The Suggested Balancing Thread

[Malusny]

Dear Devs, Dear DDO

I don't care if I get banned for this thread but I will complain now. After all what I read within the last week, all the posts that many players made just to prove that many of your suggested changes are too much for us to take, I came to a very simple conclusion:

In order to make the game more challenging, you decided that it is easier for you to take a step back in the game development and nerf many classes rather than making a more challenging content. The bottom line is that either you and your team doesn't work enough or you don't have time to work enough. We seriously don't care because IT IS NOT OUR RESPONSIBILITY. We are your customers and we are unhappy because of your politics. I am sue that some players are happy now because their characters will not be outplayed by others so much but the bottom line is that you as Developers do not do your homework well enough.

The reasons are pretty obvious: previous updates were brought into life without enough testing. ( you say that you need the players to give you feed back - no! you need to study all the possibilities of character making yourself and not base your decision on a few or dozen or more of players who write and wine on forums something like "THIS CLASS IS OP!!!! NERF THEM!"

It is YOU who is responsible for all this and if you are loosing players and customers (eg. me - cancelling my subscription along with a few friends of mine).

You can say this class is outperforming another but the bottom is that you need to study it so well and deep that the players cannot come up with overpowering ideas. Sure, you want the players to have as much unlimited creativity in building the characters but what you did in the last few months and what happens now is UNACCEPTABLE to us.

I love you guys very much because you created one of the best games in online rpg in the world but just because you lack of your work in recent months to make things work perfectly fine for everybody, you must pay the price for it.

Like I said at the beginning. I am not enjoying any of suggested changes because the whole idea is just a step back so that DDO wouldn't have to create a new difficulty///keep the game challenging///make the players try hard to achieve endgame.

It is true that if the game is too easy, it doesn't attract enough attention and players quit easily.

You made the mistake of allowing that now you have to pay the price. I can be banned for all that criticism but I am sorry when I say - you seriously deserve it. I am sure that you can gain the player's confidence and loyalty to this game back again but not with the current development politics. The balancing is a step back, incomplete, not entirely well thought and overall not competent enough to be ready. Whatever you release should be WITHOUT A QUSTION reliable and fair. I don't see the balancing changes earn the status of being either reliable or fair and I doubt they will.


I will watch this game's development from time to time to see what is the company's direction but I will surely not pay for something that will be later taken away from me because of DDO's faulty politics and I seriously don't care if I get banned for writing this critical thread.

Cheers.

/Retiring player Malvito.


Has anyone noticed how many pages of complains did DDO receive about the suggested changes? I haven't seen a thread long as that ever before. So many players being unhappy to see the upcoming changes. That should make everybody realize something....

[Lemdog]

You're not the first to complain about this. I think the game was too easy. But these nerfs are not the way to do it imho

[Memnir]

[Hobgoblin]

[bracelet]

Has anyone noticed how many pages of complains did DDO receive about the suggested changes? I haven't seen a thread long as that ever before. So many players being unhappy to see the upcoming changes. That should make everybody realize something....

I think making the shroud blades insta-kill many years ago at the game's height probably generated more posts than this nerf. But I am not sure this team worked through that game shattering change. They may not realize what they are doing. Ignore the trolls, they do that to everyone.

[slarden]

Can't blame you for leaving at all.

I would feel better if the balance pass actually fixed balance.

It's very strange that so much time was spent revamping the classes only to go and reverse so much of their efforts. Imagine what could have been done if the class revamps were small tweaks rather than such big changes prompting a future "balance pass". Imagine....

[Blastyswa]

Agreed. I'm currently playing a 15/4/1 Paladin/Ranger/Fighter build (Melee/Ranged/Tank thing, SWF if it matters) on my main character, and loving it because of how much fun it is. I can reduce the precious cargo EE ship damage to <10 damage if I try, and I can do solo EE farming runs in ToEE to farm for my epic sapphire sting. If I zerg the heck out of a difficult quest? Dead. If I go up against EE Eudoxia and don't use my absorption items, dead. If I try and tank an EE FoTP dragon in quad damage mode? Dead. I've been playing for years and have 66 past lives on this character, with around 200 PRR, MRR, and AC and a calculated DPS at around 6000 without action boosts (similar to my pure fighter build). Is the character powerful? Definitely. Is it because Holy Sword is turning him into a magically invincible god shooting laser beams from his eyes for 30k damage?

No, it's because of a collection of things, including having items that I consider Best in Slot (Including some commonly agreed upon ones, like a MF Khopesh, Sightless, and Epic Litany) having many past lives (including Epic Completionist, which is a huge source of power) and meta knowledge of every quest in the game (My guild runs some of the less popular raids, so by every quest, I'm including Titan Raid, Ascension Chamber, and everything else of that vein). People are not dealing more damage just because of the perceived issues the developers are messing with.

I've been loving all the changes that have been made to the game (With the exception of warlock, but not the point). My 200 PRR 12/4/4 Monk/Paladin/Fighter cloth armor build hasn't become less powerful. My DC based casters haven't either, although some new content could definitely use adjusting on that front. People who I play with regularly still play the same end builds they played before all the changes (A lot of 6/6/8 Monk/Ranger/Fighters, some FvS split guy who does way better than I'd imagine, a few caster druids) and do better because of universal bonuses (like MRR) and gear bonuses (DoJ gear is a huge power increase if some of the better ones can fit into a build, and I'm actually using a piece or two from the Devil's Handiwork set as well).

Heavy Armor hasn't become the absolute mandatory playstyle for everyone. Neither has paladin. I'm definitely not sure what's going on with the idea that fighters should have the extra extreme defense, and I wish that Divine Crusader critical threat would be changed to a +2 bonus to compensate a little for how badly it's getting nerfed on any build beyond a 5% base crit chance, but I doubt all of these will be changed back, although I wish they would. I've gone on quite a bit now and done a little meandering, but basically I want to say I love the choices that have been added to the game. My old builds work significantly better, my new builds work WAY better than they would without all the changes that have happened, and basically any class and most splits can be made to work. Reversing changes that have had an overall positive impact on the game, in addition to changing core mechanics to the game are personally not just a step back, but a step back in which someone tripped while doing so and staggered backwards multiple paces, with the threat of falling over.

Oh well, with the rapidity of releases recently, these changes will likely be released as per the developers schedule without much being changed and with much complaining to follow as quite a few complainers about game difficulty realize more difficulty = less zerg. And so the cycle goes.

[Malusny]

..

[Nestroy]

Can't blame you for leaving at all.

I would feel better if the balance pass actually fixed balance.

It's very strange that so much time was spent revamping the classes only to go and reverse so much of their efforts. Imagine what could have been done if the class revamps were small tweaks rather than such big changes prompting a future "balance pass". Imagine....

We would have much less to be nerfed now for sure. And perhaps even less to complaint about.