Hard to Kill --> Haunting

[Khatzhas]

I thought and thought, trying to come up with a solution based on this sentence that didn't result in a penalty for success, but alas I could not. Has it really come to this. Is the situation so bad that success has to be penalized. I mean think about this. If this rule goes into play then the guys who spent sometimes years making and specializing their toon will be penalized more (and potentially perform worse) than the fellow who rolled theirs up a couple days ago. After one cast, essentially, the better caster can end up performing poorer than a weaker caster so long as both stay actively engaged. What's more, the better the caster, the poorer his performance is liable to be wrt others.

Is this really good MMO design? Can it really be a successful long term strategy to punish folks for playing the game and grinding out a hyper successful toon? If it really has come to a point where a certain class(s) when played hyper effectively causes the game to malfunction, then perhaps it is time to get rid of that class. I personally dont see the malfunction, but it appears the folks in charge do. I have never heard of anyone playing an MMO that penalizes you by making your toon perform worse the more you play and advance.

OK. Tinyelvis, either you really didn't understand the idea that you're trying to comment on, or you're deliberately misrepresenting for the purposes of stirring up trouble.

The "successful" caster gets the penalty for one-shotting a group of mobs. The "unsuccessful" caster doesn't get the penalty because they just burned SP, ticked off the group, and didn't kill any of them.
The lesser-performing character will take the same penalty as the better-performing one, when he gets the same result. He'll just have to waste more SP and time to get that result.

[aerosole]

Is this really good MMO design? Can it really be a successful long term strategy to punish folks for playing the game and grinding out a hyper successful toon? If it really has come to a point where a certain class(s) when played hyper effectively causes the game to malfunction, then perhaps it is time to get rid of that class. I personally dont see the malfunction, but it appears the folks in charge do. I have never heard of anyone playing an MMO that penalizes you by making your toon perform worse the more you play and advance.

In most MMOs, if a mechanic is too powerful, it is simply hit directly with the nerf bat. For example, Turbine could have just as easily changed the cooldown of wail to 2 or 3 min. No need for this complicated balancing act then. Or reinstate epic ward. Then you won't be punish for being successful... every caster will be punished equally.

But DDO has an entire PrE devoted to the necromancy school, and insta-killing has become such an integral part of the game. End of the day, many folks probably believe it adds more to the game than it takes away. To nerf it thoughtlessly would be... wasteful. And upset many players too, obviously. So in comes new mechanics that try to re-balance stuff without getting rid it totally.

Sounds like a better approach than those other MMOs...

[pjw]

Instant death effects are a powerful tool that are difficult to strike perfect balance with. We've wavered over time...

ISTM that live at the moment is pretty good. There are users who complain, and users who love it. Would it be possible for you to describe the areas that you specifically think need 'fixing'?

...an attempt to promote teamwork between casters and the rest of the party...

I *think* this is the only place in which you state a desired gameplay outcome: more teamwork between casters and non-casters.

I am not at all sure that HTK or Haunting acheive this.

HTK neutered casters.

Haunting puts them on Valium.

It's not clear to me how teamwork is helped by either of these.

In the days when Hold was insta-crit, casters helped.

In the days when charm worked for more than a few seconds in epic, casters helped.

In the days (pre U14) when displacement was targetable, casters helped.

In the last few updates, what little subtlety casters had has been removed.

Give casters spells and abilities that relate to being team players, and I am sure they will co-operate. Don't just take away toys until we have no choice.

Let's face it: insta-kills don't work when it matters, they only really work on trash and they make quests go faster so people (in theory) can have more fun.

[Sojka]

Hi, I would like to explain why I think the Haunting is a bad game balance mechanism and then I will suggest imho better concept.

So why is it bad?
Putting aside all the light&magic, in core The Haunting buff puts an artificial cap on the DC of instant-kill spells. You can play with the debuff time, frequency and the penalty in order to move the cap but effectively it's still a DC cap. And an artificial cap on a ability is a bad choice of balancing. I will demonstrate the concept on a simplerer example, new type of running competition with a backpack. The faster you run, the more weight the judge will put in your backpack, so you will run slower. The more mediocre you run the less weight will be put in your backpack and therefor all the runners will, at the end, run equally. The mechanism puts a cap on the speed. At this point it's no more a competition, adrenalin gone, the feeling to be rewarded by hard work gone, funn gone, bb, quit. (Couldn't resist with another example: DPS cap, Haunting debuff with -10dmg benefit after each kill by a melee weapon. Let's have all statistically the same dps... you get the idea)

However the game needs a balance mechanism. I think that by moving the parameters of the combat (DC cap, cooldown, mana cost, monster saves, SR, hp, ...) you can balance only in certain interval. And the most important think, you can only indirectly (by extreme mechanism like DC cap or special ability nerf) influence the other dimension of combat, namely the combat tactics. So let's try to influence the overall strategy of players, in order to balance the game. And let's do it in a way that all type players are in the balance mechanism.

My suggestion:
Let's make a similar mechanism to aggro, but with different parameter. The kill-count. Yes the more you kill, the more threat you are for the mobs. Casters will target you, mobs will charge you. You want to wail and FoD your way through the dungeon? Fine by me, but can you handle the mob crowd? In this way the balance mechanism is very strict, you wail more you can handle, you die.

You could recycle the dungeon alert mechanism (meaning finally remove DA ), by giving stacking shor-time buffs (represented by ikon over your head) which would represent the amount of mobs-hit-me level, lets say kill alert?

This is just a base concept, let's expand in this direction. The instant kill spells could multiply the KA, or generate other type of attracting short time buff, like the Haunting, stacking and decreasing over time. Let's give the mobs also some tools to effectively hunt the guy who killed their aunt. Give them haste, so they can charge faster. Give all the barbarians and rangers access to the sprint boost. Imagine a PM with a dark skull over his head (representing kill alert 5) trying to outrunn 4 furious barbarians sprinting for revenge. Then trip, trip, stun, dps.... Can you handle it?

So now what about classical aggro and intimidate. The way I see it, the KA should be a short-time stacking buff, like dungeon alert. And it should probably put you on the top of aggro table and at certain level trigger sprint boosts and haste buff for mobs, or other nasty thinks. In this way the intimidate could work without changes. As it's short time buff, the raid party can just wait 1-2min before the boss fight, until the KA on undesired tanks fades away.

That's all, thx for reading.

[T.TowneSwampy]

I dont have even a mid level caster but i think anything that makes killing mobs harder should only go in epics i have been a part of many parties that have wiped because the dc's in the heroic level quests were too high for the caster(s) in the group. To me if i can get lucky and be in a group with a caster that has several past lives and can make life easier it makes the game more fun. If I really wanted a chalenge i would run more epic quests but since i cant be on the game 24/7 i dont have all those high scores. If someone puts in the time too make their toons super good they should reap the benefits not be penalized

[justagame]

As usual, another nerf supposedly aimed arcanes, but that hits divines harder. It's wrecking the 1-19 game based on what a tiny percentage of players can do in epic hard/elite.

Adding insult to injury is the enhancement idea that will improve other casting abilities during haunting. Thus mitigating the effect on arcanes (who have lots of alternatives), but leaving divines with the worst of it (who don't).

Honestly, implosion has a cap on mobs affected, and a one-minute cooldown. And no one is being accused of ruining quests with slay living. Why do you have to do this? I appreciate that this is well-intended, but the more I think about the implications of haunting in everyday quests, the worse it seems.

[glowbug]

I had to sleep on this one before posting, and I didn't sleep well.

A few of my problems

• New Mechanics = new bugs. More complex = more bugs.
• Adding haunting stacks resets the timer? or do I end up with 12 little Icons
  across the top of my screen?
• I feel that wail is the primary concern, so why nerf FoD in the process?
• Haunting will be much more devastating to lower DC / lesser Geared casters because they will need less stacks to make necromancy unusable, yet won't have the mana pool to support failed casts + having to nuke and will have a harder time switching to say "Crowd control mode" since their DC will be middling across the board.
• Nobody wants to be "Haunted" by the spirit of the 4 carnivorous rats that they wailed while trying to instakill the two 12 foot tall orc champions in fullplate who are cleaving the party with greataxes.

I humbly suggest the following two alternatives.

1. The easy way:
Make the cooldown of AoE instakills dependent on how successful the cast was. ie... 20 seconds +6 seconds per monster killed by wail or CoD or Implosion.

2. The Creative way:
instead of giving 1-12 small debuffs for each different necro spell cast, just simplify it to 2 (#3 is just for funsies and is more like any DM i have known,)

Mental Fatigue: You have (successfully) cast a very powerful spell that has temporarily drained your mental abilities. You recieve a -2 penalty to INT, WIS, & CHA. -10 to search, spot, listen, & disable device. -2 to your necromancy DCs and Will save. Your slightly numb state causes you to move 10% slower. Lasts 60 seconds, Progresses to Mental Exhaustion if another similar spell is cast while under the effect of Mental Fatigue. (Warforged are not immune to Mental Fatigue or Exhaustion. Cannot be cured by Restoration effect, but can be removed by Unyeilding Soverienty or using a greater or major mnemonic effect.

Mental Exhaustion: You have (successfully) cast a very powerful spell that has temporarily drained your mental abilities. You recieve a -4 penalty to INT, WIS, & CHA. -10 to search, spot, listen, & disable device. -4 to your necromancy DCs and Will save . Your numb state causes you to move 30% slower. Replaces Mental Fatigue Lasts 40 seconds and then is reduced to Mental Fatigue. (Warforged are not immune to Mental Fatigue or Exhaustion. Cannot be cured by Restoration effect, but can be removed by Unyeilding Soverienty or using a major mnemonic effect.

Madness: Your continued overexertion has caused to you lose your grip on reality. Your altered mental state has opened several small pathways to Xoriat, and your incredible use of mental energy has not gone unnoticed. (Spawns 2d3 Mindflayers who want to eat your brain and a 2% chance that Quixellops will show up and want to play drinking games)

That last part is just for fun, but it does sound alot more like my DM's hehe

Grim

[Jitty]

So I tried to add some constructive feedback earlier in this thread but now I have had most of a day to think about it.
Haunting is just a bad idea. Epic wards were and are a bad idea. There doesn't need to be a mechanic added to nerf necro spells. This will have far more impact on divine casters anyways so misses the mark on what you are trying to achieve. Use the tools quests already have. Enemy casters, orange and red named mobs, undead enemies. The only thing I can think of that you should add is the spell Silence. This would give you a tool to manage encounters where you wanted to minimize room clearing spells. Of course silence has a will save and is subject to spell resistance so you would still probably want to nerf casters because you know casters would work on their will saves and probably all be drow and we wouldn't want people being able to build characters that were able to do what they were built for.

[Thrudh]

Again, no one is claiming wizards or PMs are becoming useless given the nerf. The point is, the tactic most PMs built for (instakilling, if you can't guess) is becoming useless. Pale master necromancers will still be needed post update... to hagh the party and spam web/hold. Which they didn't need to spec for necromancy to do anyway.

The weakens diversity in the game by removing options from players. First, we're relegated to crappy DPS (which was somewhat overdue after the advent of DoTs. Sirgog has explained in another post how an ungeared wizard could out-DPS an epic barbarian for the duration of his mana bar given the right conditions), and then further pidgeonholed into the buffer and cc role. That's not what I and a lot of other people built their wizards for.

You will still be able to use your necromancy spells at full power, just not all the time... They are very powerful, and being able to wail at max DC every couple of minutes is still extremely useful.

[Jitty]

The entire idea of the system is contrived, and pointless, more importantly it is being created not because of game balance, but to satisfy a smaller portion of the player base.

Personally, and I am not kidding about this at all, it makes me not want to play the game at all.

I am not going to sit here and say that I am going to quit, but I will say that it increases the chances that I could get picked off by another game, like say Skyrim Online, or Neverwinter Online when those games come around.

This proposed change will be the greatest nerf of all time, aimed at punishing players for doing something well, and within the rules. Additionally they are adding rules that don't exist in the core set at all, not that they haven't done that before, but this will be by far the biggest departure from DnD yet.

Right now I am having buyers remorse with the expansion pack. Big time.

Also I think that if they were concerned about soloing quests etc, that they should have just made end fights on eHard, and eElite crazy hard. At least then they dont have to debuff anyone, and Melee Characters are absolutely needed in the mission to beat a seriously beefed up monster. And those casters that do win those battles are just the creme of the crop, the 1%.

What ever they do, taking insta kills and using blanket immunities and deranged, contrived, and invented metrics to nerf an Epic level caster is beyone the pale of ridiculous.

We are about to journey into Epic levels, with powers that are no longer "Epicly Powerful", We are going to be level 25 and less powerful than we were before.

Not to mention, no Epic level spells, just a hand full of decent damage clickies with long cool down timers.

Maybe its time for DDO to do it, just revert to PnP and give us a set number of spells per day, drop mana all together, at least then they would be going back to the rules instead of away from it, and making it so that you could only cast wail and Circle a max of 5 times in between rests, but they should also return original ranges, etc...Like wail effects all that can hear it for example.

This entire thread, and change of the metric though is burning me out.

There are lots of good looking MMO's coming up, maybe ill just try one of them.

I tend to agree with this guy. You should listen to him

[Thrudh]

I have some observations.

First, the assumption that a high necro DC trivializes content. There is a lot of hyberbole going around in this thread (largely about palemasters, which is interesting: without a +4 tome, a geared Necro AM (wf) has the same DC as a geared human PM, and is actually a more efficient instakiller being able to SLA a web and round up then kill, and having more sp. Where the PM shines is in damage absorption, not DCs, at the cost of burst healing. Not sure why people have such a strong misconception. The reason why a PM is a more efficient epic soloer is solely due to much greater efficiency torc'ing- whole different can of worms. A lot of bad information in this discussion). I have a 44-dc caster, which pretty squarely falls into the very-good-but-not-best-imaginable category. And from all this talk of the unstoppable, carefree wail-pushing juggernaut that is a PM, I think that the posters claiming that PMs are easy-button only run House P epic.

44 DC simply does not kill entire rooms in challenging content. It just doesnt. If you debuff wisely (turtle with lionheaded, crushing despair, circle, wail) then results are improved, but it really isnt a 95% thing in things that aren't trivial to any well geared and played toon. And if you debuff in that fashion you are A, getting the crud kicked out of you, and B, using lots more SP. And in places like eChains, it's still nowhere near enough to get everything. The argument that the hordes of eberron simply melt away in front of a half-decent DC caster does not bear water. There are very few places where that is true.


The complaining about kill count is also pretty absurd. What does that matter? And since when is there a proper apportionment of kills, evidently according to class? I think that there is a camp of players, many of whom can be found complaining about casters in this and related threads, who fundamentally want there to be only one way to play the game. These individuals are essentially playing an archetype of DDO, not the game itself. In that archetype, a divine's role is to heal everyone, the melee's job is to be valorous and foolhardy and charge the enemy, and the caster's job is to buff everyone and be squishy. In this model, it is HOW things get done that matter- ie. that they be done in the prescribed manner.
When people ask me what I like about DDO (I am really not an MMO person) I answer them with 2 things. One, the movement system is really pretty good and responsive: I like that the combat positioning is fast and that it matters, and there's a realistic-enough sense of motion and physics. The other is that this really is a flexible game: there are many many ways to accomplish just about any quest. I really like the fact the MMO stereotypes do NOT apply: my divine is a zergy monster who very rarely heals, and my melees definitely dont need anyone to babysit them. I like things like all-melee epics, like tanking shadows in TOD on a melee, having an instakill-focused monk, or tanking eDQ2 on a wizard. I like that a group of strong players can succeed despite very unusual party composition, by archetypal standards. If all those possibilities go away, it's a much less interesting game. This may be a bit of an overreaction, but I strongly feel that the undercurrent to the current backlash against casters is: You need to play MY way, and go hide in the back like you're supposed to and let me be a big man! That sentiment is extremely distasteful.

As to the suggestion at hand. I find it interesting but very flawed. I'll list some obvious drawbacks:
A. the dynamic penalty essentially creates an equilbrium of uselessness that all casters will surf. As others have mentioned, a 50DC caster and a 40DC caster are equivalent after the first 2 rooms of a dungeon, due to the penalty being directly proportional to success. That is terrible game design. Being better at something (necro DC, here) should never result in a greater penalty than being mediocre.
B. you are making people into pikers. This is also terrible game design. As an example of what I mean, see Abbot raid. I love abbot. But that is because I nearly always run tiles. Other people hate abbot. And that is because they have to wait around for 5-8mins, literally just wait, while 2 people have fun. This is why I always bring grease clickies to roids when I go there. As to the argument that arcanes have other options than instakills: yes, that is true. But they should be options to be used when appropriate, not a forced choice.
C. The magnitude of the haunted effect as it is proposed will be very large. Imagine a typical encounter: first thing you do is finger (with energy drain if necessary) the caster-type in the back, then drop CC, gather mobs, and wail. The wail will already be at -2DC, and if you succeed in killing 5 creatures, you are now at -12 DC and completely useless with instakills for the next.... 90seconds. That is a very very long time, 90 seconds.

What I would like to see: more varied encounters, and greater variance in saves and attributes among mob types. Unfortunately, as it stands most epic mobs are meatsacks which hit you with a stick, or meatsacks which wave their hands and make things go boom. They make look different, but in terms of their saves they are fairly close together. We may deal with them differently, but that is a reflection of their offensive traits, not their defensive ones. Make it a bit more rock paper scissors- as it stands now we have rock; we have something which looks like paper from afar but is suspiciously igneous on closer inspection; and scissors, which are rocks only with evasion and mostly negligible pewpew.

More variation in mobs defences would be an extremely compelling reason to approach them differently, versus just wailing, or debuffing then wailing. The only extent to which we really have this atm is epic drow, and then it is solely because of SR and web not having a SR check, not strength/weakness of save.
On a somewhat related note, giving melee (players and enemies) stronger tactics options is also a good idea. The nerf of offhand procs for TWF tactics remains utterly boggling to me. That should be reinstituted, and 2handed weapons should be given a bonus to the DC to compensate, or allowed to cleave tactics. Encouraging more intelligent use of melee CC and tactics is definitely a good thing.

This is a good post, and I agree that I'm not sure that Haunting is really the best solution to the problem.. I'd probably rather see a mix of mobs, some that are resistant or even immune to death magic mixed in with others that are weak against death magic.

Also I agree that maybe the real problem is that casters are so durable, either by being warforged or palemaster.

This may be a bit of an overreaction, but I strongly feel that the undercurrent to the current backlash against casters is: You need to play MY way, and go hide in the back like you're supposed to and let me be a big man! That sentiment is extremely distasteful.

I don't think very many of us feel this way at all. It's not that we want to casters to hide in the back and just heal or buff the melee... Most of us are fine with casters being cannons... but they should be glass cannons. It's a little crazy that they can gather up 30 mobs and wail 80% of them with one button click, with very little danger to themselves. Quickened reconstruct, or death aura takes away almost all risk to a caster.

The game is noticably easier and faster when I play my palemaster or my FvS. My melee are very self-sufficient and don't need casters or healers in the party to do well in most quests, but the power difference is very large.

I can do quests 5x faster with a caster. I'm in much less danger of dying, and the content is trivialized. When I solo with my melee, I have to play smart, use tactics, use the environment, pull mobs around corners, etc. When I solo with my casters, I just run at full speed into every single room, wail, or lay down a blade barrier and just keep on going.

Casters do not have to just be buff and heal bots... But they either need a weakness somewhere or their casting power needs to be curtailed... I semi-like this solution because it lets a caster keep his super-power but limits how often he can use it.

Maybe it would be better and easier to just increase the cooldown timer on wail and CoD again. This Haunting system is an attempt to limit those spells, but not as aggressively as a larger cooldown timer would.

[eris2323]

You will still be able to use your necromancy spells at full power, just not all the time... They are very powerful, and being able to wail at max DC every couple of minutes is still extremely useful.

See, but what you don't understand is, I didn't create MY toon to serve you.

I created my toon because I enjoy it. I enjoy solo'ing, because of my hours. I also enjoy playing with other people, when I can.

Just because some people whine and cry on the forums that they think casters are overpowered, every solo-er has to suffer?

Frankly, I've had enough. If they insitute this policy, I will TR into Druid, or Sorc.

I don't see any use towards being a pale master at all.

Or, I will go play another game.

Non Serviam.

I. Will. Not. Serve.

I'm not your buffbot. I'm not your security blanket.

Grow your own toon.

Maybe the devs could consider not adding any of these stupid instakill nerfs when one is solo-ing.

Then, we can enjoy our game, and never play with whiners who have kill-count-envy.

[GermanicusMaximus]

Melee only Players expectations that the sole purpose of Divines is to heal them and therefore enable THEM to have fun is FAR more discouraging from playing that class then any nerf could ever do.

Apart from that Wings + BB is still perversely strong.

I would agree that the general attitude of melee players does nothing to encourage anyone to play a divine caster. That same attitude is why we are even having a discussion about caster nerfs, and why casters have been nerfed to the extent they have in the expansion.

BB is a nice spell. I would gladly trade my collection of divine offensive spells for arcane offensive spells, however. If you want to lobby for that swap, I will be glad to help.

I have no expectation that people playing melee toons are going to adopt a more team oriented approach in the near future. Part of the reason they are shunned in game has nothing to do with game mechanics and everything to do with player attitude. Every all caster group I have ever been in has had a better team orientation than the average "balanced" group. Since the developers do not play the game on a daily basis, they do not see that side of the problem, and are led to believe that melees simply suffer from game mechanics issues.

Given the downsides to playing a divine caster, if there are not counter balancing advantages to offset that, the only reasonable choice is to simply play an arcane, with a sorc looking like the optimal choice at the moment.

Eladrin needs to understand that he is periously close to triggering a mass exodus out of divine casters. That will not achieve his goal of getting melee toons more involved in the game.

[Impaqt]

I do hate that these threads get put up on the weekend. Almost guaranteeing that Eladrin will not be able to keep up with the massive amounts of replies. I guess I'll throw in my suggestions anyway in hopes that they will get seen....


I cannot express enough how awful I think Punishing players more the better they are is.
Players should NOT be punished for TRing multiple times to build up their Spell Penn.. Their DC's... Accumulating the best gear they can for their Casters....

If you are going to decrease the effectiveness of insta-kill spells. It needs to be Universal. It needs to be FAIR. Someone who casts a Wail of the banshee with a 45DC should get hit the SAME as if a player with a 37DC. Basing the punishment on the mobs save rolls is a travesty.

----------------------
On to the first suggestion.....

Each "Death spell" I cast increments my "Haunting Points" Counter(Name subject to change) Single Target Spells are worth One point. AOE spells are worth more.. Maybe 3 or 5.....

when you hit a designated point total, the debuff THEN takes effect. The debuff could be something like -10 to all your DC's and -10 to all Saving throws due to being in a "Mentally drained" kind of condition.

This condition would last 1 Minute. Continuing to cast insta-kill spells during this timer resets the timer to one minute each cast.

You can also reset the timer by using a "Special ability" that becomes available when you reach your point threshold. This "Special Ability" would be similar to a Silver Flame Potion. When you hit it, the counter is reset, but your caster enters a recuperation mode where your movement is slowed and you cannot cast anything for 20 seconds.

This way, you can choose to deal with the 1 minute debuff.. Cast other spells, and do your best to stay out of harms way spell wise, OR hit the ability and become pretty much useless for 20 seconds.

Either way, your Insta-kill spree is severely hindered.

The point threshold could be adjusted for different difficulties.... easier difficulty settings have a much higher threshold. Epic Elite could be as low as 5 before the debuff kicks in.

I dont know if these points should decrease on their own.... Maybe -1 every 15 seconds

--------------------
Suggestion 2. This one is pretty simple compared to number one.

Again, its based on "punishing" casters universally rather than targeting people who work hard on their builds.

This one is actually VERY similar to Eladrins proposed system, but tweaked to be less punishing.

"The Haunting" happens NOT when you kill mobs.... But when you Cast Instakill spells WHILE on timer from a different Instakill Spell...

For example I cast Wail,..... Kill 10 Mobs.. Woo Hoo! If I wait out my Cool Down before I cast another insta-kill, NO Adverse Effects at All....

However, if I start casting Circle of Death, Finger of Death, Power Word Kill, While on Timer, the Haunting counter starts ticking. Applying the same Debuff Eladrin proposed, but based on casts rather than Mobs Killed.

The big thing I'd like to see Eliminated is the "Your caster is instantly useless for a very long time because you got lucky on a Wail of the Banshee" effect. Getting "TempNerfed' for a couple minutes for casting an effective spell is a horrible design.
---------------------------

I see this "Haunting" as WAY worse than the original "Hard to kill". The idea that the better I am, the more >I< specifically get nerfed is the most depressing change I've ever seen proposed in this game. I cant imagine going into any content where this system is in place on any of my arcane casters.

[Rodasch]

Eladrin needs to understand that he is periously close to triggering a mass exodus out of divine casters. That will not achieve his goal of getting melee toons more involved in the game.

Quoted for emphasis, and to add that it's not just divine casters who could mass exodus.

Promoting team play is one thing, but reducing the game to nothing but melee characters who are forced to resort to doing without those classes that they've been screaming and crying to have nerfed on these forums won't make the game more fun, more playable, more balanced, or more profitable.

This, in conjunction with the other major casting changes in the expansion could work to destroy the morale and enthusiasm to play this game among a large chunk of the population, many of whom spend a LOT of money on this game.

"I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams." - W.B. Yeats

[gravestones]

I have some observations.

First, the assumption that a high necro DC trivializes content. There is a lot of hyberbole going around in this thread (largely about palemasters, which is interesting: without a +4 tome, a geared Necro AM (wf) has the same DC as a geared human PM, and is actually a more efficient instakiller being able to SLA a web and round up then kill, and having more sp. Where the PM shines is in damage absorption, not DCs, at the cost of burst healing. Not sure why people have such a strong misconception. The reason why a PM is a more efficient epic soloer is solely due to much greater efficiency torc'ing- whole different can of worms. A lot of bad information in this discussion). I have a 44-dc caster, which pretty squarely falls into the very-good-but-not-best-imaginable category. And from all this talk of the unstoppable, carefree wail-pushing juggernaut that is a PM, I think that the posters claiming that PMs are easy-button only run House P epic.

44 DC simply does not kill entire rooms in challenging content. It just doesnt. If you debuff wisely (turtle with lionheaded, crushing despair, circle, wail) then results are improved, but it really isnt a 95% thing in things that aren't trivial to any well geared and played toon. And if you debuff in that fashion you are A, getting the crud kicked out of you, and B, using lots more SP. And in places like eChains, it's still nowhere near enough to get everything. The argument that the hordes of eberron simply melt away in front of a half-decent DC caster does not bear water. There are very few places where that is true.


The complaining about kill count is also pretty absurd. What does that matter? And since when is there a proper apportionment of kills, evidently according to class? I think that there is a camp of players, many of whom can be found complaining about casters in this and related threads, who fundamentally want there to be only one way to play the game. These individuals are essentially playing an archetype of DDO, not the game itself. In that archetype, a divine's role is to heal everyone, the melee's job is to be valorous and foolhardy and charge the enemy, and the caster's job is to buff everyone and be squishy. In this model, it is HOW things get done that matter- ie. that they be done in the prescribed manner.
When people ask me what I like about DDO (I am really not an MMO person) I answer them with 2 things. One, the movement system is really pretty good and responsive: I like that the combat positioning is fast and that it matters, and there's a realistic-enough sense of motion and physics. The other is that this really is a flexible game: there are many many ways to accomplish just about any quest. I really like the fact the MMO stereotypes do NOT apply: my divine is a zergy monster who very rarely heals, and my melees definitely dont need anyone to babysit them. I like things like all-melee epics, like tanking shadows in TOD on a melee, having an instakill-focused monk, or tanking eDQ2 on a wizard. I like that a group of strong players can succeed despite very unusual party composition, by archetypal standards. If all those possibilities go away, it's a much less interesting game. This may be a bit of an overreaction, but I strongly feel that the undercurrent to the current backlash against casters is: You need to play MY way, and go hide in the back like you're supposed to and let me be a big man! That sentiment is extremely distasteful.

As to the suggestion at hand. I find it interesting but very flawed. I'll list some obvious drawbacks:
A. the dynamic penalty essentially creates an equilbrium of uselessness that all casters will surf. As others have mentioned, a 50DC caster and a 40DC caster are equivalent after the first 2 rooms of a dungeon, due to the penalty being directly proportional to success. That is terrible game design. Being better at something (necro DC, here) should never result in a greater penalty than being mediocre.
B. you are making people into pikers. This is also terrible game design. As an example of what I mean, see Abbot raid. I love abbot. But that is because I nearly always run tiles. Other people hate abbot. And that is because they have to wait around for 5-8mins, literally just wait, while 2 people have fun. This is why I always bring grease clickies to roids when I go there. As to the argument that arcanes have other options than instakills: yes, that is true. But they should be options to be used when appropriate, not a forced choice.
C. The magnitude of the haunted effect as it is proposed will be very large. Imagine a typical encounter: first thing you do is finger (with energy drain if necessary) the caster-type in the back, then drop CC, gather mobs, and wail. The wail will already be at -2DC, and if you succeed in killing 5 creatures, you are now at -12 DC and completely useless with instakills for the next.... 90seconds. That is a very very long time, 90 seconds.

What I would like to see: more varied encounters, and greater variance in saves and attributes among mob types. Unfortunately, as it stands most epic mobs are meatsacks which hit you with a stick, or meatsacks which wave their hands and make things go boom. They make look different, but in terms of their saves they are fairly close together. We may deal with them differently, but that is a reflection of their offensive traits, not their defensive ones. Make it a bit more rock paper scissors- as it stands now we have rock; we have something which looks like paper from afar but is suspiciously igneous on closer inspection; and scissors, which are rocks only with evasion and mostly negligible pewpew.

More variation in mobs defences would be an extremely compelling reason to approach them differently, versus just wailing, or debuffing then wailing. The only extent to which we really have this atm is epic drow, and then it is solely because of SR and web not having a SR check, not strength/weakness of save.
On a somewhat related note, giving melee (players and enemies) stronger tactics options is also a good idea. The nerf of offhand procs for TWF tactics remains utterly boggling to me. That should be reinstituted, and 2handed weapons should be given a bonus to the DC to compensate, or allowed to cleave tactics. Encouraging more intelligent use of melee CC and tactics is definitely a good thing.

A very good post, with many spot-on points.

Hard to Kill and/or Haunting are not necessary, will only result in problems/bugs (both with the game engine and amongst the player base), and on a very simplistic level, will extinguish much of the fun and excitement of the coming Xpac for a large number of players.

[fco-karatekid]

...For those complaining that casters use the "same 4-6 spells,"....

I want to make sure _my_ reference to limited spell use is clear: I wasn't criticizing the casters; I was calling out the fact that limited effective spells are available for inscription or memorization.

This limitation has led to some desire to design limitations for those that are effective.

Ex: the Bibgy's line (force spells) isn't available, so we're limited to force missiles and MM... Since those are less effective than fire, players naturally gravitate to fire. Then firewall is nerfed.

Ex2: There is no "deafness" spell, so to minimize the potential damage inbound from casters, players use the necromantics to kill mob casters as quickly as possible.

As long as there are limited spells available, players WILL design around min-max, and it appears the development philosophy is min-max focused as well.

[Jitty]

The more I think on this the more incensed I get. I feel its very important to point out the following.

listening to player feedback is a good thing. BUT- this isn't what I see happening. This is what I see.

An idea was put out there (hard to kill).
The vast majority of the community that is in comunication rejects the idea in its entirety.
The idea is modified based on feedback

Do you see the problem with that? The idea was modified, but not modifed based on our feedback. It was modified by discussions that the community wasn't involved in.

So I have read this thread and it seems that again the vast majority of the community that cares to comment has rejected this idea in its entirety. The question is are you going to listen to our feedback?

[GermanicusMaximus]

This only applies to PnP where you are constantly leveling and it is much slower than this game. In DDO, as with most MMOs, the game is said to really start when you hit cap. Most people stay at cap, and leveling is just something they have to do. Thus the game should be balanced for the parts where people actually play the most.

From everything I have seen, DDO is targeted towards an adult demographic. For an adult demographic, the power of a toon should be based upon the skill required to play the toon. The skill to viably play a melee toon is trivial compared to the skill required to viably play a caster. I have seen a 10 year old competently play a melee toon.

Melee toons quite obviously should be at the very bottom of the power scale at end game.

One of the most pressing issues we have in this game is that people playing melee toons refuse to improve the quality of their game play, while at the same time demanding "balance". A melee toon is a starter toon. As your game skill improves, you should be moving into a caster.

Blizzard runs an MMO where game skill is not important. The last thing we need is to WoWify DDO.

[Lormyr]

I cannot express enough how awful I think Punishing players more the better they are is. Players should NOT be punished for TRing multiple times to build up their Spell Penn.. Their DC's... Accumulating the best gear they can for their Casters.....

This pretty much sums up how I feel about things too.

I won't claim to speak for anyone else here, but this is how I feel, and I am going to here and now speak it bluntly:

80% of the joy I get out of playing my wizard is not questing, or adventure, or the challenge of the game. The vast majority of my joy for that character is knowing that the 6 years I have put into TR'ing him, gearing him out, and coming up with the perfect character build have made him so powerful that he is able to trivialize 80% or so of the game's content.

That's right. I said it. I love having my super badass. The challenge that I enjoyed in this was the journey to reaching that point of capability - not the challenge of the gameplay.

Now, this is what I want to know. Some folks claim that a powerful PM trivializes alot of gameplay, and can potentially make that gameplay unfun for others by effectively handling the quest all on their own. Those are fairly reasonable views, but to those views I say this:

You don't have to group with those characters.

If a well built and geared PM is ruining your fun questing, don't group with them. It's really that simple. Or when they join your pug, tell them you like to take your time and enjoy the quest and participate heavily in it. If they don't want to be part of that, let them find another group.

No other player can ruin your fun. Only you are responsible for your fun. You have complete control over it. Between squelch and simply not grouping with someone, other people have absolutely no ability to impact your gameplay at all unless you allow them too.

Perhaps their needs to be an adjustment. That is not an easy point to discern or find a solution too. But if an adjustment occurs, don't do it for the wrong reasons. Make sure it is what the game needs to grow, and not what the players need to feel like they do more than smash crates. They already have full control over that issue.

And whatever you do, do not trivialize the great effort and years of time that some folks have put into making their characters unique and capable. That goes as much for the AC changes as the insta death issues.