Rather than one-shotting everyone nerf our self healing

[GlassCannon]

... Screwing with self healing wont fix this, there is no perks or benefits to having a diversified party., the game has shifted away from group dynamic to self survival.

And this (the game being about self healing and soloists) is precisely what should NOT happen.

Thus my comment about miscalibrating the general game for metagamers.

[GlassCannon]

Not the same, in old Epics you could take 2 hits. you only got insta-killed if you didn't have fortification and were squishy.

being hit by multiple mobs at the same time would get you beaten to death without CC.

While I don't think the dispute is about teamwork and aggro management, the issue is getting one shotted for 2k damage with 100 PRR.
unavoidable one shot mechanics are just annoying and will generate more rage quitting than back to the drawing board for party planning challenge/strategy.
If you cant avoid or mitigate the insta-kill then it is not a challenge to be defeated, it is a screwit/rezfest.

Old school challenges gave options to avoid impending doom attacks for those not capable of toe to toe facing the threat.
Von6 is the prime example.. there were rocks to hid behind, but you couldn't hide everyone there indefinitely.
vs
New version.. endfight DOJ.. bombardment.. 8k damage barrage if you are hit, circles don't represent the attack zone, everyone has to scatter and roll the luck dice... only high reflex and evasion will save you here.
generally its a near party wipe except the bastardized ranged evasion builds.. its not strategy, its beat the x down as fast as possible forgoing any concept of strategy or teamwork. brute dps wins, screw the balanced party mentality.

What they need to get back to is providing the benefits of having a balanced diversified party strengthen the overall team, not weaken it in favor of bastardized DPS brutes.

Old Epics were too extreme for the vast majority of players. Only a handful of people ventured into them and they eventually led more handfuls of people into Epics. Two hits to death was way too harsh for a lot of people (most of them have never posted on the forums despite my urging them to and now most of them have left DDO for good) and they simply were not OK with it but still enjoyed the endgame at that time. VON6 wasn't too bad on Normal and we had a great time raiding. DQ and Titan came out and we did DQ from time to time but Titan was just too stressful until the level cap raised. Then came Shroud and I saw a great exodus due largely to DR issues and drop rates. Grind was not a good thing.

Now endgame is One-Shots all over the place, especially if you want to follow friends and guildmates into Epic Elite because they aren't capped yet and need their Bravery Bonus. It's not uncommon to do What Goes Up on EE and see at least 50 total deaths in the instance, if it gets completed at all.

It's nigh impossible to get a group to do Hard (or Elite) Haunted Halls, the Epic Raids have to be scheduled in a Guild or you probably won't complete... endgame is a hot mess and now there's Epic Shroud and even more grindfest. Most of the current playerbase (there are still newbies coming in from time to time) is used to the grind though and would gladly face more Korean-style Maplestory level grindage for their precious lootz.

PRR needs a cap. MRR needs a cap. Heal Amp needs a cap. A per-level cap would work out fine. A nice formula (so the damage of mobs lowers sharply and the game becomes less stressful than marrying your only child off to a serial killer because she refuses to listen to reason) would probably look something vaguely similar to this: PRR Max: 20 + 2 per Heroic level and 3 per Epic level. Try and keep it below 100 so that the formula for PRR could be adjusted to be more sane and the damage curve for monsters can be less idiotically ludicrous. There is a point where Jackie Chan's famous image can't even explain the level of "What the ...??? My mind is full of f--!" generated by some of the things I've seen in-game.
As for heal amp... it's just a mess. Let's cap that stuff off at 150% for self-healing and 200% for inbound so we don't blow our healer's skulls off their shoulders.

I know it's blasphemy, I know it's Madness.

Sometimes I wonder just how much of Xoriat protrudes through the walls of Turbine's coder lounge.

Now, dear reader who is reading this post, it's time to have a sensible chuckle, especially if that last line didn't produce at least a smirk. Go lighten up and have a good time. You deserve it and need it.

[JOTMON]

Old Epics were too extreme for the vast majority of players. Only a handful of people ventured into them and they eventually led more handfuls of people into Epics. Two hits to death was way too harsh for a lot of people (most of them have never posted on the forums despite my urging them to and now most of them have left DDO for good) and they simply were not OK with it but still enjoyed the endgame at that time. VON6 wasn't too bad on Normal and we had a great time raiding. DQ and Titan came out and we did DQ from time to time but Titan was just too stressful until the level cap raised. Then came Shroud and I saw a great exodus due largely to DR issues and drop rates. Grind was not a good thing.

I have no idea what game you are talking about here with this comment.
Hundreds of people ran epic raids daily, LFMs used to be full of Raid night trains.
Especially Shroud.
Grind is a huge aspect of any MMO game, no one will play a game for long without grind., no programmer could keep up building content for a 'one and done' progression.
Every raid in DDO is based on grind. so are many of the quests.. anything that people want typically requires farming an grinding.

Now endgame is One-Shots all over the place, especially if you want to follow friends and guildmates into Epic Elite because they aren't capped yet and need their Bravery Bonus. It's not uncommon to do What Goes Up on EE and see at least 50 total deaths in the instance, if it gets completed at all.

EE WGU is actually a good balanced EE challenge.
There are no one shot deaths in there unless you get yourself targeted by a disintegrate by the boss and are a bit squishy.
Biggest risk is the assassins and getting flesh to stoned by the boss while kiting around assassin aggro while your party leaves you to your fate.
If you are dying 50 times in there, then you need a change in tactics and gameplay.

It's nigh impossible to get a group to do Hard (or Elite) Haunted Halls, the Epic Raids have to be scheduled in a Guild or you probably won't complete... endgame is a hot mess and now there's Epic Shroud and even more grindfest. Most of the current playerbase (there are still newbies coming in from time to time) is used to the grind though and would gladly face more Korean-style Maplestory level grindage for their precious lootz.

again, no idea what you are talking about here, Haunted Halls runs have no problem getting people to join... maybe its a server thing, on Argo is a quick fill for most groups..
Epic shroud will be a grind. and it should be, you are getting access to endgame worthy craftable customizable gear that every player can build to suit their toons.

PRR needs a cap. MRR needs a cap. Heal Amp needs a cap. A per-level cap would work out fine. A nice formula (so the damage of mobs lowers sharply and the game becomes less stressful than marrying your only child off to a serial killer because she refuses to listen to reason) would probably look something vaguely similar to this: PRR Max: 20 + 2 per Heroic level and 3 per Epic level. Try and keep it below 100 so that the formula for PRR could be adjusted to be more sane and the damage curve for monsters can be less idiotically ludicrous. There is a point where Jackie Chan's famous image can't even explain the level of "What the ...??? My mind is full of f--!" generated by some of the things I've seen in-game.
As for heal amp... it's just a mess. Let's cap that stuff off at 150% for self-healing and 200% for inbound so we don't blow our healer's skulls off their shoulders.

Caps may work, but seems pointless, building PRR and MRR is not an easy thing to do, heavy investment means sacrificing in other area's... like DPS...
besides PRR investment results in diminishing returns, it is not possible to attain prefect PRR.

50 PRR gets you 33.3% reduction in damage
100PRR gets you 50% reduction not 66.6% ...
150PRR gets you 60% reduction not 99.9% reduction
you would need a PRR investment of 19,900 to get 100% damage reduction.

Capping is pointless, any heavy investment requires giving up something somewhere else.

nerfing self heals andheal amp is a mistake, fix the problem, not nerf everyone else.
Clerics are the problem, they are not worth their weight in parties,

Clerics cant heal parties through one shot deaths
Most current content relies on massive bursts of damage in short duration fights, clerics are not suited for spell spamming, they don't have the mana bars to sustain it.
newer quests/raids have been stingy on shrines, and in some cases shrines are non-existant... another screw you to clerics...
Clerics gain no special boosts when using divine scrolls/wands.. they are just the same as any other class..
Artificers make better scroll/wand users.. and can toss mass effect potions for remove curse/poison/cures and for less SP cost than a cleric..
Cleric Mass heal has a long casting animation making it worthless in high demand situations and pointless in low demand situations due to expensive casting cost.
Clerics need capabilities that are of value to a party, currently they are weak.
Clerics don't have low cost SLA's for cures.. deity pacts could help here..
cleric enhancements are poorly suited for cleric needs, they are lacking heal over time, temp hp, many mass cures for things like pancea.
cleric spells are lacking and proportionately expensive resulting in quick depletion of mana bars.
cleric turn undead.. well it just sucks... clerics should be the bane of undead everywhere...
Theres a lot more wrong with clerics.. perhaps the balancing pass will address some of these issues, but I suspect cleric will still suffer form subpar syndrome.

I know it's blasphemy, I know it's Madness.

Sometimes I wonder just how much of Xoriat protrudes through the walls of Turbine's coder lounge.

Now, dear reader who is reading this post, it's time to have a sensible chuckle, especially if that last line didn't produce at least a smirk. Go lighten up and have a good time. You deserve it and need it.

meh... your humor needs work...

[sirgog]

In old epics, you were never one-shot. The most damaging spells were 500 point Disintegrates in VON5 but they could be strafed by a competent player. (Player HP was generally in the high 500s for non-melee characters, the 800s for melee DPSers, and the 1100s for defensive-specced melees).

The most commonly dangerous thing was DBFs from ADQ1 efreeti and Meteor Swarms from Chronoscope Abashai, which hit for about 400 but allowed a save, evasion, fire shield and fire absorb.

What was important was that self-healing could never keep up with incoming damage taken over time, and dedicated healers had three efficient heals - Heal on a 4.5s cooldown and 0.7s delayed onset (0.35 quickened), Mass Heal on a 6s cooldown and 2.5s delayed onset (including quicken, the spell could not be used without it), and scrolled Heal on a 6s cooldown and 1s delayed onset.

Heals beyond that required extreme mana expenditure and were never sustainable.


Notice the difference to today. Cooldown management was key. Now strategic use of cooldowns isn't important because time-to-death is too low.

As an experiment, I'd be interested to see how the present system played out if players had 1500 more HP and the mobs remain doing the present lethal levels of damage.

[GlassCannon]

Start putting caps on player capabilities to hit certain landmarks. 200 PRR should be nightmarishly hard to hit and only available at level 30, for example (and because 30 is a not-nice-number-to-divide-200-into why not go with something divisible by 30 then, like 180). Max AC should be 150 (5 per level). Max saves should be somewhere in the +2.5 per level area to cap out at 85 (to prevent things like Amskar's DC Over9,000 Flesh to Stone in What Goes Up on Epic Elite from ever being coded in). Max resists should be 100 (with only situational clickies ignoring the cap) and one may be inclined to also address the largest power creep of all: DPS. I would argue that our weapon output is significant when considering an average for monsters and the like but the Devs seem to want to give us an unfair advantage and inflate HP to counter that advantage.

Then we nerf Gear (spread the + out a bit, make Tomes worth just as much as loot) and turn our attention to some global modifiers that give monsters such maddening power.

At this point, after we've carefully nerfed only 1% of the population that we are building Epic Elite for, we can nerf bat the living hell out of Monsters.

That, or we can respect the First Life (and up to first epic life for a completionist) characters trying to get that Elite Bravery Bonus and not make everything hit for 2,000+ per swing with saves over 100 and HP in the tens or hundreds of thousands. Those silly-overpowered critters have their own special place in Player Hell: Reaper Difficulty.

[GlassCannon]

In old epics, you were never one-shot. The most damaging spells were 500 point Disintegrates in VON5 but they could be strafed by a competent player. (Player HP was generally in the high 500s for non-melee characters, the 800s for melee DPSers, and the 1100s for defensive-specced melees).

The most commonly dangerous thing was DBFs from ADQ1 efreeti and Meteor Swarms from Chronoscope Abashai, which hit for about 400 but allowed a save, evasion, fire shield and fire absorb.

What was important was that self-healing could never keep up with incoming damage taken over time, and dedicated healers had three efficient heals - Heal on a 4.5s cooldown and 0.7s delayed onset (0.35 quickened), Mass Heal on a 6s cooldown and 2.5s delayed onset (including quicken, the spell could not be used without it), and scrolled Heal on a 6s cooldown and 1s delayed onset.

Heals beyond that required extreme mana expenditure and were never sustainable.


Notice the difference to today. Cooldown management was key. Now strategic use of cooldowns isn't important because time-to-death is too low.

As an experiment, I'd be interested to see how the present system played out if players had 5,000 more HP and the mobs remain doing the present lethal levels of damage.

Fixed that typo for ya