Spell Pass Preview - Chaaannggeee!

[Artos_Fabril]

And don't get me started on 100-300 dam on failed save of fod or wail with monster hp's around 3-4k for most trash
that is still just a joke, even my no dps light monk gets that in the same amount of time and without spending sp
or going on a 30sec timer.

Apparently you missed the parts about trash HP being lowered by ~50% across the board in epics and more of the underused debuffs actually debuffing things (crushing despair and touch of idiocy combine for -10 will save if the saves against them pass)

[AMDarkwolf]

Well these changes just pretty much yell out one thing to me.


Here ya go new guys, enjoy, your game got easier. You old vets, GTFO now, you gave us your money, your no longer wanted. Make room for some new ppl to come and buy some cakes/potions from the ddo store.


Its pretty insulting, don'5t get me wrong, changes WERE needed, but such a huge sweep to make a caster un-fun to play unless your used to wow-clones?

is this what you want, a wow-clone with a VERY high turnover of players so you make your bucks faster?

Sure seems that way.

[Dark_Helmet]

My opinion and I know what you will do about it:

Hey folks! As you’ve probably have already heard we have a major spell pass coming down the pipe.

For years now the cost of all spells have been strictly driven by this formula:
Base Spell cost = 5 SP + (spell level X 5).
IE: a level 1 spell is 10 sp, while a level 9 spell is 50 sp, and so forth.

While we got by with this, it didn’t exactly always make for the most diverse spell choices for those people who crunched the numbers to determine what to use. When you looked at the math, folks get very attached to certain spells, namely “wall of fire” for very logical reasons. This is a shame considering the art/dev resources devoted to the creation of so many other spells also floating in the system.

Wow, doesn't that sound likes a very lame excuse? "I made a pretty hat, so now everyone must wear that hat".
Did you look at popular quests as well? "Hey, we saw everyone running this quest and we don't want you to enjoy yourself. Instead, we are going to force you into doing the least popular quests by making the fun quests not so fun to run anymore." Seriously, did you actually think that some people like those spells the way they are!?

On another note, it has become a noticeable point that arcane casters are a rather difficult class to get into. The Classic 3.5 D&D concept of starting weak then gain cosmic power. While loyal to our roots we felt that perhaps the current learning curve is a bit too harsh, and we’re looking at making it an easier class role to enter for new players.

So, you license a game as D&D 3.5 and an (estimated) 200 million people have played it for years without the same issue, but that is too difficult? Is that the same people who can't figure out D6 means you roll a 6 sided die? Traditions be damned?

So we’re mixing things up! The spell pass was mostly focused on “damage” spells, but does extends into debuffs and other areas to a degree. We’re changing the costs and what spells do and we’ve changed far too much for me to cover it in just this post but I’m going to give you a list of examples to give you an idea of where we’re going…

So, you arbitrarily decide "this spell is not practical to use and people don't use it, but it is pretty. We want to have people use it more so we nerf the more popular spells". It is too bad people actually like things in this game and it drives you into nerfing them. Instead of just discounting - or making those "pretty" spells better - you nerf others. That is like a car dealer going "Hey, everyone likes the car with the more powerful engine but our pretty cars don't sell. We are going to put a throttle limiter on it so it won't sell as well and people will buy the less powerful car, we hope".

-Torc
DDO Game Systems

You gave your opinion about your game (D&D rules suck) and I have given mine (changing the rules to put lipstick on a pig sucks). Are you going to rename this game sometime so people understand it isn't D&D anymore?

I sure hope Turbine doesn't block some developer who wants to get a license for D&D 3.5 that is faithful to the rules. I will certainly want to play that game!

[yodino]

My opinion and I know what you will do about it:

Wow, doesn't that sound likes a very lame excuse? "I made a pretty hat, so now everyone must wear that hat".
Did you look at popular quests as well? "Hey, we saw everyone running this quest and we don't want you to enjoy yourself. Instead, we are going to force you into doing the least popular quests by making the fun quests not so fun to run anymore." Seriously, did you actually think that some people like those spells the way they are!?

So, you license a game as D&D 3.5 and an (estimated) 200 million people have played it for years without the same issue, but that is too difficult? Is that the same people who can't figure out D6 means you roll a 6 sided die? Traditions be damned?

So, you arbitrarily decide "this spell is not practical to use and people don't use it, but it is pretty. We want to have people use it more so we nerf the more popular spells". It is too bad people actually like things in this game and it drives you into nerfing them. Instead of just discounting - or making those "pretty" spells better - you nerf others. That is like a car dealer going "Hey, everyone likes the car with the more powerful engine but our pretty cars don't sell. We are going to put a throttle limiter on it so it won't sell as well and people will buy the less powerful car, we hope".

You gave your opinion about your game (D&D rules suck) and I have given mine (changing the rules to put lipstick on a pig sucks). Are you going to rename this game sometime so people understand it isn't D&D anymore?

I sure hope Turbine doesn't block some developer who wants to get a license for D&D 3.5 that is faithful to the rules. I will certainly want to play that game!

You hit the nail on the proverbial head.

[Metaljaw]

My question is this. Considering that the party makeup is such that normally only 1 spot in 6, or 2 in 12 is generally saved for a caster, doesn't this mean that caster is not as overpowered as people think? I mean, considereing people's need to tweak DPS to the max level, if FW, wail, and the other spells were really that much of a game changer wouldn't everyone be playing casters? Wouldn't there be 6 casters in every shroud run? Wouldn't TOD be composed of more than a just kiter/reconner and possibly backup (for a total of 2 and normally only 1)?

Agreeably casters are DPS machines in mid level and undead quests. But then again so are healers and FvS. When mass heal can do 3K damage to undead and untyped blade barrier damage goes up to 500 (I've only ever maxed at 2K with polar ray and about 800 for purple numbers on FW), then FW does not look that bad. Especially considering the number of enemies that FW does not work against (blackbone, devils, orthons, high level content for the most part), while Blade barrier works on everything. Fighters rule the levels < 7. Maybe we should nerf thier HP and DPS to equalize the classes to bring it into range of a caster's sustained DPS at those levels. Maybe we should then make undead vulnerable to sneak attack because rogues are pretty useless in undead populated quests?

Basically what I'm getting at is that each class has it's niche application where they really shine and weaknesses where they generally stink but can still add SOME value to a party. I don't see why taking away the limited niche of an arcane class makes sense because melee are generally PO'd that a squishy (comparatively) caster can out DPS them in certain instances. Might as well say dual wielders get exhausted after 25 swings of the kopesh and have to rest. Oh, and THF's can only use a MIN II great axe 17 times, and it can only double strike once. Smite has a 4 minute cooldown. So does haste boost and it is only good for 1 swing. That's basically what casters deal with every quest, so we have to manage more than hack and slash.

This makes little sense in the aggregate. If you think FW is overpowered, fine, tweak it. But generally nerfing almost every aspect of a class is a little harsh without compensating it. Especially considering that the lvl 8 and 9 damage spells have so little that effects them anyway. I never use meteor swarm becuse I have no superior combusion 9 as a WF arcane. Not even sure if superior combusion 9 exists. (Red Dragon scale only gives improved, right? And what are the chances of crafting that? I'm at 6 scales and have only seen a shard twice, obviously not allocated to me.) I only have polar ray affected because I ran that darn ski jump about 500 times to make the 8K plus motes required to put superior glaciation 8 on a ice lore scepter.

This may be all doom and gloom, but pretty much invalidating my CC build for epics and nearly every spell that is in my spell book for slight increases to melf's acid arrow, scorching ray, polar ray, and DBF (polar ray and DBF already being there), is a little hard to swallow at this point.

[Emili]

I use Blade Barrier to kite all the time... THey save for half. No big deal.

And evasive mob usually save for no damage on BB - especially on elites. All the same is something people still using firewall will need to get used to.

[Tom318]

I sure hope Turbine doesn't block some developer who wants to get a license for D&D 3.5 that is faithful to the rules. I will certainly want to play that game!

They did.. were you around all these years when they were p2p and the servers were almost empty?

[vVAnjilaVv]

Not that it will probably make a difference....but I would like to point out that this is DDO....not D&D on PnP.

[Rawel_San]

Apparently you missed the parts about trash HP being lowered by ~50% across the board in epics and more of the underused debuffs actually debuffing things (crushing despair and touch of idiocy combine for -10 will save if the saves against them pass)

I missed neither. A 50% decrease in mob hp's is nice but let's face it if the epic mobs now have 1k-2k hps a piece
instead of 3-4k which they used to have (and that's the easy epics) there's still no way a caster can do appreciable
dps. The general problem is there never will be a way for a caster to do appreciable sustained dps. At this moment
I can kill maybe 10 trash mosnters through spell dps unless I resort to sitting on a ledge and taking 10mins to snipe
at them with PM freebies. So great we've possible upped that to 20 monsters with 50% hp decrease (probbably not
since tons of that dps would have been from FW which is getting severly nerfed). That is when I'm going solo and
thus all my spells land perfectly as I have all aggro and can manage grouping of monsters so that I get many at once.
In a group you can expect about half the efficiency at the same time unless I'm seriously burning mana (as in boss
fights) I am definitely not pulling aggro off any halfway geared melee. I can pull aggro of mediocre melee if I go all out
and that's with eardweller, blue dragon scale wiz past life and 46 int (so I actually land about 1/3 disintegrates on
normal harry).

Point being I can't even begin to compete with melee dps and my cc just got cut down to about a third. So yeah
wail dealing 300 damage (which I don't think is the right number) on a failed save once every 30secs is really
not making me all giddy.

The debuffs are sort of interesting, but mean more mana spent and considering that with a dreamspitter you now
get the mobs 5-10 will save down in about as many hits I don't see how they level the playing field.

What I would like to see buffed are dispel spells I have to say I was quite sad when the first time I tried out
Disjunction I couldn't land it on a mob in elite Mindsunder. Was even more sad when I read the description and
found out that it wasn't my gimpiness but just the fact that it's impossible since their CL is 29+ and you are making
a spell caster check of 1d20+caster level (no other modifiers) against 11+their CL (so unless you have epic staff of
arcane power or bard song you can't actually make the check). Anyhow that's off topic.

[Zachski]

Not that it will probably make a difference....but I would like to point out that this is DDO....not D&D on PnP.

Which is what I've been trying to tell everyone, but it's not like anyone's listening.

Let them have their pity party. Personally, I think it'll turn out fine. And there are a few people in this thread who I consider authorities on DDO, and they've posted in favor of this, so that just reaffirms my thought.

I would be fine with Metamagics sacrificing efficiency for DPS, because that's kinda what they're supposed to do. And what with lowering HP for Epics mobs, they're recognizing that the HP they gave them was too high.

This is balancing the game, and it's basically what everyone's been asking for. But they're still trying to apply the rules of the spells of the future to the rules of the spell now. A few don't even realize that spell costs have actually been lowered.

[herzkos]

great, so now we're using management speak. seriously sounds like a
"review" dictated by the bosses.
Don't know how the new changes are going to work but I wish I saw this
thread before spending the $100 on the turbine points during the most recent
sale.

[Emili]

I only came onboard with F2P, and this is just my 2cp.

I've never played P&P, my experiences with D&D has been BG, IWD, NWN etc. Back when BG introduced a spacebar-pause system, at that time many said it's step away from the traditional turn-based. But it made it work for a PC game.

There are many things that DDO does is which is different, particularly a spellpoint sysem. In the older games, a lvl 1 wizard can only cast 2 lvl 1 spells day, at Int 18. How would that fare in fast-paced MMORPG? The whole SP system is distinction away from the P&P, and it's an ongoing gradual process where Turbine is continually fine-tweaking. And this is something I accept, that while this game was based on D&D, it by no ways is a complete reconstruction of traditional P&P D&D.

Spell point system is a P7P variant rule... and DDO actually followed suit well with it.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/spellPoints.htm

[Zachski]

great, so now we're using management speak. seriously sounds like a
"review" dictated by the bosses.
Don't know how the new changes are going to work but I wish I saw this
thread before spending the $100 on the turbine points during the most recent
sale.

The players have been asking for a spell pass/review for a long time.

Many of these changes are along the lines of what I've seen players asking for. Especially regarding the SP costs being changed.

Basically, all of the ray spells, in exchange for no longer being able to Enlarged, have Enlarge built in.

Wall of Fire now has Extend built In. Free Extend, Free Enlarge for all of these spells.

Seriously, what is the problem with that?

[Feithlin]

The changes are made so it's easier for wizards at lower levels? I hope this is a joke. The main reason ppl use a lot firewall while leveling is because it was a very efficient spell for its sp cost. Reducing the sp cost of single target damaging spells won't be enough. Low and middle level questing on a new player wizard will be a lot more difficult than before. It will probably not be an issue for older players, they will just find new ways to do things, but certainly not for newbies.
From what I see, the best course seems enchantment now.

[Rawel_San]

<snip>

Wall of Fire now has Extend built In. Free Extend, Free Enlarge for all of these spells.

Seriously, what is the problem with that?

Wall of fire doesn't have extend built it in. It has been fixed at it's non extended max duration 30secs. Which means
that for about 80% end game uses it has essentially been cut down to half duration, at the same time
being slightly buffed in duration at mid game (to be fair when you get it at lvl 7 most casters will have extend
already and will be using it with fw occasionaly). So as far as FW goes it has prretty much gone down to 1/3 or
1/2 efficency.

[Zachski]

Wall of fire doesn't have extend built it in. It has been fixed at it's non extended max duration 30secs. Which means
that for about 80% end game uses it has essentially been cut down to half duration, at the same time
being slightly buffed in duration at mid game (to be fair when you get it at lvl 7 most casters will have extend
already and will be using it with fw occasionaly). So as far as FW goes it has prretty much gone down to 1/3 or
1/2 efficency.

Which is part of the point.

Rebalancing requires both buffing and nerfing. You can't just buff endlessly, or else we'll have casters with over 9000 HP fighting Kobolds that deal 500 HP per hit at level 2.

You can't eat your cake and have it, too.

[Emili]

Hey folks! As you’ve probably have already heard we have a major spell pass coming down the pipe. The full details will be released soon but we figured we’d cover some general cases and some the reasoning for the changes ahead of the Lamannia preview. Today we’ll look at the changes coming to spell cost ratios, CC spells, death effects, and spell points… here we go!

SPELL COST TO EFFECT RATIOS CHANGES:

For years now the cost of all spells have been strictly driven by this formula:

Base Spell cost = 5 SP + (spell level X 5).

IE: a level 1 spell is 10 sp, while a level 9 spell is 50 sp, and so forth.

While we got by with this, it didn’t exactly always make for the most diverse spell choices for those people who crunched the numbers to determine what to use. When you looked at the math, folks get very attached to certain spells, namely “wall of fire” for very logical reasons. This is a shame considering the art/dev resources devoted to the creation of so many other spells also floating in the system.

On another note, it has become a noticeable point that arcane casters are a rather difficult class to get into. The Classic 3.5 D&D concept of starting weak then gain cosmic power. While loyal to our roots we felt that perhaps the current learning curve is a bit too harsh, and we’re looking at making it an easier class role to enter for new players.

So we’re mixing things up! The spell pass was mostly focused on “damage” spells, but does extends into debuffs and other areas to a degree. We’re changing the costs and what spells do and we’ve changed far too much for me to cover it in just this post but I’m going to give you a list of examples to give you an idea of where we’re going…

Let’s take some main stream spells with a few “less popular” spells and see what you think….

Old way:

1. Burning Hands ( 10 SP)
2. Melf’s Acid Arrow ( 15 SP)
3. Scorching Ray ( 15 SP)
4. Lightning Bolt ( 20 SP)
5. Wall of fire ( 25 SP)
6. Delayed blast fire ball (40 sp)
7. Incendiary cloud: ( 45 SP)
8. Polar Ray (45 SP)

Now let’s change that too…

1. Burning Hands (down to 4 SP – other stats unchanged)

2. Melf’s Acid Arrow (down to 6 SP – Damage updated to 2d4 + 1 per caster level, duration locked to 12 seconds, now has double range, can no longer be enlarged or extended, ray targeting has been improved)

3. Scorching Ray (down to 6 SP – now has double range, can no longer be enlarged, ray targeting has been improved.)

4. Lightning Bolt (down to 12 SP – now has double range and 50% change to hit each target twice (back stroke!) – targets get an additional save against the back stroke). Can no longer be enlarged.

5. Wall of fire ( up to 35 SP – targets now get a reflex save when they first enter the effect, but no saves against the flames if they remain in the wall. Now only does an additional 2d6 against undead instead of double. Duration is now locked to 30 seconds regardless of level. Can no longer be extended)

6. Delayed blast fire ball: (25 SP/12 sp for trap version): trap cool down increased to 15 seconds, 10 seconds for sorcerers

7. Incendiary cloud (Cost remains 45 SP – Now does 2d4 + 1 per caster level in fire damage, no save. Duration locked to 30 seconds. Blind effect (previously no save) now has a reflex save. Can no longer be extended)


8. Polar Ray (Cost down to 15 SP, range doubled, can no longer be enlarged, ray targeting has been improved.)



So there is a lot going on here, and this is only a fraction of the changes going in to the spell pass. Essentially the cost of spells are being weighted now much more on their performance, method of engagement and the number of targets they effect rather than the old level-based formula.


• Low level spells that cap early (like burning hands) got discounted greatly.

• Drop and kite AOE dots such as wall of fire are now being treated as a more expensive/powerful attack form as we feel they really should be compared to other damage spells.

• Instant AOE spells got discounted some, to make them more appealing compared to waiting on kiting monsters through aoe dots.

• Single target damage and bolts are getting much cheaper, single target dots are getting cheaper and getting their effectiveness boosted.

• “Trap” type spells got really cheap to hopefully make them with consideration given the prep time they take, but had their cool downs increased to make them not a strict replacement for other in combat AOEs.

WHAT ABOUT CC?

Yeah okie, we mucked around with CC a little, and it goes into debuffs some… Here are a few high lights.

• Largely CC costs remained the same

• HD/HP caps we’re removed from most effects (yeah, I guess I should talk about death effects now, but oh, sleep works now!)

• Many debuffs had their cost reduced, and some had carrier debuffs added to them that temporarily reduced will saves regardless if the target saved against the original debuff.

Examples:

Crushing Depair: Cost reduced to 20 SP, now applies a weakn will effect for 15 seconds regardless of saving throw from original effect (will -5).

Touch of Idocy: Cost reduced to 5 SP, Now also weaks foes will save for -5 for 15 seconds regardless of save.

The notion is saving many of our under used debuffs and allow casters to punch harder targets/hit more reliably and get longer effect out of effects with quick re-occurring saves. That’s is if their willing to use a spell slot, and the spell points.


Full details to come, moving on for now…

DEATH EFFECTS:

Chaaanngggeeee….

• Costs remained the same.

• We’re pulling the death wards off epic and many pieces of content that had death proof monsters. There have been adjustments to “vorpal” weapons and the like that made us more comfortable with this change. Eladrin posted on these elsewhere if you’re looking for the sneak preview of that…

• Death spells had their cool downs increased, just a little on single target spells, a bit on AOEs. Single target spells are typically on a 8 second cool down, 6 seconds for sorcerers while AOE death effects are typically 30/25 respectively.

• Death spell on save damage was increased, so a blue hexagon won’t be a total waste of spell points, yet there will be more agro. We realize this and currently approve. Attempting to death a monster is a hate-able offense.

• There are some old death spells that got a new look and now their back in town:

Circle of Death: Now effects all targets regardless of Hit dice; Has been updated as follows:

Rains dark energy into an area. Living Creatures are subject to a death effect; getting a reflex save and then a fortitute save to avoid death. Targets who succeed against the reflex save suffer no ill effect, but creatures who success against the fortitute save will still lose 1d4 energy levels.

Power word: Kill!

Upper hit point cap removed except in PVP. Kills, no save, but spell resistance applies.
240 second cool down for wizards, 210 second cool down for sorcerors

SPELL POINT REGEN – Echoes of Power:

We’ll be introducing a limited form of spell point regen for players who have “magical training” (as in the feat). This is to avoid a true “out of gas” situation for our casters. The concept is that when a caster drops below a certain spell point threshold a spell point regen effect known as “echoes of power” applies itself until the caster reaches that threshold again. The goal is to allow low level players continue to cast level 1 spells at a diminished rate when their “out of gas” while high level players will be able to continue to use their PRE-s with the meta magics they normally require for high level play.

Currently in testing… these values are examples mind you…

• Echoes of power will appear when a player drops below 12 SP.
• Echoes of power will allow the player to regenerate at a rate of 4 SP every 6 seconds.
• Echoes of power will remove itself once a player reaches 12 SP or greater.



ETERNAL WANDS:

Not going to go into details here yet but eternals wands got a pass that increased their recharge regeneration rate and added desirable caster mutations.

Much more to come. That’s all for now folks, but be sure to participate in the Lamannia preview once it’s available to try out the changes!

-Torc
DDO Game Systems

Posted at 5:35pm ... I see what you did there.


Now I know why turbine never offered a dimension anchor spell as a selection to all these casters... had you done so they would had stopped you from teleporting out of the office.

[Jaid314]

My question is this. Considering that the party makeup is such that normally only 1 spot in 6, or 2 in 12 is generally saved for a caster, doesn't this mean that caster is not as overpowered as people think? I mean, considereing people's need to tweak DPS to the max level, if FW, wail, and the other spells were really that much of a game changer wouldn't everyone be playing casters? Wouldn't there be 6 casters in every shroud run? Wouldn't TOD be composed of more than a just kiter/reconner and possibly backup (for a total of 2 and normally only 1)?

you bring 1 caster to ToD, 2 to most raids, because of blanket immunities. it has nothing to do with casters being good or not, it has to do with the fact that for abitrary reasons, the things that make casters really really awesome have been taken away.

as far as 1 arcane per normal group... well, i couldn't disagree more. with few exceptions, probably the fastest groups you'll ever be in that have the smoothest run through a quest are likely to be pure caster groups, provided the caster is good enough. you want to go through a quest fast, give me 6 casters with instakill spells and watch them blow right through it. even if you make mobs immune to instakills with blanket immunities, crowd control can turn incredibly difficult quests into incredibly simple ones. a few webs or holds in the right place can turn a quest into a cakewalk.

the few exceptions tend to be places where the mobs have blanket immunities, and places where mobs have stupidly high saves. and even in places with high saves, that just means you need a better geared caster, not that a caster isn't going to be able to dominate.

simply put, you only *need* one caster in a group to make a huge difference. the casters can dominate in *any* level of the game, if played well and built well (and in a few cases geared well also). the way the game is set up right now, the only reason casters ever need anyone else is for sustained long-term DPS against mobs with blanket immunities. and heck, with casters getting cheap SLAs that they can spam, give it time and i expect we'll see even that disappear, as SP-regen items/abilities become more common, higher SP maximums become more common, and so forth.

a well-built melee is a great asset, don't get me wrong. but if you ever see a group of melees running difficult content without a caster of some sort, it's a good bet it's because those melees are geared to the teeth, probably have massive DPS, likely have multiple past lives, most likely have each built specifically around having good crowd-control, and have their banks and inventory so overloaded with assorted raid gear and consumables they don't have room to pick up the vendor trash in the quest they're running. or alternately, it's a good bet that they're going to fail miserably. or possibly they're just monks (which are essentially almost inherently built around CC right from the ground up anyways).

so rather than saying "oh, you only want one arcane in any group" it's more along the lines of "you only *need* one arcane in any group, provided that one arcane is competent".

[BurningDownTheHouse]

Late to post here and haven't read it all.

Anyone knows if the known spell issues (like quickened meteor swarm, slow cast scorching ray and chain lightning for sorc etc.) are going to be addressed as well?

[yodino]

So basically, instead of being masters of AoE. Casters have been relegated to Arcane Archers. Range single target DPS. WoW! <- hint,hint