Player Character Balance

[blackdoguk]

FYI: We're still following along. I'm not personally quite caught up on the 10+ pages produced in the past few hours, but I have seven pages of notes on what I've ready through so far, which has been very helpful in showing some areas players are concerned about, and probably producing some items to focus on when looking for additional feedback (including some things only a few or even one person brought up but remain good topics of discussion). This is intentionally a broad look and overview right now, and especially is not supposed to be us (the developers) telling you the problems we're looking at. We haven't even fully defined "What counts as a problem" and we're absolutely trying to get you guys to help us answer that question, rather than focusing the discussion on narrower issues before finding out what you even think are issues.

Thanks for the detailed feedback.

Thanks for the opportunity to be heard. Turbine of the past 6 months is doing a much better job of this than they have in the past. Please don't nerf blitz though

[CeltEireson]

Except we do have DMs in DDO. They're the developers that create the content. The role is largely the same, and so are the responsibilities. Only the context has changed.

(Not that I don't get your point)

Aye except there is no way for the devs to know each individual and their characters strengths and weaknesses as you would in PnP, nor adjust things on the fly to keep the challenge at the right level. But simply not possible to do in am MMO so has to be done by other means.

You're never going to get a 'perfect balance' - best you can hope for is that things aren't too far out of whack. Will always be more powerful builds and there will always be builds that are total useless - given the flexibility of the rules there's no way it could be any different.

[Daze]

FYI: We're still following along. I'm not personally quite caught up on the 10+ pages produced in the past few hours, but I have seven pages of notes on what I've ready through so far, which has been very helpful in showing some areas players are concerned about, and probably producing some items to focus on when looking for additional feedback (including some things only a few or even one person brought up but remain good topics of discussion). This is intentionally a broad look and overview right now, and especially is not supposed to be us (the developers) telling you the problems we're looking at. We haven't even fully defined "What counts as a problem" and we're absolutely trying to get you guys to help us answer that question, rather than focusing the discussion on narrower issues before finding out what you even think are issues.

Thanks for the detailed feedback.

Here ya go ..

27 pages of walls of text posts to say something that takes a few lines.



All balanced means is every class/race should be just as playable as every other class/race:

Fix Bards

Fix Barbarian rage to be cast through ... give it a cost or some prereqs etc. that's fine.

Fix the thrower crit range ... it's almost the only thing that makes a halfling useful .... that and as sacrifices to the loot gods.

Fix melee in general ... how is it that a fighter in fullplate is squishy to trash mobs?



Done

[Fhauvial]

Aye except there is no way for the devs to know each individual and their characters strengths and weaknesses as you would in PnP, nor adjust things on the fly to keep the challenge at the right level. But simply not possible to do in am MMO so has to be done by other means.

You're never going to get a 'perfect balance' - best you can hope for is that things aren't too far out of whack. Will always be more powerful builds and there will always be builds that are total useless - given the flexibility of the rules there's no way it could be any different.

That's what I mean by the context has changed. A different approach has to be taken in an MMO than you would as a DM in 3.5e. The best that can be hoped for is that players of equal skill playing different but well-built characters can perform at a reasonably close power level.

That's simply not the case right now.

[Hathorian]

FYI: We're still following along. I'm not personally quite caught up on the 10+ pages produced in the past few hours, but I have seven pages of notes on what I've ready through so far, which has been very helpful in showing some areas players are concerned about, and probably producing some items to focus on when looking for additional feedback (including some things only a few or even one person brought up but remain good topics of discussion). This is intentionally a broad look and overview right now, and especially is not supposed to be us (the developers) telling you the problems we're looking at. We haven't even fully defined "What counts as a problem" and we're absolutely trying to get you guys to help us answer that question, rather than focusing the discussion on narrower issues before finding out what you even think are issues.

Thanks for the detailed feedback.

Sounds good. Based on the way you phrased the OP, though, it read like you were ready to start swinging the sledgehammer nerfs and just needed the green light from a few players to make it look like you had buy-in ahead of time.

[Feithlin]

Balance of characters is difficult to handle for some reasons:
* First, in a game like DDO, you need not only consider classes a whole, but also splashes.
* Second, it is mostly based on encounters. Ranged characters wouldn't be that strong if melees were not hit so strongly by mobs, or if ranged characters could be hit more easily by monsters. Evasion wouldn't be that strong if spells were not mostly based on ref saves and were not doing so much damage. Heavy armor wouldn't be so gimp if the main damage of bosses were not coming from spells, etc.
* Thirdly, it is due to some technical elements of the game itself. The changes made to AC and the ridiculous CR of enemies makes it noneffective to invest heavily your toon into AC, while at the same time, you have much simpler ways to improve your defense (incorporeality, displacement, dodge). With diminishing results, it's not very effective to improve your PRR above 120 or so, which reduces drastically the benefits of heavy armors and/or S&B.

Usually, the first layer of defense is worth more than dps (no point to do a lot of damage if you can't survive), but defense above that is a lot less important than dps because killing fast is already a defense (you take less hits). This leads to a high value of some elements: self healing is very strong (problem of barbarians who can hardly heal themselves, OP of bladeforged who are granted reconstruct almost for free), offensive EDs are usually considered (rightly) as a lot stronger than other destinies, and as I said above, distance fighting (with spells or ranged weapons) is very strong because you loose little dps (if any) but gain a lot of defense (by not being hit).

[Holleyz]

For one pure ranged rangers are mediocre , mediocre with there healing , spells , ranged dps !!

Same for a bow user in shiradi , there's a reason why the bow user picks fotw or dreadnought over it !!

A pure ranged ranger in shiradi is average !!

I've tried both builds for a while with best gear in slots for both builds and the monkcher comes out miles ahead !!

I don't need my now average guy screwed . They will try and scale down fotm builds and other 10k builds and screw pures who might actually need a boost atm to oblivion !!

Same with shiradi they won't look at the disparity between the classes using it !!

And by the way Rangers in pen and paper have to choose a line to specialize in !

Thank you. This is what I wanted to say but couldn't put it into words.

[Thar]

FYI: We're still following along. I'm not personally quite caught up on the 10+ pages produced in the past few hours, but I have seven pages of notes on what I've ready through so far, which has been very helpful in showing some areas players are concerned about, and probably producing some items to focus on when looking for additional feedback (including some things only a few or even one person brought up but remain good topics of discussion). This is intentionally a broad look and overview right now, and especially is not supposed to be us (the developers) telling you the problems we're looking at. We haven't even fully defined "What counts as a problem" and we're absolutely trying to get you guys to help us answer that question, rather than focusing the discussion on narrower issues before finding out what you even think are issues.

Thanks for the detailed feedback.

A problem should be defined as if the said class can't complete a standard level appropriate epic quest in a resonable amount of time (45 min?) with a hireling on EN or EH getting most/all optionals.

[Teh_Troll]

It's good to see that after 27 pages we all agree that monks need to be nerfed.

[Holleyz]

If Monks was not overpowered then why is it that almost every character in the game is splashed with Monk? If Wizards was the over powered class then you would see almost every character in the game splashed with Wizard but you don't, You see almost every toon splashed with the Monk. So theres your answer on what is Overpowered and out of balance.

Oh and btw whoever it was that said that the Ranger is not the Ranged class needs to go back to the pen and paper and read the players handbook or the Rangers Handbook. In PnP you HAVE to choose the weapon you are going to specialize in.

[Daze]

It's good to see that after 27 pages we all agree that monks need to be nerfed.

You want an example of your obvious trolling? There it is.

I still enjoy the antics though.

[Scraap]

FYI: We're still following along. I'm not personally quite caught up on the 10+ pages produced in the past few hours, but I have seven pages of notes on what I've ready through so far, which has been very helpful in showing some areas players are concerned about, and probably producing some items to focus on when looking for additional feedback (including some things only a few or even one person brought up but remain good topics of discussion). This is intentionally a broad look and overview right now, and especially is not supposed to be us (the developers) telling you the problems we're looking at. We haven't even fully defined "What counts as a problem" and we're absolutely trying to get you guys to help us answer that question, rather than focusing the discussion on narrower issues before finding out what you even think are issues.

Thanks for the detailed feedback.

shr notes pls.

Humor aside, a sum up of the takeaway thusfar would help in seeing what's sunk in, what may need further elaboration or back and forth discusison, and what may have been misunderstood.

[B0ltdrag0n]

Monks are fine
Monk splashes are fine

The problem is few classes have any reason to stay in them beyond level 6. Very few

Barbarians Bards Paladin beyond 6 all need additional abilities added to the level part of the class not just trees. Of course they all need a third tree as well @_@

Capstones for all classes need to be significantly better, and by better I mean +2 to stat of choice, 2 feats, Evasion levels of better. It does not have to be those things exactly but it has to be on par to give 'choices'

I remember that was an important discussion point. Choices. Nerfing monks wont increase hard choices, but making things that are terrible comparable WILL.


Also please before the time is up...please change all the epic moments in the Divine Sphere. They are absolutely trash due to their timers and restrictions in comparison to the others and I am afraid that if you don't do it now...you never will go back to change them.

[Daze]

If Monks was not overpowered then why is it that almost every character in the game is splashed with Monk? If Wizards was the over powered class then you would see almost every character in the game splashed with Wizard but you don't, You see almost every toon splashed with the Monk. So theres your answer on what is Overpowered and out of balance.

Oh and btw whoever it was that said that the Ranger is not the Ranged class needs to go back to the pen and paper and read the players handbook or the Rangers Handbook. In PnP you HAVE to choose the weapon you are going to specialize in.

by that reasoning every front loaded class should be nerfed ... including rangers.

Monks do get a lot at low level but you have to jump through hoops to reap all the rewards. No heavy armor, no shields, weapons list is limited, weight restrictions etc etc.

Seems to me the payoff is worth the hassle. How is that broken exactly?

[Teh_Troll]

Joke aside what's broken really comes down to stuff stacking that probably shouldn't. it's especially bad with front-loaded classes.

[Fhauvial]

Oh and btw whoever it was that said that the Ranger is not the Ranged class needs to go back to the pen and paper and read the players handbook or the Rangers Handbook. In PnP you HAVE to choose the weapon you are going to specialize in.

That's not how it was implemented in DDO, but you're right. Improved Combat Style, halfway down.

Edit: If you read the feat description for Manyshot though, a Fighter would actually fire more arrows/Standard Action (at least until the Ranger maxed out his arrows per BAB bonus).

[Holleyz]

Fine keep the monkeys Idc but at least either make them choose manyshots OR 10k stars but don't let them have both. A pure build ranger don't get both, so why should the monk? And while I'm on it how about better spells for the Ranger class. I mean really the only spells we have that's even worth the sp to cast is rams might and freedom of movement. Our cure serious wounds suck and all the other spells we have are just plain useless.

[Fhauvial]

Fine keep the monkhkins

Fixed that for you. ^^

[Holleyz]

No I take that back. Pure builds should be more powerful than hybrids or multiclassed characters. The pure builds in the game are becoming extinct. And because of the multiclassing no one groups anymore because everyone can solo. No one needs anyone else. If you want to play a single player game go play a playstation. But back to my point, the pure builds in pen and paper was more powerful than the multiclassed characters so how is it that now in the game the multiclassed has exceeded the pure build in every way? I'm not sure about this (I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong) but in PnP didn't the multiclass need more xp to level? And they didn't get action points as often as the pure builds did? Like I said I might be wrong, its been almost 20 years since I have played PnP

[Holleyz]

That's not how it was implemented in DDO, but you're right. Improved Combat Style, halfway down.

Edit: If you read the feat description for Manyshot though, a Fighter would actually fire more arrows/Standard Action (at least until the Ranger maxed out his arrows per BAB bonus).

THANK YOU! I knew I had read it somewhere but didn't know how or where to find it. I didn't want to go to my closet and dig our all my 3rd E books to look it up either lol