And so the lie of "Pally Love MOD" is complete.........

[Josh]

I just can't believe how rude and childish some of you are acting.

They thought what they were doing was in line with what was needed for paladins.

People yelled that they were wrong.

They admit that they were wrong but that they don't have time to make the required changes in this dev cycle for Mod 7.

And now you come in and say "THE DEVS DON'T CARE! PEOPLE ARE GOING TO QUIT! THEY WANT PALADINS TO SUCK!"

They obviously care because they listened and are going to make changes in accordance with the player's requests. Why can't you just read things that are said and take them for what they are? Why do you have to all be such drama queens and put words into Turbine's mouth that were never uttered AND make dire proclamations like you do every time anything in the game goes against what you think should happen (and you've been wrong every time you said a change was going to destroy the game, by the way...oh and you've also never actually left the game like you say people who care will do, just in case you hadn't noticed).

And yes, I know this post is pointless since I'm not jumping on the "TURBINE SUCKS" bandwagon so I must not have a valid point.

It's just another example of the devs NOT LISTENING TO FREE, GOOD ADVICE FROM THEIR CUSTOMERS. Many, many good things have been suggested by the people here on the boards to improve the paladin class...and they have fallen on deaf ears untill when? After the content is finalized? Who works all that time, making promises to deliver the goods only to realize at the end that what they have created is teh suck? Hence from Eladrin "are paladins any worse off"? That statement right there to me just reaks of defeat. They might not be any worse off, but they CERTAINLY aren't better.

Why the devs choose to ignore all the awesome, and FREE advice that people give on these boards is beyond me. Apparently they must not think that it's any good.

[oronisi]

Do you believe that Paladins are worse off after the changes planned for Module 7 than they were before it?

A number of their enhancements have had their action point costs dramatically reduced or effects improved, and several more options have been opened up for them.

You could make an arguement that paladins will be worse off after mod 7. It's not that their power hasn't been increased a tiny bit, but that mod 7 was the 'Pally Love' mod, meaning a future 'Pally Love' mod will be hard to argue for or justify. So while overall paladins may have gotten a tiny power boost, there will be no future power boost to really address the issue.

At least, that's how I see it, from my experience with SWG and other MMOs, you got your turn for balancing once in a cycle and thats all you got until the cycle came back around a year or two later.

[oronisi]

It's just another example of the devs NOT LISTENING TO FREE, GOOD ADVICE FROM THEIR CUSTOMERS. Many, many good things have been suggested by the people here on the boards to improve the paladin class...and they have fallen on deaf ears untill when? After the content is finalized? Who works all that time, making promises to deliver the goods only to realize at the end that what they have created is teh suck? Hence from Eladrin "are paladins any worse off"? That statement right there to me just reaks of defeat. They might not be any worse off, but they CERTAINLY aren't better.

Why the devs choose to ignore all the awesome, and FREE advice that people give on these boards is beyond me. Apparently they must not think that it's any good.

Actually Josh, I think the problem is WHEN we gave our advice. By the time we knew they were working on paladins for mod 7 and we were posting ideas here, the devs were likely already QAing and tweaking their ideas they had on the design table a month or two ago. It was most likely too late to implement anything unless it was rushed. So my question would be "Have they learned to do whatever they have to do to solicit this great, free advice ahead of time next time around?", not "why did all this great advice get ignored?"

[jjflanigan]

You do have a valid point. What I find difficult to understand is if you only have a level 2 paladin multi-class how can you understand what pure pally and near pure pally players are saying. We were told one thing then we get something that is underwhelming and costly to implement.

I have my "favorite" characters listed out in my sig. If I had more than 4 lines I would be able to display my WF character, my bard and my pure pally in there as well.

As your sig proves, just because a character type isn't in a sig doesn't mean a person doesn't play it

[Uproar]

So my question would be "Have they learned to do whatever they have to do to solicit this great, free advice ahead of time next time around?", not "why did all this great advice get ignored?"

Yeah, because that was such a totally absurb idea up until now-- "who woulda thunk it?"

[ahpook]

It's just another example of the devs NOT LISTENING TO FREE, GOOD ADVICE FROM THEIR CUSTOMERS. Many, many good things have been suggested by the people here on the boards to improve the paladin class...and they have fallen on deaf ears untill when? After the content is finalized? Who works all that time, making promises to deliver the goods only to realize at the end that what they have created is teh suck? Hence from Eladrin "are paladins any worse off"? That statement right there to me just reaks of defeat. They might not be any worse off, but they CERTAINLY aren't better.

Why the devs choose to ignore all the awesome, and FREE advice that people give on these boards is beyond me. Apparently they must not think that it's any good.

Check the boards. Most of the FREE advice is ****. I am not saying that the paladin advice was **** just that it is not always obvious which advice is good and which is ****. If the devs had developed everything advised on these forums the game would be a disaster.

[oronisi]

Check the boards. Most of the FREE advice is ****. I am not saying that the paladin advice was **** just that it is not always obvious which advice is good and which is ****. If the devs had developed everything advised on these forums the game would be a disaster.

Yea but at the same time, certain posters consistantly post intelligent helpful information, so the devs would have a starting point to help pay attention to forums feedback. I mean, Ghoste and Cow have gone way above and beyond to not only express their opinion, but also get information, screenshots, or videos of what they are talking about. Just give those guys a 'report intelligent post' button and let them highlight intelligent conversations for dev consuption.

[bobbryan2]

Check the boards. Most of the FREE advice is ****. I am not saying that the paladin advice was **** just that it is not always obvious which advice is good and which is ****. If the devs had developed everything advised on these forums the game would be a disaster.

Uh... yeah... but the devs don't and won't develop based on everything said on the forums. You're talking like the devs don't have the sense to be able to tell a good idea from a bad idea.

Don't be so quick to discount the forums as an 'excellent' source of feedback. Both in things that work and things that don't. I think it's pretty clear that the community has voiced it's annoyance towards clicky activated combat feats and enhancements... and that would definately be a good thing for devs to keep in mind in the future.

A sniper shot every 10 seconds is stupid. Why this could just be a 20 second buff every 2-5 minutes... I have no clue. Death Attacks, Smite Evils, Trips, Stuns, hamstrings, Sunders, Whirlwinds, Cleaves, Great Cleaves... and we just keep adding more to tha tlist... like that new Sunder Machine or whatever it's called.

The community LOVED tempest... and why? Because it provided a passive bonus. If, for instance, Deepwood sniper simply added a 10% increase in firing speed, there would have been nothing but love and adulation for it.

But brining it back to paladins.... if the devs really think we're going to enjoy not only clicking a combat feat... but actually clicking a SPELL for a negative HP... they're just in their own world. I don't think people would even use it 'all' that often if there wasn't an HP hit. Constantly breaking your attack chain and slowing your attack speed is a ridiculous way to help Paladin DPS.

[ahpook]

Uh... yeah... but the devs don't and won't develop based on everything said on the forums. You're talking like the devs don't have the sense to be able to tell a good idea from a bad idea.

Yeah, but we can't even agree which advice is good and which is not.

Sure we can all identify the real stinkers (except the person who posted it ) but there is a grey area. Look at the Barb comments as an example. I would bet you that if you look at the forums you could see some advice that says paladins should get exactly what they are getting in Mod 7. There were a lot of posts that said paladins were fine. We didn't want the devs to follow that did we?

BTW, I wasn't saying that the devs should ignore the forums. I was just trying to temper the simplistic idea that the forums are full of good free advice and that the devs should just follow it. When people say there is a lot of good advice and the devs should follow it they put in their mind the 10% of things that they agree with. If the devs used the 90% that they disagreed with they would scream.

And to bring it back to paladins as well, NO Clickies. I won't use the new smite that yiou pay HP for partly because it sucks but mostly because I don't want another combat swing clicky on my paladin.

[Alcides]

Consider the comparison below of a Human Barbarian(16), Fighter(16), and Paladin(16) each wishing to maximize their DPS potential. Each will have the same following stats.

Base Strength = 35
18 Strength at Level 1
+4 Strength from Level 4, 8, 12, 16
+3 Strength Book
+1 Strength from Human Enhancement
+6 Strength Enhancement Bonus
+3 Strength Bonus From a Green Steel Weapon

Base Feats
+1 Hit From Weapon Focus

Base Attack
+16 Hit

Weapon Bonus
+5 Green Steel Weapon

***Barbarian***
+6 Strength From Rage
+4 Strength From Power Rage 4

Total Str: 45
Total Attack: 16 (Base) + 1 (Weapon Focus) + (17 Strength) + 5 (Weapon) = 39
Total Extra 1H Damage: 17 (Strength) + 5 (Weapon) = 22
Total Extra 2H Damage: 25 (Strength) + 5 (Weapon) = 30

***Fighter***
+1 Hit From Greater Weapon Focus
+2 Damage From Weapon Specialization
+2 Damage From Greater Weapon Specialization

Total Str: 38
Total Attack: 16 (Base) + 2 (Weapon Foci) + 14 (Strength) + 5 (Weapon) = 37
Total Extra 1H Damage: 14 (Strength) + 4 (Weapon Specializations) + 5 (Weapon) = 23
Total Extra 2H Damage: 21 (Strength) + 4 (Weapon Specializations) + 5 (Weapon) = 30

***Paladin***
+3 Hit/Damage From Divine Favor

Total Str: 35
Total Attack: 16 Base + 1 (Weapon Focus) + 12 (Strength) + 3 (Divine Favor) + 5 (Weapon) = 37
Total Extra 1H Damage: 12 (Strength) + 3 (Divine Favor) + 5 (Weapon) = 20
Total Extra 2H Damage: 18 (Strength) + 3 (Divine Favor) + 5 (Weapon) = 26

These are purely theoretical maximums. From the looks of it, I would say Paladins could probably use some love in the DPS department, and a potential bump in +hit if you argue that warriors having a permanent +hit is worth more than temporary +hit. In addition, the ball game completely changes if and when fighters are given the "Weapon Mastery" and "Weapon Supremacy" feats from Player's Handbook 2. Not to mention paladins tend to have to be more generalists when it comes to stat allocation at character creation, if they want to take advantage of all the features the paladin class has to offer. As far as the devs not caring. I would say that is far from the truth, although I'd like some variation on the spells we have available to give the paladin a more "divine champion feel".

[artvan_delet]

While I have posted and added my thoughts to this thread, I did want to thank Eladrin for the response. Much of what is written in this thread is critical, but I very much appreciate the feedback from the devs.

[Aesop]

Consider the comparison below of a Human Barbarian(16), Fighter(16), and Paladin(16) each wishing to maximize their DPS potential. Each will have the same following stats.

Remember this is on the first swing and while this is pretty balanced as it stands there consider

Crit Rage

and


Fighter Haste Boost

these increase DPS dramatically

funny thing is if there is any class that needs attention (in the good way) as much as Pally its Fighter

Aesop


oh and if ya also look at MUlticlassing a Fighter 12/Pally 8 should be a fun combo at lvl 20... got one in the works myself

[Alcides]

Do you believe that Paladins are worse off after the changes planned for Module 7 than they were before it?

A number of their enhancements have had their action point costs dramatically reduced or effects improved, and several more options have been opened up for them.

Most of the Paladins I have talked to seem to agree that the "Divine Favor nerf" defanged Paladins. The in-game description of the spell states "Divine Favor grants a +1 luck bonus to hit and +1 luck bonus to damage per 3 caster levels." Problem is it only caps out at +3 to hit and +3 to damage. I left the game for a year to play WoW because this screwed up my first paladin who was pretty **** good before this change.

[sumnz]

Do you believe that Paladins are worse off after the changes planned for Module 7 than they were before it?

A number of their enhancements have had their action point costs dramatically reduced or effects improved, and several more options have been opened up for them.

There not worse off, unless you include the idiotic -10 hp swing that will probably connect 1/5 times. But there were not so many positive changes such as for bards or rangers or rogues that make me say "hmm time to pick up my pure 16th paladin again!" So the people who shelved them for underperformance-a bigger problem than you might want to admit-have no reason to dust them off.

In other words, I can get more support, more dps, or more survivability out of virtually any class in the game. So why would I want to pick up an underperforming class again? At least if you had made them say the king of undead killing THAT would be something. But it feels like we were promised prime rib and got the bone left over from it.

[fatherpirate]

Do you believe that Paladins are worse off after the changes planned for Module 7 than they were before it?

A number of their enhancements have had their action point costs dramatically reduced or effects improved, and several more options have been opened up for them.

A Developer post in the suggestion/developer thread CONGRATS !

seriously

WoW hasn't had a developer post a comment in thier suggestion thread in over 2 years << no lie

It is just good to see that you guys glance over here from time to time :-D

[Tallyn]

It's just another example of the devs NOT LISTENING TO FREE, GOOD ADVICE FROM THEIR CUSTOMERS. Many, many good things have been suggested by the people here on the boards to improve the paladin class...and they have fallen on deaf ears untill when? After the content is finalized? Who works all that time, making promises to deliver the goods only to realize at the end that what they have created is teh suck? Hence from Eladrin "are paladins any worse off"? That statement right there to me just reaks of defeat. They might not be any worse off, but they CERTAINLY aren't better.

Why the devs choose to ignore all the awesome, and FREE advice that people give on these boards is beyond me. Apparently they must not think that it's any good.

Ok, in all seriousness you have to be careful about advice from your players. There is a delicate balance that needs to be played here, because some times what the player say they want, is not actually good for the players or the game. I am not stating this is the case with some of the proposed player changes to Paladins, I'm just saying that you cannot just make changes to a game based off of player feedback alone. I've seen MMOs cater to the players, and end up ruining the game.

Anyways, I'd like to see some more stuff added to Paladins. I played one in the past, and will probably in the future when they become to my liking. For now, I'll continue playing other classes. And I will not berate the devs, they are doing a good job in my opinion. Yes it takes them a while, but DDO is a much smaller game, with a smaller funding base. I really feel sick when players insult the Developers for not doing what they want, or not doing things fast enough. Making changes to an existing MMO is not a quick process. They are trying, it takes time. Yes, that isn't what you want to hear, we all want changes quickly, but these things take time.

As for all the Paladin players who have posted mature, rational feedback, and continue to do so and be strong proponents of the Paladin class, I applaud you. I sincerely appreciate the players who are stalwart, and continue to seek improvements to their class, without resorting to insults or whining. It seems that about half the Paladin population has given in to hopelessness or despair (which in itself seems un-Paladin like ) and wants things now. Unfortunately, it's not going to happen. It will come in time, and things will improve. The only advice I can give you is be patient, and YES, continue to be persistent... but please do not resort to insults/immaturity, as it really reflects poorly on the Paladin community as a whole.

[Tallyn]

Most of the Paladins I have talked to seem to agree that the "Divine Favor nerf" defanged Paladins. The in-game description of the spell states "Divine Favor grants a +1 luck bonus to hit and +1 luck bonus to damage per 3 caster levels." Problem is it only caps out at +3 to hit and +3 to damage. I left the game for a year to play WoW because this screwed up my first paladin who was pretty **** good before this change.

See this would be a great point to bring up. I think Divine Favor was changed, because of Errata to it by WotC. It was deemed too powerful for a level 1 spell in pen and paper. In DDO, with mob HPs being so much higher and ACs being inflated in some cases as well, I would argue that a cap of +5 to hit/+5 to damage would not be out of line. It is something to consider, and I think it would be great to change it back to +5/+5... would go a small ways to rectifying some of the Paladin's woes.

[Riddikulus]

See this would be a great point to bring up. I think Divine Favor was changed, because of Errata to it by WotC. It was deemed too powerful for a level 1 spell in pen and paper. In DDO, with mob HPs being so much higher and ACs being inflated in some cases as well, I would argue that a cap of +5 to hit/+5 to damage would not be out of line. It is something to consider, and I think it would be great to change it back to +5/+5... would go a small ways to rectifying some of the Paladin's woes.

Well, I'm all for moving things toward PnP for better balance so I'd say leave DF the way it is.

But there would be nothing wrong with adding a "improved DF" enhancement line.

[Aesop]

See this would be a great point to bring up. I think Divine Favor was changed, because of Errata to it by WotC. It was deemed too powerful for a level 1 spell in pen and paper. In DDO, with mob HPs being so much higher and ACs being inflated in some cases as well, I would argue that a cap of +5 to hit/+5 to damage would not be out of line. It is something to consider, and I think it would be great to change it back to +5/+5... would go a small ways to rectifying some of the Paladin's woes.

I'd perfer that they added in different higher level spells like Righteous Fury and other ones like that

Aesop

[gpk]

They thought what they were doing was in line with what was needed for paladins.

Really? It seems to me very little thought was put into anything pally related and mod7.
If they can't add up a few numbers and see how bad Smite Evils are especially compared to a level 1 /1 AP enhancement, or compare the number and HP of DDO mobs to PnP then...I don't know what to say really.
The easy fix was so painfully obvious I'm still stunned they havent been announced: SPELLS.

Instead there was all of a sudden a desire to focus on more "iconic" abilites. Smite is certainy iconic but it's NOT a primary strong class ability like Rage is; and look how much Rage was boosted (don't even consider crit rage).

Wannn focus on smites? Fine, focus on smites, but actually do the work to make them; slapping together some enhancement thought up in 10 minutes over a bad cup of java doesn't cut it. If you can't look at the numbers being put out in a typical quest/raid and see they come up WAY short then maybe you're in the wrong line of work.
The variables are there:number of swings per smite, number of smites per extra smite, regeneration rate,regeneration time. You can play with those to make smite be anything but useless.

It's acceptable for some non-saavy game players to think Exalted smites in their current form are good, it's not ok for the paid developers of a game.

People yelled that they were wrong.

Yes that's because they were and are wrong. Some chose to be fanbois and not speak the truth and inthe ridculous hope that the problem would fix itself, in the end everyone lost.

They admit that they were wrong but that they don't have time to make the required changes in this dev cycle for Mod 7.

The only admissions I saw was the blurb over the recycled cleric "faith" lines, after all the time those crappy lines have been in game NOW we get an official word ? It took THIS long for them to realize they weren't good?
After a while, say a year the excuses start getting old and you don't wanna hear excuses anymore, you want results and delivered promises.

And now you come in and say "THE DEVS DON'T CARE! PEOPLE ARE GOING TO QUIT! THEY WANT PALADINS TO SUCK!"

They obviously care because they listened and are going to make changes in accordance with the player's requests. Why can't you just read things that are said and take them for what they are?

Really what did they listen to? They finally realized the old faith lines aren't good? How long did it take the devs and how long did it take the players.
Did they admit to the mod7 stuff being bad?

Why do you have to all be such drama queens and put words into Turbine's mouth that were never uttered AND make dire proclamations like you do every time anything in the game goes against what you think should happen (and you've been wrong every time you said a change was going to destroy the game, by the way...

No need to put thing in Turbine's mouth, the results speak for themselves; heck the dev quotes are there.
If I as a pally made half the pally related remarks in the dev tracker other players would think I was playing a different game.
Seriously go look at it.

oh and you've also never actually left the game like you say people who care will do, just in case you hadn't noticed).

If I or a subordinate commited some similar mistakes in a project and kept repeating those mistakes, well let's just say someone would be leaving.

Maybe next time you get all worked up because you think the devs are gettign a bum rap you'll actually look at the situation a little more closely.

If you think it's acceptable to hurt gameplay for a great many players for many months, no a YEAR+, promise to fix the situation then pretend you have then by all means keep defending that practice.