Epic Destinies

[Shadowrth]

First of all, I just want to say thanks to Durnak, all other TR'ers, and everyone else for remaining civil and constructive in this thread. It truly is something to see such a rapidly growing thread filled with so much intense passion and debate without anyone resorting to, well, undesirable behaviors. (hopefully I didn't just jinx it).

I want to point out that we gave special consideration to TR's in this design. In no way did we want to have anyone feel like they got a bad deal. Allowing players to TR at level 20 when the level cap was increased was supposed to be a good thing (especially considering the recent heroic-only XP boost). We thought we were providing flexibility.

That said, this is a complex issue and we certainly don't have any completionists on the dev team so I'm grateful for all of you sharing your perspective.

So, where does that leave us? It sounds to me like the TR'ing should require players to go through all levels (1-25). That would solve the issues of feeling like 21-25 were unnecessary and there being a level gap between TR's who are 'on break' and fellow capped players.

What if the TR XP curve for heroic levels was adjusted so that less XP was required through levels, say, 15+ to (somewhat) compensate for the epic levels? This would also help the issue that some have complained about - namely not enough content in these levels for TR'ers. One downside is that the recent heroic XP boost would of course be heroic only.

Just throwing this out to see what comes back, I am not promising anything.

MF please do not do this I understand it is a complex issue and I understand both sides but to then force new players to have to work all the way to level 25 just to TR it will discourage all new players like myself from ever doing a TR. There should be hard choices to make in DDO as any d&d game this choice or that one. Rewards and consequences for both.

I would also like to point out from the constructive post you responded to earlier is IMO a great idea make the epic destiny once it is maxed and only for a TR to have that tree level requirement removed. This way once they hit level 20 or 21 they can work on a new destiny or choose the old one and be right back where they was minus some HP and saves.

Regardless how you decide to take the epic destiny situation I commend the whole team on a feature I can't wait to play.

[Phoenix-daBard]

yes i just readit again my self....and no were could i find either.. i take it back i must have missread i sure thought i seen 5 new quests.. sorry guys. now im even more happy

But now that we are on the subject how many new quests will there be not including raid and challenges?

According to information given before there will be three new adventure packs as part of the expansion in addition to the challenges.

Nice summary here: http://ddowiki.com/page/Menace_of_the_Underdark

[Phemt81]

So, where does that leave us? It sounds to me like the TR'ing should require players to go through all levels (1-25).

No please!

What if the TR XP curve for heroic levels was adjusted so that less XP was required through levels, say, 15+ to (somewhat) compensate for the epic levels?

Yes please

[Elation]

Can't say I'd be in favour of that. The epic grind doesn't appeal to me, but TRing does.

I believe that would make it more difficult to TR for those who don't buy the expansion. For people who were the among the first to TR when it was became available back in 2009, there was a lack of content between levels 16-20. Raising the TR threshold to 25 could replicate that problem of lack of content near the level cap.

Also, should the journey to completionist ever get longer? Those people who cranked out a dozen lives since bravery bonus was released will have a huge advantage over those who TR after the cap gets raised to 25. Is that the right thing to do? An equivalent increase in power should require an equivalent level of grind. It's not like a level 25 TR would give you any more benefits than one at level 20.

There are too many things lately in this game where the early adopters or hard-core get a comparative advantage after drop rates or XP get nerfed. Cannith crafting got hit at least twice to make leveling harder, with essence drop rates and deconstruction XP. Cannith Challenges got the drop rates heavily nerfed after a few months. Changes like this send a clear message - if DDO is not your life and you are not a powergamer, you'll never get anywhere. If you don't grind the hell out of something when it is first released, too bad for you.

Basically, after hearing from devs that TR would remain at 20, and then buying the expansion, I would feel ripped off - that $80 might have gone elsewhere in the event that your "what-if" scenario above had been announced as the original plan. Levels 21-25 are something that have been sold to the playerbase as optional, not mandatory. It's a little too late to change that.

Lets see since you havent experienced the epic lvling not the grind then i find your statement to be unfounded. The level cap raised so level your toons to the new cap.

[Calebro]

Other than that, what he is basically saying is that If I cap a TR, my only option if I dont want to throw Xp away is to TR right at 20. If I cap a TR and want to use that toon to raid for a few weeks than TR it again, any XP I have gained above 20 is a waste.

This is patently false. That's what many of you aren't seeing.
The XP you earn will be used to unlock Epic Destinies, which will not be reset upon TR. So on your next life you are free to pursue a different Destiny (if you are a different class), while retaining the XP earned toward your previous Destiny. If you pursue the same Destiny, you're one step ahead (or two, or four) of the guy that hasn't done any Epics yet.
There is a reason to play out a few Epics and gain a little experience before you TR, because it brings you that much closer to completion when you do finally decide to park yourself in Epic levels for a while.
The XP isn't wasted. You'll need to earn the actual levels again, sure, but you still have something from when you did it previously.
It's actually quite elegant in design, without being OP (like immediately jumping to level 25 would have been, like some people wanted).

[waterboytkd]

So, where does that leave us? It sounds to me like the TR'ing should require players to go through all levels (1-25). That would solve the issues of feeling like 21-25 were unnecessary and there being a level gap between TR's who are 'on break' and fellow capped players.

What if the TR XP curve for heroic levels was adjusted so that less XP was required through levels, say, 15+ to (somewhat) compensate for the epic levels? This would also help the issue that some have complained about - namely not enough content in these levels for TR'ers. One downside is that the recent heroic XP boost would of course be heroic only.

Just throwing this out to see what comes back, I am not promising anything.

What's funny, is last night I thought, "You know what they could do? Just make it so you have to get to level 25 to TR again...that would fix the 'leveling 21-25 is useless if you're gonna TR again' mindset. But boy, would the people in the middle of completionist grind lose their s--- if that happened..."

I don't think that's the right answer because of that very reason. Now, you mention flattening the curve a bit in the later levels of a TR to make up for it. That *could* be viable, but I think you (as in all the devs, not just you, MF :P) should take into account that many already consider the xp grind of a legend TR to be long enough (if not too long already), so increasing it by an appreciable amount is going to be met with resistance, perhaps even vehement resistance.

It's hard to give any real suggestions without knowing the numbers of the epic levels, but if the Heroic + Epic grind was pretty close to the current Legend xp total, it might not be so bad to require 25 to TR. Like, if 5 epic levels were 2.5 mil XP, and 20 Heroic levels were 1.9 mil xp (for 1st lifers and all versions of TRs), then it might not be that big a deal...right now.

But what happens if you eventually expand the level cap again? If you include epic levels into the TR grind, then every level cap extension you do will have a big negative impact on TRing, and you could eventually "expand" TRing out of the game. No one will do it if it gets too crazy. And if you adjust the XP to make 20 Heroics + 5 Epics a tolerable XP grind, are you going to readjust AGAIN when you introduce another 5 epic levels (I assume since you broke the seal on expanding level cap, that it's going to happen again)?

I think the right move is to keep TRing in the realm of just Heroic levels. You hit 20, you can TR again, or you could play some of the endgame. However, if the endgame requires one to have 5 epic levels in order to be effective, you get this weird limbo land for TRs once they hit 20. Do they "waste" time leveling to 25 to do some endgame before TRing again, or do the players shelf that character and play an alt until they're ready to TR again? It's a bad tension, like what we saw with tomes pre-U13.

My suggestion is one that's been voiced before to some disapproval, but it's simple, elegant, and adds no extra cost or drawback to TRing: have all epic progression retained through TRs. You're already allowing epic destiny progression to be retained, so just allow the regular epic xp to be retained as well. That way, when a character TRs, as soon as they get back to Heroic cap (20), they can resume their epic questing wherever they happened to leave off (if they were 25, they'd go back to 25; if they were only 22 when they decided they needed to TR that toon, they'd get to go back to 22 to resume the grind to 25). In this way, the epic levels do not conflict with TRing at all.

My prediction is: if epic levels and destinies are launched as they have been described to us, you will see a noticeable drop in True Heart sales in the store*. If you implement them in a way that has zero repercussions for TRs, you will not see that drop.

*No matter what, as soon as epic levels are introduced, you will see a True Heart sale drop as players stop TRing for a bit to try out and level epic characters. But after they've tried it out, if there are no extra losses or drawbacks for TRing as currently on live, you would see TRing return to current levels. However, if there are extra drawbacks or losses for TRing (like losing your epic level xp), you will see players no longer consider toons viable for TRing because they don't want to lose those epic levels.

TL;DR:
1) Increasing the needed levels to TR will increase the TR grind, even if you "even" out some of the level 15+ xp requirements to decrease the Heroic level requirements, and that will result in TRing becoming less appealing, hurting True Heart sales. This gets exacerbated in the future if the level cap is ever increased again.

2) Losing epic level xp upon TR is an extra drawback to TRing that will result in TRing becoming less appealing, hurting True Heart sales. This gets exacerbated in the future if the level cap is ever increased again.

3) If ALL epic progression is retained through TRs (epic level xp and epic destiny xp), then there are no added drawbacks or penalties to TRing, and that will NOT result in TRing becoming less appealing (in the long run; there will be a TR drop as soon as epic levels go live as players will want to try the new shiny and pause any TRs), and will not hurt True Heart sales (again, in the long run). This DOES NOT get exacerbated in the future if the level cap is ever increased again, because this solution totally divorces epic progressions from TRing.

[rimble]

Epic levels currently grant 2+(Int Mod) skill points, with all skills available as class skills.

Well...wow...

[Cetus]

First of all, I just want to say thanks to Durnak, all other TR'ers, and everyone else for remaining civil and constructive in this thread. It truly is something to see such a rapidly growing thread filled with so much intense passion and debate without anyone resorting to, well, undesirable behaviors. (hopefully I didn't just jinx it).

I want to point out that we gave special consideration to TR's in this design. In no way did we want to have anyone feel like they got a bad deal. Allowing players to TR at level 20 when the level cap was increased was supposed to be a good thing (especially considering the recent heroic-only XP boost). We thought we were providing flexibility.

That said, this is a complex issue and we certainly don't have any completionists on the dev team so I'm grateful for all of you sharing your perspective.

So, where does that leave us? It sounds to me like the TR'ing should require players to go through all levels (1-25). That would solve the issues of feeling like 21-25 were unnecessary and there being a level gap between TR's who are 'on break' and fellow capped players.

What if the TR XP curve for heroic levels was adjusted so that less XP was required through levels, say, 15+ to (somewhat) compensate for the epic levels? This would also help the issue that some have complained about - namely not enough content in these levels for TR'ers. One downside is that the recent heroic XP boost would of course be heroic only.

Just throwing this out to see what comes back, I am not promising anything.

Thanks MF, I'm starting to see how carefully you developers have to word things sometimes because trying to articulate myself without being misinterpreted in the past 12 hours was an interesting task.

The bottom line of what this entire thing fundamentally boils down to is whether or not you want to unlock all of your relevant destiny's at 25 or in a transitional level between 20 and 25.

The first case (being at 25 and getting your destiny's) is the result of not finding any TR incentive. You obtain the 25th level, and now you, as a level 25 character, proceed to grind the rest of your desired destiny's as the most powerful version of your character. At this same instant, you are also able to take part in using the most powerful gear and run the hardest content (Both, of which, I'll assume are min level 25). The flexibility provided here is appealing to me.

The second case is the result of finding a TR incentive. In that case, you continue to work toward your desired destinys while leveling up toward level 25 again. The difference here is that you are not doing it using the more powerful version of your character, and your endgame access is limited because of the need to reach the level 25 goal for the second time. Furthermore, if you ever happen to max out all of your desired destinies and then a TR incentive arises, any benefit from re-doing the epic levels is entirely eliminated.

The fact that you continue to work on your destiny's while re-doing your journey to 25 seems to trick a few people into thinking that it is a benefit of redoing the epic levels.

But let me ask, if I can acquire all my relevant destiny's using the level 25 version of my character without ever using a single heart of wood, don't you agree that making the decision to TR would net result in just an unmerited grind from 21-25 again? You are not getting anything added to your character that is TR-associated, it merely becomes a temporary by-product.

For endgame players such as myself, doing the levels over again is a nuisance because I have 5 other characters in addition to my completionist that I'd like to enjoy. It, therefore, is wasteful in the temporal sense to have to earn a past life that today requires 20 levels of heroic levels, and which will tomorrow cost 20 heroic levels AND 5 epic levels to return to your former status.

The people here who do enjoy the leveling experience would not be hurt by my suggestion. By obtaining loot, gear, epic destiny acquisition, raid flagging, and multiplying those incentives across several characters; you'll have every opportunity in the world to enjoy the campaign setting the devs have created for us.

As far as your suggestion regarding the extension of the TR leveling grind to 25 MF, that would still very much fall under the basic premise of my argument. The reason is now you further pushed the problems sparking these arguments instead of alleviating them. Instead of being disappointed with having to do 5 extra epic levels for no further gain every time we choose to TR AND return to end game, we would now have to do 5 extra epic levels every time we TR, no matter if we plan on returning to endgame or not. You would have essentially lengthened the grind we do now for the exact same past life benefit, and that is completely the reverse of what I've been arguing to you.

Lowering the amount of xp to compensate for the epic levels is a rudimentary step toward the right direction because it solves the "grindy" part of this problem. However, I still won't have the flexibility to make full elaborate use of the two systems because they are both reliant on one another in terms of progress. Even if it takes me less time to get there, which, as I said is a better scenario already, I still can't play a little bit of end game and then decide to TR. It becomes a very extremist way of playing the game- "either THIS or THAT" situation.

[Engoril]

So, where does that leave us? It sounds to me like the TR'ing should require players to go through all levels (1-25). That would solve the issues of feeling like 21-25 were unnecessary and there being a level gap between TR's who are 'on break' and fellow capped players.

I hope not I liked the original better, but then I am not a completionist. I liked the idea of getting to 20 and the option to TR opening up. While still accumulating stuff for levels 21-25 and playing with my epic toys, while waiting to decide when exactly I'd TR next. That approach suits us who are still working through TR's better. It is flexible which I liked, because I am actually doing constructive stuff (building up destinies) in the break between consecutive TRs, which for me could be weeks or months.

[SardaofChaos]

I don't see the logic of doing all past lives first and then doing epic levels. When I read about how the system is going to work, my plan became:
- Continue working on adding past lives to Shatterer
- Get at least 1 epic level in on each life
- Get more than 1 epic level if I am looking for specific gear and haven't found it before 20 tokens

This is a much more profitable way of spending your time.

[Calebro]

3) If ALL epic progression is retained through TRs (epic level xp and epic destiny xp), then there are no added drawbacks or penalties to TRing, and that will NOT result in TRing becoming less appealing (in the long run; there will be a TR drop as soon as epic levels go live as players will want to try the new shiny and pause any TRs), and will not hurt True Heart sales (again, in the long run). This DOES NOT get exacerbated in the future if the level cap is ever increased again, because this solution totally divorces epic progressions from TRing.

This is an horrible idea, for many reasons. I'll list the most important one right now.
If and/or when you hit level 25, along with many other players, and then finally decide to TR, once you get back to level 20 you would just immediately be granted level 25. First of all that's kind of ridiculous. Secondly, all of the people that haven't been to 25 yet will find it increasingly difficult to gain those levels because there would be no one in the 20-to-23-or-24 range to quest with. There would be no one to quest with because all of the Epic characters would be level 25 and therefore would power level you, so you'd have an extremely difficult time attaining those levels unless you were part of the initial pack that got there first.
This would create an even bigger gap in the player-base/pug-scene than we have already.

The system, as designed, helps alleviate some of the issues involved in pugging Epic quests. The system you propose would not only not alleviate those issues, it would actively compound those issues to make them worse.

[LeLoric]

I don't see the logic of doing all past lives first and then doing epic levels. When I read about how the system is going to work, my plan became:
- Continue working on adding past lives to Shatterer
- Get at least 1 epic level in on each life
- Get more than 1 epic level if I am looking for specific gear and haven't found it before 20 tokens

This is a much more profitable way of spending your time.

You dont keep those epic levesl so getting one each life is a waste of that one level. You swill still have to do all 5 when you do your final life.

Then if you do all 5 and a new class comes out and you want their past life you have to do all 5 again to get back to 25.

This is where I have the big issue with this system it discourages tr'ing once youve got to lev 25 and encourages people on a tr grind to never play the new content until they are done.

[LeLoric]

This is an horrible idea, for many reasons. I'll list the most important one right now.
If and/or when you hit level 25, along with many other players, and then finally decide to TR, once you get back to level 20 you would just immediately be granted level 25. First of all that's kind of ridiculous. Secondly, all of the people that haven't been to 25 yet will find it increasingly difficult to gain those levels because there would be no one in the 20-to-23-or-24 range to quest with. There would be no one to quest with because all of the Epic characters would be level 25 and therefore would power level you, so you'd have an extremely difficult time attaining those levels unless you were part of the initial pack that got there first.
This would create an even bigger gap in the player-base/pug-scene than we have already.

The system, as designed helps alleviate some of the issues involved in pugging Epic quests. The system you propose would not only not alleviate those issues, it would active compound those issues to make them worse.

Well the current system means people already at 25 and familiar with the system from 21-25 wont be tr'ing either.

[Lady_Josslyn]

First of all, I just want to say thanks to Durnak, all other TR'ers, and everyone else for remaining civil and constructive in this thread. It truly is something to see such a rapidly growing thread filled with so much intense passion and debate without anyone resorting to, well, undesirable behaviors. (hopefully I didn't just jinx it).

I want to point out that we gave special consideration to TR's in this design. In no way did we want to have anyone feel like they got a bad deal. Allowing players to TR at level 20 when the level cap was increased was supposed to be a good thing (especially considering the recent heroic-only XP boost). We thought we were providing flexibility.

That said, this is a complex issue and we certainly don't have any completionists on the dev team so I'm grateful for all of you sharing your perspective.

So, where does that leave us? It sounds to me like the TR'ing should require players to go through all levels (1-25). That would solve the issues of feeling like 21-25 were unnecessary and there being a level gap between TR's who are 'on break' and fellow capped players.

What if the TR XP curve for heroic levels was adjusted so that less XP was required through levels, say, 15+ to (somewhat) compensate for the epic levels? This would also help the issue that some have complained about - namely not enough content in these levels for TR'ers. One downside is that the recent heroic XP boost would of course be heroic only.

Just throwing this out to see what comes back, I am not promising anything.

please please please don't do that. The consensus among my guildies seems to be (and my own personal opinion as well) is that we LIKE having 21-25 being optional for TRing I'm sorry, but try as I might I just don't understand why having it be optional is such a big deal for people. What magic "carrot" is at level 20 anyway other than being able to TR again. I have a few TR's of my own so I do understand what is involved with TRing and leveling back up to 20. I really like being able to decide at level 20, if I want to TR again, or if i want to go epic. What I think alot of people are forgetting is there are players who don't have access to epic destinies If you make leveling 21-25 a requirement what is that going to do to people who choose not to purchase the expansion? I feel it is important to point out that if you require level 1-25 for TR's this is going to make it MUCH more difficult for people who choose not to purchase the expansion for whatever reason.

[Vellrad]

Instead of editing my last post, I'll just add this as a new concern. Every Wizard will now have full UMD with very modest effort. That same wizard will most likely end up with Disable, Unlock and Search as well. A pure 20 Wizard can easily have 11 ranks into UMD and Search. With 20 base + 2 tome + 6 levels = 9 mod = 11 skills per epic level = 55 total ranks. Unlock up to 4, Search to 28 (21 total), UMD to 28 (38 total) and disable to 28 (55 total). You'd probably drop 5 of those Disable's off for Concentration though, so call it 23, which is more than enough considering the huge Int bonus. I think opening up all skills for all classes is very unbalanced.

Don't worry.
Search and disable will be worthless.
You can't find any trap with DC higher than 20 without beign rogue or artificer.
You can't disable any trap a t all without beign rogue or artificer.
wizard 19 with 1 level of rogue or art can have 23 ranks in both of that skills now

[Calebro]

This is where I have the big issue with this system it discourages tr'ing once youve got to lev 25 and encourages people on a tr grind to never play the new content until they are done.

I disagree. Look above.

[waterboytkd]

This:

There is a reason to play out a few Epics and gain a little experience before you TR, because it brings you that much closer to completion when you do finally decide to park yourself in Epic levels for a while.

is why I think this:

It's actually quite elegant in design, without being OP (like immediately jumping to level 25 would have been, like some people wanted).

isn't true. If you only have an incentive to play out a few epics between TRs, but not play the endgame until you are done TRing, the system is flawed, like pre-U13 tomes. That's, of course, my opinion.

Also, I don't see the OP-ness of getting back all your epic progression already earned once you hit 20. Unless you mean that one idea I saw mentioned only briefly where someone suggested we just get 25 as soon as we hit 20, without having to level to 25 (was that even a real suggestion or someone just misinterpreting someone else's suggestion?), because yeah, that would be stupid. Not really OP, just kinda dumb (like having Vet Status Epic, where your new toon starts at level 20).

[Malky]

From the roundtable text :

[...] and other players will be able to recognize you as a Grandmaster of Flowers when you punch a whole bunch of enemies into the future so hard you instantly defeat them.

Actually, we're already grandmasters of flowers. Just wait for a lag spike, swing at a mob and ten seconds later (i.e. into the future).... all your damage is coming instantly!

/sorry, couldn't resist

[Calebro]

The system is flawed, like pre-U13 tomes. That's, of course, my opinion.

We have widely different opinions on these matters.
I am of the opinion that post-U13 tomes are flawed.

[LeLoric]

I disagree. Look above.

But being able to unlock destinies is irrelevant you can do that whether you are at 25 or 20.