DDO end of an era and some thoughts

[Illiamfryn]

Hello all. I am not sure if this post is going to take negative comments, but clearly i state that this is not my intention. It is just my personal opinion and would like to share it with you all.

As I see it DDO is taking a great turn hoping for the best, but unfortunately i see things getting worse. Although melees must get some love the solution is not to nerf casters. It seems to me like going back to the past days of the game long over.

As i see it before going to implement new things such as areas,quests and more, certain things which affect game mechanics must be clear and well established. Now, about 20 days before the expansion all things seem blur to me. The whole thing changes, build will change severely, AC changes (and should be), to-hit changes, things become more complex relatively to gameplay and we do not know very important things tied with classes and races and that is nothing else than enhancements.

I know you have postponed them but it seems to me that you are eager to make changes without plan. How can people provide feedback and no doom when they know that the status quo changes on 25th of June and the other half of tha game will change on August! I mean you even "designed" a new class and its enhancements for 2 months!!

I think this is serious and cynic. Even if we want to provide feedback isn't it a loss of time when basic things are not yet implemented? I mean enhancements come first before epic levels and all these things. When heroic levels are well established you can move on. With all these changes you admit that all these years were problematic concerning 1-20. Since you decide to make changes, and most people want changes for good reason, maybe you should have firstly focused to these levels and then to epic destinies and other things.

Sorry for the long post and criticism but i am feeling that future in game is really foggy. If other people share my point of view we can discuss here. If you disagree we can discuss as well but please be polite.
Thanks

[ThreeEyedBob]

I would say it a bit different than you...

DDO End of an era, and the beginning of a new one.

Sure, some people will ragequit. But a lot of us will love the changes and the new ways to tweak and tinker our characters.

From what I have seen on the beta forums, Turbine is working hard to make the classes fit into the new framework without taking much away in terms of viability. Sure, some multiclass builds will have to be reworked or will probably not be viable any more. But personaly I remain confident that Turbine will see to it that we can change our characters into a working build. Offcourse it sucks on a personal level if you have invested a lot of time and emotion into a special character and build, and then see it changed fundamentaly. But my advice is to roll with it, adapt and you will likely find your character as lovable as ever :-)

My recommendation to Turbine would be to give out a free Heart of Wood +X to each account that buys the expansion in order for people to rework their favourite character.

[Voldomar]

I know you have postponed them but it seems to me that you are eager to make changes without plan. How can people provide feedback and no doom when they know that the status quo changes on 25th of June and the other half of tha game will change on August! I mean you even "designed" a new class and its enhancements for 2 months!!

I think this is serious and cynic. Even if we want to provide feedback isn't it a loss of time when basic things are not yet implemented? I mean enhancements come first before epic levels and all these things. When heroic levels are well established you can move on. With all these changes you admit that all these years were problematic concerning 1-20. Since you decide to make changes, and most people want changes for good reason, maybe you should have firstly focused to these levels and then to epic destinies and other things.

+1 as soon as I can

[Rizzyn]

As i see it before going to implement new things such as areas,quests and more, certain things which affect game mechanics must be clear and well established. Now, about 20 days before the expansion all things seem blur to me. The whole thing changes, build will change severely, AC changes (and should be), to-hit changes, things become more complex relatively to gameplay and we do not know very important things tied with classes and races and that is nothing else than enhancements.

I know you have postponed them but it seems to me that you are eager to make changes without plan. How can people provide feedback and no doom when they know that the status quo changes on 25th of June and the other half of tha game will change on August! I mean you even "designed" a new class and its enhancements for 2 months!!

Just an aside; The Devs and others do much of their testing unseen. There was the closed Beta on Lamannia, but even that was after the Mournlands test. They have already been testing for months on the Mournlands server, which is always closed. Each wave of Beta introduced not only a new build, but a set of fixed problems, and possibly some other bugs they overlooked or already had fixed in the next build. The Open Beta serves as a final sweep for issues. I can assure you, they have a plan, and it has been cooking for quite some time unseen by most of us. Lamannia is not, and never has been, their primary testing server. It has been a chance for people to see new content early, and to file Bugs on quests and small items that might have been overlooked as even the best development and testing team won't see all things and all iterations.

[Miow]

Boss we can only hope really that things work out...let's try and keep the hope alive for the best and wait n see.

Peace

[donblas]

Sure, some multiclass builds will have to be reworked or will probably not be viable any more. But personaly I remain confident that Turbine will see to it that we can change our characters into a working build. Offcourse it sucks on a personal level if you have invested a lot of time and emotion into a special character and build, and then see it changed fundamentaly. But my advice is to roll with it, adapt and you will likely find your character as lovable as ever :-)

My recommendation to Turbine would be to give out a free Heart of Wood +X to each account that buys the expansion in order for people to rework their favourite character.

I like your positive attitude (it contrasts with mine a little )

But no matter how many hearts of wood Turbine gives, how can I change an armored archmage with sword, shield and longbow, who is hit only on 19 and 20 (in the new system it will be hit four times as often) into anything else useful? I could change it into a robe wearing archmage but I have one of those and don't want anything similar. The armored elven arcane caster is an old fantasy and D&D trope that should be encouraged, not eliminated.

Then take monk splashed rangers. I could of course reincarnate as a pure ranger but I have more than enough of those. I bought monk purely for splashing but that's pointless now. The same with my monk splashed paladin and arti.

That's six of my toons that won't really be worth while using and that I can see no way to fix beyond making something cookie cutter that I already have. It's hard to lift the d000000000000000m1!

[Illiamfryn]

I really thank all posters for stating their thoughts and keeping the discussion civilized. I like changes and i am convinced that some things should have changed long ago. It is just that all seems like the dust after a huge earthquake which has destroyed buildings and some are left standing...Don't know maybe i am a bit pesimistic...

[eris2323]

I would say it a bit different than you...

My recommendation to Turbine would be to give out a free Heart of Wood +X to each account that buys the expansion in order for people to rework their favourite character.

Mine would be both a free lesser heart +5, AND a true heart, for those who bought the expansion.

Everyone who did not buy the expansion deservers at least a lesser heart +5, to deal with the changes to the classes.

Since they're totally destroying endgame for casters.

Why should I pay even more money, or time, to tr my class that is now useless in any epic content higher than normal? I paid for the expansion, not knowing there was a plan to return to the days of 'hold-and-beatdowns' and 'wizards are buffbots'. The least you could do is give me a free TR to change into a class that might actually get accepted into higher level epics.

[WurmBurned]

I see the game turning in a direction that limits character variation in an effort to ease the difficulty of balancing content. The AC change will push players into middling numbers thanks to an early plateau and punish any further investment beyond the standard. Immunities and wards have been changed in an effort to limit player tactics to a narrower band of what’s been deemed acceptable and more strategies will either work on everything or nothing at all. Epic feats have had their requirements raised from PnP to further discourage taking more than 2 levels in a secondary class and some older feats seemed to have been changed with this in mind as well. Boosts to spell damage have been normalized and the level of a spell is no longer relevant when receiving a spell boost from items.

I see the game turning in a direction that limits the player’s choice in gear selection. The bonuses on some older items have been reworked in a way that makes them easier to obsolete. Useful lower level gear seems to be treated as an issue to be addressed rather than a virtue of the game. Newer items see to be much more targeted towards specific builds rather than useful to wide variety of builds. While I’m beginning to feel that all valid characters will begin to play in a more and more similar way, the stats required for spellcasters, armored melee, and monks to do the same things will remain different for the foreseeable future and I see things moving toward equipping latest gear sets from the newest content with very little thought given to the tradeoffs.

In short, I feel that the majority of things that I’ve come to enjoy about this game are being stripped in an effort to make it more appealing to people whose tastes are already well catered to. I’ll probably be taking a break after MoTU is released and I may not be coming back if my suspicions are correct.

[CheeseMilk]

I can see no way to fix beyond making something cookie cutter

There are no cookie cutters any more.

We're all baking brownies now, and the recipe is smudged.

And I'm all for it.

[Masadique]

There are no cookie cutters any more.

We're all baking brownies now, and the recipe is smudged.

And I'm all for it.

That was awesome +1.

We finally have a time when anything is acceptable, I mean who is going to be able to call someone a noob when we don't know what is good yet?, and all builds should be tried. It's going to be awesome!

[irivan]

There are no cookie cutters any more.

We're all baking brownies now, and the recipe is smudged.

And I'm all for it.

Wow, delirious much?

Good luck finding a competent Wizard for your group, there are only so many of me to go around, the rest of them are out.

[CheeseMilk]

Wow, delirious much?

Good luck finding a competent Wizard for your group, there are only so many of me to go around, the rest of them are out.

If my happiness with my perception of the new direction of the game is delusional, well, I prefer that to the "of grandeur" type.

I think the only Era ending here is an era of elitism.

[danotmano1998]

My recommendation to Turbine would be to give out a free Heart of Wood +X to each account that buys the expansion in order for people to rework their favourite character.

This was promised by a notable dev. I'd link it, but those forums went away. Keep the hope!

[Dolphious]

I would say it a bit different than you...

DDO End of an era, and the beginning of a new one.

Sure, some people will ragequit. But a lot of us will love the changes and the new ways to tweak and tinker our characters.

From what I have seen on the beta forums, Turbine is working hard to make the classes fit into the new framework without taking much away in terms of viability. Sure, some multiclass builds will have to be reworked or will probably not be viable any more. But personaly I remain confident that Turbine will see to it that we can change our characters into a working build. Offcourse it sucks on a personal level if you have invested a lot of time and emotion into a special character and build, and then see it changed fundamentaly. But my advice is to roll with it, adapt and you will likely find your character as lovable as ever :-)

My recommendation to Turbine would be to give out a free Heart of Wood +X to each account that buys the expansion in order for people to rework their favourite character.

This.

Lots of big changes. Sure there's some chance that it will kill the game, but just letting all the old problems fester would have definitely killed the game.

The Devs have also been really responsive to player feedback in the close form. I'm sure thy'll continue to be so.

I'll probably be completely rerolling 3/4 of my main toons, and and TRing the fourth with significant changes. But instead of being upset about it I'm excited about the new characters I'm going to get to mold.

[Dolphious]

Wow, delirious much?

Good luck finding a competent Wizard for your group, there are only so many of me to go around, the rest of them are out.

Hold on, so are wizards getting nerfed to the point that everyone is going to rage TR into a rangers, or are they so uber that you can't complete a quest without one?

I'm trying to keep track of all the DooOOooM logic, but I'm running out of tin foil.

[Ganak]

Change happens and there have been many era's in DDO, and the game goes on.

Change and resistance to change are inevitable.


Be like water.

[Kakashi67]

Change happens and there have been many era's in DDO, and the game goes on.

Change and resistance to change are inevitable.


Be like water.

Water freezes.

[azmodeus1]

im just waiting to see what goes live, then adapt as needed. no point getting all worked up about it.

[Zammied]

Water freezes.

heh, +1