U48.4 Preview 2: Main Thread

[Matuse]

It seems today that people would rather SSG drag the exceptional folks back to average levels rather than put in the work to become better than average themselves.

Throwing a bunch of spellpower and crit onto a Tiefling sorc and pressing meteor swarm over and over does not make you exceptional.

[Arkat]

Throwing a bunch of spellpower and crit onto a Tiefling sorc and pressing meteor swarm over and over does not make you exceptional.

If you actually play that build, it makes you someone who likes to "keep up with the Joneses"...a follower, really...not exceptional at all.

Tiefling...LM@O!

[LT218]

It seems today that people would rather SSG drag the exceptional folks back to average levels rather than put in the work to become better than average themselves.

It's not even that. I don't blame anyone one bit for not wanting to put in the level of effort and focus it takes to play the game at a min/max level all the time.

I just don't understand why they think asking the devs to nerf the other person's fun is acceptable just because it doesn't line up with their own idea of fun.

That is a social problem and it can easily be handled socially by simply not grouping with that type of player if that's what you want. Post your own, non-zerg LFMs to control the way the group runs missions. If zergers join anyway, ask them nicely to stop zerging. If they persist, boot them from the group. If they rejoin and continue zerging, boot and squelch them. Problem solved.

This is like repeatedly slamming your head into a wall, complaining it hurts and asking a contractor to tear the wall down instead of just simply not banging your heading on the wall.

[slarden]

It seems today that people would rather SSG drag the exceptional folks back to average levels rather than put in the work to become better than average themselves.

At least from my perspective it's not that. It's just LGS (e.g., SALT, crit damage boosts), debuffing, overperforming attack sequences, frequent lgs gear swaps, aoe helpless damage, favorable game bugs and more are contributing significantly more to the problem of R10 being too easy than the ravenloft belt which is mainly contributing to the "problem" of one-shotting rooms in easy content on lower difficulties.

When people are saying R10 is too easy and they need R11 it's time to look at why R10 is too easy for a small segment of the population. The problem is more difficult for the devs because the devs don't know all the reasons why people are over-performing and the people demanding more challenge are really demanding more rewards and at the same time not sharing the real reasons why R10 is too easy and instead throw out things like the enhancement belts which has little to do with R10 completions and impacts casual players significantly more.

Fire sorc and alchemist did need an adjustment. I just am not sure what the solution of removing enhancement spellpower was the optimal answer and ultimately I don't think it addresses the problem of "over-performance" at the top end.

Perhaps the devs have decided to ignore the noise and performance at the top end and that is certainly a perfectly reasonable solution from a cost/benefit perspective. Trying to please this crowd while simultaneously trying to keep up with all the over-performing aspects of the game that people are trying to keep secret is both an expensive and losing proposition. It's better to ignore the noise around challenge and rewards from this group and focus on the majority of the player base.

[nobodynobody1426]

At least from my perspective it's not that. It's just LGS (e.g., SALT, crit damage boosts), debuffing, overperforming attack sequences, frequent lgs gear swaps, aoe helpless damage, favorable game bugs and more are contributing significantly more to the problem of R10 being too easy than the ravenloft belt which is mainly contributing to the "problem" of one-shotting rooms in easy content on lower difficulties.

When people are saying R10 is too easy and they need R11 it's time to look at why R10 is too easy for a small segment of the population. The problem is more difficult for the devs because the devs don't know all the reasons why people are over-performing and the people demanding more challenge are really demanding more rewards and at the same time not sharing the real reasons why R10 is too easy and instead throw out things like the enhancement belts which has little to do with R10 completions and impacts casual players significantly more.

Fire sorc and alchemist did need an adjustment. I just am not sure what the solution of removing enhancement spellpower was the optimal answer and ultimately I don't think it addresses the problem of "over-performance" at the top end.

Perhaps the devs have decided to ignore the noise and performance at the top end and that is certainly a perfectly reasonable solution from a cost/benefit perspective. Trying to please this crowd while simultaneously trying to keep up with all the over-performing aspects of the game that people are trying to keep secret is both an expensive and losing proposition. It's better to ignore the noise around challenge and rewards from this group and focus on the majority of the player base.

Ravenloft Belts and Meteor Swarm / Multi-Vial being over powered are two radically different and completely unrelated things. The devs have said many times that the RL belts posed gear progression challenges and that they should of never been created the way they were, they are being removed to create more gear flexibility going forward. Meteor Swarm / Multi-Vial are broken on live pure and simple. Both have damage ceilings way past any other level 9 spell and directly compete with epic level abilities, essentially they are level 11 spells in level 9 slots. Bringing both down to MCL 20 puts them in line with other level 9 spells.

[slarden]

Ravenloft Belts and Meteor Swarm / Multi-Vial being over powered are two radically different and completely unrelated things. The devs have said many times that the RL belts posed gear progression challenges and that they should of never been created the way they were, they are being removed to create more gear flexibility going forward. Meteor Swarm / Multi-Vial are broken on live pure and simple. Both have damage ceilings way past any other level 9 spell and directly compete with epic level abilities, essentially they are level 11 spells in level 9 slots. Bringing both down to MCL 20 puts them in line with other level 9 spells.

I don't have a problem with changes to meteor swarm or multi-vial which I've already stated and I have both a sorc and alchemist character, but I am not convinced on enhancement spellpower. They managed to add sacred DC to feywild gear which did exist on at least one old raid item as a variable bonus, but now we have enhancement, artifact, profane, sacred, insightful and quality bonsues to DC. They could have made augments for all spell types for enhancement bonus as a solution for example.

I don't buy the notion that enhancement spellpower was somehow problematic considering all the types of bonsues that exists for many categories - it was known these items were typed differently since they were tested on Lamannia and there are many other spellpower types. There were options available besides nuking it from orbit it was just a developer preference to take this approach.

As I said I am not sure what removing the enhancement spellpower does from a balance perspective - it might make the devs job easier - I buy that. It does NOT solve the problem of R10 being too easy.

[GroundhogDay]

I just don't understand why they think asking the devs to nerf the other person's fun is acceptable just because it doesn't line up with their own idea of fun.

Entitlement, but they call it "empathy".

[nobodynobody1426]

I don't buy the notion that enhancement spellpower was somehow problematic considering all the types of bonsues that exists for many categories - it was known these items were typed differently since they were tested on Lamannia and there are many other spellpower types. There were options available besides nuking it from orbit it was just a developer preference to take this approach.

Lynn flatly said the RL belts created problems, whether you believe her or is immaterial. From a design point of view it limits gearing options of everyone requiring a RL belt or an LGS offhand, meaning no other caster belts or staves could be introduced unless they also had those spell power effects. The only choice was to either create a bunch of new gear with that same bonus and further bloat the power curve, requiring future design changes to compensate, or to remove the immediate problem and keep the same power curve. They opted for the later as it's the safer and better long time solution.

Nobody likes losing 16-20% of their spell power and yet the bandaid had to be ripped off.

[slarden]

Lynn flatly said the RL belts created problems, whether you believe her or is immaterial. From a design point of view it limits gearing options of everyone requiring a RL belt or an LGS offhand, meaning no other caster belts or staves could be introduced unless they also had those spell power effects. The only choice was to either create a bunch of new gear with that same bonus and further bloat the power curve, requiring future design changes to compensate, or to remove the immediate problem and keep the same power curve. They opted for the later as it's the safer and better long time solution.

Nobody likes losing 16-20% of their spell power and yet the bandaid had to be ripped off.

As I said, it was developer preference to remove it - it's just a different spellpower type and as recent as the feywild update they added a new DC type to the mix so there certainly is nothing problematic about a spellpower type that has been there since ravenloft.

They could have created a 150 enhancement spellpower augment for each type and then stated they had no intentions of adding additional gear with enhancement spellpower and I am guessing most people would slot the augment rather than the belts. My only point is they didn't have to do this - they chose to do this. I am fine with it - I just think adding the augments would have been a better solution vs. having some % of the population unhappy with it.

[MrChipinator]

As I said I am not sure what removing the enhancement spellpower does from a balance perspective - it might make the devs job easier - I buy that. It does NOT solve the problem of R10 being too easy.

Here's the issue: alright fine, we reeled in "Nukers" from being able to pancake R10 content too quickly. The available pool of hammers in the world of nails for most uber players is now more shallow.

Throwers still no fail CC mob lines and mitigate the horrible weakness of melee dps, which is their range.

DC casters will still reign supreme in certain content, killing and immobilizing everything as well.

SWF is primed to become even better at boss killing.

Now, at the current rate at which SSG is able to "balance" these classes, they just keep adding in new ones to keep the flow of cash coming in. We're never going to achieve balance when things like Alchemist, Paladin revamps, Multitude of Missiles, etc, keeps getting released in the first place.

Next big combat revamp is slated to be Bows correct? Who's excited for 300% modifier stacking with bows and we go right back to Furyshotters with Monk splits having enough burst damage to make Greater Ruin **** it's pants?

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

Since this is the main thread : The Diamond Of Festive Dexterity from the Snowpeaks Festival is displayed at the top of the screen when it is used, but it has a text display error :

<string table error; tableDID
[0x25026FD0] token [0x0B609513>]

[Aelonwy]

As I said, it was developer preference to remove it - it's just a different spellpower type and as recent as the feywild update they added a new DC type to the mix so there certainly is nothing problematic about a spellpower type that has been there since ravenloft.

They could have created a 150 enhancement spellpower augment for each type and then stated they had no intentions of adding additional gear with enhancement spellpower and I am guessing most people would slot the augment rather than the belts. My only point is they didn't have to do this - they chose to do this. I am fine with it - I just think adding the augments would have been a better solution vs. having some % of the population unhappy with it.

Virtual +1, Apparently I need to spread rep around more.

They could have created a 150 enhancement spellpower augment for each type and then stated they had no intentions of adding additional gear with enhancement spellpower.

That is actually a brilliant idea. Too bad they want to bring the ceiling down... for now anyways. I doubt it will stay that way when the level cap increases, it will just have a different name or different monetization.

I would almost rather they instituted hard caps to various metrics. Spell Power capped at X, get there however works for you. DCs capped at X, get there however it works for you. That would only hurt those at the very tippy top, those that are pushing the limits. But if they did that there would be less reason for the hardcore elite grinders to get every last number possible and I guess those are the ones that buy the Ottos boxes and do Astral Shard rerolls.

[unhappymeal]

When you don't know what you are talking about, I tell you that you don't know what you are talking about.



Except it isn't. Someone claiming that nothing should ever be nerfed is CLUELESS. Utterly. It's the equivalent of asking someone about engine trouble with your car and they tell you that all cars should be painted red. It's so far off of reality that the person's opinion is proven useless.



You got so close to understanding...



So your principle argument is feelings. Speaking of invalid arguments...



You know what annoys people unduly? Having some OP build destroy the entire dungeon before they finish with their loading screen.
You know what annoys people unduly? Having monsters get preposterous buffs so they can survive the OP build that used to destroy them instantly, and now anyone that isn't the OP build is useless and forced to be in the OP build or wait 2-25 months for the devs to get around to applying similarly OP buffs to their own class so they can keep up with the preposterously buffed monsters.
You know what annoys people unduly? Having developers spend hundreds of hours rebalancing the entire game upwards rather than adjusting a few things downwards and also doing other things like bug fixes, new content.
You know what annoys people unduly? Having people making overly dramatic sky-is-falling gnashing of teeth rending of garments multi-page long whinefests about how they now have to wait 3 more entire seconds before throwing the next room clearing meteor swarm.
You know what annoys people unduly? Having people playing the latest OP build condescendingly telling them how they need to "learn to play, n00b" because they can't solo R10 while standing on their head and juggling chainsaws IRL while also playing DDO.

When you say nothing should be nerfed ever, YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT. When people don't know what they are talking about, they shouldn't be listened to. The devs understand this. It's why the people who say that nothing should ever be nerfed don't get what they want. It's why the people who constantly claim the sky is falling don't get listened to. It's the same people complaining now who a few months ago were making the same claims about the THF changes and how the devs were destroying an entire playstyle...wow, they were wrong, weren't they? Did you see any of them retracting their complete and total wrongness? Did you see any of them apologizing to the devteam for all the nastiness they threw out in the process of being wrong? Because I sure didn't.

You think I'm wrong about anything above? I'm not, especially the part about the buffed monsters. Compare the enemies from Hiding In Plain Sight to the ones in Black and Blue (and no, not including the dragon). There's miles and miles of gap between them in difficulty, as there is years of difference in when they were implemented, and you see the effect of rampant mudflation with your own eyes. This also shows the difficulty in "buffing everything else"...which they've never done. Old quests are WAY easier than newer ones because player power keeps creeping up but making retroactive changes to the rest of the game is far too impractical and time consuming. So we get Quest A which is a cakewalk, and Quest B which destroys you. Is that good? Because I don't think it is.

Time was that at level 20, the best you could realistically get would be a +7 stat item, and maybe +1 profane if you were lucky enough to have the Litany, +2 exceptional from a ToD ring. +10 in total. And that's with 3 raid items. Now I can cannith craft a +9 Stat, +4 Insightful. +1 Profane is available on a trivial-to-get ML3 trinket (among many other items), and you can probably tack on +2 quality as well. So now we're up to +14 or +16 with no effort at all. Is that good? Because I don't think it is.

Or let's go the other way. When the game was released, vorpal weapons would insta-kill on a CRITICAL HIT. Melee who got one (especially on a high range item like rapier or scimitar) were sleepwalking through everything because on any given swing they had a 30% or so chance of just killing the monsters outright. Either you had a vorpal and you dominated everything, or you didn't and you were useless. It wasn't fun for anybody, really. Now, the devs could have listened to the "NO NERF EVAR!" crowd. They could have given every monster death ward. Wouldn't that have been fun? Nobody got nerfed! Wheee! Fun! Except...oh, well, anyone that wanted to play an insta-kill build would suddenly not be able to do anything. How do you solve that without nerfing anybody? You don't. So it got nerfed. It deserved to get nerfed. It needed to get nerfed. And people complained then. They were wrong.

Today, people are bragging about using their level 15 Sharn items all the way to 29 and cake-walking through mid-skull Reaper the entire way. Does that sound right to you? Reaper is supposed to be very difficult. R1 should be a challenge. R5 should be a major undertaking. R10 should be a nearly insurmountable hill. Now they are just "How much bonus XP do I feel like getting?". That's what costs the game players. Not a 3 second delay on Meteor Swarm.

I just want to chime in and say that I'm a returning player from 7 years ago, and this man gets it. I more or less treat this like a single player game, because every party in my level range are people who have TR a gajillion times and are playing Alchs. It is incredibly disheartening to be doing something like the Necro chain and having Alchs wipe the entire room while sprinting before my Bear Druid can even get in melee range. I literally ran around just casting Mass Vigor and Restoration because I felt useless.

[MrChipinator]

I just want to chime in and say that I'm a returning player from 7 years ago, and this man gets it. I more or less treat this like a single player game, because every party in my level range are people who have TR a gajillion times and are playing Alchs. It is incredibly disheartening to be doing something like the Necro chain and having Alchs wipe the entire room while sprinting before my Bear Druid can even get in melee range. I literally ran around just casting Mass Vigor and Restoration because I felt useless.

You should observe things at a more complete level before inserting 7 missing years of nuance and game knowledge into a discussion about nerfs and balances.

Bear Druids are an absolute monster from level 1-30, and have a HUGE range of viable builds and playstyles that see use from Elite all the way to R10.

Tank, DPS, CC, Heals, you name it and Bear does it.

Casters being abnormally strong in heroics has been a staple of DDO since Enhancement trees were given to Sorcerers. Is that fun and fair? Not necessarily but the rest of us have given up trying to get SSG to balance heroics when there's about 100 past lives to get from Heroics alone and it's a relative easy part of the game to just turn on music and grind away.

I filter people from my LFMs, you should try it.

[unhappymeal]

You should observe things at a more complete level before inserting 7 missing years of nuance and game knowledge into a discussion about nerfs and balances.

Bear Druids are an absolute monster from level 1-30, and have a HUGE range of viable builds and playstyles that see use from Elite all the way to R10.

Tank, DPS, CC, Heals, you name it and Bear does it.

Casters being abnormally strong in heroics has been a staple of DDO since Enhancement trees were given to Sorcerers. Is that fun and fair? Not necessarily but the rest of us have given up trying to get SSG to balance heroics when there's about 100 past lives to get from Heroics alone and it's a relative easy part of the game to just turn on music and grind away.

I filter people from my LFMs, you should try it.

All fair points, but I'm giving you my experience as a returning player. Could I be more selective with groups? Sure, but as you know, the population isn't very high, so being picky means I might not have a group at all. Thus my choice is soloing or tagging along while Alchemists and Sorcs obliterate rooms before I can run up to something. Luckily for me, the content is all fresh to me, so I can just solo at my own pace. However, I appreciate someone just joining the game might not feel the same way and stick with it.

[erethizon]

I would almost rather they instituted hard caps to various metrics. Spell Power capped at X, get there however works for you. DCs capped at X, get there however it works for you. That would only hurt those at the very tippy top, those that are pushing the limits. But if they did that there would be less reason for the hardcore elite grinders to get every last number possible and I guess those are the ones that buy the Ottos boxes and do Astral Shard rerolls.

Hard caps would be spectacular. So many problems could be solved with hard caps. It is much easier to create a minimum level of challenge when someone's DC (or even DPS) cannot pass a certain threshold. We currently have players that can only pass a DC check when they roll a 20 and that do less than 10% (in some cases less than 1%) of the damage that the top players do. How can you possibly balance anything with this kind of disparity? There needs to either be a hard ceiling or, perhaps even better, a firm floor where you cannot possibly have less than X DC and cannot possibly do less than X damage no matter what gear you are using and what build you have. The floor could be easily done by baking most of the DC and damage into class levels. If most of your DC and damage went up automatically just as a side effect of taking a level it would be far easier to balance content.

[timmy9999]

Hard caps would be spectacular. So many problems could be solved with hard caps. It is much easier to create a minimum level of challenge when someone's DC (or even DPS) cannot pass a certain threshold. We currently have players that can only pass a DC check when they roll a 20 and that do less than 10% (in some cases less than 1%) of the damage that the top players do. How can you possibly balance anything with this kind of disparity? There needs to either be a hard ceiling or, perhaps even better, a firm floor where you cannot possibly have less than X DC and cannot possibly do less than X damage no matter what gear you are using and what build you have. The floor could be easily done by baking most of the DC and damage into class levels. If most of your DC and damage went up automatically just as a side effect of taking a level it would be far easier to balance content.

I really don't understand these conversations. I guess this could be the case for heriocs maybe, fresh toon no gear. Most people speed run r1 and you may feel left behind. Reaper points have had a hit point cap and you can only spent so many points as you level. To get a few points to fill up the caster tree isn't difficult. Add to that gear, be that crafted, ravensloft, sharn.
Unless I've been out of the low level heriocs too long, anyone after they have finished their first life farmed some gear should be able to reach sufficient dc on r1. There shouldn't be any much or any disparity on r1, you roll the dice and insta kill. The real problem is imo people are really quick. Unfortunately no matter what you do, you're not gonna beat fast players.

This is the same for lv 30 r6 and under, with a few reaper points and putting the effort in to be fully geared. Doing the raid etc, you should be able to get no fail insta kills etc. I'm not sure about your server, but on mine, good players,vets, etc. rarely run r6, it's r10 only, to get that first time bonus.
Maybe unless they are farming, if your running r6 and below your not really even running with the vets ect anyway. I'm not being an elitist however these are my observations. Typically r6 is the standard yet semi challenging lv for a bunch of new player to farm first times and get reaper xp. I really hope this flicks the light switch on. Unless your running r7s-r10s everything is fair game, even for new players. You just need to out the effort into playing a suitable build and then getting the gear.

[Aelonwy]

I really don't understand these conversations. I guess this could be the case for heriocs maybe, fresh toon no gear. Most people speed run r1 and you may feel left behind. Reaper points have had a hit point cap and you can only spent so many points as you level. To get a few points to fill up the caster tree isn't difficult. Add to that gear, be that crafted, ravensloft, sharn.
Unless I've been out of the low level heriocs too long, anyone after they have finished their first life farmed some gear should be able to reach sufficient dc on r1. There shouldn't be any much or any disparity on r1, you roll the dice and insta kill. The real problem is imo people are really quick. Unfortunately no matter what you do, you're not gonna beat fast players.

This is the same for lv 30 r6 and under, with a few reaper points and putting the effort in to be fully geared. Doing the raid etc, you should be able to get no fail insta kills etc. I'm not sure about your server, but on mine, good players,vets, etc. rarely run r6, it's r10 only, to get that first time bonus.
Maybe unless they are farming, if your running r6 and below your not really even running with the vets ect anyway. I'm not being an elitist however these are my observations. Typically r6 is the standard yet semi challenging lv for a bunch of new player to farm first times and get reaper xp. I really hope this flicks the light switch on. Unless your running r7s-r10s everything is fair game, even for new players. You just need to out the effort into playing a suitable build and then getting the gear.

This is not my experience at all. I have been playing since 2009. I do not often group with new players except my kids on new characters but on the rare occasion I do need to PuG, new players are not enjoying elite let alone R1. Not everyone likes being carried, or piking. It just isn't my experience that brand new players or even some returning after many years hiatus are contributing in difficulties over elite. And if you are seeing r6 as the standard/default difficulty even for new players, isn't that an issue? Suitable build and get the gear? Gee kind of a catch22 since you need those to run the difficulty to get the gear in a reasonable time frame to run the difficulty. I will refer you to a thread I saw just this morning for the experience of a real new player:
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...uping-for-some

[erethizon]

I really don't understand these conversations. I guess this could be the case for heriocs maybe, fresh toon no gear. Most people speed run r1 and you may feel left behind. Reaper points have had a hit point cap and you can only spent so many points as you level. To get a few points to fill up the caster tree isn't difficult. Add to that gear, be that crafted, ravensloft, sharn.
Unless I've been out of the low level heriocs too long, anyone after they have finished their first life farmed some gear should be able to reach sufficient dc on r1. There shouldn't be any much or any disparity on r1, you roll the dice and insta kill. The real problem is imo people are really quick. Unfortunately no matter what you do, you're not gonna beat fast players.

This is the same for lv 30 r6 and under, with a few reaper points and putting the effort in to be fully geared. Doing the raid etc, you should be able to get no fail insta kills etc. I'm not sure about your server, but on mine, good players,vets, etc. rarely run r6, it's r10 only, to get that first time bonus.
Maybe unless they are farming, if your running r6 and below your not really even running with the vets ect anyway. I'm not being an elitist however these are my observations. Typically r6 is the standard yet semi challenging lv for a bunch of new player to farm first times and get reaper xp. I really hope this flicks the light switch on. Unless your running r7s-r10s everything is fair game, even for new players. You just need to out the effort into playing a suitable build and then getting the gear.

I would speculate that running R6 or higher, even for first time bonus, is probably done by less than 20% of the player base. I know how it can seem that way. When I join groups for R6+ it is always the same club of 100 people running everything. They all know each other and group up several times a week to run high reaper. They seem to think they are normal because that is what they always do and everyone they know does the same thing. But the majority of players, the vast majority from what I can tell, don't ever run anything above R1. And a surprisingly large number of those player die regularly on R1.

I play every quest exactly once per life. Once I have run everything I TR again. I always post an LFM for whatever I am running and end up grouping with a very wide variety of players, especially in heroics where most of the non-vets seem to be. You can learn a lot by posting LFM's for quests that vets don't run because they take too long to walk to or are not worth enough experience per minute. I meet new players every life. They are not effortlessly dominating R1 the way you describe. The game hides most player ability behind gear (rather than being inherently built into the character like it should be) and it makes no effort to tell players where to find appropriate gear. It hides it randomly throughout the game with no way of knowing where the best gear is or what is appropriate for your character.

I have met a few new players that actually like researching and they have spent many hours online looking up what to farm and where. Those people tend to do as well as you describe. But everyone else, the vast majority, struggle because the game does not do a good job of making the necessary gear inevitably fall into the lap of each player.

[Seph1roth5]

Typically r6 is the standard yet semi challenging lv for a bunch of new player to farm first times and get reaper xp.

That's crazy lol. New players can easily get slaughtered on elite, much less r1, R6 is completely ridiculous for new players unless they're just staying in the back and sitting on their hands, not touching or doing anything. Because they're not going to know where enemies spawn, where to go, or anything.