Balanced ED's in PVP

[Jon_Irenicus]

The main 2 culprits that are behind now 'unbalanced' PVP are:
Shiradi & Fury.

Since the introduction of 'ED's, PVP became largely unbalanced - because of builds like "Fury Archers" and "Shiradi Casters".
I, myself, a sorcerer frankly became very annoyed as back before the ED's, everyone had an equal chance to kill someone down in a tavern brawn and now I can't accomplish anything in the PVP as my ED is extremely underpowered while Fury of the Wild and Shiradi are the other way round.

To back-up my claim of the PVP being unbalanced, I've took the liberty of recording average damage of a "fury" arrow shot and it's between 1-2k non crit of blunt/piercing damage. You may say "what's wrong with that?" and the answer is simple - It's completely un-savable, pretty much noone has that amount of HP to counter the damage and this is highly exploitable. The same damage can be done using ordinary spells and or Draconic Dragon's Breath but guess what? There's a reflex save and it's blocked by spell absorption.
Moving on to Shiradi, every spell randomly has a chance of doing the same damage as fury and it can be exploited with magic missile! How can a non-shiradi/fury archer fight fairly with someone who can cast a single spell (or shoot a single arrow) that'll obliterate anything without any chance of survival? It's completely idiotic!

My suggestion is to:

-- Shiradi

1. Reduce the damage amount done in PVP by shiradi random damage feat.
2. or completely render shiradi random damage in-effective in brawn areas
3. or make TR missile + Magic missile block-able with night-shield + spell absorption item. (This should work by its own unless there's a bug)
4. or every random damage dealt by shiradi gets counted as a spell, thus it'll get absorbed by spell absorbing item.

-- Fury of the Wild

1. Reduce the damage amount done in PVP by "Adrenaline".
2. Make "Adrenaline" work only in quests and not in public areas like brawns.
   

Just to clarify something, noone is meant to have that big of an upper hand in PVP. A level 20 Fury archer can kill a level 28 player with 1.2k hp in brawn and then he could spam it which will be extremely unfair. I'm not doing it for the sake of me but for the sake of majority of players and DDO. These changes will not alter questing experience whatsoever.

This may be a trivial matter but for majority of players, it's not. So devs, please think carefully about this as everything became so unbalanced lately and noone is doing anything about it.

[Flavilandile]

# Check Thread Location... Thread Location Checked : Not in PvP Section, Designating Thread as Fair Target.


Hell NO !!!


No Dev time should be wasted on PvP.

PvP is an afterthought in DDO, the whole concept of the game is cooperative playing in PvE.
Furthermore D&D was never balanced for PvP ( and DDO will hopefully never be balanced for PvP ).

Classes, Abilities and/or Epic Destinies should not be balanced for PvP, they should be balanced for PvE, and they are ( somewhat ) balanced for PvE.

[droid327]

The words "Balance" and "PVP" do not ever belong together in DDO.

DDO is a PvE game. PvP simply is whatever it is, take it or leave it.

There are many, many games that cater to the PvP-minded gamer - and that's fine, no one game can be everything for everyone, and PvP is a perfectly valid kind of gameplay to enjoy. But just not one that DDO caters to...so don't ever expect or ask for DDO to deliver a complete PvP experience.

Also, along the same lines, I'd very very very much challenge your assertion that a "majority" of players in DDO care about PvP balance, or PvP at all. I'd be surprised if a majority even knew how to PvP at all in the game

[Jon_Irenicus]

# Check Thread Location... Thread Location Checked : Not in PvP Section, Designating Thread as Fair Target.


Hell NO !!!


No Dev time should be wasted on PvP.

PvP is an afterthought in DDO, the whole concept of the game is cooperative playing in PvE.
Furthermore D&D was never balanced for PvP ( and DDO will hopefully never be balanced for PvP ).

Classes, Abilities and/or Epic Destinies should not be balanced for PvP, they should be balanced for PvE, and they are ( somewhat ) balanced for PvE.

Dev time should be "wasted" on PvP. I don't see how adding more OP items and quests is gonna do DDO any good since the whole game is old and needs to be recoded to match player's expectations. Just because you think that Dev time should be focused on something else than PvP doesn't mean you can't tweak everything else. And for Dev time, you can't keep adding bits to a 10 year old game engine as it's just gonna make loading times even worse.

[Qhualor]

im not saying there should be a huge focus on PVP, but as long as there is PVP in DDO than it should have some focus. it makes no sense to have it and not do anything with it. either remove it from the game or give it some attention.

[droid327]

im not saying there should be a huge focus on PVP, but as long as there is PVP in DDO than it should have some focus. it makes no sense to have it and not do anything with it. either remove it from the game or give it some attention.

If you give them that ultimatum, they'll choose "remove it from the game" in a heartbeat, and most of the playerbase would agree with their selection. And then you'll have to explain to all your fellow PvPers why they got their brawling rings taken away

Some people wanted it, and the devs gave them what we have today, but with the understanding that that was it, take it or leave it.

[Uska]

im not saying there should be a huge focus on PVP, but as long as there is PVP in DDO than it should have some focus. it makes no sense to have it and not do anything with it. either remove it from the game or give it some attention.

More than enough work has been done on pvp nothing else needs to be done and it doesn't need to be removed.

[Qhualor]

I think it should be removed. I don't understand why have it as limited as it is and than not pay any attention to it. Removing it would reduce lag while in a tavern, get people out there playing and spending and reduce some drama. If its going to exist than give it a pass once in awhile. Most people won't care if its gone and resources, dev time and in game GMs could focus more on more important things. There should be a decision to either keep it or take it away.

I don't PVP, but I can understand where people are coming from.

[Silverleafeon]

I would like to see one or two more PVP instance dungeons added someday.
There are 4 atm.


As far as balancing the game for PvP, that would be an neverending cycle...

[Thalone]

I think it should be removed.

While I don't PvP myself, I would never, ever advocate its removal. On occasion, it's useful to dualbox and test out spell/combat DCs in an environment where you can see the saves and effects happening in the log and overhead feedback.

[Kawai]

• its good for testing
• its good for settling... disputes... with know-it-nothings and "Elitist Know-IT-nothings.
• good to have fun with when the guildees feel froggy

other than that...
its mainly good for pathetic Harbor Drama interrupting nice chats.

wouldnt miss it an iota if it was @Gone Baby Gone 2morrow.
-frankly, it might even free up some loading time

[Qhualor]

While I don't PvP myself, I would never, ever advocate its removal. On occasion, it's useful to dualbox and test out spell/combat DCs in an environment where you can see the saves and effects happening in the log and overhead feedback.

you can do that in a wilderness too. it may not be as easy in an uncontrolled environment, but you can see your saves and see what spells or whatever work against what mobs. I do that myself and find it more accurate than a limited PVP arena or testing on the dummy. what you suggest and I would totally back up is a testing dojo.

[Jon_Irenicus]

If you give them that ultimatum, they'll choose "remove it from the game" in a heartbeat, and most of the playerbase would agree with their selection. And then you'll have to explain to all your fellow PvPers why they got their brawling rings taken away

Some people wanted it, and the devs gave them what we have today, but with the understanding that that was it, take it or leave it.

That's pretty stupid since I've invested time and money into this game and developers must listen to their customers. It's like saying "NO MORE SUPPORT FOR ALL OF YOU".
People control game's development not devs.

[Flavilandile]

People control game's development not devs.

Yes, but you're in a tiny ( almost puny ) minority, the vast majority don't care about PvP as long as it stay as it is.

[Jon_Irenicus]

Yes, but you're in a tiny ( almost puny ) minority, the vast majority don't care about PvP as long as it stay as it is.

That is irrelevant. I still have a voice on what should happen.

[Dhalgren]

That is irrelevant. I still have a voice on what should happen.

Well, in a perfect world, perhaps. How do you suppose any product would wind up looking if the producers were obliged to include every suggestion from every voice?

PvP is a minute drop in the bucket of what DDO is. Any steps which can be taken to make it better within the confines of PvP are fine. But no game-wide system, in a decidedly PvE game, should ever be modified to accommodate what is essentially best used as a testing ground for various build options.

[Jon_Irenicus]

Well, in a perfect world, perhaps. How do you suppose any product would wind up looking if the producers were obliged to include every suggestion from every voice?

PvP is a minute drop in the bucket of what DDO is. Any steps which can be taken to make it better within the confines of PvP are fine. But no game-wide system, in a decidedly PvE game, should ever be modified to accommodate what is essentially best used as a testing ground for various build options.

Having a voice on what should happen doesn't mean that the developers must do it, nor it means they must do it straight away. It just informs them of what people want and it's their decision to whether make it happen or not.
PvP had been rarely looked into and because of this, some builds became too overpowered. I remember a time when there were no ED's and everything was relatively balanced but now ED's like Shiradi are being used to spam-kill everything down in the brawn and because of this, people barely go down there.

[Uska]

That is irrelevant. I still have a voice on what should happen.

Majority rule,and it's silly to spend much time on what a tiny fraction wants a majority doesn't care about and a fairly large faction actively oppose

[Jon_Irenicus]

Majority rule,and it's silly to spend much time on what a tiny fraction wants a majority doesn't care about and a fairly large faction actively oppose

I didn't create this thread for discussing how important this issue is nor for how people should debate that "only the minority think that this is a problem".
Like I said, if this gets implemented, then it's obviously not going to be a game-changing thing since it'll only affect people who PvP.

If you have something to say about that not everyone wants this, then please stay out of this thread for everyone's sake. The developers will have to decide.

[Silverleafeon]

The problem with changing how a toon works in PVP is that is creates opportunities for more bugs and glitches as well as using up valuable Dev time. There will always be a best PVP D&D toon, even pen and paper cannot be balanced for that.

And yes, believe it or not, I played PvP pen and paper play by post on the WotC servers.
I even submitted various maps for them to consider using.

Its fun, its different, but if you want balance I suggest you do like I did and form your own ruleset for combat as well as using the instances provided for PvP.

If you are hopping into a tavern and randomly attacking people, you have a lot of expansion left to explore by forming your own tournaments and having an umpire verify builds (including max levels). The instances provided by challenge type PvP are remarkable and they provide timers as well as score boards. Hit the see xp hot key to see the score board.

I ran PvP max level 4 with prizes and multiple rounds and it was fun. We excluded more than 2 caster levels.

PvP can be fun, and would like to see another instance or two added to it, however its up to the creator of the event to restrict overpowerful builds, not the Devs.