U51 Early Preview: Epic Destiny Revamp: Core Framework

[FranOhmsford]

Unlocking Trees
Assuming you've never been in epics before, when you reach level 20, you will be directed to the Fatespinner and a new public area accessible from her dialogue. This area will contain NPCs that correspond to each Destiny. Speak to those NPCs to unlock the destiny for this character permanently. This NPC will give you a description of the playstyles that the tree supports, as well as serve a small part in a new, lightweight tutorial. Once you have done this once on a character, you will not need to do it again. This is just a way for us to vector new players to the Epic gameplay loop into a space that can give them a bit of an aesthetical introduction to our Epic game.

If you have at least one character before this overhaul that has fully capped all of their Epic Destinies, you will receive an exclusive Cloak featuring the now-deprecated Starmap to commemorate your achievement.

I've asked this question before but I don't see to have got an answer....

You talk here about people who've never been in epics before and about people who've capped their destinies but what about all those in between?

How is it going to work if I have 4 destinies done and am half way through a 5th?

[Faltout]

I've asked this question before but I don't see to have got an answer....

You talk here about people who've never been in epics before and about people who've capped their destinies but what about all those in between?

How is it going to work if I have 4 destinies done and am half way through a 5th?

Every character will get this "tutorial" to unlock all the epic destinies. After the first time they go through the tutorial, they won't go through it again.
Consider this: If you have completed all the epic destinies, you'll get a cosmetic cloak. After doing that, any and all progress you have made in the current epic destinies will be deleted as the entire system will be deleted. After that system is deleted, you will get a new system and a tutorial to that system.
The only thing not being deleted is the epic past lives. Those remain untouched (with all their current restrictions about having one active PL per "sphere" - in quotes because spheres will no longer exist thus creating confusion among players that don't know about them).

[FranOhmsford]

The only thing not being deleted is the epic past lives. Those remain untouched (with all their current restrictions about having one active PL per "sphere" - in quotes because spheres will no longer exist thus creating confusion among players that don't know about them).

So how are Epic Past Lives going to work going forward if they're removing the spheres?

Are they going to be tied to character class?

[donblas]

So how are Epic Past Lives going to work going forward if they're removing the spheres?

Are they going to be tied to character class?

There are going to be trees, rather like enhancement trees. You'll be able to choose 3 to use. Choice is free, class is irrelevant.

[Faltout]

So how are Epic Past Lives going to work going forward if they're removing the spheres?

Are they going to be tied to character class?

Unless they change their plans for the epic past lives, the current plan is to not change them at all. The past lives will remain the same as they are now. Their active stance will still be exclusive to other stances from the same type of past life (divine, martial, primal, arcane).
The new system will not be tied to the past lives at all. When you reach level 30, you will be able to perform an epic reincarnation and get any past life you want regardless of your choices in the new destiny system.
Note: This may mean that characters without access to epic destinies may find themselves able to get epic past lives.

[Taurnish]

Does anyone know if they plan to change the Fatesinger destiny tree? I may have overlooked it. Thanks.

[rabidfox]

Does anyone know if they plan to change the Fatesinger destiny tree? I may have overlooked it. Thanks.

Yes, they just weren't part of the 1st round of testing. We'll see the new fatesinger setup whenever they do testing on the additional trees down the line.

[Certon]

Each Epic Destiny ability in the new Destiny system has a destiny point requirement as well as a level requirement - just like heroic enhancements do - so you can't jump right to the end at level 20 or without spending the requisite points up the tree. The Level and AP requirements are as follows:

Core 1: Level 20, 0 AP
Core 2: Level 23, 5 AP
Core 3: Level 26, 10 AP
Core 4-6: Will eventually be available at levels higher than 30. Exact breakdown TBD.

Tier 1: Level 20, 0 AP
Tier 2: Level 20, 5 AP
Tier 3: Level 23, 10 AP
Tier 4: Level 26, 20 AP
Tier 5: Level 30, 30 AP (you may only be in one Tier 5 at a time)

Dire Charge being Tier 5 RUINS EVERYTHING for me, considering before it was just a feat I had to earn through grinding, and now I have to earn it by sacrificing my only tier 5 AND 30+ AP for ONE ability.

This is SERIOUS garbage. I'm emotional about this. You've made me physically upset, like I want to come out swinging. But I'm an adult, and we may FEEL these things, but we don't DO them.

So, I'll just say this, and I know you don't GAF about it: I will quit if something doesn't change. Yeah, I know--you could NOT care less. It's obvious.

[Merrillman]

Coco...

I’m really begging here.... can you PLEASE give us a look at caster trees in u51 — THIS WEEK? I really, really can’t buy U50 unless I know that u51 is NOT destroying the only character I like to play, that I have spent years grinding on.

I would like to see you address the perceived mass destruction you’re bringing to my DPS elemental caster directly. I can’t seem to get an answer anywhere and no dev seems to be stating anything on casters, despite almost universal negative feedback. That in and of itself is what makes me worried this 40-50% damage destruction — not to mention the stat crunch that will kill spell points and also make each spell more expensive and a bigger % of spell points vs. it’s pool of points — is not going to get better with the trees. It looks, so far, without seeing any caster trees, my character will be almost unplayable vs what you’re doing to the monsters & bosses. It is not at all balanced from before to after (but again, haven’t seen the trees).

Second. I have 6 improved ottos saved I bought on sale. I have been injured and not able to play. Are my ottos going to become worthless by u51?

Please consider responding directly. Thanks!




[QUOTE=Cocomajobo;6438023]Disclaimer

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

Greetings! This is a pretty crazy read, so buckle up!

[dTarkanan]

I have the traditional tomes of fate I haven't decided the character for saved- will they change how they're used?

[Ntoukis]

So 10 total Destiny points for an Epic Completionist (48 Epic Past Lifes) and 8 total Destiny points for speaking to 12NPCs.
Yes, I fully agree giving Destiny points at Level20 for players reaching Epics for the first time (though we had to work for those same points when we first reached lvl20 nad accessed EDs), I do also agree with the approach of 4 Destiny points per level (follows same mechanic and logic with Heroics), but 10 Destiny points for 48 Epic Past Lifes sounds like a steal on SSGs part.

I do understand the need to attract new players, but don't you think that the existing players are one of your best ways to do it ?

On the 'math' side of my argument, please consider this:
OLD - 48 Epic Past lifes granted a total of 12 Fate points (4:1) AND an extra Twist of Fate (with only the first 12 Past Lifes)
OLD - 12 Fate points allows for a 2-1-1-1 Twists setup, with each one of these four being independent from the others
NEW - The new system provides a total of 10 Destiny points.
NEW - If we spend those 10 points an any Epic destiny under the new system, we won't get more than the 2-1-1-1 setup, while all of them are from one specific ED


So the way I see it is this:
Epic Completionists will loose the versatility that the Extra Twist of Fate and the system of Twists in general provided.
Add to that the fact that a Racial completionist (39 Past Lifes) gets 14 Racial Points, giving him easy access to level3 (lvl4 with a couple of Universal points) on his racial tree.

Conclusion...
I would strongly suggest for 2 Destiny points per Epic Completionist Feat (instead of 1), with the total coming up to 14 (instead of 10), which in turn, allows for access to Tier 3 on a 3rd ED, and for sure more versatility and the feel of a reward for the time and effort spend to achieve this status.

[Meowin_W]

As a casual player the new system makes me want to stop playing epic levels at all. I do not expect to be on par with more experienced and more hardcore players but I wonder if the game will be fun anymore if epics for casual players if I have to get to lvl 30 for the top tier destiny skills. T5 heroic enhancements are available at lvl 12!? Sounds pretty bad to me and will take away a lot of fun for people who did not care to farm past lives over the years. Yay, more grind!

[Certon]

Disclaimer

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

Greetings! This is a pretty crazy read, so buckle up!

Epic Destinies
We are going to fully revamp the ED structure from the ground up to provide a cohesive leveling experience from levels 20-30 and beyond. The new structure will resemble heroic Enhancements - 6 cores along the bottom and 5 tiers reaching to the top. However, there are some notable differences and similarities to the old ED structure:

You can now be in a maximum of 3 Epic Destinies at a time. Think of it like the current Enhancement window, but without any ability to scroll horizontally along trees. You select up to three trees at a time, socketing them into place in your ED window, just as you select your Heroic Enhancement Trees. You can spend points freely between these three trees, and resetting your ED points out of a tree will allow you to choose a new one.

As you level up beyond level 20, you will earn Destiny Points that you can spend in these ED trees. Epic Levels now display their experience in Ranks, just like Heroic levels do. Each point is earned at each Rank of an Epic Level, which means that each Epic Level corresponds to 4 Destiny Points. The 5th rank of each Epic Level is the level itself, as it is in Heroics. This means that you'll earn Destiny Points at a steady rate rather than in large chunks every 5 ranks.

Each Epic Destiny ability in the new Destiny system has a destiny point requirement as well as a level requirement - just like heroic enhancements do - so you can't jump right to the end at level 20 or without spending the requisite points up the tree. The Level and AP requirements are as follows:

Core 1: Level 20, 0 AP
Core 2: Level 23, 5 AP
Core 3: Level 26, 10 AP
Core 4-6: Will eventually be available at levels higher than 30. Exact breakdown TBD.

Tier 1: Level 20, 0 AP
Tier 2: Level 20, 5 AP
Tier 3: Level 23, 10 AP
Tier 4: Level 26, 20 AP
Tier 5: Level 30, 30 AP (you may only be in one Tier 5 at a time)

You'll notice that the tiers and cores don't exactly match Heroic enhancement trees, and we'll get to that in a moment.

These new ED trees are a mix of the old ED abilities and brand new ones, providing a huge variety of options to players both familiar with our current EDs and hungry for new exciting abilities. As we examine just what made the old Epic Destinies compelling, we're able to make sweeping changes to themes and designs to better support the widest range of available play. You'll see familiar abilities in unfamiliar places, new abilities in the places of old ones, and a lot of radical changes to bring the entire Destiny system together into more of a cohesive whole. We'll have a separate post about the general design notes of the new trees so you can examine the changes in more detail before diving into the trees themselves.

Unlocking Trees
Assuming you've never been in epics before, when you reach level 20, you will be directed to the Fatespinner and a new public area accessible from her dialogue. This area will contain NPCs that correspond to each Destiny. Speak to those NPCs to unlock the destiny for this character permanently. This NPC will give you a description of the playstyles that the tree supports, as well as serve a small part in a new, lightweight tutorial. Once you have done this once on a character, you will not need to do it again. This is just a way for us to vector new players to the Epic gameplay loop into a space that can give them a bit of an aesthetical introduction to our Epic game.

If you have at least one character before this overhaul that has fully capped all of their Epic Destinies, you will receive an exclusive Cloak featuring the now-deprecated Starmap to commemorate your achievement.

Unlocking a tree in the new system also provides +2 Fate Points per tree, which means that a brand new character reaching 20 for the first time will begin with 24 Fate Points.

Fate Points
There are no more Twists of Fate in this system - as players are able to branch out across up to three trees - but Fate Points still have a use. Every 3 Fate Points you've earned will contribute to 1 Permanent Destiny Point in the Epic Destiny Trees. These points are available at level 20 and can be freely spent between the trees you have slotted. If this is your first time in Epics, you will begin with a bare minimum of 24 Fate Points (from unlocking the 12 currently available trees), which means you'll start level 20 with 8 Permanent Destiny Points. This Permanent Destiny Point system is where we recapture the currently-frontloaded Destiny flow and allows us to offer playstyle-defining elements right out of the gate. The first two tiers of each tree are accessible at level 20, so you'll have quite a bit of choice and power at the start.

Fate Points also grant +2 Hitpoints and +1 Spellpoints each, starting at level 20.

You earn Fate Points in a variety of ways - from the Tomes of Fate currently available, from Epic Past Lives at the ratio of 3 Epic Past Lives to 1 Fate Point (which is an improvement, compared to 4:1 as it is currently), and from unlocking Destinies in the new system. You will no longer receive bonus Fate Points at levels 29 and 30.

The current maximum Fate Points is 43: 24 from unlocking trees + 16 from Epic Past Lives + 3 from a Tome of Fate. This means that you will start with up to 14 Permanent Destiny Points from Fate at level 20 (+1 extra Fate Point).

Epic Reincarnation
Rather than requiring Karma, Epic Reincarnation simply allows a player at level 30+ to take the Epic Past life of your choice and return to level 20.

Epic Completionist, rather than granting a Twist of Fate slot, will instead grant a flat +1 Destiny Action Point. You will also earn additional copies of Epic Completionist every 12 Epic Past Lives you earn thereafter. This means that a player with 24 Epic Past Lives will start with 2 copies of Epic Completionist, and will be able to earn 2 more as they reach the 48 total Epic Past Lives. A player with all 48 will have 4 copies of Epic Completionist, for a total of +4 Permanent Destiny Points.

This means that a player with Epic Completionist, all Epic Past Lives, the Tome of Destiny from Feywild, a +3 Tome of Fate, and all unlocked Destiny Trees, will begin level 20 with 19 Permanent Destiny Points (14 from fate, 4 from four copies of epic completionist, 1 from tome).

Epic XP, Epic Destiny XP, and Karma
Although you may have gleaned this from the above sections, just to make sure everyone is on the same page, there is no Epic Destiny XP or Karma in this new system. A player will not be required to level up in a destiny, or earn XP in a destiny, to unlock new trees or reincarnate. The base 12 destinies will be unlocked at level 20 via a simple tutorial (see the Unlocking Trees header for information) and reincarnation will no longer require Karma to complete (see the Epic Reincarnation header for information).

This means that the only type of XP you need to worry about in Epics is Epic XP, which will be unchanged from how it is earned. Epic XP will be displayed on your XP Bar differently (by splitting each level up into Ranks so we can award points more often), but the amounts and totals needed to level up are unchanged from how they are currently.

Leveling Up in Epics
In order to address the backloaded feat flow and frontloaded enhancement flow, we are meeting in the middle for the new level-up experience for Epics.



As you can see, we are moving the Destiny feat levels to follow directly after the Epic Feat levels. We are making an effort to ensure that every level in Epics gives a player some sort of choice or advancement. We want to smooth out the rate at which a player gains power considerably, which means we will be lowering the minimum levels of the Destiny feats.

Epic and Destiny Feats
Epic Destiny Feats no longer have Sphere requirements, as there are no more spheres. Instead, they will simply have level prerequisites.

The level prerequisites of Destiny Feats have been changed. Whereas before a Destiny Feat would have a prerequisite for levels 26, 28, and 29, they will now follow the new acquisition level flow, moving to min level 22, 25, and 28 respectively.

Several Epic and Destiny Feats have changed in functionality, as will be detailed in a separate post.

this is not an improvement. This is a nerf. In the past you didn't have to Epic Reincarnate AT ALL to have any power on the ED trees. You just had to grind the XP and unlock the destinies. A long process, but easy. I did this on my main and had 3 past lives just so I could have a the random effect toggle PL ability from the Primal Sphere. Now with 3 ED PL's I'm going to be cast into having to level from 20-30 DOZENS of times to get back where I was? ARE YOU GUYS NUTS? I WILL be done if all the nerfs you have planned are implemented, because you obviously don't care about the players.

[Faltout]

this is not an improvement. This is a nerf. In the past you didn't have to Epic Reincarnate AT ALL to have any power on the ED trees. You just had to grind the XP and unlock the destinies. A long process, but easy. I did this on my main and had 3 past lives just so I could have a the random effect toggle PL ability from the Primal Sphere. Now with 3 ED PL's I'm going to be cast into having to level from 20-30 DOZENS of times to get back where I was? ARE YOU GUYS NUTS? I WILL be done if all the nerfs you have planned are implemented, because you obviously don't care about the players.

Either you didn't read the post you quoted or you completely misunderstood it, or you don't know how the system works today.

Currently:
You get 24 points to spend in one epic destiny after leveling it up. You can also use twists of fate (up to 3 if you have leveled many epic destinies, up to 4 if you have Epic Completionist, up to 5 if you are level 28+) to get tier 1-4 abilities from other trees.

Future:
You get 48 points to spend in 3 epic destinies of your choice (no leveling required). You can also get more destiny points by tomes and reincarnation up to 19 more for a total of 67 points to spend.

Tell us again how 24 points + some twists are better than 48-67 in THREE trees?

[mikarddo]

Tell us again how 24 points + some twists are better than 48-67 in THREE trees?

Well, time will tell, but it is quite likely that 25 points (with the extra +1 from a tome) and 5 twists could be worth more than 67 points in 3 threes.

With the former you get to cherry pick effects from 5 other trees beside your main tree, meaning you get effects from 6 different trees. If the twisted effects are the ones you really want those can be worth quite alot more than getting more effects but from fewer trees.

With the new system you will be pressed to get your main tree to T5 and the other two trees to T4 and T3 - while the current system allows a main T5 tree and T4, T3, T2, T2 and T1 twists.

But until we have the actual trees is impossible to tell which is stronger. Most likely for some builds one would be stronger and vice versa.

[FixBows]

Either you didn't read the post you quoted or you completely misunderstood it, or you don't know how the system works today.

Currently:
You get 24 points to spend in one epic destiny after leveling it up. You can also use twists of fate (up to 3 if you have leveled many epic destinies, up to 4 if you have Epic Completionist, up to 5 if you are level 28+) to get tier 1-4 abilities from other trees.

Future:
You get 48 points to spend in 3 epic destinies of your choice (no leveling required). You can also get more destiny points by tomes and reincarnation up to 19 more for a total of 67 points to spend.

Tell us again how 24 points + some twists are better than 48-67 in THREE trees?

A couple of reasons off the top of my head...

I twist from more than 3 trees. Proposed system is you are locked into 3 trees only. For me, I run in Shiradi, twist: Cocoon from Primal, Enchant spell school specialist from Magister, sense weakness from FoTW, Dance of Flowers from GMoF, and Grim Precision from Shadowdancer.

Cannot do that under the new proposed system.

There are a LOT of wasted points just to get something maybe you twisted in the past or simply are not used in your build (just to get to the next tier). If they want to make this more user friendly, they need to ditch the 'Trees' and just regroup based on combat styles. Melee, Ranged, Caster. Make the trees bigger. Like several more columns and rows to fit all the things they want to do This way you can choose what works best for you. This would allow you specialize in your characters build but yet still be able to pick a secondary or tertiary tree to support (if you need). This way you actually get things (or most of the things) you want instead of being extremely limited by the 3 tree only approach.

[donblas]

this is not an improvement. This is a nerf. In the past you didn't have to Epic Reincarnate AT ALL to have any power on the ED trees. You just had to grind the XP and unlock the destinies. A long process, but easy. I did this on my main and had 3 past lives just so I could have a the random effect toggle PL ability from the Primal Sphere. Now with 3 ED PL's I'm going to be cast into having to level from 20-30 DOZENS of times to get back where I was? ARE YOU GUYS NUTS? I WILL be done if all the nerfs you have planned are implemented, because you obviously don't care about the players.

So never having to run in an off-destiny is a nerf?

Not to me.

Being able to take what i want from three trees, rather than building up fate points in off-destinies to get twists is a nerf?

Not to me.

[FixBows]

So never having to run in an off-destiny is a nerf?

Not to me.

Being able to take what I want from three trees, rather than building up fate points in off-destinies to get twists is a nerf?

Not to me.

They are nerfs if it limits you to the point where you cannot make decisions that you have been able to do in the past; like take abilities from more than 3 trees. This new system is VERY limiting. I understand you get more points, but if you can only use in 3 trees, the points you spend get less and less useful as you accumulate points beyond what is useful to you from the 3 tress.

A more direct nerf is like what we see in 'Pin' losing its helpless classification. This bothers me equally. So, not only are we being pinched in terms of flexibility with being limited to 3 trees, we are getting some of our main abilities nerfed or removed (like stat abilities which effect everything).

[donblas]

They are nerfs if it limits you to the point where you cannot make decisions that you have been able to do in the past; like take abilities from more than 3 trees. .

You may not be able to make the SAME decisions you could in the past, but might you not be able to make better ones?

Taking a wide range of upgrades from three trees might be better than taking 3, 4 or 5 or whatever abilities from several but having all the rest of your choices restricted to the one destiny you are in.

I like the wide choice from three trees better. It is also shiny and new.

[FixBows]

You may not be able to make the SAME decisions you could in the past, but might you not be able to make better ones?

Taking a wide range of upgrades from three trees might be better than taking 3, 4 or 5 or whatever abilities from several but having all the rest of your choices restricted to the one destiny you are in.

I like the wide choice from three trees better. It is also shiny and new.

The new system is very clearly more limiting. I am not sure how you think making choices from 3 trees is not more limiting than being able to take from all.

Attack this from a different angle. You want to be able to choose more from 1-3 trees than you can currently? Ok, limit the amount of trees to 3 and condensed them into "melee". "caster", "ranged". This way, you can get want you really need and splash in flavor from the other trees that you want. Heck, this may even lead to MORE creativeness in builds.

The whole draw to this game was its flexibility on builds and being creative in the way you approached your character build. The most creative folks, the build innovators, are what has kept this game interesting for so long. Now, over the last couple of years, we seem to be going backwards in the ability to be creative in steering us towards a handful of playstyles. The way they are proposing things, I see folks settling on very specific uses of epic points (or whatever) and being very cookie cutter due to only have 3 trees to work with.

So, you want to get simple, simplify the trees, but keep the creativity. Do less tress with more in them so that we can have MORE choices, not LESS.