Player Character Balance

[danotmano1998]

OK!

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

Thank you.
Your post hit the nail on the head.

Awesome communication, it's VERY much appreciated. +1

[Pandir]

It matters on the long run. Because if you remove the symptom (everyone splash monk2 and pally 2), but do not fix the cause for that (EE have insane requirements on saves, and deal too much damage), the players will soon find the next new thing to bypass the main problem, and we will be in the same situation again in a few weeks.

If the problem were ONLY in the classes themselves (like on the early days of the enhancement pass we had people getting Ranger 2 for 80 positive spellpower, or getting a druid level for beguile), sure, fix the class and the problem is solved. That is not the issue with Evasion or Divine Grace.

Agreed with that, i still don't really believe the classes can be balanced before bringing EE to some sane levels.

[Pandir]

Do you have metrics?

I see even you are talking about Epic Elite. The general consensus is that the thread itself became oriented around
EE play because that seems to be the only content where certain build choices are almost required. I wonder how
many of the player base regularly play at this level - in other words are we excessively worrying about a problem
which might only exist on EE?

Note, I'm not saying that the opinions of those who do regularly play EE should be dismissed just that care needs
to be taken before swingeing changes are made. You already seem aware of this though.

Well thing is you can get through EH with about any class. Some are not as effective as others but it's doable(and soloable) by
any class/destiny combo as long as the player didn't completely gimp it(In gear and spec) and knows what he's doing.
I'd say EN you can gimp as much as you want an you'll get through.

It's EE where things get really wonky.

[GMoneyMackDaddy]

Give pure classes a reason to stay pure (capstones maybe?)

Give monk stances back to monk levels, not character levels.

The rest will fall in line.

Fivefinga.

[Teh_Troll]

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

In general no . . . but there are a few insanely stupid encounters that need to be addressed.

Start looking at all the dragon fights in the game. There is so much nonsense in every one of those fights (except Velah) that melee is just a poor choice. The end-boss for EE 'Thrill of the Hunt' is another insanely stupid encounter. Same with Miior from EE Haunted Halls.

I think melees in the current game. are okay they other 95% of the time though I'd like to see some changes in game mechanics. The problem is not as pervasive as the bad players are making it out to be, but some encounters in this game are insanely stupid and I don't believe for one second they were ever play tested on EE.

[Teh_Troll]

Give pure classes a reason to stay pure (capstones maybe?)

Give monk stances back to monk levels, not character levels.

The rest will fall in line.

Fivefinga.

That's a start, need moar njerfs.

[knockcocker]

Game balance doesn't matter at lower difficulties.

That's an opinion. If game balance matters at all it matters subjectively to the person
who is playing the game. Playing devils advocate, by extension you could argue in a PVE
game that it is entirely irrelevant.

I'm just trying to understand what the objective is here. If the objective is to balance
classes in EE then I wonder if it's worth the effort.

[knockcocker]

We're down the rabbit hole when I'm being accused of a "play your role" advocate. I'm one of the "self-sufficient or GTFO" people.

My point was that a DC caster isn't going to be able to use his strength (DC casting) against red names, so it's fine if that same DC caster is way more powerful than dps characters against trash mobs.

Gotcha; completely agree.

[Teh_Troll]

That's an opinion.

No it's not. I'm sorry but we can take it to an extreme . . . run Waterworks on a 28 . . . Does ANYTHING matter? Literally a chimp and a 3 year old could beat it on any toon.

The challenge level needs to reach a threshold of difficulty in order to be a valid measurement of anything. EH doesn't get tough enough to test any toons unless you're really a terrible player.

[Vamm]

This is my first post in this thread, I could write all day, but here are what I feel are the most important things to mention -

Melee vrs. Ranged vrs. Spellcasting -

Overpowered Monk and Paladin Splashes -

Overpowered abilities -

Race imbalance -

+1. Yes, this. Thanks for succinctly hitting the key issues!

[knockcocker]

No it's not. I'm sorry but we can take it to an extreme . . . run Waterworks on a 28 . . . Does ANYTHING matter? Literally a chimp and a 3 year old could beat it on any toon.

The challenge level needs to reach a threshold of difficulty in order to be a valid measurement of anything. EH doesn't get tough enough to test any toons unless you're really a terrible player.

Surely this assumes equal competence of players - or least a range?. It's still subjective and I
doubt anyone who has played this game for the length of time most of us have is capable of
objectivity here.

[Teh_Troll]

Surely this assumes equal competence of players - or least a range?. It's still subjective and I
doubt anyone who has played this game for the length of time most of us have is capable of
objectivity here.

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

[Delacroix21]

Yeah, I'm a bit disconcerted by all the calls to nerf shiradi. Compared to most of the other things being discussed, shiradi casters are far from overpowered and shiradi ranged character are underpowered. Really, shiradi is about right for casters and could stand to be buffed for ranged DPS.

I feel like people still are thinking about shiradi from when it was first released. It's in a pretty good place right now (except for the radiant forcefield thing, of course). Shiradi casters can contribute in all content, and extremely well-played, well-built, well-geared ones can even do the hardest content solo. That's fine. Unlike a max DC instant kill build (in the old days), shiradi isn't harming the experience for the other players in a group. The damage output is steady, but not excessive, and doesn't prevent others from contributing.

This is very true.

[Grizzt14]

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

Turbine's bottom line and declining playerbase would disagree. EEs need to be friendly beyond the "uber elite" and a handful of build concepts, the difference between EH and EE alone breaks a large majority of builds to the point EE is a whole different ball game. (Yes, I regularly run EE, check Degenerate Matter's raid times if you want recent forum proof.) The epic difficulties need to consistently bump up from EN to EE in a believable curve, currently if EE is 10/10 difficulty EN and EH are around a 2 and a 4 respectively. There are bad players I agree, but balancing for a current minority, even one I believe I'm part of, is exactly what Turbine shouldn't be doing.

[Ancient]

Because I'm reading every single post.

5 Stars for your effort, that is a lot of posts! There are a ton of good ideas and thoughts in this thread, even if I don't agree with them, they beat this to death from a zillion different directions. I hope that we get the opportunity to crowd source brainstorming in the future and that the improvements to the game help DDO gain players, not lose them. This is an example of Devs listening!

[Ancient]

Turbine's bottom line and declining playerbase would disagree. EEs need to be friendly beyond the "uber elite" and a handful of build concepts, the difference between EH and EE alone breaks a large majority of builds to the point EE is a whole different ball game. (Yes, I regularly run EE, check Degenerate Matter's raid times if you want recent forum proof.) The epic difficulties need to consistently bump up from EN to EE in a believable curve, currently if EE is 10/10 difficulty EN and EH are around a 2 and a 4 respectively. There are bad players I agree, but balancing for a current minority, even one I believe I'm part of, is exactly what Turbine shouldn't be doing.

The level range for epic groups and the variety of EE quests is starting to address this. LOD elite and the Von series elite simply are not as tough as the high road chain or storm horns. The larger level range and higher levels is smoothing out that scale of difficulties and IMO, has almost eliminated the huge leap in difficulty issue.

[Teh_Troll]

EEs need to be friendly beyond the "uber elite"

Why? There are three other difficulty levels.

[Amundir]

Why? There are three other difficulty levels.

+1

[Desonde]

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

Just to make sure too (though not entirely about this topic) that Melee in Higher Level content (especially Epic Hard) needs love when dungeon scaling kicks in (EH w/ 2.5 players deals as much damage as 1 player in an EE version of the same dungeon).

[Grizzt14]

Why? There are three other difficulty levels.

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