have a productive discussion about this topic, you have to bring more to the table than simply "I want this, because I think its more fun".

Thats fair enough, which is why you can grind the content til your hearts content if you would like to, and just hold your levels or do them at a slower pace. You have that OPTION.

You get what you want that way.

If I am forced to grind through the levels, I don't have the OPTION of leaping to endgame because I have to repeat the stuff I've already done.

See what happens? With this current implementation, you get what you want, I don't get what I want. You win.

With my suggestion, your ability to grind the stuff while leveling is open to you, and my ability to get to the end stuff is open to me. We both win.

[Cetus]

Based on that argument, why even add epic levels at all? Why not keep the level cap at 20 and simply add the epic destiny system? Or if you do add the epic levels, why not just give everyone level 25 automatically? I understand that this is your opinion, and you are fully entitled to it, but from my perspective it sounds like a very selfish outlook. If you find grinding out 21-25 more than once to infuriating, then why do it more than once? Why not just go 1-20, TR, 1-20, TR over and over until you have all your past lives and then go 20-25? It seems like that would fix your issue without requiring the devs to completely change the way they have the epic levels set up.

My goodness, I'll repeat it again:

We get no benefit regrinding epic levels, epic destinys can be completed in their entirety without the use of a single heart, tr'ing has nothing to do with them.

Everytime I go 1-20, I get a carrot for it.

See the difference?

Why have levels 20-25? To use min level 25 gear, to get extra feats, to possibly do level restricted epic raids a 20 cannot...many reasons, that has nothing to do with my argument.

I don't want to be given level 25 automatically. I'd love to take the journey to 25. I'd hate to the journey each and every time I tr.

See the difference?

[TreknaQudane]

So... when can we see one of these things?

[shadereaper33]

Thats fair enough, which is why you can grind the content til your hearts content if you would like to, and just hold your levels or do them at a slower pace. You have that OPTION.

You get what you want that way.

If I am forced to grind through the levels, I don't have the OPTION of leaping to endgame because I have to repeat the stuff I've already done.

See what happens? With this current implementation, you get what you want, I don't get what I want. You win.

With my suggestion, your ability to grind the stuff while leveling is open to you, and my ability to get to the end stuff is open to me. We both win.

Right, but your suggestion is to auto level people to 25 once they hit 20. With that implementation, I don't have the ability to go through and level, because I get auto leveled to 25 once I hit 20 again. I get that you like to play end game, and thats your thing, but I personally don't feel that because you like playing endgame is any justification be able to arbitrarily skip content you don't want to do again. If that were the case, then I would ask for the ability to skip from level 12 to 16 every life, because I dislike that level range and hate having to do it every life.

[Cetus]

Right, but your suggestion is to auto level people to 25 once they hit 20. With that implementation, I don't have the ability to go through and level, because I get auto leveled to 25 once I hit 20 again. I get that you like to play end game, and thats your thing, but I personally don't feel that because you like playing endgame is any justification be able to arbitrarily skip content you don't want to do again. If that were the case, then I would ask for the ability to skip from level 12 to 16 every life, because I dislike that level range and hate having to do it every life.

I'm suggesting it to autolevel me to 25 once I have already reached 25 before and decided to tr.

I don't sense from your post that you got that part of it. I'm NOT asking for a free ride in no way shape or form.

And again, the heroic levels have no relevance because theres a **** carrot when you hit 20. Theres no carrot when you hit 25 a subsequent time. I think I need alcohol.

[danotmano1998]

When you TR, you have to do levels 1-20 again, why not 21-25?

[shadereaper33]

My goodness, I'll repeat it again:

We get no benefit regrinding epic levels, epic destinys can be completed in their entirety without the use of a single heart, tr'ing has nothing to do with them.

Everytime I go 1-20, I get a carrot for it.

See the difference?

Why have levels 20-25? To use min level 25 gear, to get extra feats, to possibly do level restricted epic raids a 20 cannot...many reasons, that has nothing to do with my argument.

I don't want to be given level 25 automatically. I'd love to take the journey to 25. I'd hate to the journey each and every time I tr.

See the difference?

No, I don't. You say that you hate the idea of taking the 20-25 journey every life, but yet you seem fine with the 1-20 journey every life. I honestly don't understand why those two aspects are different. I was having a conversation with LeLoric earlier, and we came to an agreement about adding some sort of xp bonus for TRing above level 20, which would give people a reason to do the 20-25 run each life if they wanted.

I bring this up to ask you this: Is it the journey itself that you hate, or the lack of a perceived reward for it that bothers you? If it s the former, then I really don't see anything that can be done to accommodate you that would be fair and give everyone the chance to play the game the way they want to, eventually. I get that you just want to be able to skip to end game, but even if you have to do the 20-25 run every life, you will still be able to play at end game, it will just take a bit longer to get there. From my perspective, that is no different than not being able to do current end game content after TRing and leveling to 15 right now.

Ultimately, is there anything that can be done from your point of view to make the 20-25 stretch less "infuriating" without implementing a system to just outright skip the content and get free levels?

[BitkaCK2]

Okay,
I get it. Y'all want your carrot cake and eat it too. However the very essence of TR is a new life. Starting from scratch. Zero XP. Past life 'memories' aka feats and coming back a little stronger is the carrot. This is the only carrot TR ever promised. If you choose you can pursue epic levels and gain a new and different carrot called epic destinies. If you choose to explore epic levels to its max (aka level 25) and decide to TR to fix some imperfection so be it. You get carrot #1. You also get carrot #2 when you reach the appropriate level to access it. I don't see any logic to a 'new life' after re-completing it's heroic leveling sitting around a campfire, suddenly realizing, "Oh yea, I remember this one time in epic band camp..." and *poof* you're level 25 with full and instant access to you're previous destinies.

As I posted here attrition should speed up the 21-25 leveling process. I'm sorry you are concerned with what to do in the time off between TRing but I suspect almost any cure would be worse than the symptoms. The suggested XP bonuses for TR could introduce a similar rift between casual and min/max players that the 'elite BB LFM' did. It's a different leveling system. We can't see the benefits of leveling to 25 then TRing yet because it's not possible yet. Again, attrition through epic destinies, twists of fate and gear may make this whole discussion moot.

Still taking it all in but it seems to me epic levels and destinies are a completely new and different carrot from the TR one and should be kept separate. Time will tell.

bitkaCK2

[Auran82]

Random suggestion regarding 21-25 and TRing.

Epic Vet Status
Able to acquire 4 times.
For each copy of this feat you have, you may automatically gain 1 epic level when you reach level 20.

Gained upon reaching level 25, once you level 1 - 25 4 times, once you hit 20 you will automatically be able to level to 24. Still leaves you part of the way to go, but gives people incentive to go all the way to 25 on each life, and allows you to be able to run some end game content before you TR again if you so wish.

[shadereaper33]

I'm suggesting it to autolevel me to 25 once I have already reached 25 before and decided to tr.

I don't sense from your post that you got that part of it. I'm NOT asking for a free ride in no way shape or form.

And again, the heroic levels have no relevance because theres a **** carrot when you hit 20. Theres no carrot when you hit 25 a subsequent time. I think I need alcohol.

So, if getting autoleveled to 25 after TRing isn't asking for a free ride, what is? Heroic levels absolutely have a relevance here, because the whole argument is based around heroic levels being different from epic levels. If heroic levels had no relevance, then you would simply be asking for 5 free levels every life because you already got them last life.

[Cetus]

[QUOTE=shadereaper33;4437314]
I bring this up to ask you this: Is it the journey itself that you hate, or the lack of a perceived reward for it that bothers you? [QUOTE]

If you actually read my posts, the answer to this question is extremely apparent.

[Cyr]

Can you elaborate on this?

Whenever a person makes a decision in game they look at the benefits and the costs.

The benefits of TRs are going down in a relative manner with the level cap increase (more powerful gear and toons means every +1 to damage means less of a % increase in damage).

The cost is also going up with the cost of releveling to epic cap if you are there already. You can talk about still gaining and keeping epic destiny xp and that is an offset, but it is not a full offset. Nor is it really a 'good deal' as like with TRs the benefits of getting more and more epic destinies upto level 5 will be a diminishing return. It seems unlikly that many barbarians will care if they have the arcane and divine lines unlocked fully for example.

So you have less relative benefit and more cost then before when making that decision to TR. That is clearly the result of this design.

[JOTMON]

ONly thing i can think of is dont TR your epic toons.. just do a completionist no need too do epic there then once you have it , do a epic toon.. and BTW i like your PM build i have one still working on some gear Ty

or as a completionist you decide you are done and go all epic levels to 25...

Then a new class gets released now you lose your completionist feat and have to TR to grind out the new life and the epic levels to get back to where you were.

A non-epic completionist TR's with no regard to regrinding epic levels or someone who was at level 21 now and is forced into TR'ing to regain completionist loses nothing compared to the ground that has to be regained for a epic 25 completionist.

What happened to Epic levels being separated from normal Heroic levels and not affecting TR'ing.

I can see taking a different path for epic destinies requiring XP as it is a new path, but forcing to regrind XP for a competionist who has to take the new class then retake his original class that he wanted and has to regrind the epic XP for the same epic destiny path he has already taken.. A melee tank who has earned all the melee destinies likely has no use for Epic Destiny spell pen from a caster line so it would be pointless to grind out useless destiny paths.

I am not a completionist and I have issues with it. I feel sorry for anyone who decides they want to become a completionist after this or is in the middle of their journey.

That being said it really has nothing to do with the tr process itself. You could just go lev to 20 and rinse repeat enoucgh lives and be fine.

The issue lies with those that want to tr and not necessarily start another tr right away they will either be stuck in limbo at lev 20 or have to do additional leveling to be able to play end game content.

May as well make Move the TR bar to level 25.
All pre-exisitng Completionists and previous past lives get grandfathered, all new TR's now have to reach 25 to TR.
This way everyone going forward is on the same playing field.
Instead of those who wont level beyond 20 because they are are planning to TR and gain no benefit for going beyond 20.

Or

Introduce Epic TR past lives perks (carrots).