A sincere plea from a tactical player

[Strype.McClaine]

This requires a small forward before I say anything else. I don't have a lot of renown on the forums for lack of posting, but this is due to the fact free time is, well, most often spent in game rather than reading the game. I've been playing since Mod 1 back in the days before the drow Invasion. I've seen the wax and wane of builds, strategies, plans, players and guilds. I've stayed with DDO rather than any other game I've even tried out of the flexibility of character creation, play, and even ways to "do" things. After I played a rogue, I grew to try the bard, and later wizard, far before I tried my hand at any other classes. I've capped each, working through reincarnations of each....

Now that I have somewhat validated my self, you may ask what exactly am I begging for?
Sincerely, I want my crowd control // debuff powers back.
Please.
Even give the mobs the power back.
Please.

To Clarify my grievances with the current state of things that are not raw damage.

-Duration of spell and ability affect

In the current state of the game persistent effects have little duration.
This is really a blow to the caster with an eye on damage mitigation.
This really gets apparent in the formerly known as permanent spells like curse, at level, with the inflated saves // Spell Resistance that many monsters have, it takes maybe 10-12 castings to get a spell like that to land on the monster, and for it to not last the long drawn out encounter (boss monster.)
With the change to weaken the effect of other longer duration spells (waves of X) It is a crushing blow to the caster that would prefer to weaken with a few spells, than drop every single point of mana on raw damage.
Flesh to stone only lasting seconds......this is absurd.
Fear lasts only a few seconds.
Feeblemind is an absolute joke now, lasting, only long enough for cool down timers to be refreshed.

-Stat Damage Regenerating \\ Mitigation

As "con damage does not kill" was changed, stat damagers were shelved with teary eyed memories and utterances of "they were good times weren't they?" Yea, they were great times.
CloudKILL has seen far less casting as it is now only a stacking effect with acid fog, as a damage machine, rather than demolishing a mob, becoming far more like cloudTickle rather than cloud kill. A necessary change? I'll agree with that. Time passed, and we grew up a little more, but low and behold, stat regenerating came out... No longer are lesser restoration potions a deathly necessity, they can be ignored somewhat, if you just, cant wait. But monsters, no, they have all the time. No longer are living spells disabled cleverly to allow people to pass, they must be taken head on, lest they regenerate all the str/dex/(maybe) even con that kept them from casting.
Sorjek's command became even more of a problem, as now even stat damage is somewhat prevented.
Epic says that type of weapon has no place here at all.
Why make everything regenerate stats? Or at least so darn quickly? Is this just a player hindrance or just a way to shelter the new player from taking responsibility for their loss of stats?

-Negative Levels

I'm sure this mostly qualifies under loss off stats, but I can add to it more. If negative levels regenerate, then why one per minute? If they are not perminate make them go away far slower? Give the monsters some more bite, as with the players. One per minute is far too quick. I would almost say one per two minutes would be more appropriate IF they were not perminate. As it stands there is little to zero bite here.
Its sad, I kinda miss the days of "Just hit /death. Its faster than getting rid of each neg level"

-Charming

This is more of a build up of anger here. But with shorter durations, and the leashing, why are charms so disliked? Must the charismatic charming bard (that is, up till amarath areas) be hindered so brutally? I understand that the charm spells work far differently in the source material than they do in the game, but as the years of changes, they have been dropped down to almost worthless.

-Tactical Control

This is a far shorter complaint than any other, but I later grew to try the combat tactics of tripping, stunning, sundering. Later deeping my skills to use intimidates and diplomacy.... you know, too see how the half with out blue juice lives some times. Stunning seems to stun for the appropriate length of time (about the duration of paralyze, so we can say working as intended), however I have a beef with trip and intimidate. Does it seem when I see the monster I successfully intimidated turn to smack the cleric as his first action? Is it really working as intended? Trip should last for at least the duration of a "round" correct, at least? Then how can you trip something, that then immediately stands and trips you for 15 seconds rather than just the 6?

After years of playing, the field of crowd control has gone from a valid strong option, to being the under stated red headed step-child. DDO touts itself as the "tactical" MMO, but the tricks of enhanced tactics seem to be falling apart under the weight of that Epic sword of kick axery... damage is king.

Crowd control has no sting, no even negative incentive even to players, let alone monsters.
When farming for my ear dweller on elite (before it could be found elsewhere than eye of the titan)...
I would be hit by a greater...GREATER command, that would last for about the time it took the red name to catch up to me.
Fear lasts only long enough to allow my spell cool downs to refresh.
I hate saying this.
But fix the duration of CC on the MONSTERS AND PLAYERS.
Please.
Some of us get more joy seeing a room of monsters turned to stone, rather than seeing critical hits well into the thousands.

The current state of CC in the game, is a joke, and this rogue, bard, & wizard player isn't laughing.

~ Lovingly subscribing in hopes of a good future.
Strype McClaine

[dunklezhan]

See this? This is my positive rep stick.

And I just beat you with it.

Devs? What he said. All of that. I've only been playing for a year. I haven't done end game. But even at the mid game NO-ONE uses tactical fighting. DPS it into a firewall. Rinse, repeat.

The surprise in Delera's when I got bored of firewall and charmed the undead casters - the squishiest yet most dangerous of the mobs - was unbelievable. All the other mobs beat on the skelly mage while it lightning bolts them to bits. If it died everything else was half dead and easy pickings, if it didn't (and usually it didn't cos all the skellies are armed with swords or shoot arrows, and the skellie mages self heal) it took one hit when the charm wore off.

Firewall would've been faster, I know. I know. But it would have cost more spell points too - and no-one needed healing in those fights because no-one was being attacked. Tactics. Valid. Frustrated some other players who wanted to go fast fast fast, but that's just not interesting to me (speed for the sake of it I mean, not their frustrations. I don't want my PuGgees or anyone else frustrated with me, so I always knew I'd need to capitulate and spam firewall most of the time. what i'm saying is there's no incentive for doing anything else, and that's dull).

[r3dl4nce]

Generally, in epic, if you have a very high DC, crowd control come back to play its role. Mass hold monster is great. Before shavarath and epic, there is no great use of crowd control when a single firewall or a wail or a finger of death can be faster to kill mobs

[Yellfor]

/Signed for most of what U wrote.

[Maxelcat]

I would like stat damage back THE WAY IT SHOULD BE.

In fact, put negative levels back on correctly as well.

I was something with undead and had like 6 neg levels and i was like "oh well I'll just stand here and wait a bit" (I was soloing)

and its easy, really.

If the Players get to do something, then the bad guys do as well.

I would like a scary world again, where that one point of stat damage is like *YAWN*

Bring it back, then have every named Mob ALSO get stat damage and then its Fair.

[Nospheratus]

/signed

And hopefully the Epic "reboot" will be a good thing!

[Averroes]

In fact, put negative levels back on correctly as well.

Excellent OP -- agree on most counts. I miss the variety of (useful) tactical options there were in early retail (and pre-retail). Every reduction in AC, weakening of crowd control, and even addition of shrines has served, together, to reduce both the relevant tactical options and the need for teamwork to the point where I rarely group below level 16, and approach every encounter the same -- buff up, charge in, destroy. I can't even remember the last time I bothered to body pull.


And yeah, I'd love for negative levels to go back to the original implementation -- permanent, will save negates. That provided all sorts of interesting options, with outcomes other than "always win" and "always lose", that have been reduced to exactly those two when player characters are on the receiving end: I have enough charges on my silver flame amulet, or I do not. In the former case, there is no danger at all; in the latter, you're pretty well toast.

[Strype.McClaine]

Thank you all for reminding me about Negitive level loss.
I forgot about that as a sticking point.
While not relevant to this plea, I still also wish there was some numerical feedback from level drain effects to know HOW much levels were lost from GreenSteel, DreamSpitter, Guard Effect, Enervate, Energy Drain effects.

[r3dl4nce]

Bring it back, then have every named Mob ALSO get stat damage and then its Fair.

Lol, that is impossibile. If stat damage could work on named, you could see harry, horoth, sully, killed in less than 2 rounds from 6 TWFers with WoP.

[MsEricka]

Now here's the issue, and it's not the game, it's you and the people you play with.

Why do people firewall the **** out of everything? Because it's there, and it's easy. Don't want wall of fire? Don't bring a caster! Do you want to use tactics more? Then make your parties up so they must use tactics.

I'll say it again. It's not the game that's at fault, it's you.

Sure some things don't work like they used to, and some things that work now won't work like that in a few days or months or weeks or years. But that's how the game goes and you adapt.

Your long post was honestly not much more than whining about how things used to be. I can tell you that wall of fire is still wall of fire and hold monster is still hold monster. Whether you want to bring a caster and restrict them to specific spells is your choice. Or better yet, make a caster yourself and don't take the spells you don't want to use.

Now go throw up an LFM and find like-minded players and go for the challenge. Force your parties to be challenged. Do quests below level like it was done in days bygone. Do quests on hard instead of normal. If you're that bored with what's there then it's up to you to make it challenging.

[Firepants]

Now here's the issue, and it's not the game, it's you and the people you play with.

So your suggestion is to purposefully play ****** on purpose to make it harder? That's great. Instead of getting more variety in how we can kill **** (because we're STILL going to kill the **** just as easily), you say "use inefficient techniques to generate a false challenge". Pure. Freakin. Genius.

[platonicx]

Try a PD guild. Charming tactics pulling you will see it all. And you will also get much more into the game. As for your suggestion games when u can jsut gez ressed after u die wont ever have any sort of thinking in them. Smashing until it dies is the most effective way with no risks.

[KillEveryone]

Now here's the issue, and it's not the game, it's you and the people you play with.

Why do people firewall the **** out of everything? Because it's there, and it's easy. Don't want wall of fire? Don't bring a caster! Do you want to use tactics more? Then make your parties up so they must use tactics.

I'll say it again. It's not the game that's at fault, it's you.

Sure some things don't work like they used to, and some things that work now won't work like that in a few days or months or weeks or years. But that's how the game goes and you adapt.

Your long post was honestly not much more than whining about how things used to be. I can tell you that wall of fire is still wall of fire and hold monster is still hold monster. Whether you want to bring a caster and restrict them to specific spells is your choice. Or better yet, make a caster yourself and don't take the spells you don't want to use.

Now go throw up an LFM and find like-minded players and go for the challenge. Force your parties to be challenged. Do quests below level like it was done in days bygone. Do quests on hard instead of normal. If you're that bored with what's there then it's up to you to make it challenging.

Firewall is a easy button for a great portion of levels. It is also the most efficient use of SP. No other spell will kill something without using more SP. The devs are looking into fixing things but we don't know when that will happen. Until they fix things, it is a waste of SP to use any other spell if that critter can be killed by firewall.

A update or two(or three...lost count) ago, the devs had stated that they plan on a "heroic surge." It got put on the back burner as it wasn't quite working right(I think they listened to the players begging and pleading to not implement it in it's current form) but they said they will still be looking into making it work.

That is very bad for CC spells because when you land...say hold monster...and then the critter saves against it to get released, the next time you hit it with that spell within a certain amount of time, the critter will be immune to that spell. You can then hit it again and it shouldn't be immune but by that point, it wouldn't matter.

Since then, things have changed so that you and critters also save against flesh to stone now. You didn't before and there was no timer. Bard song of freedom and stone to flesh would release you. Stone to flesh is fairly useless as a spell now since you save against stoning fairly quickly and the song takes about as long to play as you would save.

Critter timers are the same as a player and they can save almost as often. They release sooner than before, charmed critters no longer become your own personal army and are tethered to an area.

While CC in epic is worth while, it isn't really used much in the rest of the game unless you group with people that you know can use those spells with good effect or hitting a critter that is almost dead...you don't know that in the average pug. Any more, critters are half dead when they get charmed unless the charmer is in the area first to land that charm but they don't go very far from that area. Same when they are held, danced or stoned. People have found that it is just quicker to kill the critter and a better management of SP than to bother with CC.

Some content is more CC friendly...Shavarath can be hard to land a finger or wail but landing a hold is fairly effective. Epic is CC friendly. Most of the rest of the game, it is not.

[Strype.McClaine]

On several of the comments I got back.

I soloed a lot for funnies, back when soloing meant something.
Before dungeon scaling, something that I still vehemently am against (Casual is good for the game, scaling is a detriment to parties being formed).

PD was never something that interested me, as I die, a lot, but I die to test, to experiment. And I really find the joy of any build to be at that 14+ sweet spot, and despise the lowish-mid levels, where PD more than shines.

I still body pull, and debuff. Sure I throw the big red wall of easy button, but its not always the most sp efficient
(I've found augmented summoned monsters with de-buff support and spot removal, to be rather effective this life)

Its the change to duration, and regeneration that came with the heroic surge testing. Spotting a moment when crowd control dropped near off the face of the map. RIGHT FREAKING THEN. And that really, has been less than a year ago.

...I really miss my flesh to stone spell. you should be able to make periodic saves from alot of the CC effects, but not this darn quickly!

Another instance that I completely forgot about.
Feeblemind insta destroyed casters, monster and players. It does hardly anything now.