Does multi-classing contribute to power creep?

[Pnumbra]

***PLEASE, LET'S KEEP THE DISCUSSION FRIENDLY***

I posit that much of the power creep does not come from gear, but on the illogical synergy between classes. D&D was made famous because of independent classes coming together to defeat their enemy. In DDO, it is a one-stop shop. That Barbarian/Monk/Pale Master, or Paladin/Bard/Fighter amalgamation swoops in and saves the day.

DDO has decided to support these builds and I wonder if such a decision is causing player unrest and distrust of the natural mechanic of the game. Personally, I find not "needing" a cleric liberating but selfish and counter intuitive. I have the same feelings about not "needing" a rouge, a spell caster or front-n-center muscle.

So what do you think?

[Grailhawk]

Multi-classing is not the issue, especially with the class pass a ton of the classes power has been back loaded into the capstone.

What it seams like to me is that you want a trinity style game where only a Tank can take hits and only a DPS can kill things, and only a healer can heal. That would IMO just kill the game as there is nothing worse then sitting around waiting for a healer in order to play.

The issue is not that every one can do every thing its that every one can do every thing equally well, meaning no sacrifices need to be made this is a direct result of having buffed Bards and Paladins DSP to high.

[Rawrargh]

Honestly, there's so much power in the level 18 and 20 cores of the revamped classes that it's hard to justify multiclassing for anything but flavor reasons on those classes.

Oh and in case you were serious, monk and barb are mutually exclusive, so is bard and paladin.

[nokowi]

***PLEASE, LET'S KEEP THE DISCUSSION FRIENDLY***

I posit that much of the power creep does not come from gear, but on the illogical synergy between classes. D&D was made famous because of independent classes coming together to defeat their enemy. In DDO, it is a one-stop shop. That Barbarian/Monk/Pale Master, or Paladin/Bard/Fighter amalgamation swoops in and saves the day.

DDO has decided to support these builds and I wonder if such a decision is causing player unrest and distrust of the natural mechanic of the game. Personally, I find not "needing" a cleric liberating but selfish and counter intuitive. I have the same feelings about not "needing" a rouge, a spell caster or front-n-center muscle.

So what do you think?

Easy access to tier 1-5 abilities causes balance issues. Multiclass itself is not the problem.

Bump the tiers up to higher minimum level and balance would be as simple as moving something OP from tier 3 to tier 4.

Tier 5: 12 levels in that class
Tier 4: 8 levels in that class
Tier 3: 5 levels in that class
Tier 2: 3 levels in that class
Tier 1: 1 level in that class

[Gremmlynn]

Multi-classing is not the issue, especially with the class pass a ton of the classes power has been back loaded into the capstone.

What it seams like to me is that you want a trinity style game where only a Tank can take hits and only a DPS can kill things, and only a healer can heal. That would IMO just kill the game as there is nothing worse then sitting around waiting for a healer in order to play.

The issue is not that every one can do every thing its that every one can do every thing equally well, meaning no sacrifices need to be made this is a direct result of having buffed Bards and Paladins DSP to high.

The way I see it is that those cap stones had to be loaded up to compete with the silly amount of synergy they built into multi-class. Mostly with the enhancement pass. they likely should have stuck to tier1=CL1, tier2=CL3, tier3=CL6, tier4=CL9 and tier5=CL12 the first proposed iirc. Or at least given enhancement abilities types so identical, or near identical things wouldn't stack to prevent multi-classing to double from allowing more of the same than what pures can get.

[salmag]

Easy access to tier 1-5 abilities causes balance issues. Multiclass itself is not the problem.

^^^^^THis is the problem with multiclassing.

Bump the tiers up to higher minimum level and balance would be as simple as moving something OP from tier 3 to tier 4.

Tier 5: 12 levels in that class
Tier 4: 8 levels in that class
Tier 3: 5 levels in that class
Tier 2: 3 levels in that class
Tier 1: 1 level in that class

^^^^^This is a very reasonable solution to the above problem.

[karatemack]

I don't believe multiclassing is a problem. The supported build complexity is one of the best things about DDO.

I still believe that there are three major contributing factors which determine the success or failure of any toon. (1) How you build it. (2) How you gear it. (3) How you play it. Of late, (1) has become much easier than it was in the past. This has closed the gap between people who were good at (1) and those who were good at (3). People who are good at all 3 will always be better off than people who only have 1 or 2 of these elements down.

[Grailhawk]

The way I see it is that those cap stones had to be loaded up to compete with the silly amount of synergy they built into multi-class. Mostly with the enhancement pass. they likely should have stuck to tier1=CL1, tier2=CL3, tier3=CL6, tier4=CL9 and tier5=CL12 the first proposed iirc. Or at least given enhancement abilities types so identical, or near identical things wouldn't stack to prevent multi-classing to double from allowing more of the same than what pures can get.

Out side of fighter/monk the situation was about the same even when u19 (enh pass) first hit.

Most classes cap stones were more powerful then anything you could get out of a splash, though at that time it wasn't so much more powerful that it was a bad choice to multi class for versatility. e.g 18/1/1 Rangers/Rogue/Fighters were seen as close enough to 20 Ranger that people would give up the 25% offhand DS for trap skills, this isn't the case any more, the pendulum has swung back to pure classes being better.

[JOTMON]

***PLEASE, LET'S KEEP THE DISCUSSION FRIENDLY***

I posit that much of the power creep does not come from gear, but on the illogical synergy between classes. D&D was made famous because of independent classes coming together to defeat their enemy. In DDO, it is a one-stop shop. That Barbarian/Monk/Pale Master, or Paladin/Bard/Fighter amalgamation swoops in and saves the day.

DDO has decided to support these builds and I wonder if such a decision is causing player unrest and distrust of the natural mechanic of the game. Personally, I find not "needing" a cleric liberating but selfish and counter intuitive. I have the same feelings about not "needing" a rouge, a spell caster or front-n-center muscle.

So what do you think?

No I don't think so, there is a cost to multi classing, building that synergy takes work.
Not all amalgamations are swooping in anywhere, it takes time, effort, tweaking to get the toon to the right place.

Multi-classing is the aspect that brings many players to this game, by being able to build a character the way I want it to play.. If I want a healer that can do traps , then so be it.. It may not be easy to do to do, but it is an option..


DDO is a complicated in-depth game that has lots of viable variables, not everyone likes this type of game, and that's fine.. there are lots of first person shooters out there, or other games where you don't need to think or research, just click next and go...
If I wanted to play a WOW like game I would be playing WOW, Elder Scrolls was close, but their MMO version failed to encompass the party concept and played more like 4 solo'ers in a chat group... NWN MMO had no depth..

If DDO were to lock in classes it would lose a large player base, Multi-classing is what brought me to DDO.. I wanted a D&D based game that let me build the toon the way I wanted.

[nokowi]

I don't believe multiclassing is a problem. The supported build complexity is one of the best things about DDO.

I still believe that there are three major contributing factors which determine the success or failure of any toon. (1) How you build it. (2) How you gear it. (3) How you play it. Of late, (1) has become much easier than it was in the past. This has closed the gap between people who were good at (1) and those who were good at (3). People who are good at all 3 will always be better off than people who only have 1 or 2 of these elements down.

I like build complexity and you make some good points.

The question is "Have devs been able to balance classes using easy access to tier 1-5 abilities?'

My answer is a big fat 'NO' after several years of class passes.

If Dev's want to spend the time to fix unwanted synergies and actually balance new classes and passes, I'm all for easy access to enhancements. This has been happening to some extent, but I see it as taking 3-4 more years before we have any sort of balanced game.

[Darkmits]

The issue is not that every one can do every thing its that every one can do every thing equally well at the same time, meaning no sacrifices need to be made this is a direct result of having buffed Bards and Paladins DSP to high.

Needed to add this. Being able to do everything isn't bad. Being able to do everything at the same time with 0 cost IS bad.

Multiclassing itself doesn't contribute to power-creep. What contributes to power creep are abilities (passive or active) that work multiplicatively together for a major effect:
Increase your damage by 100% for budget X. Total damage is 2x
Increase your attack speed by 100% for budget Y. Total damage is 2x
Increase your damage and attack speed both by 100% for budget X+Y. Total damage is 4x (instead of 3x).

Increase your hp by 100% for budget A. Total effective hp is 2x.
Increase your chance to be missed by 50% for budget B. Total effective hp is 2x.
Increase your hp by 100% and chance to be missed by 50% for budget A+B. Total effective hp is again 4x instead of 3x.

That's where power creep comes from. DDO has way too many such synergistic effects, not just 2 and 3 here and there.

So how do you "fix" that? Easy. Make higher values require higher investment. If +10 hp takes budget 2 on an item, +20 shouldn't take +4; it should take 5 or 6. If an attack with +1[W] takes 1 action point, then the same attack for +2[W] shouldn't take just another 1 action point, it should taken an extra 2. Not only that, but item budget availability on higher level items shouldn't explode as it does now.

[Gremmlynn]

Out side of fighter/monk the situation was about the same even when u19 (enh pass) first hit.

Most classes cap stones were more powerful then anything you could get out of a splash, though at that time it wasn't so much more powerful that it was a bad choice to multi class for versatility. e.g 18/1/1 Rangers/Rogue/Fighters were seen as close enough to 20 Ranger that people would give up the 25% offhand DS for trap skills, this isn't the case any more, the pendulum has swung back to pure classes being better.

Personally, I have no problem with that as I've always felt multies should do more things and pures do fewer but better.

[Pnumbra]

Easy access to tier 1-5 abilities causes balance issues. Multiclass itself is not the problem.

Bump the tiers up to higher minimum level and balance would be as simple as moving something OP from tier 3 to tier 4.

Tier 5: 12 levels in that class
Tier 4: 8 levels in that class
Tier 3: 5 levels in that class
Tier 2: 3 levels in that class
Tier 1: 1 level in that class

What I read, is that multi classing is but a symptom. The real issue is the low hanging fruit that multi classing allows access to.

[zwiebelring]

***PLEASE, LET'S KEEP THE DISCUSSION FRIENDLY***

I posit that much of the power creep does not come from gear, but on the illogical synergy between classes. D&D was made famous because of independent classes coming together to defeat their enemy. In DDO, it is a one-stop shop. That Barbarian/Monk/Pale Master, or Paladin/Bard/Fighter amalgamation swoops in and saves the day.

DDO has decided to support these builds and I wonder if such a decision is causing player unrest and distrust of the natural mechanic of the game. Personally, I find not "needing" a cleric liberating but selfish and counter intuitive. I have the same feelings about not "needing" a rouge, a spell caster or front-n-center muscle.

So what do you think?

Of course it contributes. But obvious and dangerous power creep only exists in ill balanced systems *cough* mob hp/immunities*cough*. Regardless with more options the power creep will eventually take place and good balancing will just push it back a little but not prevent it entirely.

So, the question is, how you want to support this trend? Will you grind the new shinies on LE and give in to FoTM high defense builds or do you want to play the way you want and decide to NOT need certain stuff? Balance is not given and I am highly suspicious about some voices demanding nerfs and their agendas.

[nokowi]

What I read, is that multi classing is but a symptom. The real issue is the low hanging fruit that multi classing allows access to.

Yes. It could be fixed without changing the min levels, but that would require a lot of programming time.

As a design decision, it would have been better to have higher min levels for enhancements and simply move abilities around as needed.

[Grailhawk]

Easy access to tier 1-5 abilities causes balance issues. Multiclass itself is not the problem.

Bump the tiers up to higher minimum level and balance would be as simple as moving something OP from tier 3 to tier 4.

Tier 5: 12 levels in that class
Tier 4: 8 levels in that class
Tier 3: 5 levels in that class
Tier 2: 3 levels in that class
Tier 1: 1 level in that class

Yes. It could be fixed without changing the min levels, but that would require a lot of programming time.

As a design decision, it would have been better to have higher min levels for enhancements and simply move abilities around as needed.

I disagree with this in general, IMO one of the best things they did was keep the 1-5 level limits. It opened up many builds that did not exist before the enhancement pass most of which were no better then builds that existed before, and it also took some of the complexity out of multi class making it more difficult to totally hose a character do to bad unthought out multiclassing.

[Tinco]

I highly disagree with your presupposition.

All class passes of the last year yielded a pure build among the most popular/effective builds for that class. Revised late core Abilities (18/20) have increased in power by a large margin. Multiclassing as the only way to make powerful non-caster-builds has disappeared, for better or worse. DDO in these days doesn't offer many different build goals - it's mostly dps. Survivability finds its way into every tree, self-healing is taken care of by EDs, trapping is a choice of flavour, buffing trivialized by items and clickies, etc.

So strictly speaking, yes, multi-classing contributes to power creep, because if you multi-class nowadays, you most likely do it for dps synergies. It's just that you don't have to in most cases.

[Discpsycho]

I'm with Grailhawk on this one, especially since the enjoyment factor for a lot of players is the flavor / customizability, which this level restriction would heavily cut down on. As Grailhawk also said earlier, the revamped pure classes are a lot more powerful thanks to cores 5 & 6, which I consider a VERY good thing. First, this makes classes easier to balance, 'cause developers have an easier time figuring out what builds min-maxers will shoot for. Second, it makes it SO much easier for newer players, who haven't yet invested the time or energy into figuring out the metagame, to have viable characters*.

Most MC'ed builds, like a 18/2 Barbarian Acrobat, manage to be more with only a slight deviation from the pure build and still manage to incorporate that bit of flavor - your barbarian trades medium armor's PRR for evasion and Storm's Eye for trap skills. Splashes of 3 or 4 levels (for the purposes of enhancements) tend to be for things like Sacred/Stalwart Defense, which add survivability at the cost of some DPS and therefore are also more new-player friendly. The only MC'ed builds with really absurd dps come from 5 or 6 levels of splashing for the T5 / Core 3 abilities - the ones that come to mind are SWF/TWF wolves, tree builds, repeater paladins, Tempest paladins (which are admittedly a little less popular since the Holy Sword nerf). The first two of these involve bug exploitation that would be fixed in a way less drastic than more rigid PrE-level requirements. Repeater paladins are less appealing since the Mechanic pass, which empowers GC to comparable levels. Tempest paladins are less popular now that DWS is a decent tree and Core 4's for both DWS and Tempest grant crit boosts.

That being said, I'd love some links to other builds that are currently overpowered and multiclassed that would become impossible if we were to impose rigid PrE-level restrictions. If there were any particular examples that inspired comments in favor of the original post (or even the first post itself), don't hesitate to reply if they'd help the discussion or send me a PM if they wouldn't.


*Personal anecdote: I first started playing DDO in early 2011, before the major enhancement pass. I gave up around level 6 because the enhancement trees required more research than I was willing to put in - even for something as simple as a pure cleric, I had to look up the prerequisites for the various core enhancements. When I came back to the game in late 2012 / early 2013, the enhancement pass made it manageable for me to have at least semi-viable characters (even though my theorycrafting / actual game knowledge was awful).

[karatemack]

I mostly play pure builds as that's my preference. The one exception to this, for a long time, was my archer. I spent a long time working out the right combo of ranger/fighter/monk/rogue (various combinations of these classes) to try to build the perfect archer. After the ranged pass I considered going pure ranger because that's now a viable option as well. I still like the way my "ranger" plays so I didn't. My point is, now there are options. You can make a viable archer by going pure OR by multiclassing. There's variety, and that's a good thing.

[salmag]

The only MC'ed builds with really absurd dps come from 5 or 6 levels of splashing for the T5 / Core 3 abilities - the ones that come to mind are SWF/TWF wolves, tree builds, repeater paladins, Tempest paladins (which are admittedly a little less popular since the Holy Sword nerf).

This statement of yours is exactly what the OP is talking about. Multiclassing contributes to power creep. If you wish to lessen that power creep, a good way to start is with Nokowi's suggestion

Bump the tiers up to higher minimum level and balance would be as simple as moving something OP from tier 3 to tier 4.

Tier 5: 12 levels in that class
Tier 4: 8 levels in that class
Tier 3: 5 levels in that class
Tier 2: 3 levels in that class
Tier 1: 1 level in that class

or with Gremmlyn's

Mostly with the enhancement pass. they likely should have stuck to tier1=CL1, tier2=CL3, tier3=CL6, tier4=CL9 and tier5=CL12 the first proposed iirc. Or at least given enhancement abilities types so identical, or near identical things wouldn't stack to prevent multi-classing to double from allowing more of the same than what pures can get.

Darkmits also brings up a good point.

Needed to add this. Being able to do everything isn't bad. Being able to do everything at the same time with 0 cost IS bad.

If the Devs would've followed these guidelines back when they started the enhancement trees, we probably would have mobs with less hps, less DC's, etc. and the game would not be so dependent on DPS. Other tactics would become more viable.

Some weapons wouldn't become so obsolete, or useless either.

Of course, Min/Maxers will ALWAYS find ways to power creep.