Past Life Feats

[jskinner937]

I am sure I am not alone in saying that the bought past life feats are becomming harder and harder to take with the introduction of EDs because so many have pre req feats.

What I propose is allow a TR the ability to use a free feat selection at level 3 to obtain a past life feat. I think this would alleviate most of the issues with feat starved builds to obtain feats they so rightfully earned. Additionally I believe a 14th life toon should have earned an addional free feat slot at lvl 3 so they can fit their even more deserved completionist feat.

This suggestion will certainly not unbalance the game but in its current state, however it may provide enough incentive for a player to want to TR or achieve completionist. Afterall the most appealing aspect of DDO is that after you grind out your gear and cap your toon, there is still a way to make it better. Unless you have done all the above plus levelled 40 lives :P.

[Jaid314]

I am sure I am not alone in saying that the bought past life feats are becomming harder and harder to take with the introduction of EDs because so many have pre req feats.

What I propose is allow a TR the ability to use a free feat selection at level 3 to obtain a past life feat. I think this would alleviate most of the issues with feat starved builds to obtain feats they so rightfully earned. Additionally I believe a 14th life toon should have earned an addional free feat slot at lvl 3 so they can fit their even more deserved completionist feat.

This suggestion will certainly not unbalance the game but in its current state, however it may provide enough incentive for a player to want to TR or achieve completionist. Afterall the most appealing aspect of DDO is that after you grind out your gear and cap your toon, there is still a way to make it better. Unless you have done all the above plus levelled 40 lives :P.

....

and by "so many" you mean... ummm... "none" i take it?

there are some that get better with certain feats that may not have been previously taken, i suppose. and by "some" in this case, i mean "one", that being legendary dreadnought.

the rest of them don't require feats to use their abilities at all, as far as i can tell, and merely benefit from feats that in general would have been taken before EDs came around anyways (for example, it is absurd to claim that you need all the defense feats because unyielding sentinel exists now... you would have wanted them on a defensive build before anyways, that's not new in the slightest).

[jskinner937]

Pardon I meant to say EDs and Epic Levels. I am referring to most every epic feat as in so many. Thanks for the catch.

[Aashrym]

I prefer the idea of tough choices to simply giving everyone more feats. Handing out more feats makes the choices easier while taking something away from classes who already get bonus feats as a class feature (and also removes some splashing benefits of those same classes).

It's pretty easy to get bonus feats by splashing fighter, monk, or a level of wizard; possibly ranger for some builds.

I would also add that some builds will have more feats available due to PrE feat prereq's lightening up if/when we see that change hit the system.

I would have to go with a /not signed on the suggestion.

[Musouka]

I prefer the idea of tough choices to simply giving everyone more feats.

That's how I see it. It's just like a FvS that wants to be more melee. You make those tough decisions and reduce your other capabilities for it. You shouldn't be able to just be a master at everything.

[Jaid314]

for most anyone that isn't aiming for ridiculous feats just because they decided they want them, you've actually got more feats for the most part.

basically, if you don't get this crazy fixation on having overwhelming critical just because you've convinced yourself you "need" it, you should be fine.

well, except for maybe spell-based CC bards. but there's so much more wrong with them than just difficult feat selections, giving them another feat slot on a second or later life won't help that much anyways.

[jskinner937]

Whille I 100% agree with keeping choices tough to keep a build on a specific path and not exploiting the game/builds, I don't think own discussion is in the same place. What I am talking about is only providing a free feat at level 3 that can be used for only a bought past life feat such as how the helf dilly or special class feats are selected. If you think about it, there are only a few of these and almost all are not worth taking at all save a few select classes. But what they do is offer you a little flavor of the class you leveled and earned the opportunity to buy. Some examples of what I am saying. Maybe you levelled a cleric 1st life and decided to try a melee so you reroll a barbarian. Well you would now have the opportunity to cast a cure spell on yourself 10 times per rest. You would never have bought that feat before, because well frankly it sucks, but if you could select it for free, its kind of cool. Afterall almost all bought pls suck for most builds because they are really just a clickie that you don't have to waste an inventory slot on most of the time and if your build it makes sense your gonna take it anyways.

[Musouka]

/not signed

TRing already has benefits. You get a free passive feat. I don't care what your opinion on passive feats are, that's not the issue. They allow you to train a feat that is substantially better than the passive one. That is enough reward.

[jskinner937]

A clicky is substantially better how so? Save barbarian what other pl feat would be ecven considered universally by any class.

[Aashrym]

A clicky is substantially better how so? Save barbarian what other pl feat would be ecven considered universally by any class.

That's no different than regular feats. Most feats are not universally considered by any class, with the odd exception. Past lives provide a passive option plus more choices in feat selection. Adding free feats on top of free feats just to get more of the active feats isn't necessary.

If any active past life feats need a buff to be worth a slot that would be a different story. A different suggestion to that scenario would also be the appropriate resolution; IE how to buff a weak past life feat.

[jskinner937]

I definitely do not agree with buffing the feats at all. That would make completionist even less desireable.

[jskinner937]

So I always see a lot of hate on these forums for past life feat changes. I always wonder how many TRs have the haters grinded. Well I will list my toons on Thelanis just so you know where I am personally coming from.

Fizzymadizzy currently 10th life lvl 18 Druid (400k to heroic cap) Completionist project although I likely won't buy the feat. I am only doing for the goal I originally set when I started the game.

Shizzymadizzy currently 3rd life lvl 25 FVS

Whoodini currently 3rd life lvl 18 druid (500k to heroic cap)

Boarshead currently 3rd life lvl 25 Barbarian

FeelgoodMD currently 1st life Bard

[psykopeta]

So I always see a lot of hate on these forums for past life feat changes. I always wonder how many TRs have the haters grinded. Well I will list my toons on Thelanis just so you know where I am personally coming from.

Fizzymadizzy currently 10th life lvl 18 Druid (400k to heroic cap) Completionist project although I likely won't buy the feat. I am only doing for the goal I originally set when I started the game.

Shizzymadizzy currently 3rd life lvl 25 FVS

Whoodini currently 3rd life lvl 18 druid (500k to heroic cap)

Boarshead currently 3rd life lvl 25 Barbarian

FeelgoodMD currently 1st life Bard

sometimes you see hate, sometimes envy, and sometimes any1 with brain asking for not doping everything

DDO has a really big trouble, and it's called NUMBERS! too high numbers, ddo is getting closer to WOW with aspects like that, and ppl asking for nerfs to other classes and boosts for ones'

11th life actually, now compare our joining date, ah, from thelanis too (actually in a 8 members guild) so IMHO if
i have to understand something from you typing your tr, is that you wanna get boosted cause like you said before: you aren't interested in active feat, you want powerful passive feats

by "powerful order" ED>passive PL>completionist>active PL

while a logical order would be completionist>ED>active PL>passive PL

why? mainly a reason to do 14 lives (13 +last life), later a reason to farm 21M XP (some ppl do it in one life, gamification has made huge damage to mmorpg), later a reason to spend a feat in a PL instead of a common feat, and the latest, a reason to simply tr (active should be stronger than passive because you have to choose where others don't, actually there's no choice, simply ignore PL except barb's one depending classes)

that's how it should be from my PoV, there should be a real reason to grind all that time (the more time you spend the more powerful you are)

but now there's a trouble!! what should be more powerful? a player who grinds gear, scrolls, commendations, epic elite version, etc etc ransacking or even exploiting game loot mechanics? or the player who crafts 4-5 things (i haven't crafted/grinded a **** yet, thanks for asking) and repeats the tr route like mad?

IMHO both should get the biggest **** you can find in ddo, grinding/farming it's on the opposite way of pnp, dunno why they are rewarded for this

PS: 11th life, 3clr, 3fvs, 3 wiz, 1 sorc, actually lvl 6 sorc. objective? since DDO allows me to TR there's no reason to stay at high lvl and grind like ********, and get bored of the game cause it, or cry because in the next update/pack there's stuff far far better (if lates packs/updates have worse gear than previous ones, i would leave the game, ppl farm what they want for gamification, not for real benefit) like has ever been in every mmorpg, at least this way i get busy, remember that games are hobbies where we waste our time w/o real benefit(when you get excited we can talk about addiction), so you can say i've played 11 different games, because i don't repeat much quests, it's boring and dumbass, play for fun, not play for win, because... winning against who? rofl

so... should PL feats, active/passive, and completionist get boosted? not really, all DDO should be nerfed, there's no sense on nuking for 10k damage a boss with 300k when your hp is less than 1k hp, and hey... w/o dying 1 time !!! lol

it's a clear destruction of pnp core, if the mob has the same lvl than you, he has a real close hp, skills, feats, etc etc not only meat bags you know?

if want devs to do something useful for game, nerf everything in DDO to make it closer to pnp, in that case, the ACTUAL passive and active PL, and completionist, would worth the effort

PS: no, not completionist because i don't see a reason to get it, so if i get it, will be triple completionist. When? IDC, not playing for the completionist feat, not even for the PL, simply enjoying the game and getting gear through lives (and 1 ED/life, will be a pity when i have em all, because will have to get tokens wasting my ED xp U_U) prolly will end in 3 years or so, prolly before 3 years DDO will disappear, is it harmful for me? no, just wasting time playing, not getting real benefits so prolly will change to another game, recover an old one, etc etc

what i cannot understand is why are players so worried about the pl, gear, difficulties, endgame (interesting concept in a RPG, cause IMHO D&D is 1 rpg, GW, NWN and WOW are arcade, as an example) and don't care about how turbine is treating like dogs to their customers

i guess that being "the most powerful player in a game with less than 100k players" (in fact i would say less than 10k, but dunno) is an achievement in the life, dunno which life, cause at the same time this person in the real life is being hard ****ed by old fashioned business politicies, and hey!! that's ok because other have done it before! rofl

m2c

[FranOhmsford]

Sorry but whenever this subject comes up I read the same arguments against boosting active past lives:

1. Basically that they are good enough as is!

This is tosh - Active Past Lives are {in the main} an absolute joke that you never see in any Build requirements on these forums {although you do regularly see Gear and Stats that a 1st or even 2nd life toon would find almost impossible to get}.

The Barb Past life is an exception - But really does nothing more than replace Toughness {and it has come up in a couple of threads recently that it's still better to have Toughness at end-game now anyway}.


2. The second argument against boosting active past lives is that they'd become OP!

Again = Tosh!
They just need to be boosted to a level where they actually become a viable alternative to whatever feat would have been taken!


3. Giving Active Past Life feat Free is OP!

If they stay as is then this is also Tosh!

Past Life - Warrior of the Wild - You recall more about your past life as a ranger. You have +2 to your Spot skill and can produce a Barkskin effect three times per rest. (Activate this ranger ability to toughen the skin of an ally, giving a +2 natural armor bonus to AC with an additional +1 bonus for every 3 caster levels above 3rd, to a maximum of +5 at caster level 12th.)

Past Life - Student of Artifice - You recall more about your past life as an artificer. When you use a rod, staff, or wand, you have a 15% chance to retain essence and not expend a charge, and can produce an Enchant Armor or Enchant Weapons effect a total of ten times per rest. (Activate this artificer ability to increase the Enhancement Bonus of your target's currently equipped weapons or shields by 1, or to increase the Enhancement Bonus of your target's currently equipped armor by 1. An item can have only one temporary item enchantment at a time.)

Past Life - Soldier of the Faith - You recall more about your past life as a paladin. You have +2 to your Heal skill, and can invoke Divine Favor upon yourself 3 times per rest. (Activate this paladin ability to call upon the strength and wisdom of a deity to grant a +1 luck bonus on weapon attack and damage. This bonus is increased by +1 for every 3 caster levels beyond level 3, maximum +3 luck bonus. About 2 minutes per use.)

Yes there's also the Wizard, Sorc, Monk, Past lives which do have more use as is But still aren't worth taking for those classes on subsequent lives over feats they've taken already.


If you like - The devs could make it so Fighters don't get this free bonus feat as they have more than enough already.
For every other class in the game - It should {in my opinion} be made available!

[soulaeon]

the rest of them don't require feats to use their abilities at all, as far as i can tell, and merely benefit from feats that in general would have been taken before EDs came around anyways (for example, it is absurd to claim that you need all the defense feats because unyielding sentinel exists now... you would have wanted them on a defensive build before anyways, that's not new in the slightest).

Draconic Incarnation requires two feats. Magister requires two feats.
No, we most certainly would not have taken a spell focus feat if we did not have to, and this is demonstrated particularly when they changed sorcerer savant prerequisites to include an active past life feat, because most of us took those so that we did not need to take any spell foci.
Almost half of Magister requires at least one feat. If you do not have a feat, that tree is totally worthless for anything other than twisting.
This is why I and others want active past life feats to count as requirements for destiny prerequisite feats.

What I propose is allow a TR the ability to use a free feat selection at level 3 to obtain a past life feat. I think this would alleviate most of the issues with feat starved builds to obtain feats they so rightfully earned. Additionally I believe a 14th life toon should have earned an addional free feat slot at lvl 3 so they can fit their even more deserved completionist feat.

No