U51 Early Preview: Main Thread

[rabidfox]

Personally, I like the fact that it is easily readable (unlike the buff bar), but it could definitely look better.

I assume it's placeholder art, as I think Lynn said they were working on a few options for how the charges look.

Even if one likes the look of it, it's not a practical visual; it's where your character is located and can be blocked by others (you can see it being clipped/blocked by another player in that Strimtom video). How often am I standing knee deep in FvS healing wall with 5 or 11 other people all right next to me? All the time, usually with dozens of AoEs and other effects going off too, making it next impossible to see my character so I won't be able to see those markers. So I hope it's placeholder (or better yet that charges are removed from the system entirely).

[Stravix]

Even if one likes the look of it, it's not a practical visual; it's where your character is located and can be blocked by others (you can see it being clipped/blocked by another player in that Strimtom video). How often am I standing knee deep in FvS healing wall with 5 or 11 other people all right next to me? All the time, usually with dozens of AoEs and other effects going off too, making it next impossible to see my character so I won't be able to see those markers. So I hope it's placeholder (or better yet that charges are removed from the system entirely).

I would think that it not taking precedence over non-ui elements would be a bug, but I would also guess that it could easily have a less intrusive style to it. Just so long as it isn't relegated to the buff bar is fine by me.

[Kelledren]

One thing the Devs said (think Strimtom video) is that the visual to show charges is not at all set in stone.

I too would be bothered if it is dots surrounding my charter as it shows now. I’m hoping that if we do end up with a charge/spend system that the charges will show up in a separate UI box (about the size of the d20) that you can move to wherever you want in the screen that suites you best. If we accrued multiple types of charges maybe it will have three numbers that are color coded to type of charge (maybe different font for our color blind friends).

That being said still not a fan of a charge system and extra calculations for lag purposes which are 100% legitimate concerns brought up by many here. Static buffs, or even just charges that enhance buffs will be easier to use, and less math for the game to sort through. I admit that my knowledge of the game engine = 0, but lag I know well (not as well as most of you tho).

[Shadospawn]

That being said still not a fan of a charge system and extra calculations for lag purposes which are 100% legitimate concerns brought up by many here. Static buffs, or even just charges that enhance buffs will be easier to use, and less math for the game to sort through. I admit that my knowledge of the game engine = 0, but lag I know well (not as well as most of you tho).

You know I know what was “said” but I now have to wonder if it didn’t happen like:

“Hey we’ve got this awesome new builder/spender system we want to propose for the ED revamp”

“Hmmmm testing it out doesn’t work so well in raid situations. Overloads the server”

“What if we get rid of double strike?”

I know I know how cynical can I get right? Probably just two bad ideas that are unrelated.

[MacDubh]

So U51 is pants.

A huge pile of steaming cabbage and raw carrots. Suitable for weirdo vegans maybe, but not fine upstanding DDO players.

The sheer number of players going to be buried under this refuse is stunning. Not like previous things which smashed a few wee throwers or some scrawny sorcs, this hits everyone, real people, apart from a few weirdo heroic only players.

Let's make a deal. Drop it and we won't mention it again. It can be a Bobby Ewing dream sequence. Or like you got drunk and slept with a bunch of WoW devs. We can forgive and forget. We've had so many happy years together. Don't let it go to waste ....

[Zdevor]

Just one simple question.

1.
I bought the VIP status cause I like the system as it always was and is now. Year after year since 2009.
This upgrade will dramatically and definitively change the game mechanic and playstyle I always loved.
I choose DDO long ago cause it is like the the interactive version of the pen and paper tabeltop version. It was authentic till now.
In my opinion with this upgrade (and I mean the Charger/Builder system) DDO will lose it's authentic style. DDO will be like any other MMORPG and will force me to play DDO only one way, I hate. I dont want that. I dont want to run around as a living X-mas tree. And yes I tried it on Lamannia.

When I paid for the VIP status, I bought a game with conditions I like and accepted. We made a contract with the purchase!!! With this upgrade DDO will modify the basis of the conditions I paid for.
I think this is not acceptable at all.
Of course I can cancel my VIP status but still have almost a year left, because I just renewed my VIP status. I renewed it before I knew anything about U51.
If I order and prepaid for meat in a restaurant and they bring me vegetables then they say vegetables are good and fun and if I dont like it I can leave the restaurant without return my money, I think thats also unacceptable.
Will you return the rest of my money? Of course not!

2.
A VIP is a person who is accorded special privileges due to their high social status, influence or importance. They should be very important to SSG because we are the players, who are loyal to the game more than 10-15 years now. We are not cows who can be milked for money.
The VIP players (if not all the players) would have been asked about this serious change before the developers put time, energy and money in to this project.
What does VIP mean for SSG at all? Giving extra 10% exp, free gold roll each week, 500 DDO points mothly and some free access to game content? This is very week. VIP status should reworked where customer service is the most important thing. Where people feel SSG care for them, inquire about our opinion and experience about the game. Discount on the expansion packs, etc.... We should work together to make this fantastic game better!!!

3.
When a developer likes something, it doesn't mean all the palyers will also feel the same. Sure there are palyers who love the new project and I dont blame them.
Lets say (theoretically) 50% of the players don't like the changes, the other 50% love it. SSG only hear the voices with positive feedback and ignore the other 50% who gave negative feedback on this project. The upgrade will be released, cause the SSG team worked hard with it for 2 years now. Even if it is bad for the 50% of the players. Will be released and doesnt matter what!
BUT YOU STILL IGNORE A HUGE NUMBER OF LOYAL PLAYERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please Dear SSG put some thoughts on what I wrote and dont do any unconsidered action! We love this game!

I wont post anymore about this topic. I apologise for my style but I am really ****ed off, angry and bitter. Didnt want to insult anyone from ssg or player side.

[Iriale]

That's why I haven't renewed my subscription for the first time in over a decade, Zdevor. SSG has long ignored its consumers, treating us with a passive-aggressive condescension that says "we know better than you what is good for you." They are leading the game where they think it should be, instead of accepting how their players like to play and taking it where the players would like it best, and all of them mixing it up with a business policy of "nerf now, sell off later. ". And frankly, this was coming. SSG has long been doing what they want regardless of the wishes of their players and they had announced many of the horrible changes they have made. I have to say that by introducing the charges system they have exceeded my expectations of a bad design, but hey, SSG has a talent for surprising me as to the worst.

[gringofoot]

Well said. Thank you.

Just one simple question.

1.
I bought the VIP status cause I like the system as it always was and is now. Year after year since 2009.
This upgrade will dramatically and definitively change the game mechanic and playstyle I always loved.
I choose DDO long ago cause it is like the the interactive version of the pen and paper tabeltop version. It was authentic till now.
In my opinion with this upgrade (and I mean the Charger/Builder system) DDO will lose it's authentic style. DDO will be like any other MMORPG and will force me to play DDO only one way I hate. I dont want that. I dont want to run around as a living X-mas tree. And yes I tried it on Lamannia.

When I paid for the VIP status, I bought a game with conditions I like and accepted. We made a contract with the purchase!!! With this upgrade DDO will modify the basis of the conditions I paid for.
I think this is not acceptable at all.
Of course I can cancel my VIP status but still have almost a year left because I just renewed my VIP status. I renewed it before I knew anything about U51.
If I order and prepaid for meat in a restaurant and they bring me vegetables then they say vegetables are good and fun and if I dont like it I can leave the restaurant without return my money, I think thats also unacceptable.
Will you return the rest of my money? Of course not!

2.
A VIP is a person who is accorded special privileges due to their high social status, influence or importance. They should be very important to SSG because we are the players, who are loyal to game more than 10-15 years now. We are not cows who can be milked for money.
The VIP players (if not all the players) would have been asked about this serious change before the developers put time, energy and money in to this project.
What does VIP means for SSG at all? Giving extra 10% exp, free gold roll each week, 500 DDO points mothly and some free access to game content? This is very week. VIP status should reworked where customer service is the most important thing. Where people feel SSG care for them, inquire about our opinion and experience about the game. Discount on the expansion packs, etc.... We should work together to make this fantastic game better!!!

3.
When a developer likes something, it doesn't mean all the palyers will also feel the same. Sure there are palyers who love the new project and I dont blame them.
Lets say (theoretically) 50% of the players don't like the changes, the other 50% love it. SSG only hear the voices with positive feedback and ignore the other 50% who gave negative feedback on this project. The upgrade will be released, cause the SSG team worked hard with it for 2 years now. Even if it is bad for the 50% of the players. Will be released and doesnt matter what!
BUT YOU STILL IGNORE A HUGE NUMBER OF LOYAL PLAYERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please Dear SSG put some thoughts on what I wrote and dont do any unconsidered action! We love this game!

I wont post anymore about this topic. I apologise for my style but I am really ****ed off, angry and bitter. Didnt want to insult anyone from ssg or player side.

[xBunny]

Here's the thing, though... is it more or less complex than the *current* ED system? Imagine being a new player who just hit 20. "Ooh, this ED looks like a lot of fun! Wait, I can't claim it? Urgh, I have to claim something in this sphere two spheres away? I have to level it, then go over to Martial, level it, go over to another Martial, level it, then go get my first one in the right sphere, level *it*, and yay now I can finally do the ED I actually want to play in! Meanwhile, I've hit 26 and taken Toughness because I didn't bother maxing any of these EDs I didn't care about, ugh. And oh look, I'm approaching 28, and still haven't maxed one, let alone two... and what the heck are all these twists?"

Vs.

"Oh hey, this system looks very similar to the enhancement system I've been doing for the past 20 levels! Well, I figured out which three enhancement trees I wanted, now which three EDs do I want..."

All above could be improved just with removing karma and making all destinies being maxed by default, if the real goal was to make it "easer for new players". So no - this is not an argument at all.

[xBunny]

Just 1 thing, Meld is definitely different, but personally I think having between +10% - 60% dodge uncapped with a duration of 20s and a 15s cooldown, is a buff compared to 95% dodge for 15s with a 2 minute (105s not including 15s uptime) cooldown
If you use meld as a "Oh No" button, and expect new meld to be the same "Oh no" button, then yea I guess it's a nerf. But if you take this new form of meld for what it is, and actually use it effectively it is so strong.

No, it is nerf, just because of use cases where it was used. Now it is 15s of immortality - good for high reaper, when say, Doom appears, or something went very wrong. Making it less - means you will be very likely one shot by Doom.

Instead of it being a big jump at 20 and then a slow climb from 20-30, they wanted to make it a decent climb the whole way up.

Mobs on epics do get big jump, so having big jump on 20 too - was part of design.

If you are doing it solo (It's specifically not meant to be done solo thats the point)
and you think that after this change, you won't be strong enough to do solo the CHALLENGE DIFFICULTY THAT WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE DONE SOLO

Why you think it was not meant to solo? It was meant to be harder than Elite, but it was never said to be impossible to solo. There are r1 and r10. All of them can be soloed if u strive for it. Anyway still can solo r3 heroics, so should we wait for another nerf?

[neain2008]

I am currently taking a break from ddo as I'm wont to do, and these changes feel... mostly bad.

I tend to play either casters or a thrower of some variant (dagger and Shuri still) and so far the trees feel far weaker than they used to be.

First I will address the builder/spender idea. Horrible idea if you somehow didn't get the message from everyone else saying so. Unless they eclipse my heroic abilities/spells and make it worth replacing them with the new ones, it's a waste of bar space that is already full. The few caster builders are weaker than the spells I use in epics, and the martial builders also feel on par or weaker than their heroic counterparts.

Most of the caster trees have not been previewed yet but for my druid caster, the primal tree looks better than it used to... which may say more about the old tree than the new one.

For my throwers? From the looks of shiradi, I may not even keep that tree in my 3 tree list. It went from a must-have (whirling wrists at 20 and a large damage/kill shot) to a tree that feels empty until you hit 30. I lost the stance I actually run around in (stay frosty), the stance that always felt meh to me is now basically required (rainbow+), the other abilities that I would twist in when in other trees have been nerfed (healing spring) or changed enough that it feels removed (pin).
I am currently looking at LD and Shadowdancer as my main trees after this and even they feel... weak. maybe it gets better when they are seen side by side and I can spend points in both trees, or with the monsters losing all epic warding? (hint hint), but as it stands I just feel a rather large nerf bat overhead.

I will log in once these changes go live and I will play through at least 1 eTR and hTR and back to where I am now, I just hope that my feelings from looking at these trees are unfounded.

[neain2008]

Had a thought after posting. If the builders/spenders for casters are tuned so that builders are 6th level spells (1d6+6 as it seems to be), but that spenders are 8 or 9th level (or better, like the current energy burst), that would make it worthwhile to build and then spend as a caster and worth replacing my normal spells with. No idea how to make the martial side of things look appealing because you already gave them some fairly good scaling abilities in their heroic trees. But for casters, we live or die on our spells and in epics, most of them just don't hit hard enough.

[Seph1roth5]

I don't get the need for a visual representation of builder charges. Just have any builder keep track of it in it's icon and you can put it on your hotbar. Much easier to just have 1-4 new hotbar icons than a bunch of floaty symbols around your head.

No matter the color, shape, or size, I can't imagine any way for it not to be a big distracting eyesore.

[Alizure]

Any other company would listen to the players. Not SSG, SSG will take the playerbase opinion as an ego issue/personal treat and do whatever they want even if 90% of the players tell them that they are not nerfing the players but taking the fun and dynamism out of a game that is alredy in the verge of extinction. So why all the comunity with thousands of hours and experience in rpg and online games will not be listen but a 19 year old developer will? this is the question I would like to see the answer.

As some have been saying ddo is setting itself to fail. I really can´t see any other option. These days every company asks their consumer what they want, SSG even makes the question but never move in one degree the direction of their ship. And that´s why the developer can laugh in the face of the players saying that they will receive a cape for their past efforts (just check last cordovan´s live if you don´t believe).

I have cancelled my subscription. I just can't play anymore... ever since the changes up for review.. i tried them, hated them. And the developers seem to not give a **** about anything anybody says unless its something to the effect of "Yay! Good job!!!" I just can't logically put my money into something that is so broken, and the developers refuse to acknowledge. To the rest of the playerbase..Good luck!

[Zakharov]

I agree with many of the reasons this revamp is needed, but it still needs a lot of work to both fix those problems and retain what people enjoy about the current system. From what I've seen so far:

Good

• Unlock all trees right away
• Spend points in multiple trees (somewhat replacing Twists)
• Attempts to make more trees viable for casters

Bad

• Builder/Spender mechanic - please no, for the love of Mystra. Kill it with silver fire!
• Loss of power for most of the ETR cycle
• Loss of flexibility (can no longer swap destinies and twists at will for free, 3 trees don't fully replace twists)
• The build towards a level cap increase (please see my past posts for why this is a bad idea)

How to fix the bad while retaining the proposed system:

Builders/Spenders

This feels like a complete 180 from the past few years - the original Epic Destinies had several abilities with charge up mechanics that caused problem so the devs replaced most of them with normal cool downs. Now they want to add back a similar mechanic that is more annoying with quick decay and forcing it on every destiny across the board? Just please no. The only way to "fix" it would be eliminate all decay so it functions like the old epic moments. But at that point you might as well skip to the end part where you replace them with normal cool downs anyway.

Loss of power with level gating

I understand the desire to smooth out power through the epic levels, but gating abilities so close to 30 is detrimental to anyone going through a 20->30 TR. As mentioned by others, if you were to actually mirror the level gating of enhancements translated from a 1-20 cycle to a 20-30 cycle it would look more like this:

Tier 1: Level 20, 0 AP
Tier 2: Level 20, 5 AP
Tier 3: Level 21, 10 AP
Tier 4: Level 22, 20 AP
Tier 5: Level 25, 30 AP (Level 26 numerically but the first couple heroic levels are so fast that considering 12 as the heroic halfway point makes more sense, thus Tier 5 should be at the epic halfway point)

Even with the above changes, it still has a feeling of taking power away so you can sell it back again later. Very icky.
Maybe as an alternative you can allow people to gain epic past lives at the lvl cap? I would rather gain "epic past life xp" at 1/10 the rate at lvl 30 than go through an epic TR.

Loss of flexibility

Even if all new destinies are fleshed out and balanced as well as possible, the new system would still be less flexible than before. As mentioned elsewhere, right now we can swap destinies and twists for free between quests. This is done frequently, even multiple times a day between raids with different needs. The fix to that is easy:

• Resetting destiny trees should be free

Twists are trickier - they are so maximally flexible that you would need to either:

• Retain twists as a mechanic - pull single abilities from any tree you can access

Or:

• Expand the number of destiny trees available at once - 6 to match enhancements would be good, but to match twist flexibility we would need access to all trees at once

The eventual level cap increase

There is too much to say about this here, but I still think raising the level cap would be harmful to the game. Alternate advancement systems at lvl 30 could provide everything people want from a lvl cap increase without the drawbacks.

How about instead of dividing players up into smaller groups you expand the grouping options? Maybe adopt a City of Heroes style auto scaling for all characters and gear, such that anyone could group with anyone of any level with no penalty. Then the character level won't matter so much.

[rover223]

People play games for amusement and to relax, it is a kind of escapism from the stresses and concerns of the world. MMOs are part of that. DDO players have invested a lot of time, money, and emotion into their characters. They have made their characters they way they want them, as such the proposed update fifty-one should take nothing, NOTHING, away from what already is. Add to it if you like, but take nothing away, leave the enhancements, their time of availability, and their point costs the same, not only does that include enhancements but also the inherit attack power bonuses. Many of us long-timers have thousands of dollars and hours invested in the game, we are your customers, the ones who pay the bills, and the salaries, as such vexing those who have remained loyal for years is a slap in the face.

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!

[Oxarhamar]

I would think that it not taking precedence over non-ui elements would be a bug, but I would also guess that it could easily have a less intrusive style to it. Just so long as it isn't relegated to the buff bar is fine by me.

Or just remove builder/spenders entirely

Then there is no reason for having anything besides the buff bar

[Oxarhamar]

Even if one likes the look of it, it's not a practical visual; it's where your character is located and can be blocked by others (you can see it being clipped/blocked by another player in that Strimtom video). How often am I standing knee deep in FvS healing wall with 5 or 11 other people all right next to me? All the time, usually with dozens of AoEs and other effects going off too, making it next impossible to see my character so I won't be able to see those markers. So I hope it's placeholder (or better yet that charges are removed from the system entirely).

Tested it & I did not notice the markers at all on my Deepgnome likely because they scale to character size & like you said being in the mix of combat we already have visuals especially spells that block this.

One of my biggest gripes about this game is spell visuals and even the action boost + comes up and depending on where you are in combat or in relationship to the edges of the map pushing the camera all up one you can’t see anything. I get not seeing when you are hit with blind but healing wall is also blinding for some reason.

There shouldn’t be any little floaters or separate things that need to be monitored during play besides health bar so bar and cool downs it then they game become more about charge management than anything else

Why can the spender be activated when it has not charged & do nothing but put itself on cool down anyway that might be as bad as activating an attack into an unloaded crossbow

There is no option besides build/spender you are correct the best idea to fix Builder/Spender is removing it entirely before it goes live

We’ve already had a charge system that was removed from the game for being annoying so why this outdated copy paste MMO gameplay is being added back to the game is really anyone guess since we’re given no reasonings.

[Feefifofum]

I'd signed up for a ddo account back in 2012 and played a bit , but didn't really get into the game until 2017. And it became a game I absolutely adored: the build diversity/ flexibility, and the possibility of making whatever whacky build you can come up with work (extremely well) was what distinguished DDO from the other MMOs for me, and what kept me coming back to this game.

But since several patches ago, build diversity/ flexibility has been taken away gradually with the release of every update. When I first heard that the ED revamp was coming, I was looking forward to it: a few of the EDs were not working (primal avatar for one) and needed fixing. But when I saw the U51 preview, I realized that the one thing that set this game apart from others for me, will eventually cease to exist. I bought the ultimate bundle edition of every expansion since ravenloft (with the exception feywild, due to geo-blocking issues), gold season pass, every adventure pack that came out, and still have 30K store points on my account, but I don't care. I cannot bring myself to play/invest anymore in my characters, knowing that the new ED system is coming in U51 (yes, there will be some tweaks based on player feedback, but it's extremely unlikely they'll scratch whole thing).

Well, at least it's been a fun ride. Thank you SSG for a great game. And thank you all for the fun times. Wish you all good luck.

[Hawkwier]

What follows is purely my personal view, I don’t claim to speak for anyone else, and apologise in advance for any points I may have repeated from elsewhere.

The changes in U51, overall limit flexibility/diversity in gameplay (undermining IMO one of the key distinctive strengths of DDO), and moreover seek to introduce a mechanic the game is currently incapable of supporting effectively.

But first let’s consider the bigger picture here. It is absolutely apparent that SSG, despite the vastly negative response from players when originally mooted, are on a path to extend the level cap. There were very few voices in favour of this move, and it is surely driven by some overriding commercial imperative. Any pretence it is good for the game or the already stretched and sparse player base is either misguided or dishonest to some degree IMO.

U51 is a development in support of that unwanted cap extension.

In that context the loss of epic moments as an interim waypoint to some form of regain in future at a new cap is understandable, however cynical and regrettable a move. Inevitably this alone represents a significant nerf to player power and a constriction of flexibility and diversity in gameplay. Choices over epic moment are literally removed entirely.

Devs will hopefully understand a natural scepticism around claims being made to dial back mob abilities in balance, given previous track record on fulfilling commitments. Thus far the only commitment I can see is -6 on saves, if this is the degree to which the impact of U51 has been thought through in terms of balance, then again, scepticism is the overriding reaction.

Then we have the loss of twists. A fully developed toon can currently have access to abilities from up to 6 EDs – main plus 5 twists. Now to be limited to 3 trees. Again flexibility and diversity suffer. I have yet to see a cogent reason for the imposition of such restriction, given access to 6 trees is standard in heroic trees.

Whilst understanding to an extent the moving of Dire Charge and Mass Frog to restrict access to be more like that originally intended – assuming melee cc and caster instakill respectively – the way this has been done is overly restrictive. Taking Dire Charge as an example, similar could have been achieved (incidentally at any time over the past 10 years or so if things were really so egregious), by simply adding a precondition that a t5 heroic enhancement from at least one melee-appropriate tree be required to select (for example for Dire Charge, it could be t5 qualification from any of the fiighter/pally/barb/rogue/bard/ranger etc., trees). Placing it as t5 in LD gives that ED an over-focus, again impacting flexibility and diversity.

May I also just say that the sort of tone/response from SSG that a build is no good if it depends on Dire Charge is not in the least helpful in terms of offsetting the scepticism currently felt toward these changes. Whether true or not, attempts at cheap point-scoring and self-aggrandisement in such fashion dilutes any message that SSG are on point. And right now they very much need to be at least seen to be!

Then there is the loss of abilities from the ED trees. A big loss for those currently heavily invested, but even where not, having the ability to balance out an uneven score via EDs was again a nice bit of flexibility and diversity to have available. Beyond some spurious reasoning that there was no room for this (spurious IMO given some of the weak options that do take up such space), there is no reason for this loss.

But, saving best ‘til last, we have builder/enhance/spenders…

First thing to say is that given the short up time of these charges, driving the need to constantly generate them, WHEN COMBINED WITH CONSTANT FAILURE TO EXECUTE LAG EFFECTS, this mechanic is impractical to implement form the player’s perspective. Like many hot-bar abilities they simply won’t fire reliably/consistently enough to work. There is zero doubt that the introduction of this mechanic is absolutely wrong-headed at this time. SSG need to rethink this entirely as based on track record I doubt they are capable for resolving continuing lag issues any time soon. The game currently just isn’t good enough to support this. PLEASE STOP!

Then, the above imperative aside, we have the fact that the charges are different in nature, require different abilities to charge and decay independently (adrenaline takes 8 sec to create a charge which only lasts for 10 sec – how is that an effective “builder”??). You also need to take different abilities form different trees in order to improve the chances of charging and amount of charges available. Yes, doable, but again at the expense of build flexibility/diversity.

In summary, I’ve tried to set out at fairly high level where issues arise impacting build flexibility/diversity, and a particularly unworkable game mechanic. Given the early stage of preview I’ve tried to avoid getting into too much detail, though I have significant concerns there too. And anyway, this should be more than enough to be getting on with, as neither of the aspects I’ve sought to address are, for me at any rate, trivial concerns.

SSG, you are embarking on a journey here, to increase the level cap and introduce further significant changes in how the game is played. To make a success of this you cannot travel alone. You need your customers travel with you. In that sense U51 represents the invitation to us to join you... The trouble is, as it stands, it’s a particularly uninviting invitation, and so many of us may well choose not to travel. Again, I should stress I can only speak for myself…

Personally, I will wait to see the final form in the hope changes are adopted, if it stays as is, I will likely stop then. What I am certainly doing is placing a moratorium on further spend on the game in the interim until this is much clearer, so I won’t for example be buying U50. Having recently spent quite a lot of points on raid timer bypasses as I pursued a key bit of loot, I only have 200 or so points left. Normally I’d simply top these up to purchase the new Update, but I can find no rationale for doing so when the following Update may turn out to be the last time I play. All I can say is, if this were the release today, regrettably, I’d likely be done.

So, reflecting on my above concerns, what are the actions the Devs could take to make this journey more inviting to me, at least? Well...

1. I'm guessing reintroducing epic moments is an ask too far. At least at L30. OK, I'll take that one on the chin.

2. Dial back mob power bloat. I honestly don't have much faith you will achieve this effectively, but it's worth a shout out anyway, I reckon.

3. Give access to 6 trees at L30. You can start with 3 and add the other 3 as you progress. Points, like in heroic enhancements, will define and limit what is available to a toon. Folks can go deep or broad in their toon development, and it goes some way to redressing the loss of twists.

4. Let players access multiple T5s. The abilities are hardly ground breakingly OP compared to losing epic moments, the available points will limit what can be taken anyway, and at the opportunity cost of other abilities. Things like Dire Charge become available again, albeit at a cost.

(NB My current build requires me to put 41 points in one heroic class enhancement tree and 33 in another, severely limiting my ability to go deep in other desirable trees. That's fine as it's my choice, but for example removing my access to those other desirable trees would evoke a whole different perspective!).

5. Add at least one multi ability selector option with 3 ranks to each ED tree. So a player can select an ability and increase it to 2nd or 3rd rank by spending additional points. It can cost 2 points per rank. Abilities can be restricted to those most thematically relevant as is currently the case.

6. Bin the ridiculous unnecessary and unwanted builder mechanic. No ifs, no buts, just scrap it, please. It's unwelcome garbage.

I've pretty much made my peace with 1. and 2. Deliver on 2.-6. and I can at least get on board with your journey, albeit with some reservations. Up to you SSG...