Let's Talk: Game Difficulty

[S3R3N1T7]

I can solo any Epic Hard with my eyes closed. I get absolutely destroyed in many Epic Elites. There shouldn't be such a massive difference between these difficulties. Epic Hard should be harder, and Epic Elite should be (in some cases) easier.

There should be an option upon entering a quest to be able to turn on/off monster champions. When I get hit for 500's by some stupid champion, even with 200 PRR and huge damage reduction, I'm pretty irritated...

My idea is this:
-Allow an option on the difficulty panel to turn on/off monster champions. If monster champions are turned on, +X% experience points rewarded at the end of that quest. If they are turned off, no experience point difference.
-On each champion killed, grant some sort of XP based off of a percentage of the total quest XP. This XP is greater when running elite difficulty.

I think this would allow the elitist players get their fill, and get some extra XP out of it, whilst still allowing others to run the same level content.

long time have beg this and many player beg same but nothing.....

and don't think turbine accept the reality, champion is **** !!! if player have choice to play with champion or disable them, all know realy big majority of player disable them. But, on ddo a minority elitist have voice with developper. No surprise ! They develope game for minority who have fun and other hope the fun come back.

many time i'have reflection if i leave ddo, and i wait. Because i have take good time with ddo long times ago but now, the news implementation kill fun and game more and more !

champion --> i don't want play with champion and why i don't have choice!! champion only on hard and elite is stupide , do an option !!!!!!!!!!!

warlock --> whaaaaaaaaaaa it's fun lol I have take time up completionist toon and ecompletionist too and warlock first life can clear the quest more easely like me !!!! where the objectif , win ddo if new class or race do all other toon trash front of is fun, i don't think !!!

lvl 30 --> epique and heroic splint community one time. ddo now loses more players than he gains and what they do ??? they splint an other time the community !!!!!! why they don't open new raid and don't up lvl 28 ???? because small portion of player elitiste beg an other time more big extrem difficulty but want more power too lol are they schizophrenic ??? yes i think ;p



And now i wait the new race for see the new aberation they will do ! because i think they like the way they take

i stay for see but i have no good suprise update after update just bad filling for DDO life a game i have liked !

[Discpsycho]

S3R3N1T7, I really doubt people would disable champions in heroic dungeons. Occasionally folks might do it for things like Acute Delirium, the Trial of the Archons chain or the Devil's Details chain because those quests are already difficult. For a lot of players, they're the only things that make the rest of the heroic dungeons challenging. In EN you rarely see any, and in EH their damage isn't off the charts. In all three of these cases, they seem pretty worthwhile for loot purposes - despite a player's thoughts on the slight added challenge, the occasional remnant chests and the collection rewards are pretty nifty.

Regarding champions in EE, they're brutal. I'm currently going through a squishy life and find myself getting 2-shot occasionally. But since EE is just the right challenge level for me with my current gear/build/metagame knowledge and I am forced to take the time to do a two-second appraisal before a pull, champions aren't a huge imposition. They encourage me to use tactics, CC, or simply pull people around corners. I'm not sure whether uber completionists who can stop EE feel the same way, but my hunch is that they do.

I won't disagree that warlocks are incredibly strong, but they're not invincible or all-powerful. The folks that can clear trash with SB/EB are really geared. Chain blast is strong in heroics but can fall behind DC casting (outside of LE) or large AOE pulls in epics. An extra 400 temporary health might mean you can only survive one extra blow if you don't have the PRR to back it up, and those characters are typically in heavy armor and/or shielded, meaning they miss out on casting Warlock spells.

Turbine's apparently been talking about raising the cap to 30 for a loooong time, but this seems to be the highest they're planning on taking it, presumably so that they can develop an endgame. On one hand, you're right - more levels means a greater chance that a random player will be outside your level range and therefore the average group is going to be slightly smaller. But especially with the introduction of LGS, the hamsterwheel TR process seems to be shifting further in favor of Epics instead of Heroics, which means a larger proportion of players will be in a 10-level range and can all theoretically quest together. My guess is that once a few more level 30 raids are released (or maybe some of the current ones are slightly revamped), people will start parking more toons at the cap, increasing the raid culture

[kerupted]

i did not try to read every post, but yes the difficulty is kinda of meh. right now with the increase boosts to Hound of Xoriat, Tempest Spine and shroud, knowing how the quests worked with just a beefier version was fun. I have to completely shame down Defiler of the Just raid, i knew tons of players who were waiting for legendary/epic Tower of Despair. that raid along side heroic Abbot and Lord of Blades were worth the battle, knowing that something can go wrong, most of the quests/raids nowadays we can run while studying for a test.

[Anuulified]

I find on different builds the game plays anywhere from easy to difficult. To illustrate, on my Paladin/Fighter/Rog 15/3/2 I can solo just about anything EE, in light armor, (excluding raids, and solo isn't what I prefer, but some days!), and if I can't solo it, I bring Garrett and win. However, on my alts I can barely do anything without a group on EE, though EH is easy for them, unless I'm running, kiting, hiked up on a ledge etc..., but then again they are "squishy's". This is all done without ever TRing in my nearly 10 years on and off of DDO, however, I have respected many times due to changes / nerfs.

[psi0nix]

I find on different builds the game plays anywhere from easy to difficult. To illustrate, on my Paladin/Fighter/Rog 15/3/2 I can solo just about anything EE, in light armor, (excluding raids, and solo isn't what I prefer, but some days!), and if I can't solo it, I bring Garrett and win. However, on my alts I can barely do anything without a group on EE, though EH is easy for them, unless I'm running, kiting, hiked up on a ledge etc..., but then again they are "squishy's". This is all done without ever TRing in my nearly 10 years on and off of DDO, however, I have respected many times due to changes / nerfs.

This - go into wheloon quest lvl 15 on 1st life warlock, decimate solo or 2 man, go into same quest on lvl 15 palemaster 5th life (sorc/wiz/sorc/wiz/wiz) - mobs are immune to just about everything, death ward on the shar disciples for some reason seems to protect them from firewall and polar ray ... no mana in 5 minutes and end up having to just sit there in aura using my dagger to slowly slowly beat down the enemy one at a time.... not terribly happy with the way that plays out. Is there really a need to make palemasters non-viable in those quests ?

It wouldn't be so annoying if you couldn't just waltz in on a 1st life warlock and decimate everything in minutes.

[HumbleDevildog]

I'm a long time player with not much time for grinding, and I find almost all of the new content too difficult at level on elite, because it seems that it's assumed everyone left is an uberplayer. I don't mind a challenge, but it's frustrating having to tell friends I'm guiding through the game "yeah, we can't do [that quest], because it's way too difficult for new players. Maybe in three or four years, we can try it".

TRs should be exceptional toons, not minimum playable toons.

[SirValentine]

Nice necro of 6+-year-old thread!

I'm a long time player with not much time for grinding, and I find almost all of the new content too difficult at level on elite

Elite should be for the elite, and Hard should be hard. When that's actually true, that's a good thing. It's, in fact, not true for most content.

Is Normal too hard? If so, that would be a problem. Maybe the real problem is expecting you should be able to do Elite instead of Normal.

[Hjeal_meh]

Nice necro of 6+-year-old thread!



Elite should be for the elite, and Hard should be hard. When that's actually true, that's a good thing. It's, in fact, not true for most content.

Is Normal too hard? If so, that would be a problem. Maybe the real problem is expecting you should be able to do Elite instead of Normal.

Difficulty should be CONSISTENT across all quests in a level range.

In my opinion most should be tuned up, a few should be tuned down a little.

But it should be consistent, the game isn't.

Or if not consistent the XP should be more, that would be fine also.

[Seikojin]

Nice necro of 6+-year-old thread!

Elite should be for the elite, and Hard should be hard. When that's actually true, that's a good thing. It's, in fact, not true for most content.

Is Normal too hard? If so, that would be a problem. Maybe the real problem is expecting you should be able to do Elite instead of Normal.

Difficulty should be CONSISTENT across all quests in a level range.

In my opinion most should be tuned up, a few should be tuned down a little.

But it should be consistent, the game isn't.

Or if not consistent the XP should be more, that would be fine also.

A while back it was brought up that the game should have options to increase difficulty. Not explicitly as options, but something that players control to increase difficulty. The big issue with N/H/E for the difficulty: it doesn't scale indefinitely. And in a game that allows players to go in over level, under level, or max level: you can never use a fixed system like N/H/E to give those players adequate challenge without making players take a penalty of some kind. Like a debuff. No one wants that. It is complicated to implement, maintain, and it has scaling issues as well. You could do some Band-Aid like strokes, like halving everything if you are one level higher, -75% for 2, and -99% for 3+.... However people will learn how to work around it (like everything else) and it becomes the new normal and everyone takes the penalties.

However, Reaper goes a looong way to adding a scalable difficulty. It does the band aid penalties, however promotes group play. It doesn't give you any huge advantages for playing that advance the character directly. However the biggest boon it provides is a named loot boost. It is almost the new normal, but it is just hard enough that it has not become the new common run (at least on Sarlona).

So far, I have found most quests in ddo have been consistent. If they are easy, I get some exp. If they are hard, they give more exp. If they are short or have shortcuts, they give less exp. If they are long, they give more exp. Early on I thought some quests were too hard for their exp, however after dedicating some time to soloing the quests, I have learned they are all very well balanced for the most part. The only ones that do not are the newest and they eventually get retooled for more balanced rewards for the work.

[elvesunited]

well My wife and I decided to do Ravenloft unspoiled.

dragonborn 10th level bard
aasimar 5th war cleric 6th level fighter
( with cleric hires )

Intro Elite: SUCCESS - not that hard

Pie Quest: Elite FAIL - due to enemy spellcaster unbalance. Multiple will o wisps ( some champs ) appearing at once and all firing damage spells at the same time at a single target results in dead target. Granted I could have tried again with nightshield scrolls but the point holds, this quest is murderous on heroic unless you have protection vs magic missiles. Repeated at Normal and won.

Death house: Elite FAIL - due to trap immediately followed by skeleton ambush. Trap can handle. Ambush can handle. The combination wiped us. Repeated on Normal and won.

Invitation: Normal FAIL - Due to lag at the spinning trap pit. I often get lag when coming out of a loading screen. Putting a trap immediately on the characters when they come out of a loading screen is mean. Repeated on normal with a much better idea what we were doing and succeeded.

Ruins of Threnal Elite SUCCESS - Took a break from Ravenloft to level the characters and get a Mantle for True Sight secret door detection. Elite Threnal was roughly equal to normal Ravenloft in difficulty.

Light the Beacon Normal SUCCESS -
Ravenloft castle return - Normal SUCCESS
Tea Party - Normal SUCCESS

Amber quest? - Wilderness FAIL. Well this was a disaster. First we went the wrong way and got a little lost. Then we got bombarded by wave after wave of flame skulls and ice mephits. They just straight wore us down without a shrine in sight. Got very close to quest entrance when a group of about 20 flameskulls finally just managed to break us as we had almost no spellpoints left. Now that we know the way, and will be better prepared I'm sure we'll make it next time. But **** I didn't see that coming.

---------------------------------------------

So yeah I do see significant increase in difficulty from Ravenloft compared to previous content. Though its not a straight progression. Newcomers and Black and Blue are probably tougher. And a lot of our problems can be tracked down to going in unspoiled with no evasion or trapper.

[Seikojin]

well My wife and I decided to do Ravenloft unspoiled.

dragonborn 10th level bard
aasimar 5th war cleric 6th level fighter
( with cleric hires )

Intro Elite: SUCCESS - not that hard

Pie Quest: Elite FAIL - due to enemy spellcaster unbalance. Multiple will o wisps ( some champs ) appearing at once and all firing damage spells at the same time at a single target results in dead target. Granted I could have tried again with nightshield scrolls but the point holds, this quest is murderous on heroic unless you have protection vs magic missiles. Repeated at Normal and won.

Death house: Elite FAIL - due to trap immediately followed by skeleton ambush. Trap can handle. Ambush can handle. The combination wiped us. Repeated on Normal and won.

Invitation: Normal FAIL - Due to lag at the spinning trap pit. I often get lag when coming out of a loading screen. Putting a trap immediately on the characters when they come out of a loading screen is mean. Repeated on normal with a much better idea what we were doing and succeeded.

Ruins of Threnal Elite SUCCESS - Took a break from Ravenloft to level the characters and get a Mantle for True Sight secret door detection. Elite Threnal was roughly equal to normal Ravenloft in difficulty.

Light the Beacon Normal SUCCESS -
Ravenloft castle return - Normal SUCCESS
Tea Party - Normal SUCCESS

Amber quest? - Wilderness FAIL. Well this was a disaster. First we went the wrong way and got a little lost. Then we got bombarded by wave after wave of flame skulls and ice mephits. They just straight wore us down without a shrine in sight. Got very close to quest entrance when a group of about 20 flameskulls finally just managed to break us as we had almost no spellpoints left. Now that we know the way, and will be better prepared I'm sure we'll make it next time. But **** I didn't see that coming.

---------------------------------------------

So yeah I do see significant increase in difficulty from Ravenloft compared to previous content. Though its not a straight progression. Newcomers and Black and Blue are probably tougher. And a lot of our problems can be tracked down to going in unspoiled with no evasion or trapper.

Mind you, I am a lvl 13 with lvl 13 gear, however I am not finding Ravenloft unbearable alone. I agree the respawning trash mobs is kind of obscene. It diminishes the value of players efforts to take out the mobs on heroic. Epic it is expected to see respawns.

[HumbleDevildog]

Nice necro of 6+-year-old thread!



Elite should be for the elite, and Hard should be hard. When that's actually true, that's a good thing. It's, in fact, not true for most content.

Is Normal too hard? If so, that would be a problem. Maybe the real problem is expecting you should be able to do Elite instead of Normal.

I would agree if the difficulties weren't so scattered about. I can solo most content on elite at or even a little below level, but not the newer content. I can see the arguments for scaling difficulty up or down, but it's the wide variety of difficulty that is the issue for me.

If elite was really hard across the board, then yup! I agree! Elite is for elite players and teams! But it's not. The older the content, the easier it is. The newer the content, the harder it is. Quest difficulty has no real bearing on that.

I'm really not saying the game is too easy or too hard, because it's both, depending on what content one is playing at the time. It's the unpredictable nature of the difficulty I'm addressing.

Just throwing out ideas, maybe heroic content on elite under lvl 10 should be "just be smarter than an average PUG" to beat, lvl 11-15 content should be "apply what you learned the last 10-14 levels", and lvl 16-20 content should be "pay attention and bring your A game" difficult. Epic should be epic. Epic toons are theoretically interfering in the plans of gods and demons, and that shouldn't be a cakewalk. But even in epic quests, there's a wide disparity between difficulties (EE Sands is pretty easy, EE Schyndrlyn is brutal. Same lvl).

I will admit I'm somewhere between "casual player" and "dedicated player", so I'm not the best equipped or built toons, but I've played enough to know whether a quest is too difficult for my group or too easy, especially for new players (I drag a friend into the game every couple of months). Dedicated players think a lot of the quests are too easy, and casual players think a lot of the same quests are too hard. I'm sitting in between them and saying "they're both right, depending on where they are"

[Hjeal_meh]

Consistency = good.

[KoobTheProud]

Hierarchy of difficulty in DDO from least to most:

1. Heroic content through Update 13.
2. Heroic MotU content.
3. Heroic content through Update 26 with the exception of Temple of Elemental Evil.
4. Trial of the Archons+ big jump here and all heroic content prior to this is noticeably easier by comparison except for raids and ToEE.
5. Against the Slavelords+ another big jump in difficulty with monster health and damage both boosted significantly.

That's the 5 tiers of heroic difficulty to-date, with most new content since Slavelords at a similar level of difficulty.

If you know this hierarchy you can plan where to level to the best effect with a given build. Some classes shrug off the difficulty tiers better than others due to the power of the class in heroics.

I TR less powerful builds mainly in tier 1 and 2 with a couple of the Shadowfell chains thrown in. I'd much rather have SSG spend development time on creating new content as opposed to going back and reworking old content to be consistent with the ever-increasing difficulty levels that new content and power creep create.

[Powerhungry]

well My wife and I decided to do Ravenloft unspoiled.

dragonborn 10th level bard
aasimar 5th war cleric 6th level fighter
( with cleric hires )

Intro Elite: SUCCESS - not that hard

Pie Quest: Elite FAIL - due to enemy spellcaster unbalance. Multiple will o wisps ( some champs ) appearing at once and all firing damage spells at the same time at a single target results in dead target. Granted I could have tried again with nightshield scrolls but the point holds, this quest is murderous on heroic unless you have protection vs magic missiles. Repeated at Normal and won.

Death house: Elite FAIL - due to trap immediately followed by skeleton ambush. Trap can handle. Ambush can handle. The combination wiped us. Repeated on Normal and won.

Invitation: Normal FAIL - Due to lag at the spinning trap pit. I often get lag when coming out of a loading screen. Putting a trap immediately on the characters when they come out of a loading screen is mean. Repeated on normal with a much better idea what we were doing and succeeded.

Ruins of Threnal Elite SUCCESS - Took a break from Ravenloft to level the characters and get a Mantle for True Sight secret door detection. Elite Threnal was roughly equal to normal Ravenloft in difficulty.

Light the Beacon Normal SUCCESS -
Ravenloft castle return - Normal SUCCESS
Tea Party - Normal SUCCESS

Amber quest? - Wilderness FAIL. Well this was a disaster. First we went the wrong way and got a little lost. Then we got bombarded by wave after wave of flame skulls and ice mephits. They just straight wore us down without a shrine in sight. Got very close to quest entrance when a group of about 20 flameskulls finally just managed to break us as we had almost no spellpoints left. Now that we know the way, and will be better prepared I'm sure we'll make it next time. But **** I didn't see that coming.

---------------------------------------------

So yeah I do see significant increase in difficulty from Ravenloft compared to previous content. Though its not a straight progression. Newcomers and Black and Blue are probably tougher. And a lot of our problems can be tracked down to going in unspoiled with no evasion or trapper.

the wisps (or anything with multi-shot capabilities) are usually auto killing players if it happens to pop as a champ. One shot of chain missiles can instantly give you 5 shacks of champ DoT poison, in addition to its regular damage (and remove poison doesn't remove it). One bad champ spawn can ruin a quest. I seldom run the new content after the archon update, it just scales too significantly for quests of their supposed level and champ artificially increase the level by an unknown and totally random amount.

[elvesunited]

update: ravenloft questing

dragonborn 11th level bard
aasimar 5th war cleric 7th level fighter
( with cleric hires )

Amber quest: Normal Success. Lots of flame skulls, but we were much smarter this time and kept a constant nightshield at all times. Also amber has a lot of corridors and corners. Fighting distance spellcasters is much easier when the terrain allows you to duck around a corner for a breather. This is much easier than the pie quest where you are basically in a large wide open field. Note we didn't do the optional because we went in "unspoiled".

Wine quest: Normal Success.

Lightning Hill: Normal FAIL. Got to the top unloaded on the archdruid. Got swarmed. Too many casters. Lagged. Dead. Tried again and succeeded but it was a very tough fight. Cleric died. But the bard managed to take out the druids from a distance while using higher movement speed to avoid the blights. I have since taken one of my epic characters and repeated these quests in reaper 1. Here I discovered that the archdruid was summoning new mob at I think 75% 50% and 25% health. ( Smack head! ) That explains a lot! Our kill the caster first strategy backfired horribly when we ignored the mob and focuses all attacks on the boss!

Mist Town: Normal Success. Scarecrows are no threat to a fear immune aasimar melee and a distance attacking bard. And wolves and hounds if they get heavy can take music naps. Note when I repeated on Epic Reaper with my epic character the witch herself was a royal pain with overlapping paralyzers and dancers.

Abbey: Normal Success. Remarkably straightforward quest with almost no casters.

Overview:

Invitation to Dinner is the hardest quest with some tough fights in it even on normal. Outside of that quest, the biggest issue is massed spellcasters particularly if you lack a way to counter magic missiles. The later quests actually seemed easier except for lightning hill which was "going in unspoiled" issue.

[Elor_OnceDark]

I think the main issue with the game difficulty is the huge power difference between classes atm.
I don't want to jump on the "OMG Warlock is too powerful train, either".
The main issue imho is the difference between ranged / spellcasters and melee classes. In the past we have seen a huge increase in thrower / monkcher / warlock builds since for many people these are the only option of being able to solo higher difficulty quests, since they neither run out of spellpoints nor need to be able to "tank" champion damage.
Classical melee builds drop massively in epic unless you got a ****load of equip and pastlifes, and even then the wrong combination of champions can just 1-hit you even with 200 - 250 prr, and there is no option of just "kiting" or ccing these mobs, since saves are ridiculously high in some cases (i.e. stunning fist dc 102 fails vs mobs in lvl 27EE quests).
The problem with spellcasters is an entirely different one, since most (especially newer quests) only consist of huge groups of mobs, you need to dish out loads of spellpoints per fight (especially with the newer deathward system, which basically makes it impossible to instakill 3/4 of epic mobs due to the epic ward, which can't be surpressed with stuff like sphere of invulnerability), causing them to barely make it from shrine to shrine.
The only classes excluded from this are the shiradi mm spammer and ranged classes (which are like 3/4 off all builds i see in EE).

My Suggestions for a better game-balance would be :

Champions :
Restrict the combinations of possible random traits for champions - 3 champions with extra damage , 2 types of damage over time and extra elemental damage in one wave is just too much for most solo players.
Even a limitation on 2-times the player count maxchamps per group on EE quests might help here.

Melee classes vs Ranged classes :
Give melees an option of damage migration that isn't avaiable for ranged classes, I understand that this is quite a hard thing todo without creating "impenetrable tanks", but excluding warlocks and everyone who is using a thrown or ranged weapon from using this mechanic could be a step in the right directions.

Spellcasters :
I think a viable option here could be rework some of the commonly used spells and change to instakill / deathward mechanic. It might be beneficial to have spells which to a %max Hp based damage (it could be capped vs purple bosses , so noone just pseudo-instakills raid bosses) and give an option to circumvent epic wards. Also for some classes it might be beneficial to lower spellpoint costs.
Again spellpoints are an issue mainly people without many pastlifes and loads of gear will face, still I don't think it's a good idea to balance the higher difficulty game around tripple completionist)

Connected to this a quick suggestion connected to quest diffuculty / design :
Larger groups or huge hitpoint pools for enemys don't make a quest more interesting, quite the opposite - it gets boring to grind down the 50th 12-man group of druids / temple guards / etc. and at some point you just stop playing these quests since they are just annoying or yo play through them just because you have to (which is a bad motivation for playing).
Even some of the newer Ravenloft quests are (from my point of view after being a Pen and Paper GM for more than 20 years) like a textbook how to NOT design a good quest. And I'm not talking about the general story / design, more about the setup of enemy groups and general quest target design. I don't wanna go more into detail here, since prob. noone is reading down to this point anyway, but I'll gladly elaborate if requested.

[fmalfeas]

Spellcasters :
I think a viable option here could be rework some of the commonly used spells and change to instakill / deathward mechanic. It might be beneficial to have spells which to a %max Hp based damage (it could be capped vs purple bosses , so noone just pseudo-instakills raid bosses) and give an option to circumvent epic wards. Also for some classes it might be beneficial to lower spellpoint costs.
Again spellpoints are an issue mainly people without many pastlifes and loads of gear will face, still I don't think it's a good idea to balance the higher difficulty game around tripple completionist)

Connected to this a quick suggestion connected to quest diffuculty / design :
Larger groups or huge hitpoint pools for enemys don't make a quest more interesting, quite the opposite - it gets boring to grind down the 50th 12-man group of druids / temple guards / etc. and at some point you just stop playing these quests since they are just annoying or yo play through them just because you have to (which is a bad motivation for playing).
Even some of the newer Ravenloft quests are (from my point of view after being a Pen and Paper GM for more than 20 years) like a textbook how to NOT design a good quest. And I'm not talking about the general story / design, more about the setup of enemy groups and general quest target design. I don't wanna go more into detail here, since prob. noone is reading down to this point anyway, but I'll gladly elaborate if requested.

We technically have exactly the spell for that job. It's expensive, and slow to cast even when quickened, and does NOTHING to 90% of mobs. 'Realistically' (by tabletop rules and it's own description) it should also temporarily make reds and purples vulnerable to some status effects (though purples I'd assume you'd risk the 'broke an artifact backlash' if you succeeded). Mordenkainen's Disjunction. The spell that suppresses all magic items (Arrgh, the adventurer's shut off my Deathblock Ring!) and can even break artifacts (though you might lose your casting ability from it...AKA, 25% chance of being silenced until dead if you succeeded in make a purple vulnerable to debuffs...for a few minutes. Harsh decision if it's worth doing, but if you've got a lot of rogues, blinding something to open it up to SA could boost the raid's DPS enormously. And prolong the lifespan of the tank. Or exposing it to Slow, or Exhaustion.)

[Seikojin]

I think the main issue with the game difficulty is the huge power difference between classes atm.
I don't want to jump on the "OMG Warlock is too powerful train, either".
The main issue imho is the difference between ranged / spellcasters and melee classes. In the past we have seen a huge increase in thrower / monkcher / warlock builds since for many people these are the only option of being able to solo higher difficulty quests, since they neither run out of spellpoints nor need to be able to "tank" champion damage.
Classical melee builds drop massively in epic unless you got a ****load of equip and pastlifes, and even then the wrong combination of champions can just 1-hit you even with 200 - 250 prr, and there is no option of just "kiting" or ccing these mobs, since saves are ridiculously high in some cases (i.e. stunning fist dc 102 fails vs mobs in lvl 27EE quests).
The problem with spellcasters is an entirely different one, since most (especially newer quests) only consist of huge groups of mobs, you need to dish out loads of spellpoints per fight (especially with the newer deathward system, which basically makes it impossible to instakill 3/4 of epic mobs due to the epic ward, which can't be surpressed with stuff like sphere of invulnerability), causing them to barely make it from shrine to shrine.
The only classes excluded from this are the shiradi mm spammer and ranged classes (which are like 3/4 off all builds i see in EE).

My Suggestions for a better game-balance would be :

Champions :
Restrict the combinations of possible random traits for champions - 3 champions with extra damage , 2 types of damage over time and extra elemental damage in one wave is just too much for most solo players.
Even a limitation on 2-times the player count maxchamps per group on EE quests might help here.

Melee classes vs Ranged classes :
Give melees an option of damage migration that isn't avaiable for ranged classes, I understand that this is quite a hard thing todo without creating "impenetrable tanks", but excluding warlocks and everyone who is using a thrown or ranged weapon from using this mechanic could be a step in the right directions.

Spellcasters :
I think a viable option here could be rework some of the commonly used spells and change to instakill / deathward mechanic. It might be beneficial to have spells which to a %max Hp based damage (it could be capped vs purple bosses , so noone just pseudo-instakills raid bosses) and give an option to circumvent epic wards. Also for some classes it might be beneficial to lower spellpoint costs.
Again spellpoints are an issue mainly people without many pastlifes and loads of gear will face, still I don't think it's a good idea to balance the higher difficulty game around tripple completionist)

Connected to this a quick suggestion connected to quest diffuculty / design :
Larger groups or huge hitpoint pools for enemys don't make a quest more interesting, quite the opposite - it gets boring to grind down the 50th 12-man group of druids / temple guards / etc. and at some point you just stop playing these quests since they are just annoying or yo play through them just because you have to (which is a bad motivation for playing).
Even some of the newer Ravenloft quests are (from my point of view after being a Pen and Paper GM for more than 20 years) like a textbook how to NOT design a good quest. And I'm not talking about the general story / design, more about the setup of enemy groups and general quest target design. I don't wanna go more into detail here, since prob. noone is reading down to this point anyway, but I'll gladly elaborate if requested.

I think the biggest issue with game difficulty is the definition. What is game difficulty in ddo? How we players see it, how the code developers see it, how the producers see it, and how the product designers see it, can all vary enough to where something never hits the best mark for any one of them, but hits a working mark for all of them. And I agree, Game difficulty is a problem in ddo on many levels. I feel classes need balancing, I feel quests need balancing, and I feel gear needs balancing. However I think all the things out here and there that really add more restrictions will just make game difficulty a harder thing to maintain and control.

The best way to manage game difficulty would be to detatch from the d20 system entirely and be something a lot more linear and scalable. This way there is no question or mystery. However one of the best attributes in ddo is being able to build something that overcomes the challenges put out there. The other being that, as time is going on, more and more content is coming out that you don't have to play in order to cap. I mean, why balance quest content when you can have a 1 - cap quest series unique to fighters. 1 - cap for rogues. Etc. I would love it if a questline existed where npcs did all the work and being a healer was the role. Or a questline where npcs did the heavy lifting and you did dialog options to help solve social puzzles. Then pure puzzle quests, with trapped puzzles that are disarmed to allow progression.

Unlike most other products out there, those options are completely on the table for ddo. Even with their crazy npc ai.

[fmalfeas]

I would love it if a questline existed where npcs did all the work and being a healer was the role. Or a questline where npcs did the heavy lifting and you did dialog options to help solve social puzzles. Then pure puzzle quests, with trapped puzzles that are disarmed to allow progression.

Unlike most other products out there, those options are completely on the table for ddo. Even with their crazy npc ai.

I would call the first arc 'MEDIC!!!' And it would be House D, or PDK.

I would call the second arc 'Honeyed Words and Silver Tongues' and it would be House P or Harpers.

The third I'd call 'Fear to Tread' and it would be a mix of House P, House C, Free Agents, Gatekeepers, and House K, leading you into all sorts of strange things like ruining someone's summoning portal, disabling an illegal creation forge knockoff (in a way that House C can study it, not just blow it up like Haywire's), helping House K forces get control of one of their vaults back from people who managed to take it over, defeating a large invading force by setting and activating traps, and infiltrating secure compounds to steal important intel.