Let's Talk: Game Difficulty

[Bargol]

Man I really wish they would unring this bell.

That's why you're supposed to use things like Ice Storm, or spells-with-fort-saves-that-also-affect-objects.

Not "whatever - it is a speedbump"

I completely agree. It was a shock the first time I met up with a golem years ago in game on my caster and nothing worked I had prepared. Instead I had to beat it down with a quaterstaff that took forever and about 100 cure pots. It taught me to be prepared next time.

The changes made that remove this kind of difficulty was a bad move by turbine. The same thing with making things like blindness and curse on a timer. These should be perminant until you drink a pot, have a spell cast on you, or shrine.

I see so many who only carry one weapon, no healing pots, no cure / resist pots. The changes made ot the game didn't make it easier. It taught players instead to be lazy and steam roll through quests with MOAR DPS!!!

[voodoogroves]

I completely agree. It was a shock the first time I met up with a golem years ago in game on my caster and nothing worked I had prepared. Instead I had to beat it down with a quaterstaff that took forever and about 100 cure pots. It taught me to be prepared next time.

Amen

The changes made that remove this kind of difficulty was a bad move by turbine. The same thing with making things like blindness and curse on a timer. These should be perminant until you drink a pot, have a spell cast on you, or shrine.

Even if the timer were 5 minutes you'd achieve the same "you can survive without" safety-net, but you'd still rather ... you know ... BE PREPARED.

I see so many who only carry one weapon, no healing pots, no cure / resist pots. The changes made ot the game didn't make it easier. It taught players instead to be lazy and steam roll through quests with MOAR DPS!!!

And ship buffs. All I need is DPS and ship buffs.




Personally, and I've said this on exactly a bajillion threads already, I think adding that kind of variety into the game even in moderate amounts can help achieve balance.

There's that old adage about a hammer and a nail and how all problems start to look like nails if you only have a hammer. We're kinda in the same spot, where more and more problems can be solved the same way. Personally, I hate that my negative energy spells can affect portals and constructs. Hate it. I use them, because they work.

One of the great things about D&D is that, at the end of the day, a greataxe nearly always works to take down the HP of your foe. Heck, even on the demilich it does it's enchantment bonus in damage ... and magic didn't work on everything. Now that it does (largely), it's become a race in damage output ... can the greataxe keep up?

I don't think it should ... but I think there should be more cases where the greataxe works and the spell does not.

[Metaljaw]

The discussion is on the games difficulty as a whole and if there are differences between difficulty for melee and for casters then those become relevant talking points. There are things in the game that are heavily inbalanced in favor of either type of character, for example crateos is absolutely obnoxious for arcane casters much like air elementals are for melee. Imagine if there were tons of Crateos like mobs in content throughout the game and in challenges, that these mobs also had truesight and adamantine damage (bypassing your displacement and stoneskin) and were immune to all forms of cc and instant kill. Casters don't want to return to the days of cc/buff only, nor should they, but that doesn't mean melee should be relegated to piker's until it comes time to beat on a red+ named mob either.

You creating an inflammatory post to create negative discussion however does nothing to improve the discussion about the topic at hand. If you wish to start another argument regarding "melees with caster envy" please take it to one of the other topics created for and filled with that content.

The whole point of a wizard is to suffer through weak beginnings with lower hp so that they yeild awesome power to kill with a single word later on. What about this seems unfair to you? Melee's complaining that a wizard is out DPSing them on trash mobs seems kinda off the wall. That's what wizards are supposed to do. You will get your wish as drow with high SR make more of an entro into the game. Also beholders are all over the place and they are annoying as heck for spell casters, especially if you get in their anti-magic field. There are also plenty of things that are immune to insta-kills running around. Casters have just learned to adapt. Seeing a thread about game difficulty devolve into a discussion by melees in how to make casters less relevant is just more of the same whining. How that is any less inflamatory that my post is unclear as well.

Look at actual game difficulty. Across the class spectrum. Argue if that is difficult or not.

And as for challenges, they are easily solo'd by many melee at lower levels. Maybe not high level, but until about 10th level they are just as easy for melee. Melee just don't have the AOE ability of other classes. That is as intended and not related to game difficulty.

[Ungood]

Look at actual game difficulty. Across the class spectrum. Argue if that is difficult or not.

The problem with this, is that you can't take an overall balance of the game, when the classes themselves are vastly out of balance to each other.

Thus before balance in the game content can happen, a balance act among the classes needs to happen, and for that to happen, melee need to be augmented to be on par to casters as no one likes nerfs.

[Mjesko]

The problem with this, is that you can't take an overall balance of the game, when the classes themselves are vastly out of balance to each other.

Thus before balance in the game content can happen, a balance act among the classes needs to happen, and for that to happen, melee need to be augmented to be on par to casters as no one likes nerfs.

I do not think melee needs to be augmented. Instead many things (Ship buffs, Potions, Scrolls, Wands, Clickies) should be limited, because they make the game too easy and allow casters to spend too many SP on other things.

[Voldomar]

many things (Ship buffs, Potions, Scrolls, Wands, Clickies) should be limited, because they make the game too easy and allow casters to spend too many SP on other things.

Actually, they are mostly helpful to non-casters. Non-blue bar toons have no way of mimic certain kind of buffs otherwise.
Remove or limit scroll, wands and clickies and who will be hurt the most? Classes that have that same spell on their spell list or classes that don't even have a spell list?

[Schwarzie]

The problem with this, is that you can't take an overall balance of the game, when the classes themselves are vastly out of balance to each other.

Thus before balance in the game content can happen, a balance act among the classes needs to happen, and for that to happen, melee need to be augmented to be on par to casters as no one likes nerfs.

DnD never had, and never will, have balanced classes. Its a TEAMGAME and balanced for a teamapproach. Everyone in the party has a spot and a role to fullfill so ALL may succeed.

All this stupid "balancing" talk came into view with the soloers. DDO is not made for soloing. The very first design intention were GROUPS walking through a dunegon. And all this talk about casters doing all the work is grossly exaggerated. Yes there are a few quests where casters contribute more, as there are quests where melees contribute moar. So what?

[Mjesko]

Actually, they are mostly helpful to non-casters. Non-blue bar toons have no way of mimic certain kind of buffs otherwise.
Remove or limit scroll, wands and clickies and who will be hurt the most? Classes that have that same spell on their spell list or classes that don't even have a spell list?

Hmmm good point, but i think it should be more difficult for non-casters to do the same things as casters, because it is not easy for casters to kill monsters with melee weapons.

[Ap0k]

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.

I have read some posts in this thread, but i dont feel there is much for me to add, so ill just post my personal opinion like madfloyd asked.

Background: I started playing DDO in April 2006 and only took one major break of 18 months shortly before the european servers shut down. I came back to play my transfered characters on Ghallanda round october last year.

All in all I think the game is very inconsitant with its difficulty throughout the game. That may be due to the several levelcap increases and that quests where designed witha certain cap inmind and certain available loot. The main problem that I see, and that is skewed because I have just that much experience in the game, is the metagaming aspect of the game. Once you know what your character is capable of, how mobs move and how terrain affects gameplay and so on, most quests become very easy. At the same time, for a new player without that knowledge, the game can be frustratingly hard. I dont see a way to rectify this.
The choice that the Dev team has is really up to what people they want to cater to. If your numbers say that you make more profit of new players that stay for a short amount of time, I guess making quests easier is the way to go. I have no illusions about this, since its a purely business decision.

In my opinion though, the learning curve is what made me stay in DDO for so long. The feeling to get stronger and be able to do and accomplish things that you werent able to do before has been one of the most satisfying aspects of the game. In that regard I wish that the game remained reasonably hard. I dont see it as a fault of this game for a new player to not be instantly able to do everything. I also believe that the game difficulty should not be based mostly on the equipment you have, which is the case in my opinion of the newer updates.

I am not a fan of adapting old quests with new cap and equipment in mind. The reason for this is that when a new player gets to he/she doesnt have the "good Stuff" that vets have, not the amount of plat and twink gear that vets send their lowbies. And so for new players these quests get pretty hard.

Im struggling to find good examples. But maybe Invaders can serve as one. While TR's and vets have access to beholder optic nerves, DR breaking equipment, Silver flame necklaces and so on, a new player without gear is just hopelessly lost in there. I kow that this quest wasnt really made harder with new levelcaps.... but i hope you get the point. The reaver raid and velah raid on elite are an example, where the quest was adapted for new levelcaps.

Im undecided whether i like it or not, since the new trend in DDO is to make leveling even faster and people dont tend to stay in any levelrange for long. So adapted raids kind of serve as endgame.

To the failing a quest after 45 minutes and not getting anything... You could design new quests with decent amounts of optional xp. Ans loot is always a good thing, so you dont feel like you have wasted time.

Personal opinion: Id like the game to be harder, knowing full well that I have access to equipment and knowledge of the game that new players dont have.

[ThunderTank]

Increase difficulty on epics. Moar contente like e-lob would be fantastic.
Nerf insta kill spells on epic, like it was before when ppl had actually to put lfm's up to do the epic quests. These days i only log on my fvs and implode through the whole quest. =/

[Ungood]

Actually, they are mostly helpful to non-casters. Non-blue bar toons have no way of mimic certain kind of buffs otherwise.
Remove or limit scroll, wands and clickies and who will be hurt the most? Classes that have that same spell on their spell list or classes that don't even have a spell list?

This is a very good point.

Personally I never understood the cries to nerf another class to be honest. Nerfing a class should always be a last resort, with buffing and augmenting being the first measure to being balance. Case in point, I do not think anyone enjoyed the nerf to vorpal, and yet I see people demanding that spells and abilities of other classes get nerfed. No one likes a nerf, so I do not fathom why they would call for them to be used.

Can we not think of ways to augment classes to make them balanced?

DnD never had, and never will, have balanced classes. Its a TEAMGAME and balanced for a teamapproach. Everyone in the party has a spot and a role to fullfill so ALL may succeed.

All this stupid "balancing" talk came into view with the soloers. DDO is not made for soloing. The very first design intention were GROUPS walking through a dunegon. And all this talk about casters doing all the work is grossly exaggerated. Yes there are a few quests where casters contribute more, as there are quests where melees contribute moar. So what?

OH, this fallacy again.

Well, first off, I suppose I could say if you wanted to play a game were classes were shoehorned into roles, you might want to check out EQ or WoW, or some other MMO, that makes their deign and objective to demand that classes be dependent upon other classes.

However such myopic views of what a class should be limited to do, is not a selling point of DDO nor was it ever a selling point in the game that DDO is based off. In Fact, freedom and ability to play anything you wanted as the objective as the entire franchised moved though updates and expansions in the foundation system before it became an MMO.

Now, maybe you regal and reflect fondly back to the days when Arcane were nothing but buff bots and CC devices, and Divine has no place in this game world beyond to heal, maybe that was a nirvana for a player like you. But DDO moved away from that, and the game got better because it. It became dynamic and it opened doors to a whole new level of fun by breaking away from the concept of "role playing", and as far as I and many others are concerned they just need to finish the job they started.

Now again, for whatever reasons you seem to present this stand or have personal issues against offering freedom of choice and giving players options, but, thankfully Turbine did not, and in that spirit is it time for Melee to be given the same freedom that arcane and divine have been enjoying.

[orakio]

The whole point of a wizard is to suffer through weak beginnings with lower hp so that they yeild awesome power to kill with a single word later on. What about this seems unfair to you? Melee's complaining that a wizard is out DPSing them on trash mobs seems kinda off the wall. That's what wizards are supposed to do. You will get your wish as drow with high SR make more of an entro into the game. Also beholders are all over the place and they are annoying as heck for spell casters, especially if you get in their anti-magic field. There are also plenty of things that are immune to insta-kills running around. Casters have just learned to adapt. Seeing a thread about game difficulty devolve into a discussion by melees in how to make casters less relevant is just more of the same whining. How that is any less inflamatory that my post is unclear as well.

Look at actual game difficulty. Across the class spectrum. Argue if that is difficult or not.

And as for challenges, they are easily solo'd by many melee at lower levels. Maybe not high level, but until about 10th level they are just as easy for melee. Melee just don't have the AOE ability of other classes. That is as intended and not related to game difficulty.

The early game is in no way challenging, wizards/sorcs are able to melee just fine at that period. Heck, you were given echoes of power and super reduced spell costs just to handle the lower amount of sp at that level. In addition, with the advent of veteran status I and II, you get to skip the weakest part of a caster character and jump immediately straight to PrE's. The amount of time a character typically spends in the first 1/3 of the levels of the game is probably less than 10% of a characters total life.

It isn't about being outdps'd on trash mobs, that is what you don't seem to get. It is the fact that you maintain consistent dps with melee and yet have significantly more survivability (due to displacement/stoneskin/self heals in most builds/and being ranged damage) and more utility (cc/instant kills/ buffs) as well as significantly higher burst damage and AoE that is in now way effected by mob fortification. Many people are asking for increases to melee utility/survivability in endgame where AC (typically only survival advantage melee has) has become irrelevant due to epic mob hit values.

I am not advocating removal of spells or nerfs to casters however there is no justification for why casters should be unique in their ability to reliably cc and provide party buffs or do solid aoe damage.

Casters have just learned to adapt. Seeing a thread about game difficulty devolve into a discussion by melees in how to make casters less relevant is just more of the same whining. How that is any less inflamatory that my post is unclear as well.

It is less inflammatory in that I am not attacking you or deriding you for your opinion or calling you a whiner. All that does is set people on edge.

[Schwarzie]

OH, this fallacy again.

Well, first off, I suppose I could say if you wanted to play a game were classes were shoehorned into roles, you might want to check out EQ or WoW, or some other MMO, that makes their deign and objective to demand that classes be dependent upon other classes. [SNIP stuff that was based on a false 'assumption']

This is a nice example of you writing something to my post without bothering to read it.

I never wrote that class has a fixed role, nor would i ever intend to. That theoretically every class can fullfill several roles is one of the things i like most about DDO. Of course some classes promote some roles (sometimes through abilities, but more often through a rather fixed set of enhancements).

Nevertheless, for success in a quest you need several roles fulfilled, it doesnt matter what classsymbol one role has or if one character takes more then one role.

[Metaljaw]

I run with several people that prefer melee based toons. We rarely run full groups and I am actually currently leveling a stalwart defender 18/2 ftr/rog (only 8/2 now). I have a 39 AC as a first lifer and rarely get hit. My buddy has a 50 AC and almost never gets hit. Maybe this will change. However last life was run with a 12/6/2 monk/ftr/pally who has an 80 AC and stood by and tanked VOD (shortmanned, btw with only 4 players) and needed a total of about 6 heal scrolls cast on him.

Was the raid a challenge (3 people handling trash/orthons was interesting). Heck yeah. Was it fun. H-e-double hockey sticks yeah.

The thing you are not getting is that if you want a challenge then drop down your party size, limit your class allowance (BTW we had not a single healer in that VOD, only people who could scroll heal), or any of the other possible combinations of making a raid more difficult.

If you run along blindly getting the max group size and pushing the easy button every time then don't complain it is too easy. If you are trying to solo a quest on elite/epic don't complain it is too hard because you can't do it on a first life fighter with no UMD healing. (They make hirelings for that too, btw).

Like the previous post said before, DDO is meant to be a party based game and is balanced for parties. With TR's and Epic items there is a definite power creep, yes, but isn't that as intended. If you have a 15 past life toon shouldn't the stuff be too easy for you? I would say start a new toon or move to a different game as you have clearly won DDO (the completionist feat even says that). Or, heaven forbid, put up an LFM stating no TR's. You can tell easily by the wings above their head.

Yeah PM's are stronger now. You know why? Everyone complained before about the repeated wailing of stuff in quests so they made insta-kills not work at all in epics. You know how fun that was? Run-Hold-watch as melee beat on unmoving target-maybe rehold-repeat. Boring as heck for all involved, though the melee classes racked up kill counts for essentially chopping wood and could beat their chests. SO people complained more. Re-insert insta-kills with now PMs knowing how to use circle of death, PWK, energy drain, crushing depair, hypnotism, wail and FOD. It's a debuff and kill instathon. Because we had to learn to.

[Ungood]

This is a nice example of you writing something to my post without bothering to read it.

I never wrote that class has a fixed role, nor would i ever intend to.

Everyone in the party has a spot and a role to fullfill so ALL may succeed.

Really? Well...

it doesnt matter what classsymbol one role has or if one character takes more then one role.

Then, if you want to pander it that way, then you supposedly support that the class symbol be mutually exclusive to what "role" they can play, in that front, you should be by my side in supporting that a Fighter or Barb to have the ability to fill the role of a viable healer just like currently a FvS can be a viable Melee DPS.

Unless of course you don't really hold this stand at all, and still cling to some archaic concept of shoehorning classes into roles and are trying to not sound so obsolete in your game view.

[taurean430]

My very first character I was serious about in this game was a wizard.

I am of the opinion that comparing my experiences running that wizard then as opposed to now, it is much better.

You buff because you want to - not because you can't do much of anything else.

You use crowd controlling spells to enable the team to succeed - not because you can't do much of anything else.

You use your dps spells and wipe them off of the face of the planet spells because you can. And nowhere in the description of the class does it say you exist to merely gift wrap mobs for melee players while spam buffing them.

The gaming experience for the wizard class, my favorite btw, has improved markedly. Since day one here my wizard was viewed in a horrible light, and only allowed in parties to act as a bard does - but with more sp. That's changed as it should have been.

I am now so interested in making my wizard better that he has 3 past lives in that class, and is on life 2/3 in sorcerer. Following that, he'll rack up his fvs/clr lives, one bard life, and perhaps one barbarian life.

That's a 14 life long term build plan. And a hell of a lot work involved to get what I want with him. And if, by that time I still hear first and second life people complaining about the results of the work I put in I'm going to laugh.

[Bargol]

Increase difficulty on epics. Moar contente like e-lob would be fantastic.
Nerf insta kill spells on epic, like it was before when ppl had actually to put lfm's up to do the epic quests. These days i only log on my fvs and implode through the whole quest. =/

What so casters go back to being mass hold one trick ponies? NO WAY!!

[sweez]

What so casters go back to being mass hold one trick ponies? NO WAY!!

Yeah, have to say in my 2 years of playing DDO (yes I'm a newbie) the pre-u9 epics were the most boring part of the game. I fail to see how mass holding everything cept for red names and then woo-wooing them to level 0 was 'challenging'.

[Schwarzie]

Unless of course you don't really hold this stand at all, and still cling to some archaic concept of shoehorning classes into roles and are trying to not sound so obsolete in your game view.

And once again, instead of reading what i write you try to read something between the lines and base the rest of your post on that assumption.
Your post makes me seriously consider that your readying comprehension sills were somewhat overridden by arrogance.

And no, of course im not of your opinion. Its stupid that all classes can do anything. While i agree that its bad to put a class into just one role its not needed that they actually excell at everything. But since were pretty much OT i wont answer here to that topic anymore -> pm if needed.

[Ungood]

And once again, instead of reading what i write you try to read something between the lines and base the rest of your post on that assumption.
Your post makes me seriously consider that your readying comprehension sills were somewhat overridden by arrogance.

I would respond to you in kind. but as it stands, it seems you have totally removed yourself from anything I originally said and are now talking about something else entirely. I don't see anything further to discuss.