Upcoming Systems Changes for U36

[Phoenicis]

Oh yeah and yeah dont like too bad

Already seen tons of videos of melees in r10s so

Welcome to the world of monks and casters balance all around

All they need is to give melees some heroic cc options and it would work just about the same

I would rather boost melees then nerf others

Considering mobs are casters and never seem to run out i guess that would work the same as well

Gear and feats and enhancements could easily be used to replenish stamina same as casters or monk ki regens

I'd say every vorp crit alone would be enough for stamina regen n ofc they should sell stamina pots why there not is crazy just milk casters right

I play Monks. Ki doesn't affect basic attacks, in fact Ki is generated by basic attacks. Stamina on monks would limit their Ki generation, which you imply is already problematic (Which I agree with to a degree).

Oh, JUST add a whole new class of melee abilities? Yes, I can see a whole new line of melee CC, area knockdowns, area stuns. That about covers what is logical for melee, no?

Stamina bars are a boost to Melee? Ummmm, no. Adding more cc? Yeah, that I can see as a boost.

Oh the joy. Melee mobs getting access to area stuns and knockdowns. Casters aren't the only ones that can CC the party now. Well, people DO say they want more challenge.

Gear and feats and enhancements for Stamina regen? OK, and what defensive/dps gear and feats and enhancements are you gonna NOT take so that you can stay in the fight longer? And if you can show me feats and enhancements that allow SP to regen I'll be impressed (I know about the what, four pieces of gear that allow some SMALL amounts of SP to be regenned)

Vorp crits replenish stamina? So why wouldn't a critical spellcast replenish SP (I can see THAT one coming a mile away, and stamina isn't even a thing.)

[KoobTheProud]

Perhaps they "decided (emphasis mine) on another round of warlock changes well before all this racial and Reaper efficiency jazz," , but then they didn't implement another round of warlock changes until RTR and Reaper were introduced. And while you can of course try to excuse the long delay between that decision and that implementation, the fact remains that it clearly wasn't important enough for them to actually do more than think about until RPL and Reaper were released.

It wasn't important enough for them to do something about until 6 months after RPL and Reaper were introduced and they had the numbers on how many people were switching to Warlocks to make the grinds faster and easier.

I don't actually care all that much about the nerfs in this go-round and I don't doubt more are on the way. They'll be joined by a series of nerfs to other classes that will have the stated intention of restoring balance to the game but which will really be designed to keep the grinds from becoming trivial. The problem with the approach is that the current grinds are only trivial for players playing the OP classes who also have a lot of past lives, gear acquired, meta knowledge and other benefits from years of playing the game - now including Reaper XP and the boosts that gives.

Nerfing Warlocks just makes easier access to the grind less likely for people not in category A above. It doesn't do much of anything to the people who are already trivializing those grinds. For one thing a lot of those people are nearing the end of the grind process. For another they have many ways to blow through those grinds anyway. Nerfing Warlocks doesn't do much, if anything, to the players who already have most of the benefits that long-term grinding produces.

I could get behind a serious power reduction in the overall meta if it was designed to create a balanced and fun game that encouraged social play and diversity in play styles. The problem is that this is not achievable in an environment in which past lives, particularly Epic Past Lives and Reaper Cores, are going to create vastly more powerful characters than the average person can put together. Content that challenges the average player will be trivial for the elite player. Content that challenges the elite player will be unapproachable by the average player. Balancing for one group or the other will be a fail for the overall population and will lead to attrition in the player base. Creating content that is fun for both groups will be nigh impossible.

Adding to this problem is the fact that while I classed the players into two groups there are really more like four or five groups out there. There are many players who slot in between average and elite and it's easy to get into a position where one difficulty level is easy and the one right above it is very hard. It's easy to get into a position where a dungeon takes 15 minutes to run and at the next highest difficulty level it takes 45 minutes or more due to DPS and resource issues.

In a game where fast, efficient runs are rewarded over time with overall power it's easy to get into a position where the choice is fast, easy runs for benefits months or even years down the road or fun runs that challenge the player but that deliver half the XP/min - even with bravery bonuses involved. For a solo player the difference between 5k XP/min and 2.5k XP/min is huge. Over time that's nearly a full past life given up for each one achieved. In a game system that rewards XP/min to the extent that DDO does the choices can become stark and they confront a player on every login. This is tangential to the alt question but no less powerful overall in terms of player choices.

[Monkeytoe]

Internal and live data gathering has led to the conclusion that Warlock DPS is unquestionably too high in Heroic. It isn't simply a matter of their damage output relative to other classes (which is also too high), it's a matter of their power relative to content and other factors involved in overall game balance. Tuning other classes up to their level isn't an option; Warlock damage in Heroic needs to come down.

[russelc]

Well said.

But my issue is, what really sucks is I ground for a year to get equipment/crafting and spent real MONEY for the build that while isn't quite useless, it mostly is. Thats the sad part. This is what keeps happening, I finally found a build I like, I put in the effort, time and MONEY, and get shafted. this build was the first I liked in a long time.

I guess this is how it always goes in DDO, great.

Thanks. but I guess its time to move on.

RussC

It wasn't important enough for them to do something about until 6 months after RPL and Reaper were introduced and they had the numbers on how many people were switching to Warlocks to make the grinds faster and easier.

I don't actually care all that much about the nerfs in this go-round and I don't doubt more are on the way. They'll be joined by a series of nerfs to other classes that will have the stated intention of restoring balance to the game but which will really be designed to keep the grinds from becoming trivial. The problem with the approach is that the current grinds are only trivial for players playing the OP classes who also have a lot of past lives, gear acquired, meta knowledge and other benefits from years of playing the game - now including Reaper XP and the boosts that gives.

Nerfing Warlocks just makes easier access to the grind less likely for people not in category A above. It doesn't do much of anything to the people who are already trivializing those grinds. For one thing a lot of those people are nearing the end of the grind process. For another they have many ways to blow through those grinds anyway. Nerfing Warlocks doesn't do much, if anything, to the players who already have most of the benefits that long-term grinding produces.

I could get behind a serious power reduction in the overall meta if it was designed to create a balanced and fun game that encouraged social play and diversity in play styles. The problem is that this is not achievable in an environment in which past lives, particularly Epic Past Lives and Reaper Cores, are going to create vastly more powerful characters than the average person can put together. Content that challenges the average player will be trivial for the elite player. Content that challenges the elite player will be unapproachable by the average player. Balancing for one group or the other will be a fail for the overall population and will lead to attrition in the player base. Creating content that is fun for both groups will be nigh impossible.

Adding to this problem is the fact that while I classed the players into two groups there are really more like four or five groups out there. There are many players who slot in between average and elite and it's easy to get into a position where one difficulty level is easy and the one right above it is very hard. It's easy to get into a position where a dungeon takes 15 minutes to run and at the next highest difficulty level it takes 45 minutes or more due to DPS and resource issues.

In a game where fast, efficient runs are rewarded over time with overall power it's easy to get into a position where the choice is fast, easy runs for benefits months or even years down the road or fun runs that challenge the player but that deliver half the XP/min - even with bravery bonuses involved. For a solo player the difference between 5k XP/min and 2.5k XP/min is huge. Over time that's nearly a full past life given up for each one achieved. In a game system that rewards XP/min to the extent that DDO does the choices can become stark and they confront a player on every login. This is tangential to the alt question but no less powerful overall in terms of player choices.

[Qhualor]

Perhaps they "decided (emphasis mine) on another round of warlock changes well before all this racial and Reaper efficiency jazz," , but then they didn't implement another round of warlock changes until RTR and Reaper were introduced. And while you can of course try to excuse the long delay between that decision and that implementation, the fact remains that it clearly wasn't important enough for them to actually do more than think about until RPL and Reaper were released.

if you were to point a finger as to why there was even a discussion to make another round of changes to warlocks it would be because of the forums. so many things that change in DDO is because of player suggestions and player gripes. how many threads were posted about "warlocks are OP", "warlocks are the easy button any new player can jump into and be just as good as a vet because you don't need any gear" or "nerf warlocks"? warlock this and warlock that. the horse is dead but keep beating it until your hands fall off!

I would also like to point out that the devs are on a specific schedule that can be subject to change depending on many different variables. unless for good reason(s), what's on the schedule takes priority. so, something like warlock changes literally took months that started most likely in a dev meeting room. than went to the PC. than probably again back to the dev meeting room. than probably scheduled into the calendar as to when they could implement these changes. somewhere in between was probably some QA testing before going to Lammania to make sure the coding would hold up on live. than probably more tweaking due to general player feedback.

this is what I think is so funny reading these threads every day. so much conclusion jumping when some forum players had been saying warlock was the "go to" class even before Reaper and racial reincarnation. the idea to do another round of warlock changes was before warlock Reaper and RR recycling was even a glimmer in any players eye. what was interesting was that on Khyber, my home server, warlock was a top 3 with deep splash or pure rogue and rogue light splash builds always outnumbering warlocks in both heroics and epics.

if Reaper actually did as advertised and was challenging from R1 and up needing a balanced party with a minimum of 4 decent players, even with filled out Reaper trees, than discussions like this would never be happening.

[Cantor]

If you have fixed Arcane Archer imbue to only work on arrows, perhaps you could also fix the Shiradi tree to imbue only ranger and druid spells so it can't be misused for various OP wizard/sorcerer builds.

What makes you think this wasn't intended design? It is pretty clear they made it this way for casters to use, what they didn't forsee was the synergy with low cost multi-hit spells. Really all they would need to do is give procs a cooldown like the lantern ring got.

[Arch-Necromancer]

What makes you think this wasn't intended design? It is pretty clear they made it this way for casters to use, what they didn't forsee was the synergy with low cost multi-hit spells. Really all they would need to do is give procs a cooldown like the lantern ring got.

Because it looks similar to Arcane Archer imbue. They didn't forsee the AA imbue's synergy with crossbows and throwing weapons either.

[Phoenicis]

Because it looks similar to Arcane Archer imbue. They didn't forsee the AA imbue's synergy with crossbows and throwing weapons either.

I'm guessing they didn't forsee the player base finding a way to make the AA imbues work with things other than arrows.

[Niminae]

I'm guessing they didn't forsee the player base finding a way to make the AA imbues work with things other than arrows.

They did foresee this, they just failed to code around the cases where AA imbues would be applied to non-bow users. Or rather, they thought they had done so, but they were wrong. And then they left the wrong situation in place for so long that it became the status quo.