Got a chance to play a bit with the new system. Disappointed at several things.

[Certon]

BIGGEST COMPLAINT:

Epic strikes all share a cooldown across destinies. With that, and the mantle exclusivity, there is nearly nothing for people to branch out into 2-3 trees. Before, I could breathe dragonfire, energy burst and drop a consecration. Now I can do one of those things even if I have the ability to do all three. Go ahead, look at all non mantle, non epic strike abilities and you tell ME what is worth taking other than passive things like increased melee damage (+1 to hit/+1 point of damage per rank at EPIC levels) a few HP (again at EPIC levels) and modest saving throw bonuses.

OTHER COMPLAINTS:

1) Eliminating staples like Dire Charge because people used it too much, instead of just creating other feats which make player choices more difficult. C'mon man...
2) Weakening the highest tier abilities simply because you can't formulate more fantastic abilities for levels 30-35 and will instead retread them for use at the new "level 30." I used to be able to trip on vorpal. Now I can daze on vorpal, which of course goes away after ONE hit. Compared to stunning fist, that's ****, and you can get stunning fist at level 2.
3) Combining Druid Melee and Barbarian melee on one tree so you can go further with the whole druid spellcasting thing even though it's just a terrible concept out of the gate. "Oh look! I'm weaker now with fire but better with cold! Oh no! it's changed the other way!" Who cares? It's terrible.
4) NOT doing the one thing you should have done, which was more of what you had done when you first released Epic Destinies. Instead, it's like you FORGOT how to develop good content. I am baffled completely.

IN SUMMARY (TL;DR):

You made epic levels trash. Congratulations.

[Looting_Bin]

BIGGEST COMPLAINT:

Epic strikes all share a cooldown across destinies. With that, and the mantle exclusivity, there is nearly nothing for people to branch out into 2-3 trees. Before, I could breathe dragonfire, energy burst and drop a consecration. Now I can do one of those things even if I have the ability to do all three. Go ahead, look at all non mantle, non epic strike abilities and you tell ME what is worth taking other than passive things like increased melee damage (+1 to hit/+1 point of damage per rank at EPIC levels) a few HP (again at EPIC levels) and modest saving throw bonuses.

OTHER COMPLAINTS:

1) Eliminating staples like Dire Charge because people used it too much, instead of just creating other feats which make player choices more difficult. C'mon man...
2) Weakening the highest tier abilities simply because you can't formulate more fantastic abilities for levels 30-35 and will instead retread them for use at the new "level 30." I used to be able to trip on vorpal. Now I can daze on vorpal, which of course goes away after ONE hit. Compared to stunning fist, that's ****, and you can get stunning fist at level 2.
3) Combining Druid Melee and Barbarian melee on one tree so you can go further with the whole druid spellcasting thing even though it's just a terrible concept out of the gate. "Oh look! I'm weaker now with fire but better with cold! Oh no! it's changed the other way!" Who cares? It's terrible.
4) NOT doing the one thing you should have done, which was more of what you had done when you first released Epic Destinies. Instead, it's like you FORGOT how to develop good content. I am baffled completely.

IN SUMMARY (TL;DR):

You made epic levels trash. Congratulations.

Your not the only one that feels this way. Unless they change every quest to compensate for ED's then many will struggle at first. Many will leave, or start over. Most will try to adapt as best they can. The issue with this I see that is biggest is the number of viable builds for people. With the stat squish they had locked out 3 destinies for my main on his current life. There is literally one build left from the options they left me on what was a truly utilitarian build. With the upcoming update I will lose that one as well. The system they are proposing and intend to apply, only serves to break down the viable builds for people that want to experiment and play for fun. I went from r4+ solo, to r1 solo. With the number of past lives I have over the years it all but invalidated them because the loss in power was directed at players. I hope that they can figure out something before implementing a game wide change to epic levels (that doesn't involve full parties being only way to run epic levels). But I may have to just stop playing for a bit or longer depending on the choices they leave me. It saddens me to leave the game because my builds are destroyed, that I worked hard to develop. But when everything I have been building up is taken away from me and sold back to me later..... Well that's not acceptable to me.

[droid327]

I think the meta that will shake out is everyone runs in one "main" tree for T5s, then a second tree either for a mantle (if the main tree mantle sucks), or for some mid-tier enhancement, and then the third tree is a pure utility splash thing like adding Renewal or Cocoon for cheap heals. But yeah, hybridizing between two trees is not really feasible with this system. Then again, its not possible on Live right now, so that's really not a backwards move.

I personally like that they're deliberately not adding a whole bunch of buttons to the hotbar. I think if Epic Strikes all were independent, then the meta would be to load up on a bunch of those and just cycle through a dozen active attacks. I wish there were better passive enhancements, though, so it felt worthwhile taking points in a tree even if you werent going to use the Mantle or Strikes.

The issue isnt that Dire Charge was too popular. The issue was it was popular because it was OP. A universal, AOE, low-cooldown Stun that worked off every stat was too much of a gamechanger for the relatively low opportunity cost. Adding in equally OP alternatives isnt really a solution.

[Aelonwy]

BIGGEST COMPLAINT:

Epic strikes all share a cooldown across destinies. With that, and the mantle exclusivity, there is nearly nothing for people to branch out into 2-3 trees.

OTHER COMPLAINTS:
2) Weakening the highest tier abilities simply because you can't formulate more fantastic abilities for levels 30-35 and will instead retread them for use at the new "level 30."

The first part is definitely an issue, and there has been feedback since the first preview that the exclusives take up so much ED "real estate" to use their term, in addition to the way each tree is multi-focused that it doesn't give people enough useful options to spend/climb the tree according to their DP expenditure unlocks.

The second part, oh yeah its been noticed, it looks as though they don't have the first clue how to make Legendary levels be LEGENDARY without first making Epic levels less EPIC. Hence the New Epic Destinies now flavored like Heroic Enhancements 2.0.

Will the game as a whole end up less fun? Probably not. Will levels 20 to at least 26 and possibly ALL THE WAY TO 30 be less fun? Remains to be seen.

[Dandonk]

Agreed. But they're storming ahead with it anyway. Feedback is only listened to on superficial things, sadly.

[Cantor]

Will the game as a whole end up less fun? Probably not. Will levels 20 to at least 26 and possibly ALL THE WAY TO 30 be less fun? Remains to be seen.

I expect to have much more fun 20-26 as I get to advance. Right now there is no advancement since you get everything at 20. The original design was bad, just because we're used to it doesn't mean we should keep it. Are all the changes something I like? No. But the overall goal, that people are bashing here, I like. I don't want to get all the abilities at 20 and then grind to 30, advancing and getting abilities should make it more fun.

Harder does not equal less fun. Stagnant (for me) does equal less fun.

[Certon]

I think the meta that will shake out is everyone runs in one "main" tree for T5s, then a second tree either for a mantle (if the main tree mantle sucks), or for some mid-tier enhancement, and then the third tree is a pure utility splash thing like adding Renewal or Cocoon for cheap heals. But yeah, hybridizing between two trees is not really feasible with this system. Then again, its not possible on Live right now, so that's really not a backwards move.

I personally like that they're deliberately not adding a whole bunch of buttons to the hotbar. I think if Epic Strikes all were independent, then the meta would be to load up on a bunch of those and just cycle through a dozen active attacks. I wish there were better passive enhancements, though, so it felt worthwhile taking points in a tree even if you werent going to use the Mantle or Strikes.

The issue isnt that Dire Charge was too popular. The issue was it was popular because it was OP. A universal, AOE, low-cooldown Stun that worked off every stat was too much of a gamechanger for the relatively low opportunity cost. Adding in equally OP alternatives isnt really a solution.

First, the fact that any EPIC mantle SUCKS is baffling. An ability called EPIC should be EPIC. They are supposed to be COOL. Not "oh look I'm harder to knock down and can randomly daze people" or "1W damage, but only if you're in an exclusive toggle." I'm DISGUSTED with how STINGY they are being with power, especially after all these years of actually feeling powerful. This adjustment to the power levels isn't simply a nerf--the entire epic game is being BUTCHERED by ham fisted developers with little to no imagination. I 100% guarantee I could do better.

They didn't just not add buttons. They TOOK BUTTONS AWAY. Before, you could Dragon Breath from a distance, rush in and Energy Burst, and finally Consecration. Now, PICK ONE and wait 15 seconds--oh and Energy Bust *IS* a breath attack (replaced it) now. WHAT??? SO. EPIC.

Before you could Dire Charge into a group of enemies, stunning most of them, then turn towards a still active one and Stunning Fist it. Now? Nothing similar. (Well there's Drifting Lotus, but it doesn't work-AND, you guessed it, it shares a cooldown with all other epic strikes.) It was simply TOO EPIC of an ability. Really? Disappointing.

[Certon]

I expect to have much more fun 20-26 as I get to advance. Right now there is no advancement since you get everything at 20. The original design was bad, just because we're used to it doesn't mean we should keep it. Are all the changes something I like? No. But the overall goal, that people are bashing here, I like. I don't want to get all the abilities at 20 and then grind to 30, advancing and getting abilities should make it more fun.

Harder does not equal less fun. Stagnant (for me) does equal less fun.

Fun? From 20-26? FUN? Sure, it's fun the first 20 or so lives, but eventually you just want to spend as little time worrying about allocating things and more time reaching 30 so you can add another EPL to your list. Slowing the game down is TERRIBLE for many veteran players. Heck, this other game, Path of Exile, made changes to their Act I gameplay, and many people who are average Joes HATED that it took longer to get through those first levels. As an example, I don't want the adventure Waterworks in DDO to take longer than it does now. Nor do I think to myself "Man, the Coalescence Chamber quest was too short. I wish it took longer." I especially don't want cut-and-paste adventures like the entire Sharn chain to take any longer than they already do. They suck as it is.

Sigh. I just don't understand some people.

[Theolin]

Just thought I would agree with all the shared cooldowns / lockouts in the new "epic" trees ... too bad for you, you only get one toy now - seems like the bad parent telling you cannot play with all your toys at once after letting you do just that for 10 years

& just to say it again ....

Just some general comments on this whole release:

It seems to me the Destiny revamp has done 4 things

• pigeon hole builds into one destiny
• homogenize all the damage, effects, and bonuses so everyone gets to do the exact same thing as everyone else: same damage, same effects with different animations and slightly different version of the same CC its all the same in the new epic trees it just looks different
• destroy most deep splashes / tri-class builds and force folks to play pure or minimal 1-3 level splashes
• nerf some to several classes / builds without say so (see bullet #2)

I am finding this update to be my least favorite ever, much worse than any I can remember and I have continuously played since almost the start with no more than a month here and there for a break. There have been times when I've only played 1-2 hours a week and other where I've played more than 50 depending on what life is like at the time.

This update has done a good job of making everyone the same, I realize this makes some happy and things easier for them, to me it is just a sad shame as I enjoyed figuring out all the little synergies and creating something unique.

It appears to me they are making the game dumber for people who do not want to put the time in to figure out how all the parts work together and create unique builds that are interesting. This game seems to be heading for level setting all builds so everyone does the same thing(damage/CC/healing) with different animations, which is the reason I do not play many of the games out there as there is no uniqueness factor other than your outfit.

I really really wish they would do more for bringing uniqueness and challenge to building characters and viable multiclassing rather than removing it.

[Tsutti]

Fun? From 20-26? FUN? Sure, it's fun the first 20 or so lives, but eventually you just want to spend as little time worrying about allocating things and more time reaching 30 so you can add another EPL to your list. Slowing the game down is TERRIBLE for many veteran players.

I would think it would be a GOOD thing for vets because vets are more likely to already have all the past lives, you therefore don't have past lives to do so it should be nice to have something else that's changing. I figure it would be primarily a middle group of players, who have done their first batch of lives but still have a ways to go, who would simply want to level as fast as possible on repeat.

[Certon]

I would think it would be a GOOD thing for vets because vets are more likely to already have all the past lives, you therefore don't have past lives to do so it should be nice to have something else that's changing. I figure it would be primarily a middle group of players, who have done their first batch of lives but still have a ways to go, who would simply want to level as fast as possible on repeat.

Long-Term ED vets tend to play a slow game at their leisure, and also tend to group with friends to help them. Many take a break after the grind. Making it take even longer will just foster resentment.

[Saekee]

I like nerfs for this game of massive powercreep. I do not know what to make of the new system; as long as adrenaline hits make a mob fall helpless, I am good.

Honestly I wish they had squished epic levels to just 21—xp would just be for spheres—CR 35 quests would just be the toughest and then I could have less gear

[DRoark]

If you wrote the numbers, symbols, and letters that make up the U51 code on scrabble tiles, and dumped them randomly into a bonfire... the ASH it made, would be an upgrade.
More toggles instead of eliminating the unneeded EPL ones, shared cooldowns, feat and structure nerfs, gated play, even more stat and MP/RP/SP reductions. Oh yeah. Such fun.

Admittedly, players might be biased, because we actually PLAY the game, so can immediately spot cowflop disguised with sugar-coating and promises of "an improvement".

[TFerguson]

I expect to have much more fun 20-26 as I get to advance. Right now there is no advancement since you get everything at 20. The original design was bad, just because we're used to it doesn't mean we should keep it. Are all the changes something I like? No. But the overall goal, that people are bashing here, I like. I don't want to get all the abilities at 20 and then grind to 30, advancing and getting abilities should make it more fun.

Harder does not equal less fun. Stagnant (for me) does equal less fun.

are you a plant? Do you work for SSG? I don't know a single person actually playing the game who thinks like this.

[TFerguson]

If you wrote the numbers, symbols, and letters that make up the U51 code on scrabble tiles, and dumped them randomly into a bonfire... the ASH it made, would be an upgrade.
More toggles instead of eliminating the unneeded EPL ones, shared cooldowns, feat and structure nerfs, gated play, even more stat and MP/RP/SP reductions. Oh yeah. Such fun.

Admittedly, players might be biased, because we actually PLAY the game, so can immediately spot cowflop disguised with sugar-coating and promises of "an improvement".

Agreed, this is the "NGE" of DDO.

[Looting_Bin]

The first part is definitely an issue, and there has been feedback since the first preview that the exclusives take up so much ED "real estate" to use their term, in addition to the way each tree is multi-focused that it doesn't give people enough useful options to spend/climb the tree according to their DP expenditure unlocks.

The second part, oh yeah its been noticed, it looks as though they don't have the first clue how to make Legendary levels be LEGENDARY without first making Epic levels less EPIC. Hence the New Epic Destinies now flavored like Heroic Enhancements 2.0.

Will the game as a whole end up less fun? Probably not. Will levels 20 to at least 26 and possibly ALL THE WAY TO 30 be less fun? Remains to be seen.

I just want to answer the less fun as it is clear to me what that entails. For me, after hours of testing on LAM I found everything much more difficult as a whole. From the stat squish 2.0 (since I will no longer be able to even hit the str lever on a str build because even more stats will be reduced) I now have to trash all my current builds to "test" and build new character builds (for most people that don't have the time required for testing). That is not fun... I will not feel the bonus of most of my past lives from epic unless I hit the required amount of epic past lives (currently a few over required amount to be epic past life completions). That is not fun... My main character will suffer the most but all will then be made mostly useless (requiring rebuilds of every toon I choose to play with). That is not fun....

Removing the benefits of the time spent over years of play is disappointing at the least. I feel it is more along the lines of penalizing the effort I put in to appease a very small group. Considering the majority of players are building their toons or armory of items. These past updates have had one goal which is clear. Make the game more difficult for end game players to stop developing. By moving the finish line back it increases the time required to reach specific goals. For those that try to hit that golden area where the low reapers are not difficult, these updates hurt them the most. Now all I have had in the past is put into question the goal I had taken years to reach moved past my current placing. That is not fun...

Where people have a history in the game of epic play, it will be less fun in general. The only people not affected by the stat squish 2.0, are those that have nothing invested. That is a fact, that is not fun...

[Looting_Bin]

I would think it would be a GOOD thing for vets because vets are more likely to already have all the past lives, you therefore don't have past lives to do so it should be nice to have something else that's changing. I figure it would be primarily a middle group of players, who have done their first batch of lives but still have a ways to go, who would simply want to level as fast as possible on repeat.

Speaking as someone that has class completion and epic completion. Am I a vet sure. I started when the game came out and was apart of the preorder head-start program that let you play early. This is back in the pay to play days(lvl 10 max). So, the term you state here is that they "want" to level as fast as possible on repeat. I can answer that with the reason why I have not finished the racial completions yet. I want to play a game. I want to see the time and effort I put into my character be seen by myself and others. I don't want to run an endless chain of the same quest for months to years to be able to enjoy a very small bonus. I understand there are people that see the goal as becoming as strong as possible. I also understand that if someone starts to play they don't want to hear it will be YEARS before they can enjoy the fruits of their labors. Then there are a few who have the time and money required to run levels 1-30 in a few days to a week. So lets say you just started and your one of the few that have to go for best bonus. Lets also say you can afford to buy all the required items (packs/expansions) but most likely if your going for best your having to buy the collectors editions like I have. So lets take the races and classes currently available and do some basic math.

13 races x 3
15 classes x 3
8 iconic x 3 (we can do some classes within this grouping, so we will go ahead and assume that all these are done prior to racial)

That equates to easily 60 weeks minimum for anyone starting out. Over a year of lets call it what it is "Prep Time" to get to a finished character.... By adding in more tiers for epic anyone that had finished now have to run more lives. I had 15 epic past lives on my main as the minimum for the extra twist was only 12. I stopped worrying about every little amount because my goal was for the slot and the few extra points did not hold value on my builds for end game play. Now with the increase I find those few points are critical to have more than one epic tree active. So now to be able to hit the MINIMUM of 11 ap in 3 trees and one tree with a tier 5, I have many many more lives to run at epic level.

For "normal" people it takes a week on playing a class they like and months on classes they don't like. That's YEARS of repeated grinding just to get a small bonus that doesn't equate to enough to hold real value.

So for vets that want to enjoy the game with out MORE time required to compete with epic levels. This update is not as great considering the goal I had was removed and the new one they gave me was many more lives(more time). People don't run the same things over and over because they enjoy doing the same thing over and over. People run them because the choices to do so are limited. If anything these updates (stat squish 1.0 and stat squish 2.0) will drive a large group of people away from the game... the more I see the devs arguing this the less I want to play DDO. If the time and money I have spent mean so little to DDO then I suppose I have to question what the value is to me instead of enjoy the game.

[MasterDragonan]

BIGGEST COMPLAINT:

Epic strikes all share a cooldown across destinies. With that, and the mantle exclusivity, there is nearly nothing for people to branch out into 2-3 trees. Before, I could breathe dragonfire, energy burst and drop a consecration. Now I can do one of those things even if I have the ability to do all three. Go ahead, look at all non mantle, non epic strike abilities and you tell ME what is worth taking other than passive things like increased melee damage (+1 to hit/+1 point of damage per rank at EPIC levels) a few HP (again at EPIC levels) and modest saving throw bonuses.

OTHER COMPLAINTS:

1) Eliminating staples like Dire Charge because people used it too much, instead of just creating other feats which make player choices more difficult. C'mon man...
2) Weakening the highest tier abilities simply because you can't formulate more fantastic abilities for levels 30-35 and will instead retread them for use at the new "level 30." I used to be able to trip on vorpal. Now I can daze on vorpal, which of course goes away after ONE hit. Compared to stunning fist, that's ****, and you can get stunning fist at level 2.
3) Combining Druid Melee and Barbarian melee on one tree so you can go further with the whole druid spellcasting thing even though it's just a terrible concept out of the gate. "Oh look! I'm weaker now with fire but better with cold! Oh no! it's changed the other way!" Who cares? It's terrible.
4) NOT doing the one thing you should have done, which was more of what you had done when you first released Epic Destinies. Instead, it's like you FORGOT how to develop good content. I am baffled completely.

IN SUMMARY (TL;DR):

You made epic levels trash. Congratulations.

The only way they are going to listen to you is, stop VIP, halt all in game spending's.
I have done it.

[Seph1roth5]

Tier 5s at 30 and epic strikes sharing cooldowns are the big complaints for me.

Tier 5s - It's ridiculous to make these lv 30. The big chart of what we get now vs. proposed feats/etc has a GIANT HOLE at lv 29. When the new EDs were first previewed we all assumed there was a hole there because that's when we got legendary gear and that was good enough. But then u50 preview hit with the stat squish, and lv 29 gear became barely better than random **** in chests. So that doesn't exactly fill the hole at 29. I've never seen a dev explain why they're so dead-set on keeping t5s at 30, other than to say that EDs are being designed with a higher level cap in mind.

This STILL makes no sense. Even if 31 comes out with some crazy powerful destiny power you can take (and it won't), what does that have to do with 29? PLUS, this new system encourages many many epic past lives. So it expects you to not spend much time at 30 also. Why bother putting any effort into making fun abilities at t5 and then put them in a system where you won't get to use them? THAT'S no fun to me.

Epic Strikes/Mantle - I can't believe how much I hate strikes sharing a cooldown. Mantles I KIND of understand, but both mantles and strikes suck up so much **** space in the trees. It's actually insulting how much of a mess this is. Devs kept hawking how much better this new system is because you get 3 trees, but it really doesn't feel like that at all. It feels like I'm on an alt and finally have enough pts to get the t5s in my destiny, but only a handful of fate points so I can twist 1 or 2 **** abilities.

I took my lv 30 acid warlock (enlightened spirit) to lam this week and it was just depressing. There was definitely some cool stuff in draconic/primal avatar I wanted, but it just didn't work. Dragon breath was neat but nothing procced off my warlock stuff, and it's own epic strike didn't trigger the mantle (didn't seem like any ED's triggered their mantles), and I wasn't really a DC caster so most of the tree did squat for me. I think at least 10 pts I spent were in just whatever so I could get to the next tier.

Primal wasn't much better. The thorn spells were cool, but again, none of my warlock aura/blasts triggered any of the primal stuff. And again, I spent at LEAST 10 pts on garbage I didn't want/need.

If I was able to ACTUALLY mix the 2 it would've been so much better. I don't care that we get more DP when the level cap rises that DOESN"T FIX the issue of not being able to use both. It just feels like more wasted points.

Did the devs actually ask anyone anything before designed these? Is this another case of them listening to the PC, is it a marketing thing, or are they just that clueless?

It seems like every big thing they try to push as being a good new thing is just backwards and wrong.

1 - No twists but 3 trees! - (except most of the good stuff is tied to mantles/strikes so you can't REALLY utilize them)
2 - Don't need to level off destiny anymore, no more karma! (except they could've removed that at any time)
3 - Trees have more for different builds so you have more options! (except there's still a DPS tree, still a blaster tree, only know because every tree tries to do too much you're just wasting points on things)
4 - Lowered levels for destiny feats and removed sphere pre-reqs! (except they removed any and all feats that people took most often, BECAUSE they were taken often)
5 - Listened to feedback and removed spenders/builders! (epic strikes/mantles exclusive, and many abilities were folded into the strikes so we get less active attacks)
6 - Told us (after stat squish complaints) that the new EDs would make up for power we lost (except the new ED numbers were "rebalanced" to give us garbage numbers. Now we can spend 3 pts for a +3 attack/damage, maybe a whopping 1 dodge if we're lucky)
7 - said they frontloaded the EDs, letting you take t2 at lv 20 (BUT, also moved stuff higher in the tree so the low tier stuff was worse. Like EA not having light damage boost til much higher)

[Dandonk]

It seems like every big thing they try to push as being a good new thing is just backwards and wrong.

1 - No twists but 3 trees! - (except most of the good stuff is tied to mantles/strikes so you can't REALLY utilize them)
2 - Don't need to level off destiny anymore, no more karma! (except they could've removed that at any time)
3 - Trees have more for different builds so you have more options! (except there's still a DPS tree, still a blaster tree, only know because every tree tries to do too much you're just wasting points on things)
4 - Lowered levels for destiny feats and removed sphere pre-reqs! (except they removed any and all feats that people took most often, BECAUSE they were taken often)
5 - Listened to feedback and removed spenders/builders! (epic strikes/mantles exclusive, and many abilities were folded into the strikes so we get less active attacks)
6 - Told us (after stat squish complaints) that the new EDs would make up for power we lost (except the new ED numbers were "rebalanced" to give us garbage numbers. Now we can spend 3 pts for a +3 attack/damage, maybe a whopping 1 dodge if we're lucky)
7 - said they frontloaded the EDs, letting you take t2 at lv 20 (BUT, also moved stuff higher in the tree so the low tier stuff was worse. Like EA not having light damage boost til much higher)

Good analysis.