Player Character Balance

[Uska]

Few random nerfs for greater good (and/or drama):

The Reconstruct spell / SLA now receives half benefit from spell power. It no longer grants the haste buff, instead, it provides a stacking debuff if multiple reconstructs are used in short succession (duration 12 seconds).

The Monk class / enhancements changes
-move Evasion to monk 9
-move Incorporeality to monk 12
-nerf 10k stars to throwers only or make it a universal feat
-crit multiplier to fire stance

Paladin
-The saves bonus from Divine Grace cannot exceed your paladin levels.

PRR
-Your total PRR score is now multiplied by a value dependent on the type of armor you're wearing: robes/outfits 0.1, light armor 0.2, medium armor 0.5, heavy armor 1.0.

A Dance of Flowers
-applies only to handwraps

Changing monk evasion to 9 is a horrible idea that's where monks get improved evasion and doing such a change to a basic function of a class is just wrong. the paladin save idea is wrong as well sorry.

[Tentaki]

Kill count doesn't need to be taken out just changed to a total killed by party not listed by individual

I like the kill count the way it is, personally. If I'm leading the kill count, I like knowing that I've got a good thing going with the build I have. If someone else is leading the kill count, I like seeing and/or asking what they did differently to make them more effective, which in turn makes me more effective.

[Uska]

I like the kill count the way it is, personally. If I'm leading the kill count, I like knowing that I've got a good thing going with the build I have. If someone else is leading the kill count, I like seeing and/or asking what they did differently to make them more effective, which in turn makes me more effective.

Not really it just means you hit the monster last I have seen hundreds of cases where myself or others have beaten monsters to a sliver of their lives and someone come in a finish them off and then brag how high their count was and don't say that's tactics as we have sometimes found ways to leave those same characters on their own in a mass of mobs and soon they are a soulstone. Changing or eliminating the kill count counter would at least stop that baloney.

[Grizzt14]

Few random nerfs for greater good (and/or drama):

The Reconstruct spell / SLA now receives half benefit from spell power. It no longer grants the haste buff, instead, it provides a stacking debuff if multiple reconstructs are used in short succession (duration 12 seconds).

The Monk class / enhancements changes
-move Evasion to monk 9
-move Incorporeality to monk 12
-nerf 10k stars to throwers only or make it a universal feat
-crit multiplier to fire stance

Paladin
-The saves bonus from Divine Grace cannot exceed your paladin levels.

PRR
-Your total PRR score is now multiplied by a value dependent on the type of armor you're wearing: robes/outfits 0.1, light armor 0.2, medium armor 0.5, heavy armor 1.0.

A Dance of Flowers
-applies only to handwraps

Move Recon to Level 4 Paladin Spell for Bladeforged. Change nothing else.
Move 10k Stars out of a ki-based feat and available for all toons and only with throwing weapons. (More of a Manyshot for Throwers, not just Shuriken. Use the higher of Dex/Wis for extra shot chance).

The rest of these I can't agree with at all. Changing how a base class works is a terrible idea, Monks use more than just wraps so changing Dance of Flowers is out, your PRR suggestion is far too penalizing for anyone but heavy armor (and heavy armor still sucks). Like it or not, Monks have the Shintao tree with tanking possibilities in it to help them in PRR, tanking outfit PRR likely won't (and shouldn't) be an option. The Paladin Divine Grace save limit hurts a handful of builds, but wouldn't stop anyone from splashing Pally.

Like I and numerous others have said in this thread, this games needs balance in the form of buffing classes/EDs/enhancements that are underperforming.

[Fhauvial]

Not really it just means you hit the monster last I have seen hundreds of cases where myself or others have beaten monsters to a sliver of their lives and someone come in a finish them off and then brag how high their count was and don't say that's tactics as we have sometimes found ways to leave those same characters on their own in a mass of mobs and soon they are a soulstone. Changing or eliminating the kill count counter would at least stop that baloney.

Kill count seems to be a competition for some people. That's just silly in a PvE game.

Teamwork and tactics should be more important than kill count, and yet I constantly hear people brag about how many kills they've gotten. It doesn't prove anything but that you're (in most cases) not a team player.

[Tentaki]

Not really it just means you hit the monster last I have seen hundreds of cases where myself or others have beaten monsters to a sliver of their lives and someone come in a finish them off and then brag how high their count was and don't say that's tactics as we have sometimes found ways to leave those same characters on their own in a mass of mobs and soon they are a soulstone. Changing or eliminating the kill count counter would at least stop that baloney.

Remember that there are certain skills that require you to get kills to charge them up (the Druid's Fatal Harrier, for example), so removing the kill count isn't going to stop people coming in and last-hitting by a long shot. Nor will it stop people who want to be a hero from trying to be a hero. The kill count's a flawed but informative way of showing how well you're performing.

If you want to add something for bragging rights, I think adding in a "total damage dealt" counter would offer a better representation of effectiveness in battle.

Anyway, this is also a bit off the original topic.

[Uska]

Kill count seems to be a competition for some people. That's just silly in a PvE game.

Teamwork and tactics should be more important than kill count, and yet I constantly hear people brag about how many kills they've gotten. It doesn't prove anything but that you're (in most cases) not a team player.

That's why I think it should be a total kill counter that will still work for the kill % bonus and stop the silly braggarts or people who judge others by it.

[Uska]

Remember that there are certain skills that require you to get kills to charge them up (the Druid's Fatal Harrier, for example), so removing the kill count isn't going to stop people coming in and last-hitting by a long shot. Nor will it stop people who want to be a hero from trying to be a hero. The kill count's a flawed but informative way of showing how well you're performing.

If you want to add something for bragging rights, I think adding in a "total damage dealt" counter would offer a better representation of effectiveness in battle.

Anyway, this is also a bit off the original topic.

Those abilities could still track how many a player kills without showing up in the xp kill counter.

[Fhauvial]

That's why I think it should be a total kill counter that will still work for the kill % bonus and stop the silly braggarts or people who judge others by it.

Agreed. Not sure it'd change much, but it'd probably be an improvement.

This is definitely getting off-topic though.

[Delacroix21]

Cordovan and Vargoville...


While there has been heated debate on nerfing certain builds, there has been almost NO debate that EE monsters need their HP, damage, saves, and to hit (to buff ac tanks) reduced.


Can we get a comment to acknowledge an issue 95% of the posts in this thread agree on?

[Ancient]

If you want to add something for bragging rights, I think adding in a "total damage dealt" counter would offer a better representation of effectiveness in battle.

It would be nice if they would either allow the combat log to be captured to a file, or provide meaningful stats such as damage dealt by source, number of instakills, amount healed, etc.

[Impaqt]

Oh good. another 500+ response thread regarding potentially major game changes where the loudest most vocal folks will mold the direction of the changes...

Guess I'll roll the dice and hope I'm loud enough and maybe worthy of at least a glance by one of the devs.

First and foremost. People are tired of getting nerfed and having to reinvent their characters. The game is 8+ years old now. You are never going to have a massive influx of new players ever again. You need to accept this.

There are many reasons for this but the big ones are...

The game has suffered from perpetually Poor marketing since day one.

At this point, the Graphics are outdated. Dont get me wrong, you guys(and gals) have done fantastic with the tools you've been given looks wise. Its just not as visually exciting as other games in the genre.


Retention at this point is also an issue.

I sure hope you folks have a plan for level 30 to keep people interested in the game... Because there is nothing to do once your capped in this game.

There is no meaningful PvP. I've never been a fan of PvP myself, but I recognize that it is one of the primary reasons people stay with a game long after they have "Won" PvE.

the gap between Hard and Elite in Epic is far too great. the Epic TR Carrots are completely unimportant for folks that are content with running Hard and they are not significant enough for Epic until you stack many of them up. THis narrows your end game users base greatly. The number of people who will stack multiple epic lives are tiny compared to the folks who would Heroic reincarnate,


This posts getting too long. I'm going to recollect my thoughts and do a separate post on the actual "Balance" issues I see.

[Ancient]

I like the kill count the way it is, personally. If I'm leading the kill count, I like knowing that I've got a good thing going with the build I have. If someone else is leading the kill count, I like seeing and/or asking what they did differently to make them more effective, which in turn makes me more effective.

It is flawed, but it is also the best measure we have (it is the only one). I use kill count the same way as you describe: if I'm 4X the rest of the party combined, I know that I'm doing well, but I also need to be careful if I run out of spell points because the backup DPS is much lower. When someone is about the same kill count as me, I'm challenged to bring my A game. When someone is 2X my kill count, I'm watching to see what they do, how they are built and trying to learn what I can.

[Cardtrick]

That's why I think it should be a total kill counter that will still work for the kill % bonus and stop the silly braggarts or people who judge others by it.

Do whatever you want with the kill counter, but don't remove the breakables counter!

My enjoyment of the game depends on knowing that I've broken more breakables than anyone else. Plus, in P&P, everyone knows how many things everyone else broke! To change this would be to move the game too far away from its D&D roots, and I (and many others) would have no choice but to quit!

[Daze]

Wow ... 25 pages of walls of text posts to say something that takes a few lines.



All balanced means is every class/race should be just as playable as every other class/race:

Fix Bards

Fix Barbarian rage to be cast through ... give it a cost or some prereqs etc. that's fine.

Fix the thrower crit range ... it's almost the only thing that makes a halfling useful .... that and as sacrifices to the loot gods.

Fix melee in general ... how is it that a fighter in fullplate is squishy to trash mobs?



Done

[Delacroix21]

Wow ... 25 pages of walls of text posts to say something that takes a few lines.



All balanced means is every class/race should be just as playable as every other class/race:

Fix Bards

Fix Barbarian rage to be cast through ... give it a cost or some prereqs etc. that's fine.

Fix the thrower crit range ... it's almost the only thing that makes a halfling useful .... that and as sacrifices to the loot gods.

Fix melee in general ... how is it that a fighter in fullplate is squishy to trash mobs?



Done

I like it! Short and simple!

[Zuka]

The biggest issue I'll have with "fixing" shiradi is that they'll break the ONLY destiny that has innate synergy for an Arti.

Other than both of the caster destinies, and the bard destiny, and shadowdancer. My arti has gone through all of the destinies getting fate points and the shiradi is only okay, it only has real strong bonuses for the crossbow. Arti's are a LOT more than a crossbow, people really need to wrap their tiny brains around that fact.

A lot of people have posted about monk and monk builds, here's the thing, monks aren't allowed to multiclass, that's why they keep breaking DDO. Monks are supposed to be able to stand side by side with a character in expensive awesome gear and hold a candle to that person in the nude. As a penalty for this they are supposed to shirk material possessions (like epic gear) and they are heavily penalized, losing all of their monk abilities if they multi out of monk even once, a few exceptions include monk specific prestige classes and classes designed with hybridization in mind, but nothing from the core books.

So while you're leveling yes, monks have a lot of well balanced power that makes them play very smoothly once you get the hang of them, a lot of the time they are even quite OP. However, once we get into the epic levels those sharp contrasts begin to really fade away, monks remain viable, and when well built they're down-right pretty powerful, but they never have and I fear never will hold a candle to ranged characters, certainly not after recent updates.

I can't address ever issue of balance in the game, I can't speak from every viewpoint. I can say though, as a melee who loves epics, it is RIDICULOUS to try to be useful in an EE party on a monk, our epic DR from class levels, USELESS, PRR, well it's pretty tough to push it past like 70 on a monk, so again, useless, AC, tough to get above 140 on a monk, heck, mine's at 110 and that was tough, once again, USELESS. Then to top it all off there's no epic HP booster monks can pick up, no way to get an extra 20% health like a fighter or paladin, so they're a heavy melee without any heavy, it works okay as long as defensive stats are beneficial, but when enemies seem to have a guaranteed hit rate (seriously my pali has a 160 AC buffed up and he is NEVER missed in EE) and they're dealing 1/4 of your HP per hit (most of the mobs that get on me in EE on a monk are swinging for like 250+) well it's just a recipe for disaster, and it's no fun to run up smack things twice and flee in terror to behind a wall of self healing 900 HP casters, and bows that inflict every status effect in the game and explode for a kadrillion damage every 2 minutes.

If you want game balance you have to start thinking of the fact that melee is something people enjoy. There may be fewer melees these days than ever but that's exactly what is going to happen when you make a build like the Fury Shot so tremendously overpowered.

So this will anger people, make FotW only effect melee, that was the original idea, it seems plain to see that the idea was for barbs to have another type of stackable rage, however we have resulted in a setup that's simply an easy button, and there should never be an easy button. But then again let's be honest, FotW was a bad idea in the first place, it was obviously going to make a HUGE shift to the game balance and it was broken at the moment of it's inception. I say ditch it all-together and replace it with something similar so those builds can still function, but far more restricted so that the easy button build no longer exists (other than every W/F arcane but that's a dead issue at this point.)

In summary I think melee has been overlooked in recent updates, leading to a serious disadvantage in upper tiered content, disadvantages are fine, some classes should have an easier time with some quests, sometimes it's better to be ranged, these are facts. However everyone who builds carefully and plans well, has a bit of luck and good decision making on their gear, they should be able to stand up in EE, if really truly well built they should be able to thrive with a friend or two. I don't think EE should be a solo run, but I also don't think it should be impossible to duo if you have for example, a paladin and a monk, or a melee ranger (I know unheard of these days) and a bard. DDO was designed with the original pnp goal of being all inclusive, making it possible for any type of player and any type of playstyle to at the very least approach a difficult quest, fair that some playstyles take longer to make progress, and some simply aren't as tough as others, but the simple fact remains that many aren't viable options at all after level 10-12, the game makes a sharp and sudden incline and build styles that aren't heavily defensive start finding themselves in trickier and trickier positions. Yes archers and mages should have to duck and dodge enemies, it's always been the policy that ranged characters kite things around annoyingly, lol. However a class intended to be a heavy melee, like a barb, monk, fighter, or paladin, should not be completely destroyed at that impasse and should if built well be just as viable in end game epics as it is in mid game raids. That however is not the case.

In summary, the biggest balance breaker to me is that the ranged DPS has skyrocketed over the last two years, and it was already nothing to scoff at, with defenses and difficulties also changing so dramatically melee builds are nearly useless in end game, that's a problem. I like ranged and I like casters, but I also like melee, and my favorite job is tanking, which is very disheartening when that's an impossibility because of crazy inflated mobs.

Please pardon my spelling and grammar, I've just woken up.

[BOgre]

It's not a joke post, no. My main is on his 23rd heroic life

Okay, yes, when soloing you will want to pull mobs one at a time, pin/whistle them, melee them while helpless, etc. Bluff, SA, Unbalancing, (Imp)Deception, are all your friends, fine. But running quests that way drops your xp/min into the floor, and who wants to spend 90 minutes in VoN3 for 50kxp?
Using your described tactics in an EE group is just as senseless, since your contribution to the party is really no better than if you WERE a soulstone.
Again, that's not how a capable AA ranger handles combat. He turns on his most powerful imbues and dr breaking secondaries, runs in the most powerful ED(s), and mows down the mobs with IPS, use of position, shedding aggro with all the tools he has access to, etc...

Now, I can see that you understand this concept from your other posts, so I'm not exactly saying "you're full of it," but the one post i quoted you on is a terrible oversimplification and just not realistic in today's game.

[Sebastrd]

What ever some other guy's build is that is getting more kills than me needs to be nerfed and nerfed hard!

That is what I am reading here.
Since apparently everything is OP.



Although one common thread is nerf (ruin) multiclassing...especially with Monks.

Ruining popular builds should never be a goal.
I say this, and I never run a popular build.
I say this and I hate the fact that everyone plays FotM builds.

Because I think it is not right to totally kill someone's favorite toon.


But.... I have also said in the past that anything that gets overused should be changed.
So if everyone is playing Monchers for instance...... find out why. And make a change to the game so people will play a wider variety of builds.
Preferably a change that doesn't kill Monchers in the process.

But IMO, tying Manyshot and 10K Stars cooldown together will not kill Monchers. It simply removes an advantage that only they have. The Moncher still works, still has many other advantages. But is no longer the best archer just because of 10K stars ability.


Then there is armor and robes.
IMO, beef up armor and it does not remove any ability the robe wearing Monk splash has, but makes other options more appealing.

Simply add a bunch of PRR to armor.
IMO, tie it to BaB.
This way the low level guy doesn't become invulnerable, but the high level guy can take a bunch of hits in EE before he needs to find some healing.

Light, Medium, and Heavy armors should add more PRR with heavy armor adding the most.
(and fix Mithral Full Plate to count as heavy armor.... and maybe some others should work that way too.)

Than there is DR.
Brb DR (and WF?) should be a significant advantage.
I also think actively blocking should give more DR as well.

Shields.
Need a major buff. Defensively.
Again can be tied to BaB somehow.
One thing IMO is shields and especially tower shields should offer more protection from missile attacks.


BTW, these opinions are coming from a guy who plays Rangers.
Light Armor, TWF, Bows..... I never wear Heavy or Medium Armor and I rarely use shields... and never a tower shield.
Yet I think these things should be beefed up even though I don't use them.



Here's another off the wall idea:
Why not add Kensei to the Monk enhancement options and add another offensive option for Fighters.

This would give pure fighters a DPS option that might be more attractive than mixing Monk levels, and give Monks more reason to stay pure as well. (hard to explain my reasoning, but it basically is that I have no issue with pure Monks being supermen, but I have a big issue with everybody playing Monk mixes and gaining super powers from it.....I'd like to see less /Mnks and more pure everybody... not from nerfs but from buffs)

And beef up capstones.

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Talon_Moonshadow again." Interesting, considering I can't remember the last time I gave out rep...

[Nédime]

As far as this is a kind of survey, I tried to read the 25 pages and I must admit that - okay there are some very negative posts, and some troll attempts - there is a real reflexion going on here. Thanks for giving us the opportunity, Varg !

We can clearly see here that OP builds are a response to the way end game elite dungeons have been implemented for the last updtaes : inflated mob's hp, enormous melee damage and violent spell damage. So the most succesful builds (centered kensai, monkchers and shiradi casters) are focusing on beating those 3 the most efficiently. While the first two can be thought of a valid playstyle and even some kinda legit role play - plus they require more than a single button to 'win' - I can perfectly understand why the shiradi caster gets so much hate : it is not a fun build, not even when YOU are playing it : you end up just spaming MM and chain missile as offensive and reconstruct as defensive spell. This requires no skill at all, no well thought build. But it works.

So, to answer the initial question there are 2 ways of introducing more balance in game :

1) Change both

- how mob stats increase on end game and EE
- mobs and bosses strategy

This would be the most logical (and, I think, wanted by players) solution

2) If you don't want to mess with how dungeons are built and bosses AI, then chose between :

- Increase the other classes possibilities to be able to be as powerful as shiradis, monkchers and on a lesser degree, centered kensais. This would require :
(*) rethinking many (most ?) EDs that are NOW just considered a way to get more fate points but never used in though content
(*) rethinking many classes (which could imply walking a step further from D&D spirit if you had to modify, for instance, alignment restrictions) - Barbs and bards, mainly.

- Decrease the FOTM power. While getting much rant, I could understand some kind of changes (monk stances rendering immune to rage, 10k stars working only with thrown weapons, fury recharging only on melee vorpal, shiradi crits not working on spells or at least working with a reduced % or effects not affected by spellpower) that would make sense.



And please, please, please, be very cautious with how you read the survey's results as at no point it touches multiclassing and twisting.