Player Character Balance

[Vargouille]

Dungeons & Dragons: Online isn't perfectly balanced. We're interested in discussing what balance means, and how important balance is to you, the players. We want to know how often you'd like to see balance changes.

For this thread, we're looking particular at character balance, and how characters compare to one another. To some extent this borders on discussion of player characters vs. quest difficulty (and all that entails), but the focus here is player characters compared against other player characters (but not PvP). At some other time we may also look at other balance issues, such as Normal/Hard/Elite, or more specific issues like items, quests, monsters, traps, raids, or boss monsters.

Why does Character Balance matter?

We'd like a variety of roles and styles of play to be supported at a high level of play, without some builds that look like fun feeling bad to play because other characters seem so much more powerful. We've heard some level of concern over these topics and related issues. Perfect balance doesn't need to be achieved, and probably can't be achieved, but most or all playstyles should feel competitive. (We recognize that creating terrible character builds with the vast possibilities offered in DDO is always going to be possible, but we can probably all agree that's not the real issue.)

In short, we want you to be able to play what you want to play, have fun doing it, and feel like you can be a worthwhile contributor to a party (if that's how you choose to play).

Why isn't every character made stronger, to match the strongest characters already out there?

• Challenge: We want to be able to provide challenges to those who seek that kind of gameplay. There should be limits to player-character power in order to achieve this, when comparing player characters against monsters, traps, bosses, etc.
• Understanding what's already there: Minimizing changes also allows everyone to keep a consistent idea of what exists. If almost everything changes, it's like starting over from scratch, and therefore much harder to get everything right.
• Time and resources matter: We can save a great deal of time by only changing a few overpowered abilities, rather than changing all other characters, monsters, traps, and quests to match those few most overpowered abilities or features. If we can spend a day or a week pulling back on the strongest rather than months increasing everything else, that leaves us far more time to implement new features.

What are some examples of things that could be better balanced?

We're keenly aware that each player probably has some topics they are concerned about, and we don't like to break characters or take away fun things that are already there. However, we may have been too cautious about balance changes in the past, especially after a new ability or feature has been launched. We'd like to know if you'd prefer changes to come more quickly, or if we should sit back and let you guys show us what can really be done before making changes.

That said, some broad areas that we know perhaps could use some consideration:

• Ranged combat vs. Melee Combat vs. Spellcasting, at all character levels. As an example, not so long ago, ranged combat was largely considered inferior to melee combat. We made some conscious decisions to try to improve the viability of ranged combat. That's at least a partial success, but has brought along some issues of its own.
• Class & Race Balance: They don't all need to have identical appeal from a power perspective (as there are other reasons to play any class), but we should try to get them close enough that it doesn't feel bad to play any particular race or class, or that you feel forced to take any levels in a particular class to feel powerful.
• Epic Destinies: We know some destinies are more popular than others, and also considered more powerful. Sometimes this is a result of unintended bugs. This could include discussions of Twists of Fate, so individual abilities vs. other abilities can still matter, though we don't expect to make every ability equally viable as a Twist of Fate (for its tier). Abilities that can't be twisted (Innate abilities and tier 5 & 6) should be largely considered as a group when comparing entire Destinies.

This does mean potentially looking at things that rhyme with ten-thousand cars, many fought, caster's fritz, chirashi cambrian, the bunk crass, or american overtoad.


We're happy to hear general thoughts on character balance, what you'd like to see, and also why you'd like to see certain changes (or non-changes.) We don't want to change any particular things without good reasons, so convince us!

We'd love to also get feedback from as many of you as possible from this survey!

• Character Balance Survey

[Cardtrick]

Biggest thought -- be careful if you guys are going to make changes.

Major changes should be brought up well in advance. Run them by the Player's Council. Include them in Release Notes. Include them in Lamma builds. Don't sneak them in at the last minute.

When reading feedback, I hope and assume that you guys have a list of players who you trust a bit more than others. Try to bear in mind that the most vocal people are not necessarily the most knowledgeable or reasonable.

I'll post some actual responses to what you asked for as well, this is just the first thing I wanted to get out there.

[redspecter23]

I think the one big thing at the core of the class balance issue is that going up close to melee in EE is infinitely more dangerous than staying at range to fight. Players that want to engage in melee don't have the proper tools to survive, while ranged toons can ignore the issue outright by just not engaging. Add to this the fact that the two new raids both feature dragons (which are a melee nightmare and a ranged dream fight) and you have your problem staring you right in the face.

It's just not worth it to play a melee in the current game/metagame in epic elite. Ranged is safer and potentially much more powerful.

Balance your melee/ranged issue first before going deeper and examining individual classes and abilities. Why is it so hard for a melee to get up close and stay alive for more than a few seconds without looking at specific abilities like bladeforged reconstruct or other built in burst heals? Is it intended that even with over 150+ PRR and an AC over 200 that a "tank" should still need to be burst healed every few seconds when engaged in EE combat? Shouldn't he have the tools to survive more that a second or two compared to another melee with 40 PRR and 0 AC?

[Brolik]

I think the one big thing at the core of the class balance issue is that going up close to melee in EE is infinitely more dangerous than staying at range to fight. Players that want to engage in melee don't have the proper tools to survive, while ranged toons can ignore the issue outright by just not engaging. Add to this the fact that the two new raids both feature dragons (which are a melee nightmare and a ranged dream fight) and you have your problem staring you right in the face.

It's just not worth it to play a melee in the current game/metagame in epic elite. Ranged is safer and potentially much more powerful.

Balance your melee/ranged issue first before going deeper and examining individual classes and abilities. Why is it so hard for a melee to get up close and stay alive for more than a few seconds without looking at specific abilities like bladeforged reconstruct or other built in burst heals? Is it intended that even with over 150+ PRR and an AC over 200 that a "tank" should still need to be burst healed every few seconds when engaged in EE combat? Shouldn't he have the tools to survive more that a second or two compared to another melee with 40 PRR and 0 AC?

Very well said. I think the balance issues is def in the melee. Anyone can run a sorc or wiz or monk/archer plus many of the other multi/class powerhouse builds. My problem is that not all players wanna do that. Im VIP been playing a while current main is on 6th life. Halve alts of everyclass and most races. I enjoy playing the Dwarf with a big freaking axe. Unfourtunatly weather I go kensei or stalwart im useless in the higher lvls. As stated," a toon with 150+PRR and AC over 200 shouldn't have to be burst healed constantly". problem with that is how to fix it . Cant make the dragons and such do less damage or weaker in any way because that in turn makes the power houses more powerful. Basically I think the melee builds mainly barb and fighter(especially fighter) need some changes in there builds. Right now im running monk and its great but like I said I just wanna run a dwarf with an axe. Fat drunk and Stupid....

[FranOhmsford]

I enjoy playing the Dwarf with a big freaking axe. Unfourtunatly weather I go kensei or stalwart im useless in the higher lvls.

I must add here that you're going to be hearing from players of all types and I personally have no idea of whether a Kensai is any good at End-Game {According to Brolik the answer would be no!}.
However when looking at the mid Lvls - 11-21 Kensai {esp when added to Monk} runs rings around the likes of KotC/HotD or Frenzied Berserker!

And Stalwart is far far better than Sacred Defender or Occult Slayer!

The latter simply because of the sheer number of Feats available to the fighter as compared to the Paladin or Barbarian - Neither of who's enhancement Trees make up such a vast difference!

[Lokeal_The_Flame]

I think the one big thing at the core of the class balance issue is that going up close to melee in EE is infinitely more dangerous than staying at range to fight. Players that want to engage in melee don't have the proper tools to survive, while ranged toons can ignore the issue outright by just not engaging. Add to this the fact that the two new raids both feature dragons (which are a melee nightmare and a ranged dream fight) and you have your problem staring you right in the face.

It's just not worth it to play a melee in the current game/metagame in epic elite. Ranged is safer and potentially much more powerful.

Balance your melee/ranged issue first before going deeper and examining individual classes and abilities. Why is it so hard for a melee to get up close and stay alive for more than a few seconds without looking at specific abilities like bladeforged reconstruct or other built in burst heals? Is it intended that even with over 150+ PRR and an AC over 200 that a "tank" should still need to be burst healed every few seconds when engaged in EE combat? Shouldn't he have the tools to survive more that a second or two compared to another melee with 40 PRR and 0 AC?

Yeah, and me favoring the Melee artificer build concept makes me want to hug you XD

[Bolo_Grubb]

Biggest thought -- be careful if you guys are going to make changes.

+1
This is the only post I read before writing my response.

I am not so concerned with balance as I am with having viable options.

Armor class is part of the issue as I see it. There is very little reason for wearing heavy armor and using a tower shield with the way things are right now.

I do think there are great options when it comes to weapon types. Sure some still stand out as the best, but you see players using a wider variety of weapons now then a few years ago. That is a good thing.

Always remember that a big reason many of us were drawn to DDO is because of how close it is to PnP. In PnP you needed a variety of classes and abilities to accomplish a quest. Do not balance things so that everyone ends up playing the same character.

[Roland_D'Arabel]

I am not going to get in to the specific details about this destiny, or that OP feat or monk splashing etc. because there are going to be many more people after my post with more to say about how everything OP should be nerfed and all the FotM builds are going to get what they have coming to them. Instead, Varg, I want to point out to you what I feel is the most important issue regarding this topic... all of these things that are overpowered, that people gravitate to are some of THE MOST FUN abilities and play styles in the game.

In my opinion, the devs should be looking at how to make other classes, builds, destiny abilities more powerful, hence more fun. It is not a matter of Turbine looking at how the game is balanced because EE is still a big challenge to 95% of the player base even when they do build a FotM. What you need to do is address the reason why, despite the build diversity the game offers, people are drawn to only a few playstyles, destinies and builds. Fix the lame in the game and you will achieve better balance.

[maddong]

I think baby steps is the best way to nerf. Start with small nerfs instead of big. Eg blitz gives 20% per stack and caps at 200% bonus (10 stacks).

I also think ED balance changes are easier to recover from since you can always change what ED you are in, the point layout, and your twists.

[Natashaelle]

My 1st Edition-inspired 28-point Drow Fighter/Magic-User/Thief is fun to play, but he keeps dying all the time.

Curses !!!

More seriously though, imbalance is IMO a feature, not a bug.

Sure -- some particularly exploitative build possibilities can overpower the game, and they should therefore be targetted with nerfage -- but it seems hard to do so without affecting the enjoyment of those who love to play "variantly optimised" toons just for the fun of it.

But player freedom resides in the possibility of luck, surprise, risk-taking, gaming

Too much homogenisation just kills the pleasure of it.

[-Zephyr-]

I'm playing all kinds of builds, even if the characters I tend to play and gear the most gravitate towards the most powerful builds.
For me, the reason ranged/casting feels so much superior to melee right now is because of all the terrible effects we can get when meleeing. Knockbacks, slow, damaging shields that only work at close range or only for melee attacks... Some of those simply need to be burnt in fire, some reworked to also challenge attacks from range.

[Theolin]

Before we talk about balance ... especially about nerf type balancing

• Look at how the high level quests are designed - for EE level 25+ quests
  
  1. Mob saves are ridiculous form the most part, its almost impossible to build to bypass them enough
  2. Mob HPs are somewhere around plaid
  3. Mobs will kill you in 1-4 hits
  4. All the save or die saves you need to save against
  5. Traps that will kill you if you don't save
  
  
• This leads to making a character with the following
  
  1. A ton of HPs
  2. Very High saves
  3. Not getting hit (meaning range - since you cannot have enough defense)
  4. Evasion
  5. High burst damage

------------------

• Old out dated parts of the game that have not been updated since the level cap was 10 (ok, not all from that long ago ... but dang )
  
  • Barb DR
  • Feats that give +1 or +2 to damage, saves, AC, DC, ......
  • past lives that give +1 damage, +1 to hit ....
  • ect ....
  
  
• Honestly this list is sooooo long its not even funny, Just look at the sheer amount of things that are never taken by those who play EE
  
  • So you wonder why only 5 feats are chosen & 8 enhancements ...
  • Once the totally **** is thrown out there really is not much left as far as variety

------------------

• Change .....
  
  • Rule #1 ... Nobody likes it, especially if it is negative
  • Rule #2 ... see Rule #1
  • Rule #3 ... see Rule #1
  • Rule #4 ... see Rule #1
  • Rule #5 ... see Rule #1
  • ...
  • Rule #20 ... see Rule #1
  • Rule #21 ... People like to improve
  
  
• Might seem funny, it is not .....

------------------

• Trade offs - the depths one will go to
  
  • Is it worth trading this for that
  • What do I gain / loose
  • Why would I choose one over the other
  • Where are each useful
  • Is one not needed or rarely needed
  • Percent expected to be used / needed for what I want to do / play
  
  
• See quest design above ....
  
  • Apply this to should I take 6-20 levels of this verses 1-10 of that or any other 2/3 class split verses pure
  • Apply this to feats
  • Apply this to enhancements & trees
  • Apply this to destinies

------------------

• Path of least resistance
  
  • All living things gravitate towards the path of least resistance for what they wish to accomplish
  • People will try things out and play around till they find what they like
  • People will try things out and play around till they find what works
  • People will try things out and play around till they find what does not work
  • People will share information
  • Its a game its supposed to be fun not work
  
  
• No matter what you change the overall trend of the population will be to the easy path
  
  • Yes there are exceptions see the infamous bell curve and the moving mean

------------------

Now for the Main points

• I would rather see you take a hard look at the really bad things and make them a possible choice first
• If you do nerf the top stuff then you need to adjust the quests and encounters so they are not just mind fumblingly boring whittle their HP down game
• Decide how many hits it should take to kill us for an average mob - hint it should be more than 5
  
  • Apply this to traps, spells, melee, ... ect
  • scale this appropriately for orange, red, purple mobs
  
  
• Personal annoyance - I really really hate (cannot stress this enough) save or die situations with no in between
  
  • Even a slight change to take all but 20 HPs would be better - at least you have a chance
  • This applies to spells, traps, melee, ... ect damage
  • This point right here is why I do not play much EE & some content, its not that I cannot its just annoying

[Ziindarax]

I agree with all that I've quoted below - Before you start messing with our characters, how about starting with quests and how they're designed? I've had an FVS that I played for nearly two years, which I was forced to TR because he was no longer viable. Why was he no longer viable? Well, when Menace of the Underdark came out, my build was decently powerful running Sentinel. He had trouble with Epic Elites, but that was to be expected as I was viable in EH. Now, he cannot really run EH (and sometimes, not even EN) without dying alot. It's also come to my attention, when I ran the new content, that even the otherwise-uber FotM Builds were struggling to survive in the new content. So... in additon to what has been proposed below (and through out the thread - NO MORE BAGS OF HP, or ridiculous damage/saves), here are my suggestions for balancing the game:

1) You guys talked about making Pure builds have powers that were as good as evasion, which is a bold claim because Evasion has become nearly omnipotent, and even necessary to survive much of the newer content. Without really nerfing any character builds that are out there now, how about increasing the raw power of capstones. Below is a list of what I have in mind:

Barbarian - Barbarians need A LOT of help in this department because I don't really see pure barbarian builds anymore (or even 18/2 barb builds - most barbs have no more than 12 levels, the rest might be 4 fvs, 4 rogue).

a - Let's start with Occult Slayer - Occult slayer had the right idea, but has some problems with weapon bonds not being strong enough (vampiric bond needs to be able to actually heal you, in addition to it's current effect [albeit proccing more] once you have the capstone). Capstone should provide an action boost that creates an anti-magic field that completely "turns off" an enemy caster's ability to cast spells of any kind, either that, OR offer an action boost that offers a number of spell absorption charges equal to 1/3 of your total Constitution score (thus functioning like a spell absorption item).

b - Frenzied Berserker - Entirely too many suicidal and poorly thought out abilities. Let's face it, their capstone works only for getting you killed faster, and for a laughable boost in damage that can be better offered by splashing favored soul. Or taking arcane past lives in Enchant weapons. Frenzied berserkers should not have an HP cost associated to their more powerful abilities once you take the capstone, which should also offer considerably greater offensive prowess than what it does.

c - Ravager isn't as bad as Frenzied, but some of their more useful abilities have too low a chance to proc (I am looking at you Mr. Masochistic "I Like Pain"). These chances need to be based on the player's Constitution score, just like Ninja uses Dexterity to calculate Doubleshot chance [which stacks with shuriken expertise btw, from what I can tell). Capstones for all three enhancement trees should offer double the HP, double the damage, double the saves, and better survivability than if you'd just multi-classed.


Casters:

Remember the old game before Epics were changed? Remember when casters were considered the most powerful when they remained pure (or at worst, sacrificed only two levels for evasion and trap skills)?

The same needs to be true here - Casters should get special at-will abilities like Favored Souls (Necromancers should get a greater death aura sla), double spell power per point invested, and more DC's for their spells. Benefits need to be such that you would have to think LOOONG and hard about what your character should be. Again, no nerfs, let's just make pure's offer something truly tantalizing first.

Leaving bards out of this one because I have never played one, but by now, you must be understanding where I'm going here.

Paladin Sacred Defenders and Fighter Stalwart Defenders:

Both of the above builds suffer from magic as a glaring weakness. Spell absorption items help, but, as has been pointed out, they generally need to roll in Legendary Dreadnought to be viable in a fight due to their much weaker DPS. The solutions for both are a bit different given the cavernous differences between the two classes:

Paladin SD - At capstone, like the casters, they need double Spell power, and the double HP per action point spent like the barbs. As well as a stacking boost of 10% boost to damage while wearing heavy armor (and 20% stacking boost to doublestrike).

Fighter SD- More HP on capstone being taken, and martial bonus to healing amp. 20% damage boost while wearing heavy armor, and 20% chance of shield bashing. Same damage boost as when wearing armor.

The AC and PRR bonuses should be doubled on taking the level cap. Maybe even have a clicky that gives a boost to defenses from magic.


Conclusion:

Before I become too monotonous and ranty, the point I am trying to get accross is that pure builds need to have their power levels adjusted considerably to make them competitive with existing benefits (without nerfing them either).

I also thought it would be a good idea to offer "synergy points" that effectively allow you to take enhancements that synergize with the tree you've most invested in (without spending too many extra action points, maybe even allow one to take a t5 enhancement from another tree if you've gotten the capstone).

Before we talk about balance ... especially about nerf type balancing

• Look at how the high level quests are designed - for EE level 25+ quests
  
  1. Mob saves are ridiculous form the most part, its almost impossible to build to bypass them enough
  2. Mob HPs are somewhere around plaid
  3. Mobs will kill you in 1-4 hits
  4. All the save or die saves you need to save against
  5. Traps that will kill you if you don't save
  
  
• This leads to making a character with the following
  
  1. A ton of HPs
  2. Very High saves
  3. Not getting hit (meaning range - since you cannot have enough defense)
  4. Evasion
  5. High burst damage

------------------

• Old out dated parts of the game that have not been updated since the level cap was 10 (ok, not all from that long ago ... but dang )
  
  • Barb DR
  • Feats that give +1 or +2 to damage, saves, AC, DC, ......
  • past lives that give +1 damage, +1 to hit ....
  • ect ....
  
  
• Honestly this list is sooooo long its not even funny, Just look at the sheer amount of things that are never taken by those who play EE
  
  • So you wonder why only 5 feats are chosen & 8 enhancements ...
  • Once the totally **** is thrown out there really is not much left as far as variety

------------------

• Change .....
  
  • Rule #1 ... Nobody likes it, especially if it is negative
  • Rule #2 ... see Rule #1
  • Rule #3 ... see Rule #1
  • Rule #4 ... see Rule #1
  • Rule #5 ... see Rule #1
  • ...
  • Rule #20 ... see Rule #1
  • Rule #21 ... People like to improve
  
  
• Might seem funny, it is not .....

------------------

• Trade offs - the depths one will go to
  
  • Is it worth trading this for that
  • What do I gain / loose
  • Why would I choose one over the other
  • Where are each useful
  • Is one not needed or rarely needed
  • Percent expected to be used / needed for what I want to do / play
  
  
• See quest design above ....
  
  • Apply this to should I take 6-20 levels of this verses 1-10 of that or any other 2/3 class split verses pure
  • Apply this to feats
  • Apply this to enhancements & trees
  • Apply this to destinies

------------------

• Path of least resistance
  
  • All living things gravitate towards the path of least resistance for what they wish to accomplish
  • People will try things out and play around till they find what they like
  • People will try things out and play around till they find what works
  • People will try things out and play around till they find what does not work
  • People will share information
  • Its a game its supposed to be fun not work
  
  
• No matter what you change the overall trend of the population will be to the easy path
  
  • Yes there are exceptions see the infamous bell curve and the moving mean

------------------

Now for the Main points

• I would rather see you take a hard look at the really bad things and make them a possible choice first
• If you do nerf the top stuff then you need to adjust the quests and encounters so they are not just mind fumblingly boring whittle their HP down game
• Decide how many hits it should take to kill us for an average mob - hint it should be more than 5
  
  • Apply this to traps, spells, melee, ... ect
  • scale this appropriately for orange, red, purple mobs
  
  
• Personal annoyance - I really really hate (cannot stress this enough) save or die situations with no in between
  
  • Even a slight change to take all but 20 HPs would be better - at least you have a chance
  • This applies to spells, traps, melee, ... ect damage
  • This point right here is why I do not play much EE & some content, its not that I cannot its just annoying

Character Balance has to include the game's other mechanics, otherwise there's not much to compare it to except other classes & class blends. While content has increased, a great deal has been neglected to the point of irrelevance. Give us content where something besides damage output determines quest success. Let us know that certain abilities that were deemed important enough to develop, code, test, & release are still important enough to acquire & use in the game (wilderness lore, social skills, deity feats anyone?).

On Classes:
Some classes are supposed to be unsurpassed in their specific ability.
-Kenseis are supposed to be so acutely in tune with their weapon that they can do amazing things with it.
-Arcane Archers are supposed to be unmatched with a bow.
-Druids are supposed to use Nature and the Elements like no other to damage enemies & assist the party.
-Artificers are supposed to apply the Arcane Arts to a mechanical object.
-Monks should use life energy like no other.
-Not doing all of the classes, you get the point.

Multiclassing these & blending prestiges is our choice to apply the vast combination of abilities to our advantage with whatever the game currently is.

As tempting, easy, & cheap (presumably) as it would be for developers to just take the Nerfhammer to some abilities, please keep this in mind: the game's content has been updated while character abilities have largely stagnated. The Enhancements revamp was good, but nowhere near enough to keep up with the new content. The fact that a truckload of people have migrated to Bladeforged melees should tell you that other classes & other races are lacking while in quests. That doesn't mean you should slam it with ubernerfs, that means ramp up other races & classes to make them useful, playable, & fun enough to swing the pendulum back the other way.

This is also a MMORPG. It seems like lately, either through player exodus or game mechanics (or both), it has moved to become a mainly solo game with occasional team-ups for when you can't actually complete a quest by yourself. When changes do come, make them player relevant & party significant.

To the devs:
You would get far more game input & ideas if upon each update, on a login screen or a special page after zoning in, you would put the full release notes, and perhaps a survey requesting feedback. Relying solely on the forum population means possibly including people who don't even play anymore, while missing out on those who log in to play the game.

[Thumbed_Servant]

I am not going to get in to the specific details about this destiny, or that OP feat or monk splashing etc. because there are going to be many more people after my post with more to say about how everything OP should be nerfed and all the FotM builds are going to get what they have coming to them. Instead, Varg, I want to point out to you what I feel is the most important issue regarding this topic... all of these things that are overpowered, that people gravitate to are some of THE MOST FUN abilities and play styles in the game.

In my opinion, the devs should be looking at how to make other classes, builds, destiny abilities more powerful, hence more fun. It is not a matter of Turbine looking at how the game is balanced because EE is still a big challenge to 95% of the player base even when they do build a FotM. What you need to do is address the reason why, despite the build diversity the game offers, people are drawn to only a few playstyles, destinies and builds. Fix the lame in the game and you will achieve better balance.

POWER CREEP! It is anathema to the longevity and enjoyability of a game, and DDO has gone past Power Creep into full blown Power EXPLOSION. Do NOT raise the power of other classes/powers/destinies to balance with the most powerful, lower the most powerful!
WHY are ranged toons the most prolific at end game? Because the game was made TOO damaging/too powerful for melee toons! Why are pure healer toons scoffed at in upper levels? Because epic destiny self healing abilities were made too powerful. Why are monk splashes everywhere? Because Monk defensive abilities were made too powerful. When the enhancement pass was made, the game didn't simply change the enhancements over to tree form, it rewrote many of them and made many MUCH more powerful. Epic Destinies are 10 fold what the new enhancements are.

If you want Balance, you MUST reign in the desire at each update to UP the power of classes/spells/abilities/enhancements/destinies. Sure, we will continue to have change, but the changes that UP power considerably must be stopped. When you give the players more power, you must then give the monsters more power to challenge the more powerful players who then migrate to a few builds with the maximized potential to defeat the now over powered monsters, and it's a nasty upward spiral.

We as a community WILL complain when you take something away that we've enjoyed..but when it's something that is breaking the game you must make that tough call, suffer the complaints of those that were using the most powerful builds, and bring the game power back down so that you don't have to make insanely stupid...and I say STUPID....monster damage/hit points/saves that you now have to challenge the meta-gamers using min/maxed builds. I still remember standing on a building in first-released-Epic VoN 3, letting firewalls get aggro, then having the melees drop down to beat on the mobs who wouldn't hit them as they were now aggroed on the arcane who cast the firewall; It was a not too fun style of play necessitated by the decisions to make the mobs stupidly high in hit points and immune to many things. We'll cry and scream when you take away the ubber powerful toys..but in the end we'll enjoy the game more if we have challenging combat without insane numbers. You can't give us that if you don't take away the ubber powerful toys.

STOP trying to make every class an ubber combat class, re-balancing by upping the weakest to match the most powerful. Bards should not be potent melees, clerics should not be powerful combat casters, mages should not be able to self heal as though they were clerics. DDO is built on D&D, and the premise of D&D was that a group of differing classes with different and often distinct abilities would come together to make a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts. Blending abilities between classes to satisfy the desire of every solo player to be able to solo with any class at any difficulty has weakened the need for group play and different classes to defeat content. If I want to play a solo game I can pull out the x-box...this is a Mass MULTI Online Game. The LFM's aren't vacant because there aren't players playing...they are vacant because players don't need each other as much because they've got *solo* capable characters of almost every class. I play cleric healers, I love to heal...if I can't walk through a quest and kill everything by spell I won't complain...clerics are NOT combat casters. If I play a bard and can't melee my way through a quest, I'm ok with that..bards are support and enchanter characters, using spell and song to buff and mesmerize...let my bard charm them and let the guy with the barbarian (whom I've buffed with spells and more song) kill them. If I'm playing a mage, I'll LOVE killing/holding/debuffing the mobs...and expect that the nice healer player will heal me when I need it and not expect that I should be able to heal myself as well as a cleric could.

I say this because it's been on my mind...most of this is the cat already out of the bag and past being put back in.

My speculation is that some of this is brought on by the latest-newest hires coming in and saying, *Hmm, I don't like that, won't it be cool if we change this to....*. Leave the game systems alone, stop bringing in a new system with each new hire...work on the systems we have, improve and build upon and COMPLETE them.

My two cents.

[Fhauvial]

*snip* clerics should not be powerful combat casters *snip*

While I agree the power creep in DDO has gotten out of control, I don't have time to write a proper response to this and just wanted to say: Please don't advocate that Cleric's shouldn't be respectable casters based on PnP rules. This is simply not true.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spellLists/clericSpells.htm
http://dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Cleric_Domains

[SirValentine]

POWER CREEP! It is anathema to the longevity and enjoyability of a game, and DDO has gone past Power Creep into full blown Power EXPLOSION.

I think power creep is inevitable, and, in very small doses over a very long time, good for the game.

But, yes, it has gotten way out of proportion. Shadowfell was a particularly pernicious example of this. Between the enhancement pass, and the really dumb things done with loot, player power level went up a lot very quickly.

Leave the game systems alone, stop bringing in a new system with each new hire...work on the systems we have, improve and build upon and COMPLETE them.

Agreed. Lots of half-finished things that would be cool to see done.

[Kalimah]

I am not going to get in to the specific details about this destiny, or that OP feat or monk splashing etc. because there are going to be many more people after my post with more to say about how everything OP should be nerfed and all the FotM builds are going to get what they have coming to them. Instead, Varg, I want to point out to you what I feel is the most important issue regarding this topic... all of these things that are overpowered, that people gravitate to are some of THE MOST FUN abilities and play styles in the game.

Excellent post Roland- why do you think they are the FOTM? Because people WANT TO PLAY THAT. Why give us what we want, let us spend our time and resources to make it, then decide its not allowed. Bad bad bad policy.

[Teh_Troll]

The first step is acknowledging a problem exists. Let me guess . . . the brokeness of class-balance is affecting the bottom line?

[GoldyGopher]

I don't mind that a specific build is the highest DPS, I do mind that its the highest DPS by 50% to 100% increase to the next build.
I don't mind that every classic build doesn't have a role in every quest/raid; I do mind that only a few builds seem to be catered to when new raids are designed.
I don't mind that certain Epic Destinies benefit specific builds more than generic builds in the class sphere; I do mind that many ED are pigeon holed to only one type of build (cough cough Divine cough cough)

I don't mind that every enhancement line isn't perfect, do mind that many that need more work aren't getting any.

[Turbosilk]

I don't mind that a specific build is the highest DPS, I do mind that its the highest DPS by 50% to 100% increase to the next build.

Great statement in general but how do you back it up with actual data? If people perceive something is doing 50 to 100% more dps than the next build but in reality it is 5% more should perception cause a nerf?