Lolwut???

[Philibusta]

Just finished reading a bunch of the stuff on the new Enhancement system. Two impressions:

1. Sooooo many different people are saying there is sooooo much wrong with sooooo many different things. It's kinda like the player base is saying, overall, as a whole, that this Enhancement Pass would be better off left for dead. At least until it's reworked oh six or twenty more times.

2. This mess is supposed to be easier for new players to understand? I've been playing DDO for about 2 and a half years (I know, the join date says longer...I took an involuntary absence for a while). This new thing is totally confusing. You have to unlock a tree to get what and then unlock another tree to get the other thing and then there are points spent requirements for racial core enhancements and.....what?!?!

The old (current) enhancement system is NOT hard to understand. At least for me, as a new player, it wasn't. This new system sounds like a maze a minotar couldn't find its way through.

[mrtweakin]

Perhaps reading complaints doesn't do the UI justice. The new interface for enhancements is much better and easier to understand than what currently exists. I've been playing for years and have played each class (many several times) and I still have to consult the wiki when looking at prereqs. That is no longer an issue.

There are specific issues with certain prestige/racial trees that people have. I have many myself. There are some trees we thought would be created or get a boost that did not. For example, paladins still stink. We as players need to spend time outlining what we don't like (and what we do like) in this regard. Hopefully some of it will get addressed in future updates.

Overall, it is different. There will be cool "new" builds. Some previously cool builds will not be cool anymore. Some builds won't change much at all.

But the interface and "confusion"? Much better and a non-issue as far as I can tell.

[jalont]

The one thing I can say for sure is that the new system will be easier for new players to understand. The UI is nice, and it took care of a problem that I've been facing since I started this game: The enhancement sheet is incredibly slow and laggy. I can lag out up two minutes simply by opening. Click show all, another two minutes. It makes leveling a chore. There's none of that in the new AI.

[Therigar]

I've noticed Philibusta that your posts are consistently negative. You appear unable to make transitions from whatever it is you have grown familiar with or to accept any change whatsoever. If the ability to give negative reputation still existed I would be sorely tempted to give most of your posts negative reputation for being intentionally negative and argumentative.

Your post is factually inaccurate. The number of people complaining is relatively small. The volume of their posts may be large but it is the same small group of posters. The majority of people posting contribute constructive observations about the enhancement pass in order to facilitate consistency, ease of use, or to suggest more intuitive relationships among the various enhancement choices. They take their role as testers seriously and observe when enhancements will seldom be selected (with rationale for why that is) or when they are over/under powered and over/under costed.

You have been told before that the enhancement pass creates more choice for players and rewards synergy. It is something that the majority of players have asked for for many more years than you've been playing -- even if we take your join date.

If you are having trouble understanding the upcoming changes then you should get the Lamannia client and invest heavily in the open beta. Adopt a positive attitude toward the changes and investigate how to build characters unfettered by the restrictions of the previous system.

People who understand what is going on are uniformly in favor of the enhancement pass because they understand that it opens up the game to a much larger number of builds and that this will have a positive impact on the excitement level among players.

[Postumus]

Your post is factually inaccurate. The number of people complaining is relatively small. The volume of their posts may be large but it is the same small group of posters. The majority of people posting contribute constructive observations about the enhancement pass in order to facilitate consistency, ease of use, or to suggest more intuitive relationships among the various enhancement choices.

Absolutely agree with this statement.

The old (current) enhancement system is NOT hard to understand. At least for me, as a new player, it wasn't. This new system sounds like a maze a minotar couldn't find its way through.

The current system is terrible. You have to allow every single enhancement to be shown to try to figure out the enhancement path you need to get to the enhancements you want. I've been playing for over 3 years and I still have to do this to find out which ancillary enhancements I need to take in order to get to certain prestige enhancements.

The MotU ED trees are utter simplicity by comparison.

[Philibusta]

Absolutely agree with this statement.




The current system is terrible. You have to allow every single enhancement to be shown to try to figure out the enhancement path you need to get to the enhancements you want. I've been playing for over 3 years and I still have to do this to find out which ancillary enhancements I need to take in order to get to certain prestige enhancements.

The MotU ED trees are utter simplicity by comparison.

Three words: DDO Character Planner. OK, two words and an acronym.

[Missing_Minds]

The current system is terrible.

I disagree. The current system is very functional.

The current system interface is what is really horrid.

[FalseFlag]

People who understand what is going on are uniformly in favor of the enhancement pass

This quoted bit above? At best, it's a misunderstanding or misstatement. At worst, it's a straight up lie, but either way, it's amazingly inaccurate. An awful lot of us fully understand what's going on and are not in favor. You should not presume to speak for anyone other than Therigar. Doing so makes you look foolish.

[Postumus]

This quoted bit above? At best, it's a misunderstanding or misstatement. At worst, it's a straight up lie, but either way, it's amazingly inaccurate.

Yeah, but only because you set the parameters to lose-lose. :P


There are multiple players (who have posted in the forums), myself included, who don't have a problem with the enhancement pass despite some nerfs and changes. A lot of the posts in the LAM threads by people previewing the enhancements have feedback (as was requested), but as usual, only a tiny handful of people are in an tizzy about it and try to dominate the boards with their personal nerd rage.

[patang01]

Just finished reading a bunch of the stuff on the new Enhancement system. Two impressions:

1. Sooooo many different people are saying there is sooooo much wrong with sooooo many different things. It's kinda like the player base is saying, overall, as a whole, that this Enhancement Pass would be better off left for dead. At least until it's reworked oh six or twenty more times.

2. This mess is supposed to be easier for new players to understand? I've been playing DDO for about 2 and a half years (I know, the join date says longer...I took an involuntary absence for a while). This new thing is totally confusing. You have to unlock a tree to get what and then unlock another tree to get the other thing and then there are points spent requirements for racial core enhancements and.....what?!?!

The old (current) enhancement system is NOT hard to understand. At least for me, as a new player, it wasn't. This new system sounds like a maze a minotar couldn't find its way through.

The UI is easier. It is. But the problem is that core class abilities are split among prestige classes making it confusing for a lot of people. Ranger is one. Paladin another - where what would be your most basic core statistics is split brutally among 2-3 different prestige classes. In some case it'll take next to nothing to get what you want (Paladin, where exalted smite and lay on hands is split) and in other case it's worse - like favored enemy showing up in deepwood sniper. It's bad because it requires a high investment due to the silly spend in tree stuff - so in case of Ranger you will be forced to invest more AP in stuff you don't want because what used to be average class features is now inexplicably divided into prestige class trees.

This creates a lot of problem. It's clear that while the UI is better and the new tree system can lead to some really nice creations it also creates a complication with the stringent spend in tree and the dispersion of core features into separate trees. For some it works - some classes are really strong, and for other it doesn't.

Then theres just the mangling of how it used to work and now doesn't. Like Stalwart. You used to be able to use the tier III prestige while dual wielding. It was about the only way to add some HP and DPS to a Stalwart. Then combined with the capstone you had doublestrike.

Now the doublestrike capstone is Kensei and Stalwart has its own, plus in order to get the higher tier Stalwart bonuses you need shield. Breaking in essence Stalwarts few options for DPS.

Since AC just doesn't cut it, you're forced to either gimp your AC and go for DPS in the Kensei tree or go fullbore Stalwart and suffer greatly in regards to DPS.

That's the kind of issues you see with the new system. It makes Monks really strong, others remain okay, sorc broke and some other combinations hard.

I must say my 2fighter/18ranger did get stronger. I might not be able to afford putting much into favored enemy (that's a bummer) but since I can pick from Arcane Archer I've strengthen that ability. And since I can pick both from Kensei and Stalwart I can even dabble in that.

My hope is that they revisit this down the line and give it a second polishing pass. Just to iron out things that doesn't make sense.