An example of why the tiered/gated system is bad using Dwarf tree, with remedy

[hit_fido]

Take the dwarf tree for example and compare against the old system for one of the racial enhancements that was particularly valuable regardless of what class you played, spell defense.

On live, a level one dwarf can immediately take one rank for 1 AP; the second rank picks up for 2 AP at level four. But most critically, there is no requirement that I spend AP on other dwarf stuff!

On Lama, I can't pick up one rank of spell defense without spending at least 10 AP already. That implies a few negatives: I can't start this enhancement until at least level 3; I also can't acquire it without spending AP on enhancements that may be completely useless for the particular class/build I am working on. A 10 AP spend just to unlock this means I may have to take, for example, the first Axe/Pick enhancement (probably useless if I'm a caster), one rank of tactics (again, probably useless for casters, heck, it's kind of useless for most non monks now anyway), and some combination of ranks of Iron Stomach (potentially useful, but not vital), Stout (utterly useless for any build) or Armor Mastery (mostly useless with paltry +1 AC per rank).

In other words, I'm wasting a lot of AP for many kinds of builds in order to get value I previously had quick and inexpensive access to on Live.

How this should work:

Get rid of AP/Tier gating. Use the limited UI space you have to present a matrix of enhancement choices like you do now but rely only on Character Level and Prerequisite Feats or Enhancements to gate the more powerful selections. This would mean that *it doesn't matter where the enhancement is located in the UI* as long as I meet any other requirements - I could take spell defense rank one at level 1 again; I could also take the first rank of tactics at level one if desired, just like on Live (I can't right now on Lama). But I still couldn't jump right to Dwarf Fortress, because it has a prerequisite line that I must take first. And I couldn't jump right to the top dragonmark enhancement, because again it's got prerequisite enhancements as well as feat requirements.

I believe a change like this would help loosen up the constricted AP problem that is holding players back from finding motivating build combinations. It would boost build flexibility and still allow you to gate power. Currently the AP/Tier gating is forcing too much wasted allocation.

[redoubt]

I agree.

Under todays system, there are a lot of low level enhancements. Far more than can be accomodated with only 5 wide trees that require points spent in lower levels.

I'd like to see ways to get more of the low level ones we want (at low levels still) and not be forced into buying even more enhancements we don't want.

[EllisDee37]

AP gating should be changed total AP spent, not removed altogether.

A level 20 character who resets his enhancements gets 80 AP total to spend. How many of those 80 should he be able to spend on tier 5?

[Daemoneyes]

AP gating should be changed total AP spent, not removed altogether.

A level 20 character who resets his enhancements gets 80 AP total to spend. How many of those 80 should he be able to spend on tier 5?

A "Char lvl requirement" would be more preferable.
After all such a system is only required to balance out the power gain while leveling.

And the "total AP spent requirement" would again lead to that dumb situation we had with the old system, where you have to pick now just something to reach the ap spent requirement. Which leads to absurd situations where you spend points on stuff you are not interested in the slightest just to enable getting what you wanted.

Also i say:
kick the tiers completely and only use tree system when it makes sense.
like with smite 1 -> smite 2 - smite 3
exception T5, which should get renamed Capstone Enhancements, which will have the same restrictions they have now. (points in tree & char lvl)
Individual extremely strong enhancements or signature enhancements can get min class lvl requirements.
Other then that only char lvl limits what you can take.
Would make the system more open and enable more char concepts

[hit_fido]

A level 20 character who resets his enhancements gets 80 AP total to spend. How many of those 80 should he be able to spend on tier 5?

If I decide to unlock Kensai top tier and exclude all others it looks like I can spend 4 AP there and have 76 AP left. If I decide to unlock Battle Engineer top tier, it looks like I can spend 6 AP and have 74 AP left. Those two examples seem reasonable to me, and are the same with or without AP gating. Do you disagree, or what is your point?

Your flaw in the system could simply be fixed by changing the pre-requisite for spell defense to what it is now (ie. none).

It actually has no pre-requisites on Lama either. Personally, prereqs are not causing much headache for me, others feel differently which I understand. But in the example here, it is AP gating that is causing all of the problem. It's fair to argue for fixing it by shuffling all the enhancements around and trying to fit them into tiers more logically but I don't believe that would be as complete or player friendly of a solution as just dumping AP gating and the complexity it brings.

{...} Would make the system more open and enable more char concepts

I think you've captured more or less what my position is, and why. People are worrying about balance but honestly the enhancements in tier 5 are not that amazing anyway. There will be an exclusivity lock out in place and right now there is both a class level 5 and character level 12 requirement on them. I certainly hope they don't make the limits any stricter than that. Do we really need AP gating on top of those limits to "protect" tier 5 enhancements? I say no.

[~Khadriel]

I was writing a huge post complaining how the ap spent in a tree pre-req is pigeon-holing. then while I was checking wiki for arguments I realized something:

Most core enhancements for the classes are in tier 1. Even when they aren't, like say, wand and scroll mastery that is only at tier 3 of mechanic, the total cost to get all tiers of said enhancement seens to have been decreased, so the total cost of the spent ap pre-req plus to master the enhancement is close to what it was just to master the enhancement before. and you get some added benefits of (quasi) your choice.

For previous existing enhancements (that where not buffed, like the bonus to sneak attack from the assassin tree), if that is not the case it seen like you should bug report it. It might not be intended.

That doesn't apply to new stuff though.

Now, there is still to problems I see: Racial tree should use general ap spent prereq. If you, say, are going halfling just for the boost to throwing weapons, you should not be forced to take the sneak attack boosts you would be too far to use anyway. Also, there were many more racial enhancements, so some ended up put higher up.

And multiclasses got kinda screwed. Say you wanted to split rogue just for the skill boost enhancements (dumb, but just an exemple). To have acess to all skills, you would need to pick all rogue trees, thus leaving no room to your other classes.I think an increase in the maximum number of classes skills would probably solve that

[Dmnqwk]

One of the current flaws in the game is that multiclassers give up nothing to achieve it.
Splash this, splash that, add a level of X for prospserity... too many players believe this is diversity.
"Why be a level 20 Cleric when a level 17 cleric 2 monk 1 fighter is more powerful?" That's the kind of power gaming achieved by when I rolled my characters up (I averaged 14 with the 4d6 method and once rolled 18 17 16 16 15 15 for a character) When players do this, the average player is the one who suffers because the game's power level is bumped with the best player in mind... or the best player is overpowered gets bored and quits easily.

If players received access to all the benefits of a single class character with 8 level of another class, it'd be like playing scrabble but for every other class you got to draw and use another letter... yeah, let's play the word metagaming!

Now, using the Rogue trees - An assassin will spend points in the assassin tree, then probably in the drow tree, and finally some in thief acrobat for haste boost and mechanic for wand and scroll mastery. But let's say I decide to add a couple levels of fighter for feats? Now I have to give something up!
Well... 18 fighter 2 rogue is gonna cost me 1d6 sneak att damage from level 19, a special rogue feat so goodbye 2 str damage per sneak. Also gone is the rogue capstone at +2 int, combined with 2 levels for a total of -3 dc on my assassinate.
But in exchange I receive the option for heavier armor, shields, better weapon selection, 2 feats and access to trading in 2 further trees so I get to pick 3 from 5 instead of stuck with 3.

Assassin is going to suffer little from the new enhancements and is less likely to multiclass than before, for other classes it might encourage them to more than they do now. But ultimately the arguments against the new ap system are usually from players who believe splashing 2 levels of monk/fighter/paladin to get more than level 19 and 20 in your class is a positive thing... it's a horrible HORRIBLE disease which prevents true multiclassing from creating actual builds that are intelligent.

[Jay203]

like many others, i also believe what they've shown us in Lama is flawed
this post is my opinion on what it should be
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=415424

feel free to comment on it, and if you also agree, spread the word~

[Synthetic]

You already have the same "issue" on live you just have a lot more bad enhancements to choose from between racial and class. Perhaps you should approach it from a hears some ways to make dwarfs less pigeon holed in their early enhancements rather then trying to throw out the controls on the system so that you could simply choose the best ones.

[kingfisher]

or maybe just stop trying to shove everything into their precious new shiny ui and instead make something similar that actually fits the game we play.

[Stanley_Nicholas]

or maybe just stop trying to shove everything into their precious new shiny ui and instead make something similar that actually fits the game we play.

This.

DDO isn't WoW or anything else. Those other games are extremely restrictive in their build choices. Turbine recognizes that having a wider variety of options in character creation compared to those other games in a boon for DDO. Why discard that mantra when it comes to enhancements, just to cram the system into a UI that looks and feels like it came from one of those other games that are full of restrictions? More options -> more variety -> more fun.

[esoitl]

Your flaw in the system could simply be fixed by changing the pre-requisite for spell defense to what it is now (ie. none).
It's not the system in this case, it's the enhancement itself. The gating needs to be there, and it seems a bit restrictive limiting it to AP spent in the tree, but I feel that's the best way of handling it with the exception of the racial tree.

I think the racial tree could be loosened to AP spent total, but the class trees should be restricted by AP spent in tree. Why should fighter skills be opened up by enhancing rogue skills as an example?
On the other hand, as a dwarf it probably doesn't matter my class, my dwarven traits are going always going to be relevant and grow along with the character.