Player Character Balance

[Uska]

Heroics feel like they're at a much better balance point. It's Epic that's blatantly broken.

Yah that's one reason I think they need to concentrate their balancing actions on ED's and not core class abilities as they are likely to break heroic level play that way.

[CaptainSpacePony]

Just had a lengthy discussion about Paladins. My friend really wants to play a paladin, and I too admit to having an unhealthy affection for the holy rollers myself.

We discussed numerous builds and almost everyone would be better if it was something other than paladin (beyond the 1st 2 levels).

He recommended a partial fix that would be very easy to implement:
Give paladins the war priest tree.
More PRR, deity's weapon, blur, ameliorating strikes, etc.

It still won't be enough, but it would go a long way and be in flavor. I've always thought the WP tree was modeled after paladins in the 1st place.

Here's hoping the devs are still reading this thread.

[HatsuharuZ]

Just had a lengthy discussion about Paladins. My friend really wants to play a paladin, and I too admit to having an unhealthy affection for the holy rollers myself.

We discussed numerous builds and almost everyone would be better if it was something other than paladin (beyond the 1st 2 levels).

He recommended a partial fix that would be very easy to implement:
Give paladins the war priest tree.
More PRR, deity's weapon, blur, ameliorating strikes, etc.

It still won't be enough, but it would go a long way and be in flavor. I've always thought the WP tree was modeled after paladins in the 1st place.

Here's hoping the devs are still reading this thread.

That would be easy, but... I don't think it's a good idea. Warpriest has already made paladins redundant.

[Vargouille]

OK!

My apologies: I still don't have an extremely substantial post to give right at this moment, because my brain is melting, but I've caught up on every post in this thread so far!

You guys have a lot to say. Also, you don't need to repeat yourself in the hopes that we'll see it. Because I'm reading every single post. (I will neither confirm nor deny some amount of so-called "skimming" that may occur when I see a specific poster making a post that starts off sounding very similar to other posts by that poster).

Next steps: Soon(tm), I'm going to try to summarize what I feel you guys have said (from my nine pages of notes... luckily I could just add "+1" to many of the thoughts after one or two dozen pages). This serves multiple purposes, including sorting the information out in my own head, telling you guys where we are all collectively at, and sending around to the rest of the DDO development team for those who are not so crazy as to try to read this entire thread. (I'll do my best to give some amount of developer comments as well, but the bulk of that might need to follow later.)

There were some great individual posts (and some of my 'quick' notes are, "Go back and read this guy's post again for some good thoughts"), and lots of good stuff to hear from everyone. There were some clear patterns, many of which helped reinforce what we already thought was going on (but it's extremely helpful to us to hear it from you!), and some occasional surprises. There were a few ideas I personally hadn't seen before that were Quite Interesting and could end up making it into DDO.

I'd like to thank those who filled out surveys, as well, which you are welcome to still do for another couple of days (at which point we'll probably try to aggregate the data we have, so after that it won't be as useful). We know the survey wasn't perfect, and also not extensive -- not being overly extensive was by design, as we don't want to waste your time, nor ours. For instance, we knowingly left out Races, for time the being, and didn't want the survey to get into individual abilities yet -- we selfishly like having you guys come up with the list of abilities that deserve more attention (for good or ill) rather than us focusing the discussion on the ones we pick. The broad view is what we wanted, and what we got!

None of the reactions to this are necessarily going to be imminent. I'd like to assuage any fears that this post was in direct preparation for incoming nerfs. The previously discussed upcoming patch certainly won't, and the next update may or may not have any significant changes based on this discussion (much of this is based on time and doing it right). However, there's some obvious takeaways from both this and No-Dice's Monster Stat thread that should help us direct new content to a better place.

There was one item that came up a few times that makes it clear some players have the wrong idea: Balance is definitely not about making many different play styles (or classes, or EDs, etc.) play the same. Balance is about making many different playstyles viable, so you (the players) feel like there are as many legitimate options as we can possibly give you. The greatest concern we have, and a major driver of discussing this right now, is the worry that there are not as many legitimate playstyles as we could be giving you.

The single laser-focused item for a preview of the summary of the thread: Melee in Epic Elite probably needs some help. There's many possible ways to come at this problem, while trying to address other issues as well. Identifying problems now, solutions later!

Thanks again for a lot of great feedback! Happy for it to keep coming.

[Qhualor]

The single laser-focused item for a preview of the summary of the thread: Melee in Epic Elite probably needs some help. There's many possible ways to come at this problem, while trying to address other issues as well. Identifying problems now, solutions later!

happy to hear this is an acknowledged problem and anxiously awaits your proposals.

[Samir_Bennal]

OK!

The single laser-focused item for a preview of the summary of the thread: Melee in Epic Elite probably needs some help. There's many possible ways to come at this problem, while trying to address other issues as well. Identifying problems now, solutions later!

Thanks again for a lot of great feedback! Happy for it to keep coming.

Maybe my fighter will finally come back after his almost 2 year vacation sitting on the shelf waiting to be useful again.

[sirgog]

The single laser-focused item for a preview of the summary of the thread: Melee in Epic Elite probably needs some help. There's many possible ways to come at this problem, while trying to address other issues as well. Identifying problems now, solutions later!



On this specific thing (which I did not touch in my earlier posts but is a real issue):

The real issue here is the PRR formula, which means that melee players have hit a point of extreme diminishing returns on PRR and so it can't provide any further defense than it does now.

I think the solution is to change the currently very complex formula to the following:

Player base PRR = 100 (not the current 0)
To lose 100 HP from physical damage, you need to take damage equal to your PRR.

So if your only PRR source is a +20 PRR item, each 120 damage you suffer is converted to 100 HP lost.


This would remove the soft cap on PRR and help melee survivability scale up better with player gear.

[EllisDee37]

To me, the compelling reason that casters and melee need to be on roughly even footing is that they're playing exactly the same content. It's not fun if one caster can solo content that takes 5 melees and a very good healer, assuming roughly equal levels of player skill.The reason I feel that casters and melee don't need to be on roughly equal footing is because, at least in my mind: "Casters kill trash, melee kill bosses." Despite being an avid soloer for much of the game's content, I don't feel any particular need to balance the game around soloing.

The other reason is because it's pretty much impossible to discuss balancing melee without having a bunch of people come in and try to shut it down with comments about how it doesn't matter how imbalanced melees are because they're all way behind casters.


You're also disregarding ranged here.I am indeed, and agreed that it's a major omission. Almost comically so. But since I don't play ranged characters I can't comment intelligently on them. (Other than the incredibly obvious, which is that getting both manyshot and 10k stars makes pure ranger arcane archers second-class range characters, which is just plain wrong.)


Depends on what you mean by "roughly even footing". It's OK if, say, casters excels at some things melees are weak at, as long as there's other meaningful areas where melees excel and casters are weaker.Yes, that was my thinking. (Casters trash, melee boss.)

[axel15810]

This is my first post in this thread, I could write all day, but here are what I feel are the most important things to mention -

Melee vrs. Ranged vrs. Spellcasting -

Melee is the weakest of the three by far unless they are using Master's Blitz. The main reason is because melee takes so much damage as a result of being up in the monster's face. Heavy armor is much weaker than wearing robes or light armor. Heavy armor needs to mean something, especially in Epic Elite, because as of right now it is not near worth giving up Dodge and Evasion for the additional AC/PRR. The defensive effectiveness of AC/PRR based characters drop off completely in Epic Elite, whereas Dodge/Evasion characters do not experience this same drop off because Dodge gives the same miss chance always regardless of difficulty level. Epic Elite monsters have such high to-hit and hit for such high damage that AC/PRR means nothing. Also there is almost no way for Heavy Armor wearers to mitigate spell damage, evasion is the only way in the game to do this and it is only available to light armor or robe wearers. Right now, casters/archers actually have by far superior defensive abilities than heavy armor wearing/shield using tanks! This needs fixing!

Overpowered Monk and Paladin Splashes -

2 Monk and 2 Paladin offer so many benefits that it makes no sense NOT to splash them on most builds. That severely limits potential viable options. All capstones need a serious looking at because for most classes there is almost no reason to ever go pure. Pure builds for every class should not be a bad build choice, and right now unfortunately it is except for every class except perhaps the Wizard and Rogue class.

Overpowered abilities -

I won't go into detail since you seem to be aware from your original post the abilities which are overpowered (10k stars/manyshot being combined, shirardi multiple procs using magic missle/master's blitz/furyshot) are heads and tails above other abilities and need to be looked at.

Race imbalance -

Bladeforged are a big problem. They are by far the best race for most classes. In fact, there is no reason NOT to be bladeforged unless you are a cleric or favored soul, or a enchantment focused wizard. Melee classes are severely gimped if they are NOT bladeforged, as the survivbility gained via the reconstruct SLA is so much more powerful than anything offered by the other races. This is not even considering the defensive advantages gained. This is ruining teamwork in the game, everyone self-heals now. This as a result is killing the divine classes, as they have nobody to heal. There should be some kind of fallback for gaining the ability to self heal. Right now there is not.

[jakeelala]

This is my first post in this thread, I could write all day, but here are what I feel are the most important things to mention -

Melee vrs. Ranged vrs. Spellcasting -

Melee is the weakest of the three by far unless they are using Master's Blitz. The main reason is because melee takes so much damage as a result of being up in the monster's face. Heavy armor is much weaker than wearing robes or light armor. Heavy armor needs to mean something, especially in Epic Elite, because as of right now it is not near worth giving up Dodge and Evasion for the additional AC/PRR. The defensive effectiveness of AC/PRR based characters drop off completely in Epic Elite, whereas Dodge/Evasion characters do not experience this same drop off because Dodge gives the same miss chance always regardless of difficulty level. Epic Elite monsters have such high to-hit and hit for such high damage that AC/PRR means nothing. Also there is almost no way for Heavy Armor wearers to mitigate spell damage, evasion is the only way in the game to do this and it is only available to light armor or robe wearers. Right now, casters/archers actually have by far superior defensive abilities than heavy armor wearing/shield using tanks! This needs fixing!

Overpowered Monk and Paladin Splashes -

2 Monk and 2 Paladin offer so many benefits that it makes no sense NOT to splash them on most builds. That severely limits potential viable options. All capstones need a serious looking at because for most classes there is almost no reason to ever go pure. Pure builds for every class should not be a bad build choice, and right now unfortunately it is except for every class except perhaps the Wizard and Rogue class.

Overpowered abilities -

I won't go into detail since you seem to be aware from your original post the abilities which are overpowered (10k stars/manyshot being combined, shirardi multiple procs using magic missle/master's blitz/furyshot) are heads and tails above other abilities and need to be looked at.

Race imbalance -

Bladeforged are a big problem. They are by far the best race for most classes. In fact, there is no reason NOT to be bladeforged unless you are a cleric or favored soul, or a enchantment focused wizard. Melee classes are severely gimped if they are NOT bladeforged, as the survivbility gained via the reconstruct SLA is so much more powerful than anything offered by the other races. This is not even considering the defensive advantages gained. This is ruining teamwork in the game, everyone self-heals now. This as a result is killing the divine classes, as they have nobody to heal. There should be some kind of fallback for gaining the ability to self heal. Right now there is not.

This is not true.

Elves make phenomenal Dex builds, and inherent Displacement from DM's is very compelling as is a lot of racial dodge. Humans and Drow are arguably still the best DC casters, DC casting is just a bit behind Nuking at the moment so it doesn't matter.

Other races need a buff to make the closer to equal, IMO. Starting with Halflings, Dwarves, and Helfs. They don't need a lot of work, but BF is just too OP.

I do agree BF are the best Melee option in like 99% of cases however.

[axel15810]

This is not true.

Elves make phenomenal Dex builds, and inherent Displacement from DM's is very compelling as is a lot of racial dodge. Humans and Drow are arguably still the best DC casters, DC casting is just a bit behind Nuking at the moment so it doesn't matter.

Other races need a buff to make the closer to equal, IMO. Starting with Halflings, Dwarves, and Helfs. They don't need a lot of work, but BF is just too OP.

I do agree BF are the best Melee option in like 99% of cases however.

I again, disagree that some of things you mentioned like dragonmarks, racial dodge, ect. even come close to competing with the bladeforged reconstruct SLA.

If I'm melee or divine I can get all the displacement I want from crafting greensteel clickies. And it doesn't waste a feat. And I believe there is an eternal flask of displacement from the new anniversary reward list.

However, there is no substitute for that incredibly reconstruct SLA, which is better than any self-healing option fleshy melee or fleshy specialist builds have. Again, DC casters like wizards can be an exception. And the extra feat from human is still nice, but not reconstruct SLA nice.

And no saying dodge, ect. from elf isn't nice to have for survivability, It just doesn't compare to the survivability you get from the reconstruct SLA.

Pretty much no reason not to be bladeforged unless you are a DC caster or divine in my view.

[Delacroix21]

OK!
The single laser-focused item for a preview of the summary of the thread: Melee in Epic Elite probably needs some help. .

Well I am glad to read this at least but I hope this means= EE monsters need a nerf as DC casters face similar issues.


Also I know you Devs have stated that you want to make the easiest changes possible to create balance and nerfing is easy, buffing is time consuming. But that being said Bards need a HUGE buff, as they just plain suck and have horrible PrEs designed completely around "flavor" with little thought going towards "how will this character play at endgame?" Case in point, how often are cold spells going to be thrown at our bard? and how much of a difference will 1d6 cold damage on attacks really make to a warchanter.


I hope you consider making bard meele song increase damage by a % (say 10%) so it scales as weapons etc. scale and maybe a charisma to-hit and damage mod. Also give caster bards SLAs (shouts seem the obvious choice). Last but not least it would be nice if bards and barbarians could be lawful, i know that goes against DnD but it really is a strike against them.

[nibel]

2 Monk and 2 Paladin offer so many benefits that it makes no sense NOT to splash them on most builds. That severely limits potential viable options. All capstones need a serious looking at because for most classes there is almost no reason to ever go pure. Pure builds for every class should not be a bad build choice, and right now unfortunately it is except for every class except perhaps the Wizard and Rogue class.

That is a symptom, not a cause.

Splashing for evasion is a thing since day 1, and yet, during a long time, it was a nice perk, but in no way a necessity for melee classes. Just check the pre-MotU melee builds. While a lot of them splashed monk (mostly because monk 2 > rogue 2), we also had a lot of them without Evasion, and with good balance overall.

There were a few reasons that people started using monk more and more as a necessary splash class: the ability to buy the improved elemental stances as feat, the ability to stay centered with unusual weapons, Dance of Flowers, and the two extra feats that helps acquiring all the requisites towards Overwhelming Critical.

On the same vein, splashing 2 pally levels was not a big thing because you could survive with your 20~30 reflex save, and achieve that value with some effort. I remember back in 2009 when I asked how effective would be a sorcerer 18/pally 2 for insane saves, and the answers I got were like "Sure, you have uber saves, but you don't need values that high for anything".

The problem is that now we need. If your save is on the ~40 range, you might as well have them on zero. It is the AC situation all over again. Sure, there is ways to raise your saves much higher than before, but pally 2 is a cheap and effective way to do this. Specially on a sorcerer.

Then, there is also the big, major problem, that is the lack of good level 9 spells. Currently, a sorcerer that splash monk 2/pally 2 will have a single level 8 spell. And it will be Black Dragon Bolt or Polar Ray. And because nothing on the level 9 spell list really is missing. Take a page from the Artificer class: One of the major reasons people like to consider pure artificers as a class option is how they have 4 good level 6 spells, and they only get their 4th level 6 slot at level 20.

Capstones are good as well. But when it catter to casters, giving people 3-5 VERY GOOD level 9 spells, make them value each level 9 slot they earn.

[axel15810]

That is a symptom, not a cause.

Splashing for evasion is a thing since day 1, and yet, during a long time, it was a nice perk, but in no way a necessity for melee classes. Just check the pre-MotU melee builds. While a lot of them splashed monk (mostly because monk 2 > rogue 2), we also had a lot of them without Evasion, and with good balance overall.

There were a few reasons that people started using monk more and more as a necessary splash class: the ability to buy the improved elemental stances as feat, the ability to stay centered with unusual weapons, Dance of Flowers, and the two extra feats that helps acquiring all the requisites towards Overwhelming Critical.

On the same vein, splashing 2 pally levels was not a big thing because you could survive with your 20~30 reflex save, and achieve that value with some effort. I remember back in 2009 when I asked how effective would be a sorcerer 18/pally 2 for insane saves, and the answers I got were like "Sure, you have uber saves, but you don't need values that high for anything".

The problem is that now we need. If your save is on the ~40 range, you might as well have them on zero. It is the AC situation all over again. Sure, there is ways to raise your saves much higher than before, but pally 2 is a cheap and effective way to do this. Specially on a sorcerer.

Then, there is also the big, major problem, that is the lack of good level 9 spells. Currently, a sorcerer that splash monk 2/pally 2 will have a single level 8 spell. And it will be Black Dragon Bolt or Polar Ray. And because nothing on the level 9 spell list really is missing. Take a page from the Artificer class: One of the major reasons people like to consider pure artificers as a class option is how they have 4 good level 6 spells, and they only get their 4th level 6 slot at level 20.

Capstones are good as well. But when it catter to casters, giving people 3-5 VERY GOOD level 9 spells, make them value each level 9 slot they earn.

I agree with all of this, you make some good points.

But it doesn't matter if it's a symptom or a cause. Call it whatever you want, bottom line is it's a problem because it limits build diversity. However they do it, it needs to be fixed. Preferably in the least painful way possible for players with pally/monk splashes.

[Qhualor]

I again, disagree that some of things you mentioned like dragonmarks, racial dodge, ect. even come close to competing with the bladeforged reconstruct SLA.

If I'm melee or divine I can get all the displacement I want from crafting greensteel clickies. And it doesn't waste a feat. And I believe there is an eternal flask of displacement from the new anniversary reward list.

However, there is no substitute for that incredibly reconstruct SLA, which is better than any self-healing option fleshy melee or fleshy specialist builds have. Again, DC casters like wizards can be an exception. And the extra feat from human is still nice, but not reconstruct SLA nice.

And no saying dodge, ect. from elf isn't nice to have for survivability, It just doesn't compare to the survivability you get from the reconstruct SLA.

Pretty much no reason not to be bladeforged unless you are a DC caster or divine in my view.

how does reconstruct compare to positive healing? with feats, gear, pots that are easy enough to get and any fleshy ranger and paladin are going to max out within reason. I honestly would like to see a reasonable comparison and not one that includes out of reach or what wouldn't be considered part of a basic build.

if you want to craft a bunch of GS clickies for displacement that only last for a minute and a half constantly switching items to cast it, than have at it. but that's not something that an average player is going to do. I don't know anybody that has more than a couple of them and they save those for big fights. the eternal flask lasts for 60 seconds. how long before you run out of those? these are the things I consider unreasonable expectations and not of the norm to expect.

[Uska]

how does reconstruct compare to positive healing? with feats, gear, pots that are easy enough to get and any fleshy ranger and paladin are going to max out within reason. I honestly would like to see a reasonable comparison and not one that includes out of reach or what wouldn't be considered part of a basic build.

if you want to craft a bunch of GS clickies for displacement that only last for a minute and a half constantly switching items to cast it, than have at it. but that's not something that an average player is going to do. I don't know anybody that has more than a couple of them and they save those for big fights. the eternal flask lasts for 5 minutes. how long before you run out of those? these are the things I consider unreasonable expectations and not of the norm to expect.

I agree with you on this SURPRISE.

[Thumbed_Servant]

OK!
...

The single laser-focused item for a preview of the summary of the thread: Melee in Epic Elite probably needs some help. There's many possible ways to come at this problem, while trying to address other issues as well. Identifying problems now, solutions later!

Thanks again for a lot of great feedback! Happy for it to keep coming.

Pardon me Vargouille, but I think it is a little bit different...the thing that needs some help in Epic Elite is not melee per se, but something that would make melee viable and something that is important to other toons too: We need the ability to take more than 1 or 2 hits in Epic Elite on toons that are geared for taking hits. IF Epic Elite melees weren't smashed in 1 or 2 hits their damage output would sustain them most likely (that's sure to be debated by some). Heavy armor wearing and damage sustaining is NOT the sole purview of melees.

Regards,

Thumbed_Servant

From my own perspective; I play clerics. They get heavy armor proficiency, they get heavy shield proficiency, they get heavier hit die than most, they are at their core one of the *stand and take the punishment* classes...but not in epic elite. That shield is good for holding some enchantments, that heavy armor the same...neither do much to help survivability in Epic Elite.

So, I say to you, it's not Epic Elite Melee toons needing help: It is Epic Elite physical damage mitigation that needs help in light of the insanely high damage output, or the insanely high damage output in Epic Elite, that needs to be addressed.

[Arianka]

OK!

My apologies: I still don't have an extremely substantial post to give right at this moment, because my brain is melting, but I've caught up on every post in this thread so far!

You guys have a lot to say. Also, you don't need to repeat yourself in the hopes that we'll see it. Because I'm reading every single post. (I will neither confirm nor deny some amount of so-called "skimming" that may occur when I see a specific poster making a post that starts off sounding very similar to other posts by that poster).

Next steps: Soon(tm), I'm going to try to summarize what I feel you guys have said (from my nine pages of notes... luckily I could just add "+1" to many of the thoughts after one or two dozen pages). This serves multiple purposes, including sorting the information out in my own head, telling you guys where we are all collectively at, and sending around to the rest of the DDO development team for those who are not so crazy as to try to read this entire thread. (I'll do my best to give some amount of developer comments as well, but the bulk of that might need to follow later.)

There were some great individual posts (and some of my 'quick' notes are, "Go back and read this guy's post again for some good thoughts"), and lots of good stuff to hear from everyone. There were some clear patterns, many of which helped reinforce what we already thought was going on (but it's extremely helpful to us to hear it from you!), and some occasional surprises. There were a few ideas I personally hadn't seen before that were Quite Interesting and could end up making it into DDO.

I'd like to thank those who filled out surveys, as well, which you are welcome to still do for another couple of days (at which point we'll probably try to aggregate the data we have, so after that it won't be as useful). We know the survey wasn't perfect, and also not extensive -- not being overly extensive was by design, as we don't want to waste your time, nor ours. For instance, we knowingly left out Races, for time the being, and didn't want the survey to get into individual abilities yet -- we selfishly like having you guys come up with the list of abilities that deserve more attention (for good or ill) rather than us focusing the discussion on the ones we pick. The broad view is what we wanted, and what we got!

None of the reactions to this are necessarily going to be imminent. I'd like to assuage any fears that this post was in direct preparation for incoming nerfs. The previously discussed upcoming patch certainly won't, and the next update may or may not have any significant changes based on this discussion (much of this is based on time and doing it right). However, there's some obvious takeaways from both this and No-Dice's Monster Stat thread that should help us direct new content to a better place.

There was one item that came up a few times that makes it clear some players have the wrong idea: Balance is definitely not about making many different play styles (or classes, or EDs, etc.) play the same. Balance is about making many different playstyles viable, so you (the players) feel like there are as many legitimate options as we can possibly give you. The greatest concern we have, and a major driver of discussing this right now, is the worry that there are not as many legitimate playstyles as we could be giving you.

The single laser-focused item for a preview of the summary of the thread: Melee in Epic Elite probably needs some help. There's many possible ways to come at this problem, while trying to address other issues as well. Identifying problems now, solutions later!

Thanks again for a lot of great feedback! Happy for it to keep coming.

awesom post Varg. thanx!!!

[nibel]

I agree with all of this, you make some good points.

But it doesn't matter if it's a symptom or a cause.

It matters on the long run. Because if you remove the symptom (everyone splash monk2 and pally 2), but do not fix the cause for that (EE have insane requirements on saves, and deal too much damage), the players will soon find the next new thing to bypass the main problem, and we will be in the same situation again in a few weeks.

If the problem were ONLY in the classes themselves (like on the early days of the enhancement pass we had people getting Ranger 2 for 80 positive spellpower, or getting a druid level for beguile), sure, fix the class and the problem is solved. That is not the issue with Evasion or Divine Grace.

[Cyr]

IDK, if I agree with that as a good take away.

A big issue with melee in EE is that there are so many bad melee toons in EE now.

I am talking about the people who think they can build a tank in DDO...slap on 1400 HP, a shield, and some heavy armor.

Ran with many of those and they are just not very useful in the majority of content and then only when they are built and geared correctly.

I think the problem that people are trying to rationalize as an issue with melee being insufficient in EE s often drawn from the problem of trying to build these tank builds and compete. They lose the DPS race which is key to DDO survival, rarely are built with healing amp being critical, and often have no real damage mitigation beyond AC/PRR (which in DDO is less then half the picture). You are never going to help those builds be good in EE without breaking how the game has worked in fundamental ways.

I think a good take away instead would be...

Pure Melee in EE outside of LD and Fury need some help. That is because outside of those destinies they are doing too little DPS. In LD a melee is very competitive with other build types. In blitz the good melee is mowing down EE mobs very quickly indeed. Really this is a destiny viability issue more then anything else. If you build a toon which does not have a way to mitigate lots of the damage that occurs in DDO AND has not real self healing then frankly the game mechanics are not the issue.

PS: For those wondering about damage mitigation methods...
Displacement
Ghostly
Dodge %
Blur
Lesser Displacement (EE Ring of Shadows)
Deception Item
Improved Deception Item (these are very powerful for reducing incoming damage even against many boss mobs as a mob who is facing away from you does little damage to you in most cases)
Tactical Feats (Stunning Blow, Stunning Fist, Trip, Improved Trip, QP, Kukan whatever it is called)
DPS!
Saves
Absorb Items
Resist Items
Blindness Procs! (Huge damage mitigation versus many trash mobs from these...stuff like radiance rapiers)
Certain Guards (Earthgrab/Invsibility for example)
movement (seriously if you are standing in front of a mob swinging away without deception procs going off you are getting hit way more then you should and doing no more dps really)
PRR
AC
Damage Reduction
Adrenaline Knockdown (uber ability)
Ethereal Clickie when stuck in mob pack
STOP HITTING INTIM if you can not take agro
Diplo mobs off you (yeah this actually works)
If in mixed parties let the sorc/wiz/divine/ranged shoot into combat first and follow just a few steps behind...ie do not have mass agro if you are melee
Jump! When in trouble in DDO jump over mobs and run around a second or two while you heal up with your cocoon or scrolls
Against broken designed mobs like Shad Kai Assassins DO NOT MELEE them while they swing their chain! When you do get close first action needs to be to stop them from doing that (ie stun/trip).
STOP SHIELD BLOCKING ALL THE TIME! This is the least useful method of avoiding damage in most DDO encounters. Really it is only useful in certain niche places where raid bosses need to be held still AND your toon can handle this. You should not be shield blocking versus trash on a melee. You certainly should not be shield blocking in situations where you are thinking...oh man I am taking way too much damage and I am about to die.

[Merlin-ator]

DDO is not a PvP styled game, it's PvE. Character balance isn't that important. Character complementation, however, is. Take, for example, the Necromancy focused wizard: It's very squishy. If anything makes its save, said wizard is likely to waste a lot of mana trying to kill whatever it is before the mob kills the wiz. This is why barbs and fighters can soak damage, because the wizard needs a meat shield to function. In a similar vein, the fighter can't kill mobs if an enemy caster keeps throwing Hold Person at him. The wizard throws a well-placed Finger of Death, and the larger threat has been taken care of. Both support the other to make it through an encounter. CAN wizards solo everything? Sure, in the same way that a fighter can - Careful character building, gearing, and use of tactics. DDO/D&D is an RPG system, and RPGs just can't be perfectly balanced - At every level, there will be some setup that is superior to all others. And if, by some miracle, DDO was balanced perfectly tomorrow - however "perfectly balanced" is measured objectively - The next update will shift the balance of power, with new gear and different challenges.

Yes, there are a few builds that are a bit too powerful than others. I only see it as being an issue in Shiradi. Here's how to fix Shiradi: All effects that proc on spells (Prism, Rainbow, and Double Rainbow especially) only proc when the caster is casting a Druid or Ranger spell. You're welcome, your invincible epic Sorcs are now defeatable. Still strong, but not nearly as cheap.



TL;DR: Please don't change anything. Except possibly Shiradi. And reverting poison/disease/Wail/AC/to-hit/combat in general back to pre-U14. What, a guy can hope, can't he? :)


EDIT/Final Thought: I saw an interesting YouTube video talking about power creep. The general idea is that a player will only change tactics, gear, whatever if it is superior. The interesting bit was on "incomparables". This is when two things can't be compared because they're too different. You could do math and find out, by weighted average, whether your Paralyzing handwraps are better than your +5 Icy Burst of Maiming for your level. However, abilities like Barbarian Rage can't be compared to Monk Abundant Step because they're two fundamentally different abilities. That's what I like about DDO - Just because one melee character can't quickly take out an enemy caster, doesn't mean the whole group of toons is pigeonholed.

[SirValentine]

PS: For those wondering about damage mitigation methods...


Great list, and though things on your list have places, they're not all equally useful, especially to a medium/heavy armor-wearing melee DPS or tank.



Displacement


For some reason they nerfed this to self-only. Sure, your melee can maybe UMD-scroll it, or spend his game-time and $$$ on raid timer bypasses to run Shroud and build a load of clickies, but, honestly, this is annoying to deal with on anyone other than someone who can cast it on themselves.

Devs: how about un-nerfing the self-only? Raises value of teamwork, makes melees more surivivable.



Ghostly


Yes...10%, better than nothing, though well behind versus certain enhancements that give 25%.



Dodge %
...
PRR
AC
Damage Reduction
...
STOP SHIELD BLOCKING ALL THE TIME! This is the least useful method of avoiding damage in most DDO encounters. Really it is only useful in certain niche places where raid bosses need to be held still AND your toon can handle this. You should not be shield blocking versus trash on a melee. You certainly should not be shield blocking in situations where you are thinking...oh man I am taking way too much damage and I am about to die.


Dodge is great for pajama-wearers. Not nearly so much for armor-wearers. Especially since armor gives so little benefit in return.

AC is pretty much useless (mob to-hit too high, and even if you go crazy on gear trying to raise it). PRR has severely diminishing returns, and not enough benefit from armor. DR is mostly useless.

Though you accurately describe that shield-blocking is usually an inferior choice, to me that's a problem. Trying to be more defensive, whether by wearing heavier armor, or by shield blocking, should actually be significantly better defensively. The problem is that they are not enough better for what you have to give up.

I think shields & heavier armor need a buff that makes them more competitive choices with robes/outfits.



Deception Item
Improved Deception Item (these are very powerful for reducing incoming damage even against many boss mobs as a mob who is facing away from you does little damage to you in most cases)
...
STOP HITTING INTIM if you can not take agro
Diplo mobs off you (yeah this actually works)
If in mixed parties let the sorc/wiz/divine/ranged shoot into combat first and follow just a few steps behind...ie do not have mass agro if you are melee


Though true, often not optimal at all. Screws up aggro. Hard to beat on a mob that's chasing someone else. Puts other party members at risk who may be even more fragile.



Tactical Feats (Stunning Blow, Stunning Fist, Trip, Improved Trip, QP, Kukan whatever it is called)


Back to the "Monster saves are too high!" issue? Never mind the Monk tactics (separate issue), but how how can a non-Monk DPS melee reasonably get their Stunning Blow DC or Trip DC? I haven't run the numbers, but I'm genuinely curious. Somehow I never see people using these in EEs...some of the same people I'd see use them all the time in Heroic tier. Has everyone just forgotten about them, or are they not used because mob stats make them mostly unusable?



Saves
...
Resist Items


Saves are either high enough...or not. You get into 2 issues already mentioned: must-have-Paladin-splash-for-Divine-Grace, and monster-stats-are-too-high.

[Robai]

On this specific thing (which I did not touch in my earlier posts but is a real issue):

The real issue here is the PRR formula, which means that melee players have hit a point of extreme diminishing returns on PRR and so it can't provide any further defense than it does now.

I think the solution is to change the currently very complex formula to the following:

Player base PRR = 100 (not the current 0)
To lose 100 HP from physical damage, you need to take damage equal to your PRR.

So if your only PRR source is a +20 PRR item, each 120 damage you suffer is converted to 100 HP lost.


This would remove the soft cap on PRR and help melee survivability scale up better with player gear.

Why default PRR 100? If you wear robes then your starting PRR should be 0.

PRR should GREATLY depend on armor type. For example:
Heavy armor: 150 PRR (= 50.61% dmg reduction)
Medium armor: 100 PRR (= 41.21% dmg reduction)
Light armor: 50 PRR (= 25.67% dmg reduction)
Robes: 0 PRR

Now you might consider not taking evasion.

Spells will still hurt, but for tank builds there should be an option for reducing spell dmg.
Foe example, Sentinel should have like 50% Spell dmg reduction (and stacking with some pally enhancement, which should grant like 10%, 20% if holding shield, and 30% if actively blocking)

[Eth]

PRR should GREATLY depend on armor type.
This.

At the moment the difference in PRR between the armors is so low, you barely notice a difference.
Even worse, you actually LOWER your overall defense by going medium or heavy armor, because you cripple your dodge.
I can't see any reason why anyone would wear heavy armor at the moment other than for flavor reason.
Any build can get 10% dodge without even trying.

[Fhauvial]

Why default PRR 100? If you wear robes then your starting PRR should be 0.

PRR should GREATLY depend on armor type. For example:
Heavy armor: 150 PRR (= 50.61% dmg reduction)
Medium armor: 100 PRR (= 41.21% dmg reduction)
Light armor: 50 PRR (= 25.67% dmg reduction)
Robes: 0 PRR

Now you might consider not taking evasion.

Spells will still hurt, but for tank builds there should be an option for reducing spell dmg.
Foe example, Sentinel should have like 50% Spell dmg reduction (and stacking with some pally enhancement, which should grant like 10%, 20% if holding shield, and 30% if actively blocking)

Block Energy + 33% Absorb item = 63% absorption (assuming they stack).

Not saying it couldn't be improved upon, but Sentinel does have options.

[Veriden]

Heavy armor is much weaker than wearing robes

I'm sorry but every time I see some one say this I want to slap them. We're not playing in realistic medieval times. We're playing where magic applies. When you see cloth enchanted with +8 armor bonus that means it literally protects just as well as full plate does. That is how that enchantment works sorry but no, wearing full plate doesn't need to be worth anything b/c the only thing it does physically is restrict your movement. So why not equip your +8 whitey tighties? If you had the choice to wear pajamas, clothes, robes, etc That increased your protection in such a way with out lugging around 50lb of body weight wouldn't you?

If anything robes/outfits that give armor bonuses needs to give base prr of the type of bonus. +4 light armor prr, +6 medium armor prr, +8 and up gives heavy armor prr.

If you saw some one in an pnp game running around in armor they probably are either on a tight budget or don't know about +8 bracers of armor. Sure you can squeeze in 5 more ac using base full plate, but if your dex is above 22 you've already negated every thing heavy armor can give you.

But if you want to impose something that heavy armor SHOULD mean? Enjoy your 1/3rd movement speed loss unless you're a dwarf which is already moving at 2/3rds the rate of a medium sized creature anyway.

I don't mean to point out your post in particular. Just that part. Magical fantasy land that ebberon is set in > Earth's actual historical battles (which ebberon isn't set in.) which full plate was both expensive and impractical for anyways. Chaim and leathers is where the real benefits were. Any one with a mace could eff up a person in a suit of plate.

[knockcocker]

Yes, that was my thinking. (Casters trash, melee boss.)

Please, please just NO!

I wish everyone would stop trying to pigeonhole roles and responsibilities etc. This just takes away all
that is good about DDO. Let the player decide what type of character they want and what they
want it to do. The game is supposed to be about fun not assembling a swat team. If you want to
play 'roles and responsibilities' guess what, you already can. Use the LFM panel. I think people
should accept that there is already quite a lot of personal preference already in the game if you
take control of it.

Varg, some stuff doesn't get used because it obviously is either underpowered, lacks utility (or just
too damned painful to use) or both. Combine this with the requirements of EE content railroading
certain build choices and you end up with the situation you have where certain builds and abilities
are perceived to be overpowered simply because they work.

People like choices
People like to think that their decisions matter

[knockcocker]

The single laser-focused item for a preview of the summary of the thread: Melee in Epic Elite probably needs some help. There's many possible ways to come at this problem, while trying to address other issues as well. Identifying problems now, solutions later!


Do you have metrics?

I see even you are talking about Epic Elite. The general consensus is that the thread itself became oriented around
EE play because that seems to be the only content where certain build choices are almost required. I wonder how
many of the player base regularly play at this level - in other words are we excessively worrying about a problem
which might only exist on EE?

Note, I'm not saying that the opinions of those who do regularly play EE should be dismissed just that care needs
to be taken before swingeing changes are made. You already seem aware of this though.

[Robai]

Block Energy + 33% Absorb item = 63% absorption (assuming they stack).

Not saying it couldn't be improved upon, but Sentinel does have options.

Block Energy in Sentinel is too weak option for a tank (since you have to be actively blocking for that, and it's only 30%).

Maybe Sentinel should give absorption this way (everything should stack with bonuses from enchantments if any):
30% always
+20% if holding a shield
+30% if actively blocking

Those bonuses stack as usual:
30% + 20% = 44%
30% + 20% + 30% = 60.8%

it also stacks with 3 x Epic past life Block Energy (+30% while blocking):
30% + 20% + 30% +30% = 72.56%
it also stacks with Shield Deflection feat (+40% while blocking with Tower shield):
30% + 20% + 30% +30% +40% = 83.53%
it also stacks with Energy Sheath (50% for a specific spell dmg type):
30% + 20% + 30% +30% +40% +50% = 91.76%
it also stacks with 33% absorption item (for a specific spell dmg type):
30% + 20% + 30% +30% +40% +50% +33% = 94.48%
it also stacks with GS item for a specific spell dmg type (not sure if it still gives +10%+15%+20%):
30% + 20% + 30% +30% +40% +50% +33% +10% + 15% +20% = 96.62%

[sirgog]

Do you have metrics?

I see even you are talking about Epic Elite. The general consensus is that the thread itself became oriented around
EE play because that seems to be the only content where certain build choices are almost required. I wonder how
many of the player base regularly play at this level - in other words are we excessively worrying about a problem
which might only exist on EE?

Note, I'm not saying that the opinions of those who do regularly play EE should be dismissed just that care needs
to be taken before swingeing changes are made. You already seem aware of this though.

Game balance doesn't matter at lower difficulties.

At lower difficulty settings, DC casters are *obscenely* overpowered and DPS casters are very close behind. But because the content is easy enough, everyone still feels like they are a useful participant.

Keep in mind that EH is balanced around players that do not have epic destinies but are competent at the game (sensible builds, sensibly chosen if low-powered gear), and EN around people that play solo and try to work things out as they go (weird mismatches of equipment, many wasted feats, etc).

[sirgog]

Why default PRR 100? If you wear robes then your starting PRR should be 0.

PRR should GREATLY depend on armor type. For example:
Heavy armor: 150 PRR (= 50.61% dmg reduction)
Medium armor: 100 PRR (= 41.21% dmg reduction)
Light armor: 50 PRR (= 25.67% dmg reduction)
Robes: 0 PRR

Now you might consider not taking evasion.

Spells will still hurt, but for tank builds there should be an option for reducing spell dmg.
Foe example, Sentinel should have like 50% Spell dmg reduction (and stacking with some pally enhancement, which should grant like 10%, 20% if holding shield, and 30% if actively blocking)

Under my suggestion, PRR of 0 would mean that any melee hit insta-kills you. Dividing by zero is bad. PRR of 100 would mean 100 incoming damage causes 100 lost HP, ie no actual reduction, but unlike the present system, stacking more PRR would continue to help.


With your suggestion, someone wearing heavy armor would have basically no incentive at all to equip other gear that adds to PRR. At present the difference between 50 PRR and 100 PRR is bigger than the difference between 150 PRR and 57 million PRR. (Check the formula if you do not believe that).

[Thumbed_Servant]

Vargoiulle,

When you all next work on armor, PLEASE do not forget Mithral. The Cavalry plate is used by a lot of us up to 20 and some into the lower 20's...it is supposed to be heavy armor that behaves like medium due to a special material, Mithral, but was never properly coded to give the same PRR as heavy armor. Fix this when you all revisit armor again?

Thank you

[Robai]

Under my suggestion, PRR of 0 would mean that any melee hit insta-kills you. Dividing by zero is bad. PRR of 100 would mean 100 incoming damage causes 100 lost HP, ie no actual reduction, but unlike the present system, stacking more PRR would continue to help.


With your suggestion, someone wearing heavy armor would have basically no incentive at all to equip other gear that adds to PRR. At present the difference between 50 PRR and 100 PRR is bigger than the difference between 150 PRR and 57 million PRR. (Check the formula if you do not believe that).

Sorry, I was a bit confused.

Do you mean this
50 PRR = you take 200% dmg
100 PRR = you take 100% dmg
150 PRR = you take 66.66% dmg
200 PRR = you take 50% dmg
250 PRR = you take 40% dmg

[Amundir]

I still think its a streach to say "Go this route and take 40% of the damage" vs "Go this route and take 0 damage x% of the time".
Currently, that is. I feel the weight of which makes more sense is relative to how much damage your talking about.

Edit: And in how many hits the damage is accrued in.

[Free2Pay]

I'm going to borrow some idea from an ARPG which successfully buffed Melee:

1) Viable Life Steal/Leech that scale with dps.
2) Static Life Gain on hits.
3) An ability which allow 2H weapon to be thrown for a somewhat reduced range dps.
4) Increasing the rates of attacks per second.

We seem to have some form of mechanics already in DDO that looks somewhat similar : bodyfeeder and speed.

[EllisDee37]

Please, please just NO!

I wish everyone would stop trying to pigeonhole roles and responsibilities etc.We're down the rabbit hole when I'm being accused of a "play your role" advocate. I'm one of the "self-sufficient or GTFO" people.

My point was that a DC caster isn't going to be able to use his strength (DC casting) against red names, so it's fine if that same DC caster is way more powerful than dps characters against trash mobs.

[Scraap]

We're down the rabbit hole when I'm being accused of a "play your role" advocate. I'm one of the "self-sufficient or GTFO" people.

My point was that a DC caster isn't going to be able to use his strength (DC casting) against red names, so it's fine if that same DC caster is way more powerful than dps characters against trash mobs.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but which archetype: The one contenting with ASF, or the one with superior PRR if they should fix that so it's not a bad joke, and to what degree should that be taken into account all other things being equal (not that they are)?

That's the kind of thing that gets me leery of aspects-in-isolation, and why I was referring to classes as packages way up thread. Not that I disagree with the general point.

[CaptainSpacePony]

That would be easy, but... I don't think it's a good idea. Warpriest has already made paladins redundant.

I don't think War Priest made paladins redundant. In fact I think the enhancement pass made them mostly irrelevant (nerfed the heck out of defender tree/stance while upgrading almost everyone else)..
But I'm afraid I may not understand what you're saying here so I'll try to strengthen my point.

1. Paladin's defensive abilities are inadequate. War priest adds PRR, AC, blur, and some lesser things.
2. Paladin's DPS sucks. Most classes have enhanced damage/to hit with a weapon. War priest would give that and be in flavor.
3. Smite is an iconic ability of paladins... that sucks in DDO. (Too rapidly depleted to be worthwhile IMO). The war priest smite line would parallel the paladin's smite and be in flavor. (I don't like WP smite either, cool down is WAY too long but I'm talking about a quick fix here.)
4. Frankly paladin enhancement tress are pretty lame atm.
5. This would be a fast, easy way to address a long know issue. It would not be adequate to balance paladins with other classes, but would throw them a bone and increase their viability.

[CaptainSpacePony]

I'm sorry but every time I see some one say this I want to slap them. We're not playing in realistic medieval times. We're playing where magic applies. When you see cloth enchanted with +8 armor bonus that means it literally protects just as well as full plate does. ... <snip>

But if you want to impose something that heavy armor SHOULD mean? Enjoy your 1/3rd movement speed loss unless you're a dwarf which is already moving at 2/3rds the rate of a medium sized creature anyway.

I don't mean to point out your post in particular. Just that part. Magical fantasy land that ebberon is set in > Earth's actual historical battles (which ebberon isn't set in.) which full plate was both expensive and impractical for anyways. Chaim and leathers is where the real benefits were. Any one with a mace could eff up a person in a suit of plate.

I see your point, but offer the following counters:

a. Magic cloth does protect as well as full plate (pretty cool, yeah?) but wouldn't magic plate protect even better?
b. Well made heavier armors wouldn't have to be as restrictive as you say, especially if they were magical, would they?
c. Actually, blunt weapons were mostly foiled by rigid armors. Piercing weapons were generally preferred against most armors. Ancient Egyptians had used maces until helmets were widely adopted rendering them much less effective than alternatives. Centuries later when maces returned they were not usually widely adopted and often were more like picks. (Which brings me to war hammers. War hammers were not the mallets we see in fantasy games, but were basically picks.)
d. Most importantly, this is a fantasy genre wherein warriors wade into close combat with dinosaur-sized opponents while wearing heavy shiny armor and impractical winged helms and wielding archaic light sabers with blades as long as the monsters' hides are thick. Give us the darn fantasy!

[Uska]

Sorry, I was a bit confused.

Do you mean this
50 PRR = you take 200% dmg
100 PRR = you take 100% dmg
150 PRR = you take 66.66% dmg
200 PRR = you take 50% dmg
250 PRR = you take 40% dmg

That would be terrible damage shouldn't be multiplied and yah I know that's not yours.

[EllisDee37]

Not to put too fine a point on it, but which archetype: The one contenting with ASF, or the one with superior PRR if they should fix that so it's not a bad joke, and to what degree should that be taken into account all other things being equal (not that they are)?

That's the kind of thing that gets me leery of aspects-in-isolation, and why I was referring to classes as packages way up thread. Not that I disagree with the general point.I'm not entirely sure why this was directed to me. I also can't really parse what you're trying to say.

[elvesunited]

Having thought it over

Things to Change
------------------------------------
1) Accidental synergies. Biggest example being slay arrow and adrenaline. Slay arrow could be disabled once adrenaline is activated and until adrenaline is expended. This could be spread out to other enhanced attacks such as sniper shot/strike if they become a problem as well.

2) Make AC relevant again for tanks by increasing its effectiveness at high levels.

3) Increase enhancement, destiny AC, PRR bonuses to give melee characters more a boost.

4) Provide some resistance to elemental spell attacks for non-evasion types. Perhaps let PRR affect it.

5) Increase the bonuses for 20th level required prestige enhancements to make pure characters more attractive without hurting multi-class ones.

6) Bards need to be reworked. They're a dying breed in epics. Some have suggested some useful SLAs. Or changing inspire from +x bonus to +x% bonus.

Things to not change
-------------------------------------
1) When and where feats can be gotten. Getting Monk stance upgrades through normal feats, for example. It's part of some melee and ranged builds. No changes that will require the game to give out lesser reincarnation hearts +20 again.

2) massive change to a feat that will invalidate a build concept or pigeonhole characters into a specific weapon style. such as changing ten thousand stars to thrown only. Don't pigeonhole Monks into shurikens, bow using monks is an established game concept. A pure 20th level monk who specializes in the bow is viable.

3) Restricting epic destiny abilities to certain classes. Variety is important. The ability to experiment with destinies outside your natural sphere adds to the gameplay. Besides many builds work best with destinies well outside their given sphere and poorly with those within. ( such as the DPS Paladin )

4) Do not change shiradi casters until something is done to make nuker casters able to participate against high level epic elite without it.

[Teh_Troll]

2) Make AC relevant again for tanks by increasing its effectiveness at high levels.

If AC actually matters in EE monk AC needs a huge nerf. Monk get stupid high ACs even without trying.

I'd rather we started saying "Make ARMOR relevant."

[Delacroix21]

I would also like to point out that some posts were repeated because they got buried under more random nerf this! Nerf that! Posts that went off topic from real player balance.


As others have said these builds have become required to do EE, and many others are not viable. Nerfing the builds that are viable while not simultaneously nerfing the EE mobs themselves would result in no builds being viable.


I proposed changes repeatedly that were nerfs, but the class and ed combos would still play the same. Ideas like removing shiradi from multi proc spells or no adrenaline with ranged totally kills builds, and even a free +20 LR will not keep players from quitting.


Maybe there is also a lot of angst here because it seems you guys are so out of touch with the game. Hearing that DC casting etc. is not effective in EE should not be a "surprise" as the ENTiRE community has known about it and posted about it. Devs need to test EE themselves more and actually play the game more then just RPing on casual difficulty.

[elvesunited]

If AC actually matters in EE monk AC needs a huge nerf. Monk get stupid high ACs even without trying.

I'd rather we started saying "Make ARMOR relevant."

I'd much rather boost the armor wearing character then nerf the monk. In any event I got no problem with any melee monk having high AC. They'll likely have lower PRR and hp. They need it.

[Cardtrick]

4) Do not change shiradi casters until something is done to make nuker casters able to participate against high level epic elite without it.

Yeah, I'm a bit disconcerted by all the calls to nerf shiradi. Compared to most of the other things being discussed, shiradi casters are far from overpowered and shiradi ranged character are underpowered. Really, shiradi is about right for casters and could stand to be buffed for ranged DPS.

I feel like people still are thinking about shiradi from when it was first released. It's in a pretty good place right now (except for the radiant forcefield thing, of course). Shiradi casters can contribute in all content, and extremely well-played, well-built, well-geared ones can even do the hardest content solo. That's fine. Unlike a max DC instant kill build (in the old days), shiradi isn't harming the experience for the other players in a group. The damage output is steady, but not excessive, and doesn't prevent others from contributing.

[HatsuharuZ]

I don't think War Priest made paladins redundant. In fact I think the enhancement pass made them mostly irrelevant (nerfed the heck out of defender tree/stance while upgrading almost everyone else)..
But I'm afraid I may not understand what you're saying here so I'll try to strengthen my point.

1. Paladin's defensive abilities are inadequate. War priest adds PRR, AC, blur, and some lesser things.
2. Paladin's DPS sucks. Most classes have enhanced damage/to hit with a weapon. War priest would give that and be in flavor.
3. Smite is an iconic ability of paladins... that sucks in DDO. (Too rapidly depleted to be worthwhile IMO). The war priest smite line would parallel the paladin's smite and be in flavor. (I don't like WP smite either, cool down is WAY too long but I'm talking about a quick fix here.)
4. Frankly paladin enhancement tress are pretty lame atm.
5. This would be a fast, easy way to address a long know issue. It would not be adequate to balance paladins with other classes, but would throw them a bone and increase their viability.

I was saying that if anyone wants to play a melee divine, they don't need to take more than two levels of paladin and then take the rest in cleric or fvs. Almost anything that a paladin can do, a cleric or fvs can do better. Simply giving warpriest to paladins reinforces that. However, I agree with your third and fourth points.

What paladins needs is their own original tree, and a revamp of the trees they currently have. Sacred Defender is especially ugly. It has exactly one useful offensive ability.

If Turbine gave warpriest to paladins, how long do you think it would be before they went back and put in the effort to actually make paladins competitive? Consider how long it takes them to react to major issues.

[Scraap]

I'm not entirely sure why this was directed to me. I also can't really parse what you're trying to say.

Sorry. One of these years I'll remember to stop combining coffee, coding, and convos.

Think we can both generally agree that if it's a class feature, it should be something that can be built for to have relevance, or there's no point in having that aspect as class feature aside from fluff.
In this case, DC casting applies to arcanes (including bards), divines, and druids.

Armor proficiency is also a class feature to varying degrees, and directly ties to the PRR sub-discussion.
At 50% asf baseline, comparable pure armor-based casting for an arcane vs a divine would be a 50% failure rate.

Since nobody sane would build a DC caster to flip a coin barring pure AoE casting, I think we can generally agree that the most tanky-from-armor DC caster could weigh in at a 75% success rate.
If PRR shaved off half the damage of robes (to keep the math simple, and match that 50% asf) it'd seem to me that'd require putting an arcane at an 85% success rate (12.5% being half the failure rate of 25%, rounded down to the nearest 5%), with medium armor wearers ending up somewhere in the middle.

(Alternatively, they could up the target-count for the target-limited DC casting spells, and drop the success rate further of course, but that'd be at the expense of single-target ones.)
That makin more sense?

[SirValentine]

Think we can both generally agree that if it's a class feature, it should be something that can be built for to have relevance, or there's no point in having that aspect as class feature aside from fluff.
In this case, DC casting applies to arcanes (including bards), divines, and druids.

Armor proficiency is also a class feature to varying degrees, and directly ties to the PRR sub-discussion.
At 50% asf baseline, comparable pure armor-based casting for an arcane vs a divine would be a 50% failure rate.


Meanwhile, while Clerics have Heavy Armor, and FvS & Druid have Medium, and all a few more HP, Wizards do have FIVE BONUS FEATS, or Sorcs faster casting. Armor is also only one part of class balance, and it's not really meaningful to directly compare just divine armor versus arcane armor.

While also only part of the equation, to me it makes perfect sense to compare, say, maximum Finger of Death or Destruction DCs across all 5 primary caster classes, since it really is the same ability.

[Timap]

I see even you are talking about Epic Elite. The general consensus is that the thread itself became oriented around
EE play because that seems to be the only content where certain build choices are almost required. I wonder how
many of the player base regularly play at this level - in other words are we excessively worrying about a problem
which might only exist on EE?


While a smallish portion of the population plays at EE, its still important to balance for EE because

1) A build that is OP on EE is still OP on EH/EN. Its just not that obvious. Playing an OP build on EH in a party just makes the experience ridiculously easy for everyone involved, and decreases the fun. OP builds are effectively segregated from players other than other OP builds because of this.

2) A lot of social activity occurs around EE and raids, the only 2 situations where a balanced party is really necessary. I estimate at least 50% of LFMs are EE/raids. If every other toon you group with is a ranged kiter, it makes for a very boring social experience.

3) While not everyone makes it to EE, lots of people aspire to EE. The builds that are viable at EE influences the builds people play at EH/EN levels. I would say it even influences whether people start or stop playing DDO. If you love to play a bard, but you know that bards are not viable at the hardest content, and will be permanently consigned to second-class citizen status, would you still keep playing DDO?

[danotmano1998]

OK!

My apologies: I still don't have an extremely substantial post to give right at this moment, because my brain is melting, but I've caught up on every post in this thread so far!

Thank you.
Your post hit the nail on the head.

Awesome communication, it's VERY much appreciated. +1

[Pandir]

It matters on the long run. Because if you remove the symptom (everyone splash monk2 and pally 2), but do not fix the cause for that (EE have insane requirements on saves, and deal too much damage), the players will soon find the next new thing to bypass the main problem, and we will be in the same situation again in a few weeks.

If the problem were ONLY in the classes themselves (like on the early days of the enhancement pass we had people getting Ranger 2 for 80 positive spellpower, or getting a druid level for beguile), sure, fix the class and the problem is solved. That is not the issue with Evasion or Divine Grace.

Agreed with that, i still don't really believe the classes can be balanced before bringing EE to some sane levels.

[Pandir]

Do you have metrics?

I see even you are talking about Epic Elite. The general consensus is that the thread itself became oriented around
EE play because that seems to be the only content where certain build choices are almost required. I wonder how
many of the player base regularly play at this level - in other words are we excessively worrying about a problem
which might only exist on EE?

Note, I'm not saying that the opinions of those who do regularly play EE should be dismissed just that care needs
to be taken before swingeing changes are made. You already seem aware of this though.

Well thing is you can get through EH with about any class. Some are not as effective as others but it's doable(and soloable) by
any class/destiny combo as long as the player didn't completely gimp it(In gear and spec) and knows what he's doing.
I'd say EN you can gimp as much as you want an you'll get through.

It's EE where things get really wonky.

[GMoneyMackDaddy]

Give pure classes a reason to stay pure (capstones maybe?)

Give monk stances back to monk levels, not character levels.

The rest will fall in line.

Fivefinga.

[Teh_Troll]

The single laser-focused item for a preview of the summary of the thread: Melee in Epic Elite probably needs some help. There's many possible ways to come at this problem, while trying to address other issues as well. Identifying problems now, solutions later!

In general no . . . but there are a few insanely stupid encounters that need to be addressed.

Start looking at all the dragon fights in the game. There is so much nonsense in every one of those fights (except Velah) that melee is just a poor choice. The end-boss for EE 'Thrill of the Hunt' is another insanely stupid encounter. Same with Miior from EE Haunted Halls.

I think melees in the current game. are okay they other 95% of the time though I'd like to see some changes in game mechanics. The problem is not as pervasive as the bad players are making it out to be, but some encounters in this game are insanely stupid and I don't believe for one second they were ever play tested on EE.

[Teh_Troll]

Give pure classes a reason to stay pure (capstones maybe?)

Give monk stances back to monk levels, not character levels.

The rest will fall in line.

Fivefinga.

That's a start, need moar njerfs.

[knockcocker]

Game balance doesn't matter at lower difficulties.


That's an opinion. If game balance matters at all it matters subjectively to the person
who is playing the game. Playing devils advocate, by extension you could argue in a PVE
game that it is entirely irrelevant.

I'm just trying to understand what the objective is here. If the objective is to balance
classes in EE then I wonder if it's worth the effort.

[knockcocker]

We're down the rabbit hole when I'm being accused of a "play your role" advocate. I'm one of the "self-sufficient or GTFO" people.

My point was that a DC caster isn't going to be able to use his strength (DC casting) against red names, so it's fine if that same DC caster is way more powerful than dps characters against trash mobs.

Gotcha; completely agree.

[Teh_Troll]

That's an opinion.

No it's not. I'm sorry but we can take it to an extreme . . . run Waterworks on a 28 . . . Does ANYTHING matter? Literally a chimp and a 3 year old could beat it on any toon.

The challenge level needs to reach a threshold of difficulty in order to be a valid measurement of anything. EH doesn't get tough enough to test any toons unless you're really a terrible player.

[Vamm]

This is my first post in this thread, I could write all day, but here are what I feel are the most important things to mention -

Melee vrs. Ranged vrs. Spellcasting -

Overpowered Monk and Paladin Splashes -

Overpowered abilities -

Race imbalance -


+1. Yes, this. Thanks for succinctly hitting the key issues!

[knockcocker]

No it's not. I'm sorry but we can take it to an extreme . . . run Waterworks on a 28 . . . Does ANYTHING matter? Literally a chimp and a 3 year old could beat it on any toon.

The challenge level needs to reach a threshold of difficulty in order to be a valid measurement of anything. EH doesn't get tough enough to test any toons unless you're really a terrible player.


Surely this assumes equal competence of players - or least a range?. It's still subjective and I
doubt anyone who has played this game for the length of time most of us have is capable of
objectivity here.

[Teh_Troll]

Surely this assumes equal competence of players - or least a range?. It's still subjective and I
doubt anyone who has played this game for the length of time most of us have is capable of
objectivity here.

You balance towards high skill. Bad players simply don't know the game well enough for their opinions to matter.

[Delacroix21]

Yeah, I'm a bit disconcerted by all the calls to nerf shiradi. Compared to most of the other things being discussed, shiradi casters are far from overpowered and shiradi ranged character are underpowered. Really, shiradi is about right for casters and could stand to be buffed for ranged DPS.

I feel like people still are thinking about shiradi from when it was first released. It's in a pretty good place right now (except for the radiant forcefield thing, of course). Shiradi casters can contribute in all content, and extremely well-played, well-built, well-geared ones can even do the hardest content solo. That's fine. Unlike a max DC instant kill build (in the old days), shiradi isn't harming the experience for the other players in a group. The damage output is steady, but not excessive, and doesn't prevent others from contributing.

This is very true.

[Grizzt14]

You balance towards high skill. Bad players simply don't know the game well enough for their opinions to matter.

Turbine's bottom line and declining playerbase would disagree. EEs need to be friendly beyond the "uber elite" and a handful of build concepts, the difference between EH and EE alone breaks a large majority of builds to the point EE is a whole different ball game. (Yes, I regularly run EE, check Degenerate Matter's raid times if you want recent forum proof.) The epic difficulties need to consistently bump up from EN to EE in a believable curve, currently if EE is 10/10 difficulty EN and EH are around a 2 and a 4 respectively. There are bad players I agree, but balancing for a current minority, even one I believe I'm part of, is exactly what Turbine shouldn't be doing.

[Ancient]

Because I'm reading every single post.

5 Stars for your effort, that is a lot of posts! There are a ton of good ideas and thoughts in this thread, even if I don't agree with them, they beat this to death from a zillion different directions. I hope that we get the opportunity to crowd source brainstorming in the future and that the improvements to the game help DDO gain players, not lose them. This is an example of Devs listening!

[Ancient]

Turbine's bottom line and declining playerbase would disagree. EEs need to be friendly beyond the "uber elite" and a handful of build concepts, the difference between EH and EE alone breaks a large majority of builds to the point EE is a whole different ball game. (Yes, I regularly run EE, check Degenerate Matter's raid times if you want recent forum proof.) The epic difficulties need to consistently bump up from EN to EE in a believable curve, currently if EE is 10/10 difficulty EN and EH are around a 2 and a 4 respectively. There are bad players I agree, but balancing for a current minority, even one I believe I'm part of, is exactly what Turbine shouldn't be doing.
The level range for epic groups and the variety of EE quests is starting to address this. LOD elite and the Von series elite simply are not as tough as the high road chain or storm horns. The larger level range and higher levels is smoothing out that scale of difficulties and IMO, has almost eliminated the huge leap in difficulty issue.

[Teh_Troll]

EEs need to be friendly beyond the "uber elite"

Why? There are three other difficulty levels.

[Amundir]

Why? There are three other difficulty levels.

+1

[Desonde]

The single laser-focused item for a preview of the summary of the thread: Melee in Epic Elite probably needs some help. There's many possible ways to come at this problem, while trying to address other issues as well. Identifying problems now, solutions later!


Just to make sure too (though not entirely about this topic) that Melee in Higher Level content (especially Epic Hard) needs love when dungeon scaling kicks in (EH w/ 2.5 players deals as much damage as 1 player in an EE version of the same dungeon).

[Grizzt14]

Why? There are three other difficulty levels.

Because the "uber elite" consist of 4 EDs (Fury, LD, Shiradi and DI) and a handful of build and splash combos. As many people on this thread have mentioned previously, classes and entire EDs aren't performing to a level that is effective in EE or even EH, which is a problem. I'm not saying bad builds should operate on high difficulties, but the window of effective class/ED combos is much smaller than it should be.

[Teh_Troll]

Because the "uber elite" consist of 4 EDs (Fury, LD, Shiradi and DI) and a handful of build and splash combos. As many people on this thread have mentioned previously, classes and entire EDs aren't performing to a level that is effective in EE or even EH, which is a problem. I'm not saying bad builds should operate on high difficulties, but the window of effective class/ED combos is much smaller than it should be.

I'm talking about PLAYER skill level, not what EDs/builds etc . . . are involved.

Skill level needs to be taken out of the equation when balancing this stuff, that is done by balancing on what the upper echelon of players are capable of doing. This is why the opinions of bad PLAYERS shouldn't count for anything.

Do I need to state that in smaller words?

[Veriden]

I see your point, but offer the following counters:

a. Magic cloth does protect as well as full plate (pretty cool, yeah?) but wouldn't magic plate protect even better?
b. Well made heavier armors wouldn't have to be as restrictive as you say, especially if they were magical, would they?
c. Actually, blunt weapons were mostly foiled by rigid armors. Piercing weapons were generally preferred against most armors. Ancient Egyptians had used maces until helmets were widely adopted rendering them much less effective than alternatives. Centuries later when maces returned they were not usually widely adopted and often were more like picks. (Which brings me to war hammers. War hammers were not the mallets we see in fantasy games, but were basically picks.)
d. Most importantly, this is a fantasy genre wherein warriors wade into close combat with dinosaur-sized opponents while wearing heavy shiny armor and impractical winged helms and wielding archaic light sabers with blades as long as the monsters' hides are thick. Give us the darn fantasy!

My counter points to your counter points.

A. Thus the comment about the dex, with out going into epic levels and the steep increase for going above +5 in cost. +5 full plate only adds 5 more ac (+13 ac, max dex 1) so a character with a dex of 22 would get the same ac bonus out of bracers/cloth armor +8 as some one wearing +5 full plate with a dex of 12.

B. well made armors would be called masterwork, they exist already and offer a -1 to the penalties for skills. All magic armors are first masterwork, thus yes slightly less restrictive. However still extra weight to slow you down in both movement speed and your ability to tumble, jump, climb, swim, balance, and such strength based movement/dex based skills. Mithril further increases these benefits and the dexterity bonus making it equal to a character with 26 dex and bracers of armor 8 if the wearer has a dex of 16 in +5 mithril plate male(+13 ac +3 max dex)

C. I could've sworn the documentary I watched had a guy using a nice heavy mace to hit the shoulders and helmet hard enough to dent the plate mail rendering the wearer not only unable to move his arms but disoriented and blinded due to how his helmet folded in. Admittedly, it has been a while since I watched it and could be wrong. I'll give that one to you.

D. We have our differences of opinions as I favor the cloth wearing magi-swordsman slaying foes in a mix of arcane might and sword play. Cutting down dragons after cleaving their wings from their back with an enchanted blade. Few things are as fearsome as a battle field of limbs and vitae splattered over the walls and bowl bottoms of fireball induced craters. (Yes I favor one hand one sword styles in pen and paper, kinda gimp but I'm typically the guy playing a elf Swashbuckler/Wizard, or dusk blade, or the many melee/caster prcs. Also...guilty pleasure is cleric/sword sage 11/9. Both the party's healer and part time stupidly op ba-dness.)

[Grizzt14]

Skill level needs to be taken out of the equation when balancing this stuff, that is done by balancing on what the upper echelon of players are capable of doing.

Do I need to state that in smaller words?
When you determine what the upper echelon of players are capable of doing, you're automatically including the builds being used and what those set ups are capable of. They are not independent of one another.

Save the smaller words and patronizing tone, it isn't welcome or warranted.

[Teh_Troll]

When you determine what the upper echelon of players are capable of doing, you're automatically including the builds being used and what those set ups are capable of. They are not independent of one another.

Nonsense, I see good players beating stuff all the time in the non-cookie-cutter builds. If you had some idea what good players were capable of you'd know this.



Save the smaller words and patronizing tone, it isn't welcome or warranted.

You mammals are so damned sensitive. Sorry I had to use that many syllables.

[zwiebelring]

I'm talking about PLAYER skill level, not what EDs/builds etc . . . are involved.

Skill level needs to be taken out of the equation when balancing this stuff, that is done by balancing on what the upper echelon of players are capable of doing. This is why the opinions of bad PLAYERS shouldn't count for anything.

Do I need to state that in smaller words?

It was nice to first define *good* and *bad* before rejecting opinions. And don't say something like:

good = can hjeal me

bad = cannot hjeal me

- edit -
Neither bad nor good player skill has to be used in balancing. If you take good players as a standard you don't need balance, because, hey, they beat epic elite stuff with a pure barbarian and solo raids. But when the effort of this player is too high to achieve vs. just rolling a cookiecutter build and compensate by that for the lack of skills I say, this game is imbalanced.

Balance has to be within rule mechanics, not player skill.

[Cyr]

Though true, often not optimal at all. Screws up aggro. Hard to beat on a mob that's chasing someone else. Puts other party members at risk who may be even more fragile.
.

Deception items increase DPS in party. Diplo is last resort and only one which messes with agro. As for chasing someone else...mob is coming at you initially to get past you...it's called stun it... If they are too fragile to handle agro then they are playing badly by getting initial agro first and not being able to handle it for the short time it takes to burn down the mobs.

[TheDr0wRanger]

Nonsense, I see good players beating stuff all the time in the non-cookie-cutter builds. If you had some idea what good players were capable of you'd know this.



You mammals are so damned sensitive. Sorry I had to use that many syllables.

Balancing based on the upper echelon of players is unwise. Why should everyone not gifted, rich or blessed with free time enough to be in the top 25% or so of players/ builds not get to play a game that had fair rules at their level?

I never believe the game is best balanced on EE because there are.a great many equally legitimate customers of the game and by extension Turbine who can't gear, practice the quests or make raid night frequently enough to be comfortable on EE. If what I gather from your post is true, you think as long as EE is balanced, those players can just be screwed. There's no denying an EE spec character will run rings around a toon not readied/specced for EE, does the game really need to make them less happy with their experience?

Anyway I think its moot, rules for EE and EH needn't be the same, it could be that some tweaks to values for armor, damage etc could be applied on EH or EE to alter the curve for that level.

[Teh_Troll]

Balancing based on the upper echelon of players is unwise. Why should everyone not gifted, rich or blessed with free time enough to be in the top 25% or so of players/ builds not get to play a game that had fair rules at their level?

Because you wouldn't notice one way or the other.

[Icywave]

Asking about classes power without asking questions about multiclassing will provide flawed data.

Agreed.

[CeltEireson]

Oh and while you're in a balancing mood, could you have a look at strength based damage v dex based damage. Lot fewer options to increase dex compared to strength so currently theres a fairly massive gap between the max attainable dex and strength.

Of course dex does provide other benefits like reflex save, AC (although that hardly matters currently) and there are more dex related skills; and dex based builds would also include some rogue types whose primary damage may be coming from assassin instant kills and sneak attacks, which obviously makes balancing somewhat harder. But even so think it could so with a boost, specially as dex based melee/ranged usually have invest in enhancements as well as the finesse feat sometimes.

[Teh_Troll]

Oh and while you're in a balancing mood, could you have a look at strength based damage v dex based damage. Lot fewer options to increase dex compared to strength so currently theres a fairly massive gap between the max attainable dex and strength.

Of course dex does provide other benefits like reflex save, AC (although that hardly matters currently) and there are more dex related skills; and dex based builds would also include some rogue types whose primary damage may be coming from assassin instant kills and sneak attacks, which obviously makes balancing somewhat harder. But even so think it could so with a boost, specially as dex based melee/ranged usually have invest in enhancements as well as the finesse feat sometimes.

back when DEX was giving 100% damage to the off-hand (Lamania only, never made it to live) on paper it was looking like DEX-to-damage would not only be viable it'd be a strong option.

Now? LOLz, total n00b-trap.

Turbine should consider revisiting these because the builds with the DEX to damage would have been glass-cannonish enough to be balanced.

[EllisDee37]

back when DEX was giving 100% damage to the off-hand (Lamania only, never made it to live) on paper it was looking like DEX-to-damage would not only be viable it'd be a strong option.

Now? LOLz, total n00b-trap.

Turbine should consider revisiting these because the builds with the DEX to damage would have been glass-cannonish enough to be balanced.And it makes thematic sense. I can easily buy into a strength build having a physically weaker offhand while a dex build is fully ambidextrous and is doing its damage via precise attacks. No reason the god-like dexterity on a dex build shouldn't apply 100% to both hands.

[Grizzt14]

Nonsense, I see good players beating stuff all the time in the non-cookie-cutter builds.

Edited out the laughable trolling. Try reading and digesting that post again because you brought up cookie-cutter builds, I did not and it is irrelevant to my point. Have a good day.

[Eth]

You balance towards high skill. Bad players simply don't know the game well enough for their opinions to matter.

Depends on the game really. In competetive games that have professional players (like Starcraft) it's done this way.
In a PvE MMORPG - I don't know.

[darkly_dreaming]

The entire discussion of character balance is ridiculous. The only way to have real character balance is to have ONE character type, with exactly the same progression for everyone with the only variables being gear and player skill. And even if that happened after the first week there would be those crying about 'fairness' because some players had more time to get better gear and so they're now 'unbalanced' compared to those who work and don't have enough time to play.

People should just play what they want to play and not worry about what other people are doing and if it's 'fair' or not. Guess what, in real life everyone is not a winner. Everyone does not get a trophy. Life is not fair. There are people who make more money than me, have better behaved kids, are better looking, and ZOMG better at playing a video game than I am.

/rant :)

[Teh_Troll]

Depends on the game really. In competetive games that have professional players (like Starcraft) it's done this way.
In a PvE MMORPG - I don't know.

I fail to see a difference between PvP and PvE regarding this.

Could a 6 year old play one of those "Solo's EE Raids" toons and solo an EE raid? No.

Should said 6 year old's opinion on whether something is OP or not have any weight? No, it should not. They don't understand the mechanics well enough to know if something is broken or not.

And yes, I am comparing the opinions of bad players to those who can barely tie their own shoes.

If something is balanced so bad players can do well on something an ubber player will take said "balanced" thing and break the game.

[Teh_Troll]

The entire discussion of character balance is ridiculous. The only way to have real character balance is to have ONE character type, with exactly the same progression for everyone with the only variables being gear and player skill. And even if that happened after the first week there would be those crying about 'fairness' because some players had more time to get better gear and so they're now 'unbalanced' compared to those who work and don't have enough time to play.

People should just play what they want to play and not worry about what other people are doing and if it's 'fair' or not. Guess what, in real life everyone is not a winner. Everyone does not get a trophy. Life is not fair. There are people who make more money than me, have better behaved kids, are better looking, and ZOMG better at playing a video game than I am.

/rant :)


Wrong.

[Cardtrick]

And yes, I am comparing the opinions of bad players to those who can barely tie their own shoes.

You are my favorite poster.

[RapkintheRanger]

I'd like to assuage any fears that this post was in direct preparation for incoming nerfs.

(SNIP)

Balance is about making many different playstyles viable, so you (the players) feel like there are as many legitimate options as we can possibly give you.

(SNIP)

Melee in Epic Elite probably needs some help.

(SNIP)

Thanks again for a lot of great feedback! Happy for it to keep coming.

These are the four best things i have seen in this thread.
Thank you, although it was very stressful, it is appreciated.

[Seikojin]

I think what we have to do is really focus on what the current state of the game is and how balanced the current classes are and offer insight into that reasoned opinion.

To help focus, we would have to talk about the class, its enhancements, past lives, gear, and destinies. Then break each into single class and multiclass. maybe offer some suggestions in each to help.

Something like:
Artificer

~As a class - I feel the Artificer is a fairly versatile class. It has some melee capabilities (very few), and excels in ranged and has some unique spells. It is the second class with trapping, so offers some options for non-stealth rogue players. It is a fairly solo-friendly class in the following ways: trapping, self healing without losing any offensive forces, ranged combat as a main and decent damage spells and distractions (pet and turret). The only con is that it does not excel in any of these areas save xbow combat to really push for the class. So as a class, I don't see much need for change.

~~Enhancement tree: Arcnotechnician - http://ddowiki.com/page/Arcanotechnician_enhancements
This path has a lot of offerings to boost the spell power of the class. Some Sla's, interactive with pots, a few pet synergies, and a capstone that is useful for some items.

It however falls short on delivering much impact on those areas. I don't see the use at the high end heroics to spam pot slas. The boosts in spellpower are nice, but not enough to invest in them. The Sla's are the big draw for this tree.

Fix suggestions: Boost the spellpower options. Give 1.5 - 2 per point in the tree. For each core, add +1 crit chance in addition to the line. Perhaps the last 3 cores, since this would push the class as the main class.

For the capstone, the boosting to items is very tempting. However it should act like the item is in your spell arsenal and be affect able by other boosts (other dc boosting gear, etc). Or allow them to use metamagics at a greater consumption (dmg boosts use 3 charges per cast, all others use 2; stackable). Also the stat boost should be +4 and the spellcraft should be class level (so +20). As much of a draw, I still don't think it would make people break away from an MC just because of this. But it would be a very viable and tempting pure build.

~~Enhancement tree: Battle Engineer - http://ddowiki.com/page/Battle_Engineer_enhancements
This path really pushes for melee and xbow combat over spell use. There are inherent boosts to gear and weapons and plenty of runearm abilities.

However it does not offer much depth for melee. Like just about nothing save some boosting to the items enhancements and some hit and damage along the way to a very lackluster tier 5. This is more and more a runearm tree.

Fix suggestions: A lot is needed here. Offer martial proficiency, and maybe some runearm discharge procs on melee attacks. Like proc burst your runearm charges on vorpals. Also various boosts to melee should be possible. like sla prr boosts, dodge boosts, perhaps more twf and thf options (doublestrike, offhand, glancing blows), and in the core abilities maybe offer some as well. So deep delving into this tree can offer some comparable melee like tempest, or thf glancing fun. Also there is little in regards to spellpower. I think points in this tree should offer spellpower as well. Perhaps 1/per points spent in tree, leaving arcnotechnician still ahead in spellpower, but enough to where delving into both trees is useful (like the design seems to be so far). Also a runearm as shield enhancement is needed.

Also I saw nothing for the pet here. This tree should have significant pet options. Like runearm discharge through pet, boosts to the pet, and synergies from the pet to host, similar to the Arcnotechnician does.

The capstone needs significant boosting. +4 to stat, threat range increase by 1 or 2, increase the attachment enhancements by .5 (From all sources), in addition to the spellpower enhancements. This also should boost stable charging past 3, to allow the full charge on the runearm.

~~~Past life -
Passive/free: The ability to get +1 to int skills and UMD is really nice. However it would be nice if you could also boost items spells by caster levels as well. Like +1 per life.
Active/purchase: This one is pretty solid. Perhaps add all dischargeable items (unless helmets are considered a rod/staff/wand). Also the +1 enhancement should increase as you level. +1 every 5 levels.

~~~~Destinies - Artificers are the only class without a destiny class match. And as we look into the arcane and melee trees, this is what we see:
Arcane - All three offer spell casting prowess to the class. Nothing adds significant spellpower however, so no dps increases. Nothing synergistic.
Divine - Most of these are not useful to an artificer since they do nothing to really boost everything an arti does. However they offer splash healing if the Arti needs utility in that role. Divine crusader would help a melee arti if they went that way. Same with Unyielding Sentinal (before or after changes).
Martial - All three are useful to the melee portion of the class. Nothing synergistic though.
Primal - These are the best for the class; offering some spell and melee and ranged utility to the class. Little to no synergy.

The best suggestion for this would be to add some things for runearms, more for pets, or something for arties enhancements that allow pets to gain from destiny abilities.

~~~~~Gear -
Outside of the handful of repeating crossbows, nothing really stands out as best for an arti. There are a ton of different things you can utilize to boost your playstyle, but nothing to synergize with your pet really, and nothing to synergize your runearm.

The best here would be obvious; more pet helpful gear and more repeater options. Maybe runearm swords that take the runarm ability and make it a charge/block to discharge in melee.

[sirgog]

Turbine's bottom line and declining playerbase would disagree. EEs need to be friendly beyond the "uber elite" and a handful of build concepts, the difference between EH and EE alone breaks a large majority of builds to the point EE is a whole different ball game. (Yes, I regularly run EE, check Degenerate Matter's raid times if you want recent forum proof.) The epic difficulties need to consistently bump up from EN to EE in a believable curve, currently if EE is 10/10 difficulty EN and EH are around a 2 and a 4 respectively. There are bad players I agree, but balancing for a current minority, even one I believe I'm part of, is exactly what Turbine shouldn't be doing.

This is another different issue - the total lack of a difficulty setting designed for the large group of players (probably a majority at high level) that find EH far too easy and EE far too hard. This, in my experience, includes most PUG groups in non-raid content.

Not really related to this discussion but a real problem.

[Teh_Troll]

This is another different issue - the total lack of a difficulty setting designed for the large group of players (probably a majority at high level) that find EH far too easy and EE far too hard. This, in my experience, includes most PUG groups in non-raid content.

Not really related to this discussion but a real problem.

Agreed. it's been an issues since day 1 of MoTu that EH is too easy.

[Delacroix21]

Something I just noticed today is you never see rogues anymore. Maybe they need some love too, but I kinda feel they are preety balanced as is. Not sure why so few now.


Bards however are practically extinct and need major love. I would also say non-monk splashed druid animals are preety weak and have horrible DCs on their skills.

[axel15810]

Agreed. it's been an issues since day 1 of MoTu that EH is too easy.

I agree...I'd love to see an epic very hard. Something smack dab in the middle of EH and EE.

[MeliCat]

I'm talking about PLAYER skill level, not what EDs/builds etc . . . are involved.

Skill level needs to be taken out of the equation when balancing this stuff, that is done by balancing on what the upper echelon of players are capable of doing. This is why the opinions of bad PLAYERS shouldn't count for anything.

Do I need to state that in smaller words?

Agreed.

I keep hearing whinges about this thing or that thing hits to hard or the reflex save is too high or there is no save... and I think to myself... well.. could it be that you are actually meant to move out of the way? As in... this is a real time combat game?

On thing new starters can occasionally bring to this game is really good gaming skills - or they can be like me and barely WASD. People used to go on about about reflex saves required in the Crucible. MrCow's video on some divine showed me that he didn't save - because he didn't need to. Huge eye-opener. I haven't done fire peaks much yet... but again people talk about insanely high saves and I wonder if again it's more that smart play is required not just builds/gear.

In no way should we ever, ever, dumb down the game to cater for people who don't actually play the game for it's active combat. I get great satisfaction in knowing that my gaming reflexes are improving (I can survive half a battle from the Emissary now no perch point :D :D ). Why remove that particular interesting challenge to the game? It's really fun. Plenty enough content to avoid those sorts of challenges if you want to. There should be more of these types of challenges in game that make people cry a bit but force them to actually engage rather than just run past.

Builds/Gear though - for those people who spend the time/money/talent to acquire this build/gear it's only fair if it is balanced.

[Impaqt]

Agreed.

I keep hearing whinges about this thing or that thing hits to hard or the reflex save is too high or there is no save... and I think to myself... well.. could it be that you are actually meant to move out of the way? As in... this is a real time combat game?

On thing new starters can occasionally bring to this game is really good gaming skills - or they can be like me and barely WASD. People used to go on about about reflex saves required in the Crucible. MrCow's video on some divine showed me that he didn't save - because he didn't need to. Huge eye-opener. I haven't done fire peaks much yet... but again people talk about insanely high saves and I wonder if again it's more that smart play is required not just builds/gear.

In no way should we ever, ever, dumb down the game to cater for people who don't actually play the game for it's active combat. I get great satisfaction in knowing that my gaming reflexes are improving (I can survive half a battle from the Emissary now no perch point :D :D ). Why remove that particular interesting challenge to the game? It's really fun. Plenty enough content to avoid those sorts of challenges if you want to. There should be more of these types of challenges in game that make people cry a bit but force them to actually engage rather than just run past.

Builds/Gear though - for those people who spend the time/money/talent to acquire this build/gear it's only fair if it is balanced.

I'm just not a big fan of this concept and never have been.

DDO is a RPG. Role Playing Game. our characters get to do things we could never do.

no mechanic in ddo should ever completely rely on twitch skills.

the Crucible swim is a fantastic example of this.

Yes, if you are a great twitch gamer, you can swim around the spikes with the current.

but if your not, you can fall back on a high reflex evasion toon to get through it.

I love running the abbot.. and I'm proficient at all the games... but I understand why so many people avoid it.


twitch + lag = a whole lot of not fun.

[MeliCat]

It's not just twitch though. It's game knowledge and good old common sense.

And yes you have to factor in lag in some cases - occasionally to ones benefit.

This touches a lot on melees/availability of things like evasion and reflex. But upper level players are going to take advantge of whatever gear/builds are on offer so it's still dumbing down the game over all if you cater to those with low twitch. I still say leave it out. But I know from previous arguments and what you've said here you would factor it in. :)

[Eth]

I fail to see a difference between PvP and PvE regarding this.

Could a 6 year old play one of those "Solo's EE Raids" toons and solo an EE raid? No.

Should said 6 year old's opinion on whether something is OP or not have any weight? No, it should not. They don't understand the mechanics well enough to know if something is broken or not.

And yes, I am comparing the opinions of bad players to those who can barely tie their own shoes.

If something is balanced so bad players can do well on something an ubber player will take said "balanced" thing and break the game.

I don't disagree with you. But balance is just not of such importance in a PvE game than in a PvP game where lots of money is involved. Add the fact that this is a non-competative game.
Personally, of course I want the game balanced for EE players.

[Daze]

Balancing for EE doesn't mean every 6 yr old with a 1st life 28pt build in masterwork can handle it. It also doesn't mean the lesser difficulties get ignored.... They will just be that much easier for toons built for EE quests. More to the point, balancing is in regard to usefulness not sameness.

My opinion is to not change the challenges (or nerf anyone) but to change the underlying issues that prohibit build diversity ... IE making melee viable in EE. Whether that is through lesser mob damage/DC inflation or new and improved mitigation/avoidance or a mixture of those options for those getting up close and personal is a topic to be handled on the developer side of things. The viability of non-evasion toons is also a concern considering the prevalence of high damage avoidance requiring a reflex save. Modifications to armors based on type seems solid in theory.... on that note Mithral DOES need to be addressed as it is broken.

Yes melee need some work. There's a reason my 28 past life main character is a ranged toon despite the fact that I love to play melee. I've got tons of gear on that guy too so that isn't an issue. I have the skills to play EE and frequently do.... I'm no Cetus but I know when to run away with the best of them. Even then if I were alone I'd still say maybe you are right and melee don't need help I just need to learn. I am not alone however. Several of my friends with the same mindset and more skills and gear and lives have had similar problems. Last I checked even Cetus can't make a pure melee/fighter work in EE and that is just wrong.

ED's can be balanced just by being able to gain XP in an off destiny while in the main one (possibly at an XP loss) and karma going to a central pool instead of needing to grind out 6 million in a sphere. I've seen shiradi casters outkilled by magister toons and same goes for all offensive destinies. Have yet to see the usefulness of some considering the low DPS of sword and board and the lack of the need for a tank as well as the brokenness of bards..... but, baby steps. My biggest concern here is the inability to gain XP in an off destiny due to inability to finish quests in said destiny no matter what toon you are on ... caster/ranged/melee. So instead of changing around a bunch of destiny abilities for each type of player, change the mechanism with which players can garner epic past lives.

[BigErkyKid]

On character balance. I feel much has been said about epics and not much about heroics. People stay play heroics for a good number of hours; at least when they TR. Also, I don't think we should forget new players.

Alright, so a couple of anecdotes for illustration of the heroic experience.

1) Kiting being OP. Two melee characters running siegebreaker on elite, no hires. We are both similar builds, twf splashed for evasion and with 4 levels of cleric for some melee healing. I am a moderately experienced player (+10 past lifes, done end game on different classes, been playing for a few years) running a first life character (ranger, cleric, rogue) with some gear from my bank but nothing too crazy. My friend has been playing the game for +6 years, he is running on a multiple past lifes character with plenty of GS on him. In the end fight, he switches out of his GS to beat the droam cavarly and gets mobbed and killed. I then pull out my bow (silver bow, lvl6) with paralyzing arrows and kited the droams until they die.


2) Sorcs vs other classes. I recently leveled (twice) WF and BF sorcerers to epics. It was my first set of WF sorcs and even though I knew what to expect I was still surprised. In this case, I played them with ONLY random loot I gathered from questing. Early on (first life I started at 7 with vet2) I was a demi god in every quest and party. The first life was 18/2pally WF that run on pure sorc for a while. The second was a spam machine 14/4fvs/2 pally. The first was easier to play in heroics but of course the second was better for epics. In any case, I blasted my way through the quests in elite. Whenever I got hit, I had a quickened reconstruct ready so I didn't feel in danger very often. In fact I ended up being quite careless with aggro.


My experience with the current first life twf (the one from anecdote 1) is completely different from the sorc. Even though on ocasion I can pull an end fight kiting, I feel that the content on elite at level (or when I run it a bit underlevel) is challenging enough to keep my attention while fast running through the quests. In addition, I feel I rely a lot more on powerful items. Even though I have some decent bta loot, I often feel the need for GS and the rest of goodies.

I figured that perhaps little stories (no need to rant forever) of our experiences (not necessarily in uber geared builds) would be helpful for the developers to get a grasp of the current state of balance.

So, in this case. For moderately experienced players, after a few levels the sorcs are at a completely different level. That's my honest opinion. For new players or for people playing mostly heroics (I know a whole bunch of them. They feel you can be more creative in heroics and they also think epics lack in variety) I can see how this situation could be seen as unfair.

PS - After playing the sorc, I am not having that much fun in the twf life. First because of being spoiled for a few weeks playing a killing machine. Second because I am starting to feel that my build isn't going to cut it for the vale. This is purely because even with BTA items the amount of power I can reach is not enough to make a significant contribution to a regular party, let alone a party full of GS geared multi lifes. Given that the vast majority of lfms are on elite (it wouldn't be so bad on other difficulties) I feel I'll have to rely on guild members, people I know and the benevolence of the random player not to be mocked or kicked from groups for not being up to the level.

[Uska]

On character balance. I feel much has been said about epics and not much about heroics. People stay play heroics for a good number of hours; at least when they TR. Also, I don't think we should forget new players.

Alright, so a couple of anecdotes for illustration of the heroic experience.

1) Kiting being OP. Two melee characters running siegebreaker on elite, no hires. We are both similar builds, twf splashed for evasion and with 4 levels of cleric for some melee healing. I am a moderately experienced player (+10 past lifes, done end game on different classes, been playing for a few years) running a first life character (ranger, cleric, rogue) with some gear from my bank but nothing too crazy. My friend has been playing the game for +6 years, he is running on a multiple past lifes character with plenty of GS on him. In the end fight, he switches out of his GS to beat the droam cavarly and gets mobbed and killed. I then pull out my bow (silver bow, lvl6) with paralyzing arrows and kited the droams until they die.


2) Sorcs vs other classes. I recently leveled (twice) WF and BF sorcerers to epics. It was my first set of WF sorcs and even though I knew what to expect I was still surprised. In this case, I played them with ONLY random loot I gathered from questing. Early on (first life I started at 7 with vet2) I was a demi god in every quest and party. The first life was 18/2pally WF that run on pure sorc for a while. The second was a spam machine 14/4fvs/2 pally. The first was easier to play in heroics but of course the second was better for epics. In any case, I blasted my way through the quests in elite. Whenever I got hit, I had a quickened reconstruct ready so I didn't feel in danger very often. In fact I ended up being quite careless with aggro.


My experience with the current first life twf (the one from anecdote 1) is completely different from the sorc. Even though on ocasion I can pull an end fight kiting, I feel that the content on elite at level (or when I run it a bit underlevel) is challenging enough to keep my attention while fast running through the quests. In addition, I feel I rely a lot more on powerful items. Even though I have some decent bta loot, I often feel the need for GS and the rest of goodies.

I figured that perhaps little stories (no need to rant forever) of our experiences (not necessarily in uber geared builds) would be helpful for the developers to get a grasp of the current state of balance.

So, in this case. For moderately experienced players, after a few levels the sorcs are at a completely different level. That's my honest opinion. For new players or for people playing mostly heroics (I know a whole bunch of them. They feel you can be more creative in heroics and they also think epics lack in variety) I can see how this situation could be seen as unfair.

PS - After playing the sorc, I am not having that much fun in the twf life. First because of being spoiled for a few weeks playing a killing machine. Second because I am starting to feel that my build isn't going to cut it for the vale. This is purely because even with BTA items the amount of power I can reach is not enough to make a significant contribution to a regular party, let alone a party full of GS geared multi lifes. Given that the vast majority of lfms are on elite (it wouldn't be so bad on other difficulties) I feel I'll have to rely on guild members, people I know and the benevolence of the random player not to be mocked or kicked from groups for not being up to the level.


Heroics need to be left alone

[DrawingGuy]

I've created a smattering of threads (mainly in Lam) regarding my opinions here, but I will go ahead and lay it out:

Balance regarding Combat Types:
Ranged Combat: Ranged combat used to definitely be sub-par... I agreed that being at range with less risk justified a bit less damage, but it was far enough behind it needed help. Help came, but as Vargouille stated, it came with it's own problems. My suggestions for fixes:

- Fury of the Wild + Manyshot/10k: This needs to be nerfed. Adrenaline/Unbrideled Fury hit should apply ONLY to the first arrow. The combination of Adren + Slaying + IPS is already more powerful than what Melee can accomplish, but then to have it happen 4 times is far too over the top. *If* this is not a managable change, an alternative rein in would be to have it only apply to the first target it hits. The latter change would make it where ranged combat would still be the best DPS in the game despite it's safety with low play bar, but at least would stop one-shotting swaths of mobs even on EE.

- Doubleshot: This is actually a BUFF that I feel is needed. Currently Manyshot has a stupidly long doubleshot penalty, making doubleshot worthless and "monkcher" vastly superior DPS on top of superior survivability. Lower this debuff to 30-35s -- allow enough uptime to Doubleshot to have it high be viable against a Manyshot/10k build DPS wise. Though the Fury change would also be a step in that direction.

I'm not going to go into Shiradi and cross classing as I will cover that separately, but it really boils down to this: The buffs to ranged combat were GOOD, but the tie-in to current powerful cross-classing along with it's arrow pouring ability into Shiradi/Fury EDs pushed it a bit too far. Ranged Combat itself could even use a few more buffs (like my doubleshot change suggestion), but the tie-ins will need to be addressed.

Spellcasting: Spellcasting in D&D has always been very powerful. In PnP, it was kept in check with daily spell limits. DDO had the SP bar. However with more and more SP options via pots, clickies, items, enhancements and EDs, all along with much deeper SP pools, SP now is virtually unlimited. Add in Epic spells, ED spells, and the ability to stack multiple enhancement tree crit lines, gone are the days of trying to kill and CC cast when you can just run around with breath/energy burst/ruin/etc on cooldown with usually 1k+ SP left when you reach a shrine, or the ability to infinitely cast Shiradi missiles at targets relying on procs to stomp/cc targets. Personally I don't think the spellcasting DPS should be reeled in at all, but rather shaving off SP regain abilities. Basically allow casters to explode, but not be able to go full tilt unless they live off pots (because obviously that's $$$ for you guys).

There is, however, another point in that: DCs. Part of the reason of the rise of DPS casters over DC casters is the concept of "Difficulty = not allowing DCs to succeed". I've always found this to be frustrating. Make us work for it, but make it reliably acheivable in EEs. This can be approached by more strongly applying "role saves" to mobs (high Will/low Fort casters, high Ref/low will Roges/rangers, high Fort/low Ref melees), so DC players can play against content rather than flat all/or mainly nothing it currently is. SP and other active play options (such as mob buffs/debuffs) can keep DC casting in check rather than sky-high DCs.

Melee: Melee has always been my favorite compromise in D&D - Less DPS than casters, but without the limitations, and more DPS than Rangers, but able to take that hit. Unfortunately now it's the lowest DPS while still being the highest risk... unfornately that risk is placed in content where you have little way to mitigate that damage more than what rangers/casters already can do in cloth. So higher risk + less damage + ~same survivability = BAD. Melee has been regulated to

I don't really think melee needs a DPS increase since they'll be back above rangers with Fury/Shiradi tweaks, and their tactics would become much more viable with DC adjustments that would help DC casters, so the real issue comes in survivability, especially on EE. Currently the best way to reach that is the 6 Monk splash. You gain 6% dodge + Evasion + 25% incorp + WIS AC + Stances... all at the cost of getting hit for maybe 50 more damage of the still painful 500+ damage. But that should NOT be the only survival option (and one that I think should be nerfed, though will cover that in my cross-class section). So the key is to make melee ABLE TO SURVIVE HITS beyond just pouring all the HP you can and relying on a Cleric to keep you up. This mean making PRR and AC matter much more along with armor and especially shields making a bigger difference regarding it.

Now I realize that the Devs may be thinking that, "If a melee can just stand there and take it, won't that trivialize content?"... but in a game with roles, you might as well have that read as "We don't want melee tanks in EE content. Just stay at ranged and kite or fight on walls/torches." Allow us to play our roles.

This can be done by buffing PRR and AC. There will need some thought and balance around that, and did have a discussion here (of course filled with Teh_Troll's "nerf monks" that he posts in every thread)" https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/436705-Please-make-PRR-and-AC-more-useful


Balance regarding Classes
Pure Classes: Honestly until cross-classes are looked, I find it hard to make suggestions regarding pure classes. There are only three pure classes (imo) that are not better served by going cross class: Assassin Rogue, Palemaster Wizard, and Savant Sorc. The first two because any splash hurts DCs which they so desperately need, and Savant for Draconic nuker mode. Though still think Assassin Rogue DC items need help.

Cross Classes: This is the crux of the power climb, and in their attempt to keep it open, opened up a power grab that locked down build viability into a few options and a power gap so wide that it's impossible to build content around it. Pally splashes that allow for sky-high saves and STR. Monk splashes that give everyone the FULL survivability of a Monk. FvS splashes that give full crit lines, spell pens, SP gains. Etc. Massive amounts of power that only takes 4-5 levels to reach EVERYTHING other than cores on top of the usually front-loaded feats and abilities you get from taking the class. A compromise needs to be made - you shouldn't get 90% of your class in both abilities and enhancements from your first 6 levels allowing for builds to be essentially running at 270% power (I know that's projecting). Enhancement tiers NEED to be put further out of reach to open up more "comparatively viable" build options. It needs to be a give and take! You lose access to some tiers in one class to gain tiers in another. I'd say that they need to at least double the level steps in each PrE tree if not more. The power of both cores as well and enhancements need to be looked at to see if they should move up or down in a tree. Make it where people have to pick and choose, rather than the current game of gain everything with that bare splash.

Another point of splashing to look at is the Pally and the Monk splash. People being able to easily push on +20 to saves with a 2 pally splash makes it impossible to balance a fair monster DC cast without requiring that splash or making that splash god mode. Monk splash allowing for 20+ to AC along with 4% dodge just 2 levels (6% with 4) is also an issue. Spreading out Flurry dodge (possibly 1% every 4 levels along with the attack bonus to reach the 6% at level 20) would help that. And capping both Pally saves and Monk AC to their level (uncapped at 20) would go a long way to alleviating those easy power climbs as well. I realize this starts stepping away from PnP more, but it's difficult to balance around classes being different when everyone can get those advantages with that bare splash without requiring that splash, which is not something we want.


Balance regarding EDs
At this point everyone knows what the power EDs are. Legendary Dreadnaught and Fury of the Wild are straight massive power increases to melee and ranged. Shiradi and Draconic are massive power increases to ranged (shiradi at least) and casters. Divines can meh their way through Exalted Angel and tanks can sit in Unyielding Sentinel, but they are outdated icons that you might drag into a raid since 1-shotting mobs and self-healing is where the meta is currently at not needing those classes. Grandmaster of Flowers does well as a trash-killing ED for WIS builds, but really is being able to EIN every 5 minutes superior to doing 3-4x the damage to EVERYTHING including bosses that they can't save against?

So the question is, do you boost the other EDs to similar power levels or nerf the power houses? Well, to be blunt, either method would equate to the same result - buffing the others to meet would allow the power to climb to match making the power EDs less effective similarly to a nerf. You can follow the WoW belief that everyone likes bigger numbers and just power climb... however I believe it should be looked at giving massive buffs for utility so people go into EDs for purpose gains over DPS they can't just twist away like a DC or two.

Divine EDs: The changes to the Divine EDs are a good step with specializing them more giving more purpose to them (though they need a little more work, especially in regards to Epic Moments). I am looking forward to playing with them more, but am reserving from going into them in detail until after I (and the player base) have played in them for a while.

Draconic Incarnation: Your nuking powerhouse. The adjustment of cooldowns, SP cost, and damage done makes this a rather easy ED to shave or add power too. If anything, I'd say increase SP costs to help shave down the ED and help bring in the caster balance I spoke of.

Fatesinger: Fatesinger provides enough utility to bards that all three bards that play, play in that ED. It is also one of the few EDs that help almost any class in some way. The rarety of it's use is more due to the rarity of Bards rather than any problem with the ED. It's epic moment, however, needs some work. Allow the magic damage to hit red/purple names. Consider adjusting duration/cooldown to allow a bard that has MAXED out song duration (enhancement + ED + items) to keep this Epic Moment up 100%. It does take a song use, and bards need some love.

Magister: Alas, this is one of the two 'gutter' EDs IMO (Shadow is the other), offering little other than some twists. Caster levels mean little if your spells have caps. Sigils are not powerful enough to me to justify the SP cost or casting time. Many other abilities are underpowered. You might see a Wizard or an Arti hop in here for a few DC points and maxing out the INT line because they have nothing else to do... but this ED needs help.

Grandmaster of Flowers: GMoF is almost there - allow it to boost ALL monk abilities (ToD, finishing moves, Shintao moves, etc) rather than just tactics, and the utility gained could help draw all monks. Also, give Ubiquity an effect where you turn into a swirling cloud of Lotus Petals when you tumble (like Magister's cloud effect, but all flowery). That would probably gain more to the ED than anything else. :p

Legendary Dreadnaught: Another powerhouse ED. The entire tree is solid melee utility (though lame Momentum Swing and Lay Waste does not work with unarmed), so many melee users would be in this ED even without it over powering star: Master's Blitz. Cap your dodge and do 250% more damage permanently with a click of a button. Not really effective in boss raids, but a call that no other ED can compete with for melees (would say ranged as well, but Fury Adren's current mechanic makes Blitz pale) unless you're lacking trash to kill or have a party that won't work with you (or have to port in quest). Really, the big thing here I'd say is take off the dodge bonus. The killing power is more than enough without giving survival power too.

Shadow Dancer: In steps underpowered ED #2. Shadow Dancer is faced with half it's tree under a cumbersome Shadow Charge mechanic capped with utterly **** "Epic Moments". Shadow Charges should come with a kill period... No stupid precast. Add an ability for a user to cast and completely remove a target immunity to SA damage allowing Rogues to assassinate Undead/Constructs/100% fort mobs/etc, or to apply SA to bosses more reliably than on a vorpal (or to be able to twist it outside of the ED). The Dark Imbuement Epic Moment with requiring a 4 point investment to gain 2d6 damage (or ~3d6 at range) is just LOL. Here are EDs that allow me to gain hundreds to thousands of damage each hit permanently... and you give me 2d6 for 30s every 5 mins gained off a clunky system? Make ranged SA unlimited, both ranged and melee gaining Unholy damage with explosion chance, every attack a no save blind along with stripping Deathblock for the duration. It's only for 30s out of 5 mins, and even simplifying to on kill, 20 kills is still a tall order far surpassing clicking cleave, trip and sunder a few times before entering the quest.

Fury of the Wild: Overall I actually don't consider this ED overpowered... the issue arises in the fact that it applies to every arrow of a manyshot/10k. Make it apply to first arrow only.

Primal Avatar: This was broken back with Tree-Tarding and unlimited spirit... currently it is not a bad ED per se, but I do feel that there is not enough spirit gain for all of the spirit drains there are. I really do think this ED can afford to have 1 spirit 1 sec gain. Enough room to start playing with spirit without allowing permanency of anything but the small boosts.

Shiradi Champion: Ahh... the RNG ED that has caused so many tears. So many little triggers on a 7% chance, which you simply reach with overwhelming numbers of attacks. Shuricannons, Manyshotting, 10x missiles... they essentially reach guaranteed procs through volume. Of course then there is Queen with a mere 40DC where you can get luck and have a 50% or even 100% chance for all of those procs. The Devs stepped in with some enemy buff procs, which I actually think was the RIGHT direction - the problem was the procs chosen (and the fact they applied it to Colors of the Queen - Colors is a heavy grind that should NOT have enemy buff procs). Adren procs that punish the melees in your party instead of you since they're the ones taking the 1k+ hit (or 2k+ on non-tanks) and Radiant Forcefield that lowers your entire party's DPS for 22s. Better options would be Abundant Step so they can chase kiters better. Cast Spell Resistance. Temporary deflect arrows. Things that can give chaos to the Shiradi procs so it's not all-win by volume without punishing the whole party, but can still be dispelled (I carry dispelling arrow on my Ranger).


At this point I've written more than what's required on most High School papers, so hope this gives some seeds of discussion. :)

[TheDr0wRanger]

Because you wouldn't notice one way or the other.
Nobody Won't notice.
Failure to make the game fun for the majority, that is non-top players not the un-savable gimps, will result in mass exodus and a shutdown.

Who then will you troll?

[capsela]

Yes. I hate mobs. My computer hates mobs. I'd much rather struggle with one or two big, tough ogres than 20 skeletons bogging down everything. When they each have 1000's of HP, it becomes a gigantic chore to thin them down enough so the lag settles down.

I don't want to see EE be a joke, either, but I equally dislike the ivory tower that it is right now.

I can't imagine how difficult it is to create content that provides a challenge to the very best players that put a lot of time into the game, but still accessible enough to keep players with jobs and families from being completely excluded. My friends and I are pretty good players, but finishing an EE quest at level is such a challenge that I just feel disgruntled after the experience. It's fine if I die a couple times, but not being able to engage a boss because he'll demolish me in a couple hits just sucks. If named items and drop rates weren't so much better at EE, I would have no problem just leaving EE to the pros.

I don't have an archer or caster currently at epic levels, so this comes mainly from the perspective of a melee guy.

Leave that mean boss for the pro gamers. They will loot teh chest for you and sell you the loot for AS. You finance their gaming and are able to stay employed so you can pay to win, it's the cycle of life. And you don't have to bother with EE. TY monkchers for making life easier for everyone.

[Teh_Troll]

Who then will you troll?

As long as there are mammals I'll have somebody.

[Lonnbeimnech]

This is another different issue - the total lack of a difficulty setting designed for the large group of players (probably a majority at high level) that find EH far too easy and EE far too hard. This, in my experience, includes most PUG groups in non-raid content.

Not really related to this discussion but a real problem.

EH needs to go up a bit, give the 6 year olds a safe place to take the training wheels off.

If they did that they could leave EE alone.

[D-molisher]

Well i thouhgt i should add some flavor:

Paladins are in need off love, cause they are gimps.

Bards :
SOngs need longer durations.
Spellsingers well need better songs, higher lvl spells and some love.
Warchanters are okish exept song durations.

Most pureclasses need some love, exept monks and sorcs.

Cleric need some so they dont get agroed even piking doing nothing.
Probably who most dont play em much anymore.

Some off the content since eveningstar really broke encitament to grind most old gear.
Only reason i run most off that content are because i like the quest.

I would love to see some off the old content gear fixed, ill give an example ...
Titan raid, even if its a 3 man raid with 9 pikers ... if you bother to fill it at lvl.

Theres not really a balance in gear, do you even plan new stuff compaired to old content ??
ANd do some about the old races, the iconics sort off unbalanced stuff - up the old races to iconic races plz.

I could continue for hours, but unfortunately i have to go work.

I saw this, hes somewhat right in hes post:


Hello.

I don't know how the game is at the moment. What i can say is that i didn't like it when i tryed to play again ( i tryed again just at the realse of epic GH).

The game has a bad end game since the fist expansion, normaly every update they make, they destroy all the old content ... Look when i used to play before the first expansion pack , the end game bosses were : eChrono, eVoN6, eEDQ , eLoB, TOD, eMA, and you can also add Shorud, VoD and hox to this list . Not to mention the savarth quests and house p , d, k and e redfens quests, House C quests... i mean u had ALOT OF STUFF TO DO..... now u only have 2 raids... pfft ridiculous. The limited 13 hours intance for every quest was cool, made you enjoy alot more of the content of the game in order to farm more epic tokens , game is boring atm.

edit ps: Oh ya , forgot to mention that the new system sucks, epic hard is pathetic, you can solo quests with hire at hard dificulty, not many people goes for elite quests since its too hard for them , they prefer to do ez quests, so ridiculous... every team work u had to have in order to farm stuff was taken off the game, tanks are uselss, healers doesnt need to have any skills , casters /ranged are the only thing that works ok in EE.... so thats why the game sucks atm.

[RJBsComputer]

I feel that the "power creep" comes from the unintended combinations that multiclassing creates because all levels are treated "at total toon level" instead of the splashed level. This can be fix simple by adding the level of the class to saving throws or DC checks. Plus like everyone else is saying, pure classes need to be finer tuned to make going pure more appealing.

As for content being out of balance, that is a design problem of the devs trying to cater to one area of the player base. There will always be that 10% of players that is going to smash through everything and the 10% right behind them that will always be a few steps behind.. There is also going to be 10% of players that play once or twice a month and the 10% that plays once or twice a week.. Then there's the 60% of players that play pure class or plays around with multiclassing, but are just really happy to have good gear and a generalized toon that is more or less good enough to get through quest in a party setting. C - N - H - EC - EN - EH needs to be designed for the players that fall in that 60% area; with Elite and EE being design for the real hard core uber build min/max players.

[FlaviusMaximus]

Save the smaller words and patronizing tone, it isn't welcome or warranted.

Make an adjustment in your settings. I did a few months ago and it has made for an infinitely more enjoyable forum experience.

[Deathdefy]

Shadowdancer's "Move at normal speed when sneaking" is the single most enjoyable thing in the game for me. But, it's only for 30 or 20 seconds or something every 3 minutes, and you have to be in Shadowdancer.

Please either:
- Make it essentially permanent in Shadowdancer; that would be actually epic, even if it's a Tier 6 ability that means I can't get all the +Ints down the side.
- Make it a normal feat so sneaking about in heroics can be the joy it is in epics.
- Make it a level 26 or 28 feat.
- Make it a level 27 feat.
- Make it a Rogue capstone
- Make it a racial enhancement for Drow or Shadar-kai or some other gimp race like Half-Elves (maybe rogue dilettante half-elves to make that choice more viable compared with halfling)
- Put it on an item

Just get it in in there in more ways so the uptime can be greater than 1/6th.

[TheDr0wRanger]

Chiming in to emphasize here, I said I want to restrain Sorc power, this will give my main a challenge and allow balancing the game for a more normalized set of damage numbers. But if that is done, you absolutely must add a utilitarian caster tree for Sorcs, and/or revamp Draconic Incarnation to suit a the less insane effect of Sorcs. Most flesh sorcs I know survive by killing everything else first, if that isn't to be done we need alternatives.

[MangLord]

Leave that mean boss for the pro gamers. They will loot teh chest for you and sell you the loot for AS. You finance their gaming and are able to stay employed so you can pay to win, it's the cycle of life. And you don't have to bother with EE. TY monkchers for making life easier for everyone.

Congrats. You're the reason why the game is broken.

My week's observations, with this thread in mind.

I'm currently leveling a 2nd life (ranger past life) pure elf AA ranger with the intention to replace my gimpy lvl 26 pure artificer and lvl 28 dwarven tempest. I'm level 17 at the moment, and paralyzing arrows keep the class on par with a pure dwarf shintao monk and pure drow pale master in terms of efficiency and survivability. My pure shintao monk could effortlessly stun, jade strike and quivering palm the forward assault of a mob and healing strike himself through the rest without much trouble, and my CC wizard can throw down webs, dancing balls and fire walls to equal effect. Nerfing the arrow DCs will relegate the class back to the scrap heap. I would gladly spend another 6 ap to boost my arrow DCs to work 50% of the time at epic levels. Now that paralysis doesn't work on undead and elementals, some quests are much harder than others depending on what I'm facing. I like it, and I feel it's balanced with other great classes. Pale Master is terrific 90% of the time, but they're terrible with a few quests Lets face it, monks are well suited to 99% of the game content.

If you nerf pin and whistler, I will have nothing to work with in shiradi, as a pure ranger build. Every quest degrades into kitefest 2014, like it did pre-update (except slayer arrows are no longer passive and fail to register if I'm not standing still). If the mobs shrug off my clickies, I don't have the HP to sustain the incoming damage. I like shiradi as a ranger. It shifts my role from heroic level burst DPS to reliable epic level crowd control, and I'm ok with that. Furyshot is cool for soloing EH and some easier EE content, but I still prefer the tactical choices I have to make in shiradi. You can be a real asset as a ranger, if you're aware of enemy movement and positioning. I can get half a mob moving in slow motion or dancing while the DPS deals with the rest. Do not nerf shiradi for archers. If you plan on making a DC caster viable, then I'm all for shiradi abilities nonfunctional with spells. I'm also ok with making Fury adrenaline melee only, since shiradi has a lot to offer for tactical players. This is assuming you don't zerg, and I don't have much sympathy for displaced people jumping over enemies to get to the end fight.

Long story short, if you nerf ranger, a pure build will die horribly in higher level EH content. Low HP + burst DPS - CC = death

The one drawback I'm noticing is that after a manyshot burst, the doubleshot penalty is crippling. If I'm concerned at level 17, I'm going to be in huge trouble at epic. The solution is to just go afk while I'm waiting for the penalty to wear off. I'm going to play a pure class regardless, but in order to make it a viable option, you really need to make the AA capstone more attractive than switching to 10k stars when manyshot is cooling down. Halve the archery cooldowns, boost the doubleshot chance to 40% or add +6 or better dex bonus will make a pure elf AA build look ok for end game.

[BigErkyKid]

1. Problem: enhancements do not scale well.

Solution: make them scale with level.

A 1-3d6 guard is nothing even by the end of heroics, +10PRR does not mean that much, etc. I think it would be nice if you had a good bunch of the abilities that scaled with level to keep them as viable options. Otherwise, I feel that, for some builds, at higher levels I am only pushing a handful of keys and many of the interesting options that I had in lower level heroics are gone


2. Invis running quests breaks balance in favor of high power / low sustainability against longer but lower power.

Solution: Allow to avoid some fights, but only with SERIOUS stealth abilities.

Another issue, brought up by the previous post, is that it is common place to invis run a large chunk of a lot of quests. I think this affects balance as well. For instance, take the obvious case of a caster. If he had to kill a large fraction of the mobs, he would deplete his SP so the difficulty of the quest would be higher. A large mana pool seems reasonable if I have to fight my way through a dungeon. However, if I can invis run it, I find that I have plenty of SP to blast away in a few fights and become OP compared to other classes. I am aware that other classes can do the same, but it is clear that some classes are balanced through larger BUT limited power (caster vs fighter, for instance).


PS - Do not leave heroics alone! Just because they have been partially trivialized for veterans it does NOT mean that it is OK to have blatant disparities in power. What about new players? What about those who ONLY play heroics?


I feel this post from the random dungeons thread is also relevant to this discussion. Part of the reason balance is broken is through this fight avoidance strategies and knowing very well quests.


What kills part of the fun in DDO, for me, is that every quest is taking part in a many times rehearsed play. Except in some fights / unavoidable traps, I can go through a quest with a class not really well prepared to beat it because I know what to do.

Random dungeons can break that feeling and provide fresh challenges every time. Will it be a CC intensive quest or one with very few but strong mobs? Is it going to be filled with beholders or with trolls? Can I run through 99% of it and fight the end mob or do I need to go painfully room by room?

These kind of questions bring back the need for a balanced group, increase the joy of surprise and generally provide some fresh air to a game that feels like living in a nuclear submarine in the 60s.

[pHo3nix]

2. [B]Invis running quests breaks balance in favor of high power / low sustainability against longer but lower power.

Solution: Allow to avoid some fights, but only with SERIOUS stealth abilities.

Another issue, brought up by the previous post, is that it is common place to invis run a large chunk of a lot of quests. I think this affects balance as well. For instance, take the obvious case of a caster. If he had to kill a large fraction of the mobs, he would deplete his SP so the difficulty of the quest would be higher. A large mana pool seems reasonable if I have to fight my way through a dungeon. However, if I can invis run it, I find that I have plenty of SP to blast away in a few fights and become OP compared to other classes. I am aware that other classes can do the same, but it is clear that some classes are balanced through larger BUT limited power (caster vs fighter, for instance).




What would the mean of invisibility be then? Could as well remove the spell from the game.

Choices are good, forcing people to run in a certain way is bad.

People are running invis through quests? Why? Cause killing mobs is useless.

Give people a reason to kill mobs and people will kill mobs. But please, do not force us with barriers and locked doors until X mobs are dead in every quest, that's boring and it doesn't make sense most of the time.

If there was a big enough incentive to kill mobs people could choose: run invis and complete faster or kill mobs and get whatever benefit you get from the onslaught?

[knockcocker]

What would the mean of invisibility be then? Could as well remove the spell from the game.

Choices are good, forcing people to run in a certain way is bad.

People are running invis through quests? Why? Cause killing mobs is useless.

Give people a reason to kill mobs and people will kill mobs. But please, do not force us with barriers and locked doors until X mobs are dead in every quest, that's boring and it doesn't make sense most of the time.

If there was a big enough incentive to kill mobs people could choose: run invis and complete faster or kill mobs and get whatever benefit you get from the onslaught?

Hear, Hear.

It seems monumentally dumb to me to try and railroad players into doing things a certain way. It
seems a lot of the suggestions in this thread, if implemented, will just result in the game becoming
more tedious than enjoyable. You have to look at why things are done - as already pointed out
efficiency is king. Are people really going to enjoy beating down trash HP until their weapons
break because stealth/invis is not an option? Sounds terrible to me...

[capsela]

That said, there is no reason why my ranger should be able to do 100,000dmg in a one second window [Build a 30% Archer's Focus, Adrenaline, 30% Damage Boost, Manyshot, Arrow of Slaying, Adrenaline, Called Shot].


LOL. Rogue gets 25% doublestrike as a tier 2 ability, Fighter gets it as a tier 5.

[Mryal]

Heres my feedback.

Things that need to go away :
1 - Shield requirements on defender enhancements
2 - Limitation on rainbow/double rainbow procs(peraphs 2-3 per second/spell)
3 - Fixing Fury so it works as per description
4 - AC.Lets face it, it has been reworked many times, but once again, if you play on the highest difficulty of the game it does not work.
We have other 'new' mechanics called dodge/PRR.Split the AC bonuses between those two and up the dodge cap for all characters.

Things that need to come :
1 - SLA's for bards
2 - Rework of ALL paladin enhancement trees, with more emphasis on actualy having levels on the class.
3 - Rework in the paladin class mechanics : Remove charges on smithe, limited now only by cooldown.Add more charges to LOH and move the 90 seconds regeneration time from smithe to LOH.
4 - NO nerfs to monks at all.Instead, better capstones for all classes.

[BigErkyKid]

Hear, Hear.

It seems monumentally dumb to me to try and railroad players into doing things a certain way. It
seems a lot of the suggestions in this thread, if implemented, will just result in the game becoming
more tedious than enjoyable. You have to look at why things are done - as already pointed out
efficiency is king. Are people really going to enjoy beating down trash HP until their weapons
break because stealth/invis is not an option? Sounds terrible to me...

Then why are the mobs in the quest to start with?

In any case, this is a matter of balance. I brought it up for balance reasons, not to encourage the devs to force you to kill all the mobs and what not. But of course, people fear it because lets face it some quests, specially in end game, are BORING! It just takes long to beat some mobs without it being that challenging or fun, hence people run through them.

In doing so, though, the balance is broken. That´s my claim.

Now I also want to point out that a lot of people come to this thread fearing the fixes. I don't think they trust devs to do a good job balancing and they think they will just end up worse off than now. They have figured out the way to deal with current "mistakes", now it would be painful to have to figure out the next set. A prime example is this invis running through quests. It is just a way to speed up parts of the quest that aren't fun (granted even if they were fun, people would often choose to skip them for the sake of fast running a quest). So what are the odds that the game designers rework a whole lot of quests so that you CANNOT invis run them and they become more fun?

While I understand that, I also think that balance is heavily affected by these "exploits" and that long term the game should try to fix them. Even if it means more less fun for a bit.

PS - Also, how are the devs going to catter to our taste in quests if they think they are doing fine and it s just that we are avoiding large chunks of the quest?

[pHo3nix]

Then why are the mobs in the quest to start with?

In any case, this is a matter of balance. I brought it up for balance reasons, not to encourage the devs to force you to kill all the mobs and what not. But of course, people fear it because lets face it some quests, specially in end game, are BORING! It just takes long to beat some mobs without it being that challenging or fun, hence people run through them.

In doing so, though, the balance is broken. That´s my claim.

Now I also want to point out that a lot of people come to this thread fearing the fixes. I don't think they trust devs to do a good job balancing and they think they will just end up worse off than now. They have figured out the way to deal with current "mistakes", now it would be painful to have to figure out the next set. A prime example is this invis running through quests. It is just a way to speed up parts of the quest that aren't fun (granted even if they were fun, people would often choose to skip them for the sake of fast running a quest). So what are the odds that the game designers rework a whole lot of quests so that you CANNOT invis run them and they become more fun?

While I understand that, I also think that balance is heavily affected by these "exploits" and that long term the game should try to fix them. Even if it means more less fun for a bit.

PS - Also, how are the devs going to catter to our taste in quests if they think they are doing fine and it s just that we are avoiding large chunks of the quest?

You seem to be new here, so you might have missed past experiences with turbine "fixes". People do not fear fixes, people fear the "nuking from orbit" approach that turbine usually has with fixes.

The fact that Varg is asking for advices is great, hopefully he will try to follow the wise advices ;)

[Qhualor]

What would the mean of invisibility be then? Could as well remove the spell from the game.

Choices are good, forcing people to run in a certain way is bad.

People are running invis through quests? Why? Cause killing mobs is useless.

Give people a reason to kill mobs and people will kill mobs. But please, do not force us with barriers and locked doors until X mobs are dead in every quest, that's boring and it doesn't make sense most of the time.

If there was a big enough incentive to kill mobs people could choose: run invis and complete faster or kill mobs and get whatever benefit you get from the onslaught?

Let's not kid ourselves. Players invis/zerg for the xp/min and because some quests are designed easy enough to do it for fast and easy completion. Some of the same players that do this cheese tactic are also the ones that can nuke whole rooms just fine.

[HatsuharuZ]

Perhaps a nerf to manyshot is in order? Either make it work like Thousand Stars and remove the doubleshot penalty *when manyshot is not active*, or add a to-hit penalty that increases with BAB and remove the doubleshot pentalty *when manyshot is not active*.

[BigErkyKid]

You seem to be new here, so you might have missed past experiences with turbine "fixes". People do not fear fixes, people fear the "nuking from orbit" approach that turbine usually has with fixes.

The fact that Varg is asking for advices is great, hopefully he will try to follow the wise advices ;)


So in other words, people fear fixes. (Not new to the game). Now I see a lot of defensive stands here. Some people thinking mhm mhm if they nerf my shiradi spam machine what sort of sorcerer will I be able to play end game? mhmm if they nerf kiting how on earth will I be able to take +300HP per hit from those HP bags? And then getting very aggressive at anything that touches that.

It appears to me that there is a lot of private calculation and a complete lack of trust that the development team will implement comprehensive changes, rather than just smacking this one thing you are using and leaving the rest ready to eat you on the way down.

To a certain extend, experience and the fact that they tend to ask for very narrow suggestions at a time seems to indicate it, but I don't think that long term it does any favor to the goal of having a better game.

[Ancient]

So in other words, people fear fixes. (Not new to the game). Now I see a lot of defensive stands here. Some people thinking mhm mhm if they nerf my shiradi spam machine what sort of sorcerer will I be able to play end game? mhmm if they nerf kiting how on earth will I be able to take +300HP per hit from those HP bags? And then getting very aggressive at anything that touches that.

It appears to me that there is a lot of private calculation and a complete lack of trust that the development team will implement comprehensive changes, rather than just smacking this one thing you are using and leaving the rest ready to eat you on the way down.

To a certain extend, experience and the fact that they tend to ask for very narrow suggestions at a time seems to indicate it, but I don't think that long term it does any favor to the goal of having a better game.

Some Men Just Want to Watch the World Burn

[Icywave]

This is another different issue - the total lack of a difficulty setting designed for the large group of players (probably a majority at high level) that find EH far too easy and EE far too hard. This, in my experience, includes most PUG groups in non-raid content.

Not really related to this discussion but a real problem.


It is true that the scaling between those 2 difficulties is a big jump.

[pHo3nix]

Let's not kid ourselves. Players invis/zerg for the xp/min and because some quests are designed easy enough to do it for fast and easy completion. Some of the same players that do this cheese tactic are also the ones that can nuke whole rooms just fine.

Nuking whole rooms takes more time than running past while invis. If nuking whole rooms granted something people would have to choose between getting what kills grant or a faster completion; as it currently stands killing unnecessary mobs to quest completion just increase the time you spend in the quest and grants nothing.

@Big: again, people do not fear fixes in general, they fear turbine nerf hammer, cause when it falls ,almost nothing survives the nerf.

[Icywave]

Nuking whole rooms takes more time than running past while invis. If nuking whole rooms granted something people would have to choose between getting what kills grant or a faster completion; as it currently stands killing unnecessary mobs to quest completion just increase the time you spend in the quest and grants nothing.

@Big: again, people do not fear fixes in general, they fear turbine nerf hammer, cause when it falls ,almost nothing survives the nerf.

Monsters should give xp....not just named ones. I know, what a concept :)

[BigErkyKid]

Nuking whole rooms takes more time than running past while invis. If nuking whole rooms granted something people would have to choose between getting what kills grant or a faster completion; as it currently stands killing unnecessary mobs to quest completion just increase the time you spend in the quest and grants nothing.

@Big: again, people do not fear fixes in general, they fear turbine nerf hammer, cause when it falls ,almost nothing survives the nerf.


OK. So, as an economist, I believe in incentives. Killing the mobs should be rewarded sufficiently AND since we are not coming to play a korean grinder, it should be enjoyable (just locking the doors won't do the trick!).

So, repetitive sequences of rooms with similar mobs doing the same thing: not fun.

But do we agree that invis running does indeed break the balance between builds that have limited but very powerful resources and those who are good at keeping moderate among of power over time?

[pHo3nix]

Monsters should give xp....not just named ones. I know, what a concept :)

Aye, worthwhile xp or something like the old epics scroll system, which while not perfect, at least give incentives to kill mobs.


OK. So, as an economist, I believe in incentives. Killing the mobs should be rewarded sufficiently AND since we are not coming to play a korean grinder, it should be enjoyable (just locking the doors won't do the trick!).

So, repetitive sequences of rooms with similar mobs doing the same thing: not fun.

But do we agree that invis running does indeed break the balance between builds that have limited but very powerful resources and those who are good at keeping moderate among of power over time?

In which of these 2 categories do good EE melee and/or ranged builds fall in your opinion? Cause monkchers or blitzers could clear rooms almost as fast as casters and they are even better in long bosses fights. I do not think there's a balance issue with invis running.

[BOgre]

Monsters should give xp....not just named ones. I know, what a concept :)

They do.

[jskinner937]

OK!

My apologies: I still don't have an extremely substantial post to give right at this moment, because my brain is melting, but I've caught up on every post in this thread so far!

You guys have a lot to say. Also, you don't need to repeat yourself in the hopes that we'll see it. Because I'm reading every single post. (I will neither confirm nor deny some amount of so-called "skimming" that may occur when I see a specific poster making a post that starts off sounding very similar to other posts by that poster).

Next steps: Soon(tm), I'm going to try to summarize what I feel you guys have said (from my nine pages of notes... luckily I could just add "+1" to many of the thoughts after one or two dozen pages). This serves multiple purposes, including sorting the information out in my own head, telling you guys where we are all collectively at, and sending around to the rest of the DDO development team for those who are not so crazy as to try to read this entire thread. (I'll do my best to give some amount of developer comments as well, but the bulk of that might need to follow later.)

There were some great individual posts (and some of my 'quick' notes are, "Go back and read this guy's post again for some good thoughts"), and lots of good stuff to hear from everyone. There were some clear patterns, many of which helped reinforce what we already thought was going on (but it's extremely helpful to us to hear it from you!), and some occasional surprises. There were a few ideas I personally hadn't seen before that were Quite Interesting and could end up making it into DDO.

I'd like to thank those who filled out surveys, as well, which you are welcome to still do for another couple of days (at which point we'll probably try to aggregate the data we have, so after that it won't be as useful). We know the survey wasn't perfect, and also not extensive -- not being overly extensive was by design, as we don't want to waste your time, nor ours. For instance, we knowingly left out Races, for time the being, and didn't want the survey to get into individual abilities yet -- we selfishly like having you guys come up with the list of abilities that deserve more attention (for good or ill) rather than us focusing the discussion on the ones we pick. The broad view is what we wanted, and what we got!

None of the reactions to this are necessarily going to be imminent. I'd like to assuage any fears that this post was in direct preparation for incoming nerfs. The previously discussed upcoming patch certainly won't, and the next update may or may not have any significant changes based on this discussion (much of this is based on time and doing it right). However, there's some obvious takeaways from both this and No-Dice's Monster Stat thread that should help us direct new content to a better place.

There was one item that came up a few times that makes it clear some players have the wrong idea: Balance is definitely not about making many different play styles (or classes, or EDs, etc.) play the same. Balance is about making many different playstyles viable, so you (the players) feel like there are as many legitimate options as we can possibly give you. The greatest concern we have, and a major driver of discussing this right now, is the worry that there are not as many legitimate playstyles as we could be giving you.

The single laser-focused item for a preview of the summary of the thread: Melee in Epic Elite probably needs some help. There's many possible ways to come at this problem, while trying to address other issues as well. Identifying problems now, solutions later!

Thanks again for a lot of great feedback! Happy for it to keep coming.

I agree with the melee being behind, but as many have posted in this thread, pure class is way behind the power curve of multi-class, especially melee, but not limited to. Pure rangers suck to multi-class for example, pure paladins, pure bards, pure fighters, pure barbarians, even pure monks. Make it worthwhile to go pure again.

[D-molisher]

So in other words, people fear fixes. (Not new to the game). Now I see a lot of defensive stands here. Some people thinking mhm mhm if they nerf my shiradi spam machine what sort of sorcerer will I be able to play end game? mhmm if they nerf kiting how on earth will I be able to take +300HP per hit from those HP bags? And then getting very aggressive at anything that touches that.

It appears to me that there is a lot of private calculation and a complete lack of trust that the development team will implement comprehensive changes, rather than just smacking this one thing you are using and leaving the rest ready to eat you on the way down.

To a certain extend, experience and the fact that they tend to ask for very narrow suggestions at a time seems to indicate it, but I don't think that long term it does any favor to the goal of having a better game.

You are talking about Turbine (TM)
There have been enormous nerfs all the years i have been here, so i see a valid reason for most peoples doubts -> including mine.

Like the bard nerf that made amrath bard proof, havent bothered doing amrath since -> exept a few times when friends / guild ask for hlp flagging for TOD.
But with new items ( raid loot inbalance ) noone cares for TOD anyway.

P.S:
Probably why i didnt bother with the stupid survey, that doesnt add enuff choice / questions.

[knockcocker]

Then why are the mobs in the quest to start with?

Why have the spell Invisibility in the game?



In any case, this is a matter of balance. I brought it up for balance reasons, not to encourage the devs to force you to kill all the mobs and what not. But of course, people fear it because lets face it some quests, specially in end game, are BORING! It just takes long to beat some mobs without it being that challenging or fun, hence people run through them.


At the moment you can stealth/invis past or fight. You seem to want to reduce that to just fight - even using
the term exploit. There are already too many places in the game where you must kill mobs in order for doors
to open (e.g. Let Sleeping Dust Lie - rats ffs).



In doing so, though, the balance is broken. That´s my claim.


How so?



Now I also want to point out that a lot of people come to this thread fearing the fixes. I don't think they trust devs to do a good job balancing and they think they will just end up worse off than now. They have figured out the way to deal with current "mistakes", now it would be painful to have to figure out the next set. A prime example is this invis running through quests. It is just a way to speed up parts of the quest that aren't fun (granted even if they were fun, people would often choose to skip them for the sake of fast running a quest). So what are the odds that the game designers rework a whole lot of quests so that you CANNOT invis run them and they become more fun?


If you don't want to invis past mobs then don't. Why does it bother you so much that if people choose to
do so they can? At least now you have a choice - except where it's required or mobs have see invis.

I'm sorry but all your posts are heavily coloured with how you play and therefore how you think everyone
else should play. Why?





While I understand that, I also think that balance is heavily affected by these "exploits" and that long term the game should try to fix them. Even if it means more less fun for a bit.

PS - Also, how are the devs going to catter to our taste in quests if they think they are doing fine and it s just that we are avoiding large chunks of the quest?

Sorry, 'fix' what now?

You just seem to want to fit everything to how you think the game should be. If you don't want to 'exploit' using invis.
then don't. What's wrong with letting the players choose to do what they enjoy most?

[Alfhild]

So in other words, people fear fixes.
People are afraid that Turbine will fix this current issue the way they handled previous issues. People are afraid that player balance will be Ghostbaned(TM). Varg's and Cord's subsequent comments on this thread are meant to alleviate that concern, but that does not mean that concern is still not on people's minds.

[BigErkyKid]

In which of these 2 categories do good EE melee and/or ranged builds fall in your opinion? Cause monkchers or blitzers could clear rooms almost as fast as casters and they are even better in long bosses fights. I do not think there's a balance issue with invis running.


Well, I am working under the assumption that ranged builds are not WAI right now. Otherwise, they clearly out DPS everything from range and end of it. I have yet to see a build being able to compete with the best monkchers out there in any dimension (do correct me if you can see anything better, unfortunately I haven't). For melees, I think it is far less frequent to fine very good melee builds so it doesn't bother me much.

The way it seems turbine wanted the game to work was that casters have more power than others but with limited resources. Hence my comment.

On people saying let others play the way they want, etc. I don't know what to tell you. You like the game a given way and I respect that. But I think that forcing people to either invis run stuff (with the imbalance that brings, as I see it and have already explained) or fall behind with those who do (they get cooler stuff quicker, etc.) is not what will make for the best game. Note that I don't think that a lot of the fights (required or not) in the quests are interesting (I am a bit tired of repeating myself, my views on that are in the last few posts).

[BigErkyKid]

People are afraid that Turbine will fix this current issue the way they handled previous issues. People are afraid that player balance will be Ghostbaned(TM). Varg's and Cord's subsequent comments on this thread are meant to alleviate that concern, but that does not mean that concern is still not on people's minds.

I am with you guys. I am afraid too. But this thread is about balance and I try to give an objective (yeah, yeah...) perspective to the issues we discuss. Whether they will just burn and not add that's a concern for Varg to address, not me!

[Ancient]

On people saying let others play the way they want, etc. I don't know what to tell you. You like the game a given way and I respect that. But I think that forcing people to either invis run stuff (with the imbalance that brings, as I see it and have already explained) or fall behind with those who do (they get cooler stuff quicker, etc.) is not what will make for the best game. Note that I don't think that a lot of the fights (required or not) in the quests are interesting (I am a bit tired of repeating myself, my views on that are in the last few posts).
"They get cooler stuff quicker" is not a good reason to nerf, it is simply jealousy. Even if everyone had the same build and there was only 2 buttons, jump and attack... there would still be elite players, and those elite players would still get their shinies quicker.

You base your views on heavy handed assumptions, assume anyone who disagrees with you has bad motives and use jealousy of others as your impact to your arguments even when attempting to defend that you are not.

I like DDO for the flexible and complex builds. I also like the quests with different ways to run them. Taking that out wouldn't be a fix... it would simply remove the fun. And if a game is not fun...

[Qhualor]

Nuking whole rooms takes more time than running past while invis. If nuking whole rooms granted something people would have to choose between getting what kills grant or a faster completion; as it currently stands killing unnecessary mobs to quest completion just increase the time you spend in the quest and grants nothing.

You just agreed with me on xp/min.

Nuking whole rooms killing mobs does give you something.. xp. Its just takes too long for the zergers.

[BigErkyKid]

"They get cooler stuff quicker" is not a good reason to nerf, it is simply jealousy. Even if everyone had the same build and there was only 2 buttons, jump and attack... there would still be elite players, and those elite players would still get their shinies quicker.

You base your views on heavy handed assumptions, assume anyone who disagrees with you has bad motives and use jealousy of others as your impact to your arguments even when attempting to defend that you are not.

I like DDO for the flexible and complex builds. I also like the quests with different ways to run them. Taking that out wouldn't be a fix... it would simply remove the fun. And if a game is not fun...

Alright, let's go back to what I said.

I said invis running creates an issue of balance. I was asked why. I explained it.

Should invis run and power runs be allowed by the game design? This is a thread about balance. If the game is designed so that it does not create issues across builds / classes / whatever, I have nothing to say in terms of balance. I hope I settled it before I am characterized again as a green envious monster.

[Thayion516]

I think Melees should get more Helpless/Knockdown abilities. This would be an easy change and would let Melee add more to the bottom line of combat.

We all know that Overwhelming Force, Pin/Whistler are Awesome abilities as they DIRECTLY effect the tide and pace of combat (mentioning Nerve Venom here also as it is extremely useful but does not make helpless). They directly bring CC abilities to the fight and prove extremely useful for overcoming the HPs of EE creatures with the Helpless tag. Helpless helps the entire party to accomplish the goal of killing difficult mobs.

One thing about Overwhelming Force is it is a T4 ability that rely's on a previous tiered ability and therefore not twistable, you MUST be in FotW tree to get it, and have to have already filled most of the tree. OF is located about right for its power level. A No-Save CC Helpless effect with a minimum of 15 points to fully use it. Very Nice for a Melee.

DO THIS MORE and adjust the action UP on the tree so that it is not twistable for overpowering twists. And make them more landable.

Example.
Lay Waste T3 LD Destiny. (Cooldown 1 min) Perform an Area of Effect attack with +5[W] damage and +1 critical damage multiplier. On Hit Knocks the target down, Balance DC (10 + Character Level + Strength Modifier) Negates. Momentum Swing has a 25% chance to reset the cooldown of this ability (this cannot occur more than once every 3 seconds). You must have Stance: Power Attack active to perform this ability.

Change To,

Lay Waste T5 LD Destiny. (Cooldown 1 min) Perform an Area of Effect attack with +5[W] damage and +1 critical damage multiplier. On Hit Knocks the target down for 3/6/9 seconds, Balance DC (10 + Character Level + Strength Modifier + Trip Item Modifier + Misc Modifier) Negates. Knocked Down targets under Momentum Swing are considered Helpless. Momentum Swing has a 25% chance to reset the cooldown of this ability (this cannot occur more than once every 5 seconds). You must have Stance: Power Attack active to perform this ability.

Brings immediate CC and usefulness to the Melee that are in LD. Adds to party survivability as well as the survivability of individual characters as they are meleeing in the heat of battle.

Another Example:

Hardened: T5 US Destiny. Passive Bonus: +[3/6/10] AC. ... Honestly this ability is **** for a T5. An Absolute No-Go.

Change to,

Shield Crush: T5 US Destiny. Passive Ability. Any time you Attack with a shield attack. You have a 20% chance to knock an opponent down for 3/6/9 seconds. This knockdown causes a Helpless state. On a Shield Crush attack that produces a critical hit, that attack will do +5(W) damage instead.

Thats the kind of ability I want to see from a brutal shield bash! Helps shield using Melees to do what they want to do. Use a shield for Defense and Offense. They could use that ability to slow down the tide of battle by focusing on 2 or 3 mobs to CC them semi effectively and helps the DPS of the group.

SMALL TWEEKS, not big moves, is what will balance this game. Change 1 or 2 abilities here or there, NOT reworking the whole system. Make Melee abilities relevant to combat and we will be happy.


Remember TWEEKS.. NOT BOMBS.

[Grimlock]

"They get cooler stuff quicker" is not a good reason to nerf, it is simply jealousy.

You base your views on heavy handed assumptions, assume anyone who disagrees with you has bad motives and use jealousy of others as your impact to your arguments even when attempting to defend that you are not.

This.

[pHo3nix]

Well, I am working under the assumption that ranged builds are not WAI right now. Otherwise, they clearly out DPS everything from range and end of it. I have yet to see a build being able to compete with the best monkchers out there in any dimension (do correct me if you can see anything better, unfortunately I haven't). For melees, I think it is far less frequent to fine very good melee builds so it doesn't bother me much.


It's less frequent to see good melee players, but don't think that all monkchers running around are that good: many of them do not use the build at 100% of its capability.



The way it seems turbine wanted the game to work was that casters have more power than others but with limited resources. Hence my comment.

On people saying let others play the way they want, etc. I don't know what to tell you. You like the game a given way and I respect that. But I think that forcing people to either invis run stuff (with the imbalance that brings, as I see it and have already explained) or fall behind with those who do (they get cooler stuff quicker, etc.) is not what will make for the best game. Note that I don't think that a lot of the fights (required or not) in the quests are interesting (I am a bit tired of repeating myself, my views on that are in the last few posts).

Jealousy is never a good reason to nerf things. If some builds suck in EE, nerfing good builds won't make bad builds uber in EE. Good players will find the next best thing and bad players will continue to suck. I agree that some changes to EE might be nice and i've already pointed out in my previous posts which ones, but asking them to nerf everything that currently works is not the solution.

[Ancient]

Alright, let's go back to what I said.

I said invis running creates an issue of balance. I was asked why. I explained it.

Should invis run and power runs be allowed by the game design? This is a thread about balance. If the game is designed so that it does not create issues across builds / classes / whatever, I have nothing to say in terms of balance. I hope I settled it before I am characterized again as a green envious monster.
Just about any build can UMD invis scrolls. Absolutely any build can use invis clickies. I would say that 100% availability of invisibility would mean the game is designed so it cannot be used as a balance issue.

Any questions?

[pHo3nix]

You just agreed with me on xp/min.

Nuking whole rooms killing mobs does give you something.. xp. Its just takes too long for the zergers.

Yes, that's why it's usually not worth the time. Either make killing worth the time or make it grant something else, otherwise avoiding fights it's the most efficient way to get things done and you can't blame players for invis running.

[BigErkyKid]

Just about any build can UMD invis scrolls. Absolutely any build can use invis clickies. I would say that 100% availability of invisibility would mean the game is designed so it cannot be used as a balance issue.

Any questions?

Yes. Do you honestly think that the fact that a good number of epic quests can be 75% invis run is WAI?

[Ancient]

Yes. Do you honestly think that the fact that a good number of epic quests can be 75% invis run is WAI?

"75% invis run"... again, what is a 75% invis run? "a good number"... I think 7 is a good number, I do not have a problem with 7 quests encouraging invis. Yeah, I think invis is balanced and working as intended.

Counter question: Are the epic quests different than the heroic quests? Many people have said not to mess with the heroic balance... is a level 2 spell really suddenly become an issue for epic quests? The onlyl real answer would be to point to the inflated hit points in EE... but if every other difficulty is working fine then then problem isn't invis... it is how EE is made challenging.

So once again. Yes, invis is fine.

[Vellrad]

Good: I'm hero, and my noble quest is to stop evil forces in the area. Do do so, I have to defeat their leader and/or destroy objects used for evil doing. I don't like the idea of taking life, and I do it only when I have no other choice.

Neutral: I'm mercenary, I'm doing whatever my client pays for. If they sent me to the dungeon to take out army general, I'm not getting paid for dealing with footsoldiers, I won't waste my time and resources to deal with them. What's more, engaging them may give time for my target to escape, call for reinforcements or activate magical device to give him protection. Also, enemy troops are mercenaries just like me, I don't have anything against them.

Evil: I'm mass murderer, I will kill anyone and anything that gets into my way, just for the fun of it. Theese silly morons that pay me are only to show me where I can find something to kill that won't get me jailed or killed by law enforcement.


Guess which alignment we cannot pick in game.

Yes, invis running is WAI.

[Qhualor]

Just about any build can UMD invis scrolls. Absolutely any build can use invis clickies. I would say that 100% availability of invisibility would mean the game is designed so it cannot be used as a balance issue.

Any questions?

Only problem with this is that invis clickies aren't dropping anymore. If they are than they are ultra rare. I have looted a clicky in months and months. This becomes a tinfoil hat conversation.

[Thayion516]

Just about any build can UMD invis scrolls. Absolutely any build can use invis clickies. I would say that 100% availability of invisibility would mean the game is designed so it cannot be used as a balance issue.

Any questions?

This is correct.

This thread started by a Dev is called "Player Character Balance"... 100% of people have the option to Invis therefore there is no balance issue. Take the "Is Invis OP?" argument to another thread. It don't belong here.

Keep on target folks. Don't get Derailed.

[pHo3nix]

Only problem with this is that invis clickies aren't dropping anymore. If they are than they are ultra rare. I have looted a clicky in months and months. This becomes a tinfoil hat conversation.

Yes, they probably were ghostbaned some time ago. Having enough UMD for scrolls in epic levels is easy enough on any class and there are pots and wands as random drops anyway, so there's no excuse to not have invisibility. The real problem is that your average pugger does not even know how to run invis and usually triggers DA, dies and then complains cause people are zerging ahead :D

Invisibility is WAI. We got enough broken things to fix, stop asking to fix things that aren't broken.

[BigErkyKid]

It's less frequent to see good melee players, but don't think that all monkchers running around are that good: many of them do not use the build at 100% of its capability.



Jealousy is never a good reason to nerf things. If some builds suck in EE, nerfing good builds won't make bad builds uber in EE. Good players will find the next best thing and bad players will continue to suck. I agree that some changes to EE might be nice and i've already pointed out in my previous posts which ones, but asking them to nerf everything that currently works is not the solution.


It is not about jelousy! What's with the jelousy thing? The line of reasoning cannot be: he doesn't seem to like the idea of people skipping most of the quest, hence he must be some noob who doesnt know how to do it. He is just jelous. This is not what I am talking about.

Yes, it is true that monkcher are not usually played in the most uber way. Regardless, a not top monkcher is still better dps than most caster shiradi or not. My original point being: he way it seems turbine wanted the game to work was that casters have more power than others but with limited resources. Hence my comment... So thats where invis running would be an issue. It might not seem one now given the issues you have brought up, it would be if it those were resolved.

[HungarianRhapsody]

Do you honestly think that the fact that a good number of epic quests can be 75% invis run is WAI?

Yes.

[Scraap]

On the manyshot+adrenaline sub-discussion: If you can't or don't find the suggestion to fix the proc on ranged to a single arrow as desirable in keeping with melee attacks, perhaps altering it to a 15 second buff for all physical attacks might serve to a degree. (Can't remember offhand if it procs exhaustion at the end. If not, tacking that on as well might proxy-buff primary barbs a bit.)

As to the invis sub-convo: They've got 25% XP boost for committing genocide, and 15% for being a pacifist. Seems to me both methodologies are intended.

[Enoach]

Yes. Do you honestly think that the fact that a good number of epic quests can be 75% invis run is WAI?

I would answer yes, because part of balancing characters is balancing different ways to beat the environment

For me I'm not upset that one build can out DPS another, I'm upset because DPS is the only method of beating the environment.

However, I do believe there has to be some logic with invisibility. A person running by carrying weapons and wearing a pack/armor and is only invisible is still going to raise a few brows when they run by a guard. Part of balancing this is to have a variety of monster types that make this difficult to do unless you are actually sneaking (not running).

Doing something like this will allow a person to build towards stealth with the idea that they kill what needs to die and avoid the rest.

Balance extends to allow an Enchanter type to charm the pants off a room and proceed to the rest leaving that room behind and even forgetting the Enchanter was even there.

Or use the 'Hulk Smash' method popular among many in DDO

The balance does not need to be that build X does the same damage as build Y, but that an encounter has multiple options that can be used to resolve it.

[BigErkyKid]

I would answer yes, because part of balancing characters is balancing different ways to beat the environment

For me I'm not upset that one build can out DPS another, I'm upset because DPS is the only method of beating the environment.

However, I do believe there has to be some logic with invisibility. A person running by carrying weapons and wearing a pack/armor and is only invisible is still going to raise a few brows when they run by a guard. Part of balancing this is to have a variety of monster types that make this difficult to do unless you are actually sneaking (not running).

Doing something like this will allow a person to build towards stealth with the idea that they kill what needs to die and avoid the rest.

Balance extends to allow an Enchanter type to charm the pants off a room and proceed to the rest leaving that room behind and even forgetting the Enchanter was even there.

Or use the 'Hulk Smash' method popular among many in DDO

The balance does not need to be that build X does the same damage as build Y, but that an encounter has multiple options that can be used to resolve it.


I am competely for this sort of reasoning. The point I made is the following.

I am a dev sitting at my desk in the morning. My game is 1 quest. I have a fighter and wizzard as possible classes.

I have to decide how many SP give the wizzard.

Do I give the same amount if 75% of the monster can be avoided running invisible as I would give if you actually had to beat them?

This is the issue of balance that I wanted to bring to the debate table.

This is NOT a trivial issue isnce a lot of the new content can be run through invisible.

Of course I am all for allowing elaborate tactics to be able to go through the contend with stealth. But arguably those possibilities should come at a price too. Having to build for stealthm having to go slower, whatever. Those would then factor in the SP computation.

What I am afraid we are having now is a pool of SP designed as if we were running through most of the quest for situations where people are skipping 75% of it. And hence the balance problem. It is not as apparent because right now we have horrendous killing machines called monkchers that have sustainable top DPS without depleting permanently their resources. Fix that, balance the quests accordingly and the question i posed would emerge again.

[SirValentine]

I am a dev sitting at my desk in the morning. My game is 1 quest. I have a fighter and wizzard as possible classes.

I have to decide how many SP give the wizzard.

Do I give the same amount if 75% of the monster can be avoided running invisible as I would give if you actually had to beat them?


Really, that's beside the point for this thread.

SP gets used up, but so does HP. And Action Boosts. And Turn Undeads, and Smites, and Rages. Every character has resources that are limited, and every character can go invisible.

It's a QUEST-balancing issue, but not a character balance issue.

[Seikojin]

I am competely for this sort of reasoning. The point I made is the following.

I am a dev sitting at my desk in the morning. My game is 1 quest. I have a fighter and wizzard as possible classes.

I have to decide how many SP give the wizzard.

Do I give the same amount if 75% of the monster can be avoided running invisible as I would give if you actually had to beat them?

This is the issue of balance that I wanted to bring to the debate table.

This is NOT a trivial issue isnce a lot of the new content can be run through invisible.

Of course I am all for allowing elaborate tactics to be able to go through the contend with stealth. But arguably those possibilities should come at a price too. Having to build for stealthm having to go slower, whatever. Those would then factor in the SP computation.

What I am afraid we are having now is a pool of SP designed as if we were running through most of the quest for situations where people are skipping 75% of it. And hence the balance problem. It is not as apparent because right now we have horrendous killing machines called monkchers that have sustainable top DPS without depleting permanently their resources. Fix that, balance the quests accordingly and the question i posed would emerge again.

The problem with this logic is assuming everyone will do the easiest method to achieve the goals. On appear, yeah that is the best way to handle your peoblem, but a very large portion of the people playing wizards don't invis run to completion, nor do they 75% invis run to get completion. They do whatever they feel like doing. Most players battle their way through content.

The big balance problem people are looking at is split into a small number of groups.
Saves - pure classes are suffering versus splash classes by a huge factor (because rolling a 2 and dying is gimp)
Melee - anyone outside of pajamas is nerfed due to the EE scaled power (lack of mitigation)
DC casters - maxing is the only way to be viable (mainly because the thought of needing a d20 for success is gimp)
DPS casters - maxing spellpower is all you need, because slas are the defacto method for casting dps now. (because using a shrine is gimp)
Ranged combat - can pew pew with no threat whatsoever and burst dps to killcount (because playing pure is gimp)

My solutions for these:
Saves - hard to pin a fix. It is WaW (working as written) so it is WaI. So non monks and pallys are hurt here. To resolve, add mitigation into melee class enhancements outside of Pal and Monk. Make it so these boosts are the same type as pali's save boost, so they do not stack. If the armor feats provided boosts to the armor worn, it would benefit everyone without making the monk/pal splash over the top. It would make pure pali's over the top, since they keep their uber saves while in full plate. If the boosts were tied to enhancements, this would allow the boosts to be everywhere except pali, and allow pali's to get some targeted boosting that helps, without taking them too over the top.
Melee - See above pretty much. Every armor type outside of robes/clothes, needs some mitigation added. Adding the bonuses per enhancement tree, scaled like I mentioned earlier through feats, would allow scaleable boosting for melee classes, and make it so players had to put points in specific things to get a very high value, thus making it more difficult to go over the top. And ultimately allowing more playstyles to have the same survivability as a wai monk/pali splash.
DC casters - Bards need help here. Many of their enhancements do nothing to help get through to ee content, and even a lot of heroics at level. Offer some boosting from perform skill to the dc, or remove the old dc formula and use perform as a base. Everything else can push the d20 out, so that seems balanced to me (meaning, build (pure or MC) and gear can make or break the d20 variable, which is perfectly balanced in my mind).
DPS casters - Meh, they seem fine as well. It would be nice to see something done to help splash casters, but loading the enhancements so you got more from spellpower until caster level 6 and then have diminished returns so a pure class is the same spell power as a mcer... It seems like that would be not very beneficial. Spell count is what mainly keeps people from diverting when going for dps casters. It would be nice if there was a way to make it so taking 6 levels or less of a class gained spellpower from other trees (like doing a 12/6/2 ftr/wiz/mon, and your monk and fighter enhancements also boosted the spellpower given to wiz so you can be dps casting, but not as good as pure caster, still viable and worth the cost of mana).
Ranged combat - The only problem I see here is gripes about WaW/WaI abilities and the doubleshot penalties. That is why I think Manyshot and 10k stars should be a toggle that increases doubleshot as you get levels of that class. They can stack, but never one be better than the other.

[Ancient]

Really, that's beside the point for this thread.

SP gets used up, but so does HP. And Action Boosts. And Turn Undeads, and Smites, and Rages. Every character has resources that are limited, and every character can go invisible.

It's a QUEST-balancing issue, but not a character balance issue.

^^^^^^
Win

[Scraap]

DC casters - Bards need help here. Many of their enhancements do nothing to help get through to ee content, and even a lot of heroics at level. Offer some boosting from perform skill to the dc, or remove the old dc formula and use perform as a base. Everything else can push the d20 out, so that seems balanced to me (meaning, build (pure or MC) and gear can make or break the d20 variable, which is perfectly balanced in my mind).

Been kinda hesitant to suggest this one, since I'm one of those 'bloat is bad mkay' guys, but just to throw it out there: What if they altered heighten to:

This Feat makes spells harder for monsters to resist by raising the effective level of the spell to half your character level, but causes the spell to consume 5 more spell points per level raised.

Sound like enough of an additional inherent cost for keeping up with the Jones's?

[Violentbeginning]

I've read several people's posts regarding Fire Stance needing a little love. Why not have it add +[0.5]W per tier? I think this would make it a bit more competitive with other stances.

I would also like to agree that stance tiers should be based upon monk levels and not character levels. Grandmaster of X is pretty powerful for just a splash...

[Xenolich]

Ohh how many ways can one say No.

Stick with a relative hands off approach to balance.

The imbalance is what gives DDO its uniqueness. Most of us have played a good number of the "balanced" mmo's out there, there is a reason we do not play them and instead play DDO. In my opinion balancing things out will kill the uniqueness of the game, and in turn kill the reason i play DDO.

[Vargouille]

Briefly checking in: Still reading along!

We're taking a couple days of hiatus, but hopefully early next week we'll have crunched some data on the 1000+ survey results, and have gathered some additional feedback from the rest of the DDO team and have some more thoughts to share with you guys.

My thanks to all of you for your continued feedback, and to Cordovan helping to put together the extensive survey results!

[BigErkyKid]

Really, that's beside the point for this thread.

SP gets used up, but so does HP. And Action Boosts. And Turn Undeads, and Smites, and Rages. Every character has resources that are limited, and every character can go invisible.

It's a QUEST-balancing issue, but not a character balance issue.

I will not insist more on this because it is met with hostility by a good number of people and in any case what I had to say is clear by now. Those who do not want to understand / do not share it / do not want to lose the possibility of avoiding 30 mins of sandbag punching / power level / power loot or whatever have made it abundantly clear.

Let me just say though there for obvious reasons there is not such thing as character balance vs quest balance. Everything is a relation per quest or per mob or per whatever metric you want to use. And hence any comparison between builds also has to contextualized in PVE. This acknowledged by the OP:


To some extent this borders on discussion of player characters vs. quest difficulty (and all that entails)

At some point though it would be nice if the OP directed us a bit towards the sort of topics he would be more interested on.

PS - Seems that Varg posted while I was writing!

[nibel]

On the manyshot+adrenaline sub-discussion: If you can't or don't find the suggestion to fix the proc on ranged to a single arrow as desirable in keeping with melee attacks

It is worth to note down that it works exactly like that on cleave, great cleave, and lay waste: Only the first hit is dealt with the +400% damage bonus. So, making Adrenaline only work with the first arrow on Manyshot is just keeping it on line with the other multi-attack attacks.

[Scraap]

It is worth to note down that it works exactly like that on cleave, great cleave, and lay waste: Only the first hit is dealt with the +400% damage bonus. So, making Adrenaline only work with the first arrow on Manyshot is just keeping it on line with the other multi-attack attacks.

Yeah, I suspect there's some shenanigans goin on with the manyshot code treating things as one attack at one point, vs cleaves that treat things as an attack per mob. (And no, that is not in any way, shape or form a suggestion to nerf cleaves to one attack. /handsofftheshineyshineyvampirismandaoeprocs)

Figure if ya can't beat em (and if they could in any reasonable timeframe, it seems likely they would have by now) join em.

[vengfarga]

Ok, I think we can all agree this line of questioning from Devs is headed towards SOMETHING getting nerfed.

For Heroic, that's almost inevitably Monk splashes - those adept feats, the kensai/monk synergy and moving 10k might not have had quite the planned results. Fun, but the best fun toys always end up broken the fastest.

For Eds, perhaps a domino-nerf might work ... so that each type of build that is being slapped gets a new, interesting alternative.
For Example:
1 - Nerf FotW back to only charging/working with melee = Grumpy Monkchers. But...
2 - Nerf Shiradi to only work with arrows/bolts/thrown & BOOST procs to maybe double or triple = Grumpy casters but less grouchy Monkchers.
3 - BOOST DI to be a really serious choice for nukers & MAG for DC casters = less grouchy casters.
4 - Plenty of people still a bit grouchy ... but that seems to be the default state for most anyway, so they'll soon either find a way to hideously abuse the new stuff or slink off to join the Juggs, Exploiters, people who wear armour & other formers fotms.

Repeat for other over/underpowered EDs (Tame the dreadnought but buff the GM of fluffers and the Shadow mincer, for ex.)

Oh, and maybe a "Tech" sphere to represent Eberron - could give sth for ARtis, etc and give some love back to boring old non-iconic WF?

[Fhauvial]

Shadowdancer's "Move at normal speed when sneaking" is the single most enjoyable thing in the game for me. But, it's only for 30 or 20 seconds or something every 3 minutes, and you have to be in Shadowdancer.

Please either:
- Make it essentially permanent in Shadowdancer; that would be actually epic, even if it's a Tier 6 ability that means I can't get all the +Ints down the side.
- Make it a normal feat so sneaking about in heroics can be the joy it is in epics.
- Make it a level 26 or 28 feat.
- Make it a level 27 feat.
- Make it a Rogue capstone
- Make it a racial enhancement for Drow or Shadar-kai or some other gimp race like Half-Elves (maybe rogue dilettante half-elves to make that choice more viable compared with halfling)
- Put it on an item

Just get it in in there in more ways so the uptime can be greater than 1/6th.

Nooooooooooo!

Please don't lock my assassin out of this ability. Taking all the +Ints is simply not a choice for a DC build. :(

(Edit: Mostly referring to moving it to a Tier 6, or a non-innate.)

[Bart_D]

Splashes have always been used and popular, and not really a problem imo. It's not really a problem either that some builds are better than others. What IS a problem is that a few distinct combinations of abilities produce characters which are EXTREMELY A LOT more powerful than all other builds, even very similar ones.

Nerfs/adjustments like the 1-4 suggested above by vengfarga could help trim the top and make alternatives viable, and from the Dev posts here I am hopeful that something like that will happen.

[CaptainSpacePony]

A small thought here.

Many have chimed in that capstones need to be made more appealing to increase the viability of pure classes. I'd like to add, that the same holds true for the lvl 18 core abilities.

[Raiderone]

I don't mind talk of Balance. But I don't like nerf's. So if you are going to balance some classes, do it by making the others better instead of decreasing another.
Some changes I don't consider nerf's like when QP was decreased by removing Sunder bonuses. QP should never had sundering bonuses (not to bring up old arguments).

As others have mentioned, Barbarians and Bards are probably the weakest classes. Pally's and Fighters could use some love too.

Even some feats could use a change. I can never understand why Stunning Fist has higher DC's than Stunning Blow. Should use same formula for DC's.
Otherwise make Stunning Blow an AOE versus single target with Stunning Fist.

[Delacroix21]

Briefly checking in: Still reading along!

We're taking a couple days of hiatus, but hopefully early next week we'll have crunched some data on the 1000+ survey results, and have gathered some additional feedback from the rest of the DDO team and have some more thoughts to share with you guys.

My thanks to all of you for your continued feedback, and to Cordovan helping to put together the extensive survey results!


Can we get a recap of the items Devs will be working on? Meele was mentioned, anything else?

[Daze]

Invis is not a player balance issue as stated by many others for various reasons that are all solid. Just want to state my agreement here.

KiT = killing in time = kiting = DoT(Damage over Time) or range while running away. You spend more time getting the kill but you have a greater chance of living through it.... this is standard fair for any MMO. It is WAI imho. Having the skill to run backwards and not get clobbered should not be penalized ...

Ranged DPS vs Melee? .... I have seen melee out DPS many a monkcher and with a longer lasting effect provided they live through the encounters. The survival of the melee will balance that far more then any nerf to adrenaline overload or manyshot or 10k stars. With the possible exception of shuriken builds ... that rate of fire is just sick.

Last I checked adrenaline overload effects doublestrikes as well... it isn't just the first attack that gets it. Flipside to that is it should effect the entire cleave not just the first mob hit. Much like an amped up draconic SLA destroys all surrounding mobs. My sword and board tank with ~65% doublestrike frequently double fury smited (using block and cut)

Taking adrenaline overload or blitzing away from ranged toons is counter to the balance issues I would assume this thread wants to fix seeing as a melee using them is more DPS then the ranged..... we just need to make the melee more survivable so that being ranged isn't such a gamebreaking bonus.

[CeltEireson]

Oh and one other point on balancing while I remember - pets. Not that they have an impact on balancing characters at the moment simply because in epics especially epic elite theyre rather pointless, both in terms of their effectiveness but mainly in their survivability. If youre going to spend time putting them in the game they should work, and if they worked reasonably effectively then they would matter balance wise ;)

At epic levels they need at least one additional item slot, and some more epic destiny options for them, and possibly add in epic levels for their enhancements so that they continue to develop past 20.

its a pet hate of mine (no pun intended) - if you introduce a system into the game it needs to be useful at higher levels otherwise why spend the time and money developing it in the first place.

[MadGardener]

Shared Buffs

Not sure if in the right spot but recently we (guildies) were talking about pets (bard/arti dogs) and maybe familiars in the future and we were wondering about an option to allow shared buffs between character and their pet? perhaps as an opposite to uncaring master? an effect/enhancement that shares buffs, effects, heals? anyhow adjusting pets, especially if they become effective (not pull aggro and die), would effect balance lest in a small way.

speaking of pets is there an update to the cat companion (lv 20 oxyn panther) to make it more survivable (similar to the owl bears)?

and can we get a 'backside' to the pets, hirings (and companions) active bar, it would be nice to have a flip side that has some additional option if available.


for me, I would love to be able to set my pet/hirings in a more tactical fashion. either on the pets page or in my characters. were i could set distance allowed, priorities (heal/ guard me first or most damaged, ignore summons, do not run to archers further then 2 meters from character, use quicken, conserve magic etc.

btw I have notice the hirings etc have gotten way better over the last few years, difficult job I would think. well done and good luck.

[Chaios]

Unfortunately that's where Turbine seems to be heading. I haven't played the newest content yet, but Shadowfell was all about combat and nothing else.

For example, I ran one of the Wheloon quests (I don't remember the name) on my rogue. At some point I came to a wooden gate. I could not jump over it, and there was no lock that could be picked. The only way to open that gate was to kill a bunch of nearby mobs.

Same with one of the Stormhorn quests; there were several places that had magical barriers which would only drop after all mobs in the area were killed. There was no other way to bypass those barriers.

So as long as Turbine does not allow any solutions other than combat in order to proceed in a quest, class balance has to be discussed in terms of combat ability.

You're right, balancing content to take advantage of ddo's "xp for completion of quest" mechanic by allowing quests and quest objectives to be fulfilled through a variety of approaches is probably where balance should begin. For example, where mobs must be dealt with to cause a key or other item to drop, why shouldn't a rogue be able to pick-pocket it from a sub boss, or why shouldn't a bard be able to fast talk his way past the guards with bluff or diplomacy?


I would answer yes, because part of balancing characters is balancing different ways to beat the environment

For me I'm not upset that one build can out DPS another, I'm upset because DPS is the only method of beating the environment.

However, I do believe there has to be some logic with invisibility. A person running by carrying weapons and wearing a pack/armor and is only invisible is still going to raise a few brows when they run by a guard. Part of balancing this is to have a variety of monster types that make this difficult to do unless you are actually sneaking (not running).

Doing something like this will allow a person to build towards stealth with the idea that they kill what needs to die and avoid the rest.

Balance extends to allow an Enchanter type to charm the pants off a room and proceed to the rest leaving that room behind and even forgetting the Enchanter was even there.

Or use the 'Hulk Smash' method popular among many in DDO

The balance does not need to be that build X does the same damage as build Y, but that an encounter has multiple options that can be used to resolve it.

Wouldn't say I'm upset, but aside from that, I think your idea of balance looks pretty much the same as mine.

What confuses me in some posts regarding "combat balance" is the kind of idea that 1) classes/builds should be balanced 2) balance means classes/builds should be equally effective at all relevant tasks. People seem to want "Tank types" (paladin, for example) to be able to have the same damage output as "DPS types" (such as a barbarian), and DPS types to have the same level of defense as Tank types. Actually something that has pretty much always confused and annoyed me is the way that people use the terms "tank" and "dps" interchangeably in this game, calling for a tank in an lfm when what they mean is dps. But I'm not gonna rant about it.

Anyway, if that is kind of balance those posts call for, the easiest way to do it would be to just get rid of all the melee classes and replace them with one melee class, because that's what it sounds like those posts are asking for. If its not, if the kind of combat balance meant is not a reduction to a homogenous and all melee encompassing "Warrior" class, then a tank build should have better defense than a dps build, by definition, in terms of "combat balance". In terms of "game balance", quests should be designed so that a tank build is actually useful enough to warrant the trouble of building and "powerful" enough to be fun to play.

I'm not saying "bring back the trinity", but I am saying "combat balance" might be easier to achieve by first re-viewing the concept of "TANK, DPS, HJEALS", especially when you include the idea of any content appropriate CC under the mantle of TANK, and the idea of any content appropriate direct damager under the mantle of DPS, and then make content varied enough that melee CC is useful in some instances and caster CC is useful in others, melee dps is useful and some combats, and caster dps in others...

[Seikojin]

I will not insist more on this because it is met with hostility by a good number of people and in any case what I had to say is clear by now. Those who do not want to understand / do not share it / do not want to lose the possibility of avoiding 30 mins of sandbag punching / power level / power loot or whatever have made it abundantly clear.

Let me just say though there for obvious reasons there is not such thing as character balance vs quest balance. Everything is a relation per quest or per mob or per whatever metric you want to use. And hence any comparison between builds also has to contextualized in PVE. This acknowledged by the OP:



At some point though it would be nice if the OP directed us a bit towards the sort of topics he would be more interested on.

PS - Seems that Varg posted while I was writing!


They can't direct because it gives too much about their plans away. This kind of topic is meant to get a large amount of feedback; noise or otherwise, to get an idea on how the majority of vocal players feel. I know they look at all the posts, good, bad, and ugly. And they discuss them. At length I might add. And a lot is dismantled, dissected, refined, and defined into plausible plans of action they can take to help improve the game.

My approach has been boost first more than nerf.

[Free2Pay]

Let's look at various non-dps roles:

Crowd Control Effectiveness
Dance (Spell)
Hold (Spell)
Trap the Soul (Spell)
Earthquake (Spell Druid)
Bard (Class)
Sleep (Spell)
Cometfall (Spell Divine)
Command (Spell Divine)
Stunning (Feat)
Melee Special Attack (Trip/Sap)
Paralysis (Weapon Effect)
Intimidate (Skill)
Diplomacy (Skill)
Holy Aura (Spell divine)
Turn Undead (Feat)
Wild Empathy (Feat)
Most Useful Crowd Control: Arcane

Debuff Effectiveness
Negative Levels (Spells : Enervation/Circle of Death/Necrotic Ray/Energy Drain/Symbol of death)
Melee Special Attack (Sunder/Hamstring)
Weapon Effect (Wounding /Puncturing/Bonebreaking/Destruction/Maladroit/Shattermantle)
Curse (Spell divine)
Most Useful Debuff: Arcane

Utility
Dimension Door (Spell)
Disable Trap (Skill)
Open Lock (Skill)
Knock (Spell)
Invisibility (Spell)
Hide (Skill)
Move Silently (Skill)
Detect Secret Door (Spell)
True Seeing (Spell)
Search (Skill)
Find Trap (Spell)
Spot (Skill)
Lore (Feat)
Lever/Runes (various stats)
Teleport (Spell)
Trap Making (Feat)
Pet (Artificier)
Most Useful Utility: Arcane

Defensive Buff:
Displacement (Spell)
FireShield (Spell)
Greater Heroism (Spell)
Blur (Spell)
Jump (Spell)
Stoneskin (Spell)
Deathward (Spell)
Freedom of movement (Spell)
Elemental resistance (Spell)
Spell resistance (Spell)
Bard (Class)
Barkskin (Spell)
Camouflage (Spell)
Night Shield (Spell)
Bless (Spell)
Most Useful Defensive Buff: Arcane

Arcane is pretty "versatile" to say the least.
If we bring self healing and dps back into the equation, what do we see?

For melee to do other stuff (other than tanking) - in order not be a one trick pony - splashes is almost required. Even Elminster himself splashes.

[jskinner937]

Ok, I think we can all agree this line of questioning from Devs is headed towards SOMETHING getting nerfed.

For Heroic, that's almost inevitably Monk splashes - those adept feats, the kensai/monk synergy and moving 10k might not have had quite the planned results. Fun, but the best fun toys always end up broken the fastest.

For Eds, perhaps a domino-nerf might work ... so that each type of build that is being slapped gets a new, interesting alternative.
For Example:
1 - Nerf FotW back to only charging/working with melee = Grumpy Monkchers. But...
2 - Nerf Shiradi to only work with arrows/bolts/thrown & BOOST procs to maybe double or triple = Grumpy casters but less grouchy Monkchers.
3 - BOOST DI to be a really serious choice for nukers & MAG for DC casters = less grouchy casters.
4 - Plenty of people still a bit grouchy ... but that seems to be the default state for most anyway, so they'll soon either find a way to hideously abuse the new stuff or slink off to join the Juggs, Exploiters, people who wear armour & other formers fotms.

Repeat for other over/underpowered EDs (Tame the dreadnought but buff the GM of fluffers and the Shadow mincer, for ex.)

Oh, and maybe a "Tech" sphere to represent Eberron - could give sth for ARtis, etc and give some love back to boring old non-iconic WF?

This is not what people want, nor the devs according to historical quotes on their part.

The design goal of EDs was not to lock certain archetypes into a certain ED, but to increase the viable EDs that are available to everyone. Problem is that they failed on EDs from the beginning to make them viable and fun, save a few. The answer is not to make all archers go Shirardi, or all Arcanes to go to Magistar or DI.

Shirardi could be made more viable for melees (and colors of the queen for that matter) if it was not boosted by spell power, but had innate spellpower and crit chance built into the coding and work on melee attacks as well.

FoTW, should work with ranged, but be coded to work with the 1st arrow/bolt only, but stack with stuff like slaying arrows.

DI and Magistar should be buffed. New epic moments.

Divines destinies are in the works, and hopefully work better.

Shadowdancer should be buffed. New epic moments. Maybe an option for a non-rogue/arty to have limited OL and trapping skills.

Primal Avatar is garbage save for a few people that can charge their tree moment. Rework this entire destiny to make it useful as a CC destiny, including non-save procs like shirardi that a melee can use for CC.

With the addition of Eldrich Knight and Warpriest, arcanes or divines have an option now at LD/Fury.

Again the point of destinies was to bring diversity to builds, not further pigeon-hole them into a certain group of powers.

[Oberon_Shrader]

I approach this topic carefully, but without regard to how it will be received by the community. In fact, I am not writing to the community, but to the devs. I hope you will read it and consider what these thoughts (I also wrote some commentary in my survey to the same effect as below).

I believe balance can be divided into two parts: Internal and External balance. While these parts may seem easily understood, I still want to define them. Internal Balance is how a character balances within itself. That is, how its strengths and weaknesses balance each other out. External Balance is how a character compares with other characters, in and across roles. That is, how its strengths and weaknesses measure against other characters.

Internal Balance:

Each character should have strengths and weaknesses within itself. When one aspect becomes strong, another must be sacrificed. No character should have no weaknesses; whenever that happens, there is no balance.

For example: if a character has high saves in Will, then one of the other two saves should be lower and the other moderate. That's not to say that the lower save should fail every time, but that it should be more likely to fail than succeed.

Classes have this mechanism built into them, for the most part. However, "Min/Max"ers have found ways to overcome this and abuse the multi-classing system to create builds which exhibit very little, if any weaknesses. It's worth it to note that multi-classing is not really meant to expand the power of a character, it's meant to expand the versatility of a character. Having no weaknesses is problematic for the other part of balance: External Balance.

External Balance:

When comparing characters it is most important to compare them across roles. To do this we must first have roles that are definable. Roles are a core aspect of D&D. Without roles there is no point in choosing one class over another. We could just choose any class and do anything (or perhaps, everything).

At this point, Internal Balance intersects with External Balance. If characters lack Internal Balance (by being without weaknesses to offset strengths) then roles begin to disappear. If any character can do everything, then what is the point of making a character that is anything less than able to do everything? Thus, all (or most) characters will begin to look roughly the same. This homogeneity is, plainly stated, boring; and no one wants to play a boring game. To maintain External Balance and prevent any character from doing everything is to create diversity, prevent homogeneity and produce fun!

For example: if every character can heal themselves as well as a dedicated healer, then there is no point to making one; in fact, there will really be no such thing, as all characters are dedicated healers! That's not to say that characters should not be allowed to self heal, but that no character should be as effective at healing as a dedicated healer (even when healing themselves).

As a secondary consideration, we can also compare characters within roles. For the most part, we can expect that within roles character will be (maybe should be) very similar. But that's ok, it really is the roles that differentiate characters from each other. However, builds should have variety, even within roles. Here we should refer back to Internal Balance. When a character chooses to excel at one aspect, there must be some offset in a contrasting aspect; and no one build should dominate all situations and all content.

I think maintaining these concepts of Internal and External Balance can make the game more diverse, more social and more fun!

I can foresee some of the argument and complaints many people will have, so let me address them:

Q: If no character should be able to do everything, how can I solo all the quests on elite at level?!
A: You should choose normal difficulty. I don't think any character should be able to solo anything on elite at level.

Q: Why shouldn't multi-classing increase a character's power?! Why else would anyone want to multi-class?!
A: Because, if you want to get maximum effect from a class and in your chosen role, you should have to have maximum level in that class. If you want to solo more, splash a complementary class. But, if you want to be very powerful and specialized, you should be pure.

Q: Doesn't your idea mean the devs will have to nerf things or make them more restricted?!
A: Yes. Nerfs aren't always bad. Sometimes creating structure can make things better!

An addendum to this is the case of MySpace and Facebook. I read an article a couple years ago that explained why Facebook took-off while MySpace languished and it explained it very well, I think. Both are social networking sites that have the same basic purpose. MySpace created an interface that had so much more freedom than Facebook. At first thought this seemed like a good idea, but it turned out to be a major contributor to MySpace's difficulties. The problem was that people could do whatever they wanted with their "Space" and it became chaos. No one wanted to look at or deal with chaos and so they sought out an alternative Facebook, on the other hand, implemented strong restrictions about what you could or could not do with your page. It did not allow chaos to develop by having a solid structure. Thus, it became the alternative to MySpace that people sought out.

DDO faces a similar challenge to MySpace at the moment. The builds are too unstructured. Whereas MySpace devolved into chaos, DDO builds are evolving into homogeneity. Adding structure will do for DDO what having structure did for Facebook: it will make DDO better.

Thank you for reading!

[CeltEireson]

This is not what people want, nor the devs according to historical quotes on their part.

The design goal of EDs was not to lock certain archetypes into a certain ED, but to increase the viable EDs that are available to everyone. Problem is that they failed on EDs from the beginning to make them viable and fun, save a few. The answer is not to make all archers go Shirardi, or all Arcanes to go to Magistar or DI.

Shirardi could be made more viable for melees (and colors of the queen for that matter) if it was not boosted by spell power, but had innate spellpower and crit chance built into the coding and work on melee attacks as well.

FoTW, should work with ranged, but be coded to work with the 1st arrow/bolt only, but stack with stuff like slaying arrows.

DI and Magistar should be buffed. New epic moments.

Divines destinies are in the works, and hopefully work better.

Shadowdancer should be buffed. New epic moments. Maybe an option for a non-rogue/arty to have limited OL and trapping skills.

Primal Avatar is garbage save for a few people that can charge their tree moment. Rework this entire destiny to make it useful as a CC destiny, including non-save procs like shirardi that a melee can use for CC.

With the addition of Eldrich Knight and Warpriest, arcanes or divines have an option now at LD/Fury.

Again the point of destinies was to bring diversity to builds, not further pigeon-hole them into a certain group of powers.

One of the other problems with the EDs is that each of the destinys are very focused in most cases - they don't allow for 'jack of all trades' types, though that's as much as problem with DDO/Pnp DnD as well. Probably the best example is artificer - artificer has 5 somewhat separate areas that they can develop - ranged/melee weapons, arcane casting, runearm, rogue skills and pet. Each of the ED's on offer really at best only buff 1 or two of those so theyre forced to focus very much on one area to develop which seems a bit of a shame as I've always seen them as a jack of all trades type that balances out all the aspects of the class but hey maybe that's just me.

Of course that may change if the devs ever get around to developing an ED specifically for artificers but I'm not exactly holding my breath on that one.

[Vellrad]

Most Useful Crowd Control: Arcane


Are you kidding?

Earthquake crashes and trups all other forms of CC combined, if you're in shiradi. But there is no reason to use other ED while playing caster druid.

[Qhualor]

Are you kidding?

Earthquake crashes and trups all other forms of CC combined, if you're in shiradi. But there is no reason to use other ED while playing caster druid.

yep, earthquake is insanely good. too good? ok, ill stop there.

[BigErkyKid]

I approach this topic carefully, but without regard to how it will be received by the community. In fact, I am not writing to the community, but to the devs. I hope you will read it and consider what these thoughts (I also wrote some commentary in my survey to the same effect as below).

I believe balance can be divided into two parts: Internal and External balance. While these parts may seem easily understood, I still want to define them. Internal Balance is how a character balances within itself. That is, how its strengths and weaknesses balance each other out. External Balance is how a character compares with other characters, in and across roles. That is, how its strengths and weaknesses measure against other characters.

Internal Balance:

Each character should have strengths and weaknesses within itself. When one aspect becomes strong, another must be sacrificed. No character should have no weaknesses; whenever that happens, there is no balance.

For example: if a character has high saves in Will, then one of the other two saves should be lower and the other moderate. That's not to say that the lower save should fail every time, but that it should be more likely to fail than succeed.

Classes have this mechanism built into them, for the most part. However, "Min/Max"ers have found ways to overcome this and abuse the multi-classing system to create builds which exhibit very little, if any weaknesses. It's worth it to note that multi-classing is not really meant to expand the power of a character, it's meant to expand the versatility of a character. Having no weaknesses is problematic for the other part of balance: External Balance.

External Balance:

When comparing characters it is most important to compare them across roles. To do this we must first have roles that are definable. Roles are a core aspect of D&D. Without roles there is no point in choosing one class over another. We could just choose any class and do anything (or perhaps, everything).

At this point, Internal Balance intersects with External Balance. If characters lack Internal Balance (by being without weaknesses to offset strengths) then roles begin to disappear. If any character can do everything, then what is the point of making a character that is anything less than able to do everything? Thus, all (or most) characters will begin to look roughly the same. This homogeneity is, plainly stated, boring; and no one wants to play a boring game. To maintain External Balance and prevent any character from doing everything is to create diversity, prevent homogeneity and produce fun!

For example: if every character can heal themselves as well as a dedicated healer, then there is no point to making one; in fact, there will really be no such thing, as all characters are dedicated healers! That's not to say that characters should not be allowed to self heal, but that no character should be as effective at healing as a dedicated healer (even when healing themselves).

As a secondary consideration, we can also compare characters within roles. For the most part, we can expect that within roles character will be (maybe should be) very similar. But that's ok, it really is the roles that differentiate characters from each other. However, builds should have variety, even within roles. Here we should refer back to Internal Balance. When a character chooses to excel at one aspect, there must be some offset in a contrasting aspect; and no one build should dominate all situations and all content.

I think maintaining these concepts of Internal and External Balance can make the game more diverse, more social and more fun!

I can foresee some of the argument and complaints many people will have, so let me address them:

Q: If no character should be able to do everything, how can I solo all the quests on elite at level?!
A: You should choose normal difficulty. I don't think any character should be able to solo anything on elite at level.

Q: Why shouldn't multi-classing increase a character's power?! Why else would anyone want to multi-class?!
A: Because, if you want to get maximum effect from a class and in your chosen role, you should have to have maximum level in that class. If you want to solo more, splash a complementary class. But, if you want to be very powerful and specialized, you should be pure.

Q: Doesn't your idea mean the devs will have to nerf things or make them more restricted?!
A: Yes. Nerfs aren't always bad. Sometimes creating structure can make things better!

An addendum to this is the case of MySpace and Facebook. I read an article a couple years ago that explained why Facebook took-off while MySpace languished and it explained it very well, I think. Both are social networking sites that have the same basic purpose. MySpace created an interface that had so much more freedom than Facebook. At first thought this seemed like a good idea, but it turned out to be a major contributor to MySpace's difficulties. The problem was that people could do whatever they wanted with their "Space" and it became chaos. No one wanted to look at or deal with chaos and so they sought out an alternative Facebook, on the other hand, implemented strong restrictions about what you could or could not do with your page. It did not allow chaos to develop by having a solid structure. Thus, it became the alternative to MySpace that people sought out.

DDO faces a similar challenge to MySpace at the moment. The builds are too unstructured. Whereas MySpace devolved into chaos, DDO builds are evolving into homogeneity. Adding structure will do for DDO what having structure did for Facebook: it will make DDO better.

Thank you for reading!


This is well thought but I doubt it is very welcome here. Most people that come to the forums to discuss are "serious gamers" and seem to derive pleasure from being able to find ways around the system to shine in solo or to achieve as much power as possible. That's the aim. Once one of these ways is figured out, they don't want it nerfed: it is an acquired right. It does not really matter that much to them whether it encourages team work or specialization or it lacks balance or it is coherent with the spirit of DnD at a broad level.

For instance, monk / barbarian splash is not allowed in the game for lore reasons. However, say that devs forgot to hard code it and people had been able to do it and found a way to get say insane dps. Taking it away would never be justified in their eyes and you would get a lot of raging. It doesn't matter so much if it is WAI. It was allowed, so suck it up.

The other thing is power-running quests. There is great fear that heroic style appears in epics. A lot of heroic quests are more structured and polished than epics. Usually there are more requirements, stages in the quest that you need to go through. Suppose I am ONLY running it for the xp or some loot that drops very little. Then I prefer epic style quests where I can just chug a pot and run like the wind through hundreds of mobs that will just rubber band. Why? Because it is BORING to run the same quest a million times on a same character to get that one thing.

Of course that affects balance. Characters and quests are jointly balanced. How many SP you should be allowed, how many HP or charges of an ability, the cooldowns and the rest are balanced around the mob density, HP, lenght of the quest and what not. One without the other is an absurd.

On the OP, I agree with you that the whole way DnD has been traditionally balanced is through trade offs. And I agree too that this has been sort of broken through multiclassing and through the addition of across the board abilities. My impression is that evasion and self healing have broken some of the few reasons people had to interact inside the game.

[zwiebelring]

With mobs, statted that high, characters in archtype roles failed. I played a dedicated healer and powerhealing was simply not possible in epic elite at first. Healing over Time became most cost efficient regarding sp usage, so you needed characters to hold themselves long enough in epic elite to profit from Cocoon and/or Renewal. And likewise more steroid arcane/casters for cc, which didn't fail at 50% of the time.

Results were characters, who excel at survivability rather than their inherent strong aspects. Multiclassing allowed to combine few distinct classes to be combined on survivability aspects. Then Kensai even combined dps aspect + survivability by class.

Using Oberon's term:
The external balance was vanquished immediately. There was a time when epic quests were very difficult, though managable by the time, but nevertheless you had lvl. 20 Ftr and lvl. 20 Bar being capable of running epic quests, not feeling useless, and still be able to get healing by dedicated healers. That should be that way again, because back then, there only was 1 epic difficulty, which could be seen as epic elite.

[pHo3nix]

On the OP, I agree with you that the whole way DnD has been traditionally balanced is through trade offs. And I agree too that this has been sort of broken through multiclassing and through the addition of across the board abilities. My impression is that evasion and self healing have broken some of the few reasons people had to interact inside the game.

If your only idea of teamwork is a nannybot, a trapper, a CC, 2 DPS and a tank then play in this way: just find other people that like to play in the same way and you can play all the quests you want with this setup. If most of the LFM in game are "BYOH-zerg" maybe it's because people like to play in that way? Why would you want to limit the freedom of other people?

[fmalfeas]

In some ways, the self-healing does remind me of tabletop D&D. As in - now everyone is the equivalent of a tabletop Druid or Cleric. (Really, the only way you're stopping one of them is with traps, and that's not guaranteed because they have spells to circumvent them, like Shatter, Shape Stone, Warp Wood, Transmute Rock to Mud, etc. And the cleric can cast Find Traps so he knows when he needs to cast those ahead of time.)

[BigErkyKid]

If your only idea of teamwork is a nannybot, a trapper, a CC, 2 DPS and a tank then play in this way: just find other people that like to play in the same way and you can play all the quests you want with this setup. If most of the LFM in game are "BYOH-zerg" maybe it's because people like to play in that way? Why would you want to limit the freedom of other people?

Just to be honest here. The way you design a game influences the way people play it (duh). There is not such a thing as yeah do whatever you want. If they make it such that every player is self sufficient, people learn to live with that and expect it. If you want cooperation among random strangers, you need to encourage it somehow. I am all for allowing for some people solo whatever they want if that is what they enjoy. But that is not what I would encourage with game design. And sue me!

[GrantAnderson]

Just to be honest here. The way you design a game influences the way people play it (duh). There is not such a thing as yeah do whatever you want. If they make it such that every player is self sufficient, people learn to live with that and expect it. If you want cooperation among random strangers, you need to encourage it somehow. I am all for allowing for some people solo whatever they want if that is what they enjoy. But that is not what I would encourage with game design. And sue me!
If grouping and soloing are both viable, the people who enjoy grouping will group and the people who enjoy (or, as in my case, through their circumstances are pretty much restricted to) soloing will solo. I like that DDO makes soloing an enjoyable path. The more restrictions that get placed on soloing, the less enjoyable I will find the game.

If you think having both styles viable means people will only solo, is that because you think other people don't like grouping as much as you do?

[BigErkyKid]

If grouping and soloing are both viable, the people who enjoy grouping will group and the people who enjoy (or, as in my case, through their circumstances are pretty much restricted to) soloing will solo. I like that DDO makes soloing an enjoyable path. The more restrictions that get placed on soloing, the less enjoyable I will find the game.

If you think having both styles viable means people will only solo, is that because you think other people don't like grouping as much as you do?

Suppose everyone is roughly self sufficient. Then people don't have very obvious ways of cooperating and they tend to mind their own business. Now imagine I can do things on my own, but it takes longer and it isn't very reliable. However, two of us can do it much faster if our strenghts complement.

This come back to the point by Oberon:


An addendum to this is the case of MySpace and Facebook. I read an article a couple years ago that explained why Facebook took-off while MySpace languished and it explained it very well, I think. Both are social networking sites that have the same basic purpose. MySpace created an interface that had so much more freedom than Facebook. At first thought this seemed like a good idea, but it turned out to be a major contributor to MySpace's difficulties. The problem was that people could do whatever they wanted with their "Space" and it became chaos. No one wanted to look at or deal with chaos and so they sought out an alternative Facebook, on the other hand, implemented strong restrictions about what you could or could not do with your page. It did not allow chaos to develop by having a solid structure. Thus, it became the alternative to MySpace that people sought out.

DDO faces a similar challenge to MySpace at the moment. The builds are too unstructured. Whereas MySpace devolved into chaos, DDO builds are evolving into homogeneity. Adding structure will do for DDO what having structure did for Facebook: it will make DDO better.

Beyond some quests with levers and other similar mechanics, I fail to see why most experienced people gain by cooperating. In the absence of any obvious way to do it, it is not done as much. The question here being:

Balacing of builds should be done in the direction of everyone being mostly self suficient and dps capable at roughly similar levels or by nerfing some of the current jacks of all trades.


PS - Hirelings are the alternative for soloers in the scenario I picture.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Apparently some people's idea of class balance is standing around waiting for a healer. trapper, etc. :(

[capsela]

Apparently some people's idea of class balance is standing around waiting for a healer. trapper, etc. :(

Yeah, it's called roleplaying. Only there are no roles anymore. Everyone is a self healing trap ignoring tank and if you aren't, you are considered a gimp. Is that what we want?

[GrantAnderson]

Suppose everyone is roughly self sufficient. Then people don't have very obvious ways of cooperating and they tend to mind their own business. Now imagine I can do things on my own, but it takes longer and it isn't very reliable. However, two of us can do it much faster if our strenghts complement.

This come back to the point by Oberon:



Beyond some quests with levers and other similar mechanics, I fail to see why most experienced people gain by cooperating. In the absence of any obvious way to do it, it is not done as much. The question here being:

Balacing of builds should be done in the direction of everyone being mostly self suficient and dps capable at roughly similar levels or by nerfing some of the current jacks of all trades.


PS - Hirelings are the alternative for soloers in the scenario I picture.
Yes, you can make it so that soloing is more difficult, and you can make it so that soloing is less rewarded (hi, raids). But if people, given a choice between soloing or grouping, would prefer soloing, why not embrace that and make both play styles viable? (As I said, grouping isn't often an option for me, so making life uncomfortable for soloists is more likely to make me leave than make me group.)

[Scraap]

Apparently some people's idea of class balance is standing around waiting for a healer. trapper, etc. :(

Well, lets examine that in terms of matters of degree:
A) Should traps cripple, or kill on elite at level, even once a given pack is unpopular enough that it's tough to find a group for?
B) If cripple:
1) how many casts of self-healing should it take on average to recover to full for a main healing specced class, such as cleric or favored soul?
2) As above, but for classes such as palies, rangers, and arties where self-healing is built in, but not necessarily the main focus to the point where it's expected?
3) How should that correspond to scroll usage?
C) How many pots should innate self healing represent for those without any of that capacity?

I think most would generally tend to agree that the proportions are a bit out of whack. Particularly the last, but B:1-3 as well.

[SirValentine]

Yeah, it's called roleplaying.


Nah, role-playing is pretending to be someone specific, like "I'm Sandy McFartell, the Halfing who grew up on a turnip farm, and learned to pick locks from my older cousin Vinny. I really hate Goblins because a Goblin ate my Mommy."

Requiring that other people NOT have certain skills has nothing in particular to do with role-playing.

[SirValentine]

Beyond some quests with levers and other similar mechanics, I fail to see why most experienced people gain by cooperating.


Wow. OK, so you fail to see it. Personally, I fail to see how you can fail to see it.

[EllisDee37]

Without roles there is no point in choosing one class over another. We could just choose any class and do anything (or perhaps, everything).Yes, please.


Q: If no character should be able to do everything, how can I solo all the quests on elite at level?!
A: You should choose normal difficulty. I don't think any character should be able to solo anything on elite at level.If you mean epic elite, fine, whatever, but heroic elite definitely should be soloable.

Generally speaking, I disagree with every word you wrote.

[Satyriasys]

I would rather wait around for a healer/trapper then have a vapid game where everyone can do anything. There needs to be threats, but if you can just ignore traps and heal yourself it makes for a shallow experience. There is no wonder why this game used to be more challenging, fun and rewarding. The new generation of players are used to consoles and want instant gratification. They don't have patience, ability or desire to formulate tactics and use teamwork or strategy to defeat an encounter. Sadly this is the direction the entire game industry is headed.

[xberto]

Taking 2 levels of monk is just insanely broken -- it gives you evasion, 2 free feats, great saves, along with access to one of the best ranged options in (zen archery/10k stars) and access to incredibly powerful stances (why on earth did you guys make the stance improvements into selectable feats?).
.
This can't be said enough. It it is clearly the most stupidly unbalanced class splash in the game. Why it has not been fixed is beyond me. Cmon! Get on it! Free repecs for all!

[Qhualor]

.If you mean epic elite, fine, whatever, but heroic elite definitely should be soloable.

Generally speaking, I disagree with every word you wrote.

I disagree with this myself. why is heroic elite the exclusion? why should it be soloable, but not epic elite? elite is supposed to be the toughest difficulty. soloing should be challenging and it shouldn't matter if its epic or heroic

[Hilltrot]

Balance

No one says that any one class or or race is worthless. No one class or race is only played for flavor.

No class makes a mockery of a raid on EE.

[Hilltrot]

This can't be said enough. It it is clearly the most stupidly unbalanced class splash in the game. Why it has not been fixed is beyond me. Cmon! Get on it! Free repecs for all!

Dittos, You don't have to get rid of evasion for monk, just push it up to level 9.

[EllisDee37]

I disagree with this myself. why is heroic elite the exclusion? why should it be soloable, but not epic elite? elite is supposed to be the toughest difficulty. soloing should be challenging and it shouldn't matter if its epic or heroicSo, next time you tr and wash up on the beach in korthos, you think there is anything they could do to Storehouse Secret that would prevent you from soloing it on elite?

Followup question: Do you want to have to wait to fill a pug group with at least one person as skilled as yourself before you can manage to complete Heyton's Rest on elite?

The premise of "elite shouldn't be soloable" is preposterous in heroic levels.

[Hilltrot]

Well, lets examine that in terms of matters of degree:
A) Should traps cripple, or kill on elite at level, even once a given pack is unpopular enough that it's tough to find a group for?
B) If cripple:
1) how many casts of self-healing should it take on average to recover to full for a main healing specced class, such as cleric or favored soul?
2) As above, but for classes such as palies, rangers, and arties where self-healing is built in, but not necessarily the main focus to the point where it's expected?
3) How should that correspond to scroll usage?
C) How many pots should innate self healing represent for those without any of that capacity?

I think most would generally tend to agree that the proportions are a bit out of whack. Particularly the last, but B:1-3 as well.

That's actually an interesting idea. An unhealable cripple. -50% attack/spells/movement speed.

Straight damage really doesn't do anything unless it kills you.

[Satyriasys]

So, next time you tr and wash up on the beach in korthos, you think there is anything they could do to Storehouse Secret that would prevent you from soloing it on elite?

Followup question: Do you want to have to wait to fill a pug group with at least one person as skilled as yourself before you can manage to complete Heyton's Rest on elite?

The premise of "elite shouldn't be soloable" is preposterous in heroic levels.

As long as it's not balanced for solo it would be fine. Anyone with a bit of experience would still be able to solo it. I think the removal of dungeon scaling would be a huge step in the right direction.

[Qhualor]

So, next time you tr and wash up on the beach in korthos, you think there is anything they could do to Storehouse Secret that would prevent you from soloing it on elite?

Followup question: Do you want to have to wait to fill a pug group with at least one person as skilled as yourself before you can manage to complete Heyton's Rest on elite?

The premise of "elite shouldn't be soloable" is preposterous in heroic levels.

what I actually said was "challenge" not "prevent".

people don't wait for a group to fill because the difficulties have been nerfed over the past few years plus throw in power creep. we were given more power while quests were dumbed down. now players are used to it and prefer to sacrifice challenging themselves for easy character progression. I actually don't mind waiting to fill a group, but I don't like waiting a half hour either. this is just another thing where Turbine dug themselves into a hole and its too late to go back or people will complain its easier with 6 people than it is with just 1. now im going to respond to the common rebuttal. we didn't have this problem a few years ago with people waiting around to fill a group for very long when quests used to be more challenging.

[BigErkyKid]

As long as it's not balanced for solo it would be fine. Anyone with a bit of experience would still be able to solo it. I think the removal of dungeon scaling would be a huge step in the right direction.


+1 for dungeon scaling going away.

[Daze]

Dittos, You don't have to get rid of evasion for monk, just push it up to level 9.

Monk splash perks have more requirements then just being a monk. Weight, Armor, Weapon restrictions etc etc all have to be met before using the rest of what monk has to offer. Ignore that and all you get is evasion..... may as well go rogue. The trade off is worth it for some but not all.


+1 for dungeon scaling going away.

What exactly does this have to do with making every class/race worthwhile? Making quests both challenging for a party and solo-able is good for the game.

Everything you've written up to this point has been limited in scope and skewed towards your own bias as much as any elite power gamer. It's like rewarding those who have spent the time to acquire the skill to play at a certain level is meaningless. If that is the game you want to play then so be it. I am not of that opinion maybe I am alone in this but I believe that time in the game should be both awarded with more powerful abilities IE past lives and the skills to use them fully. That includes the skills to make a toon do what you want..... I havent been able to make a caster/tank/trapper/healer/melee/ranged toon with 8 years spent in game with corresponding past lives and gear but if you can and want it nerfed so be it.

[SirValentine]

If you mean epic elite, fine, whatever, but heroic elite definitely should be soloable.


According what what Turbine has told us in the past, "Epic" and "Heroic" are just "tiers". "Elite" is a difficulty, and applies equally in either tier. "Epic" stopped having any direct relation to difficulty when MotU came out.

I feel that Epic Elite and Heroic Elite should be equally difficult to solo by appropriate-level characters. (How difficult that should be is a separate issue I'm not addressing here.)

[Satyriasys]

What exactly does this have to do with making every class/race worthwhile? Making quests both challenging for a party and solo-able is good for the game.

Some of the quests particularly in the new content are quite easy to solo but become a lag inducing mess if grouping. Currently it is easer and faster to solo these quests and discourages grouping. This is bad for the game.

[Daze]

Some of the quests particularly in the new content are quite easy to solo but become a lag inducing mess if grouping. Currently it is easer and faster to solo these quests and discourages grouping. This is bad for the game.

I see your point. Changing the scaling or fixing the lag (It's a feature right?) would be better than eliminating the scaling altogether with a nuke from orbit approach. Mainly because then you wouldn't even be able to solo it as the zones would be permanently scaled for full groups....

I too have suffered the new content lag monster and have the videos to prove it attached to my twitch account linked in the sig.... so yes I feel your pain and can relate to what your saying. Doesn't take away from the balancing question.

[WNxDaCraw]

I just want to put my 2 cents in. The constant re-balancing of the game by Nerfing good characters has driven me away from the game a couple times. The last time i canceled my VIP for 9 months because of the AC 'fix'. I like to play the game and see how powerful my builds can get...usually not very. But if i did stumble onto a great idea that worked well it would get smashed because of small minded small people who feel bad when another build is better than theirs. Jealousy is an ugly thing but these forums are full it.

You should play characters that you enjoy. If some one else makes you feel bad because there guy is more powerful then don't play with them. Its a big game so you can find other low powered people like your selves and have a ball.

sorry about the negativity but it drives me crazy when they treat characters who excel like nails to be hammered into place. We should embrace cool new builds not cry because they are better than you.

So leave balance to the players who lead groups. And i will keep paying for my VIP and buying DDO points.

[GrantAnderson]

I would rather wait around for a healer/trapper then have a vapid game where everyone can do anything. There needs to be threats, but if you can just ignore traps and heal yourself it makes for a shallow experience. There is no wonder why this game used to be more challenging, fun and rewarding. The new generation of players are used to consoles and want instant gratification. They don't have patience, ability or desire to formulate tactics and use teamwork or strategy to defeat an encounter. Sadly this is the direction the entire game industry is headed.
I solo just about all the time (and not because I'm part of the 'new generation of players'; I started gaming on an Apple ][e, and it has been long and long since I played a console game :) ).

If you think soloing doesn't require at least as much tactics and strategy as grouping, I'm somewhat bemused. I grant that grouping may require more patience, particularly with the cat-herding that raids can become ;) But part of the game for me is character design. Do I give up a capstone and spend two levels to gain Evasion? Do I take a level in Druid or Artificer so I have an extra lever puller? A level in Artificer or Rogue, and push my Int at the expense of other scores, so that I have enough cross-class skill points to be a competent trapper? What's the return on pushing the Short Sword linear with Kensei, Warpriest and Drow enhancements? (+12 to hit and damage and +1 to threat range seems nice, although I haven't even looked into whether they stack yet) There's plenty of strategy involved before you even set foot in an adventure.

[BigErkyKid]

I solo just about all the time (and not because I'm part of the 'new generation of players'; I started gaming on an Apple ][e, and it has been long and long since I played a console game :) ).

If you think soloing doesn't require at least as much tactics and strategy as grouping, I'm somewhat bemused. I grant that grouping may require more patience, particularly with the cat-herding that raids can become ;) But part of the game for me is character design. Do I give up a capstone and spend two levels to gain Evasion? Do I take a level in Druid or Artificer so I have an extra lever puller? A level in Artificer or Rogue, and push my Int at the expense of other scores, so that I have enough cross-class skill points to be a competent trapper? What's the return on pushing the Short Sword linear with Kensei, Warpriest and Drow enhancements? (+12 to hit and damage and +1 to threat range seems nice, although I haven't even looked into whether they stack yet) There's plenty of strategy involved before you even set foot in an adventure.


While I agree that creating a "powerhouse/multitool" character or whatever you want to call it is an exercise of balance in principle, I think it has become much less of a challenge over time. In any case, my understanding is that those who want to solo should be able to bring hirelings to their questing. It is not as effective given the AI, but well it should still work.

Again, the issue of balance has been brought (I suspect) because of the monkcher and shiradi situations (I guess the monkcher one is the most outrageous). We all know of monkchers soloing FoT. It is clear (to me) that what arguably (for the majority of cases, there are very good melees out there, it is just much harder to pull) monkchers have the best DPS in the game, they also have the best defenses: evasion + damage avoidance through kiting. I refuse to accept kiting as some for of skill, it is not that hard at all.

These went on to multiclassing because that's the origin of those beasts and now it has derived to a discussion of whether good in all fronts characters should be allowed via game design. I see it as the natural progression of the discussion. I DO NOT think there is a right answer to that, it is a matter of how you like (or can) to play the game.

Some people prefer to have the lowest reliance on other people to get quests done, parties being mostly composed of equally self sufficient characters that perform very similar functions. You DPS, you self heal and you deal with traps (evasion or trapping or a combination of both). You may choose to do that as a caster, ranged or melee.

To me, that style lowers a lot the need of strategic interactions between members of the group and makes the game more boring. It seems that the game has moved in that direction. Yes, if you do incoporporate those elements of self sufficiency, people can still cooperate if they choose to do so. However, it becomes far less obvious how to interact meaningfully with other party members. In the absence of guidelines, people do it far less. I think this is a fact, that overall there is less interaction in questing between party members. If you don't believe me, think about this. When was the last time that:

1. Someone healed you.
2. You waited for someone to deal with a trap or did it yourself (for the group while they waited).
3. Casted or received NON group buffs (those that need specific targetting and are not just an externality).
4. Participated in an explicit group strategy (positioning, pulling, shield walls, whatever) with other party members.
(bring more if you come up with them)

Outside some specific quests, I fine myself engaging much fewer times in 1-4.

So when it comes to balance, the changes I would like to see are in the direction of increasing group reliance and the benefits of grouping, not further decreasing them. Some builds are jacks of all trades and they sure do that very well. I wouldn't want more possibilities in that direction. This is a personal opinion and taste and I am entitled to have it.

[MonadRebelion]

I'm just going to rant here. Sorry that this isn't more composed.

I'm not sure I'm in favor of balance. My view of how character design should work is informed by my 20+ years of playing pnp dnd. If balance means making it so that barbarians don't really need healers, I'm against it. If balance means making pure class characters as powerful as finely tuned multiclass characters, I'm against it. In my view, characters that aren't based on archetypes that are supposed to have legendary skills at x should not be nearly as good at x as those characters. Moreover, I think the game should have moments when the disparity between these characters is evident and makes a real difference concerning what happens and what is even possible for a character/group without a specialist in x. I don't think there is a problem with pure class characters being viable in ee content. I think they are viable. I think the so-called viability problem is more about people having self-esteem issues when they see their characters being out preformed by multiclassers. I'll grant that multiclass characters are more powerful than pure class. It can still be true that when a pure class character enters a quest with multiclass characters they can contribute. I think it's fine for multiclass characters to have more overall survivability and power in general. Multiclassing to reduce weaknesses and enhance power has always been a part of dnd. The only complaint I have about multiclassing is that there is nowhere in the game where a pure classer's skill in x really outshines a multiclasser's and has a real impact on outcomes and possibilities. For example, there really is no place in the game where rogue mechanic show's he/she can do something no one else can. In my view, since this is a dnd based game, someone should be able to spend a lot of time perfecting a trap focused rogue and have that effort rewarded. That particular rogue should be able to do things with traps no one else can. If there are issues of 'balance' in the game that need to be addressed, I'd say it has nothing to do with dps and everything to do with how easy it to self heal, how easy it is to bypass traps, and how amazingly effective a small number of spells are against most of the environment (it's great that necro's are weak against undead, that fire sorcerers are weak against fire-based creatures, and I think we need this spread out more generally).

[GrantAnderson]

Again, the issue of balance has been brought (I suspect) because of the monkcher and shiradi situations (I guess the monkcher one is the most outrageous). We all know of monkchers soloing FoT. It is clear (to me) that what arguably (for the majority of cases, there are very good melees out there, it is just much harder to pull) monkchers have the best DPS in the game, they also have the best defenses: evasion + damage avoidance through kiting. I refuse to accept kiting as some for of skill, it is not that hard at all.
Soloing at-level content intended for 12 players isn't something I'm keen on either. (Although I do like going back with a Epicked character and soloing low-level raids, because the odds of me playing many raids at-level are very small indeed.)


These went on to multiclassing because that's the origin of those beasts and now it has derived to a discussion of whether good in all fronts characters should be allowed via game design. I see it as the natural progression of the discussion. I DO NOT think there is a right answer to that, it is a matter of how you like (or can) to play the game.
You (usually) pay for versatility in power, and I think that's fair enough. In theory, for example, taking two levels of Rogue or Monk in your otherwise-pure-class costs you your capstone, and that should be a meaningful cost.


So when it comes to balance, the changes I would like to see are in the direction of increasing group reliance and the benefits of grouping, not further decreasing them. Some builds are jacks of all trades and they sure do that very well. I wouldn't want more possibilities in that direction. This is a personal opinion and taste and I am entitled to have it.
You're welcome to your personal taste, just as I have mine. But if you get your way (increased group reliance/forced grouping to finish quests), that makes my style of play less fun. If soloing is a reasonable way to play, people who enjoy grouping still can and will group. I don't think people are that confused about how to behave in groups.

[Satyriasys]

I solo just about all the time (and not because I'm part of the 'new generation of players'; I started gaming on an Apple ][e, and it has been long and long since I played a console game :) ).

If you think soloing doesn't require at least as much tactics and strategy as grouping, I'm somewhat bemused. I grant that grouping may require more patience, particularly with the cat-herding that raids can become ;) But part of the game for me is character design. Do I give up a capstone and spend two levels to gain Evasion? Do I take a level in Druid or Artificer so I have an extra lever puller? A level in Artificer or Rogue, and push my Int at the expense of other scores, so that I have enough cross-class skill points to be a competent trapper? What's the return on pushing the Short Sword linear with Kensei, Warpriest and Drow enhancements? (+12 to hit and damage and +1 to threat range seems nice, although I haven't even looked into whether they stack yet) There's plenty of strategy involved before you even set foot in an adventure.

Now if you can solo whilst demonstrating teamwork I'll be impressed. Also soloing is bad for the game, hurts the lfm and general community/life of ddo.

[knockcocker]

Also soloing is bad for the game, hurts the lfm and general community/life of ddo.

That's a bold statement. Do you have any proof of that at all?

Soloers spend money in the store too.

[WNxDaCraw]

That's a bold statement. Do you have any proof of that at all?

Soloers spend money in the store too.

They are constantly trying to draw in new players. logging in and only seeing a few lfm's just makes me think the game is dieing and why would I pay for a game that so few people play. time to check out the next mmo

[RapkintheRanger]

Splashes have always been used and popular, and not really a problem imo. It's not really a problem either that some builds are better than others. What IS a problem is that a few distinct combinations of abilities produce characters which are EXTREMELY A LOT more powerful than all other builds, even very similar ones.

Nerfs/adjustments like the 1-4 suggested above by vengfarga could help trim the top and make alternatives viable, and from the Dev posts here I am hopeful that something like that will happen.

frankly, i hate all of the proposals to make characters crappier (AKA nerfing)

They do not make "alternatives viable" they make better builds crappier. And crappier builds are less fun to play for some people and that is why some people avoud them. Forcing everyone into crappier builds does not make DDO a better game.

And lets consider shall we. The new firepeak raid, runs pretty smoothly with a couple monkchers grabbing aggro and separating dragons and a couple people with the ability to clear trash fast, ive got a dozen completions. Without those builds in the mix, the raid often fails. 3X in a row i tried to help a mishmash pug of first lifers, pure builds, barbarians, and whatnot through, fail fail fail.

not fun.

Try taking down a 300K HP mob when all of your damage boost abilities are gone. Just do 60HP of damage 5000X and you will be there.... boring.

If you take the time to look for synergies in this game, what we find out is that you can build an effective character and then it will get destroyed by nefrage.



Next for nerfing: i recon war-forged should not be able to cast as they are just machines.



This entire thread just annoys me

[Faltout]

I'm just going to rant here. Sorry that this isn't more composed.

I'm not sure I'm in favor of balance. My view of how character design should work is informed by my 20+ years of playing pnp dnd. If balance means making it so that barbarians don't really need healers, I'm against it. If balance means making pure class characters as powerful as finely tuned multiclass characters, I'm against it. In my view, characters that aren't based on archetypes that are supposed to have legendary skills at x should not be nearly as good at x as those characters. Moreover, I think the game should have moments when the disparity between these characters is evident and makes a real difference concerning what happens and what is even possible for a character/group without a specialist in x.
And that's exactly what "balance" is. Balance is not having everyone do everything. Balance means that when you place weight on the pros of a build, you place equal weight on the cons. Because right now the game is like:
Uber characters (4 builds) <vs> uber mosnters <vs> Normal characters (many builds/skilled players + 4 builds/non skilled players) <vs> Uber monsters <vs> Poor players (rest of the builds/non skilled players)
See, skilled players should be able to join an Elite run and use what they're skilled at without having to resort to one of the overpowered builds to beat the uber monsters. And of course uber monsters can't be gimped as long as 4 uber builds get advertized a lot. Poor players should just choose a lower difficulty.

[RapkintheRanger]

Now if you can solo whilst demonstrating teamwork I'll be impressed. Also soloing is bad for the game, hurts the lfm and general community/life of ddo.

Soloing is good for the game. people learn, spend money enjoy themselves.

waiting around for a group to fill then dealing with people who may or may not be people you want to hear talking ... less fun


AND this is what bugs me about this thread.

Lets nerf people to **** so the only way they can complete is in a group with other **** characters struggling along.

Whatever DDO: Nerf this thread not my character.

If you want to buff up other options go for it, but leave my functioning characters alone.

[Satyriasys]

That's a bold statement. Do you have any proof of that at all?

Soloers spend money in the store too.

It's a no brainer really. How long are noobs or non power gamers going to play when they cannot find a group? What would be the point in guilds or other classes for that matter? How long are vets going to stay interested when they can do everything themselves? Sure playing in God-mode is fun! but it gets boring very fast. People are going to stop spending money or time on their characters if there is no one else to play with. This is an mmo not a single players rpg with an epic story and cutscenes to keep one interested, even those lose their re-playability quickly. MMOs stay entertaining simply because of the community and grouping. Have you ever played an MMO on a private server by yourself? It's not very fun.

This is Dungeons & Dragons and the premise of the whole game is based around grouping and complementing each-others archtypes.
When traps can be ignored what is their purpose? Why not just remove them? further simplifying the game. Why have Rogues at all when there are better dps options? When everyone can self heal what is the point in Divines? They end up being weak Arcanes and their greatest strength is rendered worthless why not just remove them? Tanks are also all but useless in this game with the exception of a few raids. One of the Bard's greatest strengths were their buffs but in solo play the class loses meaning. Slowly all but the most powerful and self sufficient builds become less and less viable until you end up with a very shallow, pointless game.


frankly, i hate all of the proposals to make characters crappier (AKA nerfing)


Generally I would agree if it were not for the few synergies and splashes that are horribly broken and stupidly over powered right now.

[zwiebelring]

Since everybody can play epic elite, I don't want to spend money on a regular basis without having the same options as does have a F2P player, who happens to be better at microing his toon between epic elite mobs.

That was fair.

Turbine has to decide - and be specific about it - to either want an actual ingame elite or providing everything to the whole community.

[jskinner937]

I'm just going to rant here. Sorry that this isn't more composed.

I'm not sure I'm in favor of balance. My view of how character design should work is informed by my 20+ years of playing pnp dnd. If balance means making it so that barbarians don't really need healers, I'm against it. If balance means making pure class characters as powerful as finely tuned multiclass characters, I'm against it. In my view, characters that aren't based on archetypes that are supposed to have legendary skills at x should not be nearly as good at x as those characters. Moreover, I think the game should have moments when the disparity between these characters is evident and makes a real difference concerning what happens and what is even possible for a character/group without a specialist in x. I don't think there is a problem with pure class characters being viable in ee content. I think they are viable. I think the so-called viability problem is more about people having self-esteem issues when they see their characters being out preformed by multiclassers. I'll grant that multiclass characters are more powerful than pure class. It can still be true that when a pure class character enters a quest with multiclass characters they can contribute. I think it's fine for multiclass characters to have more overall survivability and power in general. Multiclassing to reduce weaknesses and enhance power has always been a part of dnd. The only complaint I have about multiclassing is that there is nowhere in the game where a pure classer's skill in x really outshines a multiclasser's and has a real impact on outcomes and possibilities. For example, there really is no place in the game where rogue mechanic show's he/she can do something no one else can. In my view, since this is a dnd based game, someone should be able to spend a lot of time perfecting a trap focused rogue and have that effort rewarded. That particular rogue should be able to do things with traps no one else can. If there are issues of 'balance' in the game that need to be addressed, I'd say it has nothing to do with dps and everything to do with how easy it to self heal, how easy it is to bypass traps, and how amazingly effective a small number of spells are against most of the environment (it's great that necro's are weak against undead, that fire sorcerers are weak against fire-based creatures, and I think we need this spread out more generally).

So you compare you pNp experience here, however in pNp multicass with the same experience points as a pure class are far behind the curve of pure class since they had to allocate their experience points to each class. DDO is an interpretation of pNp and IMO is currently a perverse interpretation at best. If you have a limited amount of heroic experience available to you, a pure class should have the most powerful abilities available to them and if you multicass, you should sacrifice those for something else in return. The point many are trying to make is so many of the most powerful abilities are low hanging fruit in many prestige class trees that the choice to play pure class currently means you are sacrificing more power for the flavor of pure class. Casters are about the exception here. If more powerful abilities were tied to class levels or capstones were vastly increased for those lackluster pure classes, that makes more sense and would be much further in line with pNp then the current system.

Honestly the other alternative using your own example is to make multiclassing more along the lines as it was with pNp. Which means for example a multiclassing could only achieve a 8/8 split or 5/5/5 split before capping out on heroic XP. I am not in favor of this either, so increasing capstones makes the most sense.

[SirValentine]

Also soloing is bad for the game, hurts the lfm and general community/life of ddo.

Wrong. There always has been people who will solo, either exclusively, or at times, due to factors completely outside the game. Either Turbine can have options for those people, or they can lose them as potential customers. When those solo-only players are playing DDO solo, it does not in any way hurt the game or community. The alternative is for them to play some other game, were DDO to not support their play-style. Do you think that would somehow be better for the game & community?

[SirValentine]

If balance means making pure class characters as powerful as finely tuned multiclass characters, I'm against it.


What kind of pure class character?

If balance means a thrown-together character (pure or multi) is as powerful as a finely-tuned character, I'm against it, too.

If balance means a finely-tuned pure class character is as powerful as a finely-tuned multi-class character, of course I'm for it! Why would you be against that?

[Satyriasys]

Wrong. There always has been people who will solo, either exclusively, or at times, due to factors completely outside the game. Either Turbine can have options for those people, or they can lose them as potential customers. When those solo-only players are playing DDO solo, it does not in any way hurt the game or community. The alternative is for them to play some other game, were DDO to not support their play-style. Do you think that would somehow be better for the game & community?

True, there needs to be options for solo players but it should not replace grouping. Currently it's far too easy to solo some content then it should be. Too many soloers hurt the game is what I should have said.

[BigErkyKid]

You (usually) pay for versatility in power, and I think that's fair enough. In theory, for example, taking two levels of Rogue or Monk in your otherwise-pure-class costs you your capstone, and that should be a meaningful cost.


You're welcome to your personal taste, just as I have mine. But if you get your way (increased group reliance/forced grouping to finish quests), that makes my style of play less fun. If soloing is a reasonable way to play, people who enjoy grouping still can and will group. I don't think people are that confused about how to behave in groups.

I don't think you do as it stands. The very meager losses for some classes at higher levels are more than compensated by very powerful low hanging fruit.


I do think that people are increasingly unable to cooperate. I am rolling rogue now, first time (never felt the need to disable traps before) just for fun. When there is a quest that has deadly traps (a large number of quests have traps that can be avoided) I have been casted a few times heroism by other players(even though I carry hundreds of heroism pots on me, but how would they know). When there are no such traps, the only thing I see is a bunch of people running like crazy ants all over the quest. In wizzard king, one of the most common demands is be able to solo a tower.

Playing in groups seems to be done simply for faster completition (in quests where there is actually such gain), whereas in quests with few fights or very linear I can only see advantages to doing it alone. I dislike that. This is brought by the fact that people don't have a more meaningful way to cooperate.

What does it mean to cooperate in a 4 people group doing wizking? To solo a tower. So basically it is like playing in the same way, 4 times faster. What else could they do to cooperate? What group strategy do they need? What interesting synergies happen within the group?

Outside of raids, 4 lever quests and a bunch of other quests I don't see much meaningful encouragement for grouping in this game. For me, one of the MAIN appeals of the DnD world is the group dynamics and I think this is the case for a large number of people too

Could you solo quests if they nerfed the absolute self sufficiency of some builds? Yes, you could get hirelings or play it smart. Build a character capable of overcoming many difficulties with strnghts in a limited number of the game abilities. That can be fun too! The other day i jumped in a quest with a strict healbot player and my now underpowered character. It was difficult but rewarding to be able to pull the fights and the rest with strategy and cunning and not simply steamroll over everything.

Encouraging more team play by providing obvious ways to cooperate does not necessarily mean making soloing impossible or a very ugly option.


PS - So let me bring your attention again to the cooperation test. When was the last time or how frequently happens that:

1. Someone healed you.
2. You waited for someone to deal with a trap or did it yourself (for the group while they waited).
3. Casted or received NON group buffs (those that need specific targetting and are not just an externality).
4. Participated in an explicit group strategy (positioning, pulling, shield walls, whatever) with other party members.
(bring more if you come up with them)

[sebastianosmith]

PS - So let me bring your attention again to the cooperation test. When was the last time or how frequently happens that:

1. Someone healed you.
2. You waited for someone to deal with a trap or did it yourself (for the group while they waited).
3. Casted or received NON group buffs (those that need specific targetting and are not just an externality).
4. Participated in an explicit group strategy (positioning, pulling, shield walls, whatever) with other party members.
(bring more if you come up with them)

I and my static group do all of these every time we step into a quest. We play as a team, each fulfilling a critical role which makes the whole stronger than the sum of its parts. That is the way we choose to play. The game neither encourages nor dissuades us from doing so. We simply decided to do it on our own.

The reason so many players choose to solo or zerg like mad is not a function of game mechanics. The game allows for such behavior just as it allows for what I and my group prefer. It doesn't favor any particular style over another. The players do that based on desire and expectation. Attempting to enforce a behavior through enticement, game mechanics or some other means will produce unpredictable results because many such measures fail to take player goals into account.

[Pandir]

I and my static group do all of these every time we step into a quest. We play as a team, each fulfilling a critical role which makes the whole stronger than the sum of its parts. That is the way we choose to play. The game neither encourages nor dissuades us from doing so. We simply decided to do it on our own.

The reason so many players choose to solo or zerg like mad is not a function of game mechanics. The game allows for such behavior just as it allows for what I and my group prefer. It doesn't favor any particular style over another. The players do that based on desire and expectation. Attempting to enforce a behavior through enticement, game mechanics or some other means will produce unpredictable results because many such measures fail to take player goals into account.

Thanks for that, how did we get from character balance to soloing needs to be curbed anyways.

[Zoda]

I haven't read all the posts, only a few, so I'm not sure if this has been brought up yet or not, but I think it is important to mention. So, I think Divine Might needs some adjustments. As it is now, it almost completely invalidates non strenght builds for melee, as the bonus it provides is way too powerful for the tiny investment it requires, not to mention that splashing paladin/fvs/cleric has other benefits (uber saves/decent +2 to all saves for lvl 1/easy scroll mastery access respectively). If we just take an average example of a character starting 14 CHA, using a + 10 item, +2 insightful, +1 exceptional, +3 tome, +2 ship buff, +2 yugo pot, it is already at 34 CHA, getting 12 STR for a very minimal investment (also getting good UMD, so it even has multiple benefits), while a power gamer can hit 40 CHA without much of a sacrifice. Just for comparison, a pure barbarian, with enhancements gets +11 STR for his lvl 20 rage.

I see 2 possible solutions for this:
a) returning divine might might to be a damage bonus as it used to be (hell, I went crazy looking for +4 cha tome on my pally life back in the day to hit the 20 CHA requirement for DM 4 back in the day for that additional +2 damage)
b) moving it higher up the enhancement tree, it easily has the power level of most tier 5 abilities, but I guess it'd already be fine as tier 3 or 4 (or lvl 12 core), so it won't be so easy to splash for it - as once again, multiclass is the OP, not pure.
The 2nd solution I presented would also make playing a paladin (instead of 2-6 levls splash) more desireable.

[BigErkyKid]

I and my static group do all of these every time we step into a quest. We play as a team, each fulfilling a critical role which makes the whole stronger than the sum of its parts. That is the way we choose to play. The game neither encourages nor dissuades us from doing so. We simply decided to do it on our own.

The reason so many players choose to solo or zerg like mad is not a function of game mechanics. The game allows for such behavior just as it allows for what I and my group prefer. It doesn't favor any particular style over another. The players do that based on desire and expectation. Attempting to enforce a behavior through enticement, game mechanics or some other means will produce unpredictable results because many such measures fail to take player goals into account.

I disagree. To talk specifics, let's go back to my wizking example. Exactly how is the quest completed in a better way by the attitude"We play as a team, each fulfilling a critical role which makes the whole stronger than the sum of its parts". You play in a static group and cooperate regardless of whether there are meager returns to it or not.

A lot of people, notably rookies, play in pugs where the only reason that a priori they have to cooperate and formulate strategies is the in game reward. I argue that currently there is little to non.

It is game design 101 that desired behaviors should be incentivized. Then people decide if they like the game for what it rewards or not. Giving self sufficiency and little cross - player cooperation benefits directly points in the direction of no group play. With clickies, self buffs, self healing, evasion / trapping people barely need anything from anyone while in a group. I seldom ever see any of the 4 points I mentioned happen in game.

Exactly what cross player cooperation is the game encouraging right now? The whole state of it is summarized by: "every man on his own pushing to get this done as fast as possible". As I said, in a lot of quests the difference I see is simply speed, not more interesting synergies.

Saying that people can do as they please while the game mechanics are moving in the direction of no cooperation (in the sense I described) is just cheap talk.

PS - I get it, a veteran does NOT want to have to rely on someone who may not know how to play that well for crucial aspects of the gameplay. However, the alternative is even less fun for me.

[Pala-forged]

1. Someone healed you.
2. You waited for someone to deal with a trap or did it yourself (for the group while they waited).
3. Casted or received NON group buffs (those that need specific targetting and are not just an externality).
4. Participated in an explicit group strategy (positioning, pulling, shield walls, whatever) with other party members.
(bring more if you come up with them)

Months ago. Not including healing aura, which doesn't really count.
Oh, ****. I'd have to say.. my second life.. probably a year ago?
Ooh.. I tend to pass some out while we're running, depending on the quest. Jump for the ones where it's useful, a resist if someone needs it.. few weeks, but it does happen.
Few weeks. I was running servants of the overlord with a couple of first lifers and I've seen how that ends in the past. Hell, even when I buff I sometimes get down to ~50 hp. For the first two rooms I told them to stay back while I pulled a few mobs in each, just to lighten the incoming damage on them.. then I cleaved everything to get agro. Was a fun run actually, though they were upset 3 melees didn't try the ritual optional

Edit: Your profanity filters suck, you're blocking some really common words..

[SirValentine]

It is game design 101 that desired behaviors should be incentivized.


Sure...but what are your "desired behaviors"?



Giving self sufficiency and little cross - player cooperation benefits directly points in the direction of no group play.


You keep saying that. But you as yet have given nothing to show there's little cooperation benefits. That directly contradicts my own experiences.



Saying that people can do as they please while the game mechanics are moving in the direction of no cooperation (in the sense I described) is just cheap talk.


Ah, now I see: you're using your own special definition of cooperation, and just arbitrarily declaring the extensive cooperation that others of us do in groups all the time as "no cooperation".

[Vellrad]

Ah, now I see: you're using your own special definition of cooperation, and just arbitrarily declaring the extensive cooperation that others of us do in groups all the time as "no cooperation".

Oh, please, everyone knows that for forum antibyoh people the only known form of cooperation and team work is 'you stand back never swinging your weapon while I have fun fighting mobs and completing quest'.

[knockcocker]

It's a no brainer really. How long are noobs or non power gamers going to play when they cannot find a group? What would be the point in guilds or other classes for that matter? How long are vets going to stay interested when they can do everything themselves? Sure playing in God-mode is fun! but it gets boring very fast. People are going to stop spending money or time on their characters if there is no one else to play with. This is an mmo not a single players rpg with an epic story and cutscenes to keep one interested, even those lose their re-playability quickly. MMOs stay entertaining simply because of the community and grouping.


You could have saved yourself a lot of typing by just saying no. Your entire argument is based upon several assertions which you've
provided no evidence for , namely:

Vets will get bored playing in God-mode - really? based on what? you need to at least define what you mean by "God-mode".

Not being able to find a group - you're assuming that nobody is grouping because we're all soloing and that if we *had* to group
we *would*. Again, no basis for this. Personally, I just wouldn't play. I know many others who just wouldn't play either.
Everyone has access to the LFM panel - try one yourself if there are no groups. Stop blaming other players for your game experience
with baseless arguments.

The rest of this paragraph is subjective. For instance, "entertaining" is a personal perspective.



Have you ever played an MMO on a private server by yourself? It's not very fun.

How is that relevant to anything said?



This is Dungeons & Dragons and the premise of the whole game is based around grouping and complementing each-others archtypes.
When traps can be ignored what is their purpose? Why not just remove them? further simplifying the game. Why have Rogues at all when there are better dps options? When everyone can self heal what is the point in Divines? They end up being weak Arcanes and their greatest strength is rendered worthless why not just remove them? Tanks are also all but useless in this game with the exception of a few raids. One of the Bard's greatest strengths were their buffs but in solo play the class loses meaning. Slowly all but the most powerful and self sufficient builds become less and less viable until you end up with a very shallow, pointless game.


This is DDO not D&D. You can play D&D on DDO if you want - you just need to find those likeminded
people who also want to. You just can't force people to align what with what you think the game
experience should be - that's not fair. Encouraging 'balance changes' (i.e. nerfs) based on your
perception of what you think the game experience should be is wrong - anything that reduces options
is wrong as you *already* have the power to make this game the grouping game that you want to
play. If nobody joins your groups perhaps it's you that's wrong?

[Pandir]

Oh, please, everyone knows that for forum antibyoh people the only known form of cooperation and team work is 'you stand back never swinging your weapon while I have fun fighting mobs and completing quest'.

Hey i'm all for bringing the holy mmo trinity to DDO for a while. Just so i can chuckle at all the LFM's with 3 - 4 dps, reading "Just need tank and healer then g2g"

[knockcocker]

I and my static group do all of these every time we step into a quest. We play as a team, each fulfilling a critical role which makes the whole stronger than the sum of its parts. That is the way we choose to play. The game neither encourages nor dissuades us from doing so. We simply decided to do it on our own.

The reason so many players choose to solo or zerg like mad is not a function of game mechanics. The game allows for such behavior just as it allows for what I and my group prefer. It doesn't favor any particular style over another. The players do that based on desire and expectation. Attempting to enforce a behavior through enticement, game mechanics or some other means will produce unpredictable results because many such measures fail to take player goals into account.

Exactly. Trying to force everyone to play in a certain way feels very "anti-D&D" to me - which is ironic
given it's a principle argument for some of the posters who seem to want to dictate what your game
experience should be like.

[Satyriasys]

knockcocker, It's obvious we have very different ideas of what is fun and what DDO should be. I am sure glad you are not in charge of this game and I would hate to group with you. This is ok as we both have different playstyles/opinions. No need to get snippy with me.

[knockcocker]

knockcocker, It's obvious we have very different ideas of what is fun and what DDO should be. I am sure glad you are not in charge of this game and I would hate to group with you. This is ok as we both have different playstyles/opinions. No need to get snippy with me.

I'm not getting snippy; just pointing out that you actually have no basis for any of the asssertions you're making about
soloers destroying the game. My chief point is that you can already play the game how you like but you don't seem
satisifed with this and want to make it the only way to play the game.

[DakDeFrosted]

So...we're turning DDO into NWO? Is that the idea?

Why bother with different classes at all? Just have everyone play one class, with one skill, and one stat.

Sounds like fun.

[sebastianosmith]

I disagree.

I suspected you would.


To talk specifics, let's go back to my wizking example. Exactly how is the quest completed in a better way by the attitude"We play as a team, each fulfilling a critical role which makes the whole stronger than the sum of its parts". You play in a static group and cooperate regardless of whether there are meager returns to it or not.

I mentioned nothing of "better". Nor did I imply anything "meager". I stated that the game mechanics don't impose a play style but the players do based on desire and expectation.


It is game design 101 that desired behaviors should be incentivized. Then people decide if they like the game for what it rewards or not. Giving self sufficiency and little cross - player cooperation benefits directly points in the direction of no group play. With clickies, self buffs, self healing, evasion / trapping people barely need anything from anyone while in a group. I seldom ever see any of the 4 points I mentioned happen in game.

Rewards are subjective. Each person will assign worth according to individual desire. The game, once again, does not impose that desire. Players do. If you'd like to incentivise cooperation and sharing, I suggest you begin long before players join the game.


Exactly what cross player cooperation is the game encouraging right now?

This game encourages only one thing: The exchange of money from players to Turbine. The rest is baggage brought by the players.


Saying that people can do as they please while the game mechanics are moving in the direction of no cooperation (in the sense I described) is just cheap talk.

The mechanics encourage nothing. Player desire for ever increasing power does. When all a player is concerned with is leveling as fast as possible and having the best-in-slot gear, the result is what you are describing. The game itself is quite agnostic on this matter.

I make no judgment on how anyone wishes to play. There are a myriad of avenues to explore, each being as valid as any other. To suggest that the game is at fault for not encouraging a singular play style not only displays disregard for human nature, but places the blame upon the wrong party entirely.

[Satyriasys]

I'm not getting snippy; just pointing out that you actually have no basis for any of the asssertions you're making about
soloers destroying the game. My chief point is that you can already play the game how you like but you don't seem
satisifed with this and want to make it the only way to play the game.

Not sure why I need to provide evidence of my opinions. It's based on my experience and I am calling it how I see it. I already explained how many classes are being rendered obsolete. If you want to solo that's fine but the more solo friendly this game gets the more watered down generic hack and slash the farther it gets from D&D you seem fine with that but I think its a tragedy. I am glad that soloing is an option and I mainly solo myself but it should be harder than grouping and currently it is not. quest scaling needs to be tweaked and power builds need to be toned down. Soloing should be an accomplishment and all classes should have a place.

The Tear of Dhakaan for instance, it was made more solo friendly by making the shrines unlocked, and adding another shrine. Before if you didn't have a rogue you would need to conserve and be extra careful, now that element is lost. We couldn't have one quest with this extra challenge? This is the type of direction I am against.

[RapkintheRanger]

We all know of monkchers soloing FoT. .

any evidence for this?

no, i didn't think so... are you confused with TOR?

[SirValentine]

any evidence for this?


Searching is hard!

Here's 4 EE and 1 EH monk-archer solo FoTs for you:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/423988-EE-FOT-solo
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/431523-EE-FOT-solo
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/434240-hard-fot-solo
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/434994-The-Fall-of-Truth-Epic-Elite-Solo
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/435652-ee-fot-solo-thelanis

[Nightmanis]

I haven't read all the posts, only a few, so I'm not sure if this has been brought up yet or not, but I think it is important to mention. So, I think Divine Might needs some adjustments. As it is now, it almost completely invalidates non strenght builds for melee, as the bonus it provides is way too powerful for the tiny investment it requires, not to mention that splashing paladin/fvs/cleric has other benefits (uber saves/decent +2 to all saves for lvl 1/easy scroll mastery access respectively). If we just take an average example of a character starting 14 CHA, using a + 10 item, +2 insightful, +1 exceptional, +3 tome, +2 ship buff, +2 yugo pot, it is already at 34 CHA, getting 12 STR for a very minimal investment (also getting good UMD, so it even has multiple benefits), while a power gamer can hit 40 CHA without much of a sacrifice. Just for comparison, a pure barbarian, with enhancements gets +11 STR for his lvl 20 rage.

I see 2 possible solutions for this:
a) returning divine might might to be a damage bonus as it used to be (hell, I went crazy looking for +4 cha tome on my pally life back in the day to hit the 20 CHA requirement for DM 4 back in the day for that additional +2 damage)
b) moving it higher up the enhancement tree, it easily has the power level of most tier 5 abilities, but I guess it'd already be fine as tier 3 or 4 (or lvl 12 core), so it won't be so easy to splash for it - as once again, multiclass is the OP, not pure.
The 2nd solution I presented would also make playing a paladin (instead of 2-6 levls splash) more desireable.
I can't really disagree with this. A good idea would be to give bards something similar that doesn't stack.

[BigErkyKid]

I suspected you would.



I mentioned nothing of "better". Nor did I imply anything "meager". I stated that the game mechanics don't impose a play style but the players do based on desire and expectation.



Rewards are subjective. Each person will assign worth according to individual desire. The game, once again, does not impose that desire. Players do. If you'd like to incentivise cooperation and sharing, I suggest you begin long before players join the game.



This game encourages only one thing: The exchange of money from players to Turbine. The rest is baggage brought by the players.



The mechanics encourage nothing. Player desire for ever increasing power does. When all a player is concerned with is leveling as fast as possible and having the best-in-slot gear, the result is what you are describing. The game itself is quite agnostic on this matter.

I make no judgment on how anyone wishes to play. There are a myriad of avenues to explore, each being as valid as any other. To suggest that the game is at fault for not encouraging a singular play style not only displays disregard for human nature, but places the blame upon the wrong party entirely.


With all due respect, I don't think the sort of thinking is very much against the spirit of mechanism/game design. Nothing is casual in making a game. The mechanics encourage everything. Rewards to influence people. I don't have much to discuss if you deny that.

[Zoda]

I can't really disagree with this. A good idea would be to give bards something similar that doesn't stack.

Or rather just do something to inspire courage, because I don't see myself even waiting for the bard to sing it in it's current state.

[Fixil]

I had a good idea to balance the Pure Human or Non-human Fighter class into a good balance.
In the vein of the idea of the class is that a Fighter must be able to fight a reasonable amount time before dying, so... I was thinking to balance this you could use the "Unbreakable" accent to tier up an imperviousness for lengths of time.
I know it's stretching it considering the width of the tree but I think it would solve the imbalance. I wanted to contribute this is the sense that I think it's doable at a mechanic level, putting it in the players hands, BUT actually resulting in a fighter that should have appropriate staying-alive ability for it's Character Level.

Just a little further, the way you guys have been going to getting bugs and fixing them lately, and on top of that releasing stuff I thought as well would make it worthwhile to contribute.

[sebastianosmith]

With all due respect, I don't think the sort of thinking is very much against the spirit of mechanism/game design. Nothing is casual in making a game. The mechanics encourage everything. Rewards to influence people. I don't have much to discuss if you deny that.

Game mechanics circumscribe only what is possible. How one wishes to address those limits is entirely up to the individual. If the realization that a completely optional rule set has been implemented which abrogates a desired methodology has come upon you, simply ignore that option. However, do not request that your desires be paramount based entirely on personal preference.

As far as this game has strayed from its roots, I must still commend Turbine for retaining at least the open-ended spirit of its namesake. There are many paths and no real destinations.

[Aeryyn]

I and my static group do all of these every time we step into a quest. We play as a team, each fulfilling a critical role which makes the whole stronger than the sum of its parts. That is the way we choose to play. The game neither encourages nor dissuades us from doing so. We simply decided to do it on our own.

The reason so many players choose to solo or zerg like mad is not a function of game mechanics. The game allows for such behavior just as it allows for what I and my group prefer. It doesn't favor any particular style over another. The players do that based on desire and expectation. Attempting to enforce a behavior through enticement, game mechanics or some other means will produce unpredictable results because many such measures fail to take player goals into account.
Exactly. Trying to force everyone to play in a certain way feels very "anti-D&D" to me - which is ironic given it's a principle argument for some of the posters who seem to want to dictate what your game experience should be like.

This game allows for a LOT of different play styles, as does PnP D&D. A lot of posts in this thread are from players defending their play style. The thing is, nothing is wrong with ANY of the play styles discussed in this thread, the styles just reflect the different types of people who play. The Devs should also keep in mind that this thread reflects a small, but very vocal, minority of people who play this game.

I like the versatility of the game in that it accommodates for so many play styles, but unless you want this game to turn into a NWN or WoW clone, be careful what you wish for. If you want the game to continue to be Dungeons & Dragons Online, you should keep closer to the spirit of D&D, otherwise the game morphs into something that it was never originally intended to be, which is where it seems to be heading now (imnsho).