Power disparities in the racial TR wheel

[BigErkyKid]

Still quite a lot of players doing racial TRs; some are less intense players, others are rolling alts. The general advise you get from those PL oriented is to roll an OP build and plow through PLs. Warlock remains a favorite, but INQ is getting adepts, and sorc remains massively OP (wink).

Having suffered through a few TRs myself recently I can attest to the obvious: there is absolutely no point in doing them in a melee character. You will be slower, prone to failure when soloing, and you will contribute far less in groups. I knew about this, but from the perspective of someone who stubbornly stays at cap, and lacked recent practical experience.

The disparity of power is so large that one wonders if some class / archetype options are just new player traps.

Is SSG aware of this? Are there any plans to address this situation? When discussing balance, we are often told that what matters are “real” gameplay situations. We have devs on the record saying that elite/low reaper is where the majority of the playerbase is at. Well, it is an utterly broken situation.

Probably some of you will just be surprised than anyone is not fully aware of this, since is not new. Well, excuse me,l for being somehow out of touch. But just because it’s been like this for a while it does not mean that we should roll over and take it.

[SirValentine]

You will be slower, prone to failure when soloing, and you will contribute far less in groups.

Devs don't seem to care much about balance, since, instead of bringing things more in line, the changes they make, quite predictably, break it worse.

there is absolutely no point in doing them in a melee character.

Sure there is: what if you like playing a melee character, and don't like playing a Sorc Inquis? Yes, you'll suck. Oh well.

[BigErkyKid]

Sure there is: what if you like playing a melee character, and don't like playing a Sorc Inquis? Yes, you'll suck. Oh well.

RPing a hireling, maybe?

I consistently see melees getting 0-5 kills in groups. It must be so much fun seeing a sorc cast chain electric loop + chain and one shot a pack, time and again and again.

I have been in runs where people FoD your melee target across a room; I take it for what it is, a joke.

But beyond those "funny" moments, when as a caster you are clearing rooms in a couple casts, and dealing more DPS on red named, what exactly is the role of melee in that party?

Some people in groups complain about those who want balance (sometimes they know my forum handle), but I have NEVER had a melee player complain to me; it is most frequently someone playing a FOTM.

[Anaximandroz]

I used to play mostly melee, since reaper come out only did 2 lives with a heavy focus on CC (a bard and a bear) and couldn't pass r2 solo. On warlock i solo r4 without great problems.

The game has been developed for fast combat and difficulty spikes, and melees have way less time to react to those.
Reaper is about not getting hit and melees don't have much to do about it (few cc, mostly single target; constant but low damage). Reaper trees for weapon users are inferior to casters (+1 dc is almost like giving +1 critical threat, and casters get at least 4). Even the fact reapers are incorporeal are harder on melee, the second you take to change weapon is a hit you take for half your hp or blocking you from healing. And the recent reaper changes made things worst by removing the penalty to spell and ranged power.

Nerf distance and buff defenses.

[BigErkyKid]

I used to play mostly melee, since reaper come out only did 2 lives with a heavy focus on CC (a bard and a bear) and couldn't pass r2 solo. On warlock i solo r4 without great problems.

The game has been developed for fast combat and difficulty spikes, and melees have way less time to react to those.
Reaper is about not getting hit and melees don't have much to do about it (few cc, mostly single target; constant but low damage). Reaper trees for weapon users are inferior to casters (+1 dc is almost like giving +1 critical threat, and casters get at least 4). Even the fact reapers are incorporeal are harder on melee, the second you take to change weapon is a hit you take for half your hp or blocking you from healing. And the recent reaper changes made things worst by removing the penalty to spell and ranged power.

Nerf distance and buff defenses.

Fair assessment, I feel the same.

I'd say burst DPS is also very important here, and in heroics melee have few options for it. If you have 2 reapers on you in mid teens (even on low reapers), often it is GG. Of course the slows and what not make it super hard to melee effectively.

Aside from the back that caster DPS > melee DPS in heroics, both in burst and "sustained", for most relevant ranges.

[Tahlee]

[...Still quite a lot of players doing racial TRs; ... ( melees are no fun & other builds OP, Warlock,INQ, and especially Sorc) paraphrasing there

DDO is at the moment a game mainly about TR'ing and grind, being that, I would be all for giving us more builds that are fun to grind with but please do not nerf builds in a such a way as to make them less enjoyable to grind with. I am not fussed that Warlocks , Inquisitors and Sorcs make past lives quicker for those who chose to use them but I strongly believe that there should be viable, functional, and enjoyable builds for multiple play-styles. Melee is a play-style, Ranged is a play style( please do something for bow users), CC'ing then eliminating, Burst casting/ make them all good not necessarily equal but equitable -all capable builds. All different but playing your chosen toon in a quest being able to give you a sense of worth and contribution for choosing to play that archetype I guess.
No harm wishing for what you want.

Yours Truly,
Tahlee

[acemonkey]

Did someone from SSG promise you that melees would meet or exceed ranged/caster 1-30 leveling capabilities at some point? If so please do share the quote.

For a long, long time several melee builds were far outperforming casters/ranged in group play at cap, and everyone seemed ok with it. Why is it such a huge crisis now that melee must at least match and probably exceed ranged/casters at leveling, cap, reaper, grouping, solo, etc? Did you honestly expect SSG to let everything stagnate as it was forever? They make money off churning things up, not letting the game remain as is.

Truth is, a melee isn't supposed to have utility, defense, dps, heals. They were sold as is, with a limited selection of those abilities. You want the whole package and want it ASAP? Stop pushing SSG to make the old stuff best again, that won't happen. Ask for a new paid melee tree or melee class that has all that, and be ready to pay. I'm kinda expecting a shiny new 2hf or dual wield melee universal tree with the next expansion, so get your opinion in on how that should look now while it might still matter.

As it is, looks like ranged/caster has the dev's attention at the moment with Inq out and Alch coming out, expect melee to be #3 for another 6 months at least, and #2 for at least a year. That's quite a bit less time than most ranged and caster builds have spent circling the bottom of the drain, so if TRUE balance is the goal, expect to be third best archetype for another 5 years or so.

[DaggomaticDwarf]

Nerf distance and buff defenses.

I find this comment ironic considering your quote in your sig.

Nerf a tactical advantage???

I do agree with you on more defense, FOR MY SORC! (J/K, haven't rolled one yet.)

Dagg.

[droid327]

You're still barking up the wrong tree.

The dichotomy isnt between ranged and melee, its between AOE and ST. Ranged builds are AOE builds...you have Sorcs with circle nukes, you have Inquis with linear IPS.

Melees cant AOE nearly as well. Cleaves are slow and usually a DPS loss, and really expensive feat-wise. THF glancing blows are gimped to pointlessness. SWF and TWF are obligate ST. Look at the melee builds that are most successful - things like VKF PM or ES Locks or Tempest...they're some of the few melee builds that can deal appreciable AOE damage.

I've been saying this for a little while now...turn THF glancing blows into full-fledged attacks like offhand strikes, and watch a total renaissance of the style. Melee suddenly makes no difference anymore when you can carve through entire packs like a sorc or an inqui does.

Melee could use like a +10% runspeed, so they can close in on monsters faster than ranged builds, but that's about the only legitimate complaint for melees.

[Nickodeamous]

OP is soooo correct. I am so tired of playing a melee in heroics for racial. So much so that i am going to roll him as a warlock or fire sorc. It is downright painful to do racials and not really contribute. On a side note, i have become extremely good at breaking boxes for that 15% xp! Hey, i am useful after all!

[zappy]

OP is soooo correct. I am so tired of playing a melee in heroics for racial. So much so that i am going to roll him as a warlock or fire sorc. It is downright painful to do racials and not really contribute. On a side note, i have become extremely good at breaking boxes for that 15% xp! Hey, i am useful after all!

just imagine breaking boxes with a nice explosive runearm on an inquis or via fireball as a sorc, much better XD

[Potatofasf]

Did you honestly expect SSG to let everything stagnate as it was forever?

When they stopped doing that?

[Chai]

"New Players" constantly seem to get tossed under the bus in these balance discussions, by the same folks who want the game balanced to the top few percentage points of players in the most difficult content, neither of which concern true new players whatsoever, as new players are 0% of each group.

Data mining is easily used to fact check the claims made, such as if new player attrition is at a higher rate than normal, what the pick rate is for each class in any demographic higher attrition is experienced in etc...

Typically when forumites couching all of their feedback in terms of "game balance" dont get what they want, its logical to conjecture that the fact checking did not support the claims made.

[Tahlee]

...

The dichotomy isnt between ranged and melee, its between AOE and ST...

Melees cant AOE nearly as well...

I've been saying this for a little while now...turn THF glancing blows into full-fledged attacks like offhand strikes, and watch a total renaissance of the style. Melee suddenly makes no difference anymore when you can carve through entire packs like a sorc or an inqui does....

Melee could use like a +10% runspeed, so they can close in on monsters faster than ranged builds, but that's about the only legitimate complaint for melees.

I find myself in agreement with Droid here. AOE makes taking out the trash quicker much easier to do, I feel Barbarians should be able to do so with as much ease as a Sorc or Inquisitor and your suggestion for THF has much merit. A variation of dire charge at earlier levels to enable CC and an ability to close the distance to mobs or some other variation of an abundant step to get 'up in the face' of mobs would be highly useful.

Yours Truly,
Tahlee

[Thrudh]

Having suffered through a few TRs myself recently I can attest to the obvious: there is absolutely no point in doing them in a melee character.

Your premise is false. The point of playing a game is fun. Grinding through TRs is boring already for most people... Doing it with the exact same character over and over is mind-numbing for most people.

Melee characters do just fine in all content. Heroic is so easy for anyone repeating racial TRs it doesn't matter what build you play.

I suggest you play what you find fun. I have 4 alts with different focus so I don't get bored. Two of those are melee and they stomp all content.

[Chai]

Your premise is false. The point of playing a game is fun. Grinding through TRs is boring already for most people... Doing it with the exact same character over and over is mind-numbing for most people.

Melee characters do just fine in all content. Heroic is so easy for anyone repeating racial TRs it doesn't matter what build you play.

I suggest you play what you find fun. I have 4 alts with different focus so I don't get bored. Two of those are melee and they stomp all content.

DDO has turned into a grind game (and not just recently). Reincarnation is part of that, along with gear drop rates.

Many of us who are taking the advice of "playing what we find fun" are in other games currently doing just that, and return to DDO from time to time to see if anything changed as well as provide feedback on what we'd like to see. This includes those of us who gladly accept playing lower settings when not on optimal builds and such, due to the very reason you explain here, because doing it on the exact same character is boring. I dont see this as a game balance issue or a melee vs ranged issue, but more of a "geez I played through all that epic content to end up in waterworks again" issue.

The hamster wheel, which many claim saved DDO in 2009, has become stale, and did so long before 2019. Their response was to add to it...

...which tells objective readers everything they need to know.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

The game has been developed for fast combat

I don't think so.

In my opinion, the "fast combat" is rather player-made : Zerging has become a norm.

Zerging has become a norm, which means : Fast running & plowing through everything.

But - why zerg at all ? I mean, everyone is using motor highways for fast trefel - but, as the subplot of the animated movie "cars" very much explains, people don't see the beauty of the landscape anymore.
All what devs need to do is a long, nondescript tunnel made of concrete with an end chest. That's all what is needed these days, because zerging doesn't look left or right. Zerging is focused merely on the end chest.

In my opinion, which is kind of meta meta, builds like Inquisitives are OP merely because of player style. And that is, these days, zerging.

If a player style was non-zerging, or, in other words, slow play, then I wonder how the defenses of Inquisitives would react towards attacking monsters. I mean, why not give monsters Inquisitive trees as well ?

Zerging is like dining at Burger King or so.
Slow play is like French cuisine restaurant.

If people decide they rather want fast food, then be it so.

But, and that's the problem, Fast Food is dominating everything. It's not the Inquistive, it's the speed. And it's the player's decision to favour speed over everything.

[Alled78]

Still quite a lot of players doing racial TRs; some are less intense players, others are rolling alts. The general advise you get from those PL oriented is to roll an OP build and plow through PLs. Warlock remains a favorite, but INQ is getting adepts, and sorc remains massively OP (wink).

Having suffered through a few TRs myself recently I can attest to the obvious: there is absolutely no point in doing them in a melee character. You will be slower, prone to failure when soloing, and you will contribute far less in groups. I knew about this, but from the perspective of someone who stubbornly stays at cap, and lacked recent practical experience.

The disparity of power is so large that one wonders if some class / archetype options are just new player traps.

Is SSG aware of this? Are there any plans to address this situation? When discussing balance, we are often told that what matters are “real” gameplay situations. We have devs on the record saying that elite/low reaper is where the majority of the playerbase is at. Well, it is an utterly broken situation.

Probably some of you will just be surprised than anyone is not fully aware of this, since is not new. Well, excuse me,l for being somehow out of touch. But just because it’s been like this for a while it does not mean that we should roll over and take it.

I must say i did many tr with wolf build and was great in heroic.
I think is the player behind that speed up the racial more than the class.

This is different from end game r10.

[Chai]

I don't think so.

In my opinion, the "fast combat" is rather player-made : Zerging has become a norm.

Zerging has become a norm, which means : Fast running & plowing through everything.

But - why zerg at all ? I mean, everyone is using motor highways for fast trefel - but, as the subplot of the animated movie "cars" very much explains, people don't see the beauty of the landscape anymore.
All what devs need to do is a long, nondescript tunnel made of concrete with an end chest. That's all what is needed these days, because zerging doesn't look left or right. Zerging is focused merely on the end chest.

In my opinion, which is kind of meta meta, builds like Inquisitives are OP merely because of player style. And that is, these days, zerging.

If a player style was non-zerging, or, in other words, slow play, then I wonder how the defenses of Inquisitives would react towards attacking monsters. I mean, why not give monsters Inquisitive trees as well ?

Zerging is like dining at Burger King or so.
Slow play is like French cuisine restaurant.

If people decide they rather want fast food, then be it so.

But, and that's the problem, Fast Food is dominating everything. It's not the Inquistive, it's the speed. And it's the player's decision to favour speed over everything.

Among the repeated shouts of ranged having an advantage due to not needing to be in melee range, the times we suggested that mob ranged and mob melee have some parity as well, have been shouted down by some of the very same people who claim this advantage is why (insert new thing here) needs to be nerfed. I'm all for giving mobs class levels and builds.

As for zerging, when the game is designed to be a long term XP grind while repeating content play-throughs, players will find the optimal way to gain XP quickly, and gravitate toward that. They enjoyed the scenery the first few times they ran harbor quests. I'm not amazed by underground kobold lairs on my 250th run. While not pure metagamer or pure zerger, I can certainly see why this playstyle is so popular.

[HungarianRhapsody]

Among the repeated shouts of ranged having an advantage due to not needing to be in melee range, the times we suggested that mob ranged and mob melee have some parity as well, have been shouted down by some of the very same people who claim this advantage is why (insert new thing here) needs to be nerfed. I'm all for giving mobs class levels and builds.

As for zerging, when the game is designed to be a long term XP grind while repeating content play-throughs, players will find the optimal way to gain XP quickly, and gravitate toward that. They enjoyed the scenery the first few times they ran harbor quests. I'm not amazed by underground kobold lairs on my 250th run. While not pure metagamer or pure zerger, I can certainly see why this playstyle is so popular.

Giving enemy monsters the same kind of damage that players have would result in instantly dead players. Trash mobs have 10,000 HP at cap. PCs don't.

We have way more DPS than monsters have, but they have way more HP than we have and there are way more of them than there are of us. That kind of balance is currently fine(ish). Giving them PC levels of damage output would not make the game better.

Also, significantly increasing enemy ranged damage wouldn't make PC ranged characters and PC melee characters more balanced. It would further disadvantage melee characters because melee characters STILL have to close that distance before they can kill that enemy and ranged characters STILL don't have to do that.