Player Character Balance

[Teh_Troll]

Because the "uber elite" consist of 4 EDs (Fury, LD, Shiradi and DI) and a handful of build and splash combos. As many people on this thread have mentioned previously, classes and entire EDs aren't performing to a level that is effective in EE or even EH, which is a problem. I'm not saying bad builds should operate on high difficulties, but the window of effective class/ED combos is much smaller than it should be.

I'm talking about PLAYER skill level, not what EDs/builds etc . . . are involved.

Skill level needs to be taken out of the equation when balancing this stuff, that is done by balancing on what the upper echelon of players are capable of doing. This is why the opinions of bad PLAYERS shouldn't count for anything.

Do I need to state that in smaller words?

[Veriden]

I see your point, but offer the following counters:

a. Magic cloth does protect as well as full plate (pretty cool, yeah?) but wouldn't magic plate protect even better?
b. Well made heavier armors wouldn't have to be as restrictive as you say, especially if they were magical, would they?
c. Actually, blunt weapons were mostly foiled by rigid armors. Piercing weapons were generally preferred against most armors. Ancient Egyptians had used maces until helmets were widely adopted rendering them much less effective than alternatives. Centuries later when maces returned they were not usually widely adopted and often were more like picks. (Which brings me to war hammers. War hammers were not the mallets we see in fantasy games, but were basically picks.)
d. Most importantly, this is a fantasy genre wherein warriors wade into close combat with dinosaur-sized opponents while wearing heavy shiny armor and impractical winged helms and wielding archaic light sabers with blades as long as the monsters' hides are thick. Give us the darn fantasy!

My counter points to your counter points.

A. Thus the comment about the dex, with out going into epic levels and the steep increase for going above +5 in cost. +5 full plate only adds 5 more ac (+13 ac, max dex 1) so a character with a dex of 22 would get the same ac bonus out of bracers/cloth armor +8 as some one wearing +5 full plate with a dex of 12.

B. well made armors would be called masterwork, they exist already and offer a -1 to the penalties for skills. All magic armors are first masterwork, thus yes slightly less restrictive. However still extra weight to slow you down in both movement speed and your ability to tumble, jump, climb, swim, balance, and such strength based movement/dex based skills. Mithril further increases these benefits and the dexterity bonus making it equal to a character with 26 dex and bracers of armor 8 if the wearer has a dex of 16 in +5 mithril plate male(+13 ac +3 max dex)

C. I could've sworn the documentary I watched had a guy using a nice heavy mace to hit the shoulders and helmet hard enough to dent the plate mail rendering the wearer not only unable to move his arms but disoriented and blinded due to how his helmet folded in. Admittedly, it has been a while since I watched it and could be wrong. I'll give that one to you.

D. We have our differences of opinions as I favor the cloth wearing magi-swordsman slaying foes in a mix of arcane might and sword play. Cutting down dragons after cleaving their wings from their back with an enchanted blade. Few things are as fearsome as a battle field of limbs and vitae splattered over the walls and bowl bottoms of fireball induced craters. (Yes I favor one hand one sword styles in pen and paper, kinda gimp but I'm typically the guy playing a elf Swashbuckler/Wizard, or dusk blade, or the many melee/caster prcs. Also...guilty pleasure is cleric/sword sage 11/9. Both the party's healer and part time stupidly op ba-dness.)

[Grizzt14]

Skill level needs to be taken out of the equation when balancing this stuff, that is done by balancing on what the upper echelon of players are capable of doing.

Do I need to state that in smaller words?

When you determine what the upper echelon of players are capable of doing, you're automatically including the builds being used and what those set ups are capable of. They are not independent of one another.

Save the smaller words and patronizing tone, it isn't welcome or warranted.

[Teh_Troll]

When you determine what the upper echelon of players are capable of doing, you're automatically including the builds being used and what those set ups are capable of. They are not independent of one another.

Nonsense, I see good players beating stuff all the time in the non-cookie-cutter builds. If you had some idea what good players were capable of you'd know this.

Save the smaller words and patronizing tone, it isn't welcome or warranted.

You mammals are so damned sensitive. Sorry I had to use that many syllables.

[zwiebelring]

I'm talking about PLAYER skill level, not what EDs/builds etc . . . are involved.

Skill level needs to be taken out of the equation when balancing this stuff, that is done by balancing on what the upper echelon of players are capable of doing. This is why the opinions of bad PLAYERS shouldn't count for anything.

Do I need to state that in smaller words?

It was nice to first define *good* and *bad* before rejecting opinions. And don't say something like:

good = can hjeal me

bad = cannot hjeal me

- edit -
Neither bad nor good player skill has to be used in balancing. If you take good players as a standard you don't need balance, because, hey, they beat epic elite stuff with a pure barbarian and solo raids. But when the effort of this player is too high to achieve vs. just rolling a cookiecutter build and compensate by that for the lack of skills I say, this game is imbalanced.

Balance has to be within rule mechanics, not player skill.

[Cyr]

Though true, often not optimal at all. Screws up aggro. Hard to beat on a mob that's chasing someone else. Puts other party members at risk who may be even more fragile.
.

Deception items increase DPS in party. Diplo is last resort and only one which messes with agro. As for chasing someone else...mob is coming at you initially to get past you...it's called stun it... If they are too fragile to handle agro then they are playing badly by getting initial agro first and not being able to handle it for the short time it takes to burn down the mobs.

[TheDr0wRanger]

Nonsense, I see good players beating stuff all the time in the non-cookie-cutter builds. If you had some idea what good players were capable of you'd know this.



You mammals are so damned sensitive. Sorry I had to use that many syllables.

Balancing based on the upper echelon of players is unwise. Why should everyone not gifted, rich or blessed with free time enough to be in the top 25% or so of players/ builds not get to play a game that had fair rules at their level?

I never believe the game is best balanced on EE because there are.a great many equally legitimate customers of the game and by extension Turbine who can't gear, practice the quests or make raid night frequently enough to be comfortable on EE. If what I gather from your post is true, you think as long as EE is balanced, those players can just be screwed. There's no denying an EE spec character will run rings around a toon not readied/specced for EE, does the game really need to make them less happy with their experience?

Anyway I think its moot, rules for EE and EH needn't be the same, it could be that some tweaks to values for armor, damage etc could be applied on EH or EE to alter the curve for that level.

[Teh_Troll]

Balancing based on the upper echelon of players is unwise. Why should everyone not gifted, rich or blessed with free time enough to be in the top 25% or so of players/ builds not get to play a game that had fair rules at their level?

Because you wouldn't notice one way or the other.

[Icywave]

Asking about classes power without asking questions about multiclassing will provide flawed data.

Agreed.

[CeltEireson]

Oh and while you're in a balancing mood, could you have a look at strength based damage v dex based damage. Lot fewer options to increase dex compared to strength so currently theres a fairly massive gap between the max attainable dex and strength.

Of course dex does provide other benefits like reflex save, AC (although that hardly matters currently) and there are more dex related skills; and dex based builds would also include some rogue types whose primary damage may be coming from assassin instant kills and sneak attacks, which obviously makes balancing somewhat harder. But even so think it could so with a boost, specially as dex based melee/ranged usually have invest in enhancements as well as the finesse feat sometimes.

[Teh_Troll]

Oh and while you're in a balancing mood, could you have a look at strength based damage v dex based damage. Lot fewer options to increase dex compared to strength so currently theres a fairly massive gap between the max attainable dex and strength.

Of course dex does provide other benefits like reflex save, AC (although that hardly matters currently) and there are more dex related skills; and dex based builds would also include some rogue types whose primary damage may be coming from assassin instant kills and sneak attacks, which obviously makes balancing somewhat harder. But even so think it could so with a boost, specially as dex based melee/ranged usually have invest in enhancements as well as the finesse feat sometimes.

back when DEX was giving 100% damage to the off-hand (Lamania only, never made it to live) on paper it was looking like DEX-to-damage would not only be viable it'd be a strong option.

Now? LOLz, total n00b-trap.

Turbine should consider revisiting these because the builds with the DEX to damage would have been glass-cannonish enough to be balanced.

[EllisDee37]

back when DEX was giving 100% damage to the off-hand (Lamania only, never made it to live) on paper it was looking like DEX-to-damage would not only be viable it'd be a strong option.

Now? LOLz, total n00b-trap.

Turbine should consider revisiting these because the builds with the DEX to damage would have been glass-cannonish enough to be balanced.

And it makes thematic sense. I can easily buy into a strength build having a physically weaker offhand while a dex build is fully ambidextrous and is doing its damage via precise attacks. No reason the god-like dexterity on a dex build shouldn't apply 100% to both hands.

[Grizzt14]

Nonsense, I see good players beating stuff all the time in the non-cookie-cutter builds.

Edited out the laughable trolling. Try reading and digesting that post again because you brought up cookie-cutter builds, I did not and it is irrelevant to my point. Have a good day.

[Eth]

You balance towards high skill. Bad players simply don't know the game well enough for their opinions to matter.

Depends on the game really. In competetive games that have professional players (like Starcraft) it's done this way.
In a PvE MMORPG - I don't know.

[darkly_dreaming]

The entire discussion of character balance is ridiculous. The only way to have real character balance is to have ONE character type, with exactly the same progression for everyone with the only variables being gear and player skill. And even if that happened after the first week there would be those crying about 'fairness' because some players had more time to get better gear and so they're now 'unbalanced' compared to those who work and don't have enough time to play.

People should just play what they want to play and not worry about what other people are doing and if it's 'fair' or not. Guess what, in real life everyone is not a winner. Everyone does not get a trophy. Life is not fair. There are people who make more money than me, have better behaved kids, are better looking, and ZOMG better at playing a video game than I am.

/rant

[Teh_Troll]

Depends on the game really. In competetive games that have professional players (like Starcraft) it's done this way.
In a PvE MMORPG - I don't know.

I fail to see a difference between PvP and PvE regarding this.

Could a 6 year old play one of those "Solo's EE Raids" toons and solo an EE raid? No.

Should said 6 year old's opinion on whether something is OP or not have any weight? No, it should not. They don't understand the mechanics well enough to know if something is broken or not.

And yes, I am comparing the opinions of bad players to those who can barely tie their own shoes.

If something is balanced so bad players can do well on something an ubber player will take said "balanced" thing and break the game.

[Teh_Troll]

The entire discussion of character balance is ridiculous. The only way to have real character balance is to have ONE character type, with exactly the same progression for everyone with the only variables being gear and player skill. And even if that happened after the first week there would be those crying about 'fairness' because some players had more time to get better gear and so they're now 'unbalanced' compared to those who work and don't have enough time to play.

People should just play what they want to play and not worry about what other people are doing and if it's 'fair' or not. Guess what, in real life everyone is not a winner. Everyone does not get a trophy. Life is not fair. There are people who make more money than me, have better behaved kids, are better looking, and ZOMG better at playing a video game than I am.

/rant

Wrong.

[Cardtrick]

And yes, I am comparing the opinions of bad players to those who can barely tie their own shoes.

You are my favorite poster.

[RapkintheRanger]

I'd like to assuage any fears that this post was in direct preparation for incoming nerfs.

(SNIP)

Balance is about making many different playstyles viable, so you (the players) feel like there are as many legitimate options as we can possibly give you.

(SNIP)

Melee in Epic Elite probably needs some help.

(SNIP)

Thanks again for a lot of great feedback! Happy for it to keep coming.

These are the four best things i have seen in this thread.
Thank you, although it was very stressful, it is appreciated.

[Seikojin]

I think what we have to do is really focus on what the current state of the game is and how balanced the current classes are and offer insight into that reasoned opinion.

To help focus, we would have to talk about the class, its enhancements, past lives, gear, and destinies. Then break each into single class and multiclass. maybe offer some suggestions in each to help.

Something like:
Artificer

~As a class - I feel the Artificer is a fairly versatile class. It has some melee capabilities (very few), and excels in ranged and has some unique spells. It is the second class with trapping, so offers some options for non-stealth rogue players. It is a fairly solo-friendly class in the following ways: trapping, self healing without losing any offensive forces, ranged combat as a main and decent damage spells and distractions (pet and turret). The only con is that it does not excel in any of these areas save xbow combat to really push for the class. So as a class, I don't see much need for change.

~~Enhancement tree: Arcnotechnician - http://ddowiki.com/page/Arcanotechnician_enhancements
This path has a lot of offerings to boost the spell power of the class. Some Sla's, interactive with pots, a few pet synergies, and a capstone that is useful for some items.

It however falls short on delivering much impact on those areas. I don't see the use at the high end heroics to spam pot slas. The boosts in spellpower are nice, but not enough to invest in them. The Sla's are the big draw for this tree.

Fix suggestions: Boost the spellpower options. Give 1.5 - 2 per point in the tree. For each core, add +1 crit chance in addition to the line. Perhaps the last 3 cores, since this would push the class as the main class.

For the capstone, the boosting to items is very tempting. However it should act like the item is in your spell arsenal and be affect able by other boosts (other dc boosting gear, etc). Or allow them to use metamagics at a greater consumption (dmg boosts use 3 charges per cast, all others use 2; stackable). Also the stat boost should be +4 and the spellcraft should be class level (so +20). As much of a draw, I still don't think it would make people break away from an MC just because of this. But it would be a very viable and tempting pure build.

~~Enhancement tree: Battle Engineer - http://ddowiki.com/page/Battle_Engineer_enhancements
This path really pushes for melee and xbow combat over spell use. There are inherent boosts to gear and weapons and plenty of runearm abilities.

However it does not offer much depth for melee. Like just about nothing save some boosting to the items enhancements and some hit and damage along the way to a very lackluster tier 5. This is more and more a runearm tree.

Fix suggestions: A lot is needed here. Offer martial proficiency, and maybe some runearm discharge procs on melee attacks. Like proc burst your runearm charges on vorpals. Also various boosts to melee should be possible. like sla prr boosts, dodge boosts, perhaps more twf and thf options (doublestrike, offhand, glancing blows), and in the core abilities maybe offer some as well. So deep delving into this tree can offer some comparable melee like tempest, or thf glancing fun. Also there is little in regards to spellpower. I think points in this tree should offer spellpower as well. Perhaps 1/per points spent in tree, leaving arcnotechnician still ahead in spellpower, but enough to where delving into both trees is useful (like the design seems to be so far). Also a runearm as shield enhancement is needed.

Also I saw nothing for the pet here. This tree should have significant pet options. Like runearm discharge through pet, boosts to the pet, and synergies from the pet to host, similar to the Arcnotechnician does.

The capstone needs significant boosting. +4 to stat, threat range increase by 1 or 2, increase the attachment enhancements by .5 (From all sources), in addition to the spellpower enhancements. This also should boost stable charging past 3, to allow the full charge on the runearm.

~~~Past life -
Passive/free: The ability to get +1 to int skills and UMD is really nice. However it would be nice if you could also boost items spells by caster levels as well. Like +1 per life.
Active/purchase: This one is pretty solid. Perhaps add all dischargeable items (unless helmets are considered a rod/staff/wand). Also the +1 enhancement should increase as you level. +1 every 5 levels.

~~~~Destinies - Artificers are the only class without a destiny class match. And as we look into the arcane and melee trees, this is what we see:
Arcane - All three offer spell casting prowess to the class. Nothing adds significant spellpower however, so no dps increases. Nothing synergistic.
Divine - Most of these are not useful to an artificer since they do nothing to really boost everything an arti does. However they offer splash healing if the Arti needs utility in that role. Divine crusader would help a melee arti if they went that way. Same with Unyielding Sentinal (before or after changes).
Martial - All three are useful to the melee portion of the class. Nothing synergistic though.
Primal - These are the best for the class; offering some spell and melee and ranged utility to the class. Little to no synergy.

The best suggestion for this would be to add some things for runearms, more for pets, or something for arties enhancements that allow pets to gain from destiny abilities.

~~~~~Gear -
Outside of the handful of repeating crossbows, nothing really stands out as best for an arti. There are a ton of different things you can utilize to boost your playstyle, but nothing to synergize with your pet really, and nothing to synergize your runearm.

The best here would be obvious; more pet helpful gear and more repeater options. Maybe runearm swords that take the runarm ability and make it a charge/block to discharge in melee.