How to Bring Balance to Melee vs. Caster

[Vanquishedfo]

Every few we see a thread pop up or necroed. Its focus always the same. My melee is obsolete next to casters. Nerf casters, get them casters back to CC,Buff/Debuff, and healing and leave the DPS to the real warriors, etc etc etc.

We who come from the PnP era understand the inherent design of D&D and that end game its always been about magic over might. Yet many constantly come here to the forums demanding the MMO ignore that system even as the entire game is built upon it. Barbarians and fighters do not want to live in a game world where thier best sword is meaningless next to a whisper from the wizard or the prayer from the priest.

Many changes have come over the years trying to give some semblance of balance. This lead to an era of monty haul items NEEDED by warriors to compete with average casters, but give those same casters the equal in items for thier style and they become gawds. Since magic is the main thing that makes Gawds godly in PnP its not really any surprise.

However its clear since people always point out this is a game built around team work and good group mentality that balance between the members of the team is paramount so as to avoid the feelings of either someone not carrying thier weight nor someone doing so much it leaves the rest feeling like why bother playing at all.

So for long years DDO has struggled on even as its players argue over this topic endlessly. It was pretty much ended although none like to really admit it with the coming of the E Store system and mana pots. Casters with unlimited magic are gawds by no stretch of the imagination. There is a single artifact in old PnP known as the ring of kings, a spell storing ring of infinite capacity. Trust me when I say letting a caster possess such power is beyond game breaking.

With the existance of infinite mana, and a flawed crafting system that didnt force casters to have to choose between combat and crafting feats to provide the world with quality magical items it has become even more paramount to bring balance between the extremes of magic and might.

Oddly enough a thought passed into my head quite contrary to the typical here on DDO forums about how to find that PVE balance for the classes.

You see if players want to break the D&D swinging pendulum balance system that puts casters on top in the high lvl spectrum, then they must also put aside the other P&P truth that its a PVE system.

Thats right I am eluding to PVP! You see if they actually do devote time to PvP balance, making all classes roughly equal at all level ranges, tweek all items in the game across the board, and tone down the grinds to aquire them, while putting in a pvp prestige earning system to allow those players to earn comparable gear doing what they prefer. Then in the end we would have a PVE game where everyone felt equal, and a pvp game to occupy those who crave actual challenge from foes with real brains between thier ears.

No I dont even think of WoW as it sucks. I am thinking more of other successfull if smaller franchises like Guild Wars where they learned early on to not let gear tiering ever outshine class ability.

Some honestly seem confused when us old timers use the term monty haul. What that refers to is any time in a game when your character is less important then the items he wields. In fact its actually seen by most modern gamers as incredibly bad design to have a gear tier system where the rare gear is actually even worth having over the best crafted gear, nor for either of those to actually offer significant upgrades to your characters abilities over more common gear. Upgrading gear in an RPG should simply be a by product of playing through the content, not the focus of playing through the content which should always be an interesting story and solid game play mechanics that keeps it fun and fresh each time you run it with a different character.

Remember after all one of DDOs famous broken foundation stones is the ridiculous run the same quest over and over and needing completion for any gain for your time invested system. Its like they cant grasp the vast majority of gamers have Real lives, and do not want to be forced to sit down straight for any length of time anymore. If I want to get up and down every five minutes, and only play for periods of 20 at a time I should still be able to progress as much as a guy who puts in all 5 hours in a row once a week as my 5 hours spread out over it.

Hard core players who put in 8 or more a day should never be catered to and most games are learning to ignore thier QQ finally. DDO is so dead in game these days compared to others like CoX, CO, GW, and even conan has a pretty active pop again on its servers. Its like DDO only picks uup during holidays and then is still dead as far as actual questing goes.

I really hope for the future but see little light.

[Pape_27]

so basically this is a "lets boost pvp" thread in disguise as a melee/caster balance issue?

[hit_fido]

so basically this is a "lets boost pvp" thread in disguise as a melee/caster balance issue?

Photo accurately summarized my feelings reaching the half way point in OP.

Turbines balance-oriented design goal should be focused on making sure any given class can be (approximately) equally effective in completing (approximately) the same number of quest objectives as any other class - and still maintain a completely distinct playing style with their own class abilities and button pushing mechanics.

While that doesn't necessitate that every class has equal effectiveness in any single quest, it should mean that the "total effectiveness" so to speak should be equal between classes across all quests of a given level range.

PvP has nothing to offer in helping to attain such design goals.

[Silverwren]

Not another melee/caster balance thread!!!!!!

[Havok.cry]

If this wasnt about PvP I would +1 the OP just for the clever disguise

[Shallowain]

Is this PVP week? that's the second thread I read today about this garbage.

PVP balance is usually what kills any variety in a game, so if PVP=balance I vote unbalanced.

Oh and about the whole PVP thing, nuke it from orbit, its the only way to be sure...