Player Character Balance

[Captain_Wizbang]

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

Question, with the advent of the swf in U22, what if any feedback are you willing or obliged to offer the player base as a result of this thread. Thanks.

[maverik99vc]

I don't think you can balance this game because there are just to many options. I don't think you even see what's broken, what's out of the line, what's useless/redundant, underpowered or overpowered because
you don't know how to add and subtract, multiply and divide... You don't have a system. You have a mess and you cannot handle it.

Your best option is to continue to do things the way you've been doing them all these years. You'll sell something, entertain a few people and that's it.

You need more than a few brain farts and an afternoon to generate a plan to balance this game. (if you pardon the expression)

[eachna_gislin]

I'd like to add another broad area to that list: pure-class versus multi-class.

I feel that not only should every single class be viable and able to contribute, but that every single class when pure-classed should be viable and able to contribute.

For me, that should be the basic starting point for balancing classes, and multi-class measured against that yard-stick.

I don't mind if someone figures out clever, synergistic combinations that are a bit more powerful overall, but there should be trade-offs. Multi-classing should never be a no-brainer, and pure-class should never be an outright bad choice.

Traditionally in D&D, multi-classes, being less specialized, had less raw power, balanced with more versatility. It seems in some cases in DDO, they get more versatility AND more power, making pure-classes strictly inferior.

The enhancement pass contributed a lot to this. I think a hard look at capstones is in order.

And, though I know some people will hate it, perhaps revisiting the class levels needed for each tier of enhancement. Personally, I think 1/3/6/9/12 would be more appropriate than 1/2/3/4/5.

I agree with all of these points. I tend to play pure class divines. I do have a couple favor-farming rogues, a challenge monk, and a rogue/monk acrobat. My go-to toons are clerics and paladins.

After the low point of the Protection tree, Clerics have been the recipients of a lot of positive and balanced changes. Warpriest still sucks, but is significantly better than Protection. Heck, it's actually better than the travesty that are the paladin prestiges. Divine Disciple is one of the best designed prestiges in the game, and I personally feel the capstone is worth giving up evasion. The rebalancing in the divine epic destinies and the new Divine Crusader prestige was nicely done. No one is picking on me for playing pure-class clerics, even with the broken DC casting.

But it's nuts that I should be considering splashing 5 levels of fighter (for feats + enhancements) or 5 levels of cleric (for t4 warpriest and radiant aura) on a paladin because..once I have Zeal, I have nothing worth taking in the class. Or, that my acrobat "needs" 2-6 monk in order to get the most from her dex-based halfling healing dragonmark stick build (which should not necessarily synergize with monk, but, EVERYTHING does). Or that a monk-splashed cleric in water stance somehow ends up with more wisdom than a pure cleric. Or, that 2 levels of paladin and an ED twist give you a huge increase in both saving throws (which should be enough on its own) _and_ a valuable strength/tactics buff. There's many others, but these are the ones that stand out as a player of divines (plus acrobat).

It seemed like the 1/2/3/4/5 splits were meant to "encourage" multi-classing. It turned into "forcing" multi-classing as staying pure is weakens most characters. Also, DC-based play is broken in epic levels. Frankly, I don't think it should be abandoned. It can be fixed (and it _appears_ devs are looking at interconnected changes that will fix it). Stat boots have to be brought in line with each other, which basically means that the unbalanced stacking Strength boots need to be torn apart, and AC needs to be fixed. Both of these things are being discussed in other threads.

A lot of feedback was given in discussion/Lama about the poor design behind the tree system and how severely powers were front-loaded into classes. This whole mess is because staff ignored that feedback to push their changes into place. Now, you want to know how to fix it. You fix it by _not_ making every bit of prestige crunch available to anyone with 5 levels in a class. 1/3/6/9/12 in class levels (not character levels) would be a single change that would start to adjust things for the positive. Personally, I think it needs to go back to the older 1/3/6/12/18 split. That would provide a very smooth progression through the levels of a character. Either way, that would only tweak the multi-classing splits by a single level (the vast majority of "cool powers" people want to grab are in the first two tiers).

Another poor change that was implemented (to support the "points in tree" mechanic) was to allow people to buy all ranks of a power once they have access to the tier. In the past, as you gained character levels, higher ranks of prestige powers would reveal themselves.

The old gateway to powers was character levels. The new one is points spent in tree (with character level being a secondary issue). Character level needs to go back to being the primary gateway. The "points spent in tree" mechanic needs to at least be softened and a "character level" check needs to be re-implemented. After that's done, you need to go back and reconsider how the tiers of enhancements work.

Divine might should _not_ front-load every bit of power into the first tier, and only increase the casting time on later tiers. It should give you a small capped boost at the first tier, a level restriction and a higher capped boost at the second tier, and another higher level restriction and an uncapped boost at the third tier.

It should be impossible to achieve a maxed-out divine might on a character that only has two paladin levels. Even worse, it should be impossible to grab Keen Edge/One With the Blade, PLUS, any maxed-out choice T4 (or lower) monk enhancements, PLUS maxed-out divine might, on a single character.

This particular combination should not be the target of nerfing, as all that will happen is people will find a new combination. The ability for anyone to combine that much power from multiple classes should be nerfed.

[bsquishwizzy]

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.

This issue all goes away if you a) allow melee to take less damage while swinging away at something, and b) drop the insane DCs of some mobs so that caster CC becomes viable again (of course this only really matters in EE content). It is far more SP efficient for a caster to drop a CC spell, have it land, and let the melees do the DPS work than it is to nuke everything into oblivion. Likewise, if a melee can take less damage doing their job, they become viable.

Spell nuking on EE is an SP sinkhole. From a caster perspective, melee DPS is a “renewable” alternative to a limited resource.

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.

Nerf Warforged. Lots of benefits, very few weaknesses. I realize it is a Turbine P2W shiny, but that hurts the game as it de-incentivizes playing other races.

Nerf Monk. Again, another P2W scheme that ends up in every build because…well…there is no incentive to use anything else.

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.[/list]
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.

Magister is a joke. Nothing there to twist. It is a way for me to basically build INT and DCs for my spell school, and that’s it. The summon? It’s pitiful. The whole destiny needs an overhaul.

[mkmcgw17]

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

I prefer to play an older style of the game with a balanced party. A healer a tank a couple dps melee a arcane and a trapper. The new enhancement system has made this style of team play almost obsolete with the shift toward all self healing characters with evasion. Any changes you could make to try to make the game more team oriented would be appreciated. Thank you for taking the time to take player input.

[Zasral]

I've played several mmo's over the years. A lot of the once great, but have failed games, started failing when they began worrying over class balance. I have stopped playing several mmo's after putting many hours into making a toon the way I want it, only to have it changed/nurfed to death before I could enjoy it. Please don't go down this road.

[Free2Pay]

Class Balancing - the medicine - can be mistaken for the poison if the dose is too strong or it's side effects are too great. Similar to cancer, imbalance should be detected early and regular checkups performed to nip it in its bud. However in MMO, game imbalance often ran out of control and any last ditch balancing attempts came in too little too late.

IMO it's easy to identify class imbalance and ironically the best method is PvP. And the real reason PvP is meaningless in DDO is because some classes are just so much better - hint blue bars. Always was, always will be. It wouldn't be an issue if the PvP advantages don't spillover into PvE. But it does, and it doesn't help to bury one's head in the sands.

... If anyone, at any point in this thread, brings up PvP balance, I strongly encourage you to disregard any further input from them. . . .

@Cardtrick : Why?

[mrunlimited]

Game balance in the current state of ddo is going to be rather difficult to tweak without causing large consequences. Even slight changes here and there that poeple do not think will have a lot of impact can have huge changes. For example, lower saves on epic monsters seems like it helps casters out a little. Your wizards are going to be able to still insta kill things like they can now and have left over room to up their damage on red names. This makes nukers less desirable and hybrids like bards more unbalanced. Another example is mob hp and damage they deal. Nerf mob damage and suddenly classes with less survival become better and classes with higher survival become boring. Too much or too little mob hp impacts every class in some way. I am by no means saying any of these things are properly balance as of now but that it is incredibly challenging to balance these and class changes at the same time. Really you need at least one of these as a constant rather than have them both changing.

This brings me to my real point. First off, not every class has to be balanced in regards to another. Its probably not possible ad also isnt fun. Not every class needs to be able to solo ees either( I dont think any class really should be able to with the exception being in cases of really good players being able to as an extreme challenge). What every class needs is to be balanced in regards to fun. Every pure class should feel fun to play. That means that they have abilities that progressively get better the higher level you go in the class and have some role to play. I feel that cap stones overall need to be appealing, t5 abilities need to be good and require more levels in the base class to reach the top, and multi-classing should really feel like you are giving something up to gain something else you want. Right now multiclassing is really give up nothing to gain a cornerstone ability of another class. With this you have a bunch of diluted characters that dont feel like a fighter or a rogue or a monk or a paladin but rather a hodge podge confused creature that just happens to be the most efficient killing machine on the planet through dabbling in a little of every walk of life. In pnp, your prestige classes were usually 10 levels with the best ability at lvl 10.

Right now, I think you guys have a few great ideas in motion that are headed in the right direction. Firstly, these confused character builds are mainly due to the inadequacies of damage mitigation in armor vs evasion. Players need to fear getting hit if they arent wearing heavier armor, they have displacement and dodge but this should by no means make them feel like they should be in the middle of combat for any length of time. This is the start of making fighters paladins and clerics more desirable. They also need the ability to make a choice of dps or tanking with survival going up or down some to compensate for increased damage. But a plate wearing dps fighter or paladin should still be able to live much longer than a rogue or bard in light armor. With increased risk of death, cloth casters would want melees for more than just sp conservation, they would be a lifeline to increase their own survival.

So on that note, you guys are also looking at improving character trees. That is great. Some classes dont need super "buffs", just more variety and that is what will please people. To clarify, take fighters. They have a tank tree(which once the mitigation changes are in place is a solid choice if they wish to tank) and they have kensai. Kensai is a nifty idea and is good, but requires monk levels and to be centered. They have no real decent dps option if they dont wish to be a pajama weaing multiclasser. Im not saying they need an armor wearing dps tree that one hit kills everything, but they could use a dps option that lets them feel like a fighter. Same thing with paladins. Not every paladin wants to be sword and board. Some like to drop the holy thunderforce of a giant hammer on their foes skulls. More options does require a lot of work, not just in creating them but also balancing them in mind with the other trees and other classes but you already have a lot of tested and true places to start drawing ideas from(note limiting cores and tiered abilities with higher class level requirements helps balance these trees with respect to multiclassing).

I will keep my thoughts from going any further for now but I will post some others in the future. I will say that the devs here are being accountable for their game and are making an effort to fix things and that is admirable. Doing something rather than just letting the game rot into non-existance is a better choice even if they mess up and over power some things and create more temporary inbalance. Keep up the good work guys and just know that not every player expects your decisions to be perfect, we just wish to see things happening. Change is a process, and you cant always take steps forward without sometimes taking a few back.

[Kalimah]

I've played several mmo's over the years. A lot of the once great, but have failed games, started failing when they began worrying over class balance. I have stopped playing several mmo's after putting many hours into making a toon the way I want it, only to have it changed/nurfed to death before I could enjoy it. Please don't go down this road.

I also beg you to keep this firmly in mind Devs. Who gives a flip about balance if the game sucks. That said, I do like a lot of the changes you guys are making...it just seems like a lot of changes going on at once and that good ole Murphy and his non intended consequences always is lurking.

[mkmcgw17]

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

So update 24 powered up the Paladin once again making it now by far far far the most powerful class ever in ddo for no reason I can see its beyond comprehension. Are you trying to make it a single class game all Paladins? That's what you've done on the server I'm on. The kensai tree has been broken since the day the new system came out. Deadly strike and shot don't work. Nobody plays a kensai fighter I've tried to make it work for four lives it doesn't play well and is only used for splashes on other classes. The core class of dnd has been totally overlooked. Do you have any intention of at least fixing the top tier enhancements? Please for the love of God stop powering up the Paladin. Nerf the Pally. Nerf the Monk. Nerf the AA Ranger. Your ruining the game little by little get a players handbook and a dmg and read every sentence Gary wrote.

[stricq]

So update 24 powered up the Paladin once again making it now by far far far the most powerful class ever in ddo for no reason I can see its beyond comprehension. Are you trying to make it a single class game all Paladins? That's what you've done on the server I'm on. The kensai tree has been broken since the day the new system came out. Deadly strike and shot don't work. Nobody plays a kensai fighter I've tried to make it work for four lives it doesn't play well and is only used for splashes on other classes. The core class of dnd has been totally overlooked. Do you have any intention of at least fixing the top tier enhancements? Please for the love of God stop powering up the Paladin. Nerf the Pally. Nerf the Monk. Nerf the AA Ranger. Your ruining the game little by little get a players handbook and a dmg and read every sentence Gary wrote.

Update 24 is not released yet, not sure what you are tell about there. Update 24 is for Barbarians, not Paladins.

In any case, I bug reported the Kensei problems over a year ago and no response, so yeah, I will agree that Turbine has dropped Kensei on the floor along with a whole host of other major issues with enhancements.

[mkmcgw17]

I'm curious why you continue to power up the paladin even though they're four or five times more powerful than every other class. I'm also wondering with all the talk of fixing melee why haven't you fixed Kensai. Deadly strike/shot hasn't worked since the new enhancement system came out. Kensai (dps fighter) the core of dungeons and dragons has been relegated to a splash class for monks and rangers. Try a straight kensai see how well they play. Back to the Paladin is this marketings way of giving new players the ability to do any quest elite so they don't feel gimpy? I have a feeling the over powering of the Paladin (its so obvious they're far far more powerful than any other class) is a planned occurrence and I'd like to know why. Thank You. 50% of the server I am on are now Paladins. Yawn. Every party is three to five of them and now not only are they immune to most damage now they have dps too. Perhaps you should just give them all the items and levels at the start make it a little easier. What's that Gary? Yah I know its sad what they're doing to your game buddy why'd you have to die?

[Annyee]

I'm curious why you continue to power up the paladin even though they're four or five times more powerful than every other class. I'm also wondering with all the talk of fixing melee why haven't you fixed Kensai. Deadly strike/shot hasn't worked since the new enhancement system came out. Kensai (dps fighter) the core of dungeons and dragons has been relegated to a splash class for monks and rangers. Try a straight kensai see how well they play. Back to the Paladin is this marketings way of giving new players the ability to do any quest elite so they don't feel gimpy? I have a feeling the over powering of the Paladin (its so obvious they're far far more powerful than any other class) is a planned occurrence and I'd like to know why. Thank You. 50% of the server I am on are now Paladins. Yawn. Every party is three to five of them and now not only are they immune to most damage now they have dps too. Perhaps you should just give them all the items and levels at the start make it a little easier. What's that Gary? Yah I know its sad what they're doing to your game buddy why'd you have to die?

I'm curious as to why you think Pally's are 4-5 times more powerful than every other class? Fact is, they are not. At best after 2+ years of being behind everyone else Pallys are just now about even with other classes/builds.

[Annyee]

To be honest in the topic is going to also be rather harsh. Flame hats on....

DDo game balance is broken because the Devs broke it and then did nothing to really address it. You could blame several ablities (Fury Shot)(SWF) but at the core it is the Devs who thought these things were good ideas and more Devs that did nothing to address issues when they were brought up. It's not the players who put these things into DDo. The players can only use the tools they are given. Now we are left with a game that is in really bad shape.

Best advise is for the game developers to learn the game. Second piece of advice is to listen to intelligent players. When it is brought up that something can be abused or is unbalanced pay attention.

[Uska]

I prefer to play an older style of the game with a balanced party. A healer a tank a couple dps melee a arcane and a trapper. The new enhancement system has made this style of team play almost obsolete with the shift toward all self healing characters with evasion. Any changes you could make to try to make the game more team oriented would be appreciated. Thank you for taking the time to take player input.

This but sadly I don't see it happening really sad when a great MMO becomes a game of solo players

[Oxarhamar]

This but sadly I don't see it happening really sad when a great MMO becomes a game of solo players

Oh the great MMOs that force grouping.


Log on

Global chat: LF Healer
Global chat: LF Tank

All day everyday, yeah that's quality game play.

[MisterTee01]

To me, balance is when builds compliment each other and can encourage grouping to defeat content. To make this happen you not only will have to look at each classes and various multi-class builds, but also in the content you design. The two go hand in hand.

could not have said it better myself.

[MangLord]

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.

Please be very careful with Manyshot. Yes, it's exploited with a monkcher build, but for a pure ranger it's something we desperately need to get ourselves and friends out of trouble. Rangers are still a good class (not as great as they used to be with much needed melee enhancement passes). I love my Elf Ranger, and I tend to save manyshots and slayer arrows for special occasions. The cooldowns are so long that I don't want to just throw them out like candy, and then have 30 seconds left when all my friends are dying on a tough boss fight. I tend to stick with regular bow damage, mostly due to the fact that all my doubleshot bonuses are null and void for a minute after I click manyshot. I'd like to see the doubleshot penalty done away with for pure rangers. I'd feel less stingy about using manyshot and not save it only for boss fights and emergency situations.

Also, I've found that I'm at about a 50% success rate of actually stacking Masters Blitz before it times out. I play a Drow Swashbuckler, and even with a fresh Haste, I sometimes find it difficult get stacks going. This can be issue when a raid is depending on me for trash duty, especially in the Thunderholme raids. For an epic moment (yes, a lot of people abuse it) I'd like to get more than 20 seconds out of it better than half the time. Clearly the team has adjusted the stacking to be far less than 10%. I can easily get a vorpal hit, which is only 5%, at least once before the timer expires.

You also may want to take another look at Fatesinger Turn The Tide. The fact that the bonus Sonic and Light damage don't work on bosses is ludicrous. For the cooldown, the length it lasts and the fact that its an epic moment, I'd like to apply the extra damage for the special moments that I'm saving it.

[Annyee]

Please be very careful with Manyshot. Yes, it's exploited with a monkcher build, but for a pure ranger it's something we desperately need to get ourselves and friends out of trouble. Rangers are still a good class (not as great as they used to be with much needed melee enhancement passes). I love my Elf Ranger, and I tend to save manyshots and slayer arrows for special occasions. The cooldowns are so long that I don't want to just throw them out like candy, and then have 30 seconds left when all my friends are dying on a tough boss fight. I tend to stick with regular bow damage, mostly due to the fact that all my doubleshot bonuses are null and void for a minute after I click manyshot. I'd like to see the doubleshot penalty done away with for pure rangers. I'd feel less stingy about using manyshot and not save it only for boss fights and emergency situations.

Also, I've found that I'm at about a 50% success rate of actually stacking Masters Blitz before it times out. I play a Drow Swashbuckler, and even with a fresh Haste, I sometimes find it difficult get stacks going. This can be issue when a raid is depending on me for trash duty, especially in the Thunderholme raids. For an epic moment (yes, a lot of people abuse it) I'd like to get more than 20 seconds out of it better than half the time. Clearly the team has adjusted the stacking to be far less than 10%. I can easily get a vorpal hit, which is only 5%, at least once before the timer expires.

You also may want to take another look at Fatesinger Turn The Tide. The fact that the bonus Sonic and Light damage don't work on bosses is ludicrous. For the cooldown, the length it lasts and the fact that its an epic moment, I'd like to apply the extra damage for the special moments that I'm saving it.

The most OP thing about Manyshot is combining it with Adrenaline. IMO Adrenaline should not apply to ranged.

[fmalfeas]

Honestly, I'd like to see Manyshot turned into something more like in tabletop. Lowers your to-hit when it's on, but causes multiple arrow fire, perhaps via giving LOTS of doubleshot, for continuous enhanced firepower. Leaving 10k stars the source for sudden burst (but with the doubleshot debuff afterwards, neutralizing the bonus from Manyshot if used).

In tabletop, it applied -to hit of 4, and an extra -2 for every extra arrow beyond the first 2, only allowing 4 arrows at BAB +16 (with a -8 to hit). And only the first arrow in each volley could crit, though they could all apply their magical effects and normal damage.

Sustained output, at a cost, vs burst output with higher accuracy.

The exact numbers wouldn't have match tabletop, and probably shouldn't, but I'd like to see the basic format remain. Or even make it an activated attack with like a 6 second cooldown. Click it, and 4 arrows fly.

I rather dislike it and 10k stars being so utterly similar, and having their doubleshot debuff on top of it.