Player Character Balance

[arkonas]

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

while i agree heroic is fine the way it is. epics are where you should be looking. a lot of people already gave insight into how to fix this stuff. my thoughts are of course give everyone 3 prestiges like we were suppose to have and give us our racials prestiges. that is just a start. melee is really weak when it compares to shiradi casters and ranged in ee. so why not focus on some of the things to make it better. maybe one way is to give things to 12 18 20 class level toons. this will give people the option to play pure etc and work with some multiclass. make the abilities or whatever useful even in epic.

it really sucks to make a toon that does really good in heroics just to flounder around in epics. some people have complained about running out of sp and all. when was the last time we had items that restored sp of some sort. that could at least help any sp user as well. if you want to buff barbarians give them more abilities that do damage to themselves but you get a great bonus like damage or a bonus etc. i honestly don't want to see ranged get nerfed to where its useless again. that would really suck.

enough with the mass mobs as well. make them stronger or more miniboss type then 50+. i don't want to see ee become a joke either. i want it still to challenge everyone even the best. what would they do if they can steam roll everything?

[Uska]

well, in PnP that's fine and balance is easier to do. in DDO, its completely different. many things don't translate very well over to this game so some things need to be exaggerated to balance things out better. barbs need a way to self heal more reliably than what they currently have. right now its not enough to stay alive and dish out what they are best at, dps.

as the game has changed players have adapted to these changes moving away from classes that aren't very good at self healing and building with classes that do have good self healing. going toe to toe with mobs hitting you for 300+ damage every few seconds with no good reliable source of self healing to keep up with the dps output turns players off from these classes. this is why we have seen a lot more of multi class builds with ranged as a primary focus these days and you see many with 2/9 levels of rogue or monk for evasion.

the biggest reason why I hear people say they don't like playing a barbarian is because of the very limited self healing they can do. people don't like relying on CSW and SF pots when its much easier to build for comparable dps and better self sufficiency in most other classes. people try to build for umd but than complain their dps sucks because they cant cast while raged so they lose out on a ton of dps. like I said, im fine with trade offs but no other build is trading off anything for better self healing.

Barbs aren't suppose to be able to heal PERIOD! ABSOULTE FINAL! and that goes double for casting of

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I'll add more later, but a couple of quick comments.


No one wants to join a party and feel useless.

While I do not approve of min/maxing and one-trick-ponies, they are popular. And no one wants their one trick to be useless.

New content has always been slow from my perspective.
Players perceive the current end game (usually a raid with the best loot) as being the entire game.
This means that if their favorite toon feels useless or underpowered in that quest, they perceive a balance problem.

Melee focused builds are having a tough time lately.
Yet they are still very popular. But that leads to more perceptions of class imbalance.


DoT spells are very powerful.
(I have always thought these need a save per tic)

10K stars should never have worked with arrows.
That said, killing monchers is not the answer (now).
But making Manyshot and 10K stars share a cooldown timer would not kill monchers, but it would make them no longer have a clear advantage as archers. (they would still get many other benefits from their build combo) (although, some other things about monk splashes should be looked at too.... )


All I have time for right now.

[Kaytis]

There are some good points being made in this thread. Here is a live example of the problem you are facing though:

If my human draconic pure water savant, who is devastatingly effective in EH and lower content, steps into EE by herself she will be instantly killed.

You can nerf all those other builds, drive a bunch of players away, and at the end of the day if my human draconic pure water savant steps into EE by herself she will be instantly killed.

There is no amount of power I can wield that will overcome three 200 hp swings per second from two mobs while she is knocked over.

I remember the old epics, before MOTU. Melee could stand against mobs and not perish instantly. Wizards could land hold monster fairly reliably -they couldn't instakill at all, but they could crowd control without eating half their spell points. And yet the quests were considered very tough. I am not sure why they felt tough, but they were doable on pure builds, and that's what you should be aiming for.

I do know that nerfing bunch of builds without addressing stat inflation for the mobs will not end well.

[EllisDee37]

A fairly popular suggestion for scaling back monkchers that I have seen on the forums, is for Adrenaline uses to not regenerate with rolls of 20 while ranged. The problem is that limiting the number of uses of Adrenaline down to 7 total between shrines (for pure ranged characters) is either going to be too extreme or too weak, depending on the quest, since this solution is too dependent on how many shrines are available to characters. In longer quests with fewer shrines like the shadow dragon raid, I think it would completely screw Furyshot ranged characters, while in quests that are very shrine heavy, it wouldn't be enough of a reduction in their power. In other words, the results of this sort of change would be inconsistent at best.

The proper balancing for monkchers is to make 10k stars and manyshot share a common cooldown similar to how flasks work. So, for example, if you use manyshot, both manyshot and 10k stars go on cooldown for 120 seconds. If you use 10k stars, both 10k stars and manyshot go on cooldown for 60 seconds.

The other fixes are general balancing fixes for all monk splashes, not just monkchers:

1) Stance feats require 6/12/18 monk levels instead of character levels
2) Move +1 crit multiplier on 19/20 from earth stance to fire stance

[Uska]

The proper balancing for monkchers is to make 10k stars and manyshot share a common cooldown similar to how flasks work. So, for example, if you use manyshot, both manyshot and 10k stars go on cooldown for 120 seconds. If you use 10k stars, both 10k stars and manyshot go on cooldown for 60 seconds.

The other fixes are general balancing fixes for all monk splashes, not just monkchers:

1) Stance feats require 6/12/18 monk levels instead of character levels
2) Move +1 crit multiplier on 19/20 from earth stance to fire stance

I agree on the class vs character levels

[eterna1_drag0n]

Character Balance, lol. Sorry, but this should be PLAY-STYLE balance!

Shiradi casters and fury Monchars are KITING play-styles builds. Other builds do higher dps!

Their dominance is caused by the fact that Melee/CC are not much of an option on EE 25+.

So Devs if you want to bring balance back to the game than by all means nerf what is causing the problem, the CR lvl of the EE mobs!

A CR 60 mob has a +60 to hit or higher so AC<Blur unless your pushing 150+.

That CR 60 also hits for 200+ damage each hit, so you need 1200hp+ and 80+ prr to survive a few hits.

Oh and that CR 60 has 10,000 hp so you better be able to do some serious DPS or it's gonna kill you before you can kill it.

So either let Melee player characters get close to this or nerf the mob!

[arkonas]

This Survey is beyond a Joke!

1. You're asking us to rate Playstyles on a 1-5 Scale and only give us 3 Playstyles to rate - Melee, Ranged {incl. Throwing Weapons!!! Seriously???} and Spellcasting!

a) Melee incl. Barbarians, Fighters, Paladins, Rogues, Monks, Wolf form Druids, A large number of Clerics and Tempest Rangers.

b) Ranged incl. Arcane Archers {incl Monkchers!}, Artificers, Arti/Rogue Mechs and Halflings with throwing Daggers!

c) Spellcasting - The Spellcasting capabilities of a Pale Master vs those of a Caster specced Cleric just aren't in the same Ballpark for crying out loud!

Any rating is automatically a complete waste of time!

2. You ignore Multiclassing!
I've given Monks a 5 on your 1-5 Power Scale yet I'd give Pure Monks a 3 at most!
The 5 comes from the Power jump when splashing monk onto OTHER classes!!

3. Worst of all you seem to be under the impression that such a weak and pitiful survey will give you the answers you need!
Answers you should already be well aware of btw!

Look:

Rogues, Clerics, Paladins, Barbarians, Druids and Tempest Rangers are currently underpowered!

-Rogues have been pigeon-holed thanks to the enhancement revamp into specific builds and weapons - They've also had a Nerf to the available Trap Scores from Enhancements {Artis have been hit hard by this too!}.

- Clerics - You seem to be under the mistaken impression that these are OP and insist on keeping them down at every opportunity!

- Paladins - You only need to look at the truly ridiculous requirement of 83 AP to max out Sacred Defender {Not even Possible!} and the squeezing together of HotD & KotC which keeps both at much lower power levels than Kensai for example!

-Barbarians - Putting separate Rage Enhancements in all 3 trees and therefore making it unviable to go all in on a single tree and killing the Racial Trees for said Class!

-Druids - BEAR FORM!!!

-Tempest - Still basically requires Multiclassing - Why won't you let Rangers go Pure?

Pale Masters & Sorcs {Esp WF} are ridiculously OP when compared to Fleshy Archmages and Sorcs {As some people are quick to point out this is a Heroic and early epic issue NOT an End-Game issue!
Archmage needs a serious boost to bring it on par with PM or WF and Making us take Zombie Form is NOT going to do it!
AM and PM should really be mutually exclusive Trees as allowing AM Benefits on a PM is also quite a buff to said PM. Which makes AM an even weaker choice!

The power of the Monk Splash is off the scale!
Pure Monk isn't as OP as people have been making out and has blindsided you away from the Monk Splash!

Monkcher especially is an issue atm.

Bards when played by those who know how to play them are Supreme and really don't need buffing!
However they're also NOT in any need of a Nerf!

Pure Artificers are fantastic up to around Lvl 13-15 then are overtaken by pretty much every other class! {The Juggernaut build cannot be used as a stick to beat Artis with!}.
Way too front loaded BUT any Nerf at Low Levels would be a bad idea - Artis really need buffing at higher levels!



Finally to Favored Souls - As everyone here knows I have an antipathy towards this class however I'll try to stay objective:

1. The Enhancement Pass was a MASSIVE Nerf to FavSouls! {Objective enough for y'all?}

2. Warforged FvS has become much less popular since but is to my mind still the best build for said class - Greatsword Melee and Self Healing is Pretty Safe!
FvS are also in no way expected to Heal by anyone anymore as Clerics and Druids are both far better at this and if you have a FvS and a Bard in your Raid you'd probably be better off asking the Bard if he/she was OK with being Main Healer!

3. The Caster FvS seems to have fallen by the wayside {probably because of a lack of DC and Spell Pen Boosts for Elite content}.

4. Exalted Angel and Unyielding Sentinel are far too focused for a Jack of all trades Class!



Oh I forgot Fighter didn't I - Well this brings me to my final point and the biggest issue in Class Balance in DDO:

Feats

Clerics, FavSouls, Sorcs, Bards, Barbarians, Paladins - These classes are all in desperate need of more Feats!

Nimble Fingers and Skill Focus Disable Device should NOT be laughed at as Rogue or Arti Feats! {Skill Focus Search on the other hand has become almost mandatory thanks to the recent DC Boosts to that requirement!}.

The Absolute Last thing you should do is to Nerf Fighter, Arti, Monk or Wizard - Wizards in fact could maybe do with a slight buff to # of feats!
However:
Everyone else needs Boosting! {Not sure on Druids tbh as I've never counted their feat slots}

And No I don't count feats taken in Epic Levels as a Boost - I still only count up to Lvl 20 when talking about Heroic Feats!


It might help if you merged some feats rather than giving out extra slots though - For example:

Skill Focus Open Lock/Skill Focus Disable Device/Nimble Fingers = ONE Feat for +5 to Open Locks and Disable Device!

Spell Penetration and Spell Focus

Empower and Empower Healing

Improved Turning and Extra Turning


And it would definitely help if Paladins got a few Free Feats at high enough levels so that they don't become an Insta-Splash class - For Example:

Tower Shield Proficiency - Lvl 1
Exotic Wpn Prof: Bastard Sword - Lvl 3
Shield Mastery - Lvl 5
Combat Expertise - Lvl 7
Improved Trip - Lvl 10
Improved Shield Mastery - Lvl 13
Improved Sunder - Lvl 16

Tower Shield and Bastard Sword Profs btw are an absolute must and I really can't see why they weren't given to Paladins back in 2006?

OR

Give us our Horses back!!!!!

these are actually really good suggestions. i think we have players out there who can really help with those ideas. i honestly don't want to see anyone so nerfed they quit but i would love to see it where other classes can be helpful in some nature.

Or they merely want to avoid drama and harassment from trolls and a-holes much like yourself.

you're not helping either but saying what you did. just saying.

[blerkington]

One of the things I see for balancing and making different classes viable for one is rogue and arti. Since when should 2 levels of rogue or arti be enough to do traps with a CR of 30? Hell even a cr 10. I think a 2 level splash of rogue or arti should only be able to do up to a cr 5 maybe trap. It doesn't make sense that they can do epic traps. If you think about it from the perspective of how much trapping training would one receive with just 2 levels of that class? Not that much. How could you be competent at something that would take a skilled mechanic rogue or artificer to do?

Hi,

The answer to this is skill points.

The splash builds who are trapping as well, or nearly as well as pure builds, have spent enough skill points to be at the same skill rank as each other.

Same skill rank investment = same trapping ability. It's how the game works.

Thanks.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

One of the concerns from my standpoint is the byoh factor that now seems to be a requirement for most groups. I have a fighter from when the game very first launched that is built for dps and has no self healing because back then groups wanted a cleric to be around for the healing factor. Now the focus is heal yourself so my fighter sits on the shelf. Not that I am saying it is somebody else's sole responsibility to heal me but that's how groups used to be, dps , crowd control, trapper, healing. I wouldn't mind seeing something that helps promote group diversity again.

Please don't confuse exclusive LFMs with class balance.

There is no reason why a non-self healing Ftr cannot be a part of any party in any quest.

Anti-social selfish players is not a reason to change the game rules.






Oh... and please don't try to force people into roles either.
Standing around waiting for healers or anything else is not the slightest bit of fun.

[Uska]

Please don't confuse exclusive LFMs with class balance.

There is no reason why a non-self healing Ftr cannot be a part of any party in any quest.

Anti-social selfish players is not a reason to change the game rules.

This

[patang01]

I have to agree with you. Yes, in D&D Barbs are not self healers. In D&D we had a cleric, his name was Eric. He brought the Taco Bell and Mountain Dew every Friday night. This is a game where healers are anonymous puggers who know that they can either spend there time dotting, slaying, dropping BBs or healing the Barb.

I'm not advocating self healing Barbs. I'm saying that the current system is broken. I run with guildies most of the time. I have a great healer who can dual task. When I join a PuG, it's generally filled with self-healing min-maxers and I spend half the raid stunned from SF pots.

What we need is effective damage mitigation. If ranged or Monks have evasion or distance then melee need damage mitigation. One thing that could fix that would be a parry or deflection based o con/str/PRR whatever, giving the big dps guys a reason to invest in something that matters. Make damage mitigation a factor where barbarians can soak damage and fighters deflect damage. And remove the red name spam. It's one thing to have a boss here and there but we see more and more of them like regular critters and that removes any reason to use any other tactic then DPS.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Balance is overrated and boring. Variety is more interesting and what makes this game so great.

This.






But... 12 BladeSworn Monchers is not variety.

[SirValentine]

DoT spells are very powerful.
(I have always thought these need a save per tic)

When the DoT spells first came out, they were very powerful. But now?

When bosses have 400K or more HP, no, the DoT spells are not very powerful. They are horribly weak and horribly expensive.

10K stars should never have worked with arrows.

Agreed. Isn't the "stars" in the very name supposed to refer to THROWING stars?

[Lonnbeimnech]

I think you guys are coming at this from the exact opposite direction than you should be.

Lower mobs melee damage in EE.

Why do enemy archers hit for 30 and enemy melee hit for 300? It is the main reason why everyone uses range builds and caster builds, to stay out of melee range.

It makes it super hard to build an effective melee for EE. They must be self healing, they must have high dodge and shadow fade and a stack of displace clickies and good prr. In other words, 6 monk in earth stance + whatever else.

[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.

[FlaviusMaximus]

The proper balancing for monkchers is to make 10k stars and manyshot share a common cooldown similar to how flasks work. So, for example, if you use manyshot, both manyshot and 10k stars go on cooldown for 120 seconds. If you use 10k stars, both 10k stars and manyshot go on cooldown for 60 seconds.

My preference would be a solution that does not force monkchers to TR into different builds.

[JOTMON]

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

This is a loaded topic, it appears you are looking for a single solution to a multi-faceted problem and thus you will fail.
DDo has a habit of tweaking with a sludgehammer instead of a precision wrench.
you cant just nerf top builds because some nuance works better than others, all you are going to do is pizz people off more than they already are because You will not fix the system you will screw it.

Your survey is targeted at screwing the system.. it is not a balanced objective survey it is a subjective nerf targeting one.
a simple 1-5 scale doesn't catch anything. this is a complicated game with multiple diverse variables.

DDO is based on DnD, DnD which was never balanced, it was meant to be played by a mixed party, every class needs to bring something worthwhile to the mix.
As players get closer to endgame each class should become more powerful and less reliant on other classes for support, but a group should always be a compliment not a detriment..

Dungeon scaling=detriment ...Dungeon alert=Detriment

other stuff such as....
There is no sweet spot AC that can be attained with difficulty make a "tank" worth having in the party to hold aggro.
You broke AC with PRR/AC.. now no one cares about paladin aura/saves/AC, Ranger Barkskin....
Sword & board is inferior damage to 2HGF and 2WF and does not mitigate damage enough to make it useful. bosses with resetting aggro mechanics don't stay on a hate tank

Bards take too long to sing short duration songs - no compilations, spellsong is barely worthwhile.

No one wants to play babysitter healer that has to chug pots to keep a party alive through massive boss damage.
Cleric turn undead is worthless in epic levels.
Control spells are worthless in epic levels unless mobs die quickly.
Paladin spells suck
Barbarians are not the beefy max damage monsters they should be. any fighter can do the same DPS have similar HP and is more survivable.
10k stars and manyshot should be mutually exclusive.
monks and barbarians are polar opposites..... Fury and monk should = broken stance.


There are soo many more problems...read the forums...

Epic Destinies are not balanced, fix the weak and tweak the strong.
shadowdancer sucks, cleric ones suck.. fury rocks, shirardi is boringly stupid powerful.


you didn't get into this mess in a day or a week, so how do you expect to fix it in that timeframe?

Take your time to fix it right.
I would suggest making many small fixes over a long period of time instead of trying to justify blanket nerfs.

[Seljuck]

Character Balance, lol. Sorry, but this should be PLAY-STYLE balance!

Shiradi casters and fury Monchars are KITING play-styles builds. Other builds do higher dps!

KITTING? lol... What u want KITE when ur 10k hp mob dies with 1-3 MM ??? I play recently with shiradi casters on my melee with docent dps to even solo play on ee. With them I don't have even chance to come closer to my target. Everything was killed to faster by shiradi.

On the other hand I'll agree with other part of your post. Problem with monster CR and insane DC must be solved.

[Deathdefy]

I've sent in a survey, but I want to clarify (despite that survey being anonymous and unclarifiable).

1)

Players should not need to 'see' or 'prove' every change is OP, nor should they always be changed immediately; it depends on how obvious the problems are.

- Quivering Palm gaining Sunder DC benefits was obvious insanity and complained about in the first thread when it was even mentioned as being in contemplation. I don't think that should have gone to Lammania, much less live.

- The potential of Epic Destinies was hard to know. It is only years later that I think the community can be comfortable saying the combination of Adrenaline + Manyshot is a bit much.


2)

Re: how powerful are 'Ranged' or 'Melee' or 'Casters':

- This question is silly. 'Ranged' is either the most powerful (Monkchers), reasonable (Shuricannons), or a terrible thing done for flavour (non-shuriken throwing weapons and repeaters).

- Casters are either: 'Shiradi'-specced being again, among the most powerful, reasonable when played well (Draconic), or a terrible thing totally inappropriate in current end-game (DC Casters).

- Melee also have a pretty big range, but I'm less offended and think they're usually somewhere in generally able to contribute - quite good (assuming they're not a Paladin).


Point being, it's about specs within each of the 3 categories. I don't think you need another 'Ranged' pass or 'Spell' pass (though Illusion could use more spells and Hypnotic Pattern to not affect PCs with the negative visual effect if cast by a friendly player) or 'Melee' pass.

The inability to provide feedback on 2-6 Monk splashes, 2-4 FvS splashes, 2 Paladin splashes, 1 Cleric splashes, 1 Druid splashes etc. Is a problem. Ranking 'FvS' without knowing how many levels is off. The idea the 'dominant' class (i.e. icon) determines what 'class' a character is for purposes of the survey is also a bit flawed. In future I'd consider a section literally addressing those common splashes (and ranking them 1-5 on power or something).

Okay, enough critique. Despite the above complaints I'm hopeful you'll get some useful data.


EDIT: Oh, and two races need help. H-Elves and Shadar-kai are both trashbags.

I'd boost Shadar-kai assassinate DC by 2 so they're on par with Drow and Sun Elves since they're supposed to be assassins. I'd also do something better with the chain (not more damage; a real CC effect that isn't insta-death to attempt on EE would be ideal. Or maybe a debuff and you don't have to stand there for 30 seconds; just like a single whirl and everything hit gets 'barbed' debuff which gives -2 saves and crippled or something).

H-Elves take about 4 trillion AP to do anything in their core tree, and even then it's not very good. I'd make their Dilettantes just 'more accessible'.

Put in the other racial PREs please! Would make such a huge difference to build versatility and fun.


FINAL EDIT: Pure 20 Repeater Rogues are literally the only ranged character in the game without a source of perma-ammunition. Please fix 'Conjure Bolts' scrolls, or give them an SLA within the Mechanic tree to make bolts mid-quest. Maybe even fancy bolts like flaming or anti-construct specific like smiting or with a unique sunder effect that removes some fort! That would make me think about not taking Assassin's T5 too. Not saying I would, but I'd think about it.