Thoughts on ED Change

[GoldyGopher]

TL/DR version: I hope the development team goes back to the drawing board and reconsiders several aspects to their design and implementation.

Preamble: I am a fan of the current Epic Destiny system using spheres. I think it was one of the more interesting game systems out there. It was different, unique and had many positive effects on game play. I don't think it was perfect and it had several issues or warts if you prefer. Years ago a former member of the Development Team laid out the entire vision for Epic Levels and Epic Destinies and in my opinion it sounded like a much more perfect union of leveling and Epic Prestige Classes. The Dev added that its level of complexity was dependent upon proposed changes to the heroic systems (including Enhancements) that in the end never occurred. I do not know how far this proposed system got in to development, was it this dev's pipedream, did it fail because the complexity of changes for enhancements and prestige classes never occurred with the launch of Shadowfell Conspiracy. Yes, I just dated that discussion. In the end this discussion left me with the feeling there was so much more they could do with Epic Destinies in their spherical form. It brings up the question why were the adjustments the devs thought they could make never implemented?

The Common Class

In one breath I understand the decision to use a single common class for epic levels and cannot comprehend why it is in use. There are, and have been, many strong arguments to change that system.
I would suggest a much more in depth discussion occur on this topic, involving the player base. To me using a minimum of four classes (Arcane, Divine, Martial, and Primal) makes far more sense than the single common class, and doesn't add the complexity of the Epic Classes, expanded Heroic Classes, or other variants of that system. Using four common classes you could tie the current sphereical epic destiny feats to them while offering slightly different bonuses to each level. Primal could have wilderness lore, an HP bump and maybe 3/4 BAB, while Divine could have Religious Lore Alignment (and Fire) spell power with a 1/2 BAB.

The Pigeon Holing Design Conundrum

In the old design Twists were a great enabler of heterogenous character design or build variety. That system didn't turn bad builds into top tier builds, but it allowed players to play lower tier builds and either reinforce strength or lessen weakness allowing them to play their way.
This new design doesn't have that flexibility. If you are a solo player and would like to twist in healing you now need to not only dedicate one of your three trees to it, you have to spend a fairly substantial number of points for things you used to twist in.
Many of the new tree designs are very specific in the playstyle they are aimed for. If you are a TWF Cleric or Bow Wielding Paladin or a Mechanic Rogue or any number of dozens of other playstyles where are you going to spend your points. That new Razorclaw Handwrap wearing barbarian that is a new iconic class, well you don't truly align up with anything in the new Epic Destinies and you are out of luck.
Grand Master of Flowers?

New/Casual Players vs. Experienced/Hard Core Players

I would argue that at least to me it is easy to see where significant design changes were made to appease the various groups. Everyone of them is a head scratcher in terms of game design. All you are doing is upsetting both groups of players without effectively dealing with the power gap between both groups.
For new players the old system was confusing and lacked in-game tutorial. There were many options for them to make poor choices. Epic Leveling was a slow grind. The Twists allowed these players to play their way and enjoy the game.
For Experienced players too much time was spent in off destines grinding out Epic Past Lives that slowed their grind down.
Level Gating vs. Front Loading vs. Point Expenditures vs. Quests or Wilderness Adventure Areas. This is a whole conundrum of problems. In the end I think even more experienced players will use Wilderness Adventure Areas to quickly earn XP in epic levels, meaning even less of the Epic Content will be run. In 15 to 17 hours of dedicated play 5 players can earn 7.5 million XP without a pot. Throw in a slayer pot and that gets faster and throw in a XP pot more XP.
I think that it is casual players who are feeling the biggest disadvantage in the new system. Experienced players will adapt and move on, casual players for a myriad of reasons cannot make those same adjustments. They don't have the gear, the bonuses the past lives give characters, the know how to adapt their game. It may add a small handful of hours for an Experienced Player to level up a character for 20 to 30, it will take about 15 to 20 more hours for the casual player, on top of it taking four to ten times longer already.

In the end I don't think what we are getting are better, only different. Under the concept the devil you know, I see more warts and pitfalls in the new system. There is going to be way too many players frustrated by the overall philosophies behind the changes. The problem is I like many other veteran players will adapt and move on, but for the those casual players when they adapt and move on it will be to a different game.

[Vish]

walking a labyrinth versus twister,
i agree
a time twister

[Annex]

It's kinda funny. The developers removed optional experience from quests to make players run a wider variety of quests. The fast movers switched to slayers. People like me who need to quest because slayer experience sucks solo without cheat potions, ended up having to run much worse experience per time quests, slowing us down. This new Epic Destiny revamp will slow me down further. I will lose a ton of power at L20, forcing me to drop the difficulty, losing a bunch more experience, and forcing more quest reruns, resulting in even more lost experience from lost optional experience. *laughs*

What really concerns me is the Anniversary Party, Cannith Challenges, Crystal Cove, and Night Revels. I typically run those at L20, when I can use Epic Destiny power to over power me so I can survive and earn greater rewards. That will no longer be possible. Those are some of my favorite things to run in DDO. It makes me sad to think I will not be able to run them and succeed.

I have come to the conclusion it is intentional. Slowing down solo players, players without a support network, players without all the Expansions and equipment, compels them to purchase Expansions and store cheats to catch up. Restructuring the Epic Trees to work like Heroic Trees gives the developers room to sell more power to the most powerful players while squeezing the least powerful players for more catch ups. It really is quite clever, if you think about it from that perspective.

Sorry. I need to offer an aside here. I was so really looking forward to trying Horizon Walker. Running around with a bow is super fun in other games. When I saw I needed to pay an extra $40 for it I laughed. I think Torchlight I and II cost me $6 US, total. Titan Quest cost me $10 US with all the expansions.

I personally find the whole revamp boring and confusing. In a game like Torchlight, the Trait Trees are very compact. About half the skill tree upgrades provide a new ability--a rain of arrows, arrows that explode on impact, seeking arrows--stuff like that. Each new ability really changes game play. None of the abilities have cool down timers. It is super fun.

It's fine. Whatever. I will squeeze what fun I can out of DDO then move on. DDO is still very fun for short periods, before the weight of the catch up, the horrific repetition, the confusion of building characters, saps all my hope. That usually takes two to four weeks. I suppose that works fine for Standing Stone Games. They get revenue from me every time I return, but since I only play a month or two, tops, I do not bog down their servers. Win win from a certain point of view.

I feel bad writing this. I know the developers worked very hard building the new Epic Trees. I am a bubblehead and find them confusing and unhelpful but will make do. I just want to run through dungeons and blow up monsters with neat abilities and win. The whole make a spreadsheet to build the perfect character aspect of DDO really drags me down.

[silinteresting]

I'm sorry but build diversity has just gone through the roof, hybrids are going to be much better to play. Geez if I'm reading things right even the old builds are going to be making a return, for instance the old undead magic missile spammer. You've got to look at what not your losing but at the myriad of possibilities your gaining. I for one as a solo player can't wait for the revamp it's going to be glorious.

[TFerguson]

These changes are bad.

The old system this is replacing is better than what is being proposed.

Is it savable? Maybe, but the trees need a ton of work.

[TPICKRELL]

I'm sorry but build diversity has just gone through the roof, hybrids are going to be much better to play. Geez if I'm reading things right even the old builds are going to be making a return, for instance the old undead magic missile spammer. You've got to look at what not your losing but at the myriad of possibilities your gaining. I for one as a solo player can't wait for the revamp it's going to be glorious.

Did you try to rebuild your toons on lammania in the new system? I rebuilt two, one with all the epic past lives and both of them were weaker in the new system. By the time they took tier 5 in their main destiny there were barely enough points left to get the cores in the other two trees and mostly fluff to take to get the cores since the epic mantle and strikes are the main features for tier 1 and 2 enhancements and they are exlusive/share timers.

My toons have lost considerable flexibility and power, even the one with max permanent destiny points.

[Memnir]

Haven't checked out the changes for myself yet, but the number of trusted voices who are saying the changes aren't positive has me very concerned.
Time will tell, but sadly I'm not overly optimistic.

[MistaMagic]

Did you try to rebuild your toons on lammania in the new system? I rebuilt two, one with all the epic past lives and both of them were weaker in the new system. By the time they took tier 5 in their main destiny there were barely enough points left to get the cores in the other two trees and mostly fluff to take to get the cores since the epic mantle and strikes are the main features for tier 1 and 2 enhancements and they are exlusive/share timers.

My toons have lost considerable flexibility and power, even the one with max permanent destiny points.

Only done the one toon myself (My shuri thrower) and its a lot of swings and roundabouts as I have less dex (No longer in the tree) so damage down BUT gains are more doubleshot and a couple things I am not going to mention in case they get nerfed

[J1NG]

Did you try to rebuild your toons on lammania in the new system? I rebuilt two, one with all the epic past lives and both of them were weaker in the new system. By the time they took tier 5 in their main destiny there were barely enough points left to get the cores in the other two trees and mostly fluff to take to get the cores since the epic mantle and strikes are the main features for tier 1 and 2 enhancements and they are exlusive/share timers.

My toons have lost considerable flexibility and power, even the one with max permanent destiny points.

This was my experience as well.

Current approach on Live allows me to pick the Twists from a variety of areas (from differing Destinys) as Tiers so long as I've invested into them.

The new approach makes it hard to grab "what I really need" from other trees due to investment costs needed before I can reach them (assuming they are in the same tree that is).

Fairly certain diversity of character creation will fall after this Destiny change (a few character designs I've made will need to be entirely remade after the Destiny change). And main mains (that aren't affected as much) being (at best) kept in parity with a main Destiny is all we can hope for right now.

J1NG

[MasterDragonan]

It's kinda funny. The developers removed optional experience from quests to make players run a wider variety of quests. The fast movers switched to slayers. People like me who need to quest because slayer experience sucks solo without cheat potions, ended up having to run much worse experience per time quests, slowing us down. This new Epic Destiny revamp will slow me down further. I will lose a ton of power at L20, forcing me to drop the difficulty, losing a bunch more experience, and forcing more quest reruns, resulting in even more lost experience from lost optional experience. *laughs*

What really concerns me is the Anniversary Party, Cannith Challenges, Crystal Cove, and Night Revels. I typically run those at L20, when I can use Epic Destiny power to over power me so I can survive and earn greater rewards. That will no longer be possible. Those are some of my favorite things to run in DDO. It makes me sad to think I will not be able to run them and succeed.

I have come to the conclusion it is intentional. Slowing down solo players, players without a support network, players without all the Expansions and equipment, compels them to purchase Expansions and store cheats to catch up. Restructuring the Epic Trees to work like Heroic Trees gives the developers room to sell more power to the most powerful players while squeezing the least powerful players for more catch ups. It really is quite clever, if you think about it from that perspective.

Sorry. I need to offer an aside here. I was so really looking forward to trying Horizon Walker. Running around with a bow is super fun in other games. When I saw I needed to pay an extra $40 for it I laughed. I think Torchlight I and II cost me $6 US, total. Titan Quest cost me $10 US with all the expansions.

I personally find the whole revamp boring and confusing. In a game like Torchlight, the Trait Trees are very compact. About half the skill tree upgrades provide a new ability--a rain of arrows, arrows that explode on impact, seeking arrows--stuff like that. Each new ability really changes game play. None of the abilities have cool down timers. It is super fun.

It's fine. Whatever. I will squeeze what fun I can out of DDO then move on. DDO is still very fun for short periods, before the weight of the catch up, the horrific repetition, the confusion of building characters, saps all my hope. That usually takes two to four weeks. I suppose that works fine for Standing Stone Games. They get revenue from me every time I return, but since I only play a month or two, tops, I do not bog down their servers. Win win from a certain point of view.

I feel bad writing this. I know the developers worked very hard building the new Epic Trees. I am a bubblehead and find them confusing and unhelpful but will make do. I just want to run through dungeons and blow up monsters with neat abilities and win. The whole make a spreadsheet to build the perfect character aspect of DDO really drags me down.

Awesome post, you hit it 100%, Thank you!
I did stop spending any money on this game and not planning on doing it anymore.
Just going to come back once in a while to run some favorite quests with what I got.
Nerfing quests, xp, and lvling speed was a first straw,
This is second.

[donblas]

What really concerns me is the Anniversary Party, Cannith Challenges, Crystal Cove, and Night Revels. I typically run those at L20, when I can use Epic Destiny power to over power me so I can survive and earn greater rewards. That will no longer be possible. Those are some of my favorite things to run in DDO. It makes me sad to think I will not be able to run them and succeed.

I have come to the conclusion it is intentional. Slowing down solo players, players without a support network, players without all the Expansions and equipment, compels them to purchase Expansions and store cheats to catch up. .

My wife and I run everything on solo or as a duo. We are casual. We don't have all the equipment (we do have a ton of crystal cove stuff). I like the new system. It's easy for me as a casual player to have EDs in the same format as enhancements. If my power goes down, i suspect i won't notice much.

We love crystal cove but don't, as casual players with little great equipment, see much need for a huge power boost at lvl20. We have over 80 toons between us with far more crystal cove stuff than we will ever need. We run with lvl7 or 8 toons to get greenies and high level toons 4 levels above the quest just slaying everything fast without bothering with the kobolds to get the highest level gems. It's not like you can fail or anything - it's just easy simple fun.