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

[Thrudh]

Fix them to the point where the overall difficulty (trash + boss) is similar across classes

Egads, what a boring game... Why even have classes, if this was true?

[BigErkyKid]

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...

When you bring in arguments such as "people will hack the code" you are done wasting my time.

[BigErkyKid]

Egads, what a boring game... Why even have classes, if this was true?

Because they would play differently. And because you should try to understand what I said: "overall similar difficulty".

[Chai]

Because they would play differently. And because you should try to understand what I said: "overall similar difficulty".

What youre asking for is essentially Gauntlet, with better graphics.

It technically plays differently, but not really. I still move the character around using the same joystick and mash the same button to hit things.

I don't want the awesome trash killing PM who sucks at boss DPS to get better at boss DPS. I want that PM to have a reason to invite the rogue (someone who should be good at boss DPS) to the group.

[Qhualor]

Because they would play differently. And because you should try to understand what I said: "overall similar difficulty".

classes would play differently if they were similar in dps/heals/defense? for the most part, they already do. its more up to the player to utilize whats available to them. the problem is some people on here pull out an abacus and use "stand still" basic math beating on a ship dummy to determine what is "da best". every class should have its strengths and weaknesses, but it has been voiced since the enhancement pass that "no class should have a weakness and every class should be comparable to each other". uniqueness and trade offs of classes has been dropping off for quite some time now.

[Vint]

Egads, what a boring game... Why even have classes, if this was true?

This is my thoughts as well. So many players have stayed loyal to this game because of the customization that you cannot find in other games. If it is dumbed down to every character doing the same amount of DPS or having the same healing options then this place would be a ghost town.

[MadCookieQueen]

I don't want the awesome trash killing PM who sucks at boss DPS to get better at boss DPS. I want that PM to have a reason to invite the rogue (someone who should be good at boss DPS) to the group.

so then what...we should limit cross-classing and feat taking? Because that's what it takes to get okay not uber red named DPS on a PM.

There are always reasons to invite other people to group with you and there are reasons not to. That is solely in the hands of the player.

[Qhualor]

so then what...we should limit cross-classing and feat taking?

yes for every class where applicable.

[myliftkk_v2]

When you bring in arguments such as "people will hack the code" you are done wasting my time.

What do you think developers spend time on? A lot is spent making sure people can't break systems, whether on purpose of otherwise.

You know how much testing is required to change a single number setting, like let's say, +5 HP in a Enhancement tree option to the number +4. 5 minutes to find the value in the code or config file somewhere and probably never gets tested, nor needs to be. I make similar changes in systems that handle hundreds of millions of dollars and millions of code lines with similar aplomb.

Now, you know how much time it takes to build and test a system where builds (not gear) can be saved, and then reapplied at will, and not manage to be broken even when they know in advance people will try to break it? It takes analysis, development, and testing time. This for a company that has hard enough problems figuring out how to build a solid database structure that can't be corrupted.

You need to quit wasting our time thinking you know anything about the software development cycle, waterfall, agile, or otherwise. You can pretend you know how much work effort, but you've shown nowhere that you understand the process of how that work gets done IRL (showing a graph made by a couple lines of R gets you 10xp). Especially in what is a now 'legacy' code base.

Your time isn't what I'm worried about, it's the developers wasting their's (in a game shedding employees regularly) focused on your tree that your beaver threads can't stop gnawing on while the forest fire rages on over the hill.

[Vint]

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.

You are making my point for me.

I do not want “cooperation”. I do not want an optimal party. I want to solo (and there are many like me out there). Tell the other soloers that you are going to nerf it to make it harder for them and tell me how that affects the books.


If you do not want “best of the best”, you need to eliminate multi classing, and this will not happen.

[MadCookieQueen]

yes for every class where applicable.

To an extent we already have that...You can't be a Barbarian/Paladin or a Bard/Monk. Alignment restrictions do stop some of it. However fi you can meet the feat requirements you should be able to take the feat.


I don't want to see additional cross-classing/feat taking restrictions because that would seriously kill character customizing. If the game got into the you can only be this one thing and can't dip into these other things...then we might as well go play WoW.

[Grailhawk]

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.

But that is not OP having relevant ability that allow a toon to DPS, Heal, and Survive is not OP unless you are designing a game based on the trinity mode where the toon should only be allowed to do one of those things at a given time.

Trinity promotes grouping it also forces you to have a person to fill a role, if you don't want to force people into a role then you need to allow them to do all three at the same time.

Some abilities in this game are OP though Barbarian healing is looking op to me and others (the numbers are too high for how passive it is there is no DPS loss to heal), Displacement working with heavy armor is OP IMO (awsome avoidance and mitigation at the same time), there are a few others but given that they devs are raising the power levels of all classes there are not many of them. Barbarian, Bard, and Paladins are much better then the other classes but that is because they have had there passes not because they are awesome at every thing at the same time. (Thief rogue will be equivalent with these other classes once its pass is complete, Assassin is harder to tell.)

[BigErkyKid]

What youre asking for is essentially Gauntlet, with better graphics.

It technically plays differently, but not really. I still move the character around using the same joystick and mash the same button to hit things.

I don't want the awesome trash killing PM who sucks at boss DPS to get better at boss DPS. I want that PM to have a reason to invite the rogue (someone who should be good at boss DPS) to the group.

They should both equally decent overall, with different strengths and weaknesses.

That's all I said, don't put words in my mouth that say otherwise.

[Qhualor]

To an extent we already have that...You can't be a Barbarian/Paladin or a Bard/Monk. Alignment restrictions do stop some of it. However fi you can meet the feat requirements you should be able to take the feat.


I don't want to see additional cross-classing/feat taking restrictions because that would seriously kill character customizing. If the game got into the you can only be this one thing and can't dip into these other things...then we might as well go play WoW.

I was referring more to the PnP restrictions of multi classing. right now theres only a couple classes that are stopped only because of alignment.

[BigErkyKid]

But that is not OP having relevant ability that allow a toon to DPS, Heal, and Survive is not OP unless you are designing a game based on the trinity mode where the toon should only be allowed to do one of those things at a given time.

Some abilities in this game are OP though Barbarian healing is looking op to me and others (the numbers are too high for how passive it is there is no DPS loss to heal), ...
Barbarian, Bard, and Paladins are much better then the other classes but that is because they have had there passes not because they are awesome at every thing at the same time.

No, I am saying that toons should not be able to have awesome DPS, heal and defense. They should pick and choose among the 3. Of course awesome is defined wrt content mostly and then other classes.

Some abilities are OP. We agree. Remove them. Force people to make choices.

Do not allow toons to be awesome at everything.

Then it will follow that parties with focused characters are better for smooth completitions, while someone with suboptimal, yet still some considerable, amounts of the relevant abilities should be able to complete withs kill and patience.

In order to avoid the awful waiting for X, allow people to have a number of respecs they can adapt to each situation. DDO is flexible enough for that.

[Chai]

so then what...we should limit cross-classing and feat taking? Because that's what it takes to get okay not uber red named DPS on a PM.

There are always reasons to invite other people to group with you and there are reasons not to. That is solely in the hands of the player.

No - the point IS the multi-classing, which gives us the ability to steer our characters away from being one trick ponies. The PM needs to customize by multi-classing and using AP somewhere else other than wizard trees in order to get B level red named DPS.

Its in the hands of the player, but not solely. If Turbine cuts those options off the player cant use them regardless if they want to or not. That's the alternative to the customization we have now. Do people really believe that is a good alternative? Limit customization in order to vanilla-fie the game?

[Grailhawk]

No, I am saying that toons should not be able to have awesome DPS, heal and defense. They should pick and choose among the 3. Of course awesome is defined wrt content mostly and then other classes.

Some abilities are OP. We agree. Remove them. Force people to make choices.

OP ability's should not be removed they should be tweaked (nerfed) to work well, Barbarian regeneration should exist its just shouldn't be better then any other healing ability because it requires no loss of DPS.

Do not allow toons to be awesome at everything.

There not though you can build a better tank and a better healer in DDO as it stands now the game just doesn't need them, because it is not a trinity game.

Then it will follow that parties with focused characters are better for smooth completitions, while someone with suboptimal, yet still some considerable, amounts of the relevant abilities should be able to complete withs kill and patience.

In order to avoid the awful waiting for X, allow people to have a number of respecs they can adapt to each situation. DDO is flexible enough for that.

And that by definition is the trinity mode, which requires a player fill a role for smooth completions, which is not how DDO should be.

If you want to encourage grouping in ddo (which i don't really have an opinion on) then the trick is to raise the difficulty of the content (especial on hard and elite difficulty) so that having extra bodies makes things easier, not by forcing players to take a role.

[Chai]

They should both equally decent overall, with different strengths and weaknesses.

That's all I said, don't put words in my mouth that say otherwise.

I didn't. That's what your suggestion would turn into. Gauntlet.

There are plenty of MMOs which play like what you are asking here. People play DDO due to the difference between this game and those other games. The ability to build to account for all things and customize the character is one of the things that keeps this game relevant.

[Tinco]

In order to avoid the awful waiting for X, allow people to have a number of respecs they can adapt to each situation. DDO is flexible enough for that.

In the build-centric game DDO is, this would be horrible. The Heal-Tank-DPS character with the class split noone ever thought of and a personal twist here and there is the nirvana of the DDO reincarnation cycle, it's DDO's engine for many players. You completely underestimate many players' attachment to their build. DDO's focus is not on the content, it's on the characters. It actually matters how you theorized your class split, how you fine-tuned that one enhancement setup to work, how you spent months to puzzle together that one perfect equipment setup.

Honestly, f*ck balance by the numbers. It's a goal not worth chasing after, it's purely intellectual - and it's dishonest in its holistic intellectual approach, as many aspects of fun don't derive from balance, but the lack thereof. This game would not be better if all classes were within 5% DPS of each other all the time, it would be stale and boring. Let the recently buffed classes enjoy their stay in the limelight, in a few months there will be others on stage. Class balance is an ensemble, the leading roles change from time to time - and all is fine unless one member always has to pull the curtain.

[myliftkk_v2]

Then it will follow that parties with focused characters are better for smooth completitions, while someone with suboptimal, yet still some considerable, amounts of the relevant abilities should be able to complete withs kill and patience.

In order to avoid the awful waiting for X, allow people to have a number of respecs they can adapt to each situation. DDO is flexible enough for that.

Patience? What does that translate to in game terms? It take 2 hours to complete a quest where a good group takes 15m? The PL will just wait for an optimal character and you're right back at square one, waiting and not accepting most players.

And where will I store all this gear to switch between my healer, DPS, and CC roles on the single toon (a toon that is also TR'ing/ER'ing)?

And where will Turbine monetize their customers now that we only need 1 toon per player, since we can role switch at will. Will we need to pay a TP door fee to get into the quest?