Epic Level & Iconic TR

[Glin]

I am excited to start sharing our plans for the future of the Reincarnation system! Later this year (targeting Update 20) we look forward to introducing two new TR destinations, Epic Destiny True Reincarnation and Iconic True Reincarnation. We’ve got some minor improvements involving Lesser and Greater Reincarnation in store, as well.


We’ve seen a number of questions and discussions about TR, Iconics, and the TR / end-game gap. For the expansion pack, we are focused on ensuring that the new races are fun and playable, the content is fun and beautiful, and that the enhancement system changes launch as expected! With that, we plan to build out the TR system later in the year. The team is also taking the time to get your early feedback as the designers and engineers lock down feature plans. - How does this fit (or change) your playstyle? Read on for details, then let us know!

A few goals for Epic Destiny TR:

• Extend Reincarnation system to allow for 38-point builds
• Include Epic Destinies in the TR cycle (with Epic Destiny Past Life Feats)
• Reward you for additional investment in Epic Destinies (with starting ranks after TR)
• Adjust the XP curve in Epic levels for multi-life TR to avoid the dramatic escalating grind
• Include Iconics in the TR cycle (with Iconic Past Life Feats)
• Allow you to TR into and out of Iconics (if you own Iconics)

How does this system look in practice?

Heroic True Reincarnation

• Heroic TR remains primarily unchanged at level 20 or above
• Grants a Class Past Life Feat that can stack up to 3x
• Adds 2 build points up to a 36 point build
• Benefits from the Epic Advantage if you earn Epic Destinies before TR (below)

Epic Destiny True Reincarnation

• Can be taken at Level Cap (Level 28 with Shadowfell Conspiracy)
• Grants an Epic Destiny Past Life Feat
  
  • Feat based on active, maximized Epic Destiny
  
  
• Karmic Bond -The active ED’s experience is now bonded through each ED True Reincarnation going forward
• Grants a Class Past Life Feat (same as Heroic TR)
• You must have a maximized, non-bonded ED to complete this TR
• Adds 2 build points up to a 38 point build

Epic Advantage


With any type of True Reincarnation, all Epic Destiny Levels earned will give you an advantage when you rebuild your character, by converting Destiny Levels into Heroic Ranks. Every level of Epic Destiny you have earned will count toward ranks earned for your next life. (Epic Destinies will not carry over to your next life, except those destinies that you have bonded in previous lives with ED TR.)

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

What else?

Here are some changes we’re currently exploring:

• Reincarnation cooldown timer reduced to 3 days.
• Reincarnation XP curves smoothed to ease penalties for multiple lives.
• Lesser Reincarnation will allow a Heroic character to reincarnate as a Champion. Greater Reincarnation will no longer be sold, in favor of an improved Lesser Reincarnation.
• Iconic characters will be able to Lesser Reincarnate

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.


Our sincere intentions are to provide these features to you, and the DDO community at large. We invite you response to these details and thank you for your support and fortitude while we roll these changes out in support of this year’s expansion pack. The team is thrilled that DDO continues to grow, innovate, and provide a great D&D experience.

[Charononus]

Complete failure, I'd never ever want to grind out all my ed's again and it sounds like I'd only be able to bond one per tr. This means I'd have to regrind the entire mess of xp out without the nice easy farm of id and rusted blades. Your proposal sounds like it completely kills tr'ing.

[Gratch]

Wow... that's a lot of info. Any chance of a few examples?
If a Legend FVS20/L28 all destinies maxed set with Exalted does an ED TR... do they restart as:
38 pts, add FVS Past Life Feat, add Exalted Past Life Feat and they get heroic XP equal to 11x5 ED ranks... so rank 55 heroic? Or did I misread?

Doesn't look like it changes the heroic completionist feat at all.

So there's now an iconic past life heroic autogrant feat for TR'ing an iconic and an ED past life epic autogrant feat for TR'ing an epic? Does the ED feat stack 3x as well? Need to reread all this.

[Fnordian]

Lesser Reincarnation will allow a Heroic character to reincarnate as a Champion. Greater Reincarnation will no longer be sold, in favor of an improved Lesser Reincarnation.

I'm 100% in favor of this change to Lesser Reincarnation and really hope it's implemented!

Most of the new additions and other changes sound good too, except for losing all accumulated ED XP which would make it undesirable in most instances to ever TR except where no EDs have been gained yet (i.e., almost immediately upon reaching level 20, with no previous EDs).

Given that the ED system, from the beginning, kept ED XP intact if a character chose to TR, any change that resets ED XP to 0 (even in exchange for other bonuses) really should be optional, and will almost certainly result in a greatly diminished number of TRs, which in turn will almost certainly result in a decline in active players. The proposed bonus to Heroic ranks, while an interesting idea, doesn't sound like a fair or worthwhile trade for losing all ED XP.

Perhaps some compromise could be reached, such as an option to trade in a single chosen ED for a past life ED feat with the Epic TR. Even then, the past life feat would need to be quite exceptional to be worth giving up an already-earned ED. I imagine some sort of bonus to that ED (if re-acquired) or other EDs that increases their power or utility would make sense.

[SisAmethyst]

Epic Advantage

With any type of True Reincarnation, all Epic Destiny Levels earned will give you an advantage when you rebuild your character, by converting Destiny Levels into Heroic Ranks. Every level of Epic Destiny you have earned will count toward ranks earned for your next life. (Epic Destinies will not carry over to your next life, except those destinies that you have bonded in previous lives with ED TR.)

Wait wait wait, do I get this right we suddenly loose our Epic Destiny progress when we TR? You mean the fact that some players TRed at level 25 to already unlock other Destinies will suddenly get the short end? I can't say I am very fond of that idea. Or do you expect that we first start to Epic TR to bond them so we not loose our progress on reincarnation? So all players that already unlocked all of them and invested fate points would loose everything? Or do I miss something?

[MrkGrismer]

Complete failure, I'd never ever want to grind out all my ed's again and it sounds like I'd only be able to bond one per tr. This means I'd have to regrind the entire mess of xp out without the nice easy farm of id and rusted blades. Your proposal sounds like it completely kills tr'ing.

I am not sure they are saying that you loose the ED xp. It is possible that the "Karmic Bond" is just to 'check off' a maximized ED solely for the purposes of it being used to add 'ranks' to your TR. If so, that would mean that with each epic TR you would have to make a different maxed ED active right before your TR in order to get the bonus ranks.

I think more clarification on this would be helpful. If it works as you are reading it (and I am hopeing the "Epic Destinies will not carry over to your next life, except those destinies that you have bonded in previous lives with ED TR." is a misprint), where you loose ALL ED experience except for the bonded ED then I would agree that it would be a FAIL.

[Charononus]

Wait wait wait, do I get this right we suddenly loose our Epic Destiny progress when we TR? You mean the fact that some players TRed at level 25 to already unlock other Destinies will suddenly get the short end? I can't say I am very fond of that idea. Or do you expect that we first start to Epic TR to bond them so we not loose our progress on reincarnation? So all players that already unlocked all of them and invested fate points would loose everything? Or do I miss something?

That's the way I read it too, horrible situation.

[Charononus]

I am not sure they are saying that you loose the ED xp. It is possible that the "Karmic Bond" is just to 'check off' a maximized ED solely for the purposes of it being used to add 'ranks' to your TR. If so, that would mean that with each epic TR you would have to make a different maxed ED active right before your TR in order to get the bonus ranks.

I think more clarification on this would be helpful. If it works as you are reading it (and I am hopeing the "Epic Destinies will not carry over to your next life, except those destinies that you have bonded in previous lives with ED TR." is a misprint), where you loose ALL ED experience except for the bonded ED then I would agree that it would be a FAIL.

I really hope you're right and it's a misprint. I was excited to hear about the idea of epic tr. I like most of the epic quests much more than low level and would have been very happy to do it. But I do not want to lose all the xp I ground out on epic destinies. Please please please turbine let me be wrong.

[Gratch]

Wait wait wait, do I get this right we suddenly loose our Epic Destiny progress when we TR?

I'm guessing there's going to be True Hearts of Wood for similar to current heroic TR that doesn't affect your ED XP as well as new Epic True Hearts of Wood that require you to be L28, have an active maxed ED and this will wipe out your ED XP but will give you the new ED past life feat and will lock ("bond") that Epic TR'ed ED as capped. So epic completionist is when you have Epic L28 TR'ed Each ED... noting that ED you TR will lock it in and the biggest thing will be regaining L28 Xp each time.

[DagazUlf]

I got to the part where I'm tossed under the bus for having maxed out my Epic Destinies already and stopped reading before I kicked a dog, or a bunny, or whatever's close.

Please consider making some allocation for those of us that have already been working on our Destinies since they were released.... how many months ago now?

Just ridiculous.

[Ytteri]

I agree with Charononus, losing all destiny xp is a major kick in the teeth. It's hard to imagine any past life feats that would be worth that. And if you do manage to make something worthwhile, you run into game balance issues between people who stack up a bunch of them vs. people who don't have any.

You say that we'll gain heroic ranks for any epic destiny xp lost.... well great, but which ranks? The first ranks? It takes maybe 90 minutes to gain the first 15 or so ranks on a 36 point build. Seems like a poor return on investment. Bear in mind that maxing out destinies as they are now takes 21,780,000 xp, compared to the 4,378,500 it takes to get to level 20 on a 36 point build. Anyone who has spent the last year maxing out their destinies (or who have tried to and haven't been able to come close which is probably the majority of players) likely won't even consider it.

[Grosbeak07]

I got to the part where I'm tossed under the bus for having maxed out my Epic Destinies already and stopped reading before I kicked a dog, or a bunny, or whatever's close.

Please consider making some allocation for those of us that have already been working on our Destinies since they were released.... how many months ago now?

Just ridiculous.

Although I have personally avoided doing a destiny grind until I heard more about this, I have to agree with Dag that there needs to be something for people who have already maxxed out all their destinies, otherwise... yuck.

[Deadlock]

Here are some changes we’re currently exploring:

• Reincarnation XP curves smoothed to ease penalties for multiple lives.

The Heroic XP curves are just fine where they are. There are no penalties for multiple lives, there is a reduced XP requirement for a 1st and 2nd life, but from 3rd life onwards it's fine as it is. You might want to sort out some the crappy XP you get from some of the quests, but the actual XP requirements to level themselves are fine.

[Jacobius]

I really hope you're right and it's a misprint. I was excited to hear about the idea of epic tr. I like most of the epic quests much more than low level and would have been very happy to do it. But I do not want to lose all the xp I ground out on epic destinies. Please please please turbine let me be wrong.

I believe also that even when you epic TR you start back at level 1. Were you thinking they would have a way to TR just back to 20? I also was liking what I saw until I noticed the part of losing you ED's XP for any type of TR. That is just a horrible thought.

[Atremus]

Please clarify the loss of Epic Destiny XP.

We have ground out 19 million XP and don't see the point to do it all over again if we lose all 19 million for 2 measly build points.

[Atremus]

Double post. Go forums go

[SilkofDrasnia]

Wait wait wait, do I get this right we suddenly loose our Epic Destiny progress when we TR? You mean the fact that some players TRed at level 25 to already unlock other Destinies will suddenly get the short end? I can't say I am very fond of that idea. Or do you expect that we first start to Epic TR to bond them so we not loose our progress on reincarnation? So all players that already unlocked all of them and invested fate points would loose everything? Or do I miss something?

Yuck this is how I am reading it too. It looking like anyone that has maxed out most if not all of their ED will have to re grind all their EDs and regain their fate points. Hope I am wrong otherwise this means people going for completionist will have to do no more than on ED per life.

Devs we need clarification on this.

With any type of True Reincarnation, all Epic Destiny Levels earned will give you an advantage when you rebuild your character, by converting Destiny Levels into Heroic Ranks. Every level of Epic Destiny you have earned will count toward ranks earned for your next life. (Epic Destinies will not carry over to your next life, except those destinies that you have bonded in previous lives with ED TR.)

The part in green is saying if you ever TR again you will lose your maxed EDs unless you bond one which you HAVE to do via Epic Destiny TR which can only be taken at lvl 28.

If you TR at 20 say buy bye EDs.

If this is how it works...********. Hopefully I am reading it wrong otherwise I will go kill some ponies.....

[dlsidhe]

Alright, so, to sum up:

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

Sounds reasonable.

[redspecter23]

So if I'm reading this correctly, any type of TR, including heroic TR will wipe my destinies clean. Massive ouch. I guess if I have any TR'ing to do, I should do it before the new TR system hits.

Glin, I hope you realize that at this point in time, the level increase to 28 is actually a penalty on players, especially those looking to TR. We of course need more info on what is in store for these 3 levels, but based on current information, it's a handful of hp, saves and skills as well as a feat. The penalty is a massively reduced quest pool to gain experience from as you start to suffer overlevel penalties after you reach level 28 and start farming destiny xp.

Basically, you want players to start their epic destiny xp grind from scratch and earn one destiny per TR (epic or heroic). So if I TR (epic or heroic) my toon that has maxed out epic destinies, I get to keep one of them, say dreadnaught as well as 55 ranks toward my next life (due to 5 levels in each of 11 destinies).

Now my next question is, for my followup destiny TR, now that dreadnaught is bonded, will I always receive 5 free ranks into my new TR? So my second destiny TR will start me at level 2 and my 3rd (assuming I bond another destiny) will start me at level 3 and so on?

Also, this is the big question here. How do we attain destiny TR hearts? Will it be store only? Or will be we able to earn them in game in some reasonable fashion, like standard TR hearts?

[Kevindithas]

I like the idea but not my interpreted understanding of the implementation planned, plz don't take all our destiny xp for Epic Re-Incarnation, obviously take our epic level xp tho.