A few thoughts after reading...

[Produktion_Malphunktion]

Hey y'all hope you are having fun. Just some thoughts after reading the threads here.

Most of the restrictions are in there so we can see which ones work...and which ones suck. The screws are intentionally tight, AP costs, prereqs, exc, and most likely will not be that way when we go live. The devs intentionally wanted to start at ' most painful' and throttle back instead of most open and then deal with the 'gar nerf' rage when we released. We really try to have a 'no nerf' policy at this point...except when trees are drunk or obvious exploits.

As for listening, that is what this is all about. This system is 4 days out of alpha by QA standards and is very very raw. We want...no...need player feedback as early as possible. The behind the scenes view from QA goes something like this: Thursday we update Lamania. Monday we collate last week's data and bugs write reports and make charts graphs with glossy photos and stuff. Thursday we update again, new classes and whatnot. rinse repeat. In a month or so after this schedule...the date has not been locked down...or even really talked about yet, we do this all again with the changes, and in my opinion at that point without class restrictions so the multiclassers can break it in all new interesting ways. There probably will be a third pass after that, but at that point stuff will be pretty locked down to how it will be on live. So here is YOUR chance to help us make this right.

the whole enhancement pass is in response to an alleged or perceived complicated enhancement point allocation process. Is this not actually far more complicated than what we currently have? and more time consuming than simply clicking show unavailable and scrolling up and down?

Take a few days, and remember when you build a character you are not filling out 20 levels all at the same time. Also, I find build planning potentially easier this way, and I think for some non-hardcore players this is visually easier to understand how to get to a planned goal. Far easier actually. I hate the old system.

Loss of Freedom

This is talked about a ton, and nothing is concrete at this point. Enter bugs with examples. Tons and tons of bugs. Make Gazebo cry.

I like a lot of the feedback already here. Keep it coming!

[Ape_Man]

Serious question . . . what are the devs intentions?

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.

Do you want multiclass building to be vibriant, creative, and a draw to this game? Or do you want building to be dumbed-down to the point the WOW-refugees understand it?

[Charononus]

Hey y'all hope you are having fun. Just some thoughts after reading the threads here.

Most of the restrictions are in there so we can see which ones work...and which ones suck. The screws are intentionally tight, AP costs, prereqs, exc, and most likely will not be that way when we go live. The devs intentionally wanted to start at ' most painful' and throttle back instead of most open and then deal with the 'gar nerf' rage when we released. We really try to have a 'no nerf' policy at this point...except when trees are drunk or obvious exploits.

As for listening, that is what this is all about. This system is 4 days out of alpha by QA standards and is very very raw. We want...no...need player feedback as early as possible. The behind the scenes view from QA goes something like this: Thursday we update Lamania. Monday we collate last week's data and bugs write reports and make charts graphs with glossy photos and stuff. Thursday we update again, new classes and whatnot. rinse repeat. In a month or so after this schedule...the date has not been locked down...or even really talked about yet, we do this all again with the changes, and in my opinion at that point without class restrictions so the multiclassers can break it in all new interesting ways. There probably will be a third pass after that, but at that point stuff will be pretty locked down to how it will be on live. So here is YOUR chance to help us make this right.



Take a few days, and remember when you build a character you are not filling out 20 levels all at the same time. Also, I find build planning potentially easier this way, and I think for some non-hardcore players this is visually easier to understand how to get to a planned goal. Far easier actually. I hate the old system.

This is talked about a ton, and nothing is concrete at this point. Enter bugs with examples. Tons and tons of bugs. Make Gazebo cry.

I like a lot of the feedback already here. Keep it coming!

Is there still any chance to change some of the basics like racial stat enhancements? Right now it's quite a nerf with having to put the points in the racial tree to get them. Or changing some enhancements that are just plain horrible like orcish fury? I don't think anyone took orcish fury on live as it doesn't stack and you made it part of the prereqs to get the strenth enhancements. Is there any chance you'll go back and get rid of the skill for spwr system? Having it favor certain classes so heavily is painful just to contemplate especially since it amounts to a build point tax on non-int based casters.

[Archangel666]

Thanks for the response Maj, we kinda need to hear from you guys a bit more, or we're left feeling like we're whistling into the wind and nobody cares. Good to see you're still alive btw, I was starting to wonder.

I'll try to write something constructive sometime soon, though I suspect it'll take quite a lot of typing (And get rapidly burried by other threads).

My initial gut reaction is that it just feels sooo restrictive. I currently feel like I can hardly do anything and what I can do costs a fortune. I'm having difficulty vocalizing it into a coherent manner at present though.

I do appreciate your letting us know that the AP costs etc are intentionally tight and that you only intend it to be a temporary measure. I needs to be temporary though so we can actually test things more thoroughly. We can't know if Encancement X synergizes with Enhancement Y or if it will just make the Server implode, because we can't afford both.

[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 dislike certain changes, but overall am pretty impressed at the flexibility offered here. I don't know why anyone would even go pure class anymore! (except maybe for caster levels, DCs and spell slots).

edit: agree that costs across the board are too high.

[PNellesen]

I thought that the fact that my Battle Cleric (19C/1F) can only take APs from 3 of the 4 lines initially available to him was a UI bug (since, on Live, if you meet the prerequisites for any enhancement, you can take it). From what I've been told, though, that's actually by design. So I can't bug report that.

Not trying to be sarcastic here, but how do we know what's a bug, and what's by design now? Fighter Haste Boost is no longer available to a level 1 Fighter in either Kensai or Stalwart fighter lines. Is that by design as well, or is that something that should be bug reported? I've been told that was actually something that was overlooked and will be "looked into" eventually.

If I report everything I've seen in the new system that I think is a bug, I'll be doing almost nothing else for the majority of the time I'm on Lammania. And so far, from what I've been told by people who have been following this from the start, most of what I think of as "bugs" actually appear to be working as intended.

I will say I do personally like the UI itself - it looks a little unpolished at the moment, but otherwise is much more intuitive to me.

[Henky]

I think you should keep the prestige tiers at level 6/12/18 of each class. The multiclass is feeding on that system, on lamannia we no longer have Kensei I, II & III. We have kensei and thats all, and with the APs that you need and what you want from your racial enhancements you cannot multiclass like its always been done.

And we are loosing some core abilities on classes, like XClass XAtribute I, II & III (Fighter Str I, II & III or Wiz Int I, II & III) or Fighter Haste Boost, Ranger Devotion and more that will come in the next weeks with the other clases.

Take a few days, and remember when you build a character you are not filling out 20 levels all at the same time. Also, I find build planning potentially easier this way, and I think for some non-hardcore players this is visually easier to understand how to get to a planned goal. Far easier actually. I hate the old system.

I build a character for TR, i reset enhancements once Green Steel items are available, reset again for vale of twilight and reset again once i hit 20 and equip him for epics.

You hate the old system, we dont hate it, we like some things of the old system that they are not in the new system.

[Ganolyn]

... and make charts graphs with glossy photos and stuff.

Would those be 8x10 glossy photos with circles and arrows on them and a paragraph on the back describing each one?

[Yamato-San]

Maybe you should talk a little more about your intentions.
Especially the skill changes with the consequential spellpower implications will nearly lead to a second spell pass and force almost all caster characters to reincarnate.
Please throw as a bone and tell us something about the blueprint behind these changes.

[darksol23]

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.

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.

[sebastianosmith]

Would those be 8x10 glossy photos with circles and arrows on them and a paragraph on the back describing each one?

[voodoogroves]

This is talked about a ton, and nothing is concrete at this point. Enter bugs with examples. Tons and tons of bugs. Make Gazebo cry.

I like a lot of the feedback already here. Keep it coming!

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" ...

[Produktion_Malphunktion]

There are multiple types of bugs, and Qualitative are absolutely valid bugs. We have a team that does just that on all our games. So, feels restrictive because of a design decision is a bug.

[voodoogroves]

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.

[voodoogroves]

There are multiple types of bugs, and Qualitative are absolutely valid bugs. We have a team that does just that on all our games. So, feels restrictive because of a design decision is a bug.

Huh. So we should bug report "defender stance requires a shield"?

will do

[Flavilandile]

ok, I finally stumbled upon that thread.

( it's drowned under all the other and well browsing at $Ork is not easy today... I had all those pesky Second Line guys that kept nagging me all the morning ).

Maj, expect a few Wall of Doom in the Bug Report if we can use it to describe all the lost things ( loss of freedom, loss of choices, loss of abilities, getting pigeonholed and so on ).

[PNellesen]

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.

...

Definitely more restrictive, just in this organizational sense.

This is exactly what I was referring to as well. If, indeed, "feels restrictive because of a design decision is a bug", I will bug report it. Because it doesn't "feel" restrictive, it IS restrictive.

[Produktion_Malphunktion]

26 bugs last night..BAH. My seven year old when he comes to work reports more than that in a day
Bring the wall.
I
Triple
Dog
Dare
You.

[KookieKobold]

26 bugs last night..BAH. My seven year old when he comes to work reports more than that in a day
Bring the wall.
I
Triple
Dog
Dare
You.

What have you done?!

[legendlore]

We really try to have a 'no nerf' policy at this point...except when trees are drunk or obvious exploits.

/../

So here is YOUR chance to help us make this right.

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 arcane fluidity 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 find build planning potentially easier this way, and I think for some non-hardcore players this is visually easier to understand how to get to a planned goal. Far easier actually. I hate the old system.

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.

I think multiclassing is better--- if you can find four trees that you are happy with.

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.