Mistakes implementing Epic Reincarnation, let me count the ways

[sephiroth1084]

The point of Reincarnation (Heroic/True or Epic), from Turbine's perspective is (or should be) to get players to continue playing DDO when the endgame holds no/little allure for them, there is no endgame, or the peak of the endgame is challenging enough and reincarnation benefits significant enough, that re-leveling is a worthwhile way to enhance your character.

Ways in which the Epic Reincarnation system has been designed poorly:

1. Requiring players to select 'pieces of a reincarnation' as end rewards for 100+ quests places a barrier between capped players (and characters partway between lvl 20 and 28) and reincarnating, when the goal should be to get those characters on the treadmill.
2. The barrier renders XP-efficient leveling plans (including the usage of XP pots and tomes) useless for those characters looking to reincarnate, because even if you level quickly, you'll still need to continue to run quests to get your Heart.
3. Past life abilities are, by and large, too insignificant to serve as a real incentive to Epic Reincarnate.
4. Commendations of Valor being BtC means that players cannot grind out an Epic Heart for one character, using multiple characters, which means...
5. Players cannot Epic Reincarnate on a whim, thanks to the staggering number of completions necessary, the requirement of selection CoV in place of other rewards, and the BtC nature of the Comms. For True (Heroic) Reincarnation, some players have decided to reincarnate on a whim, hunt through their characters' bags to assemble all of their Tokens of the Twelve, and either be able to reincarnate in 5-20 minutes, or go blitz a bunch of quests in a few hours. This may be viewed as a way of encouraging store sales, but I'm fairly certain that players reincarnating often are spending more money in the store on XP potions and XP tomes (one-offs), than player are spending on Hearts of Wood.
6. 4000+ required items meant to stack and go in ingredients bags causes problems, due to maximum stack size (and probably can't be properly recognized by the Barter UI from multiple bags at a time). And, really, there's no reason the number has to be so large. Just drop a 0, and reduce rewards accordingly: 400 required, 4 yielded as a reward for a quest, instead of 40.
7. Epic Reincarnating does not reset quest bravery bonus and first time difficulty bonuses, removing a lot of the incentive you have for running those difficulties. This means the overwhelmingly fastest way to level will be running Epic normal + hard. If you take away bravery bonuses and yummy 80% first time elite completion bonuses, this will happen. Especially when you're running in an off destiny. While, yes, this does run contrary to #2, it also means that your final life is going to be more of a chore than it really should be.

Can you imagine what would happen if the DDO endgame was centered on running a raid, but in order to get into the raid, you had to run 100 separate quests? You want people playing the raid, because it's what keeps players invested in the game, but the arbitrarily high requirement would be a rather significant deterrent for many players.

[BigJobbs]

The point of Reincarnation (Heroic/True or Epic), from Turbine's perspective is (or should be) to get players to continue playing DDO when the endgame holds no/little allure for them, there is no endgame, or the peak of the endgame is challenging enough and reincarnation benefits significant enough, that re-leveling is a worthwhile way to enhance your character.

Ways in which the Epic Reincarnation system has been designed poorly:

1. Requiring players to select 'pieces of a reincarnation' as end rewards for 100+ quests places a barrier between capped players (and characters partway between lvl 20 and 28) and reincarnating, when the goal should be to get those characters on the treadmill.
2. The barrier renders XP-efficient leveling plans (including the usage of XP pots and tomes) useless for those characters looking to reincarnate, because even if you level quickly, you'll still need to continue to run quests to get your Heart.
3. Past life abilities are, by and large, too insignificant to serve as a real incentive to Epic Reincarnate.
4. Commendations of Valor being BtC means that players cannot grind out an Epic Heart for one character, using multiple characters, which means...
5. Players cannot Epic Reincarnate on a whim, thanks to the staggering number of completions necessary, the requirement of selection CoV in place of other rewards, and the BtC nature of the Comms. For True (Heroic) Reincarnation, some players have decided to reincarnate on a whim, hunt through their characters' bags to assemble all of their Tokens of the Twelve, and either be able to reincarnate in 5-20 minutes, or go blitz a bunch of quests in a few hours. This may be viewed as a way of encouraging store sales, but I'm fairly certain that players reincarnating often are spending more money in the store on XP potions and XP tomes (one-offs), than player are spending on Hearts of Wood.
6. 4000+ required items meant to stack and go in ingredients bags causes problems, due to maximum stack size (and probably can't be properly recognized by the Barter UI from multiple bags at a time). And, really, there's no reason the number has to be so large. Just drop a 0, and reduce rewards accordingly: 400 required, 4 yielded as a reward for a quest, instead of 40.

Can you imagine what would happen if the DDO endgame was centered on running a raid, but in order to get into the raid, you had to run 100 separate quests? You want people playing the raid, because it's what keeps players invested in the game, but the arbitrarily high requirement would be a rather significant deterrent for many players.

In terms of the CoV numbers and bag limits, there is a solution that should be easy to implement, and that does not require any significant changes to the system as designed.

Allow trade-in of 100 CoVs for 1x BtA 'Fragment of a True Heart'.

This eliminates the CoV bag limit stacking issue, because 4200 CoVs = 42 'TR Heart Fragments'. It also solves the BtC vs BtA conundrum - the base currency is still BtC, but can be traded into something that speeds up the acquisition of a TR heart across a players various toons. You run a few quests with a toon, build up 100 CoVs, turn them into a heart fragment, and pop it into your shared bank.


With regard to the 'stuck at cap because you can't afford a heart' there is a simple option that I can see:

Allow trade-ins of other materials for either CoVs or TR Heart Fragments.

This would eliminate the issue of challenges giving mats that are essentially deadweight to TR junkies who already have pretty decent leveling gear - even though challenges have wretched XP after your first run, if they drop something useful for TRing then we will likely run them more. Our guild used to run epic House C challenges on bonus weekends for mats to turn into tokens. We almost never run E-Star Challenges because they only drop currency for the Cormyr Weapon Lottery, and nobody is really very keen on that.
If the conversion rate was what it is for tokens (300 mats = 100 frags = 1 token) then 300 mats = 100 CoVs = 1 TR Heart Fragment would fit into the system pretty seamlessly.
This change might also allow us to clear some of the other random ingredients out of our bags (the kind that sneak back in, like Eveningstar commendations that drop in MotU quest chests) - even if the turn-in was 1:1 to CoVs, I'd be glad of the chance to turn-in my various BtC Eveningstar comms for something that will be of real benefit - most of my toons don't really use the consumables that you can trade in comms for.


As I see it, those two options would help get more of us back onto the TR hamster wheel a little quicker, without having to significantly rebalance the CoV system as developed. It also opens up more of the 20+ content (all epic challenges, and Kings Forest for comms) to allow more options in terms of epic play. Suggestions have already been made to have all epic raids auto-grant CoVs without having to select them from the end chest - this should be a no-brainer to help get people running epic raids again.

[SirValentine]

[*]Past life abilities are, by and large, too insignificant to serve as a real incentive to Epic Reincarnate.

This one is the big failure for me. There's no reason for me to Epic Reincarnate.

[Wulverine]

7. Epic Reincarnating does not reset quest bravery bonus and first time difficulty bonuses, removing a lot of the incentive you have for running those difficulties. This means the overwhelmingly fastest way to level will be running Epic normal + hard. If you take away bravery bonuses and yummy 80% first time elite completion bonuses, this will happen. Especially when you're running in an off destiny.

[sephiroth1084]

7. Epic Reincarnating does not reset quest bravery bonus and first time difficulty bonuses, removing a lot of the incentive you have for running those difficulties. This means the overwhelmingly fastest way to level will be running Epic normal + hard. If you take away bravery bonuses and yummy 80% first time elite completion bonuses, this will happen. Especially when you're running in an off destiny.

I'd been thinking about this a few days ago, but forgot about it when I posted this thread. Edited OP. Thanks.

[twindaddy53]

I agreet he number of comms is to high but no differents then grinding out tokens to tr from running epic after epic

[sephiroth1084]

I agreet he number of comms is to high but no differents then grinding out tokens to tr from running epic after epic

20 tokens (15-30 quests) that you can grind out one night if you desire is a far cry from the CoV system.

[Thrudh]

This one is the big failure for me. There's no reason for me to Epic Reincarnate.

$10 says you'll epic reincarnate multiple times in the next year. Or you'll quit... in which case you'll be gone, and I won't have to pay you...

[Aerinsma]

The point of Reincarnation (Heroic/True or Epic), from Turbine's perspective is (or should be) to get players to continue playing DDO when the endgame holds no/little allure for them, there is no endgame, or the peak of the endgame is challenging enough and reincarnation benefits significant enough, that re-leveling is a worthwhile way to enhance your character.

Ways in which the Epic Reincarnation system has been designed poorly:

1. Requiring players to select 'pieces of a reincarnation' as end rewards for 100+ quests places a barrier between capped players (and characters partway between lvl 20 and 28) and reincarnating, when the goal should be to get those characters on the treadmill.
2. The barrier renders XP-efficient leveling plans (including the usage of XP pots and tomes) useless for those characters looking to reincarnate, because even if you level quickly, you'll still need to continue to run quests to get your Heart.
3. Past life abilities are, by and large, too insignificant to serve as a real incentive to Epic Reincarnate.
4. Commendations of Valor being BtC means that players cannot grind out an Epic Heart for one character, using multiple characters, which means...
5. Players cannot Epic Reincarnate on a whim, thanks to the staggering number of completions necessary, the requirement of selection CoV in place of other rewards, and the BtC nature of the Comms. For True (Heroic) Reincarnation, some players have decided to reincarnate on a whim, hunt through their characters' bags to assemble all of their Tokens of the Twelve, and either be able to reincarnate in 5-20 minutes, or go blitz a bunch of quests in a few hours. This may be viewed as a way of encouraging store sales, but I'm fairly certain that players reincarnating often are spending more money in the store on XP potions and XP tomes (one-offs), than player are spending on Hearts of Wood.
6. 4000+ required items meant to stack and go in ingredients bags causes problems, due to maximum stack size (and probably can't be properly recognized by the Barter UI from multiple bags at a time). And, really, there's no reason the number has to be so large. Just drop a 0, and reduce rewards accordingly: 400 required, 4 yielded as a reward for a quest, instead of 40.
7. Epic Reincarnating does not reset quest bravery bonus and first time difficulty bonuses, removing a lot of the incentive you have for running those difficulties. This means the overwhelmingly fastest way to level will be running Epic normal + hard. If you take away bravery bonuses and yummy 80% first time elite completion bonuses, this will happen. Especially when you're running in an off destiny. While, yes, this does run contrary to #2, it also means that your final life is going to be more of a chore than it really should be.

Can you imagine what would happen if the DDO endgame was centered on running a raid, but in order to get into the raid, you had to run 100 separate quests? You want people playing the raid, because it's what keeps players invested in the game, but the arbitrarily high requirement would be a rather significant deterrent for many players.

Issue 1 is a problem that comes with any introduction of any new system, and is not going to be improved by waiting.
Issues 2 and 3 are, if a problem, a problem for marketing. They may need fine tuning, but they don't seem to be game breakers.
Issues 4 and 6 are real system breaking ones, still if Update 20 patch 1 includes commendation purchasable, bound to account, fragments of a heart issues 4, 5 and 6 are answered.
Issue 7 is a slight problem, but I don't see an answer for it. Resetting adventures would mean resetting favor points. To reset just epic favor points would create issues of people losing access to favor based things, or getting favor based rewards twice. If people lost all favor then they would lose things like bag and bank space that are necessary for higher level characters. Playing around with it could easily make a bigger mess.

In any case we are not being forced to participate. If you don't like this system then don't use it. If not enough people use this then I dare say that Turbine will either sweeten the pot or make it a less expensive one.

In addition to adding bta fragments the one change I would like to see, that I know was at one time being considered, is allowing people epic or iconic resurrecting to true res at the same time at no extra cost. This would be my personal solution to issue 7.

[erethizon]

In addition to adding bta fragments the one change I would like to see, that I know was at one time being considered, is allowing people epic or iconic resurrecting to true res at the same time at no extra cost. This would be my personal solution to issue 7.

Iconic reincarnation does include a heroic true reincarnation at the same time. When you iconic TR you get an iconic past life and a heroic past life and all your favor is reset. You will start the next life at level 1 if you pick a normal class or level 15 if you pick an iconic class (which is also how heroic TR works).

Epic TR almost has the same effect in that immediately after you do your Epic TR you can then do a heroic TR to get back to level 1 (or level 15 if you pick an iconic class). Unlike with Iconic TR, you do need a heroic heart to do this, but that just means getting 20 tokens which can be done pretty quickly.

[era42]

Ways in which the Epic Reincarnation system has been designed poorly:

1. Requiring players to select 'pieces of a reincarnation' as end rewards for 100+ quests places a barrier between capped players (and characters partway between lvl 20 and 28) and reincarnating, when the goal should be to get those characters on the treadmill.

This is a biggie. Blatant moneygrab to get people to buy the hearts. The tokens for leveling were removed for a reason, why introduce a new hurdle that prevents people from playing?

I have a couple of 28 toons that I had planned to ER -> TR one at a time, while hopping to my other (currently mostly epic) toons. Now it looks like I'll be forced to farm a huge amount of quests with a single toon before I can ER any of my toons. The farming just for the reinc heart sounds boring, I don't think I'll be doing that. So, my mains either TR straight from 28, or alternatively get shelved, while I play / TR my experimental alts.

If acquiring the hearts will be as hard and slow as it appears to be, I'll be hard pressed to find any reason whatsoever to run any epic content. Keep to the TR threadmill for a while longer, and when it gets boring enough, retire due to not having any epic content worth playing.

Epic reinc costs 6.6m in level costs (before further level cap rises), and 6m in karma costs. That's fine, though the sphere-based karma is too much like the horrible destiny-grind to my liking. But, if there's another hurdle of getting reinc hearts, forced picks of valor in quest rewards and a major grind to start with, that's just game stopping.

4. Commendations of Valor being BtC means that players cannot grind out an Epic Heart for one character, using multiple characters, which means...
5. Players cannot Epic Reincarnate on a whim, thanks to the staggering number of completions necessary, the requirement of selection CoV in place of other rewards, and the BtC nature of the Comms. For True (Heroic) Reincarnation, some players have decided to reincarnate on a whim, hunt through their characters' bags to assemble all of their Tokens of the Twelve, and either be able to reincarnate in 5-20 minutes, or go blitz a bunch of quests in a few hours. This may be viewed as a way of encouraging store sales, but I'm fairly certain that players reincarnating often are spending more money in the store on XP potions and XP tomes (one-offs), than player are spending on Hearts of Wood.

Continuation of the same thing. Being able to reinc on a whim keeps you playing. New enthusiasm to play that toon to get some gear re-equipped (other than that, the levels don't really matter).

The forced focus on playing a gazillion quests on a single toon is another big hurdle. Oh, this party could use a healer, well my healer hasn't collected any valor tokens, I don't feel like starting to collect, sorry guys, can't help. Oh, you guys want to run FoT flagging quests? My only toon collecting valor tokens already did those today, sorry guys, can't help.

Can you imagine what would happen if the DDO endgame was centered on running a raid, but in order to get into the raid, you had to run 100 separate quests? You want people playing the raid, because it's what keeps players invested in the game, but the arbitrarily high requirement would be a rather significant deterrent for many players.

It would not be good. Nobody would raid. And I feel the similar lack of upcoming epic reincs as well. Time to start planning on the next toon to TR, or possibly the next game to play.

[DrakHar]

The point of Reincarnation (Heroic/True or Epic), from Turbine's perspective is (or should be) to get players to continue playing DDO when the endgame holds no/little allure for them, there is no endgame, or the peak of the endgame is challenging enough and reincarnation benefits significant enough, that re-leveling is a worthwhile way to enhance your character.

Ways in which the Epic Reincarnation system has been designed poorly:

1. Requiring players to select 'pieces of a reincarnation' as end rewards for 100+ quests places a barrier between capped players (and characters partway between lvl 20 and 28) and reincarnating, when the goal should be to get those characters on the treadmill.
2. The barrier renders XP-efficient leveling plans (including the usage of XP pots and tomes) useless for those characters looking to reincarnate, because even if you level quickly, you'll still need to continue to run quests to get your Heart.
3. Past life abilities are, by and large, too insignificant to serve as a real incentive to Epic Reincarnate.
4. Commendations of Valor being BtC means that players cannot grind out an Epic Heart for one character, using multiple characters, which means...
5. Players cannot Epic Reincarnate on a whim, thanks to the staggering number of completions necessary, the requirement of selection CoV in place of other rewards, and the BtC nature of the Comms. For True (Heroic) Reincarnation, some players have decided to reincarnate on a whim, hunt through their characters' bags to assemble all of their Tokens of the Twelve, and either be able to reincarnate in 5-20 minutes, or go blitz a bunch of quests in a few hours. This may be viewed as a way of encouraging store sales, but I'm fairly certain that players reincarnating often are spending more money in the store on XP potions and XP tomes (one-offs), than player are spending on Hearts of Wood.
6. 4000+ required items meant to stack and go in ingredients bags causes problems, due to maximum stack size (and probably can't be properly recognized by the Barter UI from multiple bags at a time). And, really, there's no reason the number has to be so large. Just drop a 0, and reduce rewards accordingly: 400 required, 4 yielded as a reward for a quest, instead of 40.
7. Epic Reincarnating does not reset quest bravery bonus and first time difficulty bonuses, removing a lot of the incentive you have for running those difficulties. This means the overwhelmingly fastest way to level will be running Epic normal + hard. If you take away bravery bonuses and yummy 80% first time elite completion bonuses, this will happen. Especially when you're running in an off destiny. While, yes, this does run contrary to #2, it also means that your final life is going to be more of a chore than it really should be.

Can you imagine what would happen if the DDO endgame was centered on running a raid, but in order to get into the raid, you had to run 100 separate quests? You want people playing the raid, because it's what keeps players invested in the game, but the arbitrarily high requirement would be a rather significant deterrent for many players.

Counterpoints. And yes, I'm just playing devils advocate.
If it was too easy to get the hearts, they would not sell any. Perhaps you'd like to etr for free? So would I. But then they would just lose a bunch of money on the endeavor. Likely, I'll stagger them. Buy a heart while gaining enough comms to not need the next one, etc.

The bound to whatever stuff annoys me, mostly because I'm still of the opinion that bound to account stuff is nonsense. Everything should be unbound, in my view, but that's because i still wish DDO had some semblance of roleplay, in which "account" means nothing. (Excepting favor rewards and turbine points). So I'll just stay out of that completely.

The bag issue is annoying. I happen to have the gargantuan ingredients bag, but not everyone does. So I'll agree on this one.

As for the past lives being weak, how is +1 attack/damage 1% absorption worse (arcane sphere epic past life) worse than +1 damage (Monk life)?
How is doublestrike (martial sphere) worse than +1 COMPLETELY MENAINGLESS to hit and +1 to DCs to tactics (which is reasonably useful if and only if you build for it)?
How is a bonus to all saves and 3 PRR (Divine sphere) worse than +2 to will saves (bard past life)?
How is a bunch of Hp + a damage proc (primal past life) worse than TEN HIT POINTS (barbarian past life)?

Aside from one or two ridiculously powerful past lives (Wizard and paladin, I'm looking at you) the ETR past lives are better.

[caellwin]

Counterpoints. And yes, I'm just playing devils advocate.
If it was too easy to get the hearts, they would not sell any. Perhaps you'd like to etr for free? So would I. But then they would just lose a bunch of money on the endeavor. Likely, I'll stagger them. Buy a heart while gaining enough comms to not need the next one, etc.

The bound to whatever stuff annoys me, mostly because I'm still of the opinion that bound to account stuff is nonsense. Everything should be unbound, in my view, but that's because i still wish DDO had some semblance of roleplay, in which "account" means nothing. (Excepting favor rewards and turbine points). So I'll just stay out of that completely.

The bag issue is annoying. I happen to have the gargantuan ingredients bag, but not everyone does. So I'll agree on this one.

As for the past lives being weak, how is +1 attack/damage 1% absorption worse (arcane sphere epic past life) worse than +1 damage (Monk life)?
How is doublestrike (martial sphere) worse than +1 COMPLETELY MENAINGLESS to hit and +1 to DCs to tactics (which is reasonably useful if and only if you build for it)?
How is a bonus to all saves and 3 PRR (Divine sphere) worse than +2 to will saves (bard past life)?
How is a bunch of Hp + a damage proc (primal past life) worse than TEN HIT POINTS (barbarian past life)?

Aside from one or two ridiculously powerful past lives (Wizard and paladin, I'm looking at you) the ETR past lives are better.

unless im forgetting something the epic past lives are free, meaning they don't cost a feat so you need to compare them to the passive PL for heroics only or the chosen only if they do cost.

then their is the other large issue. How long does it take and how hard are the Heroic levels 1-20 compared to the epic levels 20-28. Make sure to use the u20 exp table/chart.

[DrakHar]

unless im forgetting something the epic past lives are free, meaning they don't cost a feat so you need to compare them to the passive PL for heroics only or the chosen only if they do cost.

then their is the other large issue. How long does it take and how hard are the Heroic levels 1-20 compared to the epic levels 20-28. Make sure to use the u20 exp table/chart.

I am only comparing them to the passive.

As for 3 PRR perhaps giving you nothing, +2 spell pen doesn't give you anything if you dont cast spells, I don't think every past life needs to be beneficial to everyone. If you dont want more PRR then you're actually really well off - the divine destiny is the one most melee want but dont want to grind for.

And most people can use the PRR. You're right, some tank builds don't. Tank builds are completely unnecessary and a waste of a party slot outside off EE LOB, and I haven't seen an lfm for that in ages.

[sephiroth1084]

I am only comparing them to the passive.

As for 3 PRR perhaps giving you nothing, +2 spell pen doesn't give you anything if you dont cast spells, I don't think every past life needs to be beneficial to everyone. If you dont want more PRR then you're actually really well off - the divine destiny is the one most melee want but dont want to grind for.

And most people can use the PRR. You're right, some tank builds don't. Tank builds are completely unnecessary and a waste of a party slot outside off EE LOB, and I haven't seen an lfm for that in ages.

You're comparing apples and oranges here. If you can't use the +2 Spell Pen, because you don't cast spells, then yes, it's useless, but if you do cast spells, it's never useless unless you're perpetually playing super-easy content (Casual); however, 3 PRR can be useless for many characters that want PRR. Going from 60-70 PRR is an increase of 3% reduction, which means that 3 points is equivalent to just under a 1% increase, for example, and you don't need to be a tank build to have that much PRR. Even in the 30s, +3 PRR is only about a 1.5% increase in damage mitigation.

[Thrudh]

You're comparing apples and oranges here. If you can't use the +2 Spell Pen, because you don't cast spells, then yes, it's useless, but if you do cast spells, it's never useless unless you're perpetually playing super-easy content (Casual); however, 3 PRR can be useless for many characters that want PRR. Going from 60-70 PRR is an increase of 3% reduction, which means that 3 points is equivalent to just under a 1% increase, for example, and you don't need to be a tank build to have that much PRR. Even in the 30s, +3 PRR is only about a 1.5% increase in damage mitigation.

Monk Heroic PL gives +1 to damage which is around 1% more DPS for most people, yet people grind that out... Why is 1.5% damage mitigation so much worse?

9% double-strike is a solid benefit, as is 9% more crit chance. People will be epic TRing. Most of us will do 6-9 TRs... On each character. That will keep most of us busy for a couple of years. I'm really looking forward to it.

The low-end passive stuff is there just for the OCD addicts to have something to do.

[Flavilandile]

Well Tomorrow ( in a few hours for me now ) they kill the only Endgame that hadn't been killed during the last year and a half.

Despite all our suggestion and all the bad press they received from the various movements, they are dead set on forcing down our throat a change we did not want in a way we did not want while not doing what we do want.

I've been a VIP ( in Europe and here ) since 2006 and lately I've been considering more and more cancelling that VIP.
I have many friend that have cancelled some due to burnouts, others due to not agreeing to where the game is going....
DDO cannot be a mainstream MMO despite what some people at Turbine think. It can only be a niche game, The Producers and the Developers need to start actually using our suggestion instead of implementing concepts straight out from mainstream games.
Yes that the Enhancement Crash Tree Debacle, I'm eying here, while the UI could have used a refresh, there was Absolutely NO NEED to kill the old enhancements, they could have been put into a tree form.... But that also include expansions with level raises on a regular basis, and system changes that are made to cater to mainstream MMO players.

[sephiroth1084]

Counterpoints. And yes, I'm just playing devils advocate.
If it was too easy to get the hearts, they would not sell any. Perhaps you'd like to etr for free? So would I. But then they would just lose a bunch of money on the endeavor. Likely, I'll stagger them. Buy a heart while gaining enough comms to not need the next one, etc.

Well, many people who TR also purchase XP pots, or XP stones to make the process go by faster, so Turbine would still be making money there. Ultimately, however, the issue lies in what else the game offers right now, and the answer is nothing, so ETR needs to be easy enough, and cheap enough, and worthwhile enough to perform to keep people playing, because in most cases people continuing to play the game will end up getting more money to Turbine than they'd be making off of Epic Heart sales.

As for the past lives being weak, how is +1 attack/damage 1% absorption worse (arcane sphere epic past life) worse than +1 damage (Monk life)?
How is doublestrike (martial sphere) worse than +1 COMPLETELY MENAINGLESS to hit and +1 to DCs to tactics (which is reasonably useful if and only if you build for it)?
How is a bonus to all saves and 3 PRR (Divine sphere) worse than +2 to will saves (bard past life)?
How is a bunch of Hp + a damage proc (primal past life) worse than TEN HIT POINTS (barbarian past life)?

Aside from one or two ridiculously powerful past lives (Wizard and paladin, I'm looking at you) the ETR past lives are better.

Well, part of it is a matter of difficulty: a heroic TR used to cost 4.3 million XP, which everyone felt was a chore, but required very little repetition of quests: there are a few big-XP quests people repeat on the way up, but if you aren't a fan of grinding quests, you don't really need to. I lived a second-life character without repeating anything while maintaining an elite streak 1-20, on the smaller of the XP tomes, and with few XP potions used. You can't quite do that on a 3rd life, but it still doesn't require a lot of repetition: on my most recent TR, I repeated a couple of Harbor quests once each, ran Redwillow's twice, hit Delera's part 2 twice, and part 4 three times, repeated Wiz King twice, Shadow Crypt two or three times, Bloody Crypt twice, did all of GH once on elite and once on hard (and netted the saga XP), repeated each Orchard quest 3 times (more because I was still missing sigil pieces than out of a desire to rerun the quests), did Litany probably 10 times, ETK three times, and ran Ritual Sacrifice and Let Sleeping Dust Lie a second time each on hard. I also hit all the explorers on several wilderness areas (Searing Heights, Sorrowdusk, Ataraxia, desert, GH, Orchard, Vale, Reaver's Refuge, Manufactory, and Shavarath).

Compare that to what epic leveling is like, with much more XP required (6.6 million), a much smaller selection of quests, very few of which can be reasonably soloed or short-manned on elite, and a fair chunk of the quests available restricted to those people that purchased the underwhelming Shadowfell expansion. It requires much more repetition! Add to that the mechanic in place for acquiring Commendations, which pushes you to not repeat the same quest in a day, thereby slowing down your leveling, and forcing players to hit quests they may not wish to. Then there is the fact that, even for characters who level quickly (big XP quests, fast runs, repetitions, with XP shrine, potion and tome), they'll just end up at cap with more grinding left to do in order to ETR vs. the relatively fast farm for a True Heart for a Heroic TR.

So, is +1 attack/damage/absorption a reasonable bonus for 50% more XP required? For a grind that is going to be slower and more monotonous?

On top of that the content we were TRing for is not really comparable with the stuff we'd be ETRing for where monsters have 10s of thousands of HP, impossibly high saves, and hit for hundreds of damage. A +1 anything is going to be totally insignificant under such circumstances, especially things like to-hit bonuses and AC bonuses, which now may not even amount to a corresponding 1% increase in success due to the convoluted combat formula we have now.

Some people did find +1 damage (monk) or +10 HP (barbarian) to be worthwhile to TR for. I'm not one of them, and I suspect most people aren't, either. The bigger draws for TRing are getting 34 and 36 point buys, getting to run back through the game with a stronger, well-equipped character (New Game+ is a popular feature in many console games), and some of the more reasonable bonuses: the monk active feat was granting quite a bit more than +1 damage, the +1 to tactics DCs from the fighter life translates to a +5% success rate, which is tangible. No one TRs a bard for the passive bonuses.

ETR doesn't offer more build points, and most of the bonuses available are less meaningful than those from a Heroic TR, or just a little bit better (which isn't enough to warrant the extra time and difficulty in performing the ETR). The only other thing offered is a Fate point every few ETRs, which is just a slightly less unappealing way to acquire them than leveling in an off-destiny, which itself has garnered much criticism for being exceptionally arduous.

Oh, and in regards to the +3 PRR vs. +2 Will saves...+3 PRR may do nothing for you if you have a reasonable amount of PRR to begin with, whereas a bonus to saves is almost always going to translate into a +5% success rate per +1 bonus unless your saves are abysmal, or are through the roof.

Look at it in terms of percentages: the heroic TR bonuses were increases of 5% in most areas, 10% in some others. The ETR bonuses are increases of 0.5% to 3% in most cases, 5% in some others. And for much more effort involved.

[era42]

Well, many people who TR also purchase XP pots, or XP stones to make the process go by faster, so Turbine would still be making money there. Ultimately, however, the issue lies in what else the game offers right now, and the answer is nothing, so ETR needs to be easy enough, and cheap enough, and worthwhile enough to perform to keep people playing, because in most cases people continuing to play the game will end up getting more money to Turbine than they'd be making off of Epic Heart sales.

This, so much this. Doing an epic reinc for the small bonuses costs you 6.6m exp + 6m karma. The tiny amount of bonus is irrelevant, people will do it to have something to do, because there's really nothing to do when you're at 28. If you have to make a huge effort to get the heart, before reincing away the exp, it acts as a play-preventer.

If the game prevents you from playing, people will play less. Those who play less, spend less. Furthermore, the emptier the LFM is, the more it will cascade to others, even those willing to buy the ER hearts.

Of course, the optimization is not simple, I guess some managers get a nifty bonus for a successful fourth quarter. So for them it's better to earn X dollars from reinc hearts in the last quarter of this year, instead of 0.2*X dollars monthly for a long time from guys that keep playing and buying more. Welcome to the world of quarterly economy and short-term bonus goals.

[Oxarhamar]

ETR doesn't offer more build points, and most of the bonuses available are less meaningful than those from a Heroic TR, or just a little bit better (which isn't enough to warrant the extra time and difficulty in performing the ETR). The only other thing offered is a Fate point every few ETRs, which is just a slightly less unappealing way to acquire them than leveling in an off-destiny, which itself has garnered much criticism for being exceptionally arduous.
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ETR does offer more build points however it caps out the same as Herioc TR.

so a 28 point first life toon can ETR and become a 34 point just like Herioc. TR.

Another thing that was hinted towards was the future Epic Completionist possibly having a 4th Twist slot (TBD)


I don't see ETR forcing me to buy any hearts in the store but, I don't buy XP pots and I don't buy Otto's Boxes.

I plan to do a few ETR and ITR to say the least and I will find an efficient way to grind the XP and the Comms during my leveling from 20-28 to maximize my time.


The way I see it Turbine has created a way to gain hearts while leveling this will not require a single drop of TP to accomplish.