Why Now?

[Eladiun]

I'm just wondering the thought process on why this massive nerf fest was saved for the open beta. None of this was mentioned during the Closed Beta and I was quite pleased with the back and forth interaction and compromises achieved. This zero hour bomb seems counter productive and a slap in the face to everyone who participated.

[eris2323]

Probably because they knew that no one would be able to restrain themselves even with an NDA.

And they wanted to avoid the outrage until as long as possible.

[Eladiun]

Leaving themselves two weeks of "testing"...this is gonna be a good one. Maybe I'll start falling through the ceiling after this releases.

[Grace_ana]

I have to agree with this completely.

Look, I am not a doooOOOOOooooooMMMMM person. I started f2p, bought points, bought content, bought more points and content and everything I could get my hands on, and eventually went VIP. I shrug when there are changes I dislike, because usually they are balanced with stuff I like and they aren't game-breaking for me, even if they are significantly game-changing. I generally appreciate the communication from the devs, and I generally think they are doing the best they can.

That being said, the open beta notes are the fist time I have paused and thought, "I'm not so sure I want to play the expansion and keep paying." I was planning the day before to buy a stack of points for a few things and the expansion for my son; this is the first time I've pulled back and thought that I'm not so sure I want to do that anymore.

I really love DDO. I haven't played as long as some, but it's been several years and I have 13 toons of various classes. I see the classes I love playing most - rogue, monk, cleric - being screwed into oblivion by changes that make no sense in the context of the classes or the game. I see no real explanation from the devs. And as Eladiun said, I have serious qualms with it being saved for the open beta just a couple weeks before release and not tested earlier. It looks like the devs are saying, "Oh, this stuff is going to be what causes the most angst and what we aren't willing to change, so let's shove it in last and when there is no time to fix it or take feedback." Whether or not that is truly the case is impossible for us to say, because we didn't and are not getting the explanations and back and forth that we got during the closed beta.

As I said, I am not a doomer, and I rarely criticize dev decisions outright. But if actions and notes make me of all people consider stop shuttling money to Turbine and not want an expansion or more playtime, you'll have to take my word that is a pretty serious reaction. And while I won't be one of those people that will predict everyone will do the same, I do think that these actions showed a truly bad faith effort with the players. It was a stab in the back, and there was no excuse for it.

To fix it, I want to see explanations, communication, and willingness to listen and change on the level I saw in the closed beta. I strongly suggest the devs not lose every bit of goodwill they gained.

[karpedieme]

Agreed with OP

With the closed Beta there was great changes of heart on both sides of the table.

Some resiliency to changes became more welcome changes and the evolution of DDO was more clear.

After some good compromises and whole-hearted discussions on closed NDA Beta, compromises were achieved with relative balance, now this steel-handed move....

Turbine showed a lot of openeness to its community in the closed beta. To have this bomb dropped after a lot of already fundamental changes the community had to absorb and process this seems a little underhanded now with such short notice too.

[Galeria]

I see two possibilities...

1.) They were afraid of the backlash, which is silly.
Backlash will happen no matter when these changes were released. Being upfront with them and discussing why and how would have garnered more goodwill and consideration from most, even if they still hated the move. It would have shown good faith.

2.) They just decided to do this in the past few days. Which is even more frightening.

[krackythehoodedone]

I'm sorry Eladiun i'm really struggling with your post.

The only Nerf i can see is to Casters and lets be quite honest we all knew it was coming.

LFM's advertising for Blue Bars only. The forums awash with OP Caster threads.

Casters have been in ascendancy for over a year

As far as i'm concerned the jury is out re AC/Dodge/Damage Resistance & the SP system

Theirs a whole heap of new items and abilities and content even a new class

I suppose Turbine are very much caught between a rock and a hard place. Whenever they try and change for the better its bound to cause discontent from some.

And that some are usually the ''old guard'' who frequent these forums (i'm one of them btw)

You know it almost makes me feel sorry for Turbine..Then ofc i come to my senses

[danotmano1998]

I see two possibilities...

1.) They were afraid of the backlash, which is silly.
Backlash will happen no matter when these changes were released. Being upfront with them and discussing why and how would have garnered more goodwill and consideration from most, even if they still hated the move. It would have shown good faith.

2.) They just decided to do this in the past few days. Which is even more frightening.

My thoughts exactly.. Feels like they had a loaded deck the whole time, but kept it hidden. I am so discouraged by this.

Here's another possibility...

3.) They didn't know this was coming until their boss slapped it on their desks and said "Make it so?"

EDIT: If 3 or anything resembling that was the case, I could see them ducking their heads and not addressing it. They just might be as discouraged as the rest of us.
I know that if I had been forced to put this into the game, I would be dodging the issue like a pro politician on election eve.

[Galeria]

Well, I am honestly trying to come up with alternatives other than

backhanded/sneaky
or
shooting from the hip/making it up as they go along

and I can't find any. I really suspect #2 is the case... they just decided to do these things in the past few days. They don't have much time before the much-ballyhooed launch and I think they are throwing stuff in as they think of it.

[nivarch]

I think announcing this at the same time as moving to open beta was a bad idea. They could either have :
- Announced that on closed beta. There would have been a lot less feedback, but probably of higher quality (let's face it, quality of feedback on closed beta forums was way higher than what we usually have on the ddo forums), with less angry threads.
- Delayed the announcement. People could focus on the important parts of the beta: actually testing new content/ED/combat system.

Right now the quality of discussions on the lamannia forum is so low I don't even want to reply to any post: all the threads are about d000m (doom about the combat system change, doom about the ED, doom about hard to kill...)

I really hope devs revert Hard to kill. Not really because I think it's a bad move (I think insta kill need a nerf, but the way they do it may not be the smartest) ; but because it would allow discussions to focus on the stuff that matter...

[MattiG]

Here's the point: whatever the root cause, it would simply be nice to know, and if it was knowable earlier, it would have been nice to know earlier so that the past month of game-play could have been spent grinding for different gear and/or PLs.

With the delightfully refreshing uptick in transparency that has accompanied the gradual rolling out of MOTU, and moves such as B-bonus and Learning Tomes (which are extremely receptive to long-time TR grinder's requests), this seemingly late change feels very out-of-place.

As a guy with limited play time and most of it invested into my Pale Master, I'm not sure I would have dumped 80 bucks on the expansion if I knew about this earlier. Granted, folks are going to play the game if they game is fun for them and I intend to make that determination for myself with a proper amount of time and energy invested in "giving it chance." So in the long run, I might find it to be a non-issue in retrospect, but still... it just would have been much classier, and made me feel much more at ease the next time I consider opening my wallet, if I know I can count on the Dev team to transparently communicate impending game changes.

In other words, Turbine, we don't want to feel like you intentionally held off on letting us know about this change, for whatever reason. And the only way we'll know any differently is if you tell us. We've seen how much damage a "confidence crisis" can do in the real world's financial system. I think you can take some easy steps to foster confidence in the process by which the game's mechanics are evolved, but for the record, I think you've done a great/better job recently in very many ways (more wins than losses for sure).

[MrkGrismer]

I'm not sure it is a 'massive nerf fest'. Maybe I am missing something here:

1) Hard to kill. I am betting it will be either tossed or changed into something more reasonable, like bringing back the 1st Edition 'save vs. death magic'. Maybe they will bring back a separate 'save vs. paralyzation', 'save vs. breath weapon', etc. Sometimes the old ways are best.

2) Displacement is self only. In my game it usually was anyways But I don't like the change. Part of why I took it as an SLA was so I could use it on others easier at lower cost.

Am I missing some other major nerfs that weren't in the closed beta?

[Masadique]

I don't remember going through a single thread on closed beta that wasn't moaning and whining about how strong casters are. Sure, their next post would always say, "I'm not calling for a nerf!" but if you say you think something is too strong a hundred times you're asking for a nerf.

The displacement confuses me, but I think it had more to do with the new AC system than anything. I wouldn't be shocked if all the new content was lacking for TS and they realized this was making it just too easy. Once again, blame the forums for complaining things were too easy.

We did this, not Turbine guys. People screamed about casters, and then they screamed about the ease with which new content was cleared. Just stop blaming devs for listening to what we asked for.

V

[WurmBurned]

I don't remember going through a single thread on closed beta that wasn't moaning and whining about how strong casters are. Sure, their next post would always say, "I'm not calling for a nerf!" but if you say you think something is too strong a hundred times you're asking for a nerf.

The displacement confuses me, but I think it had more to do with the new AC system than anything. I wouldn't be shocked if all the new content was lacking for TS and they realized this was making it just too easy. Once again, blame the forums for complaining things were too easy.

We did this, not Turbine guys. People screamed about casters, and then they screamed about the ease with which new content was cleared. Just stop blaming devs for listening to what we asked for.

V

Did you read through “Turbines Vision for Clerics/Favoured Souls”, “How the Caster nerf should have happened” or any other thread where there was complaining about how the spellpower, metamagic, and other changes were negatively effecting casters?

There were complaints about numerous things and suggestions on how to address these. While the absurd scaling of the new AC system and its focus on investing the standard amount into each stat before moving on was brought up, I don’t think many were calling for a nerf to displacement or anything that granted concealment.

[Masadique]

Did you read through “Turbines Vision for Clerics/Favoured Souls”, “How the Caster nerf should have happened” or any other thread where there was complaining about how the spellpower, metamagic, and other changes were negatively effecting casters?

There were complaints about numerous things and suggestions on how to address these. While the absurd scaling of the new AC system and its focus on investing the standard amount into each stat before moving on was brought up, I don’t think many were calling for a nerf to displacement or anything that granted concealment.

I've been reading all of them for almost a month. People were complaining even more back then about the spellpower. I can't recall how it worked out, but they unnerfed some of the initial changes to make casters happier. Yes, spellpower and a few other changes made raw damage output from casters a bit lower. I disbelieve the moaning about healing nerfs, yes the numbers got lowered a bit but damage mitigation levels are up across the board, and am on the side who agrees casters needed less damage.

Spell power did not stop insta kills, those things that make melee sit on their thumbs until they need to tank, and that was what the hard to kill was made for.

You say absurd scaling of AC, I don't think you understand how it works. Also, before this gets brought up, the new system much more accurately represents where DnD is going now - http://wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20120604 .

Everyone is allowed their own opinion, but don't spew falsehoods about devs hating us all and now listening to us when we are the ones who asked for it. Now people are asking for it to go back, but there is an old saying, be careful what you wish for.

V

[Cyr]

Leaving themselves two weeks of "testing"...this is gonna be a good one. Maybe I'll start falling through the ceiling after this releases.

Yes...and no one really was able to test the combat changes at cap due to bugs and real top level content not being enabled (epic hard and elite).

[noinfo]

I'm just wondering the thought process on why this massive nerf fest was saved for the open beta. None of this was mentioned during the Closed Beta and I was quite pleased with the back and forth interaction and compromises achieved. This zero hour bomb seems counter productive and a slap in the face to everyone who participated.

Don't kid yourself, this is just the latest nerf in this "xpansion"

Upper end Ac-> people might enjoy being able to avoid large amounts of damage. This is now somehow OP? Lets nerf it and make them more reliant on casters for defense.

Casters could (and by casters here lets face it only bards normally take the time) avoid damage by casting displacement? Lets remove that as an option (ok this one happened in open)

Barbs are now really dangerous, their sup cleave is just too powerful, lets nerf that too.

Sorcs are causing too much damage lets nerft that with power (not sure how that stacks up now they went back on some things)

Now open beta is best of all, lets nerf instakills with a random buff that lets them have to be under 50%.

This expansion makes my toons feel the opposite of epic. They all feel far less powerful and effective. Perhaps we can all get a refund and go back to what we have now?

[DeafeningWhisper]

I'm just wondering the thought process on why this massive nerf fest was saved for the open beta. None of this was mentioned during the Closed Beta and I was quite pleased with the back and forth interaction and compromises achieved. This zero hour bomb seems counter productive and a slap in the face to everyone who participated.

So we can't talk them out of it like the nerf to metas, or more likely to get us nice and happy with the expansion to make sure not everyone rages when this hits the fan.

[Masadique]

Don't kid yourself, this is just the latest nerf in this "xpansion"

Upper end Ac-> people might enjoy being able to avoid large amounts of damage. This is now somehow OP? Lets nerf it and make them more reliant on casters for defense.

Casters could (and by casters here lets face it only bards normally take the time) avoid damage by casting displacement? Lets remove that as an option (ok this one happened in open)

Barbs are now really dangerous, their sup cleave is just too powerful, lets nerf that too.

Sorcs are causing too much damage lets nerft that with power (not sure how that stacks up now they went back on some things)

Now open beta is best of all, lets nerf instakills with a random buff that lets them have to be under 50%.

This expansion makes my toons feel the opposite of epic. They all feel far less powerful and effective. Perhaps we can all get a refund and go back to what we have now?

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand we're back to this. Weren't you the other one in closed beta complaining about the power gap between casters? Come on guys, pick a side and stick to your guns.

I'll still feel epic when I punch something out of time.

[DeafeningWhisper]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand we're back to this. Weren't you the other one in closed beta complaining about the power gap between casters? Come on guys, pick a side and stick to your guns.

I'll still feel epic when I punch something out of time.

It's a death effect thou no? Might need to wait for it to be at 50% to punch it