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Sarlona*Eternal Wrath
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Sarlona*Eternal Wrath
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Sarlona*Eternal Wrath
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Sarlona*Eternal Wrath
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This new system is depressing.
Was all of the feedback from last year ignored? Customizability is one of the best aspects of this game, and it is being destroyed.
I might need to find a new game to play when this update comes out.
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Sarlona*Eternal Wrath
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It's true, DDO is currently a great game, that is why I play it.
I want to give constructive feedback, but it's hard to justify putting in the effort when it seems obvious to me that it will continue to be ignored.
The new enhancement system has serious core problems. Limiting characters to a handful of trees, requiring X points spent in each tree to get to most enhancements, and shoving all general enhancements into specialized PRE trees is bad design. This has been pointed out by many people many times over the past year, and the bad design is still being pushed through. If they didn't listen a year ago when the system was in its early stages, why would I expect them to overhaul the system a year later in the design process?
EDIT: @OP I apologize for *****ing on your thread. I applaud your optimism and hope that your efforts to improve things are successful.
Last edited by Vestriel; 04-13-2013 at 11:31 AM.
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Sarlona*Eternal Wrath
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I've not been able to get into Lama, but, that said, here is my thought on the whole re-vamp. No snarkyness intended.
I really just don't see why it is happening. The enhancement system as it stands now is just fine.
It allows great freedom to try new and exciting builds, and yet can still have some control so as not to allow a character to be too OP.
As far as I am concerned, trying to make a "simplified" Enhancement panel is kind of an insult to intelligence. Truly, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand the system as it stands now, but you do need to be a bit intuitive and spend a little time getting to know it.
In the end, what the material presented here on the forums represents to me is a lock down on build and play of characters to fit into a preconceived mold. Whose mold that is, I think we all have an idea.
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...38#post4979238
Something to point out: There's 2 sets of 3 questions in the general class one talking about what aspects feel the most constrictive by priority. Presumably, that's so they see which aspects to ease up on to what degree.
I will be posting my responses here or in Ellis' thread.
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Sarlona*Eternal Wrath
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Sarlona*Eternal Wrath
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Sarlona*Eternal Wrath
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Sarlona*Eternal Wrath
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Sarlona*Eternal Wrath
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The thing that gets me about all of this is this:
We have asked for years, some of us longer than I've been around even, for completed PrEs. Not a complete gutting and rebuilding in an inferior form of the Enhancement system. Yes, some of the classes need a rebalancing of AP costs and in some cases some beefing up. Monks and Paladins come to mind for too high AP costs, Paladins and Rangers in generally weak enhancements.
Not only are we not getting the PrE's, what we are getting are significantly worse than what we have now. In fact, during the initial teaser thread over a year ago, it was stated somewhere that we would be getting all PrEs finished out, with each race getting a PrE. While no one sane liked the previewed tree limit, and everyone with some means of reason pointed out it would overly restrict multi-classing, the over-all thought of getting all PrEs done was cool.
We were also supposed to be able to take two PrEs to the equivalent of a Tier III now, or Mix and match the PrE's we have, which would have, theoretically, made for much more interesting pure builds at least. Imagine a RSII Warpriest III, full power Aura and burst as on live, but with whatever Warpriest bonuses as well, making them a fairly powerful front line support.
Take Cleric. We are supposed to get Domains, Warpriest PrE, Exorcist PrE, and a finished Radiant Servant PrE.
We got a crappy Radiant Servant, no domains at all (and no, "Healing Domain" and "Protection" trees are NOT domains, not in the least), no Warpriest, and no Exorcist. To top it off, to be viable at healing and offensive casting, they have to invest into INT heavily to take multiple skills. And will still be far worse than before. Instead of one skill minimum to be effective, they need three. Meaning 12 INT for non-humans (the majority of races). Minimum. That's ignoring highly useful skills such as Balance or UMD.
Take Fighter. Now Stalwart Defender has been made irrelevant and useless for 90% of the game, and Kensai - the only remaining viable PrE outside of a handful of raid boss fights - is sorely weakened for no apparent reason. PDK is nowhere to be found.
Take Ranger. Their already limited healing is sorely weakened, by the removal of devotion lines from the enhancements. They're not as hurt by the skill point tax, but with half-ranks and no particular emphasis on WIS, their Heal skill will suck hard. At least Tempest isn't worse than live. The bar was set too low with U5.
Bards are reported to actually LOSE a PrE. As Bards were well loved now! It's one of the lowest played classes in DDO now, only beating out some of the pay options. Heck, my Bard will no longer HAVE a PrE.
Basically, I can see no improvements. Each of the four classes previewed this week have lost a lot of power, lost a lot of versatility, and lost a lot of the appeal. I will not be playing a cleric at all post Enhancement pass. Nor a Fighter, nor a Ranger. Even though I was planning a TR back into Cleric, and currently have a Fighter and a Ranger. My nearly capped Artificer will likely be shelved, as will the TRed one.
I play this game to have fun now. Not remember how fun it was before the enhancement pass hit, when I could come up with bizarre builds, odd class splits, and even try something new with pure classes. This cannot be done with the new enhancements. Given the current state of classes shown so far, and how much they have lost any appeal and versatility, I highly doubt I will enjoy Wizard, Druid, Favored Soul, Rogue, Bard, or Monk. I was looking forward to a viable Warpriest or Divine Avenger. Barbarians maybe getting a PrE that I liked enough to try the class. Bards having a reason to take 18 levels as a Bard. None of these things will come to pass, so now I look forward to having more money in my bank account from not buying TR hearts.
The enhancement pass should have done two things: Added remaining PrEs to the existing system, and rebalanced the weaker races/classes' enhancements to make them cheaper and/or more viable. The UI is a wholly separate thing which did not require any adjustment to the underlying mechanics whatsoever.
Last edited by azrael4h; 04-14-2013 at 05:36 PM.
Anyone who disagrees is a Terrorist...
Cthulhu 2020 Never settle for the lesser evil...
I agree with everything except that I do see some clear improvements--some novel enhancements, some tweaking of things like Divine Might that we have asked for. Earthgrab Kundarak greater DM, the release of Henshin, things like that are great. I'll reserve my judgments for bards.
But on the whole, yes. This alpha had better be just an alpha; the prelude to a beta that's better, and a live version that's worthwhile.
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Sarlona*Eternal Wrath
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Character Compendium
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Sarlona*Eternal Wrath
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