U51 Early Preview: Main Thread

[Justicesar]

The new system looks a bit over whelming at first but over time it should flow as well as the old.

That being said, the strength of this game is the options for character progression.

Please consider eliminating and reset cost that gradually increases to huge amounts of plat.... or shards.

Some do not have every toon plat capped or deep pockets, hindering their experience for any cost to see the different trees seems petty.

[Iriale]

Wow. It is much worse than I expected, and I expected bad changes.

Devs, don't do this. Listen to your players. Drastically changing a game that players love to a completely different style that devs like better never works. Think about what happened to D&D 4ed. This could have been a decent game on its own if wotc hadn't tried to impose it on the D&D brand. Instead, the players found everything changed and the edition was a failure. It was the same with Dragonlace and the Fifth Age. It has happened with video games too. Don't do it, devs. The time you have lost from work on this will be nothing compared to the results you can reap from angering your players.

A lot of people are already mad at the recent nerfs. A lot of people have been very annoyed with the introduction of your over-the-top grind and the way you've killed the alts for a long time. Don't do this. You can seriously damage the viability of your game.

[SpardaX]

Dear Developers,

here are some thoughts about the upcoming changes. In general the changes are exciting but there are some big mistake included in the new system

First of all if U want a similar system like the Enhancement trees. My question is: Do we have enough points to spend in the other two ED trees after I spent minimum 30 points to get a T5 skill? I dont want to have T5 in a tree and maximum T1-2 in the other trees. Either a bit more points, or less point requirements to get to higher tiers

2nd problem: Dire Charge
U wrote in the release notes, this system should give more variability. How the hell can I do that If Dire Charge will be a T5 skill in LD??? If I want Dire Charge, it will lock me into the LD tree which I dont want to. IMO this will narrow my opprtunities to vary my ED skills. If I take Dire Charge, I wont be able to get Improved Shadow form (or any other T5 skills), 'cause it is also a T5 skill.
Dire Charge is the only general melee CC ability Melees can get at lvl 29 atm, independent from any build. After this upgrade, U need to spend 30 ED points to get it. Much worse than a cost of a feat!!! If U force every Melee player to use Drifting Lotus so be it! But I dont want to use monk abilities if I am not a monk. That feels like ****!
I would recommend to leave Dire Charge as it is now or put it below T5 (maybe lower the ML requirement as U suggested in U51) and give another CC for Melees int he LD T5 tree. Something like the connection between Mighty Slam and Battlefist, the LD T5 CC could extend the stunning effect durtaion of Dire Charge.

3rd problem: Build up charges??? Really?
I like DDO cause it has its own playstyle. ATM Heroic levels and Epic levels dont differ much in playstyle. After update, If I need to hold my focus on the Epic Destiny charges, it will feel like I am in a totally different game. IMO this is not good. This change is too drastic.

Dire Charge is the only general melee CC ability Melees can get at lvl 29 atm

The thing about this that no one seems to be noticing is that there are now general melee CC abilities in a lot of the trees. Grandmaster of Flowers has some nice AoE stuns. Fury of the Wild has some trips, an AoE trip at Tier 5.

People are super worried that "Dire charge is the only good melee attack and now it's in LD and I dont want to be in LD" but no one seems to be noticing that yes, they planned for that, by putting some good melee attacks in the other melee trees as well so you don't need to take Dire Charge or be in LD. The only thing the other ones don't do is Dire Charge's run towards the enemy. Which half the time misses the guy I want it to go to or does some strange U-Turn or stops randomly.

[Anuulified]

Disclaimer

Everything seen on the preview server, Lamannia, is not final and is subject to change or removal before live release.

Hello, all! A special early preview of Update 51 is open! It is expected to remain open until sometime in the late afternoon (Eastern) of Thursday June 17th.

There will be a dev event on Wednesday June 16th from 8-10 PM Eastern where members of the DDO team will be available to collect feedback and answer questions in real time on Lamannia.

To be clear, you read that correctly, this is an early preview of Update 51. This is happening before we've even hosted a preview for Update 50 because of how large the Epic Destiny system is and how important it is that we take the time needed to iterate on it to get it right. We are months away from the Epic Destiny revamp being ready to go to the live servers (keep that in mind and especially make sure to take a look at the known issues list in the basic framework thread). For clarity, this is very likely to be the only Epic Destiny revamp preview until after the release of Update 50 (which we will begin previewing in the coming few weeks).

We would like to use this preview to gather impressions from the community at large and go through them before we are encroaching on the deadline for U51. We expect to be referring back to these threads over the next month plus while the U50 development cycle finishes up. Due to the nature of the U50 schedule, after this preview concludes we are likely to go a bit quiet on the Epic Destiny revamp for a while as we focus on finishing up U50. Once U50 is live, however, we will be holding atleast a couple more previews for the Epic Destiny revamp that will both showcase the Destinies that did not make it into this early preview and provide insight into how the system is shaping up after the first preview.

This preview contains one real feature: An early look at parts of the Epic Destiny Revamp.

The list of official feedback threads, in the order that I HIGHLY recommend reading them in is as follows:

1. Epic Destiny Revamp Core Framework
2. Epic Destiny Revamp Design Paradigm
3. Epic Feats, Destiny Feats, and Legendary Feats Changes
4. Individual Epic Destiny Tree threads (NOTE: Only 7 of the 12 Destinies are available in this early preview)
   
   • Fury of the Wild
   • Primal Avatar
   • Shiradi Champion
   • Legendary Dreadnought
   • Shadowdancer
   • Grandmaster of Flowers
   • Divine Crusader
5. And finally: U50 Changes Present in this Preview
6. In Progress Half Elf Cosmetic Revamp

Again, those posts are ordered in the recommended reading order to best understand what's planned to change and why. Please do let us know what you think!

Instead of nerfing all of this. Can you just make DDO2 instead? I would gladly buy it.

[IlmerSilverhilt]

Instead of a cosmetic cloak, give us option to "grandfather in" the current system

[Grunging]

Do not make us worry with charges again. They are annoying.

Looking foward for this new changes!

[jetster11]

This tiered approach is really a bad idea, it is already difficult enough having access to the full shiradi tree at level 20 as a shooter to try to do EE or R1 with 103 reaper points and quite a few past lives. losing all the goodness of Hunts end, nerve venom , pin,ottos whistler, etc, etc, etc and a loss of twists from any three trees i want was critical to surviving. This entire concept is ill conceived and at the very least you should open up each tiers much earlier. at 20 you should be more like tier 1-2, at 24, access to 3, at 26 access to tier 4, and at 28 access to tier 5. As many people have said here end game starts at 28-30, particularly at level 29 and above. The gear defines this. Honestly, if this system stays the way it is currently implemented , I doubt I will even spend any real time in Epic levels anymore as it will make my preferred build have to play at EH levels again vs currently soloing at reaper 2-3 pretty easily (no I am not even close to an uber build but I am pretty well capped out in advancement in terms of gear and filigrees and many lives).

Having to lose an entire tree to pick up cocoon of the available three we can choose is just stupid, when now we can twist in cocoon, and twist in two more feats at level 4,3 at lvl 20 and have a maxed out destiny (why not let use spent points in as many trees we want (or at least more than three). Wow, talk about loss of playability.

Sad i wasted my time farming so much epic / legendary gear and past lives. I guess I will just play in heroics when i am bored with no real game objectives other than the joy of killing stuff.

On the positive, this will free up a lot of disposable income I might have spent here. No I am not threatening to leave. I will still play , I just wont spend much which I think is the main goal of most viable MMOs (to have their players willing to spend to advance the power of their characters and for new content). .

[mikarddo]

This tiered approach is really a bad idea, it is already difficult enough having access to the full shiradi tree at level 20 as a shooter to try to do EE or R1 with 103 reaper points and quite a few past lives. losing all the goodness of Hunts end, nerve venom , pin,ottos whistler, etc, etc, etc and a loss of twists from any three trees i want was critical to surviving. This entire concept is ill conceived and at the very least you should open up each tiers much earlier. at 20 you should be more like tier 1-2, at 24, access to 3, at 26 access to tier 4, and at 28 access to tier 5. As many people have said here end game starts at 28-30, particularly at level 29 and above. The gear defines this. Honestly, if this system stays the way it is currently implemented , I doubt I will even spend any real time in Epic levels anymore as it will make my preferred build have to play at EH levels again vs currently soloing at reaper 2-3 pretty easily (no I am not even close to an uber build but I am pretty well capped out in advancement in terms of gear and filigrees and many lives).

In heroics the trees open at level 1, 2, 3, 4 and 12.
In Epics T3 should be level 21, T4 level 23 and T5 level 25.

Still worse than now but much more doable than the previewed trainwreck.

[jetster11]

Instead of a cosmetic cloak, give us option to "grandfather in" the current system

I agree , no more cosmetic cloaks wasting our valuable space. At least they are BTA. I am mostly throwing away cosmetic items these days. I just can't see how this systm will make leveling anything less than even more painful from 20-28 and I already dread doing the leveling at full 1st time BB at EE or R1, now my build will probably be forced to play at EH when soloing.

[False_Gods]

Looks underwhelming. Like 1 Destiny point is worth like +1 to tactics, or +1 to damage. (Tier 3 Core is +2 to damage? Really?? that is something I would expect at level 6 when I am fighting enemies with 200 HP, not level 23 when I am fighting things with 6000 HP) As usual its like a penny for you, a penny for you, a penny for you and a quarter for you. A bunch of mediocre underwhelming (stuff) that basically amounts to being cheap.. and then there is always one clear choice who actually get something that is worth something.

Legendary Tactics.. used to be a nice bonus of 6.. now it is 3.. for 3 out of the 24 Destiny points that we get? I can spend 3 of my destiny points and get a whopping 3 more to my tactics? Meanwhile I am getting a bonus of 20 from my insight trans, 22 equipment bonus, ending with something to the effect of 130... why would I spend 3 of my destiny points for 3 more to this number? It makes no sense. Usually the answer to that question turns out to be that the other options are even more useless. It amounts to being cheap.. very very cheap. It makes it seem that most/many of the destinies are just **** and then there is always one that is super duper and actually gets the type of stuff an epic destiny should give.

I can take a single glance at LD and Fury of the Wilds... One is getting tiny little bonuses to damage (+1 damage per destiny point basically in stuff like power attack) while Fury gets 100% bonus to damage on your next strike which can be used every few seconds most likely. Then after making LD **** and boring, you throw the one good thing that melees had at high level epics, that being dire charge in there forcing everyone to accept peanuts if they want to get the one thing that everyone used to get.

[Vish]

ED reset costs seem...very excessive...

Its 5000 per point spent, per number of resets. That seems like a lot, compared to right now where it only costs a trip to the Fatespinner. Resetting 50 points spent would be a quarter million. Resetting them again the same day would spend a half million.

I get there needs to be more plat sinks, and plat is generally cheap, but this seems like a pure tax.

haha
i just checked lam
for the 40 points i put into primal avatar,
a reset was 750k plat

yep reaper tree thinking

and that was done by engineers?

hey were stretching that 20 into a hundred
so instead of 5s we get 1s

a lot of little stuff that will be paywall to add up big
money sink

taking away all the free stuff

triple completionists are why we cant have nice stuff

[Razahe]

Probably no new opinion incoming, but just to confirm a lot of things said before my thoughts about the changes:

The good:

• The top level posts provide the impression you really put some heavy thoughts into this system
• I have the impression the new system can support a much wider variety of builds (just the basic concept, not with the details provided so far)

The bad:

• All new shinies aren't shinies but feel like streamlined super generic close to irrelevant number buffs. 6 PRR here, 10 MRR there, etc. pp *yawn*. Especially self-healing related stuff feels tuned towards 2010 heroic numbers. 2d10 heals every few seconds, even with heal amp and whatever counts you cannot really rely on that. It might save 1 actual heal over the duration of a quest. And thats outside of reaper. In reaper, especially higher ones, you can only make use of temp HP. Seeing numbers like 5 temp HP + 5 per charge makes me wonder if you have a drinking game going, where you have to drink everytime someone claims you haven't played your game in years.
• You built up a very, very nice diversity of builds with basically all stats (exclude con) to hit and damage. Paired with some feats and enhancements we had a huge variety of viable builds (yes, not all where best in spot for R10 stuff, but having specific builds for the hardest content because they work best, will always be the case, so i ignore that). But in Epic/Low-Reaper gameplay basically any properly thought through build could contribute with its unique playstyle. I might be wrong, but from all the posts I read we have less viable build options as you separated feats strictly between caster stats and physical stats. So even with dipping into different trees, having the "game changers" in T5, massively limits choices. (Just think about wisdom monks, they can go LD for dire, but have to go back to STR/DEX as main stat to have something meaning full)
• While I know its impossible to calculate all the impacts on leveling speed and difficulty, at least put some information in there that you consider updating some scalings, especially in lower epics directly in this update and not "at some later point if we see the need". I am all up for a challenge, and basically i am done with PLs so why do I even care but the area 20-23 is already not so much fun, as there is no real gear update since you picked up your lv 15 sharn stuff. I see some struggles incoming for non FotM builds when all the real juice is missing in that area. There is a massive power jump for monsters when you step into epic. I do not see that jump on playerside with the available T1-3 stuff and one destiny feat.
• Shadowdancer in specific, it was a ED that had a lot of tactical aspects with consume, executioner and puppetmaster. Now for rogues its just some stat boosts here and there, thats it. From what i see thats the peak of making everything the same and super boring. In addition with the missing attribute bonuses, i think we have lower assassinate DCs (so far I saw no replacement for the DC loss, and bonus splashing from other EDs is not available as for tacticals where there are some options)

The ugly:

• The general taking away of really epic feeling uniqueness of several trees. Even if numbers would be the same, its just that little extra of your ED, like Blitz, or EiN (yes it was mentioned its moved, but i dont see where to atm) or unbridled, it was just something that felt special and not like just another number buff.
• Taking away feats that were usefull to make us use others. I am pointing to my drinking game assumption, if you consider one of the other feat choices there even remotely relevant, drink. Why not start with: Here are our buffs for all the useless feats and how we think we can make them relevant again. THEN state you need to bring down Dire Charge and Mass Frog as you feel the power vs effort is too high. And not "We move them because you use them too much". If you have a restaurant and everyone orders the same two meals, you do not remove them, you rethink the rest of what you offer.
• Charges. Simply because there are so many issues with hits and buttons not properly registering in mid-fight scenarios and opening a fight with a special attack, especially in high reaper can cause misses due to starting with your lowest to hit in the chain. This alone will cause so many lost charges that it annoys me. If you want to rewards micromanaging this stuff, buff monks with all their useless finisher moves. But keep the other builds viable with a less button intesive smashfest. We really got enough of those 20s things we want to keep up.

[lcollard]

This new destiny system will make epic life much more difficult and time consuming...
This is simply a big nerf.
I don't understand because players want some new things, like new enhancement trees, new content, new mechanics, new classes, new races, new feats, upgrading old stuff...
Not nerfing something nobody complaints about.
All this development time spent to make players sad
You need to attract your players not to make them run away

[Safeword]

Well...

I came back to the game a couple of weeks ago and decided to level my 'highest' level toon (a mule first life Wiz with bad feats, gear and ability scores) 'cause PM seemed low skill-cap and fun to play. For context, the last time I played, I was in guild called Dead Blades on Xoriat.

The grind to 30 was pretty boring, but I admit there was a bit of nostalgia. During the epic levels, I was constantly having to choose between off-build feats because I lacked maxed destinies (e.g. need a maxed divine to get Master of Negative) or just grind karma without making any discernable progress to my character. Also, since I couldn't respec more than 1 feat-- got the free token but had no shards or plat-- I was girding my loins for an immediate tr as soon as I hit 30 so I could do it all again.


I don't think the new system addresses any core problems with this iteration of DDO. New or returning players aren't dissuaded from playing because of slow progression in epic levels. The game requires multiple past lives and BiS items from those lives to be anything other than carried (if you can find a group). It's a game where people have 2 hotbars of abilities and 15 hotbars of gear sets and clickies. C'mon now.


The devs might believe that nerfs will promote grouping (they won't), but I feel the new system is pretty obviously designed to suck plat out of the economy and then sell whatever DDO point respec thingies will be on offer. I dislike the prospect of this, and it might make me leave. However, if it's being added in preparation for increasing the level cap, I'll leave the instant that intention becomes clear.


Moving goalposts is not content.

S

[Dandonk]

<some good thoughts>

I agreed with just about everything you wrote.

There are some really bad things in these changes: limiting build options with, e.g., str/dex/con. Removing or severely limiting the fun abilities in epic and giving some bland generic numbers in return. That sucks so much.

I really love how a wellplaced consume or an EiN can change a fight around. Flashy abilities are FUN. +10 melee power is... meh. Removing special abilities just makes the game bland, and even further reduces it to a dps-race. I like that DDO is not (solely) about dps, but also about the clever use of abilities. And here I don't mean a haste boost, or a combat trance. So please, please don't remove, nerf-from-orbit or gate-away-to-the-point-of-removal the great abilities away. If anything, make more of them!

[boredGamer]

Aye, it definitely depends on the build and player. As a caster I can twist in Meld with zero effort and use it for the few "Oh no" moments. The new Meld would require much more effort and is not very accessible as a caster, in particular building the martial charges needed. Thus, for me, its a huge nerf.

Of all the changes this seems very reasonable. The fact that literally any build with any defense or HP could tank doom reapers on r10, and just rotate through the character tanking, was absolutely ridiculous.

[ideal_insomnia]

So general thoughts: I actually support the idea of slowing down epics and adding progression and enhancements-like system to it. However:
1. This change needs a lot of supporting content changes. Epic quests for every level with appropriate XP and gear (including something to play at level 20-21!). One possible change is some rework to base level 18-19 quests: allow entrance on Reaper for low epic toons, raise XP for older content.
2. New EDs new a LOT of work. Right now they feel kinda boring and same-y.
3. This might or might not be just me, but "Get charges spend charges" system is terrible. I go out of my way to not use it is current version of EDs and I certainly don't want it in literally every destiny. I feel like Charges system would work in a turn-based slower game, but in DDO? In often chaotic real time? No.

[blarhblarhblarh]

Tried to watch cordovan´s live and when I turn it on the blond dude laughs after saying that people will loose previous progress and will gain a cape. And people paid for it. They don´t even pretend to care for the game or the playerbase. DDO needs new designers, not a designer that is new. Dude is younger than the time many people play dungeons and dragons and I don´t understand why SSG back up those mistakes. DDO have dungeon narrated by Gary Gygax but seens to forget about the D&D core rulebook when in doubt of wich direction to follow.

From the ultra mni "quest" in feywild (some couldn´t even be considered quests) to breaking old items made by oldschool developers just so he can fill his ego and pretend that he is right and the core rulebooks of D&D are wrong. No respect even for D&D party roles that are still copied by 80% of rpgs and online games.

Sometimes the staff seens to be working against DDO
and this time is not an unfinished animation or quest. There could be dozens of ways to make reaper harder or to create new EDs without breaking a mechanic that actually works for almost 10 years.

[arminius]

It’s impossible for me not to see the (planned) fall of DDO in the broader context. From the beginning of the Internet, it seemed that Nerd Culture was on the ascendancy. Now it is failing on every front.

Lord of the Rings movies were great, but then The Hobbit movies failed
Lord of the Rings Amazon is not looking good
Game of Thrones TV show fell
Game of Thrones books are likely to fail because they will never be completed
MST3K fell
Buffy The Vampire Slayer is being MeToo-ed
Firefly canceled
Bojack Horseman canceled
Doctor Who fell, and fell in a way that seems to have deliberately cut off any way to recover it
Ghostbusters fell
Star Wars fell
Star Trek fell
Star Trek Discovery is an abomination
Star Trek Picard is a war crime
South Park, who can even say at this point, there isn't any level of quality from super-genius to garbage that they haven't hit repeatedly, and hard
Post-Endgame MCU is falling
DC movies don't even get to fall because they never got up in the first place
The entire comic book industry is failing
Even Blizzard is completely falling apart and bleeding creative so fast that it is making headlines in the mainstream press
I guess Monty Python remains relatively untouched, but its creators are so old that nothing new has come of it in nearly two generations

This leaves us with what, Rick and Morty? For now. And the occasional Robot Chicken I guess? The Expanse is pretty entertaining. And nerds seem to be pretty dominant in indie music at the moment, for what it's worth, though to some degree that is a definitional thing - indie music is what nerds define it as being.

And we had DDO. And I'm already speaking of it in the past tense, so that doesn't seem like a good sign to me

[Carpone]

As much as I appreciate previews, this is a bit premature. There's too much that doesn't work yet within EDs to provide insightful feedback.