U51 Early Preview: Epic Destiny Revamp: Core Framework

[scut207]

Sorry, but this just looks like a jumbled mess to me, too much of a pita. And even worse is that by the time I get a toon up to level 30 and get the best enhancements, its time to reincarnate, so whats the point (other than the cap going up past 30. I like the old system better, you stay in on destiny and use the twists to get a few extra goodies.

I'm very nervous that they wont adjust the HP bloat of epic mobs that the old system used to overcome by frontloading charcter power. Without normalization of mob HP, or moving the big attacks in the new trees lower, going from heroic to epic this is going to be a brick wall.

[Chilldude]

It remains to be seen the actual impact these changes will have on the game, but I must admit that from what I read in the OP it certainly seems like it's pointed in the right direction to me. I've always thought the ED system was convoluted, excessively grindy, poorly implemented, and just bad... really, really bad. Terrible really. Just so, so bad. Bloody awful. A magic caster is forced to be in a pure melee ED to progress? A melee character is forced to be in a pure magic caster ED to progress? EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER has to GRIND through ALL destinies to earn fate points for twists? Such badness!

EDs working like heroic enhancements makes sense because it's not completely backwards and moronic like they are currently. I can see a bunch of Timelords coming unglued about it though. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN I WON'T HAVE A FULL ED WITH 5 TWISTS THE SECOND I HIT LEVEL 20!!!???"

Still, to me, the most important thing that needs to be changed is to remove the grind for players who are not interested in grinding and simply want to play the game instead. Be that a separate server that does not allow reincarnation, installing catch up mechanics so that a new player isn't staring down the barrel of a 10 year grindfest just to get to equal ground, or by simply making past life perks non stacking with insightful. Your past lives would give you insight into the way certain things function and therefore you would not need that stat on your gear to earn the bonus. For example, 3 sorcerer past lives grants +3 evocation DC, something anyone tossing around evocation spells is going to want to have so it pretty much forces everyone who wants to play a caster that casts evocation spells to grind out 3 sorc past lives on EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER. If the evocation past life perk didn't stack with insightful, players who didn't have the past lives could gear for those missing DCs, but it would free up gear slots for players with the past lives. With the right changes to the game, at cap a first life character decked out in the right gear could be on absolutely equal footing with a Timelord uber duber in regards to having the exact same evocation DC... yet... the uber duber Timelord can still feel good about living in their mom's basement because they will have sooooo many of the past life perks that no first life toon could wear enough gear to catch up completely, yet, ANY first life character could be entirely equal in one or two (perhaps even a few).

[elvesunited]

so 3 Racial Past Lives get you 1 racial AP point.
a +1 racial tome gets you 1 racial point.

a +1 fate tome get you 1 fate point which gets you 1/3 epic AP point.
3 Epic past lives get you 1 fate point which gets you 1/3 epic AP point.
And epic past life completionist gets you 1 epic AP point.
( if I ever grind so hard that I get 2 epic past life completionist feats on 1 character I want someone to kill me )

This is an insane amount of grind.... 9 epic past lives to get 1 epic action point.

It should match racial. 3 epic past lives to get 1 epic action point. Fate tomes provide epic action points equal to their bonus.

[Enderoc]

If we are expecting a large wave of new players due to a popularity in D&D now this will help them get epic past lives specific to builds...as well as encourage vets to group more imo

[Velenfein]

My comment to guildies everytime i reach lvl 20:

-So strange, i just reached epic lvls and i now feel weaker than ever.

Can't imagine how it's gonna be with that new system.


Solution: adjust monster HP or PRR or DC accordingly, cause we gonna have lots of imbalance problems coming soon.

On the positive side: slower kills, longer quests means more xp pots to buy, more boring grinding so people may end up buying more otto boxes.

Was is the plan all along?

WHAT? Hunt's end reachable only at 30?

WOw!! Could you hire someone that likes to play ranged toon plz ? ....

[Arkai]

Hi there, casual player here and I wanted to give my two cents, also.

I have 6 toons parked at 30. I hate hamster wheel but I enjoy greatly playing raids and high reaper content. I only tr to change my build in a particular toon, and usually just play iconics because low heroics are a slog to me.

So, I tried Lammania to see the new changes. I like the way you collapsed the meta, because it's fun going to a place new again and looking for the new diamonds. I don't care if I lost 6 DCS with this pass or you nerfed key abilities that are working now as butter and bread. All is ok, things flow and we have to find new treasures and interactions.

BUT

I cannot stand that "gated" power level you proposed. As I said, I hate heroic because is a slog, and when I tr I can't see the time to hit 20, get a destiny and play a "FULL CHARACTER" with a complete set of abilities and powers. I don't like at all that "get power from chunk to chunk" thing. I hate it, actually.

So, every time I will change my build, I will have to take a slog "a la heroic TR", even after hitting 20. Okay, no more TR's for me, I will play something else. This game cannot become more unfun with all the unavoidable grind parts, seriously.

I speak for myself, i don't know if many people is feeling this way, but I wanted to give my opinion. Gated levels at epic are the worst thing I've seen in 10 years in this game.

Thanks

[Khornelain]

I say it again: the ED system is currently very poorly designed, earning destinies just once and having access to its full power at level 20 upon subsequent lives; farming destines that don´t anything for your build just to get a single enhancement to twist or farm fate points; creating a progress desert between level 20 and 30 where there is nothing to gain from leveling up. Lame, really.

The current approach is way better and smart designed. You gain something every epic level, you get progress by gaining DPs as you gain APs in heroic, to get to choose where to put them with a wide range of options and you get a tangile edge by gaining epic past life feats. And you get to gain all these DPs upon re-reaching level 20, of course. I don´t see people whine cause they have to re-gain heroic APs upon restarting at level 1.

Now, I agree with some things said in the thread: first, T5 of EDs should be earned earlier than level 30 (29 seems ok to me, but I am open to other options). You should limit level 30 abilities to a minimum; second, and most important: whereas the system revamp overall concept is great, the implementation has certainly a lot of room to improve. Reading destinies drafts I miss a lot of uniqueness, of epicness in the skills and abilities. I advice you to dialogue with the community on this and notice the beauty of asimetry. Yes, asimetry. Flee from having all type of characters and builds being able to do everything on their own. Kids and grown-up adults with a kid´s mind already have GW2 and similar.

- Khorne

[Velenfein]

I say it again: the ED system is currently very poorly designed, earning destinies just once and having access to its full power at level 20 upon subsequent lives; farming destines that don´t anything for your build just to get a single enhancement to twist or farm fate points; creating a progress desert between level 20 and 30 where there is nothing to gain from leveling up. Lame, really.

The current approach is way better and smart designed. You gain something every epic level, you get progress by gaining DPs as you gain APs in heroic, to get to choose where to put them with a wide range of options and you get a tangile edge by gaining epic past life feats. And you get to gain all these DPs upon re-reaching level 20, of course. I don´t see people whine cause they have to re-gain heroic APs upon restarting at level 1.

Now, I agree with some things said in the thread: first, T5 of EDs should be earned earlier than level 30 (29 seems ok to me, but I am open to other options). You should limit level 30 abilities to a minimum; second, and most important: whereas the system revamp overall concept is great, the implementation has certainly a lot of room to improve. Reading destinies drafts I miss a lot of uniqueness, of epicness in the skills and abilities. I advice you to dialogue with the community on this and notice the beauty of asimetry. Yes, asimetry. Flee from having all type of characters and builds being able to do everything on their own. Kids and grown-up adults with a kid´s mind already have GW2 and similar.

- Khorne

I agree with most of what you pointed out.

Problem is: balance.

New players without having maximised their epic trees could hardly be able to solo on EE or R1 or more. So they went on ln or lh at that's normal and part of the game. Those that reached epic completionist and unlocked lots of epic past lives could enjoy, and rightfully deserve, to be able to solo some epic content on EE and R1, even tho most quest solo at lvl 20 were very painful to complete.

But i cannot imagine at the moment an epic completionist ranged dagger thrower being able to solo easily a lvl 20 quest like black loch on R1 (maybe not even EE) at lvl 20 without those abilities such as Hunt's end, Stay Frosty, nerve venom, Tea with queen, (only after resting) etc etc.

It is a very big nerf, once again for ranged (why always ranged i wonder) at earlier levels and it will affect even those players that worked years and years to strenghten their character.

It will slow down level progression to a boring point that nobody will want to epic tr anymore, and staying at cap, they will become more bored, and they will switch to : (insert any mmo here the player wanted to try for a long time).

So the idea of acquiring stuff as you lvl up on epic is good, the imbalance it's gonna create seems really bad.

[GoldyGopher]

Recently my employer sent me to a training on Wage Compression, or Salary Compression. As an IT guy, albeit a manager, it seemed like an odd training to get sent to. In-a-nut-shell wage compression is a systematic problem in which employees are paid similar salary/wages regardless of experience, skills, and tenure. There are four key components identified as primary causes for wage compression, increased minimum wage, increased market rates for salary floors (starting), increased awareness of employees, and most importantly Inconsistent salary adjustments (or pay increases). The biggest problem for business is the loss of experienced and skilled workers.

When I look at the revamped Epic Destinies, I see a concerted effort to compress power of the player base. New players will see a boost and players at the top end will see their power diminished. Just like business, if SSG chooses this path several skilled and more experienced will disheartened and will choose to leave the game.

For the record, I prefer the sphere design currently used in Epic Destinies and would prefer that it would be refined rather than the enhancement style trees we are now looking at. Unless there is a large outpouring of dissent from the player base we are stuck with this design.

At current cap the difference between the most skilled and experienced player and a new 28-point character reaching cap for the first time is 6 Epic Destiny Points.
SSG will argue that the experienced player will have earned 19 additional fate points; 38 Hit Points, 19 Spell Points, and 48 Epic Past Lives; 12% Elemental Absorption, 36 PRR, 60 AC, and 180 HP.
In the current sphere arrangement that completionism would have 5 twists and 40 fate points to spend, compared to three twists and 9 or 10 fate points. The difference between these two characters is significant and you still get all those extra bonuses for completing all those past lives.
The insignificance between the two in the new system really grates on me.

1 – Drop the 24 Fate Points for Introducing the system and unlocking the Epic Destinies. Change it to 3 Fate Points for unlocking them all.
2 – Add non-permanent fate points for completing Epic Sagas on Elite. An argument could be made for 2 points on elite and 1 point on hard.
3 – Change Tomes to Epic Destiny Points rather than Fate Points. I shouldn’t have to buy three tomes to get one Epic Destiny Points.

The current sphere configuration including the permanent points available in any Epic Destiny you have unlocked them in has created an unbalanced system in which experience characters are clearly far more powerful than inexperienced characters. Clearly this arrangement trivializes the content from 20 to somewhere in 26 to 28 range for those experienced characters. It in many ways is like an avalanche, as your character gets more experience, it becomes easier and easier to complete the content. Running R1 with a 50% pot it becomes possible to go from 20 to 30 in under eight hours.
I understand the necessity to curtail this power and trivialization of the content, but it cannot be the complete pendulum swing to the other side that you are proposing here. This new arrangement will make the content much more difficult, for not only the experienced characters, but the inexperienced characters at well.

The seven trees that we have seen are, well, bad. It is not like each tree by itself is bad, but rather when you start looking for synergies in the trees, we have they are non-existent. In part because each tree is designed to be a stand-alone tree. Think of it this way, if I spend 30 points in a primary tree, I have 20 points to spend on up to two secondary trees. At issue is I really have nothing to spend those additional points on. I cannot go deep far enough into a secondary tree to take advantage of what it offers and there isn’t enough low hanging fruit to spend sparsely in two secondary trees and get advantage.

1. Have players choose a primary tree, the cores in that tree are automatically granted to players as they level up. Those cores should be at 20, 24, 28, 32, 36, and 40. Characters do not get access to cores of any secondary trees.
2. Core at 20 should be the active Mantle stance.
3. Be consistent in your design philosophy for each of the trees. Have reasons to take the tree as a primary and a secondary.
4. Trees need to have synergies for the various builds.
5. Trees need to support the various builds you are supporting at lower levels. That Wisdom focused battle Cleric using Falconry for melee, must have a path just as the strength focused fighter does. Right now, the melee trees appear to me as being focused on strength only. I think this is unacceptable
6. Rip self-healing out of every tree. Create a new “secondary tree” that is designed around this concept. It may be “mandatory” for players to use on most character but how is that different than what we are doing now? With a secondary tree you can build paths for healing and ramp up the costs accordingly.
7. I would not be opposed to a secondary tree that just has ability stats in it.

What is SSG’s plans for addition trees?
Right now, as I look at the released trees, I see little in the way of synergies for a great number of my characters. I cannot see synergies with the other existing trees. That is depressing. It would be helpful to hear about trees that are already being discussed.

What is SSG plans for post character level 30?
Legendary Trees?

[Arkbusya]

What is SSG plans for post character level 30?
Legendary Trees?

They said that lvl post 30 will unlock core 4 to 6...
For me, they are totally breaking the game with this. Old player will find it too slow and hard, and new player will just flee far away from the game.
If they want to break lvl 30, they should as you say use new trees, like legendary tree, 20-30 is EPIC, past 30 is Legendary for everything in the game, they should keep this aspect of the game.
Beside this, the evolution in the trees are completely insane too, they compare it to heroic but they break it one more time. Old system was near heroic in some way, you just had to reach 2M point for hiting T5, now T5 is LVL 30, direct in trashcan. Tiers should follow same system as heroic, T1 lvl20, T2 lvl 21, T3 Lvl 22, T4 Lvl 24 and T5 lvl 27 or maybe 28.
They make good thing like here on the original idea, i don't deny it,but sometimes, they lose themselves in some delirium and finish by ruin and breakdown the good ideas they had (like here too).
I can add that they want too much too quickly, we can see it here again. They want to show us that they are working, we can understanding it, but this should have been just a show off, not a preview... Preview 51 before 50, what will happen when we will get 50 ? some forget part of code for the 51 ? Or when real prev 51 will released on Lamnia, a rollback to 49 for a lot of things because of link between code they forgot ? I didn't forgot their mistake when they officialy released Sharn and other pack, and it scare me more than you think.

[rabidfox]

I found the biggest takeaway from todays live stream with the devs ( https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1058055353 ) that isn't currently mentioned in a dev post on the forums is that they plan to reduce the mob HP bloat/scaling that exists in early epics where there's an old system in play for how mobs are setup. So while we'll be dealing with the new gating, the mobs at 20 will be also nerf'd down. Obviously we'll have to see how loss of things like hunts end (etc.) at 20 effect out ability to clear quests effectively vs the modified scaling of NPCs but it has potential to be fine once all the changes go thru...

edit: ~12:30 into the video for anyone looking for the specific mention of it.

[MistaMagic]

I Notice that NO ONE seems to have mentioned that non of the PUBLISHED new trees have any Abilities in them. As I use Magister on my wizard it seems I will be loosing Int which in turn will effect my DC's. Obviously as this tree is not published I am seriously hoping that something somewhere will correct this

[MistaMagic]

Another thought is offer some fate points for Iconics (8 Iconics x 3 past lives = 24 past lives = 3 fate points IE 1 fate point for each set of Iconic completionists)

[Zavina]

Epic (all of EPL's benefits; passives):
12% Absorption of Acid, Cold, Electric, and Fire damage
36 PRR
24 AC at level 1, increased to 36 at level 10, 48 at level 20, and 60 at level 30
36 maximum HP at level 1, increased to 84 at level 10, 132 at level 20, and 180 at level 30

I don't see that ^ listed either.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

I can only say : From an aestethic point of view, I just *love* the current graphical look of the live servers ! Its look actually makes the Destinies actualy stand out as being something super special !

The Enhancement trees, however, don't look special at all.

[Drwaz99]

I found the biggest takeaway from todays live stream with the devs ( https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1058055353 ) that isn't currently mentioned in a dev post on the forums is that they plan to reduce the mob HP bloat/scaling that exists in early epics where there's an old system in play for how mobs are setup. So while we'll be dealing with the new gating, the mobs at 20 will be also nerf'd down. Obviously we'll have to see how loss of things like hunts end (etc.) at 20 effect out ability to clear quests effectively vs the modified scaling of NPCs but it has potential to be fine once all the changes go thru...

Except I have exactly zero confidence they will do this on a timely schedule (as in they might get to it in 1 or 2 years) and that they get it right. I have high confidence they will massively screw it up when they get around to it. That's SSG's track record.

[Zaalaos]

I found the biggest takeaway from todays live stream with the devs ( https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1058055353 ) that isn't currently mentioned in a dev post on the forums is that they plan to reduce the mob HP bloat/scaling that exists in early epics where there's an old system in play for how mobs are setup. So while we'll be dealing with the new gating, the mobs at 20 will be also nerf'd down. Obviously we'll have to see how loss of things like hunts end (etc.) at 20 effect out ability to clear quests effectively vs the modified scaling of NPCs but it has potential to be fine once all the changes go thru...

They need to massively lower hp bloat in legendary too, with new trees, even at 30 you'll have fraction of power you have now. And less DC's for casters, since they are taking away stat bonuses from EDs.

[Gljosh]

Epic (all of EPL's benefits; passives):
12% Absorption of Acid, Cold, Electric, and Fire damage
36 PRR
24 AC at level 1, increased to 36 at level 10, 48 at level 20, and 60 at level 30
36 maximum HP at level 1, increased to 84 at level 10, 132 at level 20, and 180 at level 30


I don't see that ^ listed either.

I did not see anything about the Sphere Stances either...

Maybe this will be addressed later...

[IBCrabin]

I did not see anything about the Sphere Stances either...

Maybe this will be addressed later...

This is addressed in a different post by Lynn. Nothing is change for the passive ePLs bonus.

None of the benefits of the Epic Past lives are changing, with the exception of the ratio of Past Lives to Fate Points. This ratio has been increased, meaning you earn more Fate Points for each Past Life. Everything else is exactly the same.

[LeoLionxxx]

I'll agree with general sentiment of Level gating abilities - that being that it feels quite punitive.

In heroics, LV 12 feels awesome because you get your T5 abilities, AND you can now focus more on other trees to further flesh out your character. In heroics, you have your build-defining tools by LV 12 and you get to enjoy using them.

If we're only gaining T5 abilities at LV 30, we don't get to have fun experimenting with those abilities as we level. We just slap them on our "finished" character and try to fold it into our already-established play-style.

Like the Heroic T5s, a front-loaded level gate does feel appropriate. 25 or 26 feels like the right place to level-gate T5 abilities.

Proposed gating for Cores feels about right though (in that it's consistent with Heroics).