Balancing is out of your numbers...

[Aons]

I see here and there some threads about balancing and rebalancing the classes...

I do agree of some points there but I didn't find that everything has been said. It's not all about the classes. It's deeply out of it in fact.

To continue reading, please agree with this first otherwise you'll just get bored...

First of all, I would say that enhancements have overpassed their initial functions, thus to enhance. They are now the biggest part of the build and provide unnecessary numbers to what is already OP. If at a time we could say that 4AP shouldn't pay more than a feat (thats a question of scaling and balancing here, deeply), what could we say now when we have some critical enhancer, some 100 HP bonus for a point (!), some metalline arrows when bypassing silver is an epic feat, etc etc etc... ? The list would be too long to be dressed up.

We all dispose of healing capacities, dps and defense. Here is the joke. Here The licence of DnD has burnt! This game has forgotten its RPG source through amateurs mechanics. In fact, the project leader is a simple mechanician I am sure. Excel is your king. Unfortunately, this game was offering dps from sources, defenses from sources, heals from sources... and all those have been ignored overtime. And we continue buffing all and all. This is a lack of understanding, a lack of project, a lack of perspective, a lack of ideas, a lack of correspondance with the DnD worlds (the mechanics as well as the mind of it). The quantity of work is not helping the community atm. It is unbalancing the system like never before.

Talking about melee classes, DnD was about that:
Fighter, Paladin, Barbarian, and Monk. Those classes have NEVER been equal in any range in DnD and their powers were balanced according to situations.

DPS like : Barbarian > Fighter > Monk > Paladin. Yeah, it hurts. But the build comes to modify those basics. Paladin is (in DnD) the BEST DPS against Evil. Fighter can follow defense or dps ways, even combine them. Monk is an added piece that always had troubles to adapt to the system, as the psionics have been before him. He should be a light and fast attacker, dying like a rogue if too much engaged.
Defense like : Fighter > Paladin > Monk > Barbarian.
Adaptability : Monk > Fighter > Barbarian > Paladin.
Heals and restorations : Paladins > Monk > Fighter > Barbarian.

Now, the way we balance the classes overtime in DDO is heading to this : DPS|Defense|Adaptability|Heals and Restorations : Barbarian = Fighter = Monk = Paladin.
Good combinations will let you have easy builds through HE and EE (that is almost the case atm, few high level content excepted).

I could dress up the basics of casters and specialists in the same way, and I will give you the same conclusion.

My message to Turbine, devs or whoever can make decision there is : return to your basics, don't WoW it. Do not standardize.

Few points I would like to write before returning to work (dam, why did I open this forum?):

ED's are all opened to all. Wrong step. Wrong domain. Penalize XP to those who are not concerned. I can not imagine a paladin using fury. I can not imagine an artificer working in a workshop drinking the tea with a queen of nature. I can not imagine a fighter exploiting some dragon sources he never took care of for years in his life. I can not imagine a monk letting its meditation stages to finally serve a god and kill in its name whoever he is. I can not imagine well, you know...
In MMORPG there is kinda RPG in it. Respect it. Or call your game DnD Slash or so.

This is from my point of view, and those are basics that should be engaged to balance the thing. DDo needs a new Line, stop buffing and buffing and buffing. This is just too many buffs.

Like about the difficulties. Casual, well why not. Normal : yes needs one. Hard : well its mostly not hard, with all those buffs its casual or normal at best. Elite : sometimes elite, most of time just hard, eventually normal (ie demonweb mini chain)
I personally consider that EE is not EE as soon as it can be soloed. Then is it just hard? Thanks to all those players who have challenged the different chapters to finally bring on the table that it was not that hard . Completionists (more wisely challengers) need more challenges. They need, for part of them, to group up to make it. There are actually very few content in which it is necessary to group to make it (most of the time we group up and make it).
Can you, devs, give me some EE quests during which i need my healer? Where i Need my rogue? Where I need kinds of CC? Or should we continue, until bored, to play over and over the same quick EE games, follow, byoh and so on...?
With 4 levels of difficulty, we should be able to bring the wanted challenge to everyone.

I could write more, much more... But I dam need to work...

Thanks for reading, hope it can bring something and that it is understandable...

Yes and bring back more immunities plz, U killed those by the past. Iron golems are immune to lvl8 or less spells, etc... bring it back. That was unnecessary changes.

[FranOhmsford]

I see here and there some threads about balancing and rebalancing the classes...

I do agree of some points there but I didn't find that everything has been said. It's not all about the classes. It's deeply out of it in fact.

To continue reading, please agree with this first otherwise you'll just get bored...

I'm not sure what to agree with but I read on anyway and didn't get bored.

First of all, I would say that enhancements have overpassed their initial functions, thus to enhance. They are now the biggest part of the build and provide unnecessary numbers to what is already OP. If at a time we could say that 4AP shouldn't pay more than a feat (thats a question of scaling and balancing here, deeply), what could we say now when we have some critical enhancer, some 100 HP bonus for a point (!), some metalline arrows when bypassing silver is an epic feat, etc etc etc... ? The list would be too long to be dressed up.

Yes many Enhancements are broken OP if you're comparing them one v one against Feats.
Or should I say "Most Feats need Buffing badly" AND "Clerics especially are Feat Starved to the extreme"

Metalline Arrows doesn't cost 1 AP either - It costs a minimum of 11!
I'm guessing your other examples also cost far more in total than you're making them out to.

I'm personally of the opinion that we don't actually get enough AP any more - We should get at least another 20 through Epic levels for a total of 100 at Lvl 30!

We all dispose of healing capacities, dps and defense. Here is the joke. Here The licence of DnD has burnt! This game has forgotten its RPG source through amateurs mechanics. In fact, the project leader is a simple mechanician I am sure. Excel is your king. Unfortunately, this game was offering dps from sources, defenses from sources, heals from sources... and all those have been ignored overtime. And we continue buffing all and all. This is a lack of understanding, a lack of project, a lack of perspective, a lack of ideas, a lack of correspondance with the DnD worlds (the mechanics as well as the mind of it). The quantity of work is not helping the community atm. It is unbalancing the system like never before.

Attacking the Devs and name-calling isn't going to help your cause!

Talking about melee classes, DnD was about that:
Fighter, Paladin, Barbarian, and Monk. Those classes have NEVER been equal in any range in DnD and their powers were balanced according to situations.

DPS like : Barbarian > Fighter > Monk > Paladin. Yeah, it hurts. But the build comes to modify those basics. Paladin is (in DnD) the BEST DPS against Evil. Fighter can follow defense or dps ways, even combine them. Monk is an added piece that always had troubles to adapt to the system, as the psionics have been before him. He should be a light and fast attacker, dying like a rogue if too much engaged.
Defense like : Fighter > Paladin > Monk > Barbarian.
Adaptability : Monk > Fighter > Barbarian > Paladin.
Heals and restorations : Paladins > Monk > Fighter > Barbarian.

If you die in PnP then most of the time you'll be rolling up a new character - Why would anyone play a Rogue or a Monk if they die all the time?

Psionics actually worked well in 2nd Ed. except for the Telepathic Dueling rules which were a mess.

PnP was about role-play and many of the restrictions that balanced OP Builds were role-play related {Barbarians and Rangers were loathe to enter cities for example}.

Now, the way we balance the classes overtime in DDO is heading to this : DPS|Defense|Adaptability|Heals and Restorations : Barbarian = Fighter = Monk = Paladin.
Good combinations will let you have easy builds through HE and EE (that is almost the case atm, few high level content excepted).

90%+ of Players have never even stepped into an EE! {Heck most will leave before they get into double figures!}.

For those who've got to that level, built up past lives, geared up AND got a group of like minded individuals to run with OF COURSE it's not going to be a challenge any longer!
Too easy however is purely subjective - I've been playing for over 5 years and find EE to be incredibly difficult!

I could dress up the basics of casters and specialists in the same way, and I will give you the same conclusion.

Casters have their own problems.

Rogues and Bards have just been buffed.

Artis are massively front-loaded and get weaker and weaker past about Lvl 13!

My message to Turbine, devs or whoever can make decision there is : return to your basics, don't WoW it. Do not standardize.

Thankfully this game will never be a WoW clone - Not sure what you mean by standardize here either?

Few points I would like to write before returning to work (dam, why did I open this forum?):

ED's are all opened to all. Wrong step. Wrong domain. Penalize XP to those who are not concerned. I can not imagine a paladin using fury. I can not imagine an artificer working in a workshop drinking the tea with a queen of nature. I can not imagine a fighter exploiting some dragon sources he never took care of for years in his life. I can not imagine a monk letting its meditation stages to finally serve a god and kill in its name whoever he is. I can not imagine well, you know...
In MMORPG there is kinda RPG in it. Respect it. Or call your game DnD Slash or so.

I couldn't agree more!

However: It's too late now to close that stable door!

This is from my point of view, and those are basics that should be engaged to balance the thing. DDo needs a new Line, stop buffing and buffing and buffing. This is just too many buffs.

So...Buff up Pallies, Bards, Barbs and Rogues but leave the rest of the classes where they are?

NO!

I wish the Devs would move faster on this class balance project but we have to let them finish it now they're started!

Like about the difficulties. Casual, well why not. Normal : yes needs one. Hard : well its mostly not hard, with all those buffs its casual or normal at best. Elite : sometimes elite, most of time just hard, eventually normal (ie demonweb mini chain)
I personally consider that EE is not EE as soon as it can be soloed. Then is it just hard? Thanks to all those players who have challenged the different chapters to finally bring on the table that it was not that hard . Completionists (more wisely challengers) need more challenges. They need, for part of them, to group up to make it. There are actually very few content in which it is necessary to group to make it (most of the time we group up and make it).
Can you, devs, give me some EE quests during which i need my healer? Where i Need my rogue? Where I need kinds of CC? Or should we continue, until bored, to play over and over the same quick EE games, follow, byoh and so on...?
With 4 levels of difficulty, we should be able to bring the wanted challenge to everyone.

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what those difficulties represent.

Elite should probably never have been named Elite in the first place as that name alone has led to this.

Elite is the standard difficulty for many reasons - If you truly want an Extreme Challenge difficulty then you'll have to accept that that difficulty is for the Challenge alone!


As for Requiring a group and certain classes to be in that group? Well...The only real way to do that for ALL Players is to put in systems like in Xorian Cypher, Burning Heart and VoN 5 that absolutely require multiple players! {End-Game so no Hirelings allowed}.
And whenever that is suggested it gets shot down by the "Everyone must be able to solo everything" and "what about the casual player who doesn't have time to find groups" crowd!


There's too much of a gap in DDO between the top 10% or whatever number you want to put on it {it's probably more like 1% in my view} and everyone else!

Yes...Given time and effort we can all get there {some day} but that's why I have suggested the Devs get a "Mythic" End-Game in place ASAP as more and more players are hitting that point and going "so what now?".

[fmalfeas]

Can't imagine a paladin in Fury? Have you ever heard the phrase 'Wrath of the Righteous'? Wrath is a term for massive, uncontrolled or barely controlled anger/fury. Which is pretty much Fury of the Wild.

A paladin just wouldn't /call/ it Fury of the Wild. They'd call it something like Fury of Torm, (or for an elven archer paladin) Rage of Shevurash. (A Tyranny Paladin/Blackguard may call it 'The Hatred of The Black Hand')

[Lonnbeimnech]

Can't imagine a paladin in Fury? Have you ever heard the phrase 'Wrath of the Righteous'? is a term for massive, uncontrolled or barely controlled anger/fury. Which is pretty much Fury of the Wild.

So he would use fury of the wild.

A paladin just wouldn't /call/ it Fury of the Wild. They'd call it something like Fury of Torm, (or for an elven archer paladin) Rage of Shevurash. (A Tyranny Paladin/Blackguard may call it 'The Hatred of The Black Hand')

Oh, so he wouldn't use it then... smh

Or do you mean that because an anti-paladin might use an ability that isn't fury of the wild that a paladin would?

[Aons]

Can't imagine a paladin in Fury? Have you ever heard the phrase 'Wrath of the Righteous'? Wrath is a term for massive, uncontrolled or barely controlled anger/fury. Which is pretty much Fury of the Wild.

A paladin just wouldn't /call/ it Fury of the Wild. They'd call it something like Fury of Torm, (or for an elven archer paladin) Rage of Shevurash. (A Tyranny Paladin/Blackguard may call it 'The Hatred of The Black Hand')

You got it wrong, or I expressed it badly. I wanted to say that a paladin has nothing to match with savagery, including this savage fury. The line of enhancements and ED should probably stick with chivalry, code of honor, glory to king, glory to god(s), smite evil in different forms, protection of the weak, and so on... those religious and fanatic paths have nothing to match with chaos and barbarian ways of the mentioned ED... LAW and GOODNESS are all for a paladin, any ED not mentionning and including those SHOULD be forbidden to him.

But from mathematical and mechanical point of view, everything is possible...