I feel robbed by heart of wood rules, seems dishonest

[Oliphant]

Recently had to use multiple hearts of wood I had stashed to switch 12 rogue/6 ranger/2 warlock to 13 rogue/6 ranger/1 barb.

There is absolutely no logical reason it has to be this way, there is no logical reason for the customer to assume this when buying hearts, and customers of all people should not be left feeling like they were deceived and robbed. I'm sure the devs are great people but how am I supposed to feel about it?

[Yamani]

Doesn't it say under "important rules" on the heart of wood that potential levels are also counted?

[Strider1963]

Doesn't it say under "important rules" on the heart of wood that potential levels are also counted?

Yes it does, but IMHO that is a bunch of bullfeathers. Theres no reason that the devs can't change that so that you can have more than 3 classes during the lr as long as you only will have 3 when you take the last level. Bunch of nonsense and as far as Im concerned. makes the whole process basically useless to a lot of players and discourages people from buying hearts.

[fatherpirate]

Hate to tell you what you don't want to hear ... but here ya go.

Free to play games are not free.

The game developers get your money one way or another.

Your not being cheated, your paying for the game.

Changing your classes around is not a required function of the game,
it is optional and when you have something optional, they
will charge you an arm and a leg to do it.

other expensive optional things

server transfers
name changes
perm. buffs

and so on.

[C-Dog]

At end game, on last rogue life, all racial lives done and want to try out 13/6/1 for a bucket list item.

First, grats on completionist!

Theres no reason that the devs can't change that so that you can have more than 3 classes during the lr as long as you only will have 3 when you take the last level.

You're 100% correct, they can do anything they want. So there must be a reason behind it...

There is absolutely no logical reason it has to be this way...

I believe there is a reason. This is. at its core, D&D.

Think about it - if you went to your tabletop DM and said...

"Hey, you know my Rogue 12/Ranger/Warlock that I've been playing? I want to change him to a Rogue 13/Ranger/Barb - that ok with you?"

... well, I don't know about the GM's others have had, but most of mine would look at me as if I was making a joke. In tabletop, I dare say it's rare to simply "change" the history of a character so radically.

So, in DDO, altho' you can change a character, there are only 3 ways:

o Abandon the toon and reroll. Not really "changing", but it gets the job done.
o Push through to 20 and reincarnate. Requires "playing the game" from 1-20 again.
o Pay through the nose to avoid the previous options. A barrier, but not an absolute one.

There is no tradition in D&D of simply "changing your character", and I feel this reflects that.

True, it's obvious at face value that code could be written that would achieve what the OP asks for - but it would probably require considerable time to write (and more to test!). If this is not a goal for the game developers, to make radical character changes trivial, then there is only negative incentive to pursue such a change.

That, imo, constitutes a logical reason.

(And I'm not saying I dis/agree with that reasoning, just that it answers your question.)

I'm sure the devs are great people but how am I supposed to feel about it?

That the game has rules and conventions, and one is that radical changes to a character are discouraged, but far from impossible.

That's a logical conclusion.

<shrug>

[Oliphant]

I believe there is a reason. This is. at its core, D&D.

Ok but being tricky with $ store items versus not having them at all or making them cost more upfront are two different lanes.

[ahpook]

...
Think about it - if you went to your tabletop DM and said...

"Hey, you know my Rogue 12/Ranger/Warlock that I've been playing? I want to change him to a Rogue 13/Ranger/Barb - that ok with you?"

... well, I don't know about the GM's others have had, but most of mine would look at me as if I was making a joke. In tabletop, I dare say it's rare to simply "change" the history of a character so radically.
...

To make this analogy work you should alter it to include:

The DM says "sure, just buy me a six pack" but when you go to roll your fifth level the DM says you can't take a Barbarian level. They also say you can't just go back to your original build (they do say thanks for the six pack) and you have to keep rolling to get to a build you don't want. But don't worry, if you bring them another six-pack next week they will let you roll up what you want all over again. How many would want to play with that DM going forward?

[Valerianus]

I believe there is a reason. This is. at its core, D&D.

Think about it - if you went to your tabletop DM and said...

"Hey, you know my Rogue 12/Ranger/Warlock that I've been playing? I want to change him to a Rogue 13/Ranger/Barb - that ok with you?"

... well, I don't know about the GM's others have had, but most of mine would look at me as if I was making a joke. In tabletop, I dare say it's rare to simply "change" the history of a character so radically.

yes. because ddo was built as a single player game with multiplayer option. when will it finally become a mmo?

(the gameplay\char customization is wonderful, don't change it, the problem is everything that floats around it)

[Uska]

yes. because ddo was built as a single player game with multiplayer option. when will it finally become a mmo?

(the gameplay\char customization is wonderful, don't change it, the problem is everything that floats around it)

No it wasn’t grouping was originally almost a requirement many quests were impossible and hirelings didn’t exist I am sorry that isn’t the case any longer especially the hireling part

[ahpook]

Recently had to use multiple hearts of wood I had stashed to switch 12 rogue/6 ranger/2 warlock to 13 rogue/6 ranger/1 barb.

There is absolutely no logical reason it has to be this way, there is no logical reason for the customer to assume this when buying hearts, and customers of all people should not be left feeling like they were deceived and robbed. I'm sure the devs are great people but how am I supposed to feel about it?

Agreed. The current behavior will be defended as a documented limitation but that doesn't mean that the heart limitations are not a **** poor implementation and irritant to customers. For a game that is alive only because of the TR wheel I am constantly surprised how poorly coded so much of this system is (TR cache, re-leveling in Epic TR, leveling interface, Heart limitations, etc).

[boredGamer]

Agreed. The current behavior will be defended as a documented limitation but that doesn't mean that the heart limitations are not a **** poor implementation and irritant to customers. For a game that is alive only because of the TR wheel I am constantly surprised how poorly coded so much of this system is (TR cache, re-leveling in Epic TR, leveling interface, Heart limitations, etc).

It's true. It's way too expensive for a system to change your character, and it's just bizarrely set up.

[Oliphant]

I recently spent $600 gifting a friend to onboard him to this game, not counting what I spent on my account. This is how I support DDO behind the scenes. Maybe take a guess how they take care of me behind the scenes. No more Mr. Nice Guy. The game is no longer within my inner trust circle where I would even vouch to a friend spend time.

[slarden]

I recently spent $600 gifting a friend to onboard him to this game, not counting what I spent on my account. This is how I support DDO behind the scenes. Maybe take a guess how they take care of me behind the scenes. No more Mr. Nice Guy. The game is no longer within my inner trust circle where I would even vouch to a friend spend time.

I can relate - they also lost my trust and support.

Really sorry this happened to you.

[Oliphant]

They even know the system is broken. That's why they have to give the free +5. It's not a free +5, its an extra respecc you have to endure to get the +20 you paid for.

[Eantarus]

Why would you use lesser hearts to change that instead of TRing into the new build?

Yeah the system is broken but you've got such an incredibly narrow edge-case its not enough cause for change. Most people would just TR and fix it on the next life.

[Chacka_DDO]

I recently spent $600 gifting a friend to onboard him to this game, not counting what I spent on my account. This is how I support DDO behind the scenes. Maybe take a guess how they take care of me behind the scenes. No more Mr. Nice Guy. The game is no longer within my inner trust circle where I would even vouch to a friend spend time.

I don't know about SSGs' opinion regarding that matter but a lot of players seemingly think it is foremost about "outsmarting" players to suck out as much as possible money out of their pockets.
But there is also another factor that makes ppl pay, and this is how their feelings are for the product and the company.

In your case regarding your LR, I doubt that there is any bad intention, and is just only a suboptimal implementation if you want to change a multiclass character with 3 classes to another with also 3 classes.
Here is certainly room for improvement without going into details here.

For me, such bad feelings are caused when I see they implement these wishes of inheritance and they expect us players to spend 15$ to move one item one time to another character on your account instead of making items in general BTA.
Then I feel like they try to "outsmart" me and my wallet closes and of course, I don't buy such BS...

[LightBear]

To get from 12 rogue/6 ranger/2 warlock to 13 rogue/6 ranger/1 barb
You'll need at least to swap out the two levels of warlock.

Now I don't know at which level you did that but seeing that you kept two classes the same this class swap should not be to hard.
You could use either two +1 hearts or one +5 heart (as there are no +2 hearts, right?) or just a straight up +20 heart.

Last time I did this the dialogue gives you the option to either take the class level as you took it before or swap it out for a new one.
Now if you wanted to take different class levels at different levels from the last time you did it and say 1 barb level first while those warlock levels were at level 19 and 20 the first time then yeah, you're stuck and forced to do it with two +20 hearts.

Btw, most other MMOs out there don't let you respec your character at all and when they do they do not have the level of complexity DDO has.

Edit:
If I find myself stuck on having to do two +20 hearts I'd probably just do one of the Resurrections and use a xp-stone to get me close to 20 again.

[GramercyRiff]

I recently spent $600 gifting a friend to onboard him to this game, not counting what I spent on my account. This is how I support DDO behind the scenes. Maybe take a guess how they take care of me behind the scenes. No more Mr. Nice Guy. The game is no longer within my inner trust circle where I would even vouch to a friend spend time.

Yeah SSG is just god awful at supporting those that support them. I tell any new people to just go spend their time and money on anything else in the wide wondrous world. SSG is not worth their time or money. I once supported the game, but dreadful customer support has made me change that. I can kind of live with terrible design if I know the company that I support will support me when I want it. I don't get proper support though. The last time I severed support of this game was years ago and it was awful customer support that ended it then too.

[LightBear]

Btw, the logical reason is that you can't have more than 3 classes at any given time.
And while we're in the proces of respeccing our character with a +1 heart the game has no way of knowing which level you want to swap around.
The alternative would be players stuck with, possibly as much as 17, no class assigned to a level and thus no feat/skill selection either.
Then there is the feats selection of course that is influenced by what class you pick at which level and which feats you selected before (and stat choices).
So yeah, there are some really hard technical limitations forced upon us by the 3.5 DnD ruleset that makes coding a level swap a bit of a nightmare.

[droid327]

If it didnt work like it does, then you could have a situation with non-+20 hearts where you could get stuck mid-reincarnation and find it impossible to progress. You could be forced to change your class next level (because you already took 3 other classes) but you already spent all your changes.

Counting future classes means you wont ever get stuck

That being said, +20s could be the exception since you never run out of changes, so they could work differently and just give you a total wipe instead of 20 individual level changes