Player Character Balance

[TheDr0wRanger]

Chiming in to emphasize here, I said I want to restrain Sorc power, this will give my main a challenge and allow balancing the game for a more normalized set of damage numbers. But if that is done, you absolutely must add a utilitarian caster tree for Sorcs, and/or revamp Draconic Incarnation to suit a the less insane effect of Sorcs. Most flesh sorcs I know survive by killing everything else first, if that isn't to be done we need alternatives.

[MangLord]

Leave that mean boss for the pro gamers. They will loot teh chest for you and sell you the loot for AS. You finance their gaming and are able to stay employed so you can pay to win, it's the cycle of life. And you don't have to bother with EE. TY monkchers for making life easier for everyone.

Congrats. You're the reason why the game is broken.

My week's observations, with this thread in mind.

I'm currently leveling a 2nd life (ranger past life) pure elf AA ranger with the intention to replace my gimpy lvl 26 pure artificer and lvl 28 dwarven tempest. I'm level 17 at the moment, and paralyzing arrows keep the class on par with a pure dwarf shintao monk and pure drow pale master in terms of efficiency and survivability. My pure shintao monk could effortlessly stun, jade strike and quivering palm the forward assault of a mob and healing strike himself through the rest without much trouble, and my CC wizard can throw down webs, dancing balls and fire walls to equal effect. Nerfing the arrow DCs will relegate the class back to the scrap heap. I would gladly spend another 6 ap to boost my arrow DCs to work 50% of the time at epic levels. Now that paralysis doesn't work on undead and elementals, some quests are much harder than others depending on what I'm facing. I like it, and I feel it's balanced with other great classes. Pale Master is terrific 90% of the time, but they're terrible with a few quests Lets face it, monks are well suited to 99% of the game content.

If you nerf pin and whistler, I will have nothing to work with in shiradi, as a pure ranger build. Every quest degrades into kitefest 2014, like it did pre-update (except slayer arrows are no longer passive and fail to register if I'm not standing still). If the mobs shrug off my clickies, I don't have the HP to sustain the incoming damage. I like shiradi as a ranger. It shifts my role from heroic level burst DPS to reliable epic level crowd control, and I'm ok with that. Furyshot is cool for soloing EH and some easier EE content, but I still prefer the tactical choices I have to make in shiradi. You can be a real asset as a ranger, if you're aware of enemy movement and positioning. I can get half a mob moving in slow motion or dancing while the DPS deals with the rest. Do not nerf shiradi for archers. If you plan on making a DC caster viable, then I'm all for shiradi abilities nonfunctional with spells. I'm also ok with making Fury adrenaline melee only, since shiradi has a lot to offer for tactical players. This is assuming you don't zerg, and I don't have much sympathy for displaced people jumping over enemies to get to the end fight.

Long story short, if you nerf ranger, a pure build will die horribly in higher level EH content. Low HP + burst DPS - CC = death

The one drawback I'm noticing is that after a manyshot burst, the doubleshot penalty is crippling. If I'm concerned at level 17, I'm going to be in huge trouble at epic. The solution is to just go afk while I'm waiting for the penalty to wear off. I'm going to play a pure class regardless, but in order to make it a viable option, you really need to make the AA capstone more attractive than switching to 10k stars when manyshot is cooling down. Halve the archery cooldowns, boost the doubleshot chance to 40% or add +6 or better dex bonus will make a pure elf AA build look ok for end game.

[BigErkyKid]

1. Problem: enhancements do not scale well.

Solution: make them scale with level.

A 1-3d6 guard is nothing even by the end of heroics, +10PRR does not mean that much, etc. I think it would be nice if you had a good bunch of the abilities that scaled with level to keep them as viable options. Otherwise, I feel that, for some builds, at higher levels I am only pushing a handful of keys and many of the interesting options that I had in lower level heroics are gone


2. Invis running quests breaks balance in favor of high power / low sustainability against longer but lower power.

Solution: Allow to avoid some fights, but only with SERIOUS stealth abilities.

Another issue, brought up by the previous post, is that it is common place to invis run a large chunk of a lot of quests. I think this affects balance as well. For instance, take the obvious case of a caster. If he had to kill a large fraction of the mobs, he would deplete his SP so the difficulty of the quest would be higher. A large mana pool seems reasonable if I have to fight my way through a dungeon. However, if I can invis run it, I find that I have plenty of SP to blast away in a few fights and become OP compared to other classes. I am aware that other classes can do the same, but it is clear that some classes are balanced through larger BUT limited power (caster vs fighter, for instance).


PS - Do not leave heroics alone! Just because they have been partially trivialized for veterans it does NOT mean that it is OK to have blatant disparities in power. What about new players? What about those who ONLY play heroics?


I feel this post from the random dungeons thread is also relevant to this discussion. Part of the reason balance is broken is through this fight avoidance strategies and knowing very well quests.

What kills part of the fun in DDO, for me, is that every quest is taking part in a many times rehearsed play. Except in some fights / unavoidable traps, I can go through a quest with a class not really well prepared to beat it because I know what to do.

Random dungeons can break that feeling and provide fresh challenges every time. Will it be a CC intensive quest or one with very few but strong mobs? Is it going to be filled with beholders or with trolls? Can I run through 99% of it and fight the end mob or do I need to go painfully room by room?

These kind of questions bring back the need for a balanced group, increase the joy of surprise and generally provide some fresh air to a game that feels like living in a nuclear submarine in the 60s.

[pHo3nix]

[B]

2. Invis running quests breaks balance in favor of high power / low sustainability against longer but lower power.

Solution: Allow to avoid some fights, but only with SERIOUS stealth abilities.

Another issue, brought up by the previous post, is that it is common place to invis run a large chunk of a lot of quests. I think this affects balance as well. For instance, take the obvious case of a caster. If he had to kill a large fraction of the mobs, he would deplete his SP so the difficulty of the quest would be higher. A large mana pool seems reasonable if I have to fight my way through a dungeon. However, if I can invis run it, I find that I have plenty of SP to blast away in a few fights and become OP compared to other classes. I am aware that other classes can do the same, but it is clear that some classes are balanced through larger BUT limited power (caster vs fighter, for instance).

What would the mean of invisibility be then? Could as well remove the spell from the game.

Choices are good, forcing people to run in a certain way is bad.

People are running invis through quests? Why? Cause killing mobs is useless.

Give people a reason to kill mobs and people will kill mobs. But please, do not force us with barriers and locked doors until X mobs are dead in every quest, that's boring and it doesn't make sense most of the time.

If there was a big enough incentive to kill mobs people could choose: run invis and complete faster or kill mobs and get whatever benefit you get from the onslaught?

[knockcocker]

What would the mean of invisibility be then? Could as well remove the spell from the game.

Choices are good, forcing people to run in a certain way is bad.

People are running invis through quests? Why? Cause killing mobs is useless.

Give people a reason to kill mobs and people will kill mobs. But please, do not force us with barriers and locked doors until X mobs are dead in every quest, that's boring and it doesn't make sense most of the time.

If there was a big enough incentive to kill mobs people could choose: run invis and complete faster or kill mobs and get whatever benefit you get from the onslaught?

Hear, Hear.

It seems monumentally dumb to me to try and railroad players into doing things a certain way. It
seems a lot of the suggestions in this thread, if implemented, will just result in the game becoming
more tedious than enjoyable. You have to look at why things are done - as already pointed out
efficiency is king. Are people really going to enjoy beating down trash HP until their weapons
break because stealth/invis is not an option? Sounds terrible to me...

[capsela]

That said, there is no reason why my ranger should be able to do 100,000dmg in a one second window [Build a 30% Archer's Focus, Adrenaline, 30% Damage Boost, Manyshot, Arrow of Slaying, Adrenaline, Called Shot].

LOL. Rogue gets 25% doublestrike as a tier 2 ability, Fighter gets it as a tier 5.

[Mryal]

Heres my feedback.

Things that need to go away :
1 - Shield requirements on defender enhancements
2 - Limitation on rainbow/double rainbow procs(peraphs 2-3 per second/spell)
3 - Fixing Fury so it works as per description
4 - AC.Lets face it, it has been reworked many times, but once again, if you play on the highest difficulty of the game it does not work.
We have other 'new' mechanics called dodge/PRR.Split the AC bonuses between those two and up the dodge cap for all characters.

Things that need to come :
1 - SLA's for bards
2 - Rework of ALL paladin enhancement trees, with more emphasis on actualy having levels on the class.
3 - Rework in the paladin class mechanics : Remove charges on smithe, limited now only by cooldown.Add more charges to LOH and move the 90 seconds regeneration time from smithe to LOH.
4 - NO nerfs to monks at all.Instead, better capstones for all classes.

[BigErkyKid]

Hear, Hear.

It seems monumentally dumb to me to try and railroad players into doing things a certain way. It
seems a lot of the suggestions in this thread, if implemented, will just result in the game becoming
more tedious than enjoyable. You have to look at why things are done - as already pointed out
efficiency is king. Are people really going to enjoy beating down trash HP until their weapons
break because stealth/invis is not an option? Sounds terrible to me...

Then why are the mobs in the quest to start with?

In any case, this is a matter of balance. I brought it up for balance reasons, not to encourage the devs to force you to kill all the mobs and what not. But of course, people fear it because lets face it some quests, specially in end game, are BORING! It just takes long to beat some mobs without it being that challenging or fun, hence people run through them.

In doing so, though, the balance is broken. That´s my claim.

Now I also want to point out that a lot of people come to this thread fearing the fixes. I don't think they trust devs to do a good job balancing and they think they will just end up worse off than now. They have figured out the way to deal with current "mistakes", now it would be painful to have to figure out the next set. A prime example is this invis running through quests. It is just a way to speed up parts of the quest that aren't fun (granted even if they were fun, people would often choose to skip them for the sake of fast running a quest). So what are the odds that the game designers rework a whole lot of quests so that you CANNOT invis run them and they become more fun?

While I understand that, I also think that balance is heavily affected by these "exploits" and that long term the game should try to fix them. Even if it means more less fun for a bit.

PS - Also, how are the devs going to catter to our taste in quests if they think they are doing fine and it s just that we are avoiding large chunks of the quest?

[pHo3nix]

Then why are the mobs in the quest to start with?

In any case, this is a matter of balance. I brought it up for balance reasons, not to encourage the devs to force you to kill all the mobs and what not. But of course, people fear it because lets face it some quests, specially in end game, are BORING! It just takes long to beat some mobs without it being that challenging or fun, hence people run through them.

In doing so, though, the balance is broken. That´s my claim.

Now I also want to point out that a lot of people come to this thread fearing the fixes. I don't think they trust devs to do a good job balancing and they think they will just end up worse off than now. They have figured out the way to deal with current "mistakes", now it would be painful to have to figure out the next set. A prime example is this invis running through quests. It is just a way to speed up parts of the quest that aren't fun (granted even if they were fun, people would often choose to skip them for the sake of fast running a quest). So what are the odds that the game designers rework a whole lot of quests so that you CANNOT invis run them and they become more fun?

While I understand that, I also think that balance is heavily affected by these "exploits" and that long term the game should try to fix them. Even if it means more less fun for a bit.

PS - Also, how are the devs going to catter to our taste in quests if they think they are doing fine and it s just that we are avoiding large chunks of the quest?

You seem to be new here, so you might have missed past experiences with turbine "fixes". People do not fear fixes, people fear the "nuking from orbit" approach that turbine usually has with fixes.

The fact that Varg is asking for advices is great, hopefully he will try to follow the wise advices

[Qhualor]

What would the mean of invisibility be then? Could as well remove the spell from the game.

Choices are good, forcing people to run in a certain way is bad.

People are running invis through quests? Why? Cause killing mobs is useless.

Give people a reason to kill mobs and people will kill mobs. But please, do not force us with barriers and locked doors until X mobs are dead in every quest, that's boring and it doesn't make sense most of the time.

If there was a big enough incentive to kill mobs people could choose: run invis and complete faster or kill mobs and get whatever benefit you get from the onslaught?

Let's not kid ourselves. Players invis/zerg for the xp/min and because some quests are designed easy enough to do it for fast and easy completion. Some of the same players that do this cheese tactic are also the ones that can nuke whole rooms just fine.

[HatsuharuZ]

Perhaps a nerf to manyshot is in order? Either make it work like Thousand Stars and remove the doubleshot penalty *when manyshot is not active*, or add a to-hit penalty that increases with BAB and remove the doubleshot pentalty *when manyshot is not active*.

[BigErkyKid]

You seem to be new here, so you might have missed past experiences with turbine "fixes". People do not fear fixes, people fear the "nuking from orbit" approach that turbine usually has with fixes.

The fact that Varg is asking for advices is great, hopefully he will try to follow the wise advices

So in other words, people fear fixes. (Not new to the game). Now I see a lot of defensive stands here. Some people thinking mhm mhm if they nerf my shiradi spam machine what sort of sorcerer will I be able to play end game? mhmm if they nerf kiting how on earth will I be able to take +300HP per hit from those HP bags? And then getting very aggressive at anything that touches that.

It appears to me that there is a lot of private calculation and a complete lack of trust that the development team will implement comprehensive changes, rather than just smacking this one thing you are using and leaving the rest ready to eat you on the way down.

To a certain extend, experience and the fact that they tend to ask for very narrow suggestions at a time seems to indicate it, but I don't think that long term it does any favor to the goal of having a better game.

[Ancient]

So in other words, people fear fixes. (Not new to the game). Now I see a lot of defensive stands here. Some people thinking mhm mhm if they nerf my shiradi spam machine what sort of sorcerer will I be able to play end game? mhmm if they nerf kiting how on earth will I be able to take +300HP per hit from those HP bags? And then getting very aggressive at anything that touches that.

It appears to me that there is a lot of private calculation and a complete lack of trust that the development team will implement comprehensive changes, rather than just smacking this one thing you are using and leaving the rest ready to eat you on the way down.

To a certain extend, experience and the fact that they tend to ask for very narrow suggestions at a time seems to indicate it, but I don't think that long term it does any favor to the goal of having a better game.

Some Men Just Want to Watch the World Burn

[Icywave]

This is another different issue - the total lack of a difficulty setting designed for the large group of players (probably a majority at high level) that find EH far too easy and EE far too hard. This, in my experience, includes most PUG groups in non-raid content.

Not really related to this discussion but a real problem.

It is true that the scaling between those 2 difficulties is a big jump.

[pHo3nix]

Let's not kid ourselves. Players invis/zerg for the xp/min and because some quests are designed easy enough to do it for fast and easy completion. Some of the same players that do this cheese tactic are also the ones that can nuke whole rooms just fine.

Nuking whole rooms takes more time than running past while invis. If nuking whole rooms granted something people would have to choose between getting what kills grant or a faster completion; as it currently stands killing unnecessary mobs to quest completion just increase the time you spend in the quest and grants nothing.

@Big: again, people do not fear fixes in general, they fear turbine nerf hammer, cause when it falls ,almost nothing survives the nerf.

[Icywave]

Nuking whole rooms takes more time than running past while invis. If nuking whole rooms granted something people would have to choose between getting what kills grant or a faster completion; as it currently stands killing unnecessary mobs to quest completion just increase the time you spend in the quest and grants nothing.

@Big: again, people do not fear fixes in general, they fear turbine nerf hammer, cause when it falls ,almost nothing survives the nerf.

Monsters should give xp....not just named ones. I know, what a concept

[BigErkyKid]

Nuking whole rooms takes more time than running past while invis. If nuking whole rooms granted something people would have to choose between getting what kills grant or a faster completion; as it currently stands killing unnecessary mobs to quest completion just increase the time you spend in the quest and grants nothing.

@Big: again, people do not fear fixes in general, they fear turbine nerf hammer, cause when it falls ,almost nothing survives the nerf.

OK. So, as an economist, I believe in incentives. Killing the mobs should be rewarded sufficiently AND since we are not coming to play a korean grinder, it should be enjoyable (just locking the doors won't do the trick!).

So, repetitive sequences of rooms with similar mobs doing the same thing: not fun.

But do we agree that invis running does indeed break the balance between builds that have limited but very powerful resources and those who are good at keeping moderate among of power over time?

[pHo3nix]

Monsters should give xp....not just named ones. I know, what a concept

Aye, worthwhile xp or something like the old epics scroll system, which while not perfect, at least give incentives to kill mobs.

OK. So, as an economist, I believe in incentives. Killing the mobs should be rewarded sufficiently AND since we are not coming to play a korean grinder, it should be enjoyable (just locking the doors won't do the trick!).

So, repetitive sequences of rooms with similar mobs doing the same thing: not fun.

But do we agree that invis running does indeed break the balance between builds that have limited but very powerful resources and those who are good at keeping moderate among of power over time?

In which of these 2 categories do good EE melee and/or ranged builds fall in your opinion? Cause monkchers or blitzers could clear rooms almost as fast as casters and they are even better in long bosses fights. I do not think there's a balance issue with invis running.

[BOgre]

Monsters should give xp....not just named ones. I know, what a concept

They do.

[jskinner937]

OK!

My apologies: I still don't have an extremely substantial post to give right at this moment, because my brain is melting, but I've caught up on every post in this thread so far!

You guys have a lot to say. Also, you don't need to repeat yourself in the hopes that we'll see it. Because I'm reading every single post. (I will neither confirm nor deny some amount of so-called "skimming" that may occur when I see a specific poster making a post that starts off sounding very similar to other posts by that poster).

Next steps: Soon(tm), I'm going to try to summarize what I feel you guys have said (from my nine pages of notes... luckily I could just add "+1" to many of the thoughts after one or two dozen pages). This serves multiple purposes, including sorting the information out in my own head, telling you guys where we are all collectively at, and sending around to the rest of the DDO development team for those who are not so crazy as to try to read this entire thread. (I'll do my best to give some amount of developer comments as well, but the bulk of that might need to follow later.)

There were some great individual posts (and some of my 'quick' notes are, "Go back and read this guy's post again for some good thoughts"), and lots of good stuff to hear from everyone. There were some clear patterns, many of which helped reinforce what we already thought was going on (but it's extremely helpful to us to hear it from you!), and some occasional surprises. There were a few ideas I personally hadn't seen before that were Quite Interesting and could end up making it into DDO.

I'd like to thank those who filled out surveys, as well, which you are welcome to still do for another couple of days (at which point we'll probably try to aggregate the data we have, so after that it won't be as useful). We know the survey wasn't perfect, and also not extensive -- not being overly extensive was by design, as we don't want to waste your time, nor ours. For instance, we knowingly left out Races, for time the being, and didn't want the survey to get into individual abilities yet -- we selfishly like having you guys come up with the list of abilities that deserve more attention (for good or ill) rather than us focusing the discussion on the ones we pick. The broad view is what we wanted, and what we got!

None of the reactions to this are necessarily going to be imminent. I'd like to assuage any fears that this post was in direct preparation for incoming nerfs. The previously discussed upcoming patch certainly won't, and the next update may or may not have any significant changes based on this discussion (much of this is based on time and doing it right). However, there's some obvious takeaways from both this and No-Dice's Monster Stat thread that should help us direct new content to a better place.

There was one item that came up a few times that makes it clear some players have the wrong idea: Balance is definitely not about making many different play styles (or classes, or EDs, etc.) play the same. 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. The greatest concern we have, and a major driver of discussing this right now, is the worry that there are not as many legitimate playstyles as we could be giving you.

The single laser-focused item for a preview of the summary of the thread: Melee in Epic Elite probably needs some help. There's many possible ways to come at this problem, while trying to address other issues as well. Identifying problems now, solutions later!

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

I agree with the melee being behind, but as many have posted in this thread, pure class is way behind the power curve of multi-class, especially melee, but not limited to. Pure rangers suck to multi-class for example, pure paladins, pure bards, pure fighters, pure barbarians, even pure monks. Make it worthwhile to go pure again.