Underpowered: a Feedback only thread

[FlavoredSoul]

You're not the boss of me!

But here's the issue... I care about the game same as you.

If you post a "problem" that I don't see as a problem, I can let it go, but if you then post a possible fix that I think will make the game WORSE, then I will want to speak up to make sure a dev doesn't implement a change I dislike.

This should make sense to you.

First time I've ever agreed with Thrudh on anything.

It's completely impractical to try and force this format through and counterproductive to both the purpose of the thread (invalidates any quality of the feedback if nobody else is allowed to weigh in) and to the forum as a whole to try and force all communication into PMs, OP does not have any authority to force posters to follow said format.

[DaggomaticDwarf]

What: Inquisitor

Why: They are weak

Further comments / suggestions: The Sorc and Wolf build keep leading in kill count. The only important stat in the game!

[yfernbottom]

What: Spell Focus feats

Why: Devoting three entire feat choices to DC for a single school should provide more of a bonus than a +8 stat tome (much less common lootgen items)

Suggested change: double all of them (i.e., SF = +2, GSF +2, ESF +2)

[Aelonwy]

What: Bardic Warchanter Iced Edges (Tier 2)

Why: 1d6 cold damage for 3 Action Points isn't good enough; its an additional AP sink for Frozen Fury

Suggestions:
I'd like to see it either be increased to 3d6 on rank 3, or scale with melee power.

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What: Bardic Spellsinger Mass Hold Monster (Tier 5)

Why: Cooldown is too long if it fails (for any of the myriad of reasons casting can fail in DDO). The cooldown of the regular spell is 6 seconds, but its 20 seconds (on the highest rank) in the Bard tree.

Suggestions:
I'd like to see the cooldown reduced to 10 seconds on rank 3, still almost twice as long as the regular spell.

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What: Bardic Swashbuckler Different Tack (Tier 3)

Why: Charisma to damage is great but without Charisma to hit, its better to go Dex (with weapon finesse) or Int (with Harper), elsewise the character will miss or graze a phenomenal amount of the time resulting in a whole lot of lost dps. Also this is why the best melee bard is and will continue to be a PDK. This has continued for years and its about time there was some parity with other races playing bard. (Looking at you Tiefling Scoundrel)

Suggestions: If Charisma to hit in Tier 3 is an issue (for some unknown reason) please either move Battering Barrage up to Tier 5 and reduce its AP cost (to make it more reasonable as a tier 5) and place a multi-selector enhancement that allows swash to choose their to hit in Tier 4 or leave Battering Barrage as is and place a multi-selector enhancement that allows swash to choose their to hit in Tier 5 with something additional for each choice (because I don't think to hit alone is Tier 5 worthy.) I'd also be fine with moving Battering Barrage down and Different Tack up to Tier 4 if Different Tack could be both to hit and damage.

Ideally, Different Tack could be both to hit and damage but the devs have shown extreme reluctance to do so and pretty much only because of Charisma as you can get Dex to hit and Int to hit fairly easy with only PDK giving access (on limited weapons) to Cha to hit.

[0ldschool]

What: Legendary Black Opal Bracers
Why: Ethereal should be Ghostly
Further comments / suggestions: This seems like an oversight, perhaps they left Ethereal the same from the heroic bracers by mistake. A modest request that has been brought up many times here is to change this to Ghostly to add some value to the bracers. This one stands out to me since the item is from one of the newest packs.

Less modest request: change Will Save +16 to Resistance +16 and make these my new favorite bracers!

__________________________________

What: 90%+ of all ML21 to ML27 items
Why: power creep
Further comments / suggestions: Take the time to scale up effects en masse, just like the work that was done with some of the old raid items. Commonly plowing through lower epics with heroic gear until Level 29 is not a good place for this game to be. Use Sharn ML15 as a baseline and make sure it's better than that. More viable gear options makes the game more fun!

[erethizon]

What: Cannith Crafting

Why: Overpowered, rendering almost all random loot into trash

Further comments / suggestions: Sorry, I love Cannith Crafting, but in all honesty it is overpowered for it's level. I came back from a several year break, discovered the new crafting system and dove in. Now, geared up with custom made items, I am pulling named gear that used to be Desired, now I look at the +4 Gloves of Strength (level X) and say to myself: Too bad, I can craft those gloves at 2 levels lower AND add Deadly to them, munch munch.

Adjust the stat and skill bonuses downward to dovetail with named loot you can pull from Splinterskull, Redfens etc so that the older gear is useful again.

Her: "Bloodstone Seeker +6 trinket at 9th lvl?"

Me: "LOL. Vendor it!"

Her: "But but, I used to farm for WEEKS to get this..."

Me: "Nope, not anymore, I'll craft you a better one."

Here:
Goggles 10th lvl
Accuracy +9
Seeker +5
Ins Seeker +2

= Seeker +7, with Accuracy +9 and hell, lets throw in a Green Aug slot....

Her: Oh... yah that.

So what you want is a boost to random loot and old named loot. Sounds good.

This is not a nerf thread. This is an underpowered thread. Nerfing Cannith crafting is not the answer (if anything it needs a boost to make it on par with named gear from Ravenloft and beyond). Increasing the power of old outdated items (including random loot) is the answer. People spend literally years getting their Cannith crafting to the point where they can make all those items. Until then, those things you are telling people to vendor are incredibly useful.

[MeliCat]

What: using a bow
Why: too slow and not enough damage so can't progress through content at a reasonable pace
Further comments / suggestions: pls give enhancements to speed bow up at low levels somehow, and have something reasonable for end game

What: monks are too squishy
Why: i used to love my monk (5 years ago) ... my go to to survive even though she wasn't that powerful... i wasn't as deadly as other players because i didn't have the manual dexterity etc but at least i could survive and contribute... now i just die too much
Further comments / suggestions: something with MRR please. just less squishy... this is for melees generally ofc... with the recent pass it really feels like a step backwards for all melee

[erethizon]

What: Remove robe MMR cap
Why: Traditionally in video games heavier armor gives more physical defense while casters have better magical defense (which makes sense given their knowledge of how it works).
Suggestion: Remove the MRR cap on robes. Casters should be able to effectively defend against magical attacks. At the very least, every character level of caster (as well caster epic destiny cores) should increase your MRR cap by a certain amount. Robe wearers already have poor physical defense, they don't need poor magical defense too.

[Oxarhamar]

First time I've ever agreed with Thrudh on anything.

It's completely impractical to try and force this format through and counterproductive to both the purpose of the thread and to the forum as a whole to try and force all communication into PMs, OP does not have any authority to force posters to follow said format.

/thread

OP doesn't want any feedback despite asking for it.

[Strider1963]

What... Pure ranged ranger
Why... shoots too slow and is way underpowered.
Suggestions: Needs some love...reduce the cooldown of manyshot to 1/3 of what it is now. Bring back the 4 arrows at a time (along with everything else on manyshot thats there now) as part of one of the capstones. Acquire the healing spells at a much lower character level than they are now.

What: Monk qstaff tree
Why: IMHO its really kinda wierd
Suggestions: Put much more melee power in the capstone(pure monk) and for gods sake put the enhancement in the tree that reduces item wear (same with the rogue tree). Using wooden quarterstaffs is ridiculous wear (IE the elemental bloom - estar com turn in staff) If you wanna play pure monk, you'd have to farm a bunch of them to last through any quest elite or above.

[Ralmeth]

What: The Swashbuckler Tree
Why: Many enhancements have outdated costs and/or effects compared to what the current enhancement trees get.
Suggestions: Please do a thorough review and update of the tree, like was done for Warchanters. Some suggestions or thoughts are as follows.

Tier 1-‘Blow by blow’ isn’t worth spending APs on as the DPS is lame. ‘Insults’ is, well, an insult due to the super long animation.

Tier 2-‘Action boost’ is too expensive. Please make this 1 AP per tier.

Tier 3-‘Elegant Footwork’ has too long of a cool down. Perhaps reduce this in half?

Tier 4-‘On the Mark’ is too expensive and should be 1 AP per tier.

Tier 4-‘Wind at my back’ is not very good. Scrap or rework it.

Tier 5-‘Coup de Grace’ needs to have the DC formula reworked to be based on whatever stat you selected for ‘Different Tack’. I like the idea of basing this on the perform skill, but the issue is that in harder content Coup becomes pretty unreliable.

Edit: What I would really like to see are a couple of fencing moves added.For example, add ‘Lunge’ which would make an attack straight ahead with extra range (similar to leap of faith). Perhaps add in a ‘Riposte’ ability, which has a chance to block an attack and launch an immediate counterattack.

[Drachmoril]

What: 140+ Max Past Lives
Why: New players discouraged when they realize they will NEVER "catch up." Recent gearing (Ravenloft+) has helped close the gap.
Suggestion: Major TR overhaul. All complaints of "Epic grinding nerfs" and other xp woes magically wash away, once either:

1.) Everyone's suggestion: 3rd+ past lives require only as much xp as 1st/2nd. Epic levels are fast again, etc. Basically leveling happens faster.

2.) OR my suggestion: 3 stacking past life feats are consolidated into one. Drastically reduce the number of "max past lives" without shirking benefit. Still take years to "max out" if desired. Content itself can become slower, less repeatable, more difficult, more thoughtful and fun, etc. without any negative press. Win-win for players (with one concern for SSG).

Imo, though the former is what people seem to ask for, I disagree with it. I don't care about a *faster grind* in that I skip a ton of content. In fact, I doubt anyone really wants to skip all the content they do; HCL has gotten people to play stuff they haven't run in years, and we're loving it. The playing is what's fun after all. New players have a lot of fun playing, but they get discouraged at the grind. Old players have learned that the two can coexist, and find fun where they can IN the grind.

But if we consolidated 3 stacking past life feats into one, suddenly we live in a world where everyone blissfully savors every level of their new class, because they only have to play it once. I'd even welcome a slower / harder leveling process (where even the crazies have to spend a week to get from 1-30) if it means less overall past lives. The "grind" is faster, because you approach the past-life "finish line" faster, but you can actually savor the play. You get to feel strong, and complete - you get to check off those 3-dozen "necessary" past lives for you to feel good about your character - in far less time. Less time than 12 years is what I'm saying. This lets a NEW PLAYER NOTICE A BUMP IN STRENGTH after their first reincarnation! I've lost a lot of friends in this game who quit sometime halfway through their second or third life; they thought "what's the point?" People were rushing through content, trying to gain more past lives, but they weren't getting any stronger. It was all better on their first life when they were just exploring things.

Edit: Oh right, the one reason why "players reaching a strong end goal faster and more enjoyably" could be a problem. If it was just easier to reach your goals, SSG would likely lose money. A full exploration of this probably exceeds the scope of this thread, will start another.

[Oxarhamar]

What: 140+ Max Past Lives
Why: New players discouraged when they realize they will NEVER "catch up." Recent gearing (Ravenloft+) has helped close the gap.
Suggestion: Major TR overhaul. All complaints of "Epic grinding nerfs" and other xp woes magically wash away, once either:

1.) Everyone's suggestion: 3rd+ past lives require only as much xp as 1st/2nd. Epic levels are fast again, etc. Basically leveling happens faster.

2.) OR my suggestion: 3 stacking past life feats are consolidated into one. Drastically reduce the number of "max past lives" without shirking benefit. Still take years to "max out" if desired. Content itself can become slower, less repeatable, more difficult, more thoughtful and fun, etc. without any negative press. Win-win for players (with one concern for SSG).

Imo, though the former is what people seem to ask for, I disagree with it. I don't care about a *faster grind* in that I skip a ton of content. In fact, I doubt anyone really wants to skip all the content they do; HCL has gotten people to play stuff they haven't run in years, and we're loving it. The playing is what's fun after all. New players have a lot of fun playing, but they get discouraged at the grind. Old players have learned that the two can coexist, and find fun where they can IN the grind.

But if we consolidated 3 stacking past life feats into one, suddenly we live in a world where everyone blissfully savors every level of their new class, because they only have to play it once. I'd even welcome a slower / harder leveling process (where even the crazies have to spend a week to get from 1-30) if it means less overall past lives. The "grind" is faster, because you approach the past-life "finish line" faster, but you can actually savor the play. You get to feel strong, and complete - you get to check off those 3-dozen "necessary" past lives for you to feel good about your character - in far less time. Less time than 12 years is what I'm saying. This lets a NEW PLAYER NOTICE A BUMP IN STRENGTH after their first reincarnation! I've lost a lot of friends in this game who quit sometime halfway through their second or third life; they thought "what's the point?" People were rushing through content, trying to gain more past lives, but they weren't getting any stronger. It was all better on their first life when they were just exploring things.

Edit: Oh right, the one reason why "players reaching a strong end goal faster and more enjoyably" could be a problem. If it was just easier to reach your goals, SSG would likely lose money. A full exploration of this probably exceeds the scope of this thread, will start another.

Creating multiple threads about this wasn't enough ?

[SirValentine]

What: Nothing. I'm not sure there's a single thing that's under-powered. The power scale is so far out of whack, the difference is between over-powered, grossly over-powered, and massively over-powered.
Why: The "balancing" was actually just repeated massive power creep.
Further comments / suggestions: Nerf, nerf, nerf. Sure, start with the most ridiculously OP stuff, but eventually nerf everything. "Hard" should be hard.

[Bacab]

What: Nothing. I'm not sure there's a single thing that's under-powered. The power scale is so far out of whack, the difference is between over-powered, grossly over-powered, and massively over-powered.
Why: The "balancing" was actually just repeated massive power creep.
Further comments / suggestions: Nerf, nerf, nerf. Sure, start with the most ridiculously OP stuff, but eventually nerf everything. "Hard" should be hard.

I am actually in agreement with a lot of this.

When the TR grind started (2009), the quests were balanced to the gear that was available at that time.

There was a time when doing ToD on Hard was hard and only the BEST could even try it on Elite.

Basically everything here is how stuff is "balanced now": "What is the newest thing of tree to be re-worked? Play that!"

I do miss when dungeon scaling was not a thing, Elite meant that you needed a few people to complete stuff unless you just had a monster of a build. It pushed teamwork a lot more.

Elite Amrath quests used to be so hard.

My favorite classes were/are Cleric, Bard and a crowd control Wizard. Back when you had to group, I could easily fit into a group and you'd hear "nice heals", "great mass hold there", "nice fascinate".

We fell off of the d20 a long time ago.

PS: I still love this game and that is why I keep coming back.

[Indubitably]

What: Bows
Why: Terrible speed and DPS, outside of manyshot their base attack is terrible. Rangers are the worst ranged class!
Suggestion: Low-mid tier Survivalist Ranger enhancement that increases ranged speed with bows (stacks T4/5 ranged speed boosts)

What: Bards (in general)
Why: One of the earlier passes, like KotC, a little outdated and before certain decisions were made RE balance
Suggestion: Spellsinger T5 abilities cheaper, fix their SLAs a bit (resonance, Mass Hold), force CHA to damage instead of choosing stat, make a 2nd option for CHA hit. Some of the procs could be better in both melee trees.

What: Harper
Why: Its used for either INT to DAM/ATK/KTA or all three, nothing else. It's T5 and Capstone are terrible
Suggestion: Give it a stronger pet/hire/summon focus. Other ideas but lets be honest, this tree wont get touched.

What: Trap Making
Why: Its a good idea, but could really be an amazing mechanic with just a bit more effort.
Suggestions: Allow more than 3rd level spells. Allow some method of increasing the caster level past the scroll caster level (either based on disable skill or enhancements) Allow the elemental traps to scale off spellpower...

[Komradkillingmachine]

what: Cannith crafting

why: Overpowered, rendering almost all random loot into trash

further comments / suggestions: Sorry, i love cannith crafting, but in all honesty it is overpowered for it's level. I came back from a several year break, discovered the new crafting system and dove in. Now, geared up with custom made items, i am pulling named gear that used to be desired, now i look at the +4 gloves of strength (level x) and say to myself: Too bad, i can craft those gloves at 2 levels lower and add deadly to them, munch munch.

Adjust the stat and skill bonuses downward to dovetail with named loot you can pull from splinterskull, redfens etc so that the older gear is useful again.

Her: "bloodstone seeker +6 trinket at 9th lvl?"

me: "lol. Vendor it!"

her: "but but, i used to farm for weeks to get this..."

me: "nope, not anymore, i'll craft you a better one."

here:
Goggles 10th lvl
accuracy +9
seeker +5
ins seeker +2

= seeker +7, with accuracy +9 and hell, lets throw in a green aug slot....

Her: Oh... Yah that.

no u

[Bacab]

What: Trap Making
Why: Its a good idea, but could really be an amazing mechanic with just a bit more effort.
Suggestions: Allow more than 3rd level spells. Allow some method of increasing the caster level past the scroll caster level (either based on disable skill or enhancements) Allow the elemental traps to scale off spellpower...

I really like this idea.

I have been toying with making my next life a Mechanic...(I like the idea of sneaking around and being a "tinkerer")

I remember a while back that traps seemed really good, but once you went up to elite or higher levels, they really struggled to do anything.

I really think it would be cool if traps scalled off of spell power or disable device skill (like say disable device skill x some number = a spell power equivalent).

I know the DCs scale off of disable device...I just meant the actual damage.

[Lonnbeimnech]

What: THF
Why: the fact that THF don't get glancing blows on cleaves or double strikes from glancing blows
Suggestion: allow THF who invest in inquisitive to hold a two handed weapon in each hand.

What: bow users
Why: dps of bows compared to other ranged options is way down, esp in heroic levels
Suggestion: Allow bow users who invest in inquisitive to use a longbow in each hand

What: meteor swarm
Why: taking the 6th core in fire savant actually lowers the caster level of meteor swarm by 2, because it also counts as an earth spell
Suggestion: allow casters who invest in inquisitive to shoot 4 meteors out of each hand at the same time.

[Cantor]

What: Remove robe MMR cap
Why: Traditionally in video games heavier armor gives more physical defense while casters have better magical defense (which makes sense given their knowledge of how it works).
Suggestion: Remove the MRR cap on robes. Casters should be able to effectively defend against magical attacks. At the very least, every character level of caster (as well caster epic destiny cores) should increase your MRR cap by a certain amount. Robe wearers already have poor physical defense, they don't need poor magical defense too.

I'm all for this and suggested in another thread to make robes and outfits different things. Robes get mrr, outfits don't. Outfits allow evasion robes don't. That gives the proper balance with allowing casters some mrr.

Tier 5-‘Coup de Grace’ needs to have the DC formula reworked to be based on whatever stat you selected for ‘Different Tack’. I like the idea of basing this on the perform skill, but the issue is that in harder content Coup becomes pretty unreliable.

So you want a massive nerf to cdg DC? the reason it becomes unreliable in harder content is that you have to-hit, not the DC. It's much easier to get a skill up than anything else.