Remove Ship Buffs

[bigj1608]

They're overpowered, easy mode, and are currently ruining the game. You are gimp if you don't use them because everyone else does. People even factor them into their planned builds. They're stupid. Do away with them and think of something else.

Experience shrines are cool.

[Nite_Prowler]

Someone sounds either bu**hurt over not having a ship
or jealous for not being in a guild w/ship buffs

[Calebro]

Someone sounds either bu**hurt over not having a ship
or jealous for not being in a guild w/ship buffs

Or maybe someone feels exactly how he said he feels. I feel the same way for the most part, and we're almost at 70.

[Zigana]

I agree with the OP as well. They were a cool novelty at first, but overwhelmingly are annoying now. We did just fine without them in the past. The XP shrine (on my TR's) and occasionally the alters are really all I ever use them for myself, and I wouldn't be completely crushed to lose out on those either. And no, I've not got ship envy either--I have access to high lvl ships.

[Oreg]

I fail to see how someone's else's buffs make you gimp. A twinked character is probably faster at killing or more survivable due to its gear more than the buffs available on a high end ship. By the op's logic, level 2 icy burst weapons should be nerfed along with 50+ other low level items that make leveling trivial. I will never understand any argument centered around the fact that some other person's character makes your character all of a sudden gimp. It's beyond silly.

[Lifeblood]

Or maybe someone feels exactly how he said he feels. I feel the same way for the most part, and we're almost at 70.

I dont use them for the most part..i keep forgetting ...I don't think they are breaking the game tho

my tr's love the experience shrine

[Failedlegend]

i love the con shrine at least the 6 con drow sorcs now have 8 con

[fuzzy1guy]

It's a shame everyone MAKES you get ship buffs or you're not allowed to play.


Oh wait... they don't.

[Urvine]

You guys have to keep in mind the market Turbine is marketing towards. Its what i call the WoW syndrome. More and more casual players are getting into the mmorpg genre. and by casual I don't mean people who don't play often, or seriously. I mean players who don't play games for a challenge, they like to have most everything handed to them. Blizzard was the first major company to buckle down to these players, and since then they have become a MMO superpower of sorts as these players vastly out number challenge oriented players. So now all other companies are replicating their business models of running easy simple to play games devoid of challenge as casual players don't like challenges, they like to just have fun.


Just step back and look at mmorpgs now, and then look back at them 10 years ago. there were times when games had quest givers who had no indicator that they gave a quest, you had to actually talk to the town's npc's to find quests. death had penalties, experience loss, item loss, and in some cases, character loss. And many many other things. Some companies try to cater to both crowds, but it just ends in casuals being frustrated about not being able to handle content designed for core gamers or hardcore gamers. so it inevitably gets dumbed down. and eventually they'll stop attempting to cater to core gamers all together. MMO companies are businesses, just like any other, and they aim to make money.

I miss the times when playing a mmorpg made you a complete loser. That was the prime of gaming.

[Oreg]

On the bright side Urvine, playing an mmorpg and whining about haves and have nots still makes you a loser. So at least we still have that going for the gaming world today. And I am not referring to you (in case that wasn't obvious).

[Geodude07]

You guys have to keep in mind the market Turbine is marketing towards. Its what i call the WoW syndrome. More and more casual players are getting into the mmorpg genre. and by casual I don't mean people who don't play often, or seriously. I mean players who don't play games for a challenge, they like to have most everything handed to them. Blizzard was the first major company to buckle down to these players, and since then they have become a MMO superpower of sorts as these players vastly out number challenge oriented players. So now all other companies are replicating their business models of running easy simple to play games devoid of challenge as casual players don't like challenges, they like to just have fun.


Just step back and look at mmorpgs now, and then look back at them 10 years ago. there were times when games had quest givers who had no indicator that they gave a quest, you had to actually talk to the town's npc's to find quests. death had penalties, experience loss, item loss, and in some cases, character loss. And many many other things. Some companies try to cater to both crowds, but it just ends in casuals being frustrated about not being able to handle content designed for core gamers or hardcore gamers. so it inevitably gets dumbed down. and eventually they'll stop attempting to cater to core gamers all together. MMO companies are businesses, just like any other, and they aim to make money.

I miss the times when playing a mmorpg made you a complete loser. That was the prime of gaming.

I would not call it dumbing it down, but more of a better business model (as you say) and even a better playing model. Yes it is cool to feel "hardcore" and it must feel powerful to refer to anything that is not excruciatingly hard as being "dumbed down" but if companies want to make sales they need to have "fun" and "time management". You use to be a loser for playing MMORPG's because they required much more time, and if you had to go do something in real life....well too bad! or else you would die and hours and hours of work would go away. You were low level? better get some friends or welcome to ganking and watching your body be robbed.

You can have a challenging game without needing painful systems, those two are not as related as some like to think. The trouble is knowing quests makes them easy and if nothing ever really gets updated it just gets easier and easier. Many quests in ddo would be nice and hard if you had no prior experience of them. You would have to actually solve puzzles. Now everyone pretty much can follow a guide or knows the way which makes anything easy. Demon souls for example is a hard game, but if you know how everything works and what will come at you...it is easy.

Do you really think DDO would benefit from just stripping ship buffs, throwing xp penalties our way when we die, making the grind longer and make up some cheap challenges? It would make us go slower in quests, and may force some bad players to get a little better. But as a whole it would still be easy just more annoying. Thats not good gaming its only for those who like pain served up with it.

the 'they dont make you use them' and the 'why does other people's character's using them make you gimp' sentiments= its called power creep. its not silly, its basic reasoning. If new standards for gear/character power/resources are put in the game, and quests and groups are expecting/needing that, it is highly detrimental. so +3 to hit, +3 to damage and all the other extremely powerful buffs you get from ships, dont increase the overall expectation of power from toons? your high!

Note: lev 70 ship here. people should be compelled to be guilded for nothing else than what it was before ships + maybe some conveniences. Making guilded characters more powerful narrows the gameplay options. fuels a power creep, is an annoyance to maintain and overall takes away from what (IMO) DDO should be, which is more gritty d&d and less UBAR l33t bullpucky

/signed

The power creep part is true, though many times I dont bother with the buffs even if they are kinda useful. I hate relying on buffs that can go away in an hour, and I hate using time to keep buffing at ships. Ill grab it once in awhile and it is never a huge difference for me. I still support my party, still hit, still can stun, still kill a lot of things. Yeah a +3 to hit and damage would help a bit but it doesn't make you suck not to use them. I mean maybe I am just getting a different experience out of this...but ive never seen someone get buffs and suddenly be amazing or really any different then the person i was partying with before.

Though I do wish for more "gritty dnd" I like the ship, though I think its sole use for buffs and some transportation is boring. I also wish you had a trinket to just warp to it from any place in town instead of running to the ship door.

I mean greensteel makes a way bigger difference than ship buffs and no one gets mad about those, I mean they are very powerful weapons and they do not disappear after an hour, and yet thats fine but a few bonuses to hit and stat boosts are evil? Its not like I stare at a fully ship buffed player in awe as they tear through the quest leaving me feeling like a total fool and noob...

[Calebro]

I dont use them for the most part..i keep forgetting ...I don't think they are breaking the game tho

my tr's love the experience shrine

That's why I said "for the most part"
I agree with the overall sentiment however.
They're far too powerful at low levels. I'm just not sure what the solution is.

[jeremyt]

the 'they dont make you use them' and the 'why does other people's character's using them make you gimp' sentiments= its called power creep. its not silly, its basic reasoning. If new standards for gear/character power/resources are put in the game, and quests and groups are expecting/needing that, it is highly detrimental. so +3 to hit, +3 to damage and all the other extremely powerful buffs you get from ships, dont increase the overall expectation of power from toons? your high!

Note: lev 70 ship here. people should be compelled to be guilded for nothing else than what it was before ships + maybe some conveniences. Making guilded characters more powerful narrows the gameplay options. fuels a power creep, is an annoyance to maintain and overall takes away from what (IMO) DDO should be, which is more gritty d&d and less UBAR l33t bullpucky

/signed

[Itachi83]

They're far too powerful at low levels.

Ahahahahahaha.

Hah.

[Memnir]

They're overpowered, easy mode, and are currently ruining the game.

Experience shrines are cool.

So... ditch the ones you don't like but keep the one(s) you do?


/no thank you


They're fine, really. The only change I'd make to them would be have them scale to character level. Raise the price, maybe... but have a stat shrine give a +1 perk for levels 1-8 or so, +2 for 9-17s, and then +3s for level 20s. Or something like that, I'm not married to those numbers, just using them as examples.

Should they be changed and tweaked? Maybe. Gotten rid of... no. It's part of the cool-factor of getting a ship.

[Templarion]

Should they be changed and tweaked? Maybe. Gotten rid of... no. It's part of the cool-factor of getting a ship.

Yeah. Tweaking/nerfing signed! Removing not.

About cool-factor? But every guild seems to have a ship. Don't know is it cool when everyone has one. I think it's pretty standard. Sorry Memnir, cannot agree here with you. Nothing specially cool with guild airships.

[Vellrad]

At first I tough buffs (especially meele) are overpowered at low levels, and not so important at higher levels.
But now I think they are really helping vets with new alts or TRs to zerg throgh the low levels faster than ever.
I think that meele buffs and resists need some scaling with levels, and caster buffs needs some love (so they aren't completely useless after you got +1 DC item, (lv5-6))

And little off-topic, but I think that ships should be replaced with something like fortresses, or villages, or something like that. I mean, idea of having flying ship is cool, but not when you can't travel any farer/faster than on foot.

[Chris79]

I'm thinking of putting something new in my LFMs as I level my TR....

"If you need ship buffs to survive, GTFO"

that's 'fudge' btw

[JollySwagMan]

Two tweaks/nerfs I would support:

1. Character level appropriate.

2. Limit the max amount of ship buffs active at one time on a player.


These two changes, especially the second one, would help to address a few issues:

1. Ignorance of potions

2. Ignorance of simple tactics, such as avoiding enemy spells.

3. Players that *need* ship buffs at every opportunity

4. Too many things on the player examination panel. Yes, there is an option to get rid of the explanations, but that also eliminates the time left information.

I know that nerfing ship buffs wouldn't magically fix all of these issues, but I think it would help reduce the dependence upon them that some players seem to exhibit...

[samthedagger]

I like ship buffs. There is a certain point at which you are so uber that being even more uber doesn't make a significant difference. For everyone else, it helps level the playing field so that even gimps can contribute in some way.

Yes, I am a socialist. Deal with it.