Player Character Balance

[Recared]

The mayor problem here its the multiclass system.
Because theres no restriction, you can make anything you like.

DDO, take the D&D system, but a multiclass has no penalty, so a multiclass can be better than a pure class.
We can argue that this go with that or not, like ex. boulder toss.

Didn't know that was a problem. This game has a population with the mind set that this game is about classes and another population that believes this game is about builds. I believe this game is not about classes.
By the way, I wouldn't have minded that multiclass incorporated a penalty to xp, but it didn't. Well, in P&P u didn't get the capstone benefits either.

[Nédime]

Easy is not the same as Overpowered. There are mobs and bosses immune to mm, by the way. Is it more dps than monkcher? Is it faster to complete quests than monkcher? If melees could handle the damage input on ee, would shiradi be more dps than them? would complete faster? In my opinion, based on my experience, the answer is no to all questions.

How many ? Crateos, Abbot, Arach's Knight, Liches (Rayum and Validus). Armors in new area are healed by force. And btw, the main damage doesn't come from MM.

I can elaborate on that number if anyone is interested. Shiradis won't see their dps increased by much at all with all these new loot/crafting.

That is a good thing they don't further benefit lol they already do huge frequent non savable low sp cost damage with something that should probably not work this way - at least not as efficiently.

[Nédime]

Didn't know that was a problem. This game has a population with the mind set that this game is about classes and another population that believes this game is about builds. I believe this game is not about classes.
By the way, I wouldn't have minded that multiclass incorporated a penalty to xp, but it didn't. Well, in P&P u didn't get the capstone benefits either.

All those classes Vs Build discussion make me think of an important question that should have been in the poll : How far does DDO need to stick to DnD (and what edition, I stopped at 2.0) ?

Because the answer would imply very different strategies.

[Recared]

the Key to achieving some resemblance of character balance lies in providing real tangible benefits to being a pure class build.

Currently, Splashing monks and Paladin create comparatively overpowered characters because staying pure has little benefit.

Hi master Impaqt,

With all due respect (sincerely), I disagree there. By the same logic I could say balance lies in providing real tangible benefits to being any sort of build, pure cleric, or pure antisinergetic combination of classes. Also there are real tangible benefits to being a pure class. Take for instance rogue: now they have a, b, c and 5% quarterstaff speed. Well at least you didn't say "benefits equal or more powerful than having evasion and +15 saves".

[EllisDee37]

I generally tune out the "pure classes need love" arguments because I don't particularly care about pure classes. I'm not against giving pures love, I just don't care about it. My DC casters are pure, but none of my melee alts are. I don't think I'd ever even want to roll up a pure melee of any stripe even if they were clearly more powerful.

When I think of balancing, I think of two different "sets" of balancing:

1) Casters should be on roughly even footing with other casters
2) Melee should be on roughly even footing with other melee
3) There is no compelling reason why casters and melee need to be on roughly even footing

Caster balancing is pretty simple, IMO: keep the "max possible DC" of each caster class within 2 or 3 points of each other. Done and done.

Melee balancing is trickier. And here's where I think the biggest imbalance lies:

1) Every melee is best off (by a mile) being bladeforged. This is a clear racial imbalance. Those melee who cannot be bladeforged (barbarians, warchanters) are at a severe disadvantage.
2) Every melee is made significantly stronger by splashing two monk levels. All of them. Those who cannot (again barbarians and warchanters) are at a severe disadvantage.

These are two clearly imbalanced aspects of the current game that probably should be addressed. For the bladeforged, I'd say switch the SLA to repair serious damage, similar to what paladins and rangers get to work with (cure serious wounds). For monks, make the form feats require monk levels instead of character levels and move the +1 crit multiplier from earth to fire stance.

EDIT: Since one the biggest limiting factors on quickened+maximized cure serious wounds is your mana pool, to balance a repair serious wounds sla I guess don't let metamagics work with it. Doing that would require stepping it up to repair critical at least. (Possiblly repair serious, mass?)

[Fhauvial]

Part of the problem is a d20 system is going to break on hitting high lvl it happens in pnp and it did here to dnd isn't balanced so I don't figure it really happening here. They added a lot of things that added power to characters to try and make them more interesting well it worked but it also lowered the point at which characters become broken.


Things need to be "nerfed" both characters and monsters or they will never get anything near a balance.

They've gone completely the other direction from what was 'broken' in PnP. They actually fixed the broken aspects, without realizing it, then broke it even worse.

[Daze]

So, please, stop copypasting that same thing every few pages. Thank you.

If you actually have something constructive to add please do.

I hadn't pasted that since page 27 ... and I sure as hell don't expect people to read back that far.

As for answering your questions ... It's all self-explanatory to anyone who is familiar with the problems. My not putting in specific ways to fix is just me not doing the developers jobs for them. Seeing as they are the ones coding it and have knowledge I don't ... seems justified to me. I am assuming they don't want to break barbarian rage again ... so letting them fix it as they see fit may prevent that...... /hope

Bards are broken and have been for a while. Play one and figure it out.

Barbarian's being rage dependant and rage is so limiting by not being able to even cast SLA's through it breaks the class.

Halfling comment ... self explanatory no?

Melee being survivable can be done a number of ways...... I leave that to the developers. This would address many of the balancing concerns of melee being non-viable in EE content


So yes. A few lines sums up the balancing concerns. I will repost as I see fit. Just about all the suggestions in here ARE addressed by the lines above especially considering half of them just call for nerfs that are uncalled for..... yeah it's worth reposting.

Your welcome.

EDIT: Oh how I wish this discussion took place somewhere else so I can speak my mind....

[Cardtrick]

1) Casters should be on roughly even footing with other casters
2) Melee should be on roughly even footing with other melee
3) There is no compelling reason why casters and melee need to be on roughly even footing

I normally agree with everything you post, to the point that it tends to change my own opinion when I initially disagreed.

But I'm having trouble with this.

To me, the compelling reason that casters and melee need to be on roughly even footing is that they're playing exactly the same content. It's not fun if one caster can solo content that takes 5 melees and a very good healer, assuming roughly equal levels of player skill. The content has to be designed for some type of character, which either leaves one group feeling bored or the other feeling frustrated. I don't think they have to be exactly the same -- in fact, I like some differences in effectiveness in certain quests or roles -- but they need to be at least in the same ballpark. Right now, non-Bladeforged, non-evasion melees aren't even playing the same sport.

You're also disregarding ranged here. To me, that's actually the biggest difference -- not casters vs. melee, but ranged (including casters) vs. non-ranged. The incoming damage close up is just so high that achieving any semblance of balance between these groups right now requires the melee character to go to incredible lengths for protections -- the standard bladeforged (self healing) + monk (incorporeality, evasion, dodge, saves) + paladin (saves). Which then leaves builds that do go to these lengths at a huge advantage compared to those that don't, greatly reducing the variety of effective builds.

[TheDr0wRanger]

If you actually have something constructive to add please do.

I hadn't pasted that since page 27 ... and I sure as hell don't expect people to read back that far.

As for answering your questions ... It's all self-explanatory to anyone who is familiar with the problems. My not putting in specific ways to fix is just me not doing the developers jobs for them. Seeing as they are the ones coding it and have knowledge I don't ... seems justified to me.

*SNIP*

If it's self explanatory, to anyone who is familiar with the problems, and you don't actually have a solution, then you are adding nothing of value. So I repeat your words back, If you actually have something constructive to add, please do. Until then you are clogging a thread attempting to tell everyone they are wrong and your trite little repost is without merit.
What is wrong is precisely the topic in debate, and even if you are right about the problem, its hardly so simple as you make it seem. We need the discussion you keep trying to shut down(or at the very least disregard), if nothing else to make more players understand what's being done.

Oh how I wish this discussion took place somewhere else so I can speak my mind....

While I'm sure it would be entertaining in a vacuous sort of way, I'd prefer if you'd actually offer useful input to the situation.

[Ancient]

Here is what I posted in another thread about how to balance and fix pure classes. The only change suggested was that perhaps the percentage healing for the occult slayer lvl 18 core was too high.

Developer resources are being used as a reason to balance by nerf. This got me thinking if there were some easy buffs that would produce a more diverse play field, but done in a way to minimize the resource needs (in other words, don't re-invent DDO).

Here are my thoughts on changes that would tempt me to play almost every class/destiny. My focus was on boosting pure(ish) class builds to be competitive with deep multiclass builds, and encouraging the use of rarely used epic destinies. My subjective (completely subjective, so others are likely to not agree) criteria was to find something that would tempt me to actually play that class/destiny. I'd love to read what buffs would do the trick for others.

Enhancement Trees
Barbarian
Occult Slayer level 18 core adds the following: When you do melee damage in combat, you are healed for an amount equal to 10% of that damage. (No restrictions on procs per second or max hp or anything, this is the barbarian self-healing that is lore appropriate).
Occult Slayer level 20 core adds the following: When you rage you also receive the benefits of a heal spell. You can refresh rage before the previous rage has expired.

Stalwart Defender/Sacred Defender
Level 18 core adds the following: Your PRR damage reduction is doubled (You gain half the distance between your current number and 100%).
Level 20 core adds Your PRR damage reduction also applies to elemental damage.

Warchanter
Level 18 Core adds: You receive a profane save bonus equal to half your charisma bonus.
Level 20 Core adds: Expend one song to increase your strength by an amount equal to your charisma bonus.

SpellSinger
Level 18 Core adds: You receive phantasmal killer as a spell. You receive a +3 morale bonus to illusion spell DCs.
Level 20 Core adds: Change wail to weird (Basically wail with an illusion save). Add, your morale bonus to illusion spell DCs is now +6.

Sorcerer
All Savant Level 18 Cores add: The casting cost for spells of this element are reduced by half.
All Savant Level 20 Cores add: The casting cost for spells of this element are reduced by 75%, the cost of non-opposing elemental spells are reduced by half.

Wizard
Archmage 20 - The casting cost for spells of your specialization are reduced by half.
Palemaster 20 - Every time you kill an oponent, you gain 10 spell points.

Ranger
Arcane Archer 18 core - If you have 18 levels of ranger then the cooldown of manyshot is reduced by half.

Half-Elf
Core 7 - You can visit Fred to choose an appearance of another race.

Epic Destinies
Fatesinger
Turn the tide has duration increased to two minutes and the cooldown removed. The restriction on magic damage against bosses is also removed.

Magister
The Sigils are dropped and replaced with USEFUL SLAs based on the specialization school.

Shadowdancer
I got nothing, this tree is full of weak abilities with drawbacks, silly limitations and is the only destiny tree weaker than any of most of the heroic enhancement trees (Yeah, I don't like this one).

Grandmaster of Flowers
Dial the nerf on everything is nothing back to 3 minutes instead of 5.

Exalted Angel
Reborn in the light: Change the duration to 30 seconds and the cooldown to 2 minutes. Eliminate the need for counters.

Unyielding Sentinel
Add a prism/rainbow style proc ability to one of the core stances that doesn't have raid killing joker effects.

[Daze]

If it's self explanatory, to anyone who is familiar with the problems, and you don't actually have a solution, then you are adding nothing of value. So I repeat your words back, If you actually have something constructive to add, please do. Until then you are clogging a thread attempting to tell everyone they are wrong and your trite little repost is without merit.

I have posted solutions without specifics. If you have them then by all means.... do tell. There have been several posts in this thread that are useful and I don't feel the need to clog the thread repeating them. I have commented against several nerfs out of principal.

What is wrong is precisely the topic in debate, and even if you are right about the problem, its hardly so simple as you make it seem. We need the discussion you keep trying to shut down(or at the very least disregard), if nothing else to make more players understand what's being done.

Not clogging or shutting anything down. Simply cutting to the chase and preventing burial of it. Speaking of obstructive, non-useful and vacuous posts ...

[SirValentine]

All those classes Vs Build discussion make me think of an important question that should have been in the poll : How far does DDO need to stick to DnD (and what edition, I stopped at 2.0) ?

Well, the answer to "what edition?" should be a no-brainer: DDO was specifically designed from v3.5.

[HatsuharuZ]

Hi master Impaqt,

With all due respect (sincerely), I disagree there. By the same logic I could say balance lies in providing real tangible benefits to being any sort of build, pure cleric, or pure antisinergetic combination of classes. Also there are real tangible benefits to being a pure class. Take for instance rogue: now they have a, b, c and 5% quarterstaff speed. Well at least you didn't say "benefits equal or more powerful than having evasion and +15 saves".

I disagree with you. The rogue acrobat capstone, specifically the 5% attack speed you listed was only recently added. Most other class capstones have not had the same treatment.

Here are some examples, taken from the wiki:

Storm's Eye: You hit harder, but not smarter.
Activate: You gain +1 melee damage, -1 Melee Attack, -1 AC. You take 1d20 untyped damage every 6 seconds. These modifiers and damage over time gain one stack every six seconds, up to 25 stacks. This ends when you are below 50% health. Activation Cost: 100 Hit Points. Cooldown: 3 minutes.

The above is horrible. It does more damage to the user than it does to the enemy, and makes it more likely that the user will die.

Horizon Shot: You gain +2 Dexterity and +1 Sneak Attack Die. You are always considered to be in Point Blank Shot and Ranged Sneak Attack range.
+20 Positive Spell Power

The positive energy spellpower is nice, but pbs range is easily attainable by simply moving a bit closer to the target.



My point is, your argument only applies to a few situations. Capstones don't need to all give evasion or two extra feats, but they do need to give multiple bonuses to be competitive with monk, paladin etc. splashes. Currently, most of them aren't, in my opinion.

[Cardtrick]

Here is what I posted in another thread about how to balance and fix pure classes. The only change suggested was that perhaps the percentage healing for the occult slayer lvl 18 core was too high.

I feel like most of these buffs are too much, and also too restrictive.

Definitely the barbarian one is way over the top -- while simultaneously locking the player into a particularly enhancement line. I like the general idea of a barbarian gaining health while in melee combat. But 10% of damage done is just . . . crazy.

I'd rather see something like +1 hp per strike at barbarian level 4, increasing by 1 for every 4 barbarian levels (to a max of 5 at level 20). This would be modified by positive spellpower and healing amp. Give occult slayer an enhancement at tier 4 or 5 that gives a Devotion bonus equal to Weapon Bond (or maybe Weapon Bond with a level-based multiplier). Give a healing effect to each capstone -- ravager has a chance to proc Heal when taking damage, frenzied berserker has an AOE healing effect with stat restoration (similar to ameliorating strike, but probably more powerful) when raging (either when activating rage or once every X seconds while raged), occult slayer has a chance to proc Heal on self when attacking when weapon bond > 100.

Useful abilities at the class level and in every enhancement tree, while retaining some of their flavor.

[SirValentine]

1) Casters should be on roughly even footing with other casters
2) Melee should be on roughly even footing with other melee
3) There is no compelling reason why casters and melee need to be on roughly even footing

Depends on what you mean by "roughly even footing". It's OK if, say, casters excels at some things melees are weak at, as long as there's other meaningful areas where melees excel and casters are weaker.

But there's not only no compelling reason for them to be good at the same things, but that would, to me, be an actively bad goal to pursue.

Balance isn't everyone being identical, it's about different things (class/race/ED/whatever) being (roughly) equally useful. Including melees versus casters.

[Alfhild]

Well, the answer to "what edition?" should be a no-brainer: DDO was specifically designed from v3.5.

Naw, 1st Ed AD&D. That way Rangers can get a summon follower spell which has a chance to proc the Stormreaver.

[Timap]

Depends on what you mean by "roughly even footing". It's OK if, say, casters excels at some things melees are weak at, as long as there's other meaningful areas where melees excel and casters are weaker.

Different builds can be good at different things : DPS, Tanking, Healing, CCing, Trapping.
Sadly, only 1 of these things is king in EE content.
So when people talk about balancing builds along only that single dimension, it is with some justification.
It would take a pretty big overhaul to just to make Tanking and Healing pertinent again.

[TheDr0wRanger]

I have posted solutions without specifics. If you have them then by all means.... do tell. There have been several posts in this thread that are useful and I don't feel the need to clog the thread repeating them. I have commented against several nerfs out of principal.




Not clogging or shutting anything down. Simply cutting to the chase and preventing burial of it. Speaking of obstructive, non-useful and vacuous posts ...

If you have posted solutions, I haven't seen them, I apologize if I've missed it. But if by "solutions" you mean statements like "fix x" then I must call shenanigans. That's not a solution, thats a goal, and it offers no insight into what is wrong with x in the first place.

You are trying to shut down discussion, or at the very least you make it appear that you want to.
"36 pages of comments to say what can be said in a few lines" distinctly smacks of trying to close the book on everyone else's opinions.

I have offered solutions, I've posted a standard page of material 3 times in this thread alone, stopping to agree with another person that you are behaving like a ninny is an attempt to filter waste. Your point has been made, twice now, bumping the same post multiple times is not necessary as the devs will have seen it if they were paying any attention at all. I would be surprised if it isn't at least vaguely against forum guidlines. But your tone screams that you think yourself the only one with valid opinion, so go ahead, make yourself heard.

I'm done arguing this anyway, Its becoming a derail and I've said my piece. Sorry for the mess guys.

[Uska]

All those classes Vs Build discussion make me think of an important question that should have been in the poll : How far does DDO need to stick to DnD (and what edition, I stopped at 2.0) ?

Because the answer would imply very different strategies.

We are based on 3.5 the d20 system and it even starts to break down at upper levels and with the enhancement system and the Monty Haul loot system it happened here much faster than it does in pnp I don't see how they can easily "balance" with taking large steps away from its roots and if they do I question if I will continue to play. If they leave heroic pretty much alone and concentrate on epic then I could continue there. But I fear they are going to totally ruin the game that I have enjoyed playing for the last 8 years.

[avepepix]

Didn't know that was a problem. This game has a population with the mind set that this game is about classes and another population that believes this game is about builds. I believe this game is not about classes.
By the way, I wouldn't have minded that multiclass incorporated a penalty to xp, but it didn't. Well, in P&P u didn't get the capstone benefits either.

Well in pnp capstone dont exist =)
In pnp you have prestige classes, here the prestige its the class
For that this game its about classes and builds. With this new enhacement tree with 1 lvl in any class you can fill almost all the tree if you want.

This discussion its about character balance, maybe im wrong, but i think the balance its broken with too mutch multiclass. A fighter has enhacement that work for monk, a ranger has enhacemnt that work for monk. Why? Why monk dont have enhacement that work for bard, wizard or fighter?
Who is suppouse to be a better melee? a monk or a fighter? 20 lvl Fighter, 20 lvl monk, or 10 monk/2fighter/8 ranger?

In the run to end game, in my experience, a multiclass character its better than a pure. The capstone dont make any diference