Player Character Balance

Ok, I've gone through the post

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Originally Posted by Arcanoid

Self Healing is something that changes the balance of character in a very dramatic way, all depending on play style...

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True. The problem isn't that everyone should be able to self heal. The problem is that currently you need only two things: kill and survive. You can have 6 of these guys and you are gold. It would be ok to require a healer in a party for some quests if you also REALLY needed a crowd controler, a tank, a trapmonkey - whatever uniqueness you can get - to some quests. Since you don't need ANY of those things having someone who can't self heal in a party turns out to be more of a liability than a help.

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Originally Posted by Uska

If you start making balance changes to classes to please the whiners please count on me canceling my sub renewel and quitting the game we need less changes from pnp not more I am on the border already but that kind of **** will do it.

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Originally Posted by Uska

You post your way I will post mine but I don't mind changes to epic destines actually but I am against class changes a trillion percent.

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I think we have stated that you don't like changes (except maybe of games).

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Originally Posted by Cordovan

It's an important topic, ... :)

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Someone with a yellow name quoted me, that is a first :)

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Originally Posted by patang01

Honestly, I think you're going about this the wrong way. The issue is not that some classes are so powerful and others are not, it's that you're creating content that require to adopt the most suitable class....

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That goes on par with what I think. Insert in the upcomming content places where you actually need to be good at sneaking, and trap disabling, and non damage spells, and so on. Don't make it MANDATORY, but make having such skills to speed up/make things easier. Your average monkcher shirardi will still be the uberest dps, but if a party of 6 of those can't beat a quest faster then a party with a couple stealth ppl or something, bang - Playing a steath build is now fun AND adds to the party, withtout needing to downgrade anyone.



Now to my personal opinions, I haven't spend much time on Epic, but the OP stated it wanted info on lower levels aswell. I'm on my last life for completionist, 1-20 wise, I went pure every class just to get the feel. On those levels monk was clearly over the top for me - I had never played a monk before, had no idea on what I was doing and still pretty much broke every quest. On the other hand, my barbarian life made me take a 6 months break from ddo - mostly because besides no self healing (can't even umd scrolls because of rage) there was no reliable damage mitigation either.

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Originally Posted by Systern

I think striving for equivalence is a fool's errand. What you'll end up with is a game so bland that "balanced party" doesn't matter because anyone is comparable to anyone else.

While the grossly overpowered (monks, monkchers), and the grossly underpowered (pure pally and pure bard) need to be addressed. I'd like to see you guys consciously crafting the meta. I'd like a return to the days of yore when Necro 4 was a divine focused pack, and Secrets of the Artificers elevated arti and thief gear for a quarter. With games like DotA, LoL, and IC; each patch changes the meta and elevates the underpowered and swings the OP to median for a release.

Your current proposal, even addressing Pallies and Bards underpowered perception, will mean that you strive to have them only a step behind the monkchers that have always shined. This won't make us bard players feel good knowing "at least I don't suck as bad anymore". I'd like to see the underdogs have a chance in the limelight before returning to the middle of the pack. If you try to make everything equal, it just means the FotM crowd forever looks for the broken combinations, and the WAI builds are always a step behind.

Intentionally break the underpowered for an Update, and then nerf the OP to mediocrity in the next update. You'll be able to control the lows, the highs, and the median more easily that way.

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I don't think pure monks are over-powered maybe monkchers are and shardi but I think that is really a epic level thing and they need to look more at ed stuff rather than heroic I couldn't care less really about epic I don't really care to play there as even pnp dnd breaks down at that level.

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Originally Posted by Uska

I don't think pure monks are over-powered maybe monkchers are and shardi but I think that is really a epic level thing and they need to look more at ed stuff rather than heroic I couldn't care less really about epic I don't really care to play there as even pnp dnd breaks down at that level.

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The biggest issue I'll have with "fixing" shiradi is that they'll break the ONLY destiny that has innate synergy for an Arti.

Well, here we go...

my nerf bat is in view

There is so many things that need to be balanced in DDO. I think I will just start by posting something that I think is a relatively quicker fix and would not take too many manhours and that is epic destiny balance. The main problem with the epic destinies balance wise is the final epic moments in the varoius epic desitinies have a wide range of effectiveness. The four that I think are currently fine regarding their effectiveness are:

Unbridled Fury
Master's Blitz
Audience with the queen (note hail of arrows could use a little bump).
Everything is Nothing

The ones that I would like to see improved are the following:
Nullmagic Aura (I think that this epic moment should be swapped with the arcane spellsurge auto grant to tier 5 and arcane spellsurge should be every 2-3 minutes).
Avatar of Nature should be significantly ramped up dps wise(almost as good as the old bug which allowed the multiple hits).
Turn the Tide: should have a 3 minute cooldown, last 30 seconds and work on red names as well as trash.
Fearsome Invulnearablity: should have a 3 minute cooldown and the dr should be 100-.
Dark Imbuement: should do about 5 times the damage it currently does and cooldown 3 minutes.
Reborn in Light should have a 6 minute cooldown and the counter should be reduced. Every 6 minutes someone should be able to use this ability for 2 minutes.
Undying Vanguard should have the counter reduced and it should be every 3 minutes on the cooldown.

Yes, this will generally increase the power level of characters, but the point is everyone gets steered into Fury of the Wild and Legendary Dreadnaught if you are a melee/ranged character due to really the powers of the epic moments of those two destinies. I would rather create more options rather then less and hence improve the other epic destinies. Primal Avatar is a great example of a destiny that could use a huge improvement to its epic moment. For spellcasters the situation is a little bit more complicated, but if you can enhance the spellcaster destinies generally you will get some more competitors to Shiradi which currently is the top spellcasting destiny.

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Originally Posted by Uska

If your an ad&d player than you know barbs don't HEAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and I will stand by what I say not all classes should be able to heal themselves its already to easy as it is and should be toned done about 90% for non divine classes or forged casters.

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well, in PnP that's fine and balance is easier to do. in DDO, its completely different. many things don't translate very well over to this game so some things need to be exaggerated to balance things out better. barbs need a way to self heal more reliably than what they currently have. right now its not enough to stay alive and dish out what they are best at, dps.

as the game has changed players have adapted to these changes moving away from classes that aren't very good at self healing and building with classes that do have good self healing. going toe to toe with mobs hitting you for 300+ damage every few seconds with no good reliable source of self healing to keep up with the dps output turns players off from these classes. this is why we have seen a lot more of multi class builds with ranged as a primary focus these days and you see many with 2/9 levels of rogue or monk for evasion.

the biggest reason why I hear people say they don't like playing a barbarian is because of the very limited self healing they can do. people don't like relying on CSW and SF pots when its much easier to build for comparable dps and better self sufficiency in most other classes. people try to build for umd but than complain their dps sucks because they cant cast while raged so they lose out on a ton of dps. like I said, im fine with trade offs but no other build is trading off anything for better self healing.

I'm playing all kinds of builds, even if the characters I tend to play and gear the most gravitate towards the most powerful builds.
For me, the reason ranged/casting feels so much superior to melee right now is because of all the terrible effects we can get when meleeing. Knockbacks, slow, damaging shields that only work at close range or only for melee attacks... Some of those simply need to be burnt in fire, some reworked to also challenge attacks from range.

Most of the survey questions useless because they're too narrow:

Also If you guys are ever serious about balancing abilities and content, you need to figure out a way to make every ED / enhancement abilities scale to quest difficulty level, otherwise flat numbers will likely win in Low level (n/h) content, % based numbers will rule in High level (e/ee) content.

Classes:
Pure unarmed monks are actually very weak atm, A big driver for this is ED abilities (like many found in Legendary Dreadnaught) not working with handwraps.
However, 2/6/12 monk splashes that use weaponry (bows & centred kensais) are actually very very strong.

Pure paladins are really weak, 2 or 4 splashed paladin levels are very powerful.

Barbarians do top tier melee damage, but thanks to the stupidity of "centred Kensai" they're an incredibly poor choice now.

Fighters : One of two changes needs to happen "centred kensai" should not be possible, or monk stances should not be selectable feats, notice that both of the potential fixes relate to another class.....

The FVS ability Just Reward needs to be dropped to 1/2/4 temporary sp, once this is done, it should not be tied to Scourge.

Bards used to provide unique bonuses to groups via there songs, Items are not the same type as some of these old bard songs. The song buffs haven't scaled with character power creep.

ED
Fury of the Wild
Unbridled Fury should not gain charges with ranged combat. It and Adrenaline should continue to work with bows though, duration changed to 15 seconds.
Adrenaline shold be changed to a smite like ability, Ie. Instant, there's too much potential to stack it with other effects.

Primal Avatar
Avatar of Natures attack speed is rediculously slow, activating the epic moment is a dps loss for any dps orientated character.
The sp cost of Stormrage / Tsunami/ Insidious Spores are too great.

Legenday Dreadnaught
Masters Blitz needs to be nerfed, flat 30 seconds only, +50% damage, +50% dodge
Momentum Swing doesn't work with handwraps or in druid animal forms, it needs to.
Pulverizer doesn't work with handwraps or animal forms, it should.

Fatesinger
Is the perfect example of what ED's should have been, there's little power creep, no huge bursting dps moments, it just provides good small increments. You shouldn't be boosting Fatesinger, you should be nerfing other ed's to this level.

Magister
Every single sigle should be converted to an Aura style buff.
Arcane Adept should stack with spell cost reduction items (atm it doesn't).
The summon has not scaled with Character level / difficulty level increases, it needs a huge buff.

Shadow Dancer
Another example of an ED that is about right

Gmof
It's about right too.

Shiradi
It's actually pretty weak for ranged characters but good for casters. You've kinda missed your intended mark whilst still making a worthwhile ED.
Merge Stand & deliever and Whirling weeds
Replace Stand & Deliver with an ability like Whirling Wrists but for all ranged weapons.
I'd make Fey Power grant full BAB.

Draconic
Another good example of what ED's should have been all along. Though it's overpowered in EN, Ranges from strong to balanced in EH (changes as quests level increases), Weak in EE.

I'm reserving judgement on the Divine ED's for now whilst I get a feel for them.

Making these nerfs is going to require you to drop the hp and damage on all EE mobs too.

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Originally Posted by Qhualor

well, in PnP that's fine and balance is easier to do. in DDO, its completely different. many things don't translate very well over to this game so some things need to be exaggerated to balance things out better. barbs need a way to self heal more reliably than what they currently have. right now its not enough to stay alive and dish out what they are best at, dps.

as the game has changed players have adapted to these changes moving away from classes that aren't very good at self healing and building with classes that do have good self healing. going toe to toe with mobs hitting you for 300+ damage every few seconds with no good reliable source of self healing to keep up with the dps output turns players off from these classes. this is why we have seen a lot more of multi class builds with ranged as a primary focus these days and you see many with 2/9 levels of rogue or monk for evasion.

the biggest reason why I hear people say they don't like playing a barbarian is because of the very limited self healing they can do. people don't like relying on CSW and SF pots when its much easier to build for comparable dps and better self sufficiency in most other classes. people try to build for umd but than complain their dps sucks because they cant cast while raged so they lose out on a ton of dps. like I said, im fine with trade offs but no other build is trading off anything for better self healing.

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I have to agree with you. Yes, in D&D Barbs are not self healers. In D&D we had a cleric, his name was Eric. He brought the Taco Bell and Mountain Dew every Friday night. This is a game where healers are anonymous puggers who know that they can either spend there time dotting, slaying, dropping BBs or healing the Barb.

I'm not advocating self healing Barbs. I'm saying that the current system is broken. I run with guildies most of the time. I have a great healer who can dual task. When I join a PuG, it's generally filled with self-healing min-maxers and I spend half the raid stunned from SF pots.

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Originally Posted by rimble

The most important aspect to this is providing a real solid means to respec with changes.

This means a REAL respec that fully works for everyone--a LR +20 is insufficient for many tri-class builds to respec with, and doesn't resolve alignment issues (like this poor fellow: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...Change-Quesion).

They should also be FULL respecs (classes, alignment, race--pretty much everything except name).

If I have a mechanism to roll with the changes, I'm generally cool.

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^ Firstly...absolutely this!

As for the rest that is in this thread, I agree with most of it and implore the devs to take a serious look at the pure vs. multiclass situation. Every time I convince myself to roll a pure character, I talk myself out of it and splash 2/6 monk, or 2/4 Paladin, 6 Ranger, or 2 FVS...which is ridiculous!

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Originally Posted by Systern

The biggest issue I'll have with "fixing" shiradi is that they'll break the ONLY destiny that has innate synergy for an Arti.

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Which means the Devs should be focusing on adding an Arti ED after "fixing" the Divine Sphere.

The map for this year should be fairly easy for the Devs to help balance the game. Before the end of the year, the following should happen:
* increase the power of core abilities at level 18 and 20 for all classes and possibly increasing the core abilities for some classes at level 12
* add an Arti ED so each class has one ED that sort of works with their class before adding more EDs (and yes, more EDs should be added in the future, such as a Divine DC casting ED)
* Sacred Defender and Stalwart Defender need to be restructured
* finish the third tree for all classes, so Artis, Bards, Fighters, FvS and Paladins don't feel incomplete anymore, then decide if Racial trees will be the next focus or if additional class trees will be the next focus
* do something to fix Barbarians
* create a way for Arti and Druid dogs can continue to gain power in Epic levels
* add more class based Epic feats at level 21, such as Great Smiting
* cap PRR against the armor type, much like Dodge is capped against armor type, since there's no reason for robes to gain equal amounts of PRR that Heavy Armor gains when Heavy Armor is penalized from using Evasion AND contains a Dodge cap

These are just some basics that will help balance the game without bringing major nerf hammers that we can see the Devs are pulling out of the shed.

Honestly, look at the epic normal/hard/elite balance before looking at character balance. As long as the elite numbers stay as insane as they are while you nerf players, it will be all hell breaks lose.
Fix the quests then you have a much better chance of getting class balance in line without too much tears, IMO anyways.

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Originally Posted by Cetus

Well, here we go...

my nerf bat is in view

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Put that away, there are children present!

Tread very, very carefully here. There are areas to nerf, others to buff and should never be static.

To me, balance is when builds compliment each other and can encourage grouping to defeat content. To make this happen you not only will have to look at each classes and various multi-class builds, but also in the content you design. The two go hand in hand.

Nearly all my planned builds for the foreseeable future include 2 levels of Rogue, for evasion and trap handling.

Multi-classing is a core element of D&D 3rd and 3.5 editions and I completely believe its a must for DDO. However, things like enhancement were not core, so for one thing, increase min level to access each tiers, forcing people to splash further for builds. Beef up pure builds, more enhancement points, really truly good capstones maybe ? Outside of a few DC caster builds, even then for some (clonk for wis stance), there's so little reason to go pure.

In my opinion, the place where you have most need for balance is between pure and multiclassing.

Side note, you should close this thread ASAP and restart a new balance thread on each subjects. We can better follow and discuss each subject in more details.

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Originally Posted by rest

I have 1 single "pure" character on my account that is not a mule. It's a wizard. All of the others I play are multiclass. Poorly designed poll.

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i have 18 x 28th level toons. 7 of them are pure. they are:

1 x wizzie
2 x monks
1 x fvs
1 x artie
1 x pally
1 x rogue

the rest are multiclass.

i prolly would of made more toons multi then i did but some of the capstones are decent and some of the epic destinys are good enogh so i didnt have to multi.

i agree with one of the other posters that most capstones realy do need to be improvedd. they need to be as good as evasin, cha mod to saves or 2 extra feats. otherwise most peple will be like rest and multiclass to often.

Before we talk about balance ... especially about nerf type balancing

• Look at how the high level quests are designed - for EE level 25+ quests
  
  1. Mob saves are ridiculous form the most part, its almost impossible to build to bypass them enough
  2. Mob HPs are somewhere around plaid
  3. Mobs will kill you in 1-4 hits
  4. All the save or die saves you need to save against
  5. Traps that will kill you if you don't save
  
  
• This leads to making a character with the following
  
  1. A ton of HPs
  2. Very High saves
  3. Not getting hit (meaning range - since you cannot have enough defense)
  4. Evasion
  5. High burst damage

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• Old out dated parts of the game that have not been updated since the level cap was 10 (ok, not all from that long ago ... but dang )
  
  • Barb DR
  • Feats that give +1 or +2 to damage, saves, AC, DC, ......
  • past lives that give +1 damage, +1 to hit ....
  • ect ....
  
  
• Honestly this list is sooooo long its not even funny, Just look at the sheer amount of things that are never taken by those who play EE
  
  • So you wonder why only 5 feats are chosen & 8 enhancements ...
  • Once the totally **** is thrown out there really is not much left as far as variety

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• Change .....
  
  • Rule #1 ... Nobody likes it, especially if it is negative
  • Rule #2 ... see Rule #1
  • Rule #3 ... see Rule #1
  • Rule #4 ... see Rule #1
  • Rule #5 ... see Rule #1
  • ...
  • Rule #20 ... see Rule #1
  • Rule #21 ... People like to improve
  
  
• Might seem funny, it is not .....

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• Trade offs - the depths one will go to
  
  • Is it worth trading this for that
  • What do I gain / loose
  • Why would I choose one over the other
  • Where are each useful
  • Is one not needed or rarely needed
  • Percent expected to be used / needed for what I want to do / play
  
  
• See quest design above ....
  
  • Apply this to should I take 6-20 levels of this verses 1-10 of that or any other 2/3 class split verses pure
  • Apply this to feats
  • Apply this to enhancements & trees
  • Apply this to destinies

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• Path of least resistance
  
  • All living things gravitate towards the path of least resistance for what they wish to accomplish
  • People will try things out and play around till they find what they like
  • People will try things out and play around till they find what works
  • People will try things out and play around till they find what does not work
  • People will share information
  • Its a game its supposed to be fun not work
  
  
• No matter what you change the overall trend of the population will be to the easy path
  
  • Yes there are exceptions see the infamous bell curve and the moving mean

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Now for the Main points

• I would rather see you take a hard look at the really bad things and make them a possible choice first
• If you do nerf the top stuff then you need to adjust the quests and encounters so they are not just mind fumblingly boring whittle their HP down game
• Decide how many hits it should take to kill us for an average mob - hint it should be more than 5
  
  • Apply this to traps, spells, melee, ... ect
  • scale this appropriately for orange, red, purple mobs
  
  
• Personal annoyance - I really really hate (cannot stress this enough) save or die situations with no in between
  
  • Even a slight change to take all but 20 HPs would be better - at least you have a chance
  • This applies to spells, traps, melee, ... ect damage
  • This point right here is why I do not play much EE & some content, its not that I cannot its just annoying

Rule # 1 for changes... improve the bad not downgrade the good. If your making something less powerful... nooooooo. it's gonna tick people off.

that being said... please do something with tanks... we can't do squat in epics. I'd like to tr my tank but the first run to 28 was sooooooooo painful. then look at bards...

and no "NERFS".

don't destroy what brings people back playing every day. If you nerf'd monks, i knew a few guys that would surely leave.

Character Balance has to include the game's other mechanics, otherwise there's not much to compare it to except other classes & class blends. While content has increased, a great deal has been neglected to the point of irrelevance. Give us content where something besides damage output determines quest success. Let us know that certain abilities that were deemed important enough to develop, code, test, & release are still important enough to acquire & use in the game (wilderness lore, social skills, deity feats anyone?).

On Classes:
Some classes are supposed to be unsurpassed in their specific ability.
-Kenseis are supposed to be so acutely in tune with their weapon that they can do amazing things with it.
-Arcane Archers are supposed to be unmatched with a bow.
-Druids are supposed to use Nature and the Elements like no other to damage enemies & assist the party.
-Artificers are supposed to apply the Arcane Arts to a mechanical object.
-Monks should use life energy like no other.
-Not doing all of the classes, you get the point.

Multiclassing these & blending prestiges is our choice to apply the vast combination of abilities to our advantage with whatever the game currently is.

As tempting, easy, & cheap (presumably) as it would be for developers to just take the Nerfhammer to some abilities, please keep this in mind: the game's content has been updated while character abilities have largely stagnated. The Enhancements revamp was good, but nowhere near enough to keep up with the new content. The fact that a truckload of people have migrated to Bladeforged melees should tell you that other classes & other races are lacking while in quests. That doesn't mean you should slam it with ubernerfs, that means ramp up other races & classes to make them useful, playable, & fun enough to swing the pendulum back the other way.

This is also a MMORPG. It seems like lately, either through player exodus or game mechanics (or both), it has moved to become a mainly solo game with occasional team-ups for when you can't actually complete a quest by yourself. When changes do come, make them player relevant & party significant.

To the devs:
You would get far more game input & ideas if upon each update, on a login screen or a special page after zoning in, you would put the full release notes, and perhaps a survey requesting feedback. Relying solely on the forum population means possibly including people who don't even play anymore, while missing out on those who log in to play the game.

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Originally Posted by Pastor2112

Balance is overrated and boring. Variety is more interesting and what makes this game so great.

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How can you say variety makes the game so great?
Currently there are only about 4 character types played! And with that, EVERYTHING has a yellow bar!

Join a PUG raid sometime. Count the number of barbarians and Paladins. ZERO! Monk 4-6, Ranger 2-4, Sorc 2-4, Whiz, 2-4, and a cleric or two.
There is NO VARIETY when a 12 man raid consists of only 4 classes!
Before MoTU, when raids were endgame, a typical raid had two hjealors, two or three casters(including bard), a trapper, and the rest were DPS characters. When I say DPS, I am talking about Fighters, Barbs, Monks, Rangers, Pally's (yes we thought of Pally as a DPS class).
When is the last time you saw a Barb in a raid? If you did, he was prolly running at half speed while chugging SF pots like Lindsay Lohan chugs vodka!

How do you fix it?

1. Remove all of the self hjealing easy buttons. Currently the only "balanced" raid group is 12 furyshot AA's with cocoon and hjealing spring twists. (You could also substitute up to 4 WF shiradi casters.) Remove self hjealing and it would promote a traditional "balanced" party. Hjealors now have a purpose again!

2. Why does double rainbow work with spells? When did spells become classified as ranged attacks? Remove spells from Shiradi.

3. Can anyone explain how adrenaline works with bows? In reality, I don't care how furious you become a bow only has a set amount of force! Bows have a set draw distance with a set amount of "pull". Get as mad as you want, it won't shoot any harder. Some will say "you can pull it back farther making it shoot harder". WRONG! Only of you also have longer arrows. Otherwise the arrow gets too short and falls off the perch. Answer, remove adrenaline from bows and crossbows! I won't even go into the ranged adrenaline recharge...

4. Why are characters in pajamas the best "tanks"? Just ponder that one for a few minutes...

more later ;)