You know the game is not balanced properly when...

[myliftkk_v2]

And for those who talk about whining and not giving solutions.

Here comes something that I think they did fine in LOTRO (it must have something good besides the landscapes...):

Allow for two /three different specs in a character that can be changed without cost between quests.

Most classes in DDO can heal / CC / DPS, but you need to focus a lot in one of the aspects. DPS trumps the rest because it is needed.

Imagine content in top difficulties demanded more of each of these (and other) abilities than a single toon can pack right now.

Then, in a party, people could coordinate the needs accordingly without the traditional CLERIC NEEDED for 30 mins.

If you want people to respec on demand before a quest, then you need to A - simplify the system so that it can be done in 5m or less (not happening), B - make it cheap enough it becomes second nature (so much for plat/shard sinks).

If you want wholly impermanent abilities, then just say so. But, that's not happening. This is the most endaround thread to that point though.

ETA: Respeccing just one Epic tree alone takes 5+ minutes (and that's unless you absolutely know what you want). You're simply replacing that 30+ minutes of waiting for a Cleric with 30+ minutes waiting for people to respec. Again, you're making the whole approach to content "figure out what you're going to do before you get inside, and then roflstomp". Missed the entire boat again. The whole problem with DDO content is "figuring out the approach ahead of stepping in the quest" is roflstomp easy. The only thing that's come close to addressing that very real issue (that then got the nerf bat) is Champions.

[BigErkyKid]

That still sounds like type casting (trinity style) players into roles, if I understand correctly your saying a bard can tank because he has the "balanced abilities" that let him tank? But if he has to give up his DPS or Healing to do that well that's exactly what trinity style requires, make a choice in what role you will play even if its not locked in at the class level its still trinity its just locked in at the AP or Gear or xxx level.

Allow for 2 - 3 builds per character that can be switched at will.

DDO has enough abilities in most classes to make pretty fun and creative parties.

[BigErkyKid]

If you want people to respec on demand before a quest, then you need to A - simplify the system so that it can be done in 5m or less (not happening), B - make it cheap enough it becomes second nature (so much for plat/shard sinks).

If you want wholly impermanent abilities, then just say so. But, that's not happening. This is the most endaround thread to that point though.

It is for free in LOTRO.

You just save the abilities in a pre made tab and then can switch between tabs in 5 seconds.

Gear swaps shouldn't be so painful.

[Chai]

Nerf some of the most obvious OP classes, then start pushing new content that focuses on party cooperation. Not including stupid 2 lever mechanics, that is. Rather, making solo more of an art as opposed to the easy way out it has become for a lot of quests.

This means buffing support abilities to reasonable levels, but not requiring them as a must to complete. Let people get creative, stealth, brute force correctly applied, etc. All these should be possible but by no means the default invis run - fight key mob - ddoor next quest rinse and repeat.

If you think the battle is lost, well that's your take on it. I think Sev is a smart producer. I think that if the winds change, he will throw at us different proposals.

And 99% of the content in this game which was already designed will still favor soloing.

Its not the content itself which is designed to favor forced cooperation or not, its the resources given to PCs, as well as dungeon scaling. In order to turn this game into a forced cooperation game, they would first have to get rid of all major self healing, which would in turn make cleric, fvs, and druid party healers. You have about 6 years of "im not your babysitter" style feedback keeping this from happening. People playing clerics and fvs long ago began, and won, that fight, which then prompted Turbine to begin adding self healing for everyone else. You would then have to disallow all purchased consumables - so now the cleric and fvs aren't just party healers, they are curing your diseases and removing your curses as well.

If this happened, this game would lose so many players they would have to fold. Game balance was KO'd in the fifth round by play experience, because play experience is what retains players. To have a truly forced cooperation DDO would require completely destroying the current play experience (much of which is bought and paid for with RL cash) - which in turn would invalidate why many players even play DDO.

Keep in mind this is not my opinion on how I want the game to be, but the actual reality of the situation. If they tried to reduce everyone to a single role, like reducing fvs and clerics to party healers, theres not enough popcorn in the world to feed the level of fury which would ensue.

[Lonnbeimnech]

All I am asking from you is what do you purpose to fix the balance issues? How do you plan to do this in a feasible way? Telling people that are “wrong” or drink Turbine Kool-Aid because they do not agree with you is not the answer.

Coming up with an idea on how you would fix it would be nice to hear. Remember that your ideas for change would have to take into account the population. Turbine will not listen to an idea that will cost payers/players.

If it was more balanced like pnp was, as the barbarian/paladin/rogue/bard/etc were getting directions to the dungeon and packing their bags for the trip, the wizard would be sitting down in a comfy chair with his feet up smoking a pipe by the fireplace in his tower, looking into a scrying pool and instakilling whatever purple name they were asked to stop.

[MadCookieQueen]

...the creator of the Pale Master Guide is building wizards with melee capacity to deal with red named mobs Melee wizard.

*sigh*

there's actually a history with that build...

Before MotU came out I wanted a Shadovar, based on my several year old PnP Monk of the Dark Moon (named Kodara). Andoris and I worked on that one...she was 12 Wizard / 2 fighter / 6 monk. Then MotU hit and she couldn't keep up (thank you insane amounts of divine punishments). The build was scrapped and I went to work on completetionist. I always wanted that build back.

Andoris kept refining his PM, being a good DC caster was something he wanted and he put the work into it. When the original Pale Master Guide was no longer being updated, he decided to write and maintain a new one; hoping to help others avoid his painful learning curve and endless testing.

Harper came out...I could have my Shadovar back. This time since we had years of playing and all his research on PMs and abilities we could attack the build head on and make it viable again. (White boards were damaged in the process...you should see the picture of it)

We started with the Shadovar Infiltrator. I still play her (modified) and that thread we noted the successes and the issues. As I played more and went through feedback he had a baseline to refine it into his Blade of Velashoon. Since he didn't need any more past lives, he skipped the trapper because the XP wasn't needed and focused on bringing out a bit more red name DPS, a worthy goal since red named DPS on a caster consisted of major kitting and 100 SP pots.

Those builds are not the markers for the game not being balanced. An unbalanced game would allow for DC caster to have excellent red name DPS without having to dip into other classes or pile through resources. If you want to "solve" a class weakness you have to focus on overcoming that.

That's not unbalancing that's creativity.

[Chai]

It is for free in LOTRO.

You just save the abilities in a pre made tab and then can switch between tabs in 5 seconds.

Gear swaps shouldn't be so painful.

This works well in WOW and LOTRO, but it is not needed in DDO. The reason is I can create a character that is both good enough at questing, DPSing, and self healing, as well as healing a raid if needed. In those other games, each spec is completely nailed down to doing one thing really well, at the cost of all others. Having 2 templates helps overcome that limitation by being able to switch quickly. I overcome that limitation in DDO by simply not limiting my build to being a one trick pony.

[Lonnbeimnech]

*sigh*

there's actually a history with that build...

Before MotU came out I wanted a Shadovar, based on my several year old PnP Monk of the Dark Moon (named Kodara). Andoris and I worked on that one...she was 12 Wizard / 2 fighter / 6 monk. Then MotU hit and she couldn't keep up (thank you insane amounts of divine punishments). The build was scrapped and I went to work on completetionist. I always wanted that build back.

Andoris kept refining his PM, being a good DC caster was something he wanted and he put the work into it. When the original Pale Master Guide was no longer being updated, he decided to write and maintain a new one; hoping to help others avoid his painful learning curve and endless testing.

Harper came out...I could have my Shadovar back. This time since we had years of playing and all his research on PMs and abilities we could attack the build head on and make it viable again. (White boards were damaged in the process...you should see the picture of it)

We started with the Shadovar Infiltrator. I still play her (modified) and that thread we noted the successes and the issues. As I played more and went through feedback he had a baseline to refine it into his Blade of Velashoon. Since he didn't need any more past lives, he skipped the trapper because the XP wasn't needed and focused on bringing out a bit more red name DPS, a worthy goal since red named DPS on a caster consisted of major kitting and 100 SP pots.

Those builds are not the markers for the game not being balanced. An unbalanced game would allow for DC caster to have excellent red name DPS without having to dip into other classes or pile through resources. If you want to "solve" a class weakness you have to focus on overcoming that.

That's not unbalancing that's creativity.

Also
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...-melee-capable
and of course
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...ial-build-post

[Chai]

All I am asking from you is what do you purpose to fix the balance issues? How do you plan to do this in a feasible way? Telling people that are “wrong” or drink Turbine Kool-Aid because they do not agree with you is not the answer.

Coming up with an idea on how you would fix it would be nice to hear. Remember that your ideas for change would have to take into account the population. Turbine will not listen to an idea that will cost payers/players.

This pretty much hits the nail on the head. Play experience is trumping game balance right now due to the sheer need to retain players.

Nerfing peoples builds after they invest time (and or money) to make them good will ruin play experience for players who will then leave. Making their builds more powerful periodically makes people continue playing, and makes others who left due to nerfs return.

Im all for hearing creative ways to maintain game balance too, but constant nerfing due to knee jerk reactions after every update is not the answer that keeps people paying into the system.

Favoring positive play experience changes also entices players who still play to dust off old characters they parked years ago because the character becomes relevant again. How many of these paladins and bards we see now were parked after MOTU came out in favor of playing more powerful classes, and then trotted out again when paladins and bards became relevant once more.

[myliftkk_v2]

It is for free in LOTRO.

You just save the abilities in a pre made tab and then can switch between tabs in 5 seconds.

The cost isn't the issue, other than a sink that could be removed.

The problem is your starting a multiplicity of threads about a particular "unbalanced" in your opinion set of selectable input options when you should have focused your thread on multiple build configurations that could be switched at will.

Which one do you think is easier for the developers to code? Just curious... because we know what one happens more often (and never solves the problem).

That solution also has zero to do with DnD. So you can't exactly hang your hat on DnD in this thread when your Platonic ideal represents nothing from DnD. Personally I'm not hung up on the DnD tension, so respecability would improve my experience (I often respec my Epic ones, but it's PITA each time I do it, and sure as hell wouldn't want to do it for one quest as a rule under the current implementation), but are the devs going to do that when your thread count is 99% "this is unbalanced"? Nope.

[Vint]

Allow for 2 - 3 builds per character that can be switched at will.

DDO has enough abilities in most classes to make pretty fun and creative parties.

My Bard currently has survivability, good saves, great DPS, awesome buffs/songs and full trap skills. Telling me that when I go into a dungeon with only one of those abilities will not fly well with the community.

Preliminary of course, but this would make a WF Sorc back at the top of the food chain. There will always be a toon that is more powerful than others.

[BigErkyKid]

This works well in WOW and LOTRO, but it is not needed in DDO. The reason is I can create a character that is both good enough at questing, DPSing, and self healing, as well as healing a raid if needed. In those other games, each spec is completely nailed down to doing one thing really well, at the cost of all others. Having 2 templates helps overcome that limitation by being able to switch quickly. I overcome that limitation in DDO by simply not limiting my build to being a one trick pony.

And isn't this the problem, that in DDO some toons pack everything is needed in exceptional amounts?

You could have 2 - 3 specs, one for soloing (ideally this would require sufficient of most abilities), and two for party roles.

As long as toons min maxed into an ability would be more powerful in it, this would increase the appeal of parties of min maxed toons. This cannot happen right now because speccing into raw DPS has little to no costs.

Which one do you think is easier for the developers to code? Just curious... because we know what one happens more often (and never solves the problem).

That solution also has zero to do with DnD. So you can't exactly hang your hat on DnD in this thread when your Platonic ideal represents nothing from DnD. Personally I'm not hung up on the DnD tension, so respecability would improve my experience (I often respec my Epic ones, but it's PITA each time I do it, and sure as hell wouldn't want to do it for one quest as a rule under the current implementation), but are the devs going to do that when your thread count is 99% "this is unbalanced"? Nope.

Coding multiple specs should not be that hard, in essence that's what switching destinies is. Just that it isn't enough.

DDO is a party adapting to collectively solve a challenge. So I don't see how this is not DnD.

So you are saying the devs would not listen to a proposal if it was good but coming from a poster who does not sugar coat criticism?

[BigErkyKid]

My Bard currently has survivability, good saves, great DPS, awesome buffs/songs and full trap skills. Telling me that when I go into a dungeon with only one of those abilities will not fly well with the community.

Preliminary of course, but this would make a WF Sorc back at the top of the food chain. There will always be a toon that is more powerful than others.

You have an OP toon that packs everything is needed in awesome amounts. If you want to keep that toon at the current level of power, kiss goodbye to both party cooperation. As the game stands, kiss goodbye to balance too.

I am not saying toons couldn't pack everything relevant to the game, just that a toon that does so should not be amazing at everything. Right now it is too simple to make builds that pack the best of the best in every ability without much of a trade off.

[BigErkyKid]

*sigh*

] Since he didn't need any more past lives, he skipped the trapper because the XP wasn't needed and focused on bringing out a bit more red name DPS, a worthy goal since red named DPS on a caster consisted of major kitting and 100 SP pots.

Those builds are not the markers for the game not being balanced. An unbalanced game would allow for DC caster to have excellent red name DPS without having to dip into other classes or pile through resources. If you want to "solve" a class weakness you have to focus on overcoming that.

That's not unbalancing that's creativity.

In a game where other archetypes can kill trash and DPS bosses in extremely efficient ways, yes it is lack of balance that a PM has to drink 100 SP pots.

He uses creativity (basically harper) to overcome that. Kudos, I am not taking this away from him.

[Paleus]

You know this game isn't balance properly when...
1) Your wizard only has to carry one spell, Mass Hold Monster, because it auto-crits...oh wait.
2) Your melee toon only has to carry one weapon type, vorpal, because 20 hits to kill a monster is faster than dps....oh wait.
3) Every character takes two levels of monk or paladin because....oh wait.

You know, I'm almost beginning to think this game has had constant changes to its balance, and the current situation will one too day be a footnote.

[Grailhawk]

You have an OP toon that packs everything is needed in awesome amounts. If you want to keep that toon at the current level of power, kiss goodbye to both party cooperation. As the game stands, kiss goodbye to balance too.

I am not saying toons couldn't pack everything relevant to the game, just that a toon that does so should not be amazing at everything. Right now it is too simple to make builds that pack the best of the best in every ability without much of a trade off.

I don't agree that every one is awesome at every thing. Most people spec DPS>Defense=Healing, some spec DPS>>Defense=Healing. If some one speced Defense>Healing>DPS they could be much better at defense than any other current build (yes it would be a paladin in the current game but they would be in sentinel instead of dreadnought or crusader) now that guy would be awesome at defense.

The thing is that right now content doesn't demand the Defense>Healing>DPS guy and if it did we would be in a trinity game.

[Thrudh]

Good! That would be awesome. I DO NOT WANT all classes to be like pallies and barbs (or bards).

Yes you do... You start the exact same thread over and over and over...

"I want all classes to be balanced... They must all do the exact same amount of DPS and must have the exact same amount of defense and self-healing"

That is exactly what you keep asking for in thread after thread after thread...

If you are a competitive player (what does that even mean in DDO?), then play the "best" builds...

As long as most any build can do well, there is no unbalance... My pure wizard has zero need to do melee or don heavy armor to complete all content. I have a melee character who does that...

[Thrudh]

I don't want this kind of OMPH. I just commented on how rogues are getting the short end of the stick.

Yes, I DO NOT WANT MORE OP CLASSES THAT PACK EVERYTHING ON THEIR OWN!

You'll excuse the yelling, I just want to be very clear.

Either you want Rogues to be buffed to do the same DPS and have the same defense and healing as paladins and barbs...

Or... you want paladins and barbs nerfed to be equal with rogues...

Which is it? Those are the possible solutions to your "problem".

If "rogues are getting the short end of the stick" is a problem, then rogues must get more power, or every class stronger than rogues needs to be nerfed...

To achieve "balance". Which one are you asking for?

[myliftkk_v2]

Coding multiple specs should not be that hard, in essence that's what switching destinies is. Just that it isn't enough.

DDO is a party adapting to collectively solve a challenge. So I don't see how this is not DnD.

So you are saying the devs would not listen to a proposal if it was good but coming from a poster who does not sugar coat criticism?

Have you seen their code, object or data models? You have zero idea what it looks like, and so, as usual, you assume the rosiest development scenario when it's well established fact that the code is a mess (which is why 'bugs' that seeming appear simple never get fixed).

In DnD you build your character as you progress, you don't rebuild him before every quest. That's nothing like most people's DnD experience, but as I pointed out, it doesn't bother me if the tools are simple and quick to work with.

No, what you missed was, if you post 1000s thread on unbalance of a particular class/skill/race/feature, the developers will tweak that one little number, down. Rather than build a system that people will immediately try to hammer to see if they can magically get all effects of all their saved builds to apply to their toon at the same time...

ETA: Try posting 1000s of thread on reactive quest systems, maybe you'll get a different result. We know what 1000s of thread on unbalanced single points in the game results in. Single point "fixes".

[BigErkyKid]

I don't agree that every one is awesome at every thing. Most people spec DPS>Defense=Healing, some spec DPS>>Defense=Healing. If some one speced Defense>Healing>DPS they could be much better at defense than any other current build (yes it would be a paladin in the current game but they would be in sentinel instead of dreadnought or crusader) now that guy would be awesome at defense.

The thing is that right now content doesn't demand the Defense>Healing>DPS guy and if it did we would be in a trinity game.

They pack everything they need in the amount that is needed to do incredibly well. It is rather obvious that the barbarian does not have the hjealing power of a cleric.

I am not for "requiring" anything, I'd like for it to be best to use a party of min maxed toons than one min maxed toon.

Right now, a single character can min max along ALL the relevant abilities. This is what I dislike and what we have been calling OP.