Final plea for Yellow false life augments

[RoelHeeswijk]

This is a compilation of requests to keep the false life line of augments in yellow, instead of moving it to blue.
The main argument is twofold;

1. Backward compatibility, both for consistency's sake and for the preventing a handicap to anyone unable to take advantage of the previous system.

2. Yellow augment slots will lack in options and power without false life. At the same time, yellow slots are far more numerous than blue, this in combination with less options strongly amplifies the problem.

Also the shuffling of effects between yellow and blue was unneeded. Yellow has essentially become useless. The spell points will rarely matter. The resists are essentially useless when considering guild shrines. Greater spell focus at 24 will be an off school choice at best.

No, I can't say I'm feeling it for this system. If they had just harmonized things and created equivalents for the existing epic augments it would have been much better.

That said I agree that they yellow slots are weak. HP (of the false life variety) should be moved from blue to yellow
…

blue seems to already have enough very useful stuff, so an old item slotted with GFL might still fit better in some setups.

Agree with previous poster that YELLOW slot needs Greater False Life alternative.

Thanks for listening ^

Overall looks like a really good change.

I'll also echo that Yellow slots seem really weak, especially for non-blue bars. While Blue Slots seem very desirable (since some of old Yellow augments were moved to Blue). The biggest problem with that is you are more then likely to have more Yellow augents then Blue on nearly any set-up.

I'd like to see some of those old Yellow augments come back and perhaps add in a few other choices for Blue. As in at least consider moving GFL (or the new equivelent) back to Yellow, Give Blue back Toughness, Consider 150% Fort for lvl 24 Blue.

Otherwise, looks like a nice direction.

While I'm very enthusiastic about most of the changes, I'm starting to agree with this sentiment the more and more I look at it. Yellow slots got a lot of their best options removed and given to Blue without much to compensate (particularly for melees).

This is going to be a problem that will be especially aggravating since yellow slots will be by far the most common slots after colorless. Fewer options + more slots = a lot of empty slots.

Looks good - the only thing that looks odd to me is changing hit point enhancements from yellow to blue slot. No-one currently uses the +4 res or +4 prot yellow enhancements (or at least only as a last resort) so moving these to blue and providing better versions will work. Moving the HP enhancement however will cause problems for many, especially as yellow slots are much more common. The best solution imo would be to keep toughness available for blue, and move the HP enhancements to yellow; the process of converting characters to the new system would then be so much smoother. SP enhancements are staying in yellow, I don't see the reasoning for moving the HP enhancement - perhaps someone could enlighten me.

Omissions like Toughness and Greater false life seem poorly thought out.
...
This system, with it's keep guild slots, (but no new ones drop), replacing old slot recipes, (but not all), is half baked and shouldn't be released to live until it's properly finished. But why buck the trend huh.

ML 20 and a Blue Augment to add Greater False Life however is an entirely different level of bad.

Devs,

Some good stuff in augment list there, but, as others have pointed out, some glaring omissions.

Rather than list out specific augment powers I think are missing, can I suggest
...
everything currently available as an Epic augment?

...
I am baffled by the decision the further devalue Yellow slots with moving Resistance, Proctection and False Life to
Blue slots which are only available on random Armor, Robes, Outfits, Shields, or other off-hand items or named items
...

...
False life is now a blue slot and a enhancement bonus.

In other words we need to find place for the enhancements that no longer fit or make a legacy item that is set in stone.

Some challenges still to overcome with the new system I hope they will add to their weak sauce yellow list.

They should move the HP back to Yellow to keep the change consistent with the previous system.

Add me to the list of people who like everything EXCEPT the change to Greater False Life now being a blue slot. There are WAY TOO FEW blue slot items. Keep it yellow.

Please put healing amp / health onto YELLOW augments as its currently super weak for melee characters and at least everyone likes health and healing amp ^

Allow some useful effects for the yellow slots, at least False Life.

False life Augment situation is very troublesome because they are no longer yellow slots.

The Ugly
Grandfathered epic items are kind of a PITA to keep track of in this new system. (To paraphrase Strongbad, “You’re left to wonder: Why can I not get ye yellow augment?”)

Yellow does look a bit weak
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The False Life and Elemental Resists on the Yellow side could probably be adjusted a bit

I also agree that HP should be added back to the Yellow Augment slot.

But I would like to comment... can we get HP augs back in yellow slots? You need to consider that all the old epic loot was basically balanced around yellow offering false life, and now it doesn't. Thats a rather large indirect nerf to all old items, and a handicap to anyone unable to take advantage of that before U17.

I would echo what others have said though. False life should go back to yellow slots

now my two cents about Augments... They are going to fit what most people said.

- Lack of Yellow Augments.
It's the accessory augment, that's usually the one we have lots of and the most interesting things from it are gone : Toughness and False Life.

Yes they will still be there for those that already have it, but I'm thinking of the Have Not.
There's going to be those that had it before the change and will have it in a yellow slot and those that won't have it.
It's going to be like the No ML Underwater action items, the No ML Feather Falling items and all the other grandfathered items... there's going to be the Have and the Have Not. ( and yes I'm in the Have Category... )

I can understand the idea to make toughness a named augment as I don't see any problem there, as long as it's going to be a yellow augment. But you should put back False life in the Yellow Slot.

I like the new augment sytem, yet there's few things i don't like.

The fact that there's no toughness in the new augments and greater false life and other stuff got transformed into blue augments will make people not cleanse their own items. For example i got an item with toughness slotted into greenslot: i will never cleanse it if i know i will not be able to fit it anywhere else. This is a desing problem in my opinion: i think you guys should either revert this thing back to their normal slots and allow the crafting of toughness and other stuff you removed or simply make all items holding toughness at the moment auto-cleansing on log in.

A new player will never be able to make an item like mine (Spare Hand Belt with toughness for example) if he hits cap and farm this kind of equipment post U17.

[*]Please shift certain enhancements back to yellow slots, such as False Life, Protection, and Resistance. We're likely to have an abundance of yellow slots compared to blue, as they can appear on three times the amount of slots. However, there are not enough viable or interesting choices for yellow augments to fill these slots.

Move GFL to Yellow slot again

Bring back Toughness and move False Life (and some others) back to Yellow !

kkthxbai

Sometimes a little common sense outweighs everything else.

I simply can't see any reason to not have toughness in blue and greater false life in yellow slots in the new augment system. It just doesn't make sense to create a biphasic situation where you have new/old items that aren't consistent with each other.

Regardless of what properties are offered in what slots at what level and how the system functions there is simply no compelling argument for changing the availability of GFL and toughness in their current slots.

KISS.

Moving gfl and resistance both over to blue slots leaves yellow slots with very little that anyone would want. +2 school dc's is ok but anything of real consequence casters will aim for +3 boosts or have one of the items with +2 to all schools. Resistances are easy enough to get elsewharere with the spell, ship buffs, wands, 30 point pots etc.

Blue meanwhile added more to an already pretty heavy field of augments.

In general I think most people are gonna end up wanting more blue slots then they can get and use yellow mainly for colorless augments.

Either some of blues need to be moved to yellow like good luck and gfl as these are effects mostly found on accessories anyways not armor. Either that or yellow needs a big boost

can you comment on the possibility of moving HP back to Yellow? Most of the initial feedback supports this move.

and my intial reaction

Nice system. Yellow augments seem a bit weak though.

The only real big issue I have with it is that it creates legacy items, for example items with a yellow slot that have GFL slotted (same for resistance4, and old Toughness in blue, if the new HP isn't toughness-like). It seems unfair that new players will never ever be able to get these.
And I don't like the headache of the coming month in which I will have to figure out which item to slot how, because now it will be set in stone forever. I'll need to run cannith challenges like crazy to get multiples of the good items to slot in every possible combination that won't be possible later. I'll have to get lucky on an epic belt of mroranon because it's now or never for a GFL variant. Etc.

I don't mind change, if from u17 on all items would have to be reslotted i wouldn't complain at all, I like to adept. But I really dislike creating non-obsolete legacy items. (reminds of the Enduring Conviction fail :-/)

So. Even though I cringe to think of the inelegance of having hit points in both yellow and blue, I feel this is outweighed and I ask for you to either:
-put the HP line in yellow (of course make it false life), and keep 20 Toughness HP in blue at level20.
-make the blue HP-line toughness, and add Greater False Life to the yellow table at level20.

Also consider keeping resistance and protection in yellow, and giving blue something else, something new and exciting, there was no need for a shuffle. Honestly, the yellow augments can use an improvement anyway, what you propose now is pretty weak and I can't see anyone putting anything but colorless stuff in there.

In addition to these, there are an even greater number of reactions just addressing the sentiment that yellow slot are now far too weak, which I have omitted since I realize that moving False Life back to yellow is not the only way to fix that (although by far the most logical one).

These are just a portion of the posts requesting a move of GFL back to yellow, posted across the forum in multiple contexts, but I didn't check all topics; and to keep it fair, I removed multiple posts of the same users.

Please hear our concern and do what is both right and logical.

Thanks,

[Miow]

I'm totally on board with this, but alas the only sure way to have it that way is to slot your items right now.

[Atremus]

Great post +1

It seems like the whole forum community is in agreement with having the HP system slotted in a Yellow Slot. Turbine?


P.S. Storage of all these Augments?

[redspecter23]

The community wants it to stay in yellow. The devs want to move it to blue. Someone, somewhere at Turbine suggested this change and then had someone else ok the idea. This sort of change doesn't just randomly happen. So, my question is, what is their reasoning for the change and does that reasoning outweigh maintaining consistency among augments when changing to the new system. Inquiring minds want to know. If the answer is yes, then an explanation is fine. If the answer is no, then logic dictates that it stays in yellow. If there is no explanation, then it's simply dartboard development which is inexcusable and so far this is where we are at. A change for the sake of change which only serves to promote negative Turbine feelings from the community. Lose/lose for everyone.

[RoelHeeswijk]

The community wants it to stay in yellow. The devs want to move it to blue. Someone, somewhere at Turbine suggested this change and then had someone else ok the idea. This sort of change doesn't just randomly happen. So, my question is, what is their reasoning for the change and does that reasoning outweigh maintaining consistency among augments when changing to the new system. Inquiring minds want to know. If the answer is yes, then an explanation is fine. If the answer is no, then logic dictates that it stays in yellow. If there is no explanation, then it's simply dartboard development which is inexcusable and so far this is where we are at. A change for the sake of change which only serves to promote negative Turbine feelings from the community. Lose/lose for everyone.

Without any dev response on this so far, I'm assuming it DID just randomly happen. They took the opportunity to build it 'from the ground up', the logic behind it being that red=offensive, blue=defensive, yellow=utility, and this time false life just semi-randomly happened to be regarded as defensive this time, because hit points are to protect you. Or something. (note that the idea that certain items have always been considered defensive as well, like belts and bracers, is completely thrown out of the window with this development)

My main point however is that there is no real reason to regard hit points as defensive. The idea of splitting things up in categories should be executed in a way that each category contains a fair share of the abilities, not that each ability is in a category that would represent it best in a vacuum. Not that I think any of this reasoning warrants a shift at all, but to follow the idea, blue should contain the 5 MOST defensive abilities, red the 5 MOST offensive, and the other 5 should be yellow. When you have 8 abilities that are kinda defensive, you have to think about which suit blue the best, instead of determining for each ability which color it should be.
Actually, even less so, since players will end up with way LESS blue slots than yellow slots due to how many

To me this just feels very much like https://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazi...com/daily/mr85 done wrong.

If this is indeed the reason behind this all, the move of protection to blue I can understand. The move of resistance to blue, maybe, although I don't agree with it. The move of false life to blue, not at all (flavor-wise, not even mentioning practical). If anything, proof against poison, proof against disease and also deathblock, blindness immunity, elemental resist and fear immunity are MORE defensive than plain HP. Note that this is not a request to move them also, I'm just showing that rigid thinking leads to unwanted results (and since the spell focus is not a neutral caster-thing but only servers to penetrate opponent's saves, it can be considered offensive as well, leaving yellow with only striding, spellpoints, featherfall and underwater action).

The thought may be that they are planning to fill up yellow with neat new utility stuff, but I'm predicting this will be too little. I imagine they are thinking skills, healing amp, diversion, dancing guards and whatever, but in the future there will also be a desire for new defensive stuff. If this is any indication of the fundamental thinking of the designers, they:
-A. don't have a strong enough realization of how 'DPS'-oriented this game works. It is more about killing stuff fast and staying alive than I think you realize. This is almost fundamental to a computer game since this is the easiest to balance. Utility always has the problem of usually being either overpowered (remember intimidate the old-fashioned way?) or useless.
-B. overlook the number of yellow slots compared to blue slots.
Rethink your color pie before the basis of it is skewed.

Bottom line; it's OK to regard Hit Points as middle of the road. 'Save' blue for abilities that make actual incoming threats less incoming, like AC/DR/PRR and other stuff that is truly protective.


Yes, there is a whole lot of assuming in this post, and of course I don't know for sure if these are in fact the reasons. It is merely the way I as a game designer would think. (In a way I hope this is the underlying thought, for they at least it shows some sort of vision, but the execution is off.)

[gphysalis]

(and since the spell focus is not a neutral caster-thing but only servers to penetrate opponent's saves, it can be considered offensive as well, leaving yellow with only striding, spellpoints, featherfall and underwater action).

Featherfall and underwater action sound defensive to me.
They both reduce incoming damage (from falling or the water)
I think by the logic of absolute categorization, only spellpoints and striding would be left in yellow.
(only because you can run towards and away from a battle, and because sp can be used for offensive or defensive casting.)


I agree entirely that hp should be moved back to a yellow slot.

[Jay203]

Featherfall and underwater action sound defensive to me.
They both reduce incoming damage (from falling or the water)
I think by the logic of absolute categorization, only spellpoints and striding would be left in yellow.
(only because you can run towards and away from a battle, and because sp can be used for offensive or defensive casting.)


I agree entirely that hp should be moved back to a yellow slot.

well, we have 3 primary colors for slots
Red: offensive
Blue: defensive
yellow: utility

underwater action and feather fall feels more like utility while false life feels more defensive

UA and FF are both situational buff that allows one to traverse from point A to B safely

false life is an all around buff up effect on your character in order to last longer

at least that's the kind of way-of-thinking that i think lead to the decision to have false life on blue o-o

[J1NG]

I'm going to guess it's to make the slots be more valuable, whilst making it competitive with each other and not simply to make them all a free for all. You want False Life 45 and Resistance +7 at the same time? Get two Blue Slot items or choose one.

Strategy and Tactics. For both players and Devs.

At least, that's probably one of the reasons I'd go for giving.

J1NG

:: edit ::

PS Forgot to add, I also disagree with it, but knowing how things are, just zerged out a Yellow Slot item in the last few days and slotted it up in preparation for the change. Most likely the things are too far down the line in development to get altered at this late hour.

[aristarchus1000]

nicely put together.

Honestly, I don't understand the reasoning. Just about the entire forum community seems to agree, and that's pretty rare.

[EllisDee37]

2. Yellow augment slots will lack in options and power without false life. At the same time, yellow slots are far more numerous than blue, this in combination with less options strongly amplifies the problem.

Actually, every time I've put together a gear list that involves U17 gear, greens match or outnumber yellows.

The primary value of yellows is for casters, who can slot archmagi and greater spell focus: school in them. For non-melees, basically yellows are just colorless.

/signed to the OP -- and I'd like to toss in resistance too; move those back to yellow! -- but I think the design going forward is to have greens be the most common augment.

[Cetus]

I'd definitely like to see GFL stay on yellow

[Munkenmo]

Everyone believes that false life should stay on yellow, except the guy making the new augment system who knows it's better off in blue.

Sadly that opinion is greater than all of ours.

[avery61]

/signed It should def be yellow not blue. Would love to see a dev response to this.

[Cetus]

/signed It should def be yellow not blue. Would love to see a dev response to this.

You probably won't, feather seems to have made up his mind in direct opposition to the people that support and care for this game.

[Forzah]

I'm gonna slot some elemental resistances in my yellow slots instead. Very nice to have if you lose shipbuffs through death (or if you don't use shipbuffs at all).

[Tid12]

I'm gonna slot some elemental resistances in my yellow slots instead. Very nice to have if you lose shipbuffs through death (or if you don't use shipbuffs at all).

That doesn't mean we shouldn't get false life augments back to yellow anyway.

[Forzah]

That doesn't mean we shouldn't get false life augments back to yellow anyway.

Just showing that there is a useful alternative for yellow slots; there's also loads of immunities that are very useful.

To be honest, we wouldn't see this complaint if false life had been on a blue slot before. The complaint arises merely because you are used to false life being a yellow slot enchantment, which is not a very good reason in itself. I think the division of enhancements between yellow and blue slots is pretty balanced, actually. On my melee I would want 5 blue slots (false life, resistance, PRR, good luck, heavy fort) and 8 yellow slots (5 resistances, deathblock, blindness immunity, striding), ideally.

[RoelHeeswijk]

Just showing that there is a useful alternative for yellow slots; there's also loads of immunities that are very useful.

To be honest, we wouldn't see this complaint if false life had been on a blue slot before. The complaint arises merely because you are used to false life being a yellow slot enchantment, which is not a very good reason in itself. I think the division of enhancements between yellow and blue slots is pretty balanced, actually. On my melee I would want 5 blue slots (false life, resistance, PRR, good luck, heavy fort) and 8 yellow slots (5 resistances, deathblock, blindness immunity, striding), ideally.

I strongly disagree with you there, I think we would see (and would already have seen) an equal amount of complaining about the lack of strength of yellow augments compared to blue (like http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=404897&page=5). They'd just be spread out over 5 years of ddo. Of course it is all subjective, but you are the first person I've heard that values elemental resistances, blindness immunity and deathblock equal to the benefits of the blue augments. I'd rather run with a melee that has heavy fort and some blindness pots, than one without and permaimmunity.

But besides that, I'm arguing that 'because you are used to false life being a yellow slot' IS in fact a very good reason in itself. I would have a problem with a change* even if both situations were equally desirable (both because of a feeling of consistency and because it's not just people being used to the old system, it's also items will continue existing that are already slotted that old system). A change for the worse is just double bad.


*unless it is always changing, making things more interesting, in a "the only constant is change itself" line of thinking (if, for example, we'd get a different set augments to work with rotating twice a year, that would be a system that could be fun). But this is not the case here.

[bigolbear]

I'll sign it but lets face it I dont think its going to do any good.

[patang01]

Keep in mind that they will add more augments in the future. I'm fairly sure that skill augments will fall under yellow. Not saying that you're wrong, but we don't know the extend of what they're planning.