Hard to Kill --> Haunting

[FooWonk]

I love when mob casters displace themselves and their melee companions, when fire elementals cast resist cold as their first action, when enemy clerics lead off with a deathward then do the unbelievable of healing their allies.

If epic mobs were casting deathward, my pale master would be slotting break enchantment and mordenkainen's. If the epic clerics recast when it's dispelled, I'd be focusing CC on them before my dispel.

Simple AI improvements would necessitate skilled game play.

And in cases where you want a challenging encounter rather than trash, add one or two red-names in the mix and make them tough.

[Masadique]

Ridiculous comparison as usual and you counter your own arguement. Funny stuff!

Annnnd you just read my post without the contextual 3 leading up to it. Well done.

I wasn't even making an argument. I was explaining to someone that he was misunderstanding someone's response, akin to the post I am quoting. I simply said that Pen and Paper DnD has no bearing on any of these arguments. There was no SP and spells were limited, usually 3-5 at the high end, per day. Obviously this would make for a bad video game, at least a fast paced MMO. People keep stating how, in PnP, insta kills were made to be super powerful. They just keep leaving out the 3-5 times per rest part. A bit of a big deal.

If you want to use DnD as a comparison, you have to understand the differences in the systems.

Once again, DDO =/= PnP DnD.

V

[DeafeningWhisper]

I love when mob casters displace themselves and their melee companions, when fire elementals cast resist cold as their first action, when enemy clerics lead off with a deathward then do the unbelievable of healing their allies.

If epic mobs were casting deathward, my pale master would be slotting break enchantment and mordenkainen's. If the epic clerics recast when it's dispelled, I'd be focusing CC on them before my dispel.

Simple AI improvements would necessitate skilled game play.

And in cases where you want a challenging encounter rather than trash, add one or two red-names in the mix and make them tough.

^This, a hundred times.

No need to nerf anything if you just spend the time to properly design the encounters.

In Gianthold the shaman's 1st move is often to cast displacement on themselves and sometimes their allies, could something like this be done to Epic mobs AI? A cleric/shaman/priest mob sees an adventurer they cast deathward on themsleves 1st and then heal/cast deathward on allies.

[GermanicusMaximus]

That is NOT why wail needs to be nerfed. WoPs were not nerfed in order to make arcanes feel better about themselves. Barbarian critical rage was not taken away to make other classes feel better about themselves. Some abilities ARE intrinsically overpowered.

You need to realize that the devs are not doing this JUST to make the melees happy, otherwise you will be unable to reasonably discuss the change with them.

Sorry, but you are simply incorrect. There is nothing overpowered about a divine caster on the live servers.

My memory is not impaired either. In January, there were almost daily threads started by a handful of people with titles along the lines of "CASTERS ARE OVERPOWERED!!!!!!!!!!". Admittedly, there was some variation from day to day in the number of exclamation points used.

In the class balance "Let's Talk" thread started by MadFloyd, the melee lobbying continued. At some point, MadFloyd pronounced "I think melee need some love." Game over.

While people with casters were busy playing the game, people with melee toons were lobbying to change the face of the game. Obviously, jawing at the developers seems to work in some cases. Ignoring the chain of events that brought us here serves no useful purpose.

In reality, what is of primary pertinence going foward is Turbine's vision of what DDO is going to be.

Will it remain a game where skill is of primary importance? If so, the systematic nerfing of casters (the highest skill classes in the game) is in direct conflict with that vision.

Is it changing to a game where you simply put in some seat time, and like WoW, everyone, regardless of game skill, gains essentially the same level of power?

In the final analysis, it is Turbine's game. They are, of course, entitled to take it in any direction they see fit.

In the same vein, however, my personal time is mine. I would like to see a clear indication of where Turbine is taking this game. If indeed it remains a game of skill, I fully intend to stay. If it is headed towards a WoW clone, I will gladly bid the game farewell and wish all those who remain happy hunting.

I suspect that a large number of people who took the time to post in this thread would like some of the same answers that I am seeking. At present, we can only surmise what is going on behind the scenes at Turbine HQ. When the expansion eventually hits the live servers, we will actually know Turbine's true intent without a formal declaration, and we will all be able to make our individual plans based upon that.

As someone who has spent a fair amount of time dealing with customers on a professional basis, I know that sometimes I will have to give people answers they do not like. I also know that, while they may not like the answer, they at least appreciate an honest, direct approach. This is a lesson that Turbine desperately needs to learn if it wishes to improve its corporate performance.

[phalaeo]

Death Magic, the exact term eladrin used is what deathblock stops. So if deathblock stops it it's affected here. The spells I listed including banishment in DDO are all stopped by deathblock. Not sure why we need dev clarification here that's what it's always been in DDO. The only concern was spell ike abilities like the shadowdancers consume which is just a recoded implosion.

I can see your argument (and I actually appreciate the explanation), but I do think we need dev input. At the very least, a little clarification cannot hurt.

I'll have to go back and re-read what Eladrin posted, but from what I remembered reading, it seemed like it was ill-defined.

[phalaeo]

Actually... does anyone have a link or quote from Eladrin that LeLoric mentioned? I can't remember where I saw it.

[DeafeningWhisper]

Actually... does anyone have a link or quote from Eladrin that LeLoric mentioned? I can't remember where I saw it.

Eladrin's last post in on page 6.

Holly ****, has it really been so long ago?

[Rizzia]

A cap on wail and increased cool down is the best I've seen without completely nerfing classes who use instakills.

A cap of 6 should suffice. And make the cool down 45 seconds and make implosion te same so mage's and divine's aoe death spells will have the cool down. It will be painful at first but it will not affect our DCs.

Seems fair to me.

best solution

[Aranel12]

so if one of my party members gets fingered of death by a monster does that caster take a -2 to his Dcs

[WurmBurned]

I love when mob casters displace themselves and their melee companions, when fire elementals cast resist cold as their first action, when enemy clerics lead off with a deathward then do the unbelievable of healing their allies.

If epic mobs were casting deathward, my pale master would be slotting break enchantment and mordenkainen's. If the epic clerics recast when it's dispelled, I'd be focusing CC on them before my dispel.

Simple AI improvements would necessitate skilled game play.

And in cases where you want a challenging encounter rather than trash, add one or two red-names in the mix and make them tough.

I agree with this almost entirely. HtK could be interesting if used very sparingly, but it makes for an exceptionally poor blanket "solution". Haunting is only marginally better in its current form and will likely never be anywhere near as good as balanced use of existing tools.

[pSINNa]

I'm usually happy with proposed changes to the game - in the past i've enjoyed re-speccing my characters and re-adjusting my playstyles to compliment the changes, all my previous posts reflect this happy camper attitude.

I don't play rangers anymore though, that loss of alacrity just gutted the class for me.

I can see the hard to kill and haunted proposals doing the same thing to me for my casters.

In quest situations casters that have pumped many lives and tomes and store pots and exceptional stats and yugo pots and epic items into their characters may seem to mop the floor with everything (a year or more of solid effort on one character is not an easy button), but in a raid situation those abilities are simply a tool for the raid team to utilise.

Don't take that tool away because some people think it trivialises some quests.

I'm haunted by the idea of haunted, hearing about this just ruined my day, sigh.

Coit out~

[psi0nix]

Haunted... perhaps an appropriate name, as that's what the game will be. Empty, haunted, dead.

All that seems to be coming with this expansion is nerfing, once again, the silent majority are to be put out of action by the vocal minority on the forums.

I'm a bit "over" putting up arguments against nerfing casters (or any class), so yeah I'll just end with "DOOM".

I'd rather not see the game killed, but if the posts on the forums are anywhere near accurate, then yeah, it will be killed off, on a good note there are some games coming out that look worth playing, where you get the game you paid for, it stays as it is despite whingers on the forums, and those who like them play them and those who don't play something else.

Thats how you create a user base, stop jumping from pleasing this group or that group, because in the end you just alienate ALL groups and no-one wants to play anymore from any group.

I also wonder out of all the posters on here that keep calling for nerfs, how many of them actually still play the game ?

[Thrudh]

Sorry, but you are simply incorrect. There is nothing overpowered about a divine caster on the live servers.

Nope, you're incorrect... I JUST (tonight) finished leveling a FvS TR back to 20... Divine caster with blade barrier, wings, Divine Punishment, self-healing...

Massive easy button. There was very little challenge ever. And very little need for tactical play or any kind of good gear.

Will it remain a game where skill is of primary importance? If so, the systematic nerfing of casters (the highest skill classes in the game) is in direct conflict with that vision.

There is very little skill involved with kiting a bunch of mobs through a blade barrier, or rounding up 2-3 rooms worth of mobs and hitting wail.

Probably the character I play that takes the most skill is my archer, to be honest.

[psi0nix]

Nope, you're incorrect... I JUST (tonight) finished leveling a FvS TR back to 20... Divine caster with blade barrier, wings, Divine Punishment, self-healing...

Massive easy button. There was very little challenge ever. And very little need for tactical play or any kind of good gear.

There is very little skill involved with kiting a bunch of mobs through a blade barrier, or rounding up 2-3 rooms worth of mobs and hitting wail.

Probably the character I play that takes the most skill is my archer, to be honest.

Yes yes, so EASY, after what 6 years is it for you ? - If you couldn't do that after 6 years of playing, and do it with ANY toon, then your doing it wrong.

How about you go get one of your friends who doesn't play the game, roll them a toon, build it well, and set them off on their merry way, THEN see how they do . . .

Oh but they won't know where to put the blade, where to drag the mobs, who to insta-kill first, what gear to have, and so on, not so easy then is it ?

You seem to want the game to be playable only by people who have studied the game mechanics, know all the ins and outs of every quest and have the ability to twink their newly rolled toons to the hilt.

By the way, how many lifes had the FVS had ? - cause running from 1-20 multiple times is an "easy button" yeah ? - it was very easy to grind all the gear and past lives ?

I notice NONE of your toons are public in myddo, I often see that from people who are calling for nerfs or claiming classes are "overpowered", why is that ?


Do you play permadeath ?

(if the answer here is no, then your just trying to make the game harder for others not yourself, YOU don't want to be "challenged" you want OTHERS to have a hard time of it and struggle, is this to feel superior in some way ? / to separate the "noobs" from the "elite" the way it's going you'll get what you want and only the "elite" will continue playing, and then you can petition turbine to keep the servers open because no-one new would want to play a game that has been scaled for only elite players, and most of us "normal" players will long since have left since we are sick of having all the toons we have ground through so many lives nerfed back to the point where we really should not have bothered. .... )

You want challenge, play permadeath or you just whinging.

[aerosole]

This is because most people didn't understand the idea as originally presented. And many of those who did understand it didn't immediately see its full implications. This is an insanely complicated attempt to solve a fairly minor problem, and it's hard to work through all its details and implications immediately. It also sounded cool. And it was presented after one of the stupidest ideas ever, making it more likely that folks who give it the ok just because it wasn't that former idiotic idea.

This is fairly consistent with Turbine's recent strategy. They are introducing radical and wildly complicated changes to the game which require folks to do a lot of miserable math to even begin to appreciate the implications and side effects of. Most folks aren't going to spend the time to try to understand the freakishly complicated changes, and then, the folks that do spend that time have to spend more time thinking about all the implications and side effects of such changes (and that's very difficult). One has to wonder if Turbine did any of this thinking themselves.

This sums up the sentiment very well. Haunting is too complex to understand all the implications easily.

Turbine's intent is to tone down the power of death magic (wail in particular) hence the cumulative debuff the more kills you get. A straight-up nerf to wail is the simple solution, and will probably entail some direct increase in the cool-down timer.

In trying to soften the blow for the average caster, haunting was invented, so that if a caster fails to instakill, he can try again soon, without being hampered by a universal increased cool-down meant to limit the power of high dc wails. Low dc wails can be re-attempted "quicker" so that weaker casters can feel like they contributed a little too.

For the high dc caster, whether it is a hard-coded cool-down, or a "soft cool-down" like haunting, it probably means the same thing in practice after all the numbers have been tweaked and done with. Wail will end up with a longer cool-down no matter how. But with haunting, FoD is being nerfed too due to the global effect on all death magic.

Design is good-intentioned but extremely convoluted and hard to understand. Keeping it simple may be the best.

[sephiroth1084]

Sorry, but you are simply incorrect. There is nothing overpowered about a divine caster on the live servers.

Incorrect.
[quote]

While people with casters were busy playing the game, people with melee toons were lobbying to change the face of the game. Obviously, jawing at the developers seems to work in some cases. Ignoring the chain of events that brought us here serves no useful purpose.

Also obviously incorrect as evidenced by the many players who have posted in favor of such changes that have and enjoy their casters.

[azrael4h]

I love when mob casters displace themselves and their melee companions, when fire elementals cast resist cold as their first action, when enemy clerics lead off with a deathward then do the unbelievable of healing their allies.

If epic mobs were casting deathward, my pale master would be slotting break enchantment and mordenkainen's. If the epic clerics recast when it's dispelled, I'd be focusing CC on them before my dispel.

Simple AI improvements would necessitate skilled game play.

And in cases where you want a challenging encounter rather than trash, add one or two red-names in the mix and make them tough.

If the AI was given these simple adjustments then the same ones frothing at the mouth screaming about Wizards doing anything other than casting Rage, Haste, and Displacement on them, and Mass Hold Monster on the trash, and enraged at Clerics and Favored Souls doing anything but healing them constantly (because heaven forbid they build a competent character with some semblance of self-sufficiency and damage mitigation) would be frothing at the mouth at the thought of mobs becoming more than just trash.

These players do not want trash to be challenging. They want Wizards to Mass Hold them. They want Auto-crit back, so they can stand there and beat them down with no danger whatsoever. Just like Pre-U9 epics. They want Mass Hold to no longer have an SR check like it was before. The reason they call it trash is because they WANT it to be trash, and if it was actually difficult for them to kill, they whine and moan and groan. They claim they want team work, when in fact they simply desire slaves to buff them up and let them play the hero.

The first time a trash mob becomes more than trash, guess who is the first to come in whining. The same ones who are now whining that casters are "op" for having any capability beyond Mass Hold. Hopefully, the casters out there will have sense and stop running with these people entirely when this goes through, like so many divine casters have already. Then we can see these same people whining about the "lack of arcanes" willing to group with them, and the "loss of teamwork" that has occurred since their slaves have revolted and refuse to put up with them.

[meathook2012]

I could support that. I still find myself occasionally popping open my bank window and staring at my dusty +5 Vorpal Greatsword.

On the other hand, Terror is the new vorpal, and they essentially give them away to everyone who owns IQ1.

So... if we had HtK, terror and tharack wraps would also be nerfed techically, but with haunting, a melee could spin in circles all day with those?

/ranton

(and yes, bring back vorpal. but whenever a melee kills someone with a vorpal/terror/wraps, make them take a -2 to hit for 6 seconds for every mob killed. so they can also sit on there hands. Apparently some people haven't seen a cleaving barb with terror clean through a quest before) /rant off

[Dark_Helmet]

Thank you for the feedback on the Hard to Kill buff. We're planning on making changes to it based on your comments.

Instant death effects ... When they're too strong, they likewise decrease the number of viable options that exist, and can dramatically reduce the enjoyment of other characters in your party.

Hard to Kill was intended to be a system ... in an attempt to promote teamwork between casters and the rest of the party.

I just want to know why Turbine hates D&D now? I mean you have worked so hard to change the rules, there isn't anything remotely related to it anymore. The more you try to "balance" the rules, the more you have actually changed D&D rules due to the new ones you "balanced".

In any type of free-form game, there will always be a top class. You keep nerfing the #1 class and then repeating that mistake (learn from your history on this - the only class that hasn't been #1 this way has been bard). Not everyone likes to play the same classes, but you are restricting the openess (wizards will not be insta-kill and become buff-bots like bards have been turned in to). You are taking every class and making it how you would play it and not allowing the freedom of how we would play it.


If you wanted a rock-paper-scissors game, why not just make rock-paper-scissors?

With all the changes and nerfs to loot, you turn off your current user base as well as other potential new players (Why would they come play a system where you will just wipe all their sweat equity at a whim?)

[Postumus]

[QUOTE=sephiroth1084;4512787]Incorrect.

Also obviously incorrect as evidenced by the many players who have posted in favor of such changes that have and enjoy their casters.

Since when is a dozen or so 'many?' A good 5-1 are against this latest half-baked scheme to nerf save or die spells. HTK was 6-1 against.

This obviously isn't what most players here want to see happen.