Let's Talk: Game Difficulty

[oradafu]

I don't see why the devs couldn't give Pallies a free feat to use cha instead of wisdom.

Frankly I have a HotD Pally {TRd once - Currently lvl 7} and they already need an almighty boost to turn undead just to be on par with a radiant servant {never mind to be able to actually destroy anything}.

A Hunter of the Dead specialises in destroying the undead - He should be as good if not better at it than a Cleric of equal level.

It's not the actual Turn Undead that will mess with Paladins, it's the two major enhancements tied to Turn Undead (Divine Light and Divine Might) that are the bread and butter to paladins. Changing Turn Undead to WIS will destroy the little bit of vitalibity of paladins left in the game. A free feat converting Turn Undead into different stat might be a way to go...

[FranOhmsford]

It's not the actual Turn Undead that will mess with Paladins, it's the two major enhancements tied to Turn Undead (Divine Light and Divine Might) that are the bread and butter to paladins. Changing Turn Undead to WIS will destroy the little bit of vitalibity of paladins left in the game. A free feat converting Turn Undead into different stat might be a way to go...

And adding this feat would allow for them to use cha too.

[Vormaerin]

Its really a fun build to play, and I like it a lot, but some how I doubt that its the easiest path through DDO.

No, the easiest path through the game is warforged arcane. Self healing, immunities, better insta-kills, direct damage, DoTs, and persistant AoEs than a divine, and more mobility.

But I would really be interested in a list of quests you think can be done easier by a melee than a divine. I'm not aware of any quest where you are better off taking a solo melee character than solo divine. If there are some, I'd be glad to know about it.

I prefer to play melees. In LotRO, I have a Guardian (tank) and a Captain (functionally like a warchanter). I'm considered pretty terrible at ranged classes in most games. And I find it vastly easier to blow through hard and elite content solo on my human sorcerer than any of my more numerous melees.

Though it does get a little ugly sometimes when I'm limping through on Echoes of Power and Wands to reach the next shrine. :P

[Kindoki]

First off, I love DDO. Started playing during headstart, and played pretty steadily through the end of 2009. RL pretty much took me away after that, but I've enjoyed it enough to continue to pay $99+/yr just for the dozen or so times I've been able to play since early 2010. It's been very interesting to me to see the changes that have come in that time, as they are very apparent when you're only logging in every few months.

My opinion is that DDO is suffering from two things:

1. Losing focus in an attempt to recover after the dark ages of Atari.
2. The test server, dungeon scaling, hirelings

With regards to difficulty specifically, I think that DDO started running into trouble when they started trying to please everyone. In 2006, this was a team based game. I think changing the first quest so a rogue could actually complete it was a good change, but at least it was clear, even with every other class, that this was a group based game. In today's DDO, there is no purpose for anyone to group, unless you're brand new to the game.

With every group of people, there comes the overachievers - the Mr.Cow's and the Shade's (and others, those two are just easy to point at). These overachievers work their tails off to get the biggest, baddest, and best of everything, so that they can be better than everyone else. Then they go to the forums, and YouTube, and show everyone that they can be better than everyone else.

What the community ends up with is instant stratification. A whole bunch of people want to be uber, and they go out and try to replicate the feat - and fail. And take to the forums and complain. And leave the game. And, etc. This is not a bad thing, nor am I placing any blame on the uber gamers; heck, if I could do that stuff, I'd do so in a heartbeat. We need those guys/gals. I'm just making the statement; and I'm pretty sure it holds true across the breadth of gaming, as equal in mmo's and in Monopoly. There are have's and have not's.

However, in a group focused game, even the uber's need to come down from their lofty perch every so often and slum it with the rest of us. And, more importantly, slum it with the newbs. Even if it's just while learning new content. That constant mixing of talent is what keeps the game fresh, and introduces new people to new goals. The "Wow, my +1 flaming touch sword WILL get better! I want to that!".... The old uber's create a new set of up and coming ubers, and those ubers eventually do the same...

However, with the test server, dungeon scaling, and hirelings, that forced mixing between the have's and the have not's, was removed. There is never going to be any reason for the Mr.Cow's of the world to group with my gimpy cleric, Gwyar. Shade can learn everything he needs to know, before he even hits the live server, and by himself, if he likes. Which means my game isn't going to improve, I'll never have the chops to get to that next level of gear, and I'm not going to be able to pass on skills/tricks to others either. Instead, I'm potentially just left feeling envious.

Well, for those who felt envious, they wanted an easy button, and they got it. Dungeon scaling, DDO store, and hirelings. So now, even the middling players (like myself) don't have to group with anyone, if we don't want to. For example, I've got an original AC exploiter (18/1/1), a straight cleric (20), and an archmage (13). None are gimp, but none are cutting edge either. All have reasonable gear, but are also probably subgeared in comparison to others who have been around as long as I. But, those three characters can solo any quest (which doesn't require extra people to pull a lever) up to about Amrath (the archmage maybe not quite yet...), usually up to and including elite level. That's simply a combination of knowledge of the game and some disposable in game income. However, that's not possible for new players, who don't have that knowledge and plat.

So, now, there is a third stratification.

I probably won't ever get to the uber level because I don't have time/gear/patience for VOD, Abbott, etc., which would bring my game/gear up to the next level. I don't run with new people because I'm too impatient to teach people things nowadays, and I don't have the time for 'failure'. I do, however, recognize this about myself, and therefore I don't ask Turbine to help. I didn't need hirelings, or solo/casual, or the world's easiest crafting system. I am happy living in my little niche. But, I don't think most people who come to the forums, and fill out comment cards, have that level of personal responsibility for their own enjoyment.

So, we end up with people complaining. It's 'too easy' for the ubers because Turbine gives them too many options to make it easy. It's too hard for the casuals because Turbine gives us Epics and red named immunities to give the ubers a challenge; and the casuals are completely cut out of that opportunity based on skill and gear. It becomes a downward spiral.

So, to sum up a long ramble... if you want to fix difficulty, spend a weekend and come up with a mission statement for DDO. Decide if you want a casual game that anyone can play, or if you want an uber game. Decide if you want to force the majority of people to have to group together to succeed, or if you want them to be able to solo everything. Etc., etc. Then, go public. Say - "This is our intended direction. This is what we want to do with OUR game. I hope you like it. Sorry if you don't; we'll take your feedback on everything but changing our mission statement". Then, build that game.

Obviously, that's potentially something more long term (though it doesn't have to be). My simple point is that the difficulty isn't the problem; the myriad of ways you've created to eliminate difficulty is the problem.

So, my suggestion on how to fix difficulty now - without some form of overhaul to the systems currently in place - I suggest ditching the test server. Force people to learn on the public server. There will undoubtedly be a few guilds that become isolationist, but I don't think that will be significantly different than now. More likely, people will PUG more, and work together more (ala Abbott when it was first 'unbeatable', but before it became just annoying), and share more. A rising tide floats all boats.

If you could make one change to the difficulty system - 1. throw out dungeon scaling, or 2. tie it only to difficulty (solo/casual/norm/etc), or 3. tie only to specific areas (quests don't scale, but challenges do?).

My recommendations overall:

1. Ditch the test server. spend some RL money and hire some additional QC people like the rest of the world. Or, run test server weekends; but choose something that doesn't allow people to do all their 'gaming' on the test server, but their 'loot collecting' on the live servers.

2. Tie dungeon scaling solely to difficulty, not party size. Build quests/raids for 4/5ths group completion (i.e. 4-5 people in a quest and 8-10 people in a raid). If players can do with less, or need extra, so be it.

3. Limit hireling level (maybe 6th - 10th level hireling max? -why is a 20th level cleric hireling PUGing anyways?). Hirelings should be treated like any other consumable... they assist, but aren't capable of changing the outcome on their own.

4. Let the player outliers go. Find your sweet spot and let the ubers and the fairweathers go. You were handed a solid system of characters and questing. Stay true to those roots. The uber players who choose to leave will be replaced by others. The fairweathers will go back to Farmville. Of the ubers who leave, some will come back.

4a. I don't know enough about the gaming business to speak in anything other than basic business sense. So, if what I suggest doesn't hold true in this industry, then that's fine... but do the research to know what does hold true about customer retention/churn, and make a decision based on that. Then let people know that decision.

[zwiebelring]

So, to sum up a long ramble... if you want to fix difficulty, spend a weekend and come up with a mission statement for DDO. Decide if you want a casual game that anyone can play, or if you want an uber game. Decide if you want to force the majority of people to have to group together to succeed, or if you want them to be able to solo everything. Etc., etc. Then, go public. Say - "This is our intended direction. This is what we want to do with OUR game. I hope you like it. Sorry if you don't; we'll take your feedback on everything but changing our mission statement". Then, build that game.

Obviously, that's potentially something more long term (though it doesn't have to be). My simple point is that the difficulty isn't the problem; the myriad of ways you've created to eliminate difficulty is the problem.

So, my suggestion on how to fix difficulty now - without some form of overhaul to the systems currently in place - I suggest ditching the test server. Force people to learn on the public server. There will undoubtedly be a few guilds that become isolationist, but I don't think that will be significantly different than now. More likely, people will PUG more, and work together more (ala Abbott when it was first 'unbeatable', but before it became just annoying), and share more. A rising tide floats all boats.

If you could make one change to the difficulty system - 1. throw out dungeon scaling, or 2. tie it only to difficulty (solo/casual/norm/etc), or 3. tie only to specific areas (quests don't scale, but challenges do?).

My recommendations overall:

1. Ditch the test server. spend some RL money and hire some additional QC people like the rest of the world. Or, run test server weekends; but choose something that doesn't allow people to do all their 'gaming' on the test server, but their 'loot collecting' on the live servers.

2. Tie dungeon scaling solely to difficulty, not party size. Build quests/raids for 4/5ths group completion (i.e. 4-5 people in a quest and 8-10 people in a raid). If players can do with less, or need extra, so be it.

3. Limit hireling level (maybe 6th - 10th level hireling max? -why is a 20th level cleric hireling PUGing anyways?). Hirelings should be treated like any other consumable... they assist, but aren't capable of changing the outcome on their own.

4. Let the player outliers go. Find your sweet spot and let the ubers and the fairweathers go. You were handed a solid system of characters and questing. Stay true to those roots. The uber players who choose to leave will be replaced by others. The fairweathers will go back to Farmville. Of the ubers who leave, some will come back.

4a. I don't know enough about the gaming business to speak in anything other than basic business sense. So, if what I suggest doesn't hold true in this industry, then that's fine... but do the research to know what does hold true about customer retention/churn, and make a decision based on that. Then let people know that decision.

+1 for every brick I quoted out of that wall of text. That is connected to the question I asked MadFloyd before. How do the devs want us, the community, to deal with the ingame challenge?

[gloopygloop]

So, to sum up a long ramble... if you want to fix difficulty, spend a weekend and come up with a mission statement for DDO. Decide if you want a casual game that anyone can play, or if you want an uber game. Decide if you want to force the majority of people to have to group together to succeed, or if you want them to be able to solo everything. Etc., etc. Then, go public. Say - "This is our intended direction. This is what we want to do with OUR game. I hope you like it. Sorry if you don't; we'll take your feedback on everything but changing our mission statement". Then, build that game.

I don't understand why DDO has to be an "easy" game or an "uber" game. There is room enough for both because there are close to 300 quests in the game.

If a dozen or so of those quests are just too hard for some players, then there are still well over two hundred quests that aren't too hard.

Some quests can be hard. Some quests can be easy. And that's okay.

[Kindoki]

I don't understand why DDO has to be an "easy" game or an "uber" game. There is room enough for both because there are close to 300 quests in the game.

If a dozen or so of those quests are just too hard for some players, then there are still well over two hundred quests that aren't too hard.

Some quests can be hard. Some quests can be easy. And that's okay.

I don't disagree with this. Please don't take my comments as asking to exclude anyone; but I think a little direction regarding intent would identify outliers for the community. i.e. "We fully anticipate that most players won't be able to run Epics. We fully anticipate that most players will graduate from Casual/Normal after a while. Therefore, don't expect us to spend a lot of time on these points because we're building our game experience for the 80% of people who usually run things on hard/elite."

Or something to that effect... basically, make a plan, explain it, and stick with it. Only change it based on concrete financial reasoning, or because the change fits in with the overall plan for the game.

A plan that favors the middle to high middle skill/focus level of gamer is my personal suggestion.

[Ungood]

I don't understand why DDO has to be an "easy" game or an "uber" game. There is room enough for both because there are close to 300 quests in the game.

If a dozen or so of those quests are just too hard for some players, then there are still well over two hundred quests that aren't too hard.

Some quests can be hard. Some quests can be easy. And that's okay.

That would be fine, if the rewards were not contingent upon the difficulty. And there were just some hard quests and some easy quests open for the people who like challenge for the sake of challenge.

But that is not the way it is, As it stands, the harder quests give the best rewards thus these "hard" quest deny some players gear they need to progress in the game, in effect stone walling them.

No one likes to be stonewalled.

Now. Yes, Instance Based games do allow for the difficulty to be vast, they could add in 100 different difficulty tiers for every quest, but even the most Uber player is not going to do the hardest difficulty if there is nothing in it for them beyond what they could get for doing it on the easiest setting. IE: No one would run elite quests if they got the exact same rewards if they ran it on casual.

So, yah. even the Uber players want more rewards for doing harder content, but equally so, no one wants to feel left out.

In that reform, Turbine really should take an assessment of who their target is. Even if they do not tell us, they should have a distinct direction of which demographic this game is targeted towards, and build in that direction. While some people outside that demographic will find it fun, and enjoy it, Turbine should keep to their path. Right now, the biggest problems seem to arise when they come across as inconsistent with the games direction, IE: putting in easy quests and then putting super hard quests, making things harder then easier, then harder again.

Thus Leaving people wondering what in tarnation is going on.

[FranOhmsford]

However, with the test server, dungeon scaling, and hirelings, that forced mixing between the have's and the have not's, was removed. There is never going to be any reason for the Mr.Cow's of the world to group with my gimpy cleric, Gwyar. Shade can learn everything he needs to know, before he even hits the live server, and by himself, if he likes. Which means my game isn't going to improve, I'll never have the chops to get to that next level of gear, and I'm not going to be able to pass on skills/tricks to others either. Instead, I'm potentially just left feeling envious.

Well, for those who felt envious, they wanted an easy button, and they got it. Dungeon scaling, DDO store, and hirelings. So now, even the middling players (like myself) don't have to group with anyone, if we don't want to. For example, I've got an original AC exploiter (18/1/1), a straight cleric (20), and an archmage (13). None are gimp, but none are cutting edge either. All have reasonable gear, but are also probably subgeared in comparison to others who have been around as long as I. But, those three characters can solo any quest (which doesn't require extra people to pull a lever) up to about Amrath (the archmage maybe not quite yet...), usually up to and including elite level. That's simply a combination of knowledge of the game and some disposable in game income. However, that's not possible for new players, who don't have that knowledge and plat.

So, now, there is a third stratification.

I probably won't ever get to the uber level because I don't have time/gear/patience for VOD, Abbott, etc., which would bring my game/gear up to the next level. I don't run with new people because I'm too impatient to teach people things nowadays, and I don't have the time for 'failure'. I do, however, recognize this about myself, and therefore I don't ask Turbine to help. I didn't need hirelings, or solo/casual, or the world's easiest crafting system. I am happy living in my little niche. But, I don't think most people who come to the forums, and fill out comment cards, have that level of personal responsibility for their own enjoyment.

So, we end up with people complaining. It's 'too easy' for the ubers because Turbine gives them too many options to make it easy. It's too hard for the casuals because Turbine gives us Epics and red named immunities to give the ubers a challenge; and the casuals are completely cut out of that opportunity based on skill and gear. It becomes a downward spiral.

So, to sum up a long ramble... if you want to fix difficulty, spend a weekend and come up with a mission statement for DDO. Decide if you want a casual game that anyone can play, or if you want an uber game. Decide if you want to force the majority of people to have to group together to succeed, or if you want them to be able to solo everything. Etc., etc. Then, go public. Say - "This is our intended direction. This is what we want to do with OUR game. I hope you like it. Sorry if you don't; we'll take your feedback on everything but changing our mission statement". Then, build that game.

Obviously, that's potentially something more long term (though it doesn't have to be). My simple point is that the difficulty isn't the problem; the myriad of ways you've created to eliminate difficulty is the problem.

So, my suggestion on how to fix difficulty now - without some form of overhaul to the systems currently in place - I suggest ditching the test server. Force people to learn on the public server. There will undoubtedly be a few guilds that become isolationist, but I don't think that will be significantly different than now. More likely, people will PUG more, and work together more (ala Abbott when it was first 'unbeatable', but before it became just annoying), and share more. A rising tide floats all boats.

If you could make one change to the difficulty system - 1. throw out dungeon scaling, or 2. tie it only to difficulty (solo/casual/norm/etc), or 3. tie only to specific areas (quests don't scale, but challenges do?).

My recommendations overall:

1. Ditch the test server. spend some RL money and hire some additional QC people like the rest of the world. Or, run test server weekends; but choose something that doesn't allow people to do all their 'gaming' on the test server, but their 'loot collecting' on the live servers.

2. Tie dungeon scaling solely to difficulty, not party size. Build quests/raids for 4/5ths group completion (i.e. 4-5 people in a quest and 8-10 people in a raid). If players can do with less, or need extra, so be it.

3. Limit hireling level (maybe 6th - 10th level hireling max? -why is a 20th level cleric hireling PUGing anyways?). Hirelings should be treated like any other consumable... they assist, but aren't capable of changing the outcome on their own.

4. Let the player outliers go. Find your sweet spot and let the ubers and the fairweathers go. You were handed a solid system of characters and questing. Stay true to those roots. The uber players who choose to leave will be replaced by others. The fairweathers will go back to Farmville. Of the ubers who leave, some will come back.

4a. I don't know enough about the gaming business to speak in anything other than basic business sense. So, if what I suggest doesn't hold true in this industry, then that's fine... but do the research to know what does hold true about customer retention/churn, and make a decision based on that. Then let people know that decision.

Remove hirelings and I will be stuck waiting for groups for every quest from lvl 4 onwards.

No thank you!

Remove hirelings above lvl 10 and I will be stuck waiting for groups from lvl 12 onwards

No thank you!

Hirelings aren't exactly uber anyway - Half the time they stand there looking at you as you're getting beaten to death.
Those people soloing epics with a hireling are leaving them at the start of the quest and calling them when needed - My hirelings are constantly with me and I still wouldn't even consider attempting some of the things posted on these forums.

Please Devs...Do not remove hirelings - In fact many of them need reworking to be actually useful thanks to the changes this game has gone through.
For Example: None of the Cleric hires past Natasha {Lvl 16} has DV or Turn Undead - Give Ayron, Heystack, Klin and Wyoh Rad Servant 2. Give Isadora, Beleth, Flagon, Samuel and Fergus Rad Servant 1.
Certain Fighter hirelings are wielding weapons that give neg levels - change the alignments of these hirelings to match the weapon please.

[Zlingerdark]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

My take on difficulty in a perfect world would be forget casual as I believe normal is pretty easy enough for most average casual players. I for one never used solo/casual mode.

Normal difficulty should be solo-able WITHOUT a hireling in most situations. Normal should be a difficulty that challenges the new player, but otherwise would not challenge a knowledgeable one. Normal should be designed to TEACH the new player the quest at hand. Such as it is a tool to learn never before run quest (and game concepts) and with just enough difficulty to allow for the eventual mishaps, and excessive use of resources to learn it without causing a total quest failure. It should be difficult for the first timer, without taxing them too severely in the process.

In most cases, currently, normal difficulty is about on par until about level 5 for an at level ease of difficulty. After that it seems the normal difficulty is progressively harder for a new learning solo player AT LEVEL or one above. Hirelings start becoming necessary for some classes to survive. Experienced players can probably still cruise through the level 5-10 solo with any class without a hireling (regardless of gear).

Between 10-20 the normal difficulty for solo players start to get completely out of line for a new player to attempt AT LEVEL or one above. Keeping in mind that the challenge of the quest is to run them at the levels they are designed for. Thus the challenge should be appropriate for characters of that level. It is not too much of an expectation to be able to have a reasonable chance of succeeding any quest at level on normal.

Hard difficulty should be a step up in difficulty much like it is now. It will certainly challenge the new players looking for an even more extreme at level play. It should even challenge some experienced players with less than optimal builds and gear. The success rate should be more in line with 75-90% with the oddball bad luck combined with poor decision making under the heat of battle, or poor planning of critical resources or tactics against certain foes and situations. So even an experienced player with a 28 pt build and no uber gear will be challenged, but not one who is a decked out 36+pt TR.

Elite difficulty is a level of extreme play. Designed to challenge even the most decked out TR, and may be even beyond the typical new player 28pt ability to succeed in solo play or even with a hireling. It will set a bar high enough to not allow any Tom, **** and Harry to breeze through AT LEVEL or one above. Elite difficulty should give an experienced player 28pt build and reasonably expected gear (not totally decked) less than 75% success rate. Yes, you should expect to fail sometimes, even if you managed to do all the right things. A TR should expect to fail roughly 0-10% and thus not a guarantee completion every time.

Group play ought to be encouraged, but not required for obvious and various reasons. However one should not be able to expect to complete quests on elite soloing your way through the game. Certainly not at level, with TR or 28pt build. Hard or normal? Sure! But elite should have that aura of fear and dread about them. It should also be accompanied with great shouts of joy when successful! It should be a remarkable achievement and one that would make any group (or soloist) proud of themselves.

I won't even comment much on epic, other than it should be again a step above elite which challenges the most experienced, and uber gear players in the game. It might be impossible for a mere 28pt build (even decked out) to have a chance to succeed with near perfect play, and use of critical resources. Okay, maybe a 25% chance to a TR 50-75% of success.

Obviously raids need to be based on a totally different standard than that of a soloist at level. It simply should not be possible to solo a full-fledged raid, but it should be possible to 6-man it on normal (with 28pt builds) and perhaps 9-man it on hard. Elite ought to require a full party of 12 for a reasonable chance of success for a well decked out 28pt build.

I believe that this will allow more raids to be run and reduce the ridiculous waiting time it takes to fill a full group of 12. Got 6 in your party and you only have 30-45 minutes to run the raid? No problem, go in on normal or hard depending on how much of a challenge you are looking for. Feel brave? 6-man it on elite then!

There is your challenge!

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

[BattleCircle]

BAH

I had a reply all typed up and ready to post.

But of COURSE it took to long and I was auto logged out

Long and short.

Puging is a difficulty setting all its own.

[anatomyofaghost]

This.
+1

The difficulty in this game is schizophrenic. For example the Lordsmarch quest on elite are much harder than the GH quests on elite yet the GH quests are a higher level.

In the Flesh elite is harder than some epics, and definitely harder than Mindsunder elite.

I'd like to see stuff evened out and level appropriate, no more balancing a level 17 raid on people who have epic gear. A level 15 elite should be about as hard as a level 15 elite in a different pack.

Sentinels Elite mobs have DOUBLE the HP of old-school level 8 quests. Even it out. The "new" content feels right for close to level twinked people, it's hell on first-life non-twinked toons. Whichever you chose, please be consistent, level 8 elites mobs should be closer in HP to each other than they are in what we have now.

Regarding raids:

VoD and ToD: are fine right now, U11 elite was stupid hard, this is just difficult but not terrible.
Shroud: The blades do too much damage, this needs a nerf in all settings. I cannot believe your intention is for Elite Shroud to be harder than Elite ToD.
Titan: the drop-rate suck, please increase so we don't have to run this tediously annoying content over and over again.
Reaver: A level 14 raid shouldn't throw a 500 point spell at people, other than that it's fine.
Abbot: The HP on hard/elite are insane, cut them in half. And evasion? Really?
EChrono, eDragon, EQQ: are fine, leave them alone
LoB and MA: Have only done up to hard so I cannot comment on higher settings. Normal could be toned down a little so more people could learn the raid without it being so painful. One things though . . . FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY PLEASE STOP MAKING NEW JUNK THAT REQUIRES KITING OF MOBS. It is stupid, it is lame, it is boring and un-fun. Any time I see something like LOB where it's "kite this, kite that, etc . . ." it makes God kill a kitten. It's just so stupid and "MMO," please stop this silliness.

Challenges feel about right, other than the to-hit on the red-named mobs is stupid high meaning a melee requires a healer to follow him around to fight these things. Thats okay, we only bring our casters into these any way.

I don't think I want you touching Epic quests as I don't trust you not to make things worse.

[freelove]

compared to all games I have played is to deal with the wierd jump/equipment change/spell - LAG

If I did not own all modules I would have stopped playing this game - but thankfully my work has not figured out how to block this site but already have done so with RIFT so I play away.

[Malidiction]

The problem with balancing the difficulty of the game now is the disparity between a skilled/veteran TR, in a high level guild with years of experience and the gear and resources to show for it and the new or casual player with very little resources and/or experience.

The disparity is multiplied many times over when you consider that the veteran may be TRing with others of the same caliber. Does anyone seriously expect to compare six tweaked veterans on an XP train with a PUG of inexperienced players?

How can the game be balanced with 4 levels of difficulty to be inclusive to our wide and diverse player base? Dungeon scaling helps. Hirelings help. That simply isn't enough.

Casual should be well, casual. The reward for a casual completion should be minimal.

Normal shouldn't be too difficult for a group of players. Success is NOT guaranteed, but is reasonably expected.

Hard should be challenging for normal players. TRs could be expected to dominate. Rewards should be better than on normal.

Elite should be difficult for non-veterans. The possibility of failure is real. A few well geared veterans would likely dominate in this scenario also as they do now.

The most logical solution is to create additional tiers of difficulty. Not just up the HP or AC of the mobs. Toss in a few extra traps (not necessarily the instant death kind) and de-buffs to keep things interesting. Call it 'Hero', 'Champion', of 'Legendary' difficulty or difficulties. Non-veteran players should expect certain death. Veterans should expect a real challenge and receive a very generous XP bonus as the reward. If you remember that xp trains are always watching the XP/minute metric, it isn't too hard to make the added difficulty worthwhile and less monotonous to multi-TR players by rewarding the players with generous XP and keeping in mind the added time the dungeon took to complete. You can always lure your TR-XP trains into the dungeon and difficulty of your choosing with a fat XP reward!

Raids should be scaled to the stated dungeon level not based on a party of capped toons. Raid loot rewards should be increased on higher difficulties. Period. Added difficulty setting(s) for raids could provide the challenge and reward the capped players seek while not scaling the normal/hard/elite dungeon difficulty settings out of the range of the average player at level.

[Silverleafeon]

I guess in my earlier post, I was wrong.

I mentioned not bringing in Epic levels due to concerns.

I suspect you the designers already discussed these concerns.

One was that with higher level toons, people would become bored with raids.
Anticipating this, you raised the difficulty of raid bosses.
A public outcry occured and duly so.
You adjusted accordingly.

The other was that there would not be enough xp available due to more raiding parties containing level 25 characters.
Anticipating this, you offered the bravery bonus and created several packs of higher level content.

[Silverleafeon]

Difficulty is super hard to perfect due to the fact that quality healers with good resources can make a huge difference.
Ask any good DM.

Having played a quality healer in DDO, I will mention that this situation is costy and stressful when overcoming very difficult conditions.

I will compliment you on the vast improvements to hirlings.
My completionist project is now playing barbarian and I am using hirlings in elite bravery runs successfully while enjoying the melee life.
Thank you so much!

I will compliment you on the year of the rabbit.
I consider it a success.

Regarding failure, it is not fun...I stopped healing many of the raids and am now starting to come back to them.
I play DDO to have fun.

[GermanicusMaximus]

No, the easiest path through the game is warforged arcane. Self healing, immunities, better insta-kills, direct damage, DoTs, and persistant AoEs than a divine, and more mobility.

But I would really be interested in a list of quests you think can be done easier by a melee than a divine. I'm not aware of any quest where you are better off taking a solo melee character than solo divine. If there are some, I'd be glad to know about it.

I prefer to play melees. In LotRO, I have a Guardian (tank) and a Captain (functionally like a warchanter). I'm considered pretty terrible at ranged classes in most games. And I find it vastly easier to blow through hard and elite content solo on my human sorcerer than any of my more numerous melees.

Though it does get a little ugly sometimes when I'm limping through on Echoes of Power and Wands to reach the next shrine. :P

At this point, we have had a fairly wide ranging discussion on the relative power of casters vs melee across the various levels of player skill.

In my post, I hope you noted that my toon has made some reasonable investments in healing, offensive casting and melee. He is a three dimensional character. Thats not unusual. Arcanes don't melee often (although I see a lot of them with woo woo sticks), but they do invest in both healing and offensive casting.

For a sizeable length of time, the easiest path through this game was as a melee toon. Casters, arcane and divine, were expected to buff them. There's a reason why the term Axer Package exists. Divines were expected to nannybot them.

Melees took advantage of this and crafted one dimensional toons. The melee forums are replete with threads arguing about how to increase DPS by less than 1%.

The game has changed. People are no longer content playing buffbots and healbots. The people crafting melee builds on the forums for the most part simply have not caught up. That is a problem in a game where the Turbine provided build paths are junk, and every new player quickly gets advised to visit the forums to find a "good" build.

If I spent all my energies designing and gearing my cleric to achieve that last fractional 1% of healing ability at the expense of everything else, I'd have a nannybot. If I didn't want a nannybot, that would be a failure on my part, not a lack of balance in the game.

Everyone who understands the dynamics of this game knows exactly where the "balance" discussion is headed. Melee want to keep their over focused, sub-optimal builds while enjoying the same benefits that casters have derived from creating well rounded builds.

As you have undoubtedly surmised, I am completely unmoved by the melee agenda.

However, if that's the direction that Turbine wants to head, I won't swim against the tide. I'll simply mothball my cleric, roll a melee toon, and play him by holding the left mouse button down and getting any healing, buffing, and offensive casting abilities that Turbine wants to layer on top.

Heck, we can all play the same build then, with microscopic variations that have no meaningful impact on the actual play of the game. Won't that be fun?

[Cyr]

So now that the devs (presuming they follow my advice) have adjusted the level of content to actually match it's difficulty level with higher difficulty levels being intentionally harder (but uniformly so across the same difficulty) and made quest design tweaks as needed now they need to address the other half of the picture...

Incentive Structures based upon difficulty

No Challenge = No Fun. A nice saying, but meaningless unless there are powerful reasons to challenge oneself. Everyone's skill and gear level is different and they should have the no brainer choice of choosing the hardest challenge that they can reasonably accomplish or even barely accomplish whenever possible.

We have already laid out that normal is for competent, but not geared or moderatly geared, but barely competent players. Hard is for competent moderatly geared or well geared less competent players. Elite is for competent well geared players. So now we need to make it so that those competent well geared players never set foot in normal again and those competent moderatly geared players are pushing themselves in elite or just getting their footing solid in hard and not doing normal instead for the easy completion.

A proper incentive structure leads to a steady upwards climb to challenges as you advance through the difficulty levels or through the levels at the same difficulty level.

The building principles of this incentive structure...

• Higher difficulty runs of a quest grant loot that is superior and not just more plentiful then lower difficulty runs. This eliminates the it is easier to farm it out 3 times on normal then run it once on elite pattern that happens with most content in DDO when it comes to loot aquisition. LoB has an example of this type of idea in it. There should be zero reasons from a loot perspective to ever run a lower level version of the quest...NO drops that only come from lower difficulties unless they are strictly inferior versions of the same item to the one found in the higher difficulty.
• Loot should NOT be based upon twinkage for future toons. It's ML and viability should be based upon the level of the quest being run. This keeps players advancing on the toon they are playing and not having the priority be in having a higher level alt farming out their gear for them. This is a lesser concern for vets, but one which most certainly is important for more casual or new players.
• XP rewards for higher difficulty settings are DRASTICALLY better for higher difficulty settings. If a hard quest would take the same party two times the time as a normal run then the XP needs to be way more then two times as much. Average run time data for quests depending upon difficulty rating should be done to figure this out. A premium of 150% to 200% to the average xp/min per difficulty setting advanced should be sufficient so that the party above would be recieving we will say 3 times the xp of what the quest would bestow on the next lowest difficulty. Yes, this would mean that more competent better geared toons would level faster.
• 20th and other rewards end rewards based upon the difficulty ran. 20 runs of elite reaver should grant superior rewards to 20 runs of normal reaver.
• Elite, hard, normal, solo completions listed in the favor menu AND able to be viewed by others when you are not anon. This is a solid quick way to see if someone might be a fit for your party.
• Grouping is preferable to soloing. MMOs live and die by their community and DDO is no different. I have talked about the disincentives already in my past post now I will talk about the incentives that should be added. A 5% xp bump and a 5% bump in the odds for any drop (as in a 1% chance becomes 1%*5% + 1%= 1.05%) for every member of your party not including hirelings and yourself. The quest will not be easier, but hey you will get more rewards for doing it.

A little more detail on loot...

A possible system would use the barter box AI with different token types for different quests and difficulties. Not all quests should have seperate tokens since many should share the same type, but difficulty levels SHOULD have different tokens basically being superior versions of the lower ones... How this would work is you would run let's say von3 on elite and get an elite token of the vault of night. You could exchange this token (barter UI) to upgrade a few items or get a few hard tokens of the VON(which can be used to purchase lesser tiers of upgrades or get a few normal tokens of the VON). Normal tokens of the VON would purchase a base item (like the tier 1 alchemical or cove items), hard tokens would upgrade to tier 2, and elite would be the final upgrade. An elite token as mentioned could be downconverted for multiples of the lesser currencies, but the lesser tokens could not be upgraded. You could get these same tokens (perhaps in different numbers) from other quests in the VON series.

These tokens like all psuedo currencies would go into a new tradable only through shared bank currency exchange, zero weight, infinite slots and stack size space, called a characters wallet. Making spam new currencies a non-issue forever more.

[GermanicusMaximus]

Remove hirelings and I will be stuck waiting for groups for every quest from lvl 4 onwards.

No thank you!

Remove hirelings above lvl 10 and I will be stuck waiting for groups from lvl 12 onwards

No thank you!

I have to agree with this. I never use hirelings except for quests that require simultaneous pulling of switches or a similiar game mechanic, but thats because I really don't need a hireling. I do want the option to solo content in some reasonable manner.

Look at the server population. Its down, and to a large extent I think we no longer have the critical mass of players to support a "group only" design point.

I'd prefer to run in a group, but if thats not an option I want a reasonable opportunity to solo. Dungeon scaling is the mechanism that provides that.

If the only reasonable way to quest is in group, I'll log on, check for groups, and log off if there aren't any available in a short amount of time. That hardly seems like a good way to maintain overall interest in the game.

[Chai]

. . . FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY PLEASE STOP MAKING NEW JUNK THAT REQUIRES KITING OF MOBS. It is stupid, it is lame, it is boring and un-fun. Any time I see something like LOB where it's "kite this, kite that, etc . . ." it makes God kill a kitten. It's just so stupid and "MMO," please stop this silliness.

I hereby nominate this as suggestion of the year. The Nascar® strategy should not be the best practiced tactic needed to be mastered in order to beat content regularly.

Minions of demi gods and Generals of Shavarath should not be so ******** that they will run after the same person and do nothing else the entire time while everyone else pounds the snot out of the leaders they are sworn to protect.