Suggestion for nerfing SP pots to restore some balance.

[KraahgDaAxe]

I agree with the "Pro's" that SP pots are a lazy way to win a quest.

But as with any game, be it PnP or DDO or BG2 or DA:O you work with the resources at your disposal. SP Pots are a resource that are in the game and free for everybody to use. A side-effect of this is lazy players, who blow through their mana in the first part of eDA and use pots to catch up their mana, before we ultimately fail anyways. The ones who conserve their mana and play smart, on the other hand, and have a good bit of no-pot mana when the glorious shrine appears after the third part, those are the players I want to run with.

SP Pots =|= an easy button, they are a lazy button. If the quest is easy enough that tossing back SP Pots will get you through it, then I don't blame the SP Pot users, I blame the quest for being too easy.*

Kraahg

* - Please note I have never run Elite ToD nor the new Raids on any difficulty.

[Chaos000]

If a raid is too hard for your group then the solution should be more practice, not a ton of consumables. People should not take completion for granted when running a hard quest.

If the raid was appropriately challenging nobody would use any consumables because they wouldn't NEED to.

In fact, if the group is solid (built entirely of optimized overgeared individuals) then there really wouldn't be any real need to heal more than once or twice for the last fight. (try it it's fun)

The point is that for pugs or undergeared groups THIS is when you compensate gear by "healing through it" and hope that someone is at least properly geared to make up for the dead weight in group. Want raids to exclude MORE people? Then the idea proposed by the OP has merit.

Playstyles differ, some people like challenge and puzzles. Others use solvers and waiting for someone else to do the hard work of figuring out the raid fights and post them online. Let's go ahead and change up combinations required for GS crafting and hide the runes for dragontouched armor. More grind for less reward = fail.

[varusso]

SP pots make lazy players.

Wow, I just love this statement, and how often it is bandied about, despite its blatant basis in pure BS.

First of all, I have *YET* to encounter these players that supposedly guzzle pots to zip through content, even though so many people like to claim it is such a rampant issue. I *HAVE* seen an arcane or divine chug a pot or two in order to pull the party out of a disaster, but its the rare exception, not the rule. But lets just pretend for the sake of argument that they DO exist and that they ARE running around in every party, just hooking up a beer bong to their backpack and funneling SP in through it.

Now, in order for a player to chug pots at such a disgusting rate, they would ave to do one of two things: Acquire in-game pots or buy them from the DDO store. If they are getting them in-game, then they are either farming them like crazy via questing, or they are buying them in mass-quantities from other players for insane amounts of plat -- which would in turn require them to spend significant amounts of time farming quests for plat. This hardly sounds like someone being "lazy" to me. It sounds like someone working their ass off farming in order to -- complete other quests easier/faster??

The other option being that they are buying them from the DDO store. This of course means they are spending real-life $$ -- which means they are working their ass off in the real world to pay for it. Again, hardly someone I would call 'lazy". And it is no different than spending your "entertainment funds" on a movie or a burger. This *IS* just a game, regardless of how seriously some of us may take it.

Now what MAY be happening is that these mysterious SP-chugging players MIGHT be using pots to speed-solo quests -- which would explain why I never see them "ruining my party" like others claim. And if that is the case...WHO CARES?

Bottom line: the rampant mass-pot-chugging simply IS NOT happening. And even if it were, SO WHAT? If player A wants to spend all month farming up a piece of gear to make themselves better able to heal/nuke/CC/whatever, and player B would rather spend some extra plat/$$ to get the same effect, I really could not care less. So long as that heal/nuke/CC/whatever is there when the group needs it, I really could not care less how it GOT there. That is up to the individual player. Personally, I am too busy doing MY "job" in a group (and having fun) to bother watching anyone else's blue bar to see if they have a drinking problem.

The other thing that kills me -- The same person who complains that content is being 'DESIGNED" with drinking SP pots in mind, and gets ticked off that they "have to" <cough cough> spend their precious resources to complete a quest...this is the same person who will turn around and complain that SP pots are easy to get and trivialize content... Really? REALLY? Make up your minds, seriously. Either they are easy to get and therefore are not really any more of a problem than heal scrolls and HP pots, OR they are rare items that should only be used in emergencies. You cannot use one argument to justify the other -- they are polar opposites.

Or better yet, quit complaining about someone else using pots if they choose (or not using them), and quit making up stories about large numbers of players potting their way to victory in every quest. They dont exist; they are the boogeymen you use to scare little kids into doing what you want, because you cant actually justify your arguments.

Pots do NOT need to be nerfed/put on timers/removed from the game, or any of the other nonsense that pops up in a similar thread every couple of weeks. Players who think they do need to learn to keep their noses out of other players' backpacks and focus more on their own toons.

[Viisari]

A side-effect of this is lazy players, who blow through their mana in the first part of eDA and use pots to catch up their mana, before we ultimately fail anyways.

Isn't this pretty much what makes them not worth nerfing? The casters people would call 'overpowered' don't need potions for completions. Heck, if I'm in a good eDA group on my caster I might have over 1000 sp left after the first three waves. By that time a crappy caster will have used 10 potions and then they'll proceed to wipe anyway because they get surrounded by bearded devils and the cc doesn't hold.

Good players will only use pots in two situations: they're trying to prevent a wipe or they're in a new place learning it. Bad players will bruteforce raids through with them because they can't manage their spellpoints or use the right spells or whatever. What I don't understand is why anybody cares that they do that? It's their money and they're free to spend it how they like, if they don't want spend time learning efficiency and just bruteforce quests then they're welcome to do that for all I care, I'll just proceed to do the same quests with no resources used and two or three times faster.

And there's no quest in the game that is balanced around potions, stop spouting that nonsense. Get a proper tank instead of a damage sponge barb and teach the healers to use their SP efficiently, no potions needed. Scroll mastery is also an awesome enhancement line for healers (and arcanes too).

If there's something that makes raiding easy it's heal scrolls, not SP pots, and those scrolls are something that raids actually might be balanced around. Though if your tank is very good and the group has excellent coordination even those aren't really needed.

[GermanicusMaximus]

Players who think they do need to learn to stay out of other players' backpacks and focus more on their own toons.

LMAO. 'Players' that just flip on auto attack need SOMETHING to do to keep from falling asleep...

As a cleric, I can almost support the idea of limiting the use of mana pots. I can already picture the discussion after a failed raid:

"Sorry melee guys, but your DPS is so gimped that with the new rules we can't drag your behinds through this quest. The arcanes and divines are going to reform, add some more casters, and get our completion now.You all might want to form your own group, head out to Korthos, and give Cannith Crystal a try. I hear its one nasty little quest."