Player Character Balance

[Daze]

Invis is not a player balance issue as stated by many others for various reasons that are all solid. Just want to state my agreement here.

KiT = killing in time = kiting = DoT(Damage over Time) or range while running away. You spend more time getting the kill but you have a greater chance of living through it.... this is standard fair for any MMO. It is WAI imho. Having the skill to run backwards and not get clobbered should not be penalized ...

Ranged DPS vs Melee? .... I have seen melee out DPS many a monkcher and with a longer lasting effect provided they live through the encounters. The survival of the melee will balance that far more then any nerf to adrenaline overload or manyshot or 10k stars. With the possible exception of shuriken builds ... that rate of fire is just sick.

Last I checked adrenaline overload effects doublestrikes as well... it isn't just the first attack that gets it. Flipside to that is it should effect the entire cleave not just the first mob hit. Much like an amped up draconic SLA destroys all surrounding mobs. My sword and board tank with ~65% doublestrike frequently double fury smited (using block and cut)

Taking adrenaline overload or blitzing away from ranged toons is counter to the balance issues I would assume this thread wants to fix seeing as a melee using them is more DPS then the ranged..... we just need to make the melee more survivable so that being ranged isn't such a gamebreaking bonus.

[CeltEireson]

Oh and one other point on balancing while I remember - pets. Not that they have an impact on balancing characters at the moment simply because in epics especially epic elite theyre rather pointless, both in terms of their effectiveness but mainly in their survivability. If youre going to spend time putting them in the game they should work, and if they worked reasonably effectively then they would matter balance wise

At epic levels they need at least one additional item slot, and some more epic destiny options for them, and possibly add in epic levels for their enhancements so that they continue to develop past 20.

its a pet hate of mine (no pun intended) - if you introduce a system into the game it needs to be useful at higher levels otherwise why spend the time and money developing it in the first place.

[MadGardener]

Shared Buffs

Not sure if in the right spot but recently we (guildies) were talking about pets (bard/arti dogs) and maybe familiars in the future and we were wondering about an option to allow shared buffs between character and their pet? perhaps as an opposite to uncaring master? an effect/enhancement that shares buffs, effects, heals? anyhow adjusting pets, especially if they become effective (not pull aggro and die), would effect balance lest in a small way.

speaking of pets is there an update to the cat companion (lv 20 oxyn panther) to make it more survivable (similar to the owl bears)?

and can we get a 'backside' to the pets, hirings (and companions) active bar, it would be nice to have a flip side that has some additional option if available.


for me, I would love to be able to set my pet/hirings in a more tactical fashion. either on the pets page or in my characters. were i could set distance allowed, priorities (heal/ guard me first or most damaged, ignore summons, do not run to archers further then 2 meters from character, use quicken, conserve magic etc.

btw I have notice the hirings etc have gotten way better over the last few years, difficult job I would think. well done and good luck.

[Chaios]

Unfortunately that's where Turbine seems to be heading. I haven't played the newest content yet, but Shadowfell was all about combat and nothing else.

For example, I ran one of the Wheloon quests (I don't remember the name) on my rogue. At some point I came to a wooden gate. I could not jump over it, and there was no lock that could be picked. The only way to open that gate was to kill a bunch of nearby mobs.

Same with one of the Stormhorn quests; there were several places that had magical barriers which would only drop after all mobs in the area were killed. There was no other way to bypass those barriers.

So as long as Turbine does not allow any solutions other than combat in order to proceed in a quest, class balance has to be discussed in terms of combat ability.

You're right, balancing content to take advantage of ddo's "xp for completion of quest" mechanic by allowing quests and quest objectives to be fulfilled through a variety of approaches is probably where balance should begin. For example, where mobs must be dealt with to cause a key or other item to drop, why shouldn't a rogue be able to pick-pocket it from a sub boss, or why shouldn't a bard be able to fast talk his way past the guards with bluff or diplomacy?

I would answer yes, because part of balancing characters is balancing different ways to beat the environment

For me I'm not upset that one build can out DPS another, I'm upset because DPS is the only method of beating the environment.

However, I do believe there has to be some logic with invisibility. A person running by carrying weapons and wearing a pack/armor and is only invisible is still going to raise a few brows when they run by a guard. Part of balancing this is to have a variety of monster types that make this difficult to do unless you are actually sneaking (not running).

Doing something like this will allow a person to build towards stealth with the idea that they kill what needs to die and avoid the rest.

Balance extends to allow an Enchanter type to charm the pants off a room and proceed to the rest leaving that room behind and even forgetting the Enchanter was even there.

Or use the 'Hulk Smash' method popular among many in DDO

The balance does not need to be that build X does the same damage as build Y, but that an encounter has multiple options that can be used to resolve it.

Wouldn't say I'm upset, but aside from that, I think your idea of balance looks pretty much the same as mine.

What confuses me in some posts regarding "combat balance" is the kind of idea that 1) classes/builds should be balanced 2) balance means classes/builds should be equally effective at all relevant tasks. People seem to want "Tank types" (paladin, for example) to be able to have the same damage output as "DPS types" (such as a barbarian), and DPS types to have the same level of defense as Tank types. Actually something that has pretty much always confused and annoyed me is the way that people use the terms "tank" and "dps" interchangeably in this game, calling for a tank in an lfm when what they mean is dps. But I'm not gonna rant about it.

Anyway, if that is kind of balance those posts call for, the easiest way to do it would be to just get rid of all the melee classes and replace them with one melee class, because that's what it sounds like those posts are asking for. If its not, if the kind of combat balance meant is not a reduction to a homogenous and all melee encompassing "Warrior" class, then a tank build should have better defense than a dps build, by definition, in terms of "combat balance". In terms of "game balance", quests should be designed so that a tank build is actually useful enough to warrant the trouble of building and "powerful" enough to be fun to play.

I'm not saying "bring back the trinity", but I am saying "combat balance" might be easier to achieve by first re-viewing the concept of "TANK, DPS, HJEALS", especially when you include the idea of any content appropriate CC under the mantle of TANK, and the idea of any content appropriate direct damager under the mantle of DPS, and then make content varied enough that melee CC is useful in some instances and caster CC is useful in others, melee dps is useful and some combats, and caster dps in others...

[Seikojin]

I will not insist more on this because it is met with hostility by a good number of people and in any case what I had to say is clear by now. Those who do not want to understand / do not share it / do not want to lose the possibility of avoiding 30 mins of sandbag punching / power level / power loot or whatever have made it abundantly clear.

Let me just say though there for obvious reasons there is not such thing as character balance vs quest balance. Everything is a relation per quest or per mob or per whatever metric you want to use. And hence any comparison between builds also has to contextualized in PVE. This acknowledged by the OP:



At some point though it would be nice if the OP directed us a bit towards the sort of topics he would be more interested on.

PS - Seems that Varg posted while I was writing!

They can't direct because it gives too much about their plans away. This kind of topic is meant to get a large amount of feedback; noise or otherwise, to get an idea on how the majority of vocal players feel. I know they look at all the posts, good, bad, and ugly. And they discuss them. At length I might add. And a lot is dismantled, dissected, refined, and defined into plausible plans of action they can take to help improve the game.

My approach has been boost first more than nerf.

[Free2Pay]

Let's look at various non-dps roles:

Crowd Control Effectiveness
Dance (Spell)
Hold (Spell)
Trap the Soul (Spell)
Earthquake (Spell Druid)
Bard (Class)
Sleep (Spell)
Cometfall (Spell Divine)
Command (Spell Divine)
Stunning (Feat)
Melee Special Attack (Trip/Sap)
Paralysis (Weapon Effect)
Intimidate (Skill)
Diplomacy (Skill)
Holy Aura (Spell divine)
Turn Undead (Feat)
Wild Empathy (Feat)
Most Useful Crowd Control: Arcane

Debuff Effectiveness
Negative Levels (Spells : Enervation/Circle of Death/Necrotic Ray/Energy Drain/Symbol of death)
Melee Special Attack (Sunder/Hamstring)
Weapon Effect (Wounding /Puncturing/Bonebreaking/Destruction/Maladroit/Shattermantle)
Curse (Spell divine)
Most Useful Debuff: Arcane

Utility
Dimension Door (Spell)
Disable Trap (Skill)
Open Lock (Skill)
Knock (Spell)
Invisibility (Spell)
Hide (Skill)
Move Silently (Skill)
Detect Secret Door (Spell)
True Seeing (Spell)
Search (Skill)
Find Trap (Spell)
Spot (Skill)
Lore (Feat)
Lever/Runes (various stats)
Teleport (Spell)
Trap Making (Feat)
Pet (Artificier)
Most Useful Utility: Arcane

Defensive Buff:
Displacement (Spell)
FireShield (Spell)
Greater Heroism (Spell)
Blur (Spell)
Jump (Spell)
Stoneskin (Spell)
Deathward (Spell)
Freedom of movement (Spell)
Elemental resistance (Spell)
Spell resistance (Spell)
Bard (Class)
Barkskin (Spell)
Camouflage (Spell)
Night Shield (Spell)
Bless (Spell)
Most Useful Defensive Buff: Arcane

Arcane is pretty "versatile" to say the least.
If we bring self healing and dps back into the equation, what do we see?

For melee to do other stuff (other than tanking) - in order not be a one trick pony - splashes is almost required. Even Elminster himself splashes.

[jskinner937]

Ok, I think we can all agree this line of questioning from Devs is headed towards SOMETHING getting nerfed.

For Heroic, that's almost inevitably Monk splashes - those adept feats, the kensai/monk synergy and moving 10k might not have had quite the planned results. Fun, but the best fun toys always end up broken the fastest.

For Eds, perhaps a domino-nerf might work ... so that each type of build that is being slapped gets a new, interesting alternative.
For Example:
1 - Nerf FotW back to only charging/working with melee = Grumpy Monkchers. But...
2 - Nerf Shiradi to only work with arrows/bolts/thrown & BOOST procs to maybe double or triple = Grumpy casters but less grouchy Monkchers.
3 - BOOST DI to be a really serious choice for nukers & MAG for DC casters = less grouchy casters.
4 - Plenty of people still a bit grouchy ... but that seems to be the default state for most anyway, so they'll soon either find a way to hideously abuse the new stuff or slink off to join the Juggs, Exploiters, people who wear armour & other formers fotms.

Repeat for other over/underpowered EDs (Tame the dreadnought but buff the GM of fluffers and the Shadow mincer, for ex.)

Oh, and maybe a "Tech" sphere to represent Eberron - could give sth for ARtis, etc and give some love back to boring old non-iconic WF?

This is not what people want, nor the devs according to historical quotes on their part.

The design goal of EDs was not to lock certain archetypes into a certain ED, but to increase the viable EDs that are available to everyone. Problem is that they failed on EDs from the beginning to make them viable and fun, save a few. The answer is not to make all archers go Shirardi, or all Arcanes to go to Magistar or DI.

Shirardi could be made more viable for melees (and colors of the queen for that matter) if it was not boosted by spell power, but had innate spellpower and crit chance built into the coding and work on melee attacks as well.

FoTW, should work with ranged, but be coded to work with the 1st arrow/bolt only, but stack with stuff like slaying arrows.

DI and Magistar should be buffed. New epic moments.

Divines destinies are in the works, and hopefully work better.

Shadowdancer should be buffed. New epic moments. Maybe an option for a non-rogue/arty to have limited OL and trapping skills.

Primal Avatar is garbage save for a few people that can charge their tree moment. Rework this entire destiny to make it useful as a CC destiny, including non-save procs like shirardi that a melee can use for CC.

With the addition of Eldrich Knight and Warpriest, arcanes or divines have an option now at LD/Fury.

Again the point of destinies was to bring diversity to builds, not further pigeon-hole them into a certain group of powers.

[Oberon_Shrader]

I approach this topic carefully, but without regard to how it will be received by the community. In fact, I am not writing to the community, but to the devs. I hope you will read it and consider what these thoughts (I also wrote some commentary in my survey to the same effect as below).

I believe balance can be divided into two parts: Internal and External balance. While these parts may seem easily understood, I still want to define them. Internal Balance is how a character balances within itself. That is, how its strengths and weaknesses balance each other out. External Balance is how a character compares with other characters, in and across roles. That is, how its strengths and weaknesses measure against other characters.

Internal Balance:

Each character should have strengths and weaknesses within itself. When one aspect becomes strong, another must be sacrificed. No character should have no weaknesses; whenever that happens, there is no balance.

For example: if a character has high saves in Will, then one of the other two saves should be lower and the other moderate. That's not to say that the lower save should fail every time, but that it should be more likely to fail than succeed.

Classes have this mechanism built into them, for the most part. However, "Min/Max"ers have found ways to overcome this and abuse the multi-classing system to create builds which exhibit very little, if any weaknesses. It's worth it to note that multi-classing is not really meant to expand the power of a character, it's meant to expand the versatility of a character. Having no weaknesses is problematic for the other part of balance: External Balance.

External Balance:

When comparing characters it is most important to compare them across roles. To do this we must first have roles that are definable. Roles are a core aspect of D&D. Without roles there is no point in choosing one class over another. We could just choose any class and do anything (or perhaps, everything).

At this point, Internal Balance intersects with External Balance. If characters lack Internal Balance (by being without weaknesses to offset strengths) then roles begin to disappear. If any character can do everything, then what is the point of making a character that is anything less than able to do everything? Thus, all (or most) characters will begin to look roughly the same. This homogeneity is, plainly stated, boring; and no one wants to play a boring game. To maintain External Balance and prevent any character from doing everything is to create diversity, prevent homogeneity and produce fun!

For example: if every character can heal themselves as well as a dedicated healer, then there is no point to making one; in fact, there will really be no such thing, as all characters are dedicated healers! That's not to say that characters should not be allowed to self heal, but that no character should be as effective at healing as a dedicated healer (even when healing themselves).

As a secondary consideration, we can also compare characters within roles. For the most part, we can expect that within roles character will be (maybe should be) very similar. But that's ok, it really is the roles that differentiate characters from each other. However, builds should have variety, even within roles. Here we should refer back to Internal Balance. When a character chooses to excel at one aspect, there must be some offset in a contrasting aspect; and no one build should dominate all situations and all content.

I think maintaining these concepts of Internal and External Balance can make the game more diverse, more social and more fun!

I can foresee some of the argument and complaints many people will have, so let me address them:

Q: If no character should be able to do everything, how can I solo all the quests on elite at level?!
A: You should choose normal difficulty. I don't think any character should be able to solo anything on elite at level.

Q: Why shouldn't multi-classing increase a character's power?! Why else would anyone want to multi-class?!
A: Because, if you want to get maximum effect from a class and in your chosen role, you should have to have maximum level in that class. If you want to solo more, splash a complementary class. But, if you want to be very powerful and specialized, you should be pure.

Q: Doesn't your idea mean the devs will have to nerf things or make them more restricted?!
A: Yes. Nerfs aren't always bad. Sometimes creating structure can make things better!

An addendum to this is the case of MySpace and Facebook. I read an article a couple years ago that explained why Facebook took-off while MySpace languished and it explained it very well, I think. Both are social networking sites that have the same basic purpose. MySpace created an interface that had so much more freedom than Facebook. At first thought this seemed like a good idea, but it turned out to be a major contributor to MySpace's difficulties. The problem was that people could do whatever they wanted with their "Space" and it became chaos. No one wanted to look at or deal with chaos and so they sought out an alternative Facebook, on the other hand, implemented strong restrictions about what you could or could not do with your page. It did not allow chaos to develop by having a solid structure. Thus, it became the alternative to MySpace that people sought out.

DDO faces a similar challenge to MySpace at the moment. The builds are too unstructured. Whereas MySpace devolved into chaos, DDO builds are evolving into homogeneity. Adding structure will do for DDO what having structure did for Facebook: it will make DDO better.

Thank you for reading!

[CeltEireson]

This is not what people want, nor the devs according to historical quotes on their part.

The design goal of EDs was not to lock certain archetypes into a certain ED, but to increase the viable EDs that are available to everyone. Problem is that they failed on EDs from the beginning to make them viable and fun, save a few. The answer is not to make all archers go Shirardi, or all Arcanes to go to Magistar or DI.

Shirardi could be made more viable for melees (and colors of the queen for that matter) if it was not boosted by spell power, but had innate spellpower and crit chance built into the coding and work on melee attacks as well.

FoTW, should work with ranged, but be coded to work with the 1st arrow/bolt only, but stack with stuff like slaying arrows.

DI and Magistar should be buffed. New epic moments.

Divines destinies are in the works, and hopefully work better.

Shadowdancer should be buffed. New epic moments. Maybe an option for a non-rogue/arty to have limited OL and trapping skills.

Primal Avatar is garbage save for a few people that can charge their tree moment. Rework this entire destiny to make it useful as a CC destiny, including non-save procs like shirardi that a melee can use for CC.

With the addition of Eldrich Knight and Warpriest, arcanes or divines have an option now at LD/Fury.

Again the point of destinies was to bring diversity to builds, not further pigeon-hole them into a certain group of powers.

One of the other problems with the EDs is that each of the destinys are very focused in most cases - they don't allow for 'jack of all trades' types, though that's as much as problem with DDO/Pnp DnD as well. Probably the best example is artificer - artificer has 5 somewhat separate areas that they can develop - ranged/melee weapons, arcane casting, runearm, rogue skills and pet. Each of the ED's on offer really at best only buff 1 or two of those so theyre forced to focus very much on one area to develop which seems a bit of a shame as I've always seen them as a jack of all trades type that balances out all the aspects of the class but hey maybe that's just me.

Of course that may change if the devs ever get around to developing an ED specifically for artificers but I'm not exactly holding my breath on that one.

[Vellrad]

Most Useful Crowd Control: Arcane

Are you kidding?

Earthquake crashes and trups all other forms of CC combined, if you're in shiradi. But there is no reason to use other ED while playing caster druid.

[Qhualor]

Are you kidding?

Earthquake crashes and trups all other forms of CC combined, if you're in shiradi. But there is no reason to use other ED while playing caster druid.

yep, earthquake is insanely good. too good? ok, ill stop there.

[BigErkyKid]

I approach this topic carefully, but without regard to how it will be received by the community. In fact, I am not writing to the community, but to the devs. I hope you will read it and consider what these thoughts (I also wrote some commentary in my survey to the same effect as below).

I believe balance can be divided into two parts: Internal and External balance. While these parts may seem easily understood, I still want to define them. Internal Balance is how a character balances within itself. That is, how its strengths and weaknesses balance each other out. External Balance is how a character compares with other characters, in and across roles. That is, how its strengths and weaknesses measure against other characters.

Internal Balance:

Each character should have strengths and weaknesses within itself. When one aspect becomes strong, another must be sacrificed. No character should have no weaknesses; whenever that happens, there is no balance.

For example: if a character has high saves in Will, then one of the other two saves should be lower and the other moderate. That's not to say that the lower save should fail every time, but that it should be more likely to fail than succeed.

Classes have this mechanism built into them, for the most part. However, "Min/Max"ers have found ways to overcome this and abuse the multi-classing system to create builds which exhibit very little, if any weaknesses. It's worth it to note that multi-classing is not really meant to expand the power of a character, it's meant to expand the versatility of a character. Having no weaknesses is problematic for the other part of balance: External Balance.

External Balance:

When comparing characters it is most important to compare them across roles. To do this we must first have roles that are definable. Roles are a core aspect of D&D. Without roles there is no point in choosing one class over another. We could just choose any class and do anything (or perhaps, everything).

At this point, Internal Balance intersects with External Balance. If characters lack Internal Balance (by being without weaknesses to offset strengths) then roles begin to disappear. If any character can do everything, then what is the point of making a character that is anything less than able to do everything? Thus, all (or most) characters will begin to look roughly the same. This homogeneity is, plainly stated, boring; and no one wants to play a boring game. To maintain External Balance and prevent any character from doing everything is to create diversity, prevent homogeneity and produce fun!

For example: if every character can heal themselves as well as a dedicated healer, then there is no point to making one; in fact, there will really be no such thing, as all characters are dedicated healers! That's not to say that characters should not be allowed to self heal, but that no character should be as effective at healing as a dedicated healer (even when healing themselves).

As a secondary consideration, we can also compare characters within roles. For the most part, we can expect that within roles character will be (maybe should be) very similar. But that's ok, it really is the roles that differentiate characters from each other. However, builds should have variety, even within roles. Here we should refer back to Internal Balance. When a character chooses to excel at one aspect, there must be some offset in a contrasting aspect; and no one build should dominate all situations and all content.

I think maintaining these concepts of Internal and External Balance can make the game more diverse, more social and more fun!

I can foresee some of the argument and complaints many people will have, so let me address them:

Q: If no character should be able to do everything, how can I solo all the quests on elite at level?!
A: You should choose normal difficulty. I don't think any character should be able to solo anything on elite at level.

Q: Why shouldn't multi-classing increase a character's power?! Why else would anyone want to multi-class?!
A: Because, if you want to get maximum effect from a class and in your chosen role, you should have to have maximum level in that class. If you want to solo more, splash a complementary class. But, if you want to be very powerful and specialized, you should be pure.

Q: Doesn't your idea mean the devs will have to nerf things or make them more restricted?!
A: Yes. Nerfs aren't always bad. Sometimes creating structure can make things better!

An addendum to this is the case of MySpace and Facebook. I read an article a couple years ago that explained why Facebook took-off while MySpace languished and it explained it very well, I think. Both are social networking sites that have the same basic purpose. MySpace created an interface that had so much more freedom than Facebook. At first thought this seemed like a good idea, but it turned out to be a major contributor to MySpace's difficulties. The problem was that people could do whatever they wanted with their "Space" and it became chaos. No one wanted to look at or deal with chaos and so they sought out an alternative Facebook, on the other hand, implemented strong restrictions about what you could or could not do with your page. It did not allow chaos to develop by having a solid structure. Thus, it became the alternative to MySpace that people sought out.

DDO faces a similar challenge to MySpace at the moment. The builds are too unstructured. Whereas MySpace devolved into chaos, DDO builds are evolving into homogeneity. Adding structure will do for DDO what having structure did for Facebook: it will make DDO better.

Thank you for reading!

This is well thought but I doubt it is very welcome here. Most people that come to the forums to discuss are "serious gamers" and seem to derive pleasure from being able to find ways around the system to shine in solo or to achieve as much power as possible. That's the aim. Once one of these ways is figured out, they don't want it nerfed: it is an acquired right. It does not really matter that much to them whether it encourages team work or specialization or it lacks balance or it is coherent with the spirit of DnD at a broad level.

For instance, monk / barbarian splash is not allowed in the game for lore reasons. However, say that devs forgot to hard code it and people had been able to do it and found a way to get say insane dps. Taking it away would never be justified in their eyes and you would get a lot of raging. It doesn't matter so much if it is WAI. It was allowed, so suck it up.

The other thing is power-running quests. There is great fear that heroic style appears in epics. A lot of heroic quests are more structured and polished than epics. Usually there are more requirements, stages in the quest that you need to go through. Suppose I am ONLY running it for the xp or some loot that drops very little. Then I prefer epic style quests where I can just chug a pot and run like the wind through hundreds of mobs that will just rubber band. Why? Because it is BORING to run the same quest a million times on a same character to get that one thing.

Of course that affects balance. Characters and quests are jointly balanced. How many SP you should be allowed, how many HP or charges of an ability, the cooldowns and the rest are balanced around the mob density, HP, lenght of the quest and what not. One without the other is an absurd.

On the OP, I agree with you that the whole way DnD has been traditionally balanced is through trade offs. And I agree too that this has been sort of broken through multiclassing and through the addition of across the board abilities. My impression is that evasion and self healing have broken some of the few reasons people had to interact inside the game.

[zwiebelring]

With mobs, statted that high, characters in archtype roles failed. I played a dedicated healer and powerhealing was simply not possible in epic elite at first. Healing over Time became most cost efficient regarding sp usage, so you needed characters to hold themselves long enough in epic elite to profit from Cocoon and/or Renewal. And likewise more steroid arcane/casters for cc, which didn't fail at 50% of the time.

Results were characters, who excel at survivability rather than their inherent strong aspects. Multiclassing allowed to combine few distinct classes to be combined on survivability aspects. Then Kensai even combined dps aspect + survivability by class.

Using Oberon's term:
The external balance was vanquished immediately. There was a time when epic quests were very difficult, though managable by the time, but nevertheless you had lvl. 20 Ftr and lvl. 20 Bar being capable of running epic quests, not feeling useless, and still be able to get healing by dedicated healers. That should be that way again, because back then, there only was 1 epic difficulty, which could be seen as epic elite.

[pHo3nix]

On the OP, I agree with you that the whole way DnD has been traditionally balanced is through trade offs. And I agree too that this has been sort of broken through multiclassing and through the addition of across the board abilities. My impression is that evasion and self healing have broken some of the few reasons people had to interact inside the game.

If your only idea of teamwork is a nannybot, a trapper, a CC, 2 DPS and a tank then play in this way: just find other people that like to play in the same way and you can play all the quests you want with this setup. If most of the LFM in game are "BYOH-zerg" maybe it's because people like to play in that way? Why would you want to limit the freedom of other people?

[fmalfeas]

In some ways, the self-healing does remind me of tabletop D&D. As in - now everyone is the equivalent of a tabletop Druid or Cleric. (Really, the only way you're stopping one of them is with traps, and that's not guaranteed because they have spells to circumvent them, like Shatter, Shape Stone, Warp Wood, Transmute Rock to Mud, etc. And the cleric can cast Find Traps so he knows when he needs to cast those ahead of time.)

[BigErkyKid]

If your only idea of teamwork is a nannybot, a trapper, a CC, 2 DPS and a tank then play in this way: just find other people that like to play in the same way and you can play all the quests you want with this setup. If most of the LFM in game are "BYOH-zerg" maybe it's because people like to play in that way? Why would you want to limit the freedom of other people?

Just to be honest here. The way you design a game influences the way people play it (duh). There is not such a thing as yeah do whatever you want. If they make it such that every player is self sufficient, people learn to live with that and expect it. If you want cooperation among random strangers, you need to encourage it somehow. I am all for allowing for some people solo whatever they want if that is what they enjoy. But that is not what I would encourage with game design. And sue me!

[GrantAnderson]

Just to be honest here. The way you design a game influences the way people play it (duh). There is not such a thing as yeah do whatever you want. If they make it such that every player is self sufficient, people learn to live with that and expect it. If you want cooperation among random strangers, you need to encourage it somehow. I am all for allowing for some people solo whatever they want if that is what they enjoy. But that is not what I would encourage with game design. And sue me!

If grouping and soloing are both viable, the people who enjoy grouping will group and the people who enjoy (or, as in my case, through their circumstances are pretty much restricted to) soloing will solo. I like that DDO makes soloing an enjoyable path. The more restrictions that get placed on soloing, the less enjoyable I will find the game.

If you think having both styles viable means people will only solo, is that because you think other people don't like grouping as much as you do?

[BigErkyKid]

If grouping and soloing are both viable, the people who enjoy grouping will group and the people who enjoy (or, as in my case, through their circumstances are pretty much restricted to) soloing will solo. I like that DDO makes soloing an enjoyable path. The more restrictions that get placed on soloing, the less enjoyable I will find the game.

If you think having both styles viable means people will only solo, is that because you think other people don't like grouping as much as you do?

Suppose everyone is roughly self sufficient. Then people don't have very obvious ways of cooperating and they tend to mind their own business. Now imagine I can do things on my own, but it takes longer and it isn't very reliable. However, two of us can do it much faster if our strenghts complement.

This come back to the point by Oberon:

An addendum to this is the case of MySpace and Facebook. I read an article a couple years ago that explained why Facebook took-off while MySpace languished and it explained it very well, I think. Both are social networking sites that have the same basic purpose. MySpace created an interface that had so much more freedom than Facebook. At first thought this seemed like a good idea, but it turned out to be a major contributor to MySpace's difficulties. The problem was that people could do whatever they wanted with their "Space" and it became chaos. No one wanted to look at or deal with chaos and so they sought out an alternative Facebook, on the other hand, implemented strong restrictions about what you could or could not do with your page. It did not allow chaos to develop by having a solid structure. Thus, it became the alternative to MySpace that people sought out.

DDO faces a similar challenge to MySpace at the moment. The builds are too unstructured. Whereas MySpace devolved into chaos, DDO builds are evolving into homogeneity. Adding structure will do for DDO what having structure did for Facebook: it will make DDO better.

Beyond some quests with levers and other similar mechanics, I fail to see why most experienced people gain by cooperating. In the absence of any obvious way to do it, it is not done as much. The question here being:

Balacing of builds should be done in the direction of everyone being mostly self suficient and dps capable at roughly similar levels or by nerfing some of the current jacks of all trades.


PS - Hirelings are the alternative for soloers in the scenario I picture.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Apparently some people's idea of class balance is standing around waiting for a healer. trapper, etc.

[capsela]

Apparently some people's idea of class balance is standing around waiting for a healer. trapper, etc.

Yeah, it's called roleplaying. Only there are no roles anymore. Everyone is a self healing trap ignoring tank and if you aren't, you are considered a gimp. Is that what we want?