Let's Talk: Enhancements!

[Aelonwy]

Yes, its a restriction. The system involves changing the nature of the restrictions. Multiclass characters are getting access to capstone grade PrEs through the racial favorites and the number of enhancements available cheaply and at low levels looks to be increasing. Further, more abilities are going to stack. But... now you are restricted to 3 "theme sets" of abilities instead of the mix & match chaos.

if your bardbarian is human, helf, or horc, he would have the option of getting higher powered barb abilities through the racial PrC.

But... BUT... I enjoyed the mix & match, which i never considered chaos... I always considered it more freedom. A hallmark of this game. I'm against the stacking, personally. I understand that some ppl are going to make the most out of the stacking that they can and hopefully this demonstrates any "brokeness" in the system on Lamania. Also and for the record, even as an absolutely brand-new player to this game I never once found the enhancment system confusing, or clunky, or any other negative monicker.

You may enjoy the relaxing of restrictions that enable you to power-up your character more by gaining restrictions that force less versitality and more focus, however, not everyone plays to have the most uber, powerful, absolute best combination. Many play characters that are all about versitality, jack-of-all trades, flavor, RP, self-reliance. Three trees doesn't seem like its going to quite cut it for this portion of the player base.

[azrael4h]

Core class abilities should not be defined by PrEs; the PrEs may enhance those abilities, but all in all those core class abilities are what MAKES a class what it is.

The mockup above with a "general" section seems to be the most elegant. It's not like those abilities are forced to not count towards various PrEs, nor are they very many (unless you're an arcane).

But by forcing players to take Deepwood Sniper on a Tempest instead of their more useful Racial and AA, thus losing out on a core class ability; may as well remove Rangers from the game. They're falling further behind. They LOSE DPS that should be common across the board, whether you have a no-PrE Ranger, a Deepwood Sniper, or a Tempest.

Paladin - Aura, turn undead, basic smiting, LoH

Fighter - Boosts (Haste), tactics

Barbarian - Rage

Ranger - Favored Enemy

Divine or Arcane casters - spell damage lines

Bards - basic song enhancements and magic line

Monks - basic elemental stances

As it is, I can point out my Sorcerer will simply be deleted if this comes to fruition without change; I am not going from 4 damage types (currently 7/1/1 on Fire and Cold, max Air, and a bunch in Force) to 2 or 3. If each Savant line gets the appropriate damage line, congratulations! You've eliminated Acolyte of the skin (or whatever it's called) from ever being a contender, AND killed off more well-rounded Sorcerers!

My Bard relies on several low-level Rogue and Fighter enhancements to boost her combat abilities, 16/2/2 build. Haste boost, Fighter STR, Trap Senses, SA damage line. What is probably the most common splash in the game outside of 18/2 Rogue splashes is now dead. Two characters out of 6 down.

My second FvS, which I craft on and play with my brother so he has a competent divine backing him, has two Monk levels planned, and is taking small enhancements there as well, but would be taking Tempest, DV, and possibly AoV as well. Guess he'll need to find another "healer" then, three down. And you've lost another customer, since he doesn't play with anyone else, and won't be buying stuff he can't play.

Half my characters will be deleted by removing core class abilities from their enhancements and shoe-horning them into locked lines I do not want to lock into.

[Riggs]

Stacking example.

Baseline - Tier 1 whatever melee thingy adds some damage to your attacks. Lets say Kensai/Tempest/Assasssin 1.

Tier 2? Adds some more damage.

Tier 3, more damage, an extra bonus on top too. Maybe a crit bonus.

Capstone - another bonus.

Result? Assuming lines are not front loaded to be uber at tier 1 - taking a tier 3 line and taking three tier 1 lines should not be all that overwhelmingly different in dps, or casting, or whatever the idea is to make one massively overpowered over another.

The problem - that is assuming everything is damage adders. +1d6/2d6/3d6 or some equivalent. If anything becomes multipliers - then stacking those becomes a huge issue.

I read a 3.5 edition weird prestige class 'ultimate damage build' once. http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Ultimat...acter_Build%29

I think I also saw one that had druid levels and other size bonuses - but basically stacking size bonuses and base damage levels meant a stupidly OP 12d8 fist attack. Twelve dice in D&D terms - which in DDO power creep land would be the equivalent to a monk doing like 8d20 damage per attack.

DDO? FB 3 + ravager 3 + esos + some kind of racial damage bonus.

Imagine a 5d6 weapon that crits on a 12 or better for x3 damage, and on a 19-20 does x7 damage AND has some kind of base 10d6 on each and every attack and glancing blow.

So one in every 2.2 swings will be doing 300-400 damage(as opposed to 1 in 4 now), plus one in 10 swings will do the usual 700-800 damage, plus every single attack doing bonus damage equal to or greater than what most classes can do on a normal hit.

Stacking defender multiplication bonuses like hp(x)(%) and damage reduction (x)(%) and stacking AC bonuses will also be silly. Imagine what will happen to monsters damage when someone finds a 60% damage reduction 1300 hp build? Boom Epic dark monks doing 1500 damage crits with stunning blow and wind stance doublestrike - goodbye anyone with 'just' 500 hp and under 100 ac and missing at least 35% damage reduction.

Stacking is bad M'kay?

[Vormaerin]

You may enjoy the relaxing of restrictions that enable you to power-up your character more by gaining restrictions that force less versitality and more focus, however, not everyone plays to have the most uber, powerful, absolute best combination. Many play characters that are all about versitality, jack-of-all trades, flavor, RP, self-reliance. Three trees doesn't seem like its going to quite cut it for this portion of the player base.

yay! straw man!

Who said anything about power gamer builds or ultra specialization? The example that MadFloyd and Eladrin gave show a great deal MORE flexibility overall. More abilities are available with less commitment to a particular class. There were more class enhancement/level breakpoints, so you aren't as forced into 12/6 type characters. Overall, enhancements are going to be cheaper and have fewer garbage requisites, so you can do more things you actually want to do.

You can still do mix and match, but its going to be a different kind of mix and match. Multiclassing is still mainly about the class abilities, especially splashes (which don't get a whole lot of enhancement opportunities as it is).

I'm trying to think of a lvl 1 or 2 enhancement that is a big "flavor" choice or crippling not to have. They are very few, if any exist as all. Action boosts are the closest thing to that. But if its that important to you, take the tree.

[Phemt81]

While we are talking about improving enhancements, anyone agrees that it should not get your toon stuck when you click an enhancement already in use or cooling down?

I don't think it's WAI, and if it is, it is too much of a punishment to get your character hold just when you press the wrong button.

[Vormaerin]

Stacking is bad M'kay?

Pulling hypothetical examples out of your nether regions is bad, m'kay?

We haven't the faintest idea how these abilities will work. The DoS/SD example is especially ludicrous, because the hp comes from stances. Eladrin has already indicated you won't be able to be in two stances at once, any more than you can right now.

We don't even know what the Ravager does or whether it requires anything special. Maybe FB & Ravager work hand in fist, but its just as likely that you'll have two different kinds of 'super rage' that can't be used at the same time.

When Eladrin is talking about stacking, he's talking about things like +1 Str, or +2 to Spot, or other things like that. Its perfectly reasonable that one way they'll resolve the class stat bonus thing is to put a +1 Stat in each tree, so you can get 3 total (just like now).

In that scenario, its not a big deal that Fighter Strength and Barb Str stack. You'll still only get +1 Str per tree.

Stacking isn't intrinsically bad. It could be done in a bad way, but its quite easy to avoid glaring mistakes like that.

[Orazur]

What about trying to set some rules about PrE, multiclassing, class level limitation, capstone, etc.?

Because right now we are trying work on a complete reform of the enhancement system that will bring tremendous changes to the character building and planning. So what about trying first to see what limitations we want to keep or remove to allow more freedom in builging our toons and maximizing the number of possible build while keeping all of them within some balance of power... Every build, be it pure class, multiclass, class following one PrE, class following more PrE, multiclass following several Pre, ..., should have its pro and cons!

Currently:
- Characters can multiclass with a maximum of 3 different classes.
- Characters can have only 1 PrE line.
- Characters get tier 1 of PrE at lvl 6, tier 2 at lvl 12 and tier 3 at lvl 18 (lvl as in lvl of specific class).
- Level 20 characters with only one class get access to capstone enhancement.
- PrE are accessible with either class or race prerequists + other feats/enhancements prerequists.
- Enhancements all require minimum lvl and minimum enhancement points spent.
- ... [will add here if you see more things to add]

Things to know or to keep in mind:
- We are aiming to allow more versatile builds to come to existance.
- We are trying to get to a multiple tree based enhancement system.
- We do not want to allow over powered build to come into existence.
- The new system should aim to be as evolutive as possible.
- Multiclassing with even only 1 level of class already brings many advantages of that class (weapon/armor/shield proficiencies, casting ability, wand/scroll using ability, sneak attack, monk stances, chanting, etc.)
- ... [will add here if you see more things to add]

Of course some of the points above are my own opinions but i think they are pretty faire and logical... So now lets try to finnish this basis and think on how to change it properly. First lets see what limitations we want to keep/remove/add, then try to see how that could be computed as a tree based system.

Here are some of my own ideas:
- Keep the multiclassing limit of 3 classes
- Raise the limit of PrE one can follow to 3.
- Create a limit on the TOTAL number of tiers of PrE one can have, for example 4 tiers of PrE should be enough
(meaning one could have 1 PrE of tier 3 and one of tier 1 or 2 PrE of tier 2 or even 1 PrE of tier 2 and 2 of tier 1)
- Keep minimum levels for tiers of PrE and keep them class based (or prerequists should at least be abilities/skills) but lower them according to the total number of tiers accessible
(for example, with 4 total tiers, lvl 5 for tier 1, lvl 10 for tier 2 and lvl 15 for tier 3... for a total of 5, it would be 4, 8, 12,...)
- Keep the fact that capstone enhancement can only be achievable at level 20 of pure class build.
- For the rest (minimu of spent points, minimum levels, other requirements, etc.) it should be seen case by case.

Now for the tree based system, these ideas imply a few things that could be set up in different ways... here are my own (wich might have been already stated by others) about it:
- One automatically has access to a tree for his race enhancements
- One automatically has access to a tree for each of his classes (up to 3) with the most common enhancements aspect of that class (still has to decide what)
- One can chose up to 3 three of PrE from those that are acceccible to him. (total tiers limit apply)
- One get access to all PrE trees associated with his class when he reaches the minimum level for tier 1 unless access is restricted* (see further)
- One get access to the PrE tree of his race once he reaches the minimum level for tier 1 and meet basic requirements
- Basic requirements for race PrE trees shoulb be easy to get (still has to decide what)
- Some feat/class ability/PrE choice can prevent access to a PrE tree (for example, Monk Ninja Spy and Shintao Monk cannot be taken together)

(*Note here we only see access restriction and minimum level, but no other requirements... on the oposite of race PrE)

- A general

[Aelonwy]

yay! straw man!

Who said anything about power gamer builds or ultra specialization?

I did not mean to imply that you were a powergamer, and I do not believe I used that term. However, from your debate with Orazur you seemed to be saying that you were in favor of less level restrictions on enhancements which would allow for more focus or indepth investment but against more trees with shallow investment because of level restrictions. In this sense we are changing one set of restrictions for another. This new set of restrictions discourages the freedom of choice we previously enjoyed on versatile, flavor-type builds.

If this is an incorrect assessment of your point of view I apologize please clarify for me what I am missing.

[HarveyMilk]

Stacking isn't intrinsically bad. It could be done in a bad way, but its quite easy to avoid glaring mistakes like that.

QFT. We don't need to complicate the whole system with some kind of "enhancements don't stack with themselves!" rule. That just makes the coding and building more wonky.

The devil is in the details people. It comes down to where in the tree you put the stat/DC boosters/goodies and how well you balance the trees.

I can't wait for this change. And I think the racial tree separated from the 3 class-based PrE's is a great idea.

[Zargarx]

no.

For all the things that need a major overhaul, why this?

This game is well established, making such a large change does not seem like a good idea.
Some tweaks to enhancements as has been mentioned is a good idea. Making some changes in the background to make it easier to add/expand prestige classes, sure. Some subtle improvements to the UI also would be nice. (e.g. always show available prestige for class/race/level with tool tips)

Also, in many cases prestige defines the spirit of the character - warchanter, spellsinger, deepwood sniper, etc. they mean something (good or bad). But if everyone has multiple prestiges (instead of the rare few), it will diminish this significantly.
I was very excited to hear there would be several new prestiges this year (hopefully up to at least Tier 2), but this proposed new enhancements system instead fills me with dread.

Please consider enhancing the existing system instead of this tree system.

(as always, IMHO)

[kingfisher]

Only thing I can think of that would be a limiter for this would be stacking enhancements. Say barb18/fighter2. 6 PRE's + 1 racial PRE. Take ravager STR3, frenzy CON1, occult CON1, kensai STR1, stalwart CON1, PDK STR1, racial pre stat+3.

Vordax

I supsect the reason lies in stacking enhancements and synergies between PrEs.

A three class multi + racial could concievably have LOTS of toughness enhancements for example if you were not limited to 3 + racial base branch (which lol still will be fairly crazy in all likelyhood).

The PrE combo's are more along the lines of tons of different stage one PrE's which are front loaded.

stacking is an issue sure but its an issue they deal with already, and easily, just dont let them stack.

Limiting the trees prevents useless screen space in trees that have nothing in them or possibly too many low level AP stacking for better effect than high level enhancements if they are moving away from that type of issue. 3 trees for all also provides consistency in character creation and development for players who might be newer.

That would be 3 reasons.

Why should some players be allowed only 3 trees while other can get 9 in the first place?

useless screen space? useless to who? anyway if you have an enhancement tab on your char sheet that also has 3 tabs (racial, class, pre) you would never look at more than three trees, as the mock suggested. not sure how this effects anyone except those who open it.

what do the enhancement trees have to do with character creation?

not sure 7 trees would be harder for a new player than 4. if they only have 1 class they only have 4 anyway.

no player is allowed more trees than another, it just the classes they took. totally up tot he player. if you dont spend any points on a tab (which would be the case for almost every build) you never even open it anyway. but you CAN, which is the whole point of "more choices" no?

[TheGish]

Oversimplification by way of dummy-proof trees feels like the WoWification of D&D. I have 2 wizard characters that have no PrE selected whatsoever because they don't fit the build and I can't fit the feats. Why would I be forced to send them down one of those paths just to take the damage enhancements? Why can't we just have a plain "Wizard" tree if we don't want a PrE?

I play DDO because it allows the greatest degree of character customization with enhancements and multiclassing than any other MMO I've seen or played. The enhancement trees feel like a step... no, a giant leap... away from that. If I wanted to play a game where the designers dictated how I play my character, I'd play WoW. If I wanted 4th edition D&D, I'd wait for whatever junk Cryptic is working on next.

Sometimes it's good to do what the competition does. This isn't one of those times.

[Feithlin]

The problem I see with your model is that there won't be enough action points to use the 10/20/30/41 points model for prestige levels and capstone, whereas if the general is broken out into each tree the new model works.

i.e. with the MF model you could do tempest III + capstone for 41 points, 9 points into racial and 30 points in kensai III.

With the "general" idea, you now have to take points out of the trees and put them into the general, so you would no longer be able to get to get 2 pre's to tier 3.

In the "general" box, you would put the points you want for some abilities. You can't have it all: gaining something the others don't have implies some loss.
Unless you're a drow (using your racial PrE), you won't be able to be Tempest III & Kensei III. There are still level requirements ofc ... And if you want, you could still with the general box: you would only have to choose to loose some benefits for some others (in the trees) you feel better.
There needs to be some restrictions to not make a few builds better than all others: this would be the true loss of liberty.

[Feithlin]

Oversimplification by way of dummy-proof trees feels like the WoWification of D&D. I have 2 wizard characters that have no PrE selected whatsoever because they don't fit the build and I can't fit the feats. Why would I be forced to send them down one of those paths just to take the damage enhancements? Why can't we just have a plain "Wizard" tree if we don't want a PrE?

I play DDO because it allows the greatest degree of character customization with enhancements and multiclassing than any other MMO I've seen or played. The enhancement trees feel like a step... no, a giant leap... away from that. If I wanted to play a game where the designers dictated how I play my character, I'd play WoW. If I wanted 4th edition D&D, I'd wait for whatever junk Cryptic is working on next.

Sometimes it's good to do what the competition does. This isn't one of those times.

Nobody forces you to take a PrE. You put your points where you want. What's the problem if it's in a tree called "Warchanter" or in a tree called "Lost in the Void". It doesn't change anything...

[Riggs]

Pulling hypothetical examples out of your nether regions is bad, m'kay?

We haven't the faintest idea how these abilities will work. The DoS/SD example is especially ludicrous, because the hp comes from stances. Eladrin has already indicated you won't be able to be in two stances at once, any more than you can right now.

We don't even know what the Ravager does or whether it requires anything special. Maybe FB & Ravager work hand in fist, but its just as likely that you'll have two different kinds of 'super rage' that can't be used at the same time.

When Eladrin is talking about stacking, he's talking about things like +1 Str, or +2 to Spot, or other things like that. Its perfectly reasonable that one way they'll resolve the class stat bonus thing is to put a +1 Stat in each tree, so you can get 3 total (just like now).

In that scenario, its not a big deal that Fighter Strength and Barb Str stack. You'll still only get +1 Str per tree.

Stacking isn't intrinsically bad. It could be done in a bad way, but its quite easy to avoid glaring mistakes like that.

What is hypothetical about 1. FB current get crit multipliers, and 2. ravager has already been hinted at adding the old crit rage bonus - probably even better with 3 tiers.

You cant multiply two numbers together and realize that is a bigger number than should be happening?

Maybe every single pre will be only unlock every single bonus ONLY in a stance. Maybe it wont. No news is bad news. And every pre now has static bonuses on top of any stances. Making up new rages would be extra work - adding extra bonuses to existing rage would be simpler - so what scenario is more likely atm?

You missing the point of early feedback already? Stacking as a cautionary tale is feedback. Every single powergamer in the game is going to be madly looking for just said stacking bonuses the minute the change goes live - how about heading off stupidly overpowered combos now? Rather than 6 months after it goes live?

"When Eladrin is talking about stacking..." Since we only have a tiny bit of information you dont actually know everything he is thinking now do you? Claiming otherwise is just egotistical.

In fact - having only a couple pieces of information out of a hundred possible ones (or 50, or 250) I actually feel free to overreact all I want until more information comes out. Because 'wait and see' doesnt grease the wheel - squeaky wheels get the grease.

[Drona]

You may enjoy the relaxing of restrictions that enable you to power-up your character more by gaining restrictions that force less versitality and more focus, however, not everyone plays to have the most uber, powerful, absolute best combination. Many play characters that are all about versitality, jack-of-all trades, flavor, RP, self-reliance. Three trees doesn't seem like its going to quite cut it for this portion of the player base.

Well this is what me and other peeps are shouting in this thread:

Stay pure : absolute best combination.

Multi-class: versitality, jack-of-all trades, flavor, RP, self-reliance.

I really hope the new changes stick to the above.

I am NOT against multi-classing, I just dont want to be a laughing stock when I join a shroud with my pure toon.

[Qhualor]

lol, im late for the party. i just found this thread today and heard about it yesterday. i just couldnt keep reading what everybody has said in the past 80+ pages, so im probably gonna be redundant and put in my 2 cents because PREs is a subject that all of us would like to see improved.

my biggest fear with this major overhaul is that i dont want to log into my kensei fighter after the change and find the pre broken, or only tier 1 works or anything else with the pre. i ask that this pre change is thoroughly thought out and working as intended before releasing it.

it seems with this tree structure, it opens the door for raising the cap. im a big fan of that and, aside from the obvious like more quests added, im excited that there could be more uniqueness and flexibility with builds. i also read that there could be more balance with builds, which a lot of us really would like to see.

capstones are great to have, but only if you build a toon that will actually benefit from it. that is why my tempest ranger has 2 levels of fighter because he uses a bow in certain situations and the capstone doesnt really benefit him much. have multi class builds have access to a capstone is a great idea, but hopefully, there could be capstones that actually benefit specific builds and not like only having to decide for that specific class like ranger multi class could choose fighter capstone.

because of this tree, i feel like pure builds could become less desired and mix builds would be the flavor of most. i would suggest a pure build and multi class build have their pros and cons, but neither is more overpowered than the other. human diversibility recent change was a good step forward. leave it in the hands of the creator to make them as powerful, but not game breaking, as they want them to be.

options in enhancements would be great. ive had to take certain required enhancements that i probably wouldnt have taken if given the option to choose something else. this would allow a bit more flexibility for us and still be able to create a toon we like without having to take enhancements we really dont care about, but its required for that pre we want.

i know i probably repeated what others have said, but theres just too many pages to read.

[Riggs]

yay! straw man!

Who said anything about power gamer builds or ultra specialization? The example that MadFloyd and Eladrin gave show a great deal MORE flexibility overall. More abilities are available with less commitment to a particular class. There were more class enhancement/level breakpoints, so you aren't as forced into 12/6 type characters. Overall, enhancements are going to be cheaper and have fewer garbage requisites, so you can do more things you actually want to do.

You can still do mix and match, but its going to be a different kind of mix and match. Multiclassing is still mainly about the class abilities, especially splashes (which don't get a whole lot of enhancement opportunities as it is).

I'm trying to think of a lvl 1 or 2 enhancement that is a big "flavor" choice or crippling not to have. They are very few, if any exist as all. Action boosts are the closest thing to that. But if its that important to you, take the tree.

Many people are saying something about power gamers. Who are going to be the first ones to game the system in any way it can be gamed the day of the release.

Anything that stacks that is useful becomes exponentially more useful the more of it you can take (healing amp formula anyone?).

Any scenario that results in dual tier 3 lines is going to have a huge chance of leading to imbalance in the game. Being oblivious to the negative effect the current amount of stacking bonuses are having on the game leads one to believe you enjoy using those to your benefit - or you are unaware of them.

[Entelech]

So...

The big question I have is this:

Will I be able to have my character build work the same way he did before you did all this restructuring?

If yes: Proceed.

If no: Whoa!

I think that sums up pretty much everyone's concerns.



Also, I am opposed, on general principles, to *anything* that makes this game more like <That other MMO we don't talk about here>.

Attempting to dumb down DDO to something more like <That well-known MMO whose name is usually shortened to an expostulation like "Gosh!" or "Yikes!"> skill trees will kill much of what makes DDO unique and interesting. Do not try to be just like <that MMO>, because if you do, your players will go play <that MMO>.

[Vormaerin]

What is hypothetical about 1. FB current get crit multipliers, and 2. ravager has already been hinted at adding the old crit rage bonus - probably even better with 3 tiers.

You cant multiply two numbers together and realize that is a bigger number than should be happening?

What is hypothetical about it is that its clear from the Tempest example that the whole design of the PrEs is going to be different, so you don't actually know what the bonuses will look like. What's also clear is that you won't be able to max two tabs even if you completely ignore the other two.

Yes, Eladrin said something about maybe making the crit rage ability part of the ravager capstone. He also said that they were looking at eliminating some of the restrictions on identical abilities from different classes stacking, such as Barbarian Intimidate and Fighter Intimidate.

While that would also apply to Str, there is nothing to indicate that it would mean there was more strength bonuses available than before. For example, the design I described would give exactly the same Str bonuses whether you were fighter, barbarian, or fighter/barbarian.

Feed back is fine. But feedback at this stage ought to be more like "If you are going to with stacking, you need to make sure it doesn't have multiplicative effects." Not "Stacking is bad, m'kay". Because stacking isn't intrinsically better or worse than non stacking. I could give out OP non stacking abilities just as easily as I give out weak abilities with OP combination effects. Or, they could just design things sensibly.