Crowd Control/Heroic Surge Feedback

[kruggar]

Hey all,

I'm hoping that we can engage in a healthy, fun debate in this thread. I have no doubt that it will prove enlightening for me; hopefully you'll find it useful as well. I encourage everyone to share their opinions, but please do so in a respectful manner. You're going to passionately disagree with some of things I (or others) present here - and that's expected and totally fine - but being disrespectful will just bring an end to the dialog.

Let me also state that I'm going to adopt the stance that most of you are more versed than I when it comes to high level player tactics and many of the nuances of character builds. I don't intend to challenge you in this regard.

As you’re all aware, we’ve taken steps to make the game more accessible. Part of this effort included making the game more solo and small-party friendly and the dungeon scaling system has been very successful in this regard. That said, while this system reduces CC duration (on player characters) when appropriate, CC can still be a problem when the debuff is immediately re-cast on the character. Player still ends up being held for a long time, feels helpless and dies. Fun? Obviously subjective, but for many, not really. We could get into a huge debate over the whole ‘DDO is a party based game’, but that would be a huge tangent and derail the point of this thread, so I’m going to ask that we avoid this. I’d prefer that we try to focus on the motivations behind Heroic Surge with the goal of addressing the issues while preserving the gameplay depth that makes DDO so special.

So this alone was the original goal of the feature. I’m going to quote someone who posted early in this thread wondering why we just didn’t to this:
1) Don't allow debuff effects (spells, trip, knockdown etc.) to be reapplied until the current timer has expired.
2) Allow, say, three seconds of immunity before an effect can be reapplied

The above is certainly pretty close to what I had in mind. It didn’t get implemented this way, however. It mutated somewhat, trying to also address the situation where CC was at odds with certain dungeon mechanics (preventing monster respawns etc) and all cc durations were revisted resulting in many being shortened, some getting reoccuring saves etc. As far as the original motivation, I don’t think this system was at all successful (and posts here pretty much confirm it).

So here we are – back to the drawing board so to speak. I hope this sheds some light on things and gets the conversation flowing. Let me ask this first: what would be your argument for excessively long CC durations? One could take the approach that CC has done it’s job if it lasts the length of time it takes to kill a mob (or two). Is it the (prohibitive) spell point cost to re-cast?

First of all thanks for listening, i apreciate a lot the level of comunication between the dev team and the player base.

That said i think we are working in the wrong problem, the problem is not the duration of the spells or effects, the problem is how offen they are being cast by the enemies.

A kobold that cast curse every 6 secs on the players is the problem in my opinion. Increase the number of spells they can cast, buff the other enemies, but dont let they use the 1, 2 spells they cast over and over and over.

Thats the problem i think its worth being adressed in here.

At high lvl the players have the resources (spells, items, saves to fight against the effects) walking around in WW being cursed every 6 secs is worst then the problem we have in high lvl adventures, also the dispell magic effects and SR of enemies at high lvl adventures are super high for the normal playerbase.

[Alexander_Illusioni]

As others have said, one big, huge problem with this system was that it essentially added another set of immunities to monsters and players. Even adding more immunities to one or the other is just a bad idea. Immunities are bad for gameplay, take away options, and make for extremely uninteresting tactics that generally boil down to having all the melees charge in and clerics mass heal them.

Turbine has made this mistake again and again. Every time they see something as too powerful or too good, they hand out immunities. It takes away options and makes the game much less fun. A perfect example is the Epic monster ward. This just makes it so you have one option and one only: damage. Instead monsters should have been balanced on epic so that it is simply very hard to kill them with kill spells and so it takes more effort and the use of more different abilities to take them out.

Also, many times spells, whether crowd control or otherwise, have been changed to dampen their effect against players. This has had the secondary effect of making them far less useful for players to cast on monsters, further reducing the options available to casters and really to the party as a whole. Crowd control is one of the few things remaining that casters can do well, at least in a lot of the content. As others have said, you should be coming up with ways to make it more useful and more fun, not less.

The original plan would not have been too bad, making it so that effects cannot be reapplied and making everything immune for a short duration after breaking free. This would be perfectly in line with pnp crowd control, where you usually have just one of the spell to cast in an encounter anyway. Shortening duration is a bad idea because it takes away options such as cc and leave things alone. It also makes cc much harder on casters already very limited mana pools.

Finally, I would like to address what I see as the underlying problem that has caused this and many other systems/changes in DDO to go so wrong. This is the attitude that some devs seem to have that everything must be done the one way they intended it to be done. So often it seems like anything other than the one intended path is branded an exploit, removed, nerfed, or stopped in some other way. This was the case with WoP weapons and removing con kills--it took away an option for killing things that could have been rebalanced in other, better ways. It was the case with dungeon alert, which rather than adding new and interesting challenges for zergers to face simply forced them to fall in line and kill every mob in the dungeon. It continues to be the case with sneaking, as stealth is widely disregarded and almost never allowed as a strategy to finish quests.

It was about to be the case with cc. With regard to respawns, if players can find a different way of dealing with them other than killing every monster as it comes out, then they should be allowed to. Design your dungeons with this in mind. Force players to make use of tactics like FtS on respawns rather than making it so those tactics don't work. Put in respawning mobs that can be dealt with in that way and it will give casters more to do and think about in groups. There will still be challenges involved, just let it be something other than kill kill kill all the time. It's much more fun when there are many different ways of completing quests.

When I bought this game, I had seen information from dev interviews talking about sneak mode in the game. At they time they had stated that it would be perfectly possible to complete quests without killing a single mob. Now the game is all about DPS. Take another look at making other options possible. Make more quests with ways of completing them without combat, or at least without as much. Make it possible to do dungeons by sneaking. Make it so players can go through quests by using cc on monsters rather than killing all of them. There will still be a lot of challenges involved in running things these ways. It's not an easy button to FtS or cc all the monsters and leave them behind rather than killing them, as almost anyone who has tried it could probably tell you.

Most of all, Turbine needs to endorse these alternate playstyles and make them just as fun and doable as the predominant dps kill everything methods.

QFT DPS is fun, but so are other facits of the game, make it so!

[LeslieWest_GuitarGod]

Mad, if you havent noticed, this community is expecting NO CHANGE to crowd control.

Please comment on this. If you are going to keep the ridiculously shortened CC durations you have on Lammania currently, there is going to be an outrage.

This has been made clear ...

[RTN]

First of all thanks for listening, i apreciate a lot the level of comunication between the dev team and the player base.

That said i think we are working in the wrong problem, the problem is not the duration of the spells or effects, the problem is how offen they are being cast by the enemies.

A kobold that cast curse every 6 secs on the players is the problem in my opinion. Increase the number of spells they can cast, buff the other enemies, but dont let they use the 1, 2 spells they cast over and over and over.

Thats the problem i think its worth being adressed in here.

At high lvl the players have the resources (spells, items, saves to fight against the effects) walking around in WW being cursed every 6 secs is worst then the problem we have in high lvl adventures, also the dispell magic effects and SR of enemies at high lvl adventures are super high for the normal playerbase.

This is a very good point.

[Vhlad]

That said, while this system reduces CC duration (on player characters) when appropriate, CC can still be a problem when the debuff is immediately re-cast on the character.

Players from other mmog's may complain about CC because those other games do not have a counter, aside from specific CC breaker skills or temp immunity. DDO has the saving throw system. Getting stuck in webs, tripped, or held is all part of character development. i.e. do you roll a WF for their immunities, do you sacrifice str/dex and be weak against trips, do you go human and splash monk or paladin for high saves or go pure fighter and not wear a wisdom or resistance item and have horrible will saves but grind out VON for delving boots, etc.

If new player feedback is telling you that people are complaining about CC, then you need to better explain or demonstrate DDO's saving throw system in the starter area. That being said, there are some cases where chain CC is aggravating but IMO it's not because of being CC'd itself (i.e. I have low saves or I rolled a 1, fair game), but rather because in some cases it's viewed as cheating, broken, not in line with pnp, or doesnt make sense. i.e. "how can I be tripped again, I'm already on the ground!" or "how can I be knocked down again, I didn't even get up!"


1) Don't allow debuff effects (spells, trip, knockdown etc.) to be reapplied until the current timer has expired.

This would make sense for trip and knockdown (i.e. visually, you're laying on the ground, how can you be tripped or knocked down again?). I'm not a fan of making it apply to spells though. If a flesh to stone has 1 min duration and a caster spends the SP to reapply the spell and beats your save again, then IMO that's fair game. However, enemy casters in DDO don't have SP (i.e. they're cheating). So when being chain CC'd via hold via an infinite casting mage, yeah a new player may get frustrated. But that only happens when you're solo vs 1 enemy caster. A held player shouldn't be alive long enough for constant CC re-application to be an issue. IMO a proper fix would be to look at the lethality of mobs that can CC.

Air elementals are metioned often in this discussion: super low lethality, very high CC ability (although now we're reaching the point where barbarians have high enough STR to not be CC'd by them). IMO a re-designing of the monster here is needed, rather than a universal change to game systems. The CC ability of air elementals in DDO angers players because it's viewed as cheating (i.e. not in line with their abilities in pnp) and because it doesnt make sense (i.e. being tripped/knocked down while you're already on the ground). I liked a suggestion that was posted earlier: give air elementals a djinn-like makeover, where they have CC and low lethality in 1 mode and no CC and higher lethality in another mode.

2) Allow, say, three seconds of immunity before an effect can be reapplied

Doing 1) is probably enough. In fact I would do the following:

• Ensure the saving throw system of DDO is robustly explained/demonstrated in the tutorial & starter areas.
• Prevent trip/knockdown from being reapplied when you're already on the ground (i.e. 1)).
• Give air elementals a makeover.

Doing those 3 things should make 2) unnecessary. 2) is a pretty large blanket change that, for me, takes some of the fun and consequence out of DDO's character development. The heroic surge immunity also makes things frustrating for players who blow spell points on CC that mobs are suddenly immune to with no blatantly clear visual indicator of that immunity, allows for quest griefing, and causes a number of other bad side-effects you've seen mentioned in this thread.

It mutated somewhat, trying to also address the situation where CC was at odds with certain dungeon mechanics (preventing monster respawns etc) and all cc durations were revisted resulting in many being shortened, some getting reoccuring saves etc.

I thought CC was intended by-design as a viable solution to certain dungeon mechanics. If it's not, then what's the point of CC? i.e. if CC doesn't prevent monster respawns or help address some other quest mechanic, then why bother CCing at all? Why not just drop a blade barrier or firewall, or wail of the banshee or a bunch of fogs and kite everything in circles. For example, in TOD elite it's perfectly viable and in-fact easier for a WF arcane to throw acid fogs around to grab all the orthons and kite them. It uses less mana, and they don't need to worry about beating spell penetration or saving throws. The devs shouldn't consider flesh to stone the badguy here - it simply adds another method to complete the objective, and more options (nonlinearity) is part of what makes d&d fun and unique.

Let me ask this first: what would be your argument for excessively long CC durations? One could take the approach that CC has done it’s job if it lasts the length of time it takes to kill a mob (or two). Is it the (prohibitive) spell point cost to re-cast?

What would be considered excessively long CC in DDO? If it takes 2 seconds to kill a mob and you make CC last 2 seconds, who here would think CC has done it's job? Players should view CC as a method to take a mob out of the picture, long enough to bypass/ignore it (which is sometimes awarded with bonus XP in pnp) or long enough to kill everything around it (i.e. to eliminate it as a threat from combat, which could involve CCing the healer while you kill 12 fighters). If the goal was simply to take it out of the picture long enough to kill a mob (or two) the caster would have used that sp to kill it or help kill it outright.

For me, the goal of CC is to address specific dungeon mechanics. i.e. you create a quest where we're not allowed to kill spiders, and the solution is to CC the spiders or instakill the ogres. Or you create a quest where everything is immune to dance and instakills, and the solution is to trip, stun, web, and stone. Or you create a quest where there are always 3 badguys present no matter how many you kill, and the solution is to CC the badguys. If you take spell-based CC away that won't necessarily force us to keep killing the badguys, we may instead just opt to have 1 player run them in circles (i.e. AI based CC).

A few points addressed in orange.

[Cyr]

Let me ask this first: what would be your argument for excessively long CC durations? One could take the approach that CC has done it’s job if it lasts the length of time it takes to kill a mob (or two). Is it the (prohibitive) spell point cost to re-cast?

There are many arguments for longer CC durations.

A) Bad dungeon design. This is seen in Prey and Kobold to name two. It is easier to stop an enemy from being a threat then to kill it and then face respawns that happen way too fast. Trick here is that Prey and Kobold are both designed very poorly from a respawn mechanic and it shows. From well built parties to poorly built parties it's a big difference. If for example there was no respawns or much better much slower respawns this would become a much less important point. As it is pretty much every dungeon with respawns in the end fights are harder dungeons then their comparable level ones that I can think of if you don't have effective CC. Offering is an example of this in non end fights and it is way harder if you don't have any CC or use perching (a minor form of exploiting IMO). We are not talking about a 10% slower respawn here, but more like a 50% slower.

B) D & D fidelity. This is not a huge one since we are talking about a game with some serious deviations, but it should be noted that unless there is a compelling reason to deviate from base rules then it should not be done (same goes with existing in game rules).

C) Spell/ability usefulness. Fascinate is good in rare situations entirely due to it's duration. Flesh to stone is a little better, but again it's long duration is a HUGE plus on it's side. Otto's is really not nearly as good if it lasts much shorter. Now for the HUGE ones. Charms, Dominates, and Suggestions. These are almost useless in the cases you would want to use them with short durations. They were already nerfed very hard with the do not follow AI change. Now, think of every spell to be effected and how they were balanced based in part due to their durations and length between savings throws. Every spell which is negatively impacted by one of these is weaker by comparision and that much less useful.

D) EPIC concerns. EPIC is all about slugfests. Players rightly complained about how lame it was when blanket immunities were on mobs before live. These were scaled back and it is alot more fun now although I still think the lowered charm durations make it less fun. Lower durations and more saves would reduce arcane usefulness in certain dungeons by a huge amount.

E) Your proposed argument that CC has done it's job if it is enough time to kill a mob (or two) is highly flawed in theory for various reasons. First, if all CC was doing was stopping a mob or two then why would you ever use it? Blasting or insta-kill would be far superior. Second, the time to kill a mob or two is highly variable. That could range from a split second for most trash mobs in low to mid levels all the way upto almost a minute for some stuff in epic with non-optimium party makeup (which is why Otto's and fascinate are so important to EPIC dynamics).

F) Arcane/Bard Nerf. Nerfs are bad things. They should ONLY be considered when there is an absolute need for them. Nerfs that disproportionately hurt one segment of the player community more then others are even worse and should never happen unless there is an absolute need and there is no other method to fulfill that need that spreads the pain around in a lesser degree to a wider segment of the player community. This nerf would make arcanes less desirable in EPIC content. It would also reduce their useful spell list significantly, which means that wizards are hurt the worst by this. So less wizard usefulness compared to sorcs (like we need more reasons to invite a sorc over a wizard)....and pale master could make inviting a wizard the last thing you want to do in a party unless you know them.

G) Recasts ARE annoying as are extra spell point costs required by them. More important however is the chance of failure, to casting time, to SP cost ratios involved. If you have to cast 2-3 times more CC spells for the same duration (if the mob fails all the saves) then your much worse off then 2-3 times what it was before. This is due to the chance of failure dynamic.

[GoldyGopher]

I'm hoping that we can engage in a healthy, fun debate in this thread. I have no doubt that it will prove enlightening for me; hopefully you'll find it useful as well. I encourage everyone to share their opinions, but please do so in a respectful manner. You're going to passionately disagree with some of things I (or others) present here - and that's expected and totally fine - but being disrespectful will just bring an end to the dialog.

When you ask for something like this I hope everyone has an extremely thick skin, wearing asbestos underwear, and has thier favorite stress reliever nearby. Cause it can get ugly really quick when you are talking about something as passionate as game play.

Let me also state that I'm going to adopt the stance that most of you are more versed than I when it comes to high level player tactics and many of the nuances of character builds. I don't intend to challenge you in this regard.

IMHO I believe this is the first part of the problem. Turbine's Staff has lost connectivity between where the players are at in terms of game play and where Turbine thinks they are at. So much in the game is currently pointless, because it has no bearing on how the game is played by the majority of players. Yes there may be a role-player or a solo build that does something different, but for the most part builds tend to do the same thing and use similar tactics.
As I stand here, looking out into a Blizzard, it is fairly obvious which games the Developers play the games they develop almost as religiously as they work on. Many of these games become extremely successful. It also doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why players leave a gaming galaxy in droves when changes are made that are contrary to the prevalent gaming play styles in the game.

As you’re all aware, we’ve taken steps to make the game more accessible. Part of this effort included making the game more solo and small-party friendly and the dungeon scaling system has been very successful in this regard.

I am going to inject something here that is not necessarily the most germane to current discussion.

On the whole the existing player base could care less if you are making the entry into the game more accessible to the masses. Bringing more players into a game is a good thing for everyone involved. The issue we have is you making the end game so incredibly easy it’s becoming boring to play.
In many games it is easy to get acclimated to the game and get to a reasonable level without difficulty, however the endgame is a lot more difficult to run effectively. I will use LotRO as an example, anyone can reach level 50 solo without much difficulty regardless of class or race, it’s progressing past level 50 and getting your character equipped and ready for the end-game that is the challenge.
I go back to the comment about Turbine not being connected to the player base. As an example you give Tempest Rangers an additional plus to hit, at the end game these players are swinging at +50 to begin with, what is an additional +2 to hit when the mob has a 41AC. Sure it may help that mid range Ranger fight something with a challenge rating two three or more levels above their class level…
What I am trying to get at it is time for Turbine to take a step back and reevaluate what enhancements bonuses and feats they are giving classes. Do they make sense in the current game? If not then they need to be resynced to the game.

That said, while this system reduces CC duration (on player characters) when appropriate, CC can still be a problem when the debuff is immediately re-cast on the character. Player still ends up being held for a long time, feels helpless and dies. Fun? Obviously subjective, but for many, not really. We could get into a huge debate over the whole ‘DDO is a party based game’, but that would be a huge tangent and derail the point of this thread, so I’m going to ask that we avoid this. I’d prefer that we try to focus on the motivations behind Heroic Surge with the goal of addressing the issues while preserving the gameplay depth that makes DDO so special.

So this alone was the original goal of the feature. I’m going to quote someone who posted early in this thread wondering why we just didn’t to this:
1) Don't allow debuff effects (spells, trip, knockdown etc.) to be reapplied until the current timer has expired.
2) Allow, say, three seconds of immunity before an effect can be reapplied

The above is certainly pretty close to what I had in mind. It didn’t get implemented this way, however. It mutated somewhat, trying to also address the situation where CC was at odds with certain dungeon mechanics (preventing monster respawns etc) and all cc durations were revisted resulting in many being shortened, some getting reoccuring saves etc. As far as the original motivation, I don’t think this system was at all successful (and posts here pretty much confirm it).

My question for you, was the CC broken or was the dungeon mechnics broken?

So here we are – back to the drawing board so to speak. I hope this sheds some light on things and gets the conversation flowing. Let me ask this first: what would be your argument for excessively long CC durations? One could take the approach that CC has done it’s job if it lasts the length of time it takes to kill a mob (or two). Is it the (prohibitive) spell point cost to re-cast?

What does Turbine think crowd control does to help a party in a quest/raid AND is the player base utilizing CC in that manner?
The question that players ask “is a CC character helpful in completing quest or would another Melee be more useful?” I know that in our guild we have solidly chosen more DPS over CC because CC in the high levels does very little to reduce the amount of resources a party needs to expend to complete a quest.

I know that many people have probably already responded and talked about nerfs to preexisting CC spells and how the only spell currently in use is Flesh to Stone; so let us go beyond that and talk about what can be done to improve CC and make it usable in game.

Blanket immunities are bad, the reason “Flesh to Stone” is so popular is it is the only spell in the high levels that you can make a pretty good bet is going to land. The reason that Turbine has used blanket immunities is because they have made it TOO easy to land spells in the first place, which of course allow players to build characters that can focus on doing too many roles in a party, thus making the game easier.

Rather than blanket immunities set High DCs and allow saving throws or shorter durations on mobs you currently have given blanket immunities. The reason to have high DC is so that characters must focus on being a CC character, not a CC that also can do 85 different things. This means that feats should be created/reworked so they focus on specific line of magic types, not just “Spell Penetration”, but “Spell Penetration: Enchantment”, “Spell Penetration: Evocation” in addition you Enhancement line should have “Spell Focus: Enchantment (1-4) – Your Enchantment spells cost is reduced by (2, 4, 6, 8) points.” As well as “Spell Penetration: Enchantment Bonus (1-4) – The DC on your characters Enchantment Spells is increased by (1-2-3-4).” Of course I am just looking at Bards quickly but the same concept should apply to Wizards and maybe Sorcerers (but that is another ball of wax).
The choice of Capstones need to be increased to reflect focuses, rather than just PrEs.

But it goes beyond Crowd Control Spells, the real issue is that some/many (you pick) Arcanes have no ability to help the party*. If you’re a CC spec character what can you do to help the party when there are few/no mobs to fight (end fights), currently not a whole heck of a lot, maybe haste maybe attempting to land waves of exhaustion. Would be nice if Arcanes had a spell line allowing them to increase damage of a specific type, that was modified by their focus. For Example a Fire Savant has a spell that makes fire damage 5/10/15/20% more effective, plus enhancements that increase it by 5/10/15/20%, same goes for Earth, Water, Force, Void… Giving a Pale Master ability to land the necrotic rot on a living mob (think of a spell like burning blood that does X amount of damage over time)

Crowd Control goes beyond Bards/Wizards/Sorcs, a well designed Warhammer wielding Melee with Stunning Blow (or Monk with Stunning Blow) could be just as effective in stopping or slowing down one mob as well as Tanks with the ability to grab and hold agro while the DPS deal with loose mobs. Those are all forms of crowd control that currently aren’t as effective as they could be because they need some loving to. To me none of these models work anywhere near as well as they could or should.

I could go on and on and on about how things would be made easier if… But it isn’t just easier we want, we want appropriate level of challenge for time spent. You have given us inflated To Hit modifiers but the AC of mobs is ridiculously low. You have given us multiple ways to lower those ridiculously low AC for no apparent reason, however since those AC as sooo low you given many mobs 10,000K plus HP. Yo make it so mobs trickle out at us in raids which makes Crowd Contol useless because there are so few mobs. Make it so tactics and planning matter.

I would like to invite you to join us (or any high level guild) for a run or two of what people are considering high level content.. Tower, Shroud, … I know you have the ability to hook in and watch, but actually playing I think would be a good opportunity to learn what high level play is currently all about.

[gavagai]

All of that does not refute my argument: it's situationally overpowered. I never Fascinate didn't have issues.

Let's be clear: it does not need to last three whole minutes to be balanced. Yes, Fascinate is soft CC so it breaks easily. Yes, it does have a long induction time. But, it has a nearly irresistible DC and the induction time can be reduced if that's a balance concern or playability concern. However, it can be used to overcome intended challenges by immobilizing mobs for extended period of time.

I think it's a little disingenuous to talk about aspects of classes being "situationally" overpowered like that. Halflings with Rad II's or Manyshot with AA Slayer Arrows are more "situationally overpowered" and "overcome intended challenges" much more consistently and effectively than fascinate, a skill which takes you and the party out of combat for up to ten seconds. In all fairness, fascinate _is_ powerful, and maybe durations could be scaled with level. But "situationally overpowered" exaggerates it. Fascinate is too short to be a permanent fix for a bard, and it breaks upon being attacked, unlike CC spells that immobilize targets while you take them out. High DC, low advantage in combat. FtS has a lower DC, but enables crits. Neither are imo as situationally relevant in the game as, say, RadII and watching the numbers go.

I'm relatively new to DDO, so maybe I could throw in a few opinions about HS and caster balance:

1. First and foremost, I think player frustration is tied heavily to poor comprehension of the D&D ruleset, which is elegant but complex for many new MMO players. I bootstrapped all my knowledge of DDO from past experience with 3.5; I can't imagine how confusing all the numbers would be without that knowledge. I think a tutorial that shows players the elegance of the system will actually diminish some of the frustration -- for instance, how "saves" are like resistances to outside influences, how classes generally have strong saves and weak saves which can be as important as hit points and BAB.

2. Many of the "Heroic Surge" arguments seem to revolve around the proverbial -2 Will Save WF Fighter who sees magic as a PITA! Not many are. And for those that are, #1 should address the issue of their frustration.

3. Scale player protections with difficulty ranking. If you implement whatever "CC spam protection" that you do, make it more biased in favor of players on casual and normal, in parity on hard, and virtually non-existent on Elite/Epic. That seems like a win-win in preserving both challenge and accessibility.

4. Rescale magic using both carrots and sticks. In PnP, arcane casters are supposed to be late bloomers, "situationally inadequate" at first and later tending to be more "situationally overpowered." Magic enables tactics that brute force cannot simulate. If you need to bring down the most useful spells, do it in a way that gives casters powers that can offset and justify why they didn't choose to dual wield kopeshes. Don't make magic "situationally underpowered" for most of the game; either help casters make competitive numbers over a creature's head or encourage new CC/insta-death tactics.
Examples:
--the Symbol/Power Word spells. Make it affect (50*caster level) hit points, subject to maximizeable.
--Mord's Injunction: make more immunities temporarily dispellable.
--Bigby's hands: tactical knockdown/trip/stun effects on creatures with spell immunities.
--Missile Storm spells that dramatically increase force spell viability. [1 missile/level, no miss! May have to dispel Shield spell first though.]
--[for Bards] Spells like Dirge that inflict stacking AOE debuffs to creatures.
These types of things would expand caster spell options commensurate with the investment players make in those classes, rather than make them 5-spell donkeys that are not "intended" to overcome challenges on their own. It would give you freedom to "balance" certain CC spells or Firewall without crippling classes.

5. I DO think the spell point concern is going to be a major issue going into the future. Casters are just at a core disadvantage given the limitations on resources and the weakening of spells. One easy fix is to make sure PrEs give adequate spell point bonuses, esp. at the third tier when casters start needing to super-size their efficacy. Another method is through gear drops, which both improve all around spell efficacy (not just huge, short-lived spikes!) and boost spell points.

Sorry if that was long. Just my passing impressions.

[Angelus_dead]

In PnP, arcane casters are supposed to be late bloomers, "situationally inadequate" at first and later tending to be more "situationally overpowered."

That is a widespread myth. The truth is that all character classes are supposed to be similarly effective at every level.

That is a formal part of the D&D 3.x design objectives. The published game didn't achieve that goal, but casters aren't "supposed" to become powerful later. A minute thinking about it should reveal why it would be a mistake for the designers to intentionally create classes that are underpowered at some levels.

[Borror0]

Fascinate is too short to be a permanent fix for a bard

It lasts over three minutes...

[gavagai]

That is a widespread myth. The truth is that all character classes are supposed to be similarly effective at every level.

That is a formal part of the D&D 3.x design objectives. The published game didn't achieve that goal, but casters aren't "supposed" to become powerful later. A minute thinking about it should reveal why it would be a mistake for the designers to intentionally create classes that are underpowered at some levels.

I see your point.

Let me phrase it this way: in the early levels, "arcane casting" is underpowered. Due to BAB dynamics, low level casters are ok, since they can act like fighters with 1 or 2 "tricks" up their sleeves. There's only a 5% difference in attack bonus. But "casting" itself is hardly a powerful technique until you get better spells and more of them, or you just spend most of your time resting and relearning spells. At level 4 you can cast a handful of spells per day, and envy the fighter whacking things endlessly. By 12 your damage output and control of combat has scaled much more noticeably than the fighter, still whacking away at things. A high level caster has many more choices to initiate, continue, and end a conflict than does another class. [*insta-kill* *turn to dragon and fly away* *teleport* *stop time and put lipstick on barbarian*]

This is compared to other MMO games, where all classes start out with a power supply (stamina/mana/rage/whatever) and each class involves *pushing a button for x-class action* and making roughly similar numbers appear above the enemies' heads until you are out of power.

Clearly DDO can't allow total imbalance in the capabilities of casters. But when they "scale" one set of caster spells for balance, I think they ought to try doing it by introducing diverse other spells and tactics that will help casters feel relevant. There are many modest ways of introducing diversity -- e.g., spell that acted as a ranged 36 DC Improved Trip couldn't be much more OP than a 54 Strength Kensai with Improved Trip. Otherwise there seems to be no reason to tolerate a caster's weaknesses, imo.

[zealous]

Yes. I was being reasonable and assuming a not fully geared warchanter. Anyone with a minimum of intellectual honesty would have caught on that...

No. My initial number was for a not fully geared warchanter. Anyone with a minimum of intellectual honesty would have caught on that...

To obtain your number you would have to assume a lower level and no raid gear.

20 ranks + 15 item + 2 cha + 1 luck + 3 enchantment + 4 moral=45 for a 46-65 DC or ~56 DC

Let me explain my point more clearly for you: The number you stated might give the erroneous impression that fascinate DC is higher than spell DCs yet in the same ballpark, it is not.

With no more build dedication than splashing one level of bard and putting 4 skill points in perform, getting a shroud cha skills item and cha item + tome for UMD and some easily available buffs and items, you can get a fascinate DC rivaling that of a twinked and specced wizard.

PnP fascinate breaks on the sight of a drawn weapon, it's use differs between PnP and DDO. Fascinate being a mez in DDO is a good change. Using a skill check for DC does not mix well with the ease of getting high skills in DDO.

The difference between a 1/20 fail chance and the old version fascinate not having a save at all is fairly minor.

If there is a desire to have a balanced DC for fascinate this could be based e.g. on a fraction of perform skill, bardlevels + cha or ranks bought with skill points + cha, could increase this check for virtuosos. This would result in a random DC generally higher than spell DCs but still in the same ballpark.

[Cedrica-the-Bard]

It lasts over three minutes...

The duration of Fascinate changes as you level. I don't know the exact times but I know they don't stay fascinated very long at level 4, let alone level 1! LOL Maybe 50 seconds at level 4? The Lingering Song song AP's also affect the duration. Whatever formula they use for the Spellsinger and Ironskin chants is the same one that is used for Fascinate, I'd bet gold on that one.

Point being, at lower levels, it's hardly over-powered simply as a result of its duration. As for over-powered due to the save, it's likely to be a higher DC than a level equivalent spell but Perform takes a few levels to get to 56...

At level 20, yes 3+ minutes is excessive. Hardly game-breaking IMHO especially given how often I see it used and the number of mobs it actually can work on, . I haven't done Epic, perhaps it is the trick of last resort or something in there and that is where the issue is stemming from?

[Ponza69]

Seems Fascinate and FTS seem to be the big items that people are addressing. Due to my inexperience in the end game (highest level character is a 17th Virt) - i do not feel qualified to speak to any issue but the virt ones.

Others (maybe all) seem to think that all Bards are created equal. They are not.

I hope I do not overly generalize here but others are lumping bards all together when they have specifically 3 different foci.

Spell Singer - usually these bards are rocking the extended buffs and lowering casting costs of all other casters in the party. They have the best healing and buffs all all (3) architypes.

Warchanter - usually these bards are rocking the dps buffs and dishing out the dps at the same time. The have the best mellee songs.

Virturoso - these bards are rocking the enthrall (upgrade to fascinate only ones who get it-includes music of the dead/makers pre-req). The generally do not have extend/healing focus of the spellsinger nor the dps output/AC buffs that the warchanter can provide.

While I agree that fascinate is situationally overpowered as Boro stated there are mechanics in the game to make this not really true. Take Orchard for instance. Fascinate will only hit 1 of the (3) types of mobs in this zone (you may get the humanoids but you wont get the constructs or undead). However in Giant Hold - one fascinate goes a long way as there is no melting pot of mob types.

I am somewhat worried that because Boro has some really good points and his knowledge is way above my own that an impact to fascinate may be lobby'ed. I am also worried that if any impact to fascinate/enthrall/music of dead/music of makers is really what the virturoso is given to bring them up to par with the other bards and also your other classes. A nerf to these CC songs would mean the elimination of one of the prestige classes-the virt.

As a possible solution I am going to suggest two rogueish suggestions. (please dont throw the stones too hard fellow bards)

1. Give warchanters and Spell Singers less songs per rest and do nothing to fascinate. (this would allow them the choice of being uber healing/combat or functioning as a fascinator)
2. Change fascinate to have a shorter duration but do not touch enthrall. (addressing the commonality of the 3 prestige classes but not completly trumping the Virt)

note: music of the dead/makers functions as a fascinate - i am assuming that if fascinate takes a hit then these would too. I would perfer they did not but they are not used a lot - very situational.

There is still a couple of issues like get rid of suggestion song because if takes about 12 to 15 secs to do both songs (fascinate then suggestion while targeting and cool down). I doubt anyone uses this now and in the future if any of these changes take place people would just scratch their head at when they actually had enough time to use it.

Even with the current timers I dont understand why this is still in the game anyways. - i am probrably missing something.

[Ponza69]

In addition - is anything being debated on these weapon types. A TWF weilding (2) paralyzers in nearly untouchable in any zone where they work. Through in a little healing and they can keep mobs locked up for a very long time.

[Angelus_dead]

Let me explain my point more clearly for you: The number you stated might give the erroneous impression that fascinate DC is higher than spell DCs yet in the same ballpark, it is not.

Incorrect. Anyone who's cast a spell would know that a 56 DC is not in the "same ballpark". It is literally "off the die".

[SquelchHU]

If you look at history, even excellent franchises like Star Wars Galaxies and Diablo, the community will take nerfs to a single spell or weapon or event. But as soon as you attempt to nerf a game-wide PLAYSTYLE, you run the risk of losing the COMMUNITY.

Ask Diablo players what happened on nerf.. err... patch 1.10.

Lesson: Never mess with a playstyle, unless you've got a pretty damned good plan B you can enact within 24 hours.

I can answer that one. Everyone went from farming cows over and over to farming baal over and over. Not much of a change except that a higher caliber of player is required.

Now when they enacted 'realm down' (basically Dungeon Alert that KICKS YOU FROM THE SERVERS if you go too fast and BANS YOU if you keep doing it, in a game even more about super quick zergs than DDO) THAT is certainly an excellent example of what you're talking about.

Yeah but it's not like Epic was intended to be fun.

Mind if I quote that?

[LeslieWest_GuitarGod]

I can answer that one. Everyone went from farming cows over and over to farming baal over and over. Not much of a change except that a higher caliber of player is required.

Haha yeah I had a few level 90+ toons so I could absorb patch 1.10. However it also was the beginning of the end for me. After so many years of playing (6 ish?) watching a level 1 quill rat be able to take level 90 toons down in a few hits seemed like gross overkill... and too much of a change to bear, even for someone my level.

They lost much of their playerbase overnight.

[Mjesko]

So here we are – back to the drawing board so to speak. I hope this sheds some light on things and gets the conversation flowing. Let me ask this first: what would be your argument for excessively long CC durations? One could take the approach that CC has done it’s job if it lasts the length of time it takes to kill a mob (or two). Is it the (prohibitive) spell point cost to re-cast?

In my opinion cc spells with longer durations allow players to solve an encounter in a different way and this is fun, because you can try new tactics instead of just killing everything. Longer durations are very important for spells like charm and dominate, which have already been nerfed, to keep them useful.

With no more build dedication than splashing one level of bard and putting 4 skill points in perform, getting a shroud cha skills item and cha item + tome for UMD and some easily available buffs and items, you can get a fascinate DC rivaling that of a twinked and specced wizard.

The fascinate DC could be: 10 + (total skill / 2)

[LeslieWest_GuitarGod]

In my opinion cc spells with longer durations allow players to solve an encounter in a different way and this is fun, because you can try new tactics instead of just killing everything.

QFT

This is probably the best defense Ive heard yet... said in the simplest, easiest to read format.