Why play a melee character at all?

[Hugoleo]

The damage is reduced to 625 from PRR, which is reduced to 615 via DR

Good analysis.
Damage is reduced by DR before it is reduced by PRR though.

[Selvera]

Ok, but that doesn't significantly effect things, all it does is makes DR even more pointless.

[Chai]

Ranged/kiting was dumb in this game even before reaper...it just wasn't as big an issue because melee is a lot more survivable outside of reaper...reaper just blew the gap wide open. Its not a matter of "Waaahhhh I can't do R10" its a matter of why can I play a quest on a ranged toon and be rather effective running around slinging spells and arrows and avoid so much damage simply by kiting around while on my melee with a toon that could be better geared and have more past lives in the same content I have to obviously get in melee range where mobs can hit me and if they aren't CC'd I'm wrecked in 2-3 hits. Had I just played my range I'd still be safely kiting around laughing at stupid AI.

I don't want to see easy buttons and R10 being used for farm mode by average players, I just want to see more balance between ranged and melee mechanics, and the devs have already agreed melees are at a disadvantage right now.

But they also stated they are looking at ways to help melee....

Instead of making it more difficult for ranged to solo the setting designed for grouping, they will make it easier for melee to solo the setting designed for grouping. When this happens, the same issues we used to see lots of complaints about in elite (game is too easy etc...) will be said about reaper as well.

What will they do to fix that issue? We are already to the point where one shot kills are the new "challenge" - will they implement a difficulty setting with "0 shot kills?" Load into the quest, already dead?

[J-mann]

Ok, but that doesn't significantly effect things, all it does is makes DR even more pointless.

DR is pretty nice at low levels, but yes **** useless at high levels. If they would return to the original formula where dr happens after prr it would be fine but they wont because taking 0 damage is against the rules or something.

[phillymiket]

solo the setting designed for grouping

For the record I was talking about melee first and then me responding to Chai bringing up soloing brought the thread to a soloing discussion, then after Cordo posted about sticking to the OPs topic, I shifted back to talking melee.
But here we are again.
It's all truly interconnected, so we are talking about soloing in any balance discussion, whether it's stated or not.
Much of the problems and imbalance with Reaper is because it tried to do two things, add challenge (which is possible), and stop soloing (which is impossible).
So Chai is correct that rebalancing melee to be in line with Arcane and Range will open the door for soloing a little wider.
The reason is the game is designed from its inception to be solo friendly.
That is DDOs natural state, and trying to stop it with a swipe of the code is going to break things. So just don't maybe?
Now I'd be glad to discuss it with anyone, seeing as the discussion IMO helps my cause, but I will stick to simply responding to others, for the sake of forum protocol.

[J-mann]

We are aware that ranged characters have a current advantage in many situations, and have been discussing for some time on things that we can do to improve melee in some areas. Nothing to announce, though, on what we might do or when we might do it.

Cordovan, Melee has so many issues in the current meta its almost funny. Heres a short list of issues for you guys to consider with some suggested solutions:

1. Melee have THE worst cc despite needing to be in melee range to apply it AND having to bypass 2 checks every time. Their cc has the worst cds, the worst range, the worst number of targets, interrupts attack chains, is rather slow (cant count the number of times ive tried to catch a running mob with a cc just to have him out of range because of the cast time), has miserable up time, and costs a feat.

Lets compare stunning blow with hold monster, just the basic one. Stunning blow vs hold monster sb costs a feat hold does not, sb is melee only hold is ranged, hold costs a resource (a mostly immaterial fact in the modern spell point age) sb does not, sb has to pass 2 checks regardless of mobs hold only occasionally needs 2 checks (and can get almost no fail, Im not sure a hit on a 2 is possible in the high end content), sb has a duration of 6 seconds hold has 6 seconds PER LEVEL, sb has a cd of 15 seconds hold a cd 4 second cd (and can be reduced with items/pls), sb gearing only effects sb (and dire charge for caped toons) where as enchantment gearing affects a multitude of abilities. Not to mention casters get mass ccs at all levels with negligible cds whereas melee get one at 29 with a large cd and low up time. Are you starting to see the issues?

A small compromise imo would be to make sb and trip have 3 second cds (they should be standard actions so really it should be the same time it takes to cast 2 spells, so what .75 sec cd?) speed up the animations on them some and combine all tactics into ONE dc not what 4 or 5? Unless you want to start breaking caster gear down by spell I think that this is perfectly reasonable.

2. Melee defenses have just not kept par with gear and outside power creep. Ranged and casters are within spitting distance of melee in terms of ehp while having the distinct advantage of being at ranged where they can physically dodge the vast majority of damage while still applying their damage. Something needs to be done to restore ehp parity to melee builds wether this be an hp increase or a sheltering increase or a combination something needs to be done so a melees stat defenses are better than a ranged.

3. Melees outside of pure fighter are incredibly feat starved. Due to the mechanics introduced by the game melee builds have a huge list of generally required feats if you want a decent build. power attack, cleave, g cleave, and style feats eat 6 of the 7 feats you receive in heroics. Not sure what can be done here but a lot of feats went from decent but not required in pnp to must haves in ddo due to the way they function (for example cleave isnt an aoe in pnp and is only marginally effective in many encounters).

4. Melees frequently require 3 or even 4 stats to succeed. For example my last life I wanted high str, high charisma (for str and saves), high con, and high dex (to fill out my dex bonus and saves). Casters and ranged generally need 2 stats casting stat/int and con, further compounding the issues in 2. Mayhaps we need to tie some abilities together to lower the number of necessary stats (for example have trip and sb use you attack stat for its dc calculation).

5. Gearing, melees have the most amount of gearing needs out of any build. Casters can try to argue, but they would be wrong. Deadly, double-strike, alacrity, all the defensive stats, trip, stun, main stat, con, secondary stat, and in some builds tertiary stat. My melee list of gear considerations is almost twice as long as my casters list, and a time and quarter at least as long as my ranged list. Not sure what can be done here but maybe consolidate some abilities or some other hapenstance.

6. healing. My ranged builds have multiple easy ways to heal themselves in combat. My melee has to rely on a pot or leave combat to heal at all. And melee needs healing much much more often than ranged. One suggestion I have here is to make healing kits useful outside of combat and not affected by reaper self heal ability. Suddenly we have a new consumable in demand as a plat sink and a way to quickly heal between fights in reaper.

7. mob special abilities. Most are infinitely more deadly to melee than ranged. For example dot champs are the bane of a melees existance vs hardly any more scary to a ranged than a normal mob. The only reaper my ranged is concerned about is the famine variety, the others are easily kited. My melee is afraid of all reapers to varying degrees (fear the least carnage and plague the most) and most of the special abilities you have put in the game impact melee as much or worse than ranged (dont get me started on cripples, my ranged just dont get hit, me melee has to crawl mob to mob to get to em)

[McFlay]

But they also stated they are looking at ways to help melee....

Instead of making it more difficult for ranged to solo the setting designed for grouping, they will make it easier for melee to solo the setting designed for grouping. When this happens, the same issues we used to see lots of complaints about in elite (game is too easy etc...) will be said about reaper as well.

Improving melees being the reaction is what I was afraid of. Improving melees isn't going to fixed broken ranged and kiting mechanics in this game.

What's the point in trying to balance around what is a broken game mechanic at this point rather than just adjusting said game mechanic?

Right...that's why that was what my reply was to Cordovan.

Again, I'm not looking for easy buttons...I don't care if my melee can't solo reaper...in fact I'd rather nobody be soloing reaper. I was pretty excited we were getting a game mode more geared towards grouping again, and then extremely disappointed after playing it for a while and realizing it was pretty much just forced grouping for melees and ranged builds still pretty much played the same.

I'm more concerned about things like why are ranged able to run and gun with the same effectiveness as if they are standing still when earlier on in DDO you actually had more meaningful penalties to do things while moving, why is ranged as effective from 10 steps away as it is if your enemy is so far away he is barely visible on your screen, and is anything going to be done to make it so mobs have an easier time hitting ranged players because right now in a lot of content the AI is just so dumb and mobs so easy to kite around its a joke.

I'd much rather see them actually fix some of what is ridiculous with ranged in this game rather than just buff melee, not fix anything, and hope it was enough of a buff that people forget range is broken for a while.

[J-mann]

Cord, you could also change the way you have been going and move from a burst game to a resources game. We could move from gauntlet back to dnd roots by decreasing the burst both in damage and healing, this would also have the side effect of making other healing abilities, dr, small scale temp hps, regen, and vampire effects useful again in the game. The biggest issues with the game, imo, can stem back to burst healing and damage reduce both of those and open the game up to many, many, many more interesting builds and effects.

[PermaBanned]

We are aware that ranged characters have a current advantage in many situations, and have been discussing for some time on things that we can do to improve melee in some areas. Nothing to announce, though, on what we might do or when we might do it.

This is why I (as well as some other folks) gave feedback in both the Players Council and Official Discussions on/during Class Passes that the defensive & survivability advantages of playing from Range should be considered and weighed when determining how much of a damage increase should be given to Ranged Combat Styles/Classes/Builds. Disregarding - or considering and dismissing - that feedback in favor of focusing on vs Bruntsmash & Training/Kobold Dummies DPS comparisons contributed heavily to the "situations" you're belatedly "aware of" and "discussing."

Thanks for listening.

[Baddesign]

Cordovan, Melee has so many issues in the current meta its almost funny. Heres a short list of issues for you guys to consider with some suggested solutions:

1. Melee have THE worst cc despite needing to be in melee range to apply it AND having to bypass 2 checks every time. Their cc has the worst cds, the worst range, the worst number of targets, interrupts attack chains, is rather slow (cant count the number of times ive tried to catch a running mob with a cc just to have him out of range because of the cast time), has miserable up time, and costs a feat.

Lets compare stunning blow with hold monster, just the basic one. Stunning blow vs hold monster sb costs a feat hold does not, sb is melee only hold is ranged, hold costs a resource (a mostly immaterial fact in the modern spell point age) sb does not, sb has to pass 2 checks regardless of mobs hold only occasionally needs 2 checks (and can get almost no fail, Im not sure a hit on a 2 is possible in the high end content), sb has a duration of 6 seconds hold has 6 seconds PER LEVEL, sb has a cd of 15 seconds hold a cd 4 second cd (and can be reduced with items/pls), sb gearing only effects sb (and dire charge for caped toons) where as enchantment gearing affects a multitude of abilities. Not to mention casters get mass ccs at all levels with negligible cds whereas melee get one at 29 with a large cd and low up time. Are you starting to see the issues?

A small compromise imo would be to make sb and trip have 3 second cds (they should be standard actions so really it should be the same time it takes to cast 2 spells, so what .75 sec cd?) speed up the animations on them some and combine all tactics into ONE dc not what 4 or 5? Unless you want to start breaking caster gear down by spell I think that this is perfectly reasonable.

2. Melee defenses have just not kept par with gear and outside power creep. Ranged and casters are within spitting distance of melee in terms of ehp while having the distinct advantage of being at ranged where they can physically dodge the vast majority of damage while still applying their damage. Something needs to be done to restore ehp parity to melee builds wether this be an hp increase or a sheltering increase or a combination something needs to be done so a melees stat defenses are better than a ranged.

3. Melees outside of pure fighter are incredibly feat starved. Due to the mechanics introduced by the game melee builds have a huge list of generally required feats if you want a decent build. power attack, cleave, g cleave, and style feats eat 6 of the 7 feats you receive in heroics. Not sure what can be done here but a lot of feats went from decent but not required in pnp to must haves in ddo due to the way they function (for example cleave isnt an aoe in pnp and is only marginally effective in many encounters).

4. Melees frequently require 3 or even 4 stats to succeed. For example my last life I wanted high str, high charisma (for str and saves), high con, and high dex (to fill out my dex bonus and saves). Casters and ranged generally need 2 stats casting stat/int and con, further compounding the issues in 2. Mayhaps we need to tie some abilities together to lower the number of necessary stats (for example have trip and sb use you attack stat for its dc calculation).

5. Gearing, melees have the most amount of gearing needs out of any build. Casters can try to argue, but they would be wrong. Deadly, double-strike, alacrity, all the defensive stats, trip, stun, main stat, con, secondary stat, and in some builds tertiary stat. My melee list of gear considerations is almost twice as long as my casters list, and a time and quarter at least as long as my ranged list. Not sure what can be done here but maybe consolidate some abilities or some other hapenstance.

6. healing. My ranged builds have multiple easy ways to heal themselves in combat. My melee has to rely on a pot or leave combat to heal at all. And melee needs healing much much more often than ranged. One suggestion I have here is to make healing kits useful outside of combat and not affected by reaper self heal ability. Suddenly we have a new consumable in demand as a plat sink and a way to quickly heal between fights in reaper.

7. mob special abilities. Most are infinitely more deadly to melee than ranged. For example dot champs are the bane of a melees existance vs hardly any more scary to a ranged than a normal mob. The only reaper my ranged is concerned about is the famine variety, the others are easily kited. My melee is afraid of all reapers to varying degrees (fear the least carnage and plague the most) and most of the special abilities you have put in the game impact melee as much or worse than ranged (dont get me started on cripples, my ranged just dont get hit, me melee has to crawl mob to mob to get to em)

This.

Some guy was saying the caster dps suck against red named mobs. Ok but just that.

Melees in high skulls suck against pretty much anything even the boss figths.

If a mob can't be stunned or tripped and break from cc i can take a hit and pray to jump out before the next one.

If it is a reaper you will die no matter what because it apply slow to you w/o a save and ignoring fom.

I don't think they should nerf casters, they are fun to play so ok. They are fine.

Others should be allowed to have the same fun in high skulls, not to be just a expectator.

[Gremmlynn]

Imo it's rather worse than that.

Even as one of those who was asking for an increased level of challenge (complained Elite was too easy), I never had the impression we were a majority concern. The harder-than-Elite & not-intended-for-soloing difficulty setting should have been designed for the few who wanted it or not at all. Instead they took an idea that was only wanted by a few, and incentivized/rewarded it so heavily that the rest who didn't want an increase in challenge or difficulty seem to feel compelled to participate.

Had they simply left out the the power rewards, and not awarded XP beyond what Elite offers, the rest who didn't want it would've be able to ignore it without the sensation of missing out on rewards. They (the Devs) would've saved themselves some work (i.e. no time spent on Tree development, no time spent on determining how much extra XP to give), and been able to implement {a hopefully better} Reaper without excessively fracturing the playerbase through new & different grouping restrictions (i.e. RXP penalties @ standard Bravery Bonus level ranges, Epic level lockouts).

Taking something a few wanted, and trying to make it what "*everyone" would "*need" is the Dev's biggest root cause of failure with Reaper design & implementation.

*in "quotes" because hyperbole

I think the problem with that is someone, or someones, didn't feel it would be worthwhile committing resources at that level to less than the majority of the customer base. Basically killing two birds with one stone by giving the "few" what they want and giving the rest something to keep them occupied checking all the new boxes for a while.

[Gremmlynn]

Great post Marshal.
I think all the reasons are pretty spelled out in your observations.
Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems you are saying that when the ballgame shifts to the casters neutering the mobs as a strategy with debuffs and charms, then the melee are suddenly back in the game.
Level drained mobs in a pack that's half charmed takes some of the heat off the melee, doesn't it?
Maybe that's why they can contribute at that level.
Maybe they contribute more than the Warlock at that level because it wasn't about the Warlock being too powerful but rather about the Warlock being able to attack with impunity whereas the melee suffer greatly while attacking.
So it's not so much melee DPS as their ability to stand next to a pack of angry mobs.
It's the defenses of melee, right? Because they don't attack at range, I'd guess.

Could we keep melee DPS the same and just give them some way to survive the agro they are sure to receive when the casters aren't doing the CC thing in that one sweet spot of R4/5 that you describe?

The problem if, of course, how to make that not trivialize the lower settings. That's why I was thinking a reverse suppression thing where melee defenses bump up as everything else bumps down as you go up in Reaper level.
Maybe that way melee could play at all levels the same way they do with the specific conditions you described.

Good plan...until one has to figure a way of defining what a "melee" is in this game so as not to just make the ranged even more survivable.

Holding a melee weapon? That's nearly every caster.

Class X, Y, or Z. That includes a bunch of multi-class combinations as well as excludes some actual melee builds. Even X levels in those classes doesn't work until at least that level, yet reaper starts at level 2.

The game just has to much build flexibility for this type of solution to really work.

[Gremmlynn]

I do not believe that this is a fair characterization. People have used the same arguments in the past to insist that players are "forced" ("driven into", whatever term you choose to use) into playing on Elite because of increased XP rewards, BB, Favor, and their grandmothers lemonade. It wasn't true for Elite, and it isn't true for Reaper. There are C/N/H/E and Reaper 1-10 difficulties presented to the players. It is up to the players to decide which ones they are comfortable playing, not the devs. Insisting that the players are being forced to do something, in a video game, is just ridiculous. A more difficult challenge level was provided, and it even came with a 1-10 sliding scale. I think they did a great job of providing what was asked for.

That assumes humans are more rational and less greedy/envious/jealous/etc. than they actually are for the most part.

Or it assumes the devs are in a position to take a "take it or leave it" attitude to their customers. But they aren't, so to keep those customers they have to cater to their irrational, greedy, envious, jealous, etc. natures. As it's those natures that "force" players to act in such a way, or more correctly to not find it worthwhile to not get such rewards, not keep up, or however they see the game being "unfair" to them. Giving out participation trophies makes a lot of sense when participants are basically what pays one's bills.

So yes, the best implementation probably would have been without the trees, if that would have been something the devs had seen as worthwhile developing at all. Finding the right level of reward to make it only worthwhile for those who are looking for that level of challenge anyway (I'd guess 1% xp bonus/skull would be about right).

[Gremmlynn]

No, they aren't making that argument at all. You have it exactly backwards. The people saying they can't play are only being affected personally if they choose to play in the new difficulty level. They are completely free to play on C/N/H/E, or even Reaper 1-10 if they choose to do so. If they can't succeed in one of the higher difficulties, it is time for them to stop claiming that their choices mean that they "can't play." They can play, they just want to play at a difficulty level that either they or their character or both are not capable of handling. And it's not the devs' job to make the decision of what difficulty level at which to play for them. That decision is on each individual player to make for themselves.

So is playing or simply not playing at all and keeping them playing is the devs job. So keeping them from choosing to play the right difficulty for them, while not regretting the choice due to what they are missing out on due to that is the trick.

[Gremmlynn]

Because nothing can ever be done to balance it so long as multiclassing exists. Buff one class or type of playstyle, you potentially give an indirect buff to all classes and all builds. The only way I see any sort of balance in this arena is basing melee defensive buffs of a sort on majority class level (like the FVS's wis/cha to damage with favored weapons). But even then you run into a slippery slope: if you boost the defensive capabilities of melee paladins, fighters, and barbarians, does that also apply to melee rogues, monks, artificers, and rangers (IE, the premier ranged classes could easily exploit this benefit unless it was tied to class levels AND melee weapons)?

Bards as well. That still leaves out EK wizards and the like.

[Gremmlynn]

Power creep...a ship long ago sailed. Developers realized after Menace of the Underdark that higher difficulties were unplayable by many, especially by melee, due to the power creep/power EXPLOSION in the game; they had allowed the numbers to balloon too much.

I see it as a problem that has roots much further back them that. Basically, they designed a game that outpaced the games AI. That this game has such a good active combat system compared to other games tells me that those other games toned theirs down to a level their AI tech could keep up with.

[phillymiket]

Good plan...until one has to figure a way of defining what a "melee" is in this game so as not to just make the ranged even more survivable.
Holding a melee weapon? That's nearly every caster.
Class X, Y, or Z. That includes a bunch of multi-class combinations as well as excludes some actual melee builds. Even X levels in those classes doesn't work until at least that level, yet reaper starts at level 2.
The game just has to much build flexibility for this type of solution to really work.

I didn't repeat it there but said earlier that I agree. It's not who you are because anyone can splash from w/e they want. It's what you do. So you'd need to make it so that holding a bow or spell casting invalidates the buff, rather than something like holding a melee weapon or having melee levels granting the buff. It was just a suggestion. A few have made better suggestions. There are many ways to nerf a cat, so I'm not locked in on any particular specifics.

That assumes humans are more rational and less greedy/envious/jealous/etc. than they actually are for the most part.

Or it assumes the devs are in a position to take a "take it or leave it" attitude to their customers. But they aren't, so to keep those customers they have to cater to their irrational, greedy, envious, jealous, etc. natures. As it's those natures that "force" players to act in such a way, or more correctly to not find it worthwhile to not get such rewards, not keep up, or however they see the game being "unfair" to them. Giving out participation trophies makes a lot of sense when participants are basically what pays one's bills.
So yes, the best implementation probably would have been without the trees, if that would have been something the devs had seen as worthwhile developing at all. Finding the right level of reward to make it only worthwhile for those who are looking for that level of challenge anyway (I'd guess 1% xp bonus/skull would be about right).

You left out some important and obvious motivations: fun and challenge.
You may have done that subconsciously because it doesn't support your position that the people who disagree with you are greedy, envious and jealous.
So while it's true that all people, including yourself, are motivated by those negative things, clearly people are also motivated by other things, like wanting to enjoy the game they pay for.
But that's all just opinion and neither of us can really know what the other's motivations really are, so it doesn't even matter.
I do 100% agree with (IMO) the most important thing you mentioned which is, bottom line, DDO is not in a position to have a "take it or leave it" attitude.

The upside is, if there is some class balance added, then all the opposers can feel satisfied that all the greedy and jealous melee, pale masters, and rogues, etc, are all just using the crutch of their participation trophy to get their free entitled OP loot with no effort.

[Gremmlynn]

This is a good observation, and that was right around the turning point, where before that many of the folks who were not yet playing in higher settings were fine with playing in lower settings until their metagaming was ready for the higher settings. Nowdays people demand to be able to play in those higher settings, and do not wish to play through lower settings first in order to get their metagaming level up to the point where they can play in a higher setting.

Where are my "its about the journey and not the destination" folks at this point. This was repeated often and loudly in the past, but now it doesnt support the position of wanting to play in the higher settings right off the bat. Part of that journey used to be (and should still be) using the lower settings to familiarize ourselves with the content first, rather than turning the difficulty up to 11, failing, then coming to the forums and demand the higher settings be made easier.

This is why adding settings is counterproductive. Players then demand to be able to play in that setting, and abandon previous settings in the process. In order to accommodate that, more power creep gets added, and making it easy enough for those not ready for that setting, makes it too easy for those who were ready and already playing in that setting. These different players competing for the same game space to be designed for them and them only, is what makes the devs have to choose who t accommodate, and when that choice is made, the others end up on the forums claiming it ruined their fun.

It's not the settings, it's the rewards given for playing them. The introduction of Bravery Bonus is where it started. Before that, the difference in rewards was proportionate enough that players stuck to whatever gave them the best reward/sec. After, many more would get the best reward/sec from the highest difficulty with BB and many who didn't thought they did. Reaper just added a new layer of reward that is exclusive to the reaper difficulties.

[McFlay]

I see it as a problem that has roots much further back them that. Basically, they designed a game that outpaced the games AI. That this game has such a good active combat system compared to other games tells me that those other games toned theirs down to a level their AI tech could keep up with.

This is pretty much the problem with ranged...AI in this game for the most part is just so ridiculously stupid and so easily kited. Even early on when I started playing I thought it was just sad how dumb AI was that you could drop a firewall or blade barrier and kite the same group of mobs through it multiple times, and well, nothing has improved since then lol.

The devs have just seemed to be completely unsuccessful in implementing anything that is detrimental to ranged while not being twice as bad for melee. Its like the solution to kiting is to make mobs hit harder so when a kiter gets caught he dies faster...only...what happens to melee with that "fix"?

I just think the problem they have now isn't a simple fix like inflate melee stats or nerf ranged. What needs to be done is mobs need to be more effective at hitting ranged toons in some way other than just making more ranged mobs or making mobs all run super fast, both of which will just inadvertently screw melee even harder. Unless this happens there is just nothing reasonable they can do to compensate melee for the 99% kiting mitigation bonus ranged toons get that doesn't get factored into stat spreadsheets devs seem to want to balance off of rather than actually taking into account how different play styles are actually performing in game.

[PermaBanned]

I think the problem with that is someone, or someones, didn't feel it would be worthwhile committing resources at that level to less than the majority of the customer base.

That's what I assumed their reasoning was when they initially said they had no intentions of making a harder-than-Elite difficulty setting.

Basically killing two birds with one stone by giving the "few" what they want and giving the rest something to keep them occupied checking all the new boxes for a while.

Except that challenge-by-stat-bloat in an even more power rewarding and more XP/time efficient "difficulty" that is significantly punishing to one playstyle while minimally (by comparison) punishing to the others, complete with group-formation-hindering mechanisms and that greatly incentivizes lower level play at the expense of higher level play isn't what anyone asked for.

Instead of doing it wrong, they should've stuck with their first plan.