Choice constriction

[Ape_Man]

When Smatt, Chai, and I agree that something is horribly wrong SOMETHING IS HORRIBLY WRONG.

Thanks to the OP for consolidating all of this into one spot, makes it easier for the devs to ignore

[redspecter23]

I'm really hoping that the devs have overcosted many abilities on purpose so they can lower the values later and look like heroes. The alternative would have been to cost many appropriately then raise some costs later for balance, making it look like a nerf. The end result is the same, but how it is viewed by the players is completely different. At least that's what I'm hoping all this is. Right now I'm looking at many abilities I currently have on my toons and wondering how many points I would be short if I were to try to replicate what I already have. This is in addition to tweaking to fit in heal/spellcraft on toons that need it.

The dev intentions regarding spellpower needs to have it's own thread and a complete rundown on where we should be getting spellpower in the new system and how it compares to live. Not addressing this very important issue (while opening about 100 other "official" threads) is just asking for nerd rage. They should be open and communicative. I certainly hope that there is some missing tree based positive spellpower for rangers and pallies that is just not in the build yet. It could help close the massive gap that we're seeing right now. We don't have the whole picture and we need some communication to help us see it.

[SealedInSong]

I hate to say this I realyl do.. But it looks to me like this enhancement pass is desigened at least partially to push more DDO store sales.... I'll elaborate further as I look harder into the way they've nerfed the various self healing/self buffing abilites of classes.

You know it's funny, after coming back from a 2 month break from the game, I was saying the other night in a group how diverse the build oppurtunities had become in DDO. There are so many different builds out there, with very little of the "You must be built like this" type stuff going on these days. And here I start lookign at this very early enhancement change stuff and what do I see? A big step backwards in diversity....

BTW +1 to the OP for a nice thread/post.

Thank you.

The game is still amazing and I encourage you to ride it out--hopefully with all our feedback during the alpha, we can keep diversity alive and kicking in DDO.

[SealedInSong]

When Smatt, Chai, and I agree that something is horribly wrong SOMETHING IS HORRIBLY WRONG.

Thanks to the OP for consolidating all of this into one spot, makes it easier for the devs to ignore

But...here's to hoping!

[SealedInSong]

The completely arbitrary three tree limitation appears to be an epic fail when it comes to providing options, which was talked about at length about a year ago, and they were still going ahead with it. Toss that on top of requiring fail enhancements as prereqs (Wand heightening? Seriously?) for enhancements that never used to have prereqs, and its starting to look like options are being taken away when compared to what we are capable of on live, in many cases.

The same foretold mistakes. If they are going to countenance that, the least they can do is take the other advice people are giving such as eliminating the requisite tree expenditure, cutting costs in half, etc.

[SealedInSong]

I want the devs to play the game. Not using invulnerability. Play the game, and then look at the enhancement pass.

This pass lowers variety, lowers versatility, and is an across the board nerf to most builds.
Things are too expensive, and you have to take a bunch of useless junk to get anything. This flat out doesn't work. I know I should use constructive criticism, but I'm being blatantly honest: If this is just an excuse to nerf everything, leave the old enhancement system. This is garbage. I am aware it's an early alpha, but what worries me is that this kind of thing shows that the devs have no idea what is effective in the game.

It's like the video of them exploring king's forest.... ugh.

Lots of the things players are asking for in terms of diversity aren't hard to implement, and they would make the player base happy and the devs happy from the players' continued patronage. Win-win, right? Right? ...right...

[SealedInSong]

Originally Posted by Ape_Man
The is some serious stuff in here the shoe-horns us into cookie-cutting "Neverwinter" builds . . . and if I wanted to play a game with that little freedom it might as well be a new one.

While I don't always agree with Ape_Man, I have to say I was thinking the same thing... DDO has two significant things going for it, very good active combat & character flexibility. I truly hope Turbine doesn't discard one of it's core competencies in order to make it more of a cookiecutter build WoW/NWN/etc clone.

Originally Posted by psteen1
I think multiclassing is better--- if you can find four trees that you are happy with. There is no need to keep yourself on 6,12, or 18 levels splits now to get certain prestige classes. You don't have to get to 20 to obtain a capstone.

I respectfully disagree. Many of the previous capstones are now in the horizontal "core enhancements" at the bottom of window. Those still require class levels, including the last tier at 20 levels of the class. While the vertical trees may only require 4-5 levels of a class to reach the top tier ability they require an insane amount of AP to reach, about 40-44. That's a significant investment and you loose alot a freedom for multiclass options. Those abilities may "look" like capstones because they are at the top of the tree, but in the current system some of them were obtainable at level 12 with much less AP investment.

Epic destinies have already made "power creep" a laughable term. It's more like "Power Explosions."

Reduce the cost of getting to T5 enhancements and the worst that will happen is something similar to Destinies--a revitalization of the game, novel combinations, and people in love with their characters.

[SealedInSong]

First, let me say I know this is alpha - so hopefully this is an early pass and there will be lots of tweaking.

The "loss of freedom" has little to do with bugs. Bugs are there - sure - folks should submit reports when they find them. The loss of freedom now stems from things like this:

Let's say I have a melee. Say he's a pure fighter. Say he's a TWF stalwart - a blend of defense and offense that works for the content I play. Now I *have* to take sheild boosts and my stalwart stance isn't even active UNLESS I HAVE A SHIELD OUT. Consider a THF stalwart dwarf who has dwarven axes and greataxes ... same situation.

Gets even worse with multiclasses. Monk-fighters? Monk-paladins? A monk splash fighter today can reap some of the beneifts (core defender stance) while staying centered - this kind of model means you can either be centered or in a defender stance. That removes options and freedom to get creative on your build.

It makes all tanks look the same.

As these trees are built, I really think it would be helpful for the devs to make a list of the top 50 or 100 kinda build flavors (this isn't hard, I could probably start it for you) and ask the question about "what does this look like in the future"). It seems that this is approached from the other side "defender = this, so lets build in what we want a defender to be" ... and then all defender roads lead to the same end result.




The other loss of freedom comes from the chained costs, dependencies and "points spent in X". Some of the abilities have been and will always be not very good. For each, really ask how useful it is in the game? Are you going to make them more useful? etc. And "points spent by class" is ok ... only we don't have that restriction in the same way today ... so right off the bat someone like a 12/6/2 may not be able to get what they want without spending huge amounts of points around. They also are limited to class trees, so have far less abilities to choose from.

Essentially, you have to decide which tree you're going to spend the most on ... and with all of the chained prereqs and the like you're going to stare at it and say:

"I want to be defendery. Now that I've got the defendery bits I want, I've got 27 billion points spent on shields and nothing on TWF. ****, I shouldn't leave all of those on the table, I guess I'll be a shield defender like everyone else who doesn't want to waste points"

D&D PRCs aren't limited by class. You can have a fighter tempest, a ranger tempest, a barb tempest, a bard tempest.

DDO is already somewhat that way, but with less "class points spent" restrictions.

This new proposal is even more restrictive.

Some thoughts / considerations:
- Points spent by class and levels in class is going to be restrictive
- If you're going to put a limit, make it based on character level ... or ... since you're doing this alot these days ... "sphere" (arcane, divine, primal, martial) or "role" (spellcaster, specialist, melee/fight-ish) ... this could even vary by PRE ... maybe DoS, Stalwart, Tempest, Assassin all go in fight-ish ... anyway, be creative ... but base it on something higher level than "class" ...

Well-stated

[SealedInSong]

RE: Loss of freedom

3 trees. With abilities moved around, this means a generalist bard who splashes (say) rogue and ranger is going to be looking really hard at which trees to leave behind. Rogue damage? Rogue trap skills? One of the bard trees? This holds for any multiclass, where today you get
- all of each class
- some dependent on class level
- some dependent on feats or other pre-reqs
- some dependent on TOTAL points spent by character

Tomorrow you get
- 3 max, from all of your classes - so a 12/6/2 is only getting half the pool if there are two trees per class
- some dependent on class level
- some dependent on feats or other pre-reqs
- each dependent on points spent IN EACH TREE

Definitely more restrictive, just in this organizational sense.

Love me some succinct lists

[SealedInSong]

I appreciate the 'no nerf' intention.

Sadly as it is so far my main build concept (arcane armored knight) has been made harder to use due to the changes of elven arcane fluidity. While this perhaps isn't a very popular build in ddo, Duskblades, Hexblades, Death knights etc is quite popular in the dnd franchisee and I think it would be sad if ddo couldn't fulfill at least the dnd concept of plate wearing arcane casters in the future.

The 10% arcane spell failure reduction has been entirely removed from Battle engineer.
edit; correction it hasn't been removed, it's in the innate abilities.

Elven arcane fluidity is now a flat 15% spell failure reduction that doesn't affect shields. Whereas before it reduced the asf of shields by 10% and armor by 10-20% depending on armor type (so a total of 20-30% reduction for shield wearers).

The second build I'm concerned about is my caster bard, it has just lost all of its healing spellpower and heal skill is a cross-class skill, meaning max 11 ranks (so with 15 item and 6 wis item about 30 spell power compared to 90 from before). Heal is also a wis based skill and bards really can't afford to buy another base stat (wis was the only stat they didn't need before).

Spell criticals are now tied to Magical training (a feat bards don't get for free as the other casters (including Artificer) and can't afford with their already very thigh feats).

Heal domain isn't accessible for bards so it seems like bards will also be locked out of being competent as main healers from now on.

Elven arcanum is now also a lot worse for bards where the point of the enhancement was usually to be able to wear a shield since bards can cast in light/medium armor anyway.

Spellsinger and Virtuoso has been merged, to me that makes about as much sense as merging Archmage and Frezied berserker. Spellsinger should be an option in it self for players wanting to play caster focused bards (using caster implements), this has nothing to do with Virtuoso of the sword. I had very high hopes for bards in the update (since it was long overdue for bards) especially for making caster bards viable, but the merge and what I've seen so far isn't reassuring.

To me it just seems that there is no coincidence that Bards and Paladins gets their prestige's merged, seems like they were put on the back burner yet again.

I can understand this, but I don't understand why the 'tree' concept has to be there, it adds nothing for making it 'visually easier to understand how to get to a planed goal' that just having the layout and icons wouldn't.

A large part of the ap shortage that players is currently experiencing is that instead of just buying what they wanted (as before) they now has to buy unwanted abilities in order to get to the ones they want.

The problem is that certain classes 'has' to buy certain trees to fullfil their role in the mmo enviroment. As an example it has already been stated that the attack/damage enhancements for bard songs will be in Warchanter, fitting perhaps but it also means that every Spellsituoso (they're merged now) will essentially have to level 2 trees and one of them is certainly not because they are happy with it but because it is more or less required.

Good citation on the elven arcane fluidity. I didn't see that.

[SealedInSong]

A quick example of what I am trying to look at. Yes I know it is a strange build but I like it. 12 cleric / 6 arti / 2 monk
After several tries & attempts over about 2 hours of trying

everything below is naked number info - no gear

Old important stuff ... what I had room for in enchantments

Force: 60 crit: 3%
Light: 80 crit 6%
Pos: 80 crit 6%
+1 UMD
+40 Hps from enhancements
Rad II & Endless
10 % healing amp human

New ... what I am stuck with witch feels much more restrictive due to needing particular trees to get things: 1 art for endless 1 art for force enhancements & then 1 cleric for healing when I would rather of not had to do the 2nd Arti line .... ending with

Force: 44 edit(missed the feat change): crit 5% - magical training
Light: 82 edit(missed the feat change): crit 5% - magical training
Pos: 113 - edit(missed the feat change): crit 5% - magical training - maxing the healing line from skills
0 Hps from enhancements
0 UMD from enhancements
15 HPs form levels

over all that gives - edits .... missed some changes to feats

-20 force
+30 positive
-1% crit light
+2% crit force
- 25 HPs - edit: oops forgot about the 5/5lvls
-10 healing amp human (not enough point left)

Looking at why Arti or Wiz was splashed with cleric before which was give a boost to force (blade Barriers) and Feat(wiz) this has pretty much been taken away because at least with arti you need to spend points in a completely worthless tree for this build, which also gives you even less choice in building.

**Side note: -Edit: this is a bug
I had cleric scroll mastery & arti scroll mastery both at 75% which gives scroll*(master1 + Mastery2) or scroll*150% if anyone was curious on how they add

Nice job

[SealedInSong]

I know that its easier to get focused feedback when there is less open, however currently since the majority of stuff isnt implemented (IE multiclassing and racial pre's) its hard to say what is or isnt going to be nerfed when compared to the current live builds as far as level splits and AP costs.

I can already say that my pure artificer will probably be nerfed slightly due to AP costs, most likely I wont be able to get more then 1 T5 ability, if any. and with the stablecharge3 for runearm being t5 thats a hit to what she can do on live, if anything that should be moved to t4 (with the removal of the movement penalty being above it in t5)

my spellsinging AA whom I TR'd on live would've had an even bigger problem with the racial prestige cost (14AP to unlock the AA tree, and level gates that go above 20 (5th core ability being lvl 22, and 6th being lvl 25) would've made it unplayable due to the gap in effectiveness compared to an ranger AA, a 5 level gap to be equal between a racial and a class prestige is too high, they're already spending nearly twice the amount of AP as what they used to just to unlock the thing. since bards arent ready to make yet I'll have to wait until multiclassing is available to actualy test out how she'd do in the new system, but from the looks of it she'd take a massive nerf until she was capped.

Most if not all of our multiclass melee bards have taken a hit. If all our positive spellpower is tied up in spellsinger, how can we be expected to splash fighter and benefit and then fit in healing and warchanter? It was incredibly easy before. Now, who knows.

[SealedInSong]

With the new enhancements as of right now, my cleric AA trapper will get a massive downgrade. In order to get AA, I have to spend 15 of my 80 points in the Elf Racial Tree. In order to get everything I want in the AA tree, I have to spend 46 of my 80 points, leaving me with 19 points. On top of that, to get Ranger Sprint boost, I have to go into the Tempest tree to get it, which costs another 8 points, leaving me with 11 left. Also, by already needing the Elf tree to get AA, the AA tree to get prestige enhancements and the cleric tree to get cleric enhancements, on top of having to go into Tempest to get Sprint Boost, I can't go into the rogue tree to get trapper enhancements, not that I could afford to anyway, by this point. On top of that issue, I can't get Positive Energy Aura, which I heavily rely on, because I can't spend 40 points in more than one tree. This is a disaster for my main, favorite and first character I ever got to level 20.

Thanks for sharing Rosedarkthorn. Hopefully this is mitigated in some way...

[SealedInSong]

Why? If the past is any indication of what the future holds, you'll pretend to listen and take feedback and say you want bug reports then just do whatever you **** well please anyway.

I also think releasing the trees in a staggered fashion like this is incredibly limiting. I can't grasp the whole picture. I WANT to be overwhelmed by information. I process it better that way.

Being forced into stupid pre-reqs for stuff you actually want is hogwash. Not being able to count points spent in other trees towards your total is hogwash. As it is on live right now, if I want X enhancement I have to spend Y points. Those Y points can be from any number of things, as long as I meet the feat requirements/level requirements/class requirements and total points spent. Not points spent only as a Kensai (who got royally cornholed, btw) or points spent only as an AA (who didn't get it as bad as Kensai, but is still awful) but maybe points spent on Human Recovery I and Toughness I.

I won't even go into what you've done to toughness. It's just.. ugh.

You know what I'd really like to see happen with this revamp? Bring back Breca. The Fatesinger ED is one of the most well designed EDs out there, since it has something for everyone. It really sucks to level up as a GMoF on my eSOS kensai wearing heavy red. Almost none of the abilities help me.

Perhaps a bit more combative than I normally endorse, but the spirit is admirable Rest :]

[RavenStormclaw]

Sealed you mentioned in the OP you've lost the ability to specialize in one elemental type of magic over another. I really don't see how you can say that considering the three classes thaat use elemental magic (wizard, sorcerere, and druid) haven't even been release on alpha yet. You don't know what they are going to look like yet. Now I will grant you Artificer did loose the enhancement line to force and elemental magic. However, of interest at 20 I ended up with same base spell power I had on live. I ended up at 80 not includingn an items. That was between spell craft and USP from arcanotechnician. I had 80 base from the enhancements on live. So its kinda of a wash. Just my observation on that.

[SealedInSong]

multiclassing

the greatest pain that i can see is the prerequisite "points spent in tree."

the problem is, when you move over to a new tree, you have to spend the same minimums to climb up the tree. We only have 80 points to spend which forces one to either specialize in one tree or just take the basic minimums in two or three (keeping in mind you still need to meet feat prerequisites as well still).

I would suggest making the "points spent in tree" prerequisite for each enhancement be global across trees so that you don't have to always start from the bottom. If you have the "points spent" minimum established in say arcane archer, you should be able to get a higher up enhancement from another tree so long as you have the feat and enchancement prerequisites (not the "points spent in tree" for that specific tree). This is the mechanic that will restrict multiclassing in my opinion. One already is forced to take lower level enhancements they may not want in order to move up. Repeat that on the next tree and more wasted points. Then on the third tree and...you can see how it gets expensive real quick. And this is regardless of the build. This goes for really any multiclassed character.

+1

[SealedInSong]

Seriously? Kensei lost 5 seeker, 4 points in tactics, 5 action boosts, we're still mandated to take the stupid attack boost, to gain a few useless clickies... only way to have done it worse is if we'd lost haste boost too... er wait nvm.

So much as an ... OUCH.

[SealedInSong]

First, I know that having 5 columns along the bottom of the tree window, and lining all of the enhancements up with those as you rise through the tree is aesthetically pleasing, but other than that there's no reason for the class and race trees to be so restricted. You can have the 5 "Core/Auto-grant" abilities at the bottom, still, but have 6, or 7, or 10 columns for the rest of the tree. There's no reason for this arbitrary restriction.

Why do I bring this up? Because it looks like some of the design decisions were made around that restriction. One glaring example is our being forced to choose between action boosts, rather than having access to each/all of them. Why should a Ranger have to choose between Damage Boost (an always valuable offensive ability), and Skill Boost (an occasionally useful utility ability)? That's going to be a clear choice for nearly everyone. Now, it may be an intentional decision, but things like this just look to me like you're squeezing. Ditto on the multi-selector, multi-tier enhancements where we can choose one of two or three options at, say, row 1, then can choose one of the remaining options at row 2, and the last option at row 3, whereas in the live enhancement system, those would all simply require the same amount of AP spent, and would be available at the same point. The 5-column tree appears to be forcing awkward design elements like that.


Second, the limitation of only being able to spend AP in 3 trees is overly constricting and largely unnecessary. There are other ways to limit how far any one character can progress in multiple trees, such as through enhancement costs (we still have only a limited amount of AP available in total), and through occasional prerequisites and class-level-restrictions. Obviously, the idea behind the proposed system is to free us a little from those gates, but if those checkpoints are replaced with impassable walls, it's a step back, not an improvement.

For some multiclass builds, enhancements are a secondary concern, while for others they are the main reason for multiclassing. In either case, the new restriction strangles a lot of builds, particularly since many core-class abilities have now been shunted into only one tree or another, so you can't access them if you want to invest in your multiclass trees at all. For example, my archer is a half-elf AA monk 12/ranger 6/artificer 2 (a fairly common split). I've got AP sunk into Earth and Water stances, Ninja Spy, Healing Amp, and Ten Thousand Stars (Wind stance), which will probably be 3 different trees in monk, Favored Enemy Damage, Skill Boost, and Sprint Boost, which are from two different trees in ranger, and Wand and Scroll Mastery in artificer. That's a total of 6 trees I'm invested in. The ranger enhancements aren't necessary, per se, but Sprint Boost especially is a quality of life investment, and Skill Boost helps fill out my ability to handle traps, and UMD things earlier in the game, while at least two of the monk trees are necessary for the character to function, and the artificer investment is there to round-off the character's survivability. The AP invested beyond 3 trees doesn't make the character broken, or super-powerful--it keeps it competitive with melees, and ensures that I can contribute more than just mediocre ranged DPS to my party when Manyshot and Ten Thousand Stars are timered.

If you're concerned, tie some of the stronger enhancements to class level, or stick them behind a prerequisite. Ultimately, you can only spend 80 AP in so many ways. You've already back-loaded a lot of the really valuable enhancements, while many were front-loaded, so additional restrictions aren't necessary.

Seeing basically every single character currently in the game getting dialed back, because abilities they have currently are being split into multiple trees and gated off behind high AP-spent prerequisites is very frustrating.

Again, hundreds of pages of feedback pre-alpha. Alpha comes out with tree restriction.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[SealedInSong]

Sealed you mentioned in the OP you've lost the ability to specialize in one elemental type of magic over another. I really don't see how you can say that considering the three classes thaat use elemental magic (wizard, sorcerere, and druid) haven't even been release on alpha yet. You don't know what they are going to look like yet. Now I will grant you Artificer did loose the enhancement line to force and elemental magic. However, of interest at 20 I ended up with same base spell power I had on live. I ended up at 80 not includingn an items. That was between spell craft and USP from arcanotechnician. I had 80 base from the enhancements on live. So its kinda of a wash. Just my observation on that.

but I also did make it clear that I know how preliminary the system is. That said, the comment was based off of my interpretation of Vargouille saying that there are no more direct spellpower enhancements, just spellpower granted from skills and from autogranted expenditure in trees, similar to the cleric healing domain.

If it makes it in, great. If not, hopefully the implementation is good.

[SealedInSong]

The only workable solution is to put in a general tab for each class that contains core abilities, and split the PrE stuff into their own much smaller trees. This allows us to retain the current functionality of having 1 PrE per class, since the other trees could be safely locked out once you invest into one of them, and making the investment into one of them doesn't prevent you from getting core abilities elsewhere. And yes, this could mean that a given character might have 3 general trees AND 3 PrE trees, in addition to the racial tree.

Dividing absolutely everything into PrE trees is a HORRENDOUS design decision that I honestly cannot fathom at all.

This was proposed so many times (probably by you and many others) in the hundreds of pages of pre-alpha speculation.

I don't even know how to respond to seeing it not included. Perhaps if all the costs were globally but in half, that might help, but that still doesn't address the tree limit--another thing warned against in the hundreds of pre-alpha feedback.

+1 Matuse