Downtime Notice: 7:00 AM - 3:00 PM Eastern (-4 GMT) Thursday, October 22nd

[Basura_Grande]

any reason behind lossing the weapon melee power on TWF,
feels like another nerf to my monk to me.

Non-Monk TWFing is overperforming. The Devs know unarmed is in the bad state and will address in a futre update.

[Gothdom]

Oh Contrare!!!! I think this patch is great. They knew there would be backlash....I knew there would be backlash. Fact is, this is necessary to extend the longevity of DDO. People want "God Mode" but then stop playing when they achieve "God Mode" because there is no more challenge.

Regardless of how many people say "I'm Done", "I'm quitting", "I'ma find me another game"...etc...they all realize there is absolutely nothing out there remotely similar to DDO...so...most will be back....trying to get back to "God Mode". 6-weeks from now, the hysteria will die down and DDO will be healthier for it.

Good work Devs...we'll see ya in game.

I would agree with you if it didn't affect new players in a way that they will find lots of "favorite" builds from pnp unfun and unfriendly. This just goes back to why 1.00 didn't work as much as they thought. If you have a couple of past lives, or gear to share in shared bank, yeah, sure, it's ok, even if I despise what they're doing to TWF, but for a new player with no gear coming in.. Say they choose assassin... or paladin... the game will suck for them, they won't get near 20 and quit before they can even understand what this game has to offer. I'm sorry, but on the biggest picture, this patch is not good. It's good for any completionist. You find the game too easy? Wait for reaper mode.

This patch was made for an elite. If you find this game too easy, I dare you to make a Wisdom based pure rogue build naked run. No weapons allowed, only one piece of armor and a trinket. It's too easy, you should be able to do that no?

No? ahh, so the game isn't too easy.

EDIT: I'm not against the Balance, but this patch thinks nerfs = balance. I'm all for a postpone. Better to hold it off than getting some odd weirdo patch out that is so controversial.

[Kompera_Oberon]

The Devs know unarmed is in the bad state and will address in a futre update.

The problem with that statement is that there was a already huge pile of things in the category of "in a bad state" and yet this "balance pass" still managed to be placed at the front of the line while all those things are still ignored.

The history of the devs going "oooh, shiny!" and rushing off after some new project while leaving ignored a huge pile of stuff that has needed fixing for literally years is well documented. Unless a schedule is actually posted don't expect your unarmed fix, or any other fix for that matter, to occur in the short term if at all.

[Duhboy]

heh, ive been hearing this for 6 years.

So have I.... in other games that continually pulled this kind of sh*t. And they all fell through. Some people have already quit and went to other games and I don't blame them.

[blerkington]

heh, ive been hearing this for 6 years.

Hi,

The fact that it hasn't come true yet doesn't mean it never will. Let's not get too complacent here.

Then there's the issue of declining player numbers. Bleeding to death from a large number of small cuts is not really any better than a single massive heart attack.

Thanks.

[Qhualor]

Hi,

The fact that it hasn't come true yet doesn't mean it never will. Let's not get too complacent here.

Then there's the issue of declining player numbers. Bleeding to death from a large number of small cuts is not really any better than a single massive heart attack.

Thanks.

yep one day they will be right. I think you are reading more into my post though. it was just a comment i can say after playing for 6 years hearing the same thing every single update.

I don't deny declining numbers, but there is a lot more to it than one or two things or whats happening in the next patch. I do think some people are being a little over the top about the changes. all ive seen in these threads is "MY build will be broken" when it affects ALL melee and warlock builds. my characters will be just as "gimped" as the guy next to me. ill sound like a broken record, but I haven't seen any unplayable classes in 6 years despite the hundreds of changes. logging into Lamania and seeing not even 100 players logged in at any given time and some of them beating the snot out of a kobold for "testing" and using that as a true basis of information tells me that maybe people are just afraid of change without truly checking things out. keep in mind though that I have said my opinion on these changes and I don't like all of them, but I do like the intent behind it. I even suggested to Sev that I would PM him videos if character copy would work. one thing that Sev is right about is that some of the same people that suggested balance changes, even the most ridiculous of suggestions, have done a 180 degree turn.

[hunzi2010]

any reason behind lossing the weapon melee power on TWF,
feels like another nerf to my monk to me.

Yeppers, Agreed, my monk not only has no QP working, now has broken hand wraps and no PRR or MRR and now the unarmed main feats is also nerfed...
Looks like my monk will be put back into the closet yet again... to collect more dust.

Non-Monk TWFing is overperforming. The Devs know unarmed is in the bad state and will address in a futre update.

really???????? again confirming that my monk is screwed....

Here is an idea, if TWF is such a problem, why don't the devs simply fix this by making it class restriction, TWF and ITWF have min levels to use. we all agree on that.
well lets make it that monks and class x and class y are only allowed to use this feat. this way you wont have the powercreap because these uber builds wont be able to have access to even get the feat using splash classes.
Can you guys read in between the lines here what I am saying???????
I will give you a hint. A pally toon is a pally. a fighter is a fighter. a monk is a monk, a ranger is a ranger.
and for the people still not understanding, a pally isn't a ranger, a fighter isn't a monk, a druid isn't a rogue a barbarian isn't a caster.........

[EllisDee37]

all ive seen in these threads is "MY build will be broken" when it affects ALL melee and warlock builds. my characters will be just as "gimped" as the guy next to me.

You may have misunderstood those threads. Under the original proposal, not all builds would have been nerfed equally. Some would have been nerfed quite a bit more than others.

After the feedback in those threads, adjustments have been made so that now most builds will be nerfed fairly equally. (The notable exceptions appear to be non-rapier swashbucklers and knife assassins, who will be getting hit harder. Sev specifically said they plan to do something to correct that, but no details have been forthcoming and the patch goes live in ~12 hours, so...)

[jalont]

I would agree with you if it didn't affect new players in a way that they will find lots of "favorite" builds from pnp unfun and unfriendly. This just goes back to why 1.00 didn't work as much as they thought. If you have a couple of past lives, or gear to share in shared bank, yeah, sure, it's ok, even if I despise what they're doing to TWF, but for a new player with no gear coming in.. Say they choose assassin... or paladin... the game will suck for them, they won't get near 20 and quit before they can even understand what this game has to offer. I'm sorry, but on the biggest picture, this patch is not good. It's good for any completionist. You find the game too easy? Wait for reaper mode.

This patch was made for an elite. If you find this game too easy, I dare you to make a Wisdom based pure rogue build naked run. No weapons allowed, only one piece of armor and a trinket. It's too easy, you should be able to do that no?

No? ahh, so the game isn't too easy.

EDIT: I'm not against the Balance, but this patch thinks nerfs = balance. I'm all for a postpone. Better to hold it off than getting some odd weirdo patch out that is so controversial.

What is different now? Even with the nerfs, new players will still be much, much, much more powerful that players who started less than two years ago. Meanwhile, there are very few new heroic quests. What is different NOW than was different for the other 8 years of the game's life before all these buffs took place? Looking at all the data we have, the buffs are what lead to a decrease in population, not the state of difficulty prebuffs. In fact, the game had a much, much higher population when it was more challenging.

[Qhualor]

You may have misunderstood those threads. Under the original proposal, not all builds would have been nerfed equally. Some would have been nerfed quite a bit more than others.

After the feedback in those threads, adjustments have been made so that now most builds will be nerfed fairly equally. (The notable exceptions appear to be non-rapier swashbucklers and knife assassins, who will be getting hit harder. Sev specifically said they plan to do something to correct that, but no details have been forthcoming and the patch goes live in ~12 hours, so...)

you are the second person to say that I said equally or the same. I am not saying that at all. these changes affect every melee build in different ways.

[blerkington]

yep one day they will be right. I think you are reading more into my post though. it was just a comment i can say after playing for 6 years hearing the same thing every single update.

...

one thing that Sev is right about is that some of the same people that suggested balance changes, even the most ridiculous of suggestions, have done a 180 degree turn.

Hi,

Fair enough to the first part of your post.

I think the second part of your post I've quoted contains one of those false comparisons which are so popular and so misused on the forums. That's because the devil is very much in the detail.

People asking for nerfs all have different ideas of what they should be, and why they should be implemented. Saying that people have been asking for nerfs and then mocking them for not being satisfied with just any nerf makes no sense at all.

My main gripes with this balance pass aren't with the intention, but with the method. I think communication has been done poorly, testing (theirs and ours) is insufficient, they've missed nerfs which are badly needed and gone too far with others. I don't think they are giving adequate consideration to alternative solutions and have misrepresented the extent to which some nerfs will affect us.

So although I don't think your remarks were specifically directed at me, I'm an example of someone who thinks some nerfs were needed, but that the way it's being done now is a complete shambles. Judging by what I see on the forums, in party chat, and in channel, I'm far from alone in this belief.

Nerfing may sometimes be a necessity, but a lot of the pain could have been avoided if the developers had listened to people who warned them early on that they were adding too much power, and that there would be serious balance consequences later on. Those consequences would require lots of nerfing or lots more buffing and a content rebalance. It didn't take a genius to see that, yet somehow months were wasted figuring this out.

The other key point about nerfs is if you're going to do them, do them quickly and do them right. Don't let people become accustomed to the new build, because the longer you leave it, the more attached they become and the more effort they've spent gearing it up. Again, not rocket science, but something which the developers either don't understand or feel safe to ignore. The way they've handled this has pretty much guaranteed maximum dissatisfaction.

Thanks.

[EllisDee37]

you are the second person to say that I said equally or the same. I am not saying that at all. these changes affect every melee build in different ways.

You did say it. I quoted it. Here it is again:

my characters will be just as "gimped" as the guy next to me.

This statement is only true if the nerfs are equal or the same. (By and large they are now, thanks to player feedback, with a few notable exceptions. I also forgot Vanguards, who are getting extra nerfed by design.)

[Qhualor]

You did say it. I quoted it. Here it is again:

This statement is only true if the nerfs are equal or the same. (By and large they are now, thanks to player feedback, with a few notable exceptions. I also forgot Vanguards, who are getting extra nerfed by design.)

just as gimped as the next guy does not mean equally gimped. im not going to play forum word games.

[EllisDee37]

just as gimped as the next guy does not mean equally gimped. im not going to play forum word games.

Fair enough on not playing word games, but in English that's exactly what that phrase means. It's equivalent to "no more no less."

Put it this way: If the guy next to you got a much bigger nerf than you, are you just as "gimped" as him? Clearly not. He was gimped more.

[Qhualor]

Hi,

Fair enough to the first part of your post.

I think the second part of your post I've quoted contains one of those false comparisons which are so popular and so misused on the forums. That's because the devil is very much in the detail.

People asking for nerfs all have different ideas of what they should be, and why they should be implemented. Saying that people have been asking for nerfs and then mocking them for not being satisfied with just any nerf makes no sense at all.

My main gripes with this balance pass aren't with the intention, but with the method. I think communication has been done poorly, testing (theirs and ours) is insufficient, they've missed nerfs which are badly needed and gone too far with others. I don't think they are giving adequate consideration to alternative solutions and have misrepresented the extent to which some nerfs will affect us.

So although I don't think your remarks were specifically directed at me, I'm an example of someone who thinks some nerfs were needed, but that the way it's being done now is a complete shambles. Judging by what I see on the forums, in party chat, and in channel, I'm far from alone in this belief.

Nerfing may sometimes be a necessity, but a lot of the pain could have been avoided if the developers had listened to people who warned them early on that they were adding too much power, and that there would be serious balance consequences later on. Those consequences would require lots of nerfing or lots more buffing and a content rebalance. It didn't take a genius to see that, yet somehow months were wasted figuring this out.

The other key point about nerfs is if you're going to do them, do them quickly and do them right. Don't let people become accustomed to the new build, because the longer you leave it, the more attached they become and the more effort they've spent gearing it up. Again, not rocket science, but something which the developers either don't understand or feel safe to ignore. The way they've handled this has pretty much guaranteed maximum dissatisfaction.

Thanks.

I haven't mocked anybody. I just pointed out that the balance pass is here and some of those players who kept talking about how easy the game is for months suggesting a variety of changes are now saying they will quit, cancel VIP, not play, feel forced to buy hearts of wood, feel forced into a different build, demand their time and money spent to be given back. I know not everybody is going to agree with balance changes and I even pointed out that I don't agree with all of it, but character power has been growing too long and too fast. it needed to slow down for the better of the game. its going to take some getting used to not seeing such high dps numbers, but its going to affect all melee builds across the board in a variety of ways.

I cant really speak on dev testing because they wont talk about specifics, but I reading these threads on how much dps and how fast players dps on a kobold is only a small portion of a characters power. environment testing in a variety of group settings is where you get more accurate numbers. math formulas is a good start, but it doesn't tell you the variables in an environment making it incomplete data.

I think communication has been great. as delicate as this pass is, ive seen Sev post a lot lately. he encourages us to log onto Lama and test things and tries to explain the changes.

yep, a common thing to happen in DDO. we tell the devs too much power and it takes a long time before they finally address it. its good though that they do address it eventually rather than never, right? now if they could react to the power creep and bugs and whatnot faster than they do we would have a lot less griping I think.

[blerkington]

I haven't mocked anybody. I just pointed out that the balance pass is here and some of those players who kept talking about how easy the game is for months suggesting a variety of changes are now saying they will quit, cancel VIP, not play, feel forced to buy hearts of wood, feel forced into a different build, demand their time and money spent to be given back. I know not everybody is going to agree with balance changes and I even pointed out that I don't agree with all of it, but character power has been growing too long and too fast. it needed to slow down for the better of the game. its going to take some getting used to not seeing such high dps numbers, but its going to affect all melee builds across the board in a variety of ways.

I cant really speak on dev testing because they wont talk about specifics, but I reading these threads on how much dps and how fast players dps on a kobold is only a small portion of a characters power. environment testing in a variety of group settings is where you get more accurate numbers. math formulas is a good start, but it doesn't tell you the variables in an environment making it incomplete data.

I think communication has been great. as delicate as this pass is, ive seen Sev post a lot lately. he encourages us to log onto Lama and test things and tries to explain the changes.

yep, a common thing to happen in DDO. we tell the devs too much power and it takes a long time before they finally address it. its good though that they do address it eventually rather than never, right? now if they could react to the power creep and bugs and whatnot faster than they do we would have a lot less griping I think.

Hi,

The false comparison I mentioned in my last post is one thing used to devalue the opinions of people who are critical of how this is proceeding. It's an excuse being used by certain staff at Turbine and certain posters on the forums to rob these types of objection of their validity. Lump everyone who disagrees together, no matter what their reasons, call them bad and ignore what they have to say.

It's just another version of 'they'll never be happy with what we do, so we may as well do whatever we want'. Freeing yourself from the burden of criticism like that must feel wonderful, but it is also very dishonest.

Talking about 'some of those players' means nothing outside of particular situations. If you are able to identify and count these people, it makes sense to their situations alone. Maybe you should address that criticism to those people in particular, rather than claiming, quite baselessly, it's somehow representative of a significant part the forum community.

I could not disagree more with your claim that communication has been great. My standards for good communication in an exercise like this include a methodical collection of, rationalisation of and response to all unique issues raised through feedback. The sheer chaos of the nerfs thread is an excellent example of how not to do work like this. The responses have been patchy, the extent of some changes have been deliberately misrepresented, and important issues remain unaddressed.

As for Severlin encouraging us to test things, that is laughable. The two opportunities to test the changes were short and at times which are inconvenient. Lammania is a preview server, not a test server, and the general lack of change between what we usually see there and what we get on the live server is all the proof you need. You are either kidding yourself about the extent to which player testing is valued or your standards are so low that you are mistaking tokenism for serious interest.

Thanks.

[Kompera_Oberon]

I could not disagree more with your claim that communication has been great. My standards for good communication in an exercise like this include a methodical collection of, rationalisation of and response to all unique issues raised through feedback. The sheer chaos of the nerfs thread is an excellent example of how not to do work like this. The responses have been patchy, the extent of some changes have been deliberately misrepresented, and important issues remain unaddressed.

As for Severlin encouraging us to test things, that is laughable. The two opportunities to test the changes were short and at times which are inconvenient. Lammania is a preview server, not a test server, and the general lack of change between what we usually see there and what we get on the live server is all the proof you need. You are either kidding yourself about the extent to which player testing is valued or your standards are so low that you are mistaking tokenism for serious interest.

Thanks.

Spot on.

+1

/signed

etc.

[phalaeo]

I believe that Cordovan is out of the office on business this week and Frelorn is filling in.

Can you blame him? If I had his job, I'd want this week off as far away from moderating posts as possible.

[Oxarhamar]

The DDO Game Servers and myaccount.turbine.com will be brought down on Thursday, October 22nd from 7:00 AM - 3:00 PM Eastern (-4 GMT) to release Update 28 Patch 1 and the new DDO Store. Thanks for your patience, and we'll see you back in the game soon!

New build prepped & ready for the changes on live.

[rockingsuphastar]

OK, here we go with the nerf pass. I think I will stock myself with enough popcorn. Will get funny the next days when those not checking in on the forums regularly and not thoroughly testing Lam before updates will find out their shiny builds and hard earned WLs will stop to shine.

We people critical to the nerf pass were vocal the last days. All is said now. Now let the protest games begin.

Will do the same hehe