Possibly this is the point...

[~Indaryx]

Hitting on what I considered a good form of testing the accessibility of the new enhancement system, I threw my mother at the problem. She knows nothing about DDO or MMOs in general. I made a L7 character (a paladin, based on asking her what sort of character she thought she'd like) on Khyber, and an identical one on Lamannia. Then, in each case, I told her to put enhancements on the character.

Live: This was complete carnage. She picked enhancements pretty intelligently, for the most part. But still, at the end of assigning 24 AP into enhancements, she hadn't unlocked any of the prestige enhancements. She didn't know what she needed to take to build towards them, and she didn't know how to check. She didn't like having to scroll down to see what else there was - and then realising she had to scroll back up again to see what new enhancements were available now that she had spent X amount of AP. It's an unwieldy system and it's very unfriendly to the new player - that much is certain.

Alpha: I'm not going to pretend this was perfect. As a complete newb, she still didn't know what enhancements were worth anything, and she spread points around in the first tiers of all three trees open to her (Human, Knight of the Chalice, Sacred Defender). Nevertheless, it was a much smoother process, she didn't look half so confused, and she eventually redistributed everything so that the Knight of the Chalice tree was relatively well developed, and she had +2d6 damage vs. her chosen foe. She liked being able to see everything in one screen, and that it was obvious that once you spend a certain amount of AP in a particular tree, you unlock new enhancements - as opposed to (on Live) enhancements just appearing in the list of available choices for what looks like no reason.

I'm going to give more comprehensive feedback on the new system at some point, but I just wanted to say that if the goal for the enhancement pass is to make the enhancement system more accessible and user-friendly, it's definitely on the right path.

PS: Yes, I get that the new system is very far from perfect; I've just been trying to do something with a melee FvS.

[ForumAccess]

I really think that this is certainly a large part of the reason for the change. DDO has always had very complex character building. This complexity leads to some very interesting options, which provides the strength for DDO. Time and time again, this is what people have cited as the difference that sets DDO apart from all of the other MMOs out there.

But having a wide range of options means that you also have the potential to really hobble your character as well. But by putting the enhancements into Trees, and then forcing heavy spending in one tree, with enough left to dabble at the end in one or two others, the characters become much more templated. It still ~looks~ like there is a lot of choice, when in reality most of the choices beyond which Trees to focus on are mostly cosmetic ones. And thus, no more new players growing frustrated at having built really bad characters.

Sadly, this also means that all of the people who played DDO because it was unlike the throng of other MMOs are stuck with a restrictive system. Hope they had other reasons for playing, the friends list has already gotten quite dark over the last year....

[Furare]

I think (I am the OP, btw, just managed to get onto my proper account) that it's better to have an accessible system that makes it easier for new players to learn. Mostly 'cos I'm pretty sick of grouping with people who don't even know what a prestige enhancement is, let alone how to get one. I feel like it must be possible to have a complex system that allows for a lot of fine tuning if you know what you're doing, but can also be used reasonably well by a new player. Complexity and accessibility should be able to co-exist.

I honestly don't think the core idea behind the new system is "restrictive" compared to the Live system's "freedom". (The current implementation is more restrictive than it needs to be.) I think both systems are restrictive in different ways. You can get more higher level abilities with the new system. You can pick and choose what benefits you get from your PrE. (AC is useless to my Tempest/Kensei, so I took the Improved Parry PRR enhancement but didn't take whatever the one is that increases your AC while dual-wielding.) Picking what you want and leaving what you don't want at each tier gives some flexibility to the system; it's a shame they had to ruin that in some of the trees with overly convoluted chains of prerequisites.

I feel like part of the restrictiveness of the new system - the difficulties caused by the three tree limit - could be removed simply by junking a bunch of useless AP sink enhancements from each tree and just putting in a line of "generic class enhancements" that appears on all trees for that class. So all fighters can get Haste/Attack/AC boost, all bards can get extra/lingering songs, etc. That helps multiclassed characters (particularly triple-classed) since it would ensure the key class enhancements you splashed e.g. rogue for would be all in one place, not spread out across three trees so you can't get them all.

Another thing that might help would be getting rid of the needless arrows. I shouldn't have to sink AP into stuff I don't want and won't use in order to get to my goal. It's annoying and there seems to be too much of it. If arrows are chained all the way up the tree, that's hemming my AP spending into one path to one goal, and that's the enemy of build diversity. This sort of thing needs to be changed.

I am quite pleased with how easy it seems to be for clueless people to pick up how to use the new enhancement system, though. Don't worry, even with the new UI, my mother still didn't build the character as well as I would've done. It may be simpler to use, but it's not that "dumbed down". :p

[~Nassim]

(I am the OP, btw, just managed to get onto my proper account)

How? :)

[~Raveman]

I feel like part of the restrictiveness of the new system - the difficulties caused by the three tree limit - could be removed simply by junking a bunch of useless AP sink enhancements from each tree and just putting in a line of "generic class enhancements" that appears on all trees for that class.
...
Another thing that might help would be getting rid of the needless arrows.

I think you have the right idea here... please devs give those ideas a try and see how the community respond.

+1

[DrNuegebaer]

I think you have the right idea here... please devs give those ideas a try and see how the community respond.

+1

Unfortunately they won't do that because they're tied to a 3 tree max system.

Doesn't make any sense, but they don't seem to care. Arbitrary limitation is arbitrary, and they'll steam ahead that way.

[~SeikojinSama]

I figured from the beginning that the new layout was about making it easier for anyone to jump in. Good testing and feedback about the experience though. Once my proper name is back, I will give you a second rep... If they have that system anymore. LOL

I am excited to see the next pass of the enhancements. I love the direction most of it is going (despite all the nay, well wow saying people do, and limiting it supposedly does), it is giving many more options for people to delve into builds they could not before (kensai Stalwart for example). I just hope the feedback we gave shows in the next pass.

[SilkofDrasnia]

Hitting on what I considered a good form of testing the accessibility of the new enhancement system, I threw my mother at the problem. She knows nothing about DDO or MMOs in general. I made a L7 character (a paladin, based on asking her what sort of character she thought she'd like) on Khyber, and an identical one on Lamannia. Then, in each case, I told her to put enhancements on the character.

Live: This was complete carnage. She picked enhancements pretty intelligently, for the most part. But still, at the end of assigning 24 AP into enhancements, she hadn't unlocked any of the prestige enhancements. She didn't know what she needed to take to build towards them, and she didn't know how to check. She didn't like having to scroll down to see what else there was - and then realising she had to scroll back up again to see what new enhancements were available now that she had spent X amount of AP. It's an unwieldy system and it's very unfriendly to the new player - that much is certain.

Alpha: I'm not going to pretend this was perfect. As a complete newb, she still didn't know what enhancements were worth anything, and she spread points around in the first tiers of all three trees open to her (Human, Knight of the Chalice, Sacred Defender). Nevertheless, it was a much smoother process, she didn't look half so confused, and she eventually redistributed everything so that the Knight of the Chalice tree was relatively well developed, and she had +2d6 damage vs. her chosen foe. She liked being able to see everything in one screen, and that it was obvious that once you spend a certain amount of AP in a particular tree, you unlock new enhancements - as opposed to (on Live) enhancements just appearing in the list of available choices for what looks like no reason.

I'm going to give more comprehensive feedback on the new system at some point, but I just wanted to say that if the goal for the enhancement pass is to make the enhancement system more accessible and user-friendly, it's definitely on the right path.

PS: Yes, I get that the new system is very far from perfect; I've just been trying to do something with a melee FvS.

This is exactly the point, they want less 3.5E more 4E. They want new peeps to be able to basicly know nothing yet still be able to build a "custom" toon and have it be viable in endgame and at the same time reduce the "godmode" that many call a well built toon.

Reduce what makes DDO great, the complexity and choice of build, to get the WoW generation less frustrated when they roll their first toon.

You know how we use to say to newbs that everyone messes up their first toon and rerolls it, well that is going to be a thing of the past.