U50 Preview 1: Endgame Itemization Adjustments

[Drwaz99]

You should be forewarned its going to erode player and purchasing trust. If people can't trust that what they are purchasing is going to be kept in good faith... there will be a reduction in sales.

This is also something that SSG needs to really take into consideration. Especially with the monetization of player power, ie chest rerolls, named loot gems, shard auction house, etc. People won't buy or use these items if they feel like it's just going to be taken away from them at a moment's notice.

[Seph1roth5]

Clickies need to be bumped up, a lot. I see legendary items with clickies that give +20/12 alchemical to an element/universal, spells that are going to have **** damage and DCs.

Others, like stoneskin are just weak at 30, and are on much much lower level gear like Titan Awakes. Instead of putting clickies through the number equalizer, they should have all of their #s boosted/fixed.

[QuantumFX]

Copied my main to Lammaland. (20 Wood Elf Paladin KotC) Ran "A Sharn Welcome" on Legendary R4. The difficulty feels comparable to R4 on live.

Copied a secondary character. (2 Rogue/18 Alchemist Shadar-kai Bombadier) Ran "Home of Memory" on Legendary R2. Difficulty is *vastly* improved. It was nice that my Flash Freeze actually affected mobs.

[Vorachtin]

I mean, if the goal of u50 and u51 is to see how many players we can push away I give you 2 thumbs straight up.

[TPICKRELL]

Removing the W (scaling on hit damage) and replacing it with an only on roll of 20 effect that only has value against some mobs is a bad change.

It makes several of the Dryad weapons much less attractive (you know the ones we have been spending bypass timers to get runes to buy for the past several months).

I'm ok with stat compression if and only if you get the monster balance right, and when you don't, you QUICKLY correct it. I have no faith that you will get it right or that you will fix it quickly when its broken.

Doing this many changes in U50 and U51 is a serious risk. I hope you know what you are doing.

[Vorachtin]

Removing the W (scaling on hit damage) and replacing it with an only on 20 and only has value against some mobs is a bad change.

It makes several of the Dryad weapons much less attractive (you know the ones we have been spending bypass timers to get runes to buy for the past several months).

I'm ok with stat compression if and only if you get the monster balance right, and when you don't, you QUICKLY correct it. I have no faith that you will get it right or that you will fix it quickly when its broken.

Doing this many changes in U50 and U51 is a serious risk. I hope you know what you are doing.

WoW did a squish like this with a year and a half of development using a much bigger team and that still launched with a ton of bugs. SSG trying to pull it off while giving us **** in return makes all my sphincters clench.

[Vorachtin]

Look at it like this, half the razorclaw enhancment tree doesnt even work period, and how long as that been out? You think they can pull this off? gimme a break.

I get stat squishes, they happen from time to time in other long running games. SSG's track record with implementation is what gives me heart palpitations.

[Vish]

Combat and Statistical Granularity – One of the game's greatest strengths is the granularity of numbers in its content, but working with larger numbers is generally more challenging than working with smaller numbers. We want to retain as much granularity as we can while making gear set math easier.

nice had to look up granularity

technical
the scale or level of detail present in a set of data or other phenomenon.

[Iriale]

Some questions:

What about insightful and quality bonuses? How do they change? In my opinion quality should disappear before lowering the main stat. So much duplication of bonuses makes gear tetris a nightmare.

Will you rejoin resistance and sheltering in a single stat?

And what about the Epic Ward? Will Charm be viable in Epics, or will it still be useless?

[SierraSilverfox]

If we assume that the stat drop and the accompanying offensive power of enemies is to remain in an ideal equal balance to what it is now, then the incoming damage proportionate to the need for outgoing healing will remain identical to how it is now, the issue is that just taking my FvS for example, i'm already down 578 SP with these changes, which is 14.45 casts of Flame of the Favored in itself. That's a pretty significant nerf to healing output since not everyone can afford to just chug SP potions nor do they always have a bard on hand to keep an SP regen buff active. With the systems all seemingly equal in this case the numbers for incoming damage and outgoing healing output would, assumably, maintain a similar ratio to how it is now. The issue comes to the huge drop in resource management ability as a result of the now nerfed stat level, both the 21 wisdom to 13 wisdom primary stat, and 10 insightful to 6 insightful, as well as the 453 spellpoint items down to the 277. hopefully the devs can address -this- issue too and make it so that healers aren't just running dry on resources after buffing and having to hit every single shrine in a quest, which is annoying in itself, especially when some quests have very few of those. >.<

[Aelonwy]

Some questions:

What about insightful and quality bonuses? How do they change? In my opinion quality should disappear before lowering the main stat. So much duplication of bonuses makes gear tetris a nightmare.

Will you rejoin resistance and sheltering in a single stat?

And what about the Epic Ward? Will Charm be viable in Epics, or will it still be useless?

That's a really good point. I argued against ref/will/fort being separated into individual sv bonuses on items because it makes for obnoxious gear tetris, especially considering there were already parrying/insightful, and quality save bonuses and now additionally spell save bonuses general or particular. That's needlessly complicated.

And I don't mind Insightful or Quality MRR/PRR being separate but the base Sheltering should have remained a single stat.

I would much rather see a reduction in the variety of bonus types that MUST BE stacked than a reduction in the regular effect.

How many "typings" of stackable bonuses do we have now anyways? I keep loosing track. Equipment? Competence, Insight, Quality, Profane, Sacred, Exceptional, Mythic, Morale, Luck, Alchemical, Sentient, Guild, Inherent, anything else? I'm sure I'm missing a half dozen.

[ilzarion]

The power spike at level 29 vs level 28 is a huge issue for the smooth transition of the game imo. However, as this game inclines you to reincarnate constantly, the moment you hit 20, you have to very specifically choose your content based on the current gear. (especially if your doing reapers as you ding 20), I think that the transition gap for maxing out your xp at 20 is pretty dated. Can you also do a pass on that?

[Madja]

Will something like this ever be implemented for non-cap?

[SierraSilverfox]

That's a really good point. I argued against ref/will/fort being separated into individual sv bonuses on items because it makes for obnoxious gear tetris, especially considering there were already parrying/insightful, and quality save bonuses and now additionally spell save bonuses general or particular. That's needlessly complicated.

And I don't mind Insightful or Quality MRR/PRR being separate but the base Sheltering should have remained a single stat.

I would much rather see a reduction in the variety of bonus types that MUST BE stacked than a reduction in the regular effect.

How many "typings" of stackable bonuses do we have now anyways? I keep loosing track. Equipment? Competence, Insight, Quality, Profane, Sacred, Exceptional, Mythic, Morale, Luck, Alchemical, Sentient, Guild, Inherent, anything else? I'm sure I'm missing a half dozen.

you forgot Festive. also i definitely agree with removing some of the extra stacking stuff, i wouldn't mind keeping the core enhancement/insight/quality but there is a LOT of extra stuff at this point that's just kinda forced into it, and removing a lot of the extra's would lower the total value to about what our base is in feywild stuff. i've also despised them splitting up resistance to saves and such, and then spell saves kinda ended up mandatory in a lot of cases to not get one shot by spells because half my characters can't also fit in a solid MRR item with current itemization setups.

[Merrillman]

Disclaimer

Everything seen on the preview server, Lamannia, is not final and is subject to change or removal before live release.

With Update 50 we are making some adjustments to curtail power creep within DDO's end game, focusing specifically on the power level of items at the level cap. These adjustments will change how you approach gearing, and will encompass both adjustments to player power in addition to content difficulty. We want to go into more detail about why we are doing this and what it means, and we look forward to hearing from you after checking things out on Lamannia.

Background Information

We have steadily increased the amount of power available in itemization in order to provide a sense of progression as our end game has matured. This strategy has resulted in two long term challenges, both of which we are here to address:

Challenge 1: Item power level increases over time as we release new content, and we progress beyond the item power level of older content at the same challenge level.

Challenge 2: As we follow along this system of progression, we in turn increase the difficulty of content to provide challenge. This leads to a situation where content meant to be played at a certain character level ends up with a wide range of difficulty.

With those two challenges in mind, we are aiming to equalize and reduce the power level of items found in end game content, and adjust the power level of monsters at end game to match.

Solution Part 1: Itemization

In summary:

Named Items found within Legendary content will be adjusted and normalized to values appropriate to their minimum level. This means that an item found within Ravenloft will match the power level of an item found within Sharn, or Feywild, or any of our other current Legendary content.

• This adjustment will pull the item values to more reasonable levels across the board, resulting in a streamlined curve that extends upwards from 1 to 30 with fewer jumps and tracks with both randomly-generated loot and Cannith crafted loot.
• This will not affect anything other than the named items found within legendary content and Cannith Crafted Loot that used the "Minimum Levels 31-34 Shards". Random Loot, Augments (named or otherwise), Items found within events, or anything else other than named items found within legendary content and Cannith Crafted Loot that used the "Minimum Levels 31-34 Shards" will be changing.
• Items will be adjusted in place without any necessary intervention on the player's part, to prevent the situation where legacy versions of items are more powerful than newly found versions.
• These items will continue to drop in the same place they currently do at the same drop rates.
• Items with crafted components, such as Slavers Crafting, will have their crafted components adjusted just like the statically set effects found on non-crafted gear.
• Set bonuses at endgame will have their numerical power adjusted to appropriate values to match our new goals for player power sourced from itemization at endgame.
• The +W bonus from Keen has been adjusted to instead provide complete fortification bypass on a Natural 20. Note: The fortification bypass isn't yet working in this preview
• Raid items and Minor Artifacts will retain their proportional power boosts to other items at the same level, and therefore will remain a step stronger than other items at the same level.

What this means is that the items you find at end game will be lower in item power than they were before, but are now evenly scaled across content packs. This means that an item found in Feywild will be equally as strong as an item found within Sharn or Ravenloft or the Dragonblood Prophecy, or any other Legendary content featuring level 29 items.

To provide some concrete context, this is where the numbers will likely end up at the current level cap. Also note that raid items and artifacts will be a few steps higher than what's shown here as well.



Solution Part 2: Monster Power

We have been increasing the power level of monsters found at the level cap as the power level of items increased over time, and since we are adjusting these items downwards, we will be adjusting monsters downwards to match. The most notable change with this system is the removal of the Legendary Tier system as it relates to monsters. A monster at end game will ideally be just as difficult no matter which dungeon it is found in. The removal of the Legendary Tier system will represent a significant reduction in the offensive and defensive statistics of monsters found at the level cap, which means that monsters will be much weaker than they were before. We are also removing the Epic and Hard Saves boost found on all Monsters across our Epic content.

Given that each monster in our game has different stats and therefore a different starting point, it is hard for us to tell you exactly where each number will end up, but we can give out some comparisons to help demonstrate how dramatic this change will be. For example, Monsters across all of Epics will have 6 fewer Saving Throws, and Monsters at Endgame specifically will instead have 16 fewer saves. This also does not include our current planned removal of Epic Resilience, which will remove an additional 6 saving throws, for a total reduction of 22.

Monsters will not just be losing saving throws. The Legendary Tier II buff corresponded to 150% Fortification Bypass, 60 Attack Bonus, and 10 Spell Penetration, as well as a whole host of other offensive and defensive buffs designed to make them hit harder and take more hits. We hope that our monster rescaling ends up making content feel more realistic and more accessible, and are able to do more adjustments if necessary.


Short and Long Term Benefits

We are compelled to make these adjustments for a large number of reasons, and we want to provide a few of the reasons today:

1. Content Pack Parity - This change will put all of the content packs at end game on the same item level scaling, which means that gear found within those content packs will be equally valuable numerically. This means that a large number of items that had previously been crunched out of viability are now able to be worked into gear sets without fear that you are settling for a subpar option.
2. Cannith Crafting Viability - This change will mean that if you have missing parts of your gear set, Cannith Crafting is now a more appealing way to fill those gaps, similar to its benefit at lower levels. It also means that we can dedicate more time to improving Cannith Crafting in the future, as its viability doesn't fall off as we approach end game.
3. Random Loot Viability - This change will mean that it is more likely that Random Loot will end up numerically viable for use at endgame. We don't generally expect established players to use Random Loot provided they have spent some time working on gear, but newer or less engaged players will now have more viable sources of power to select from.
4. Augment Scaling - This change will mean that our revamped Augments and Augment system are comparatively more valuable than they were before. Our Scaling augments (aka non-named Augments) currently stop at level 28, and will now represent a larger chunk of numerical power compared to their usage before this change.
5. Avoiding Difficulty Spikes - The adjustments of monsters at end game will help us avoid difficulty spikes, which in this case means content where there is no outward indication that it is more difficult than normal but in reality contains tougher enemies than in other quests at the same level. Our goal is to provide an end game in which everyone can contribute, but still encourage dedicated play and mastery, with a variety of options that reward a more challenging experience for those able to handle it.
6. Impact on Content Creation - Being able to use existing monster formulas without the need for additional and oftentimes lengthy one-off work makes it easier to stat monsters for dungeons, and that helps us spend more time polishing dungeons and doing cooler and better things.
7. Combat and Statistical Granularity – One of the game's greatest strengths is the granularity of numbers in its content, but working with larger numbers is generally more challenging than working with smaller numbers. We want to retain as much granularity as we can while making gear set math easier.
8. Smooth Leveling - Our long term goals with DDO involve providing a smooth and exciting leveling experience across all levels and difficulties, not just from 1 to 20. This change allows us to provide a smoother leveling curve by removing the large jump in power at level 29.
9. Future Proof Design -One of the biggest benefits of this change is how future proof it is. We will only need to do an endgame adjustment like this once, and then it's largely done and we can continue onwards into the future with a better end game.

As always, we look forward to your feedback!

Why is this always so complicated? Why not make anything post U50 universal items that auto-scale based on the 3 levels of power. So, level 3-20, a level three item stays level 3 power. When you hit 20, the item gains its new level 20 properties. at level 30, it gains its level 30 properties. No nonsensical altar trips. Perhaps make slotted augments "lock" the level until they're unslotted, or just make THEM scalable too. Wouldn't that be a lot easier/simpler?

Wouldn't it make playing heroic just as valuable as playing only epic?

Nothing to do w this pass, but in general... for the love of Vecna, make Raid level stuff accessible somehow for people who cannot be in a raid group. Its insane I can't (almost never able to raid) get LGS because I can almost never find a group or be in a group large enough for shroud. I honestly don't have the time to wait 2 hours before I MIGHT be able to start a raid. I have a physical issue where I cannot use my arm for long periods of time when sitting in that position at a desk, where my arm becomes numb and unusable so hours upon hours of play is simply not possible for me. Make it like sentient food or something where we can slowly upgrade by some other method. I am severely power-handicapped by no access to LGS/raidgear. Maybe make it at least possible as a VIP? Because I have limited time I can be on, I am pretty much excluded from ever getting LGS or other raid gear. Let VIP buy it with some kind of in game currency or maybe make trading reaper points (before they are spent in tree, or chosen as a reward in lieu of reaper XP at start of reaper level dungeon?) for LGS ingredients and allow an upgrade on the ship or something. Some way to equalize with people who can spend untold hours where many people cant.

[Mighty_Bozo]

Absolutely great job. This is the way!

[macubrae]

So let me get this straight, while allowing players to use multiple ED trees, most of the big damage has been removed. Also, all of the awesome level 29 equipment players have been farming for years is getting "fixed" so that it isn't that much better than crafted or random generated. After everything has been "fixed" and not nerffed to oblivion as others might say, then DDO is going to sell us ten more levels that nobody asked for, so that we can have big damage and awesome equipment players can farm.
I love D&D and I really like DDO and I've spent a lot of money on both for multiple accounts, as a person who likes change and enjoys a new challenge, who was in beta and came back in 2009 and who has bought almost every expansion and adventure pack x4, only to have my purchases scaled down in effectiveness, leaves me with a little buyers remorse. Personally, I would prefer more content to revamping so much of the game. Get more licensing from WotC, find out long term projects, have joint release dates and put in the quality that Ravenloft has. Bring in new creatures in different colors and sizes, make more quests like Precious Cargo, Blockade Buster and In the Belly of the Beast and remember that it isn't the players against the Devs, we're in this together. The Devs should be making challenging yet entertaining quests, visually stimulating, surprising and maybe a twist at the end, like multiple possible conclusions, rewards or even chain advancements. I know that the Devs have put a lot of work into this, but why? Running new quests, chains and sagas is fun. How much fun is having all of our equipment "fixed" right before you add ten new levels to grind (not all at once)?

[Vorachtin]

Absolutely great job. This is the way!

yeah great like a proctology exam with no sedative.

[dipstik]

SSG gunna get some bank from everyone buying 5 more mules

[kpak01]

With Update 50 we are making some adjustments to curtail power creep within DDO's end game, focusing specifically on the power level of items at the level cap.
...
To provide some concrete context, this is where the numbers will likely end up at the current level cap. Also note that raid items and artifacts will be a few steps higher than what's shown here as well.

Wow, I did not expect this, considering the years-long sprint to inflate numbers and obsolete gear. Bravo for deciding to go in the right direction!

However, if you're going to do it, have the courage to go all the way and do it right! Let's scale all the way back to the pre-U19 loot scaling. E.g., Epic Gianthold (U17) gives +8 main stat. That should have only bumped to +9 at level 28, not jumped to +12! Otherwise you still have the problem of the power-creep gear invalidating other packs. Yes, that means you'd have to rescale your augments and crafting, too. But, as you point out, you only have to do it once, and then it's fixed. If you do this proposed half-job, you will still have to address the problem again.

Named Items found within Legendary content will be adjusted and normalized to values appropriate to their minimum level. This means that an item found within Ravenloft will match the power level of an item found within Sharn, or Feywild, or any of our other current Legendary content.
...[*]Content Pack Parity - This change will put all of the content packs at end game on the same item level scaling, which means that gear found within those content packs will be equally valuable numerically. This means that a large number of items that had previously been crunched out of viability are now able to be worked into gear sets without fear that you are settling for a subpar option.[*]Cannith Crafting Viability - This change will mean that if you have missing parts of your gear set, Cannith Crafting is now a more appealing way to fill those gaps, similar to its benefit at lower levels. It also means that we can dedicate more time to improving Cannith Crafting in the future, as its viability doesn't fall off as we approach end game.[*]Random Loot Viability - This change will mean that it is more likely that Random Loot will end up numerically viable for use at endgame. We don't generally expect established players to use Random Loot provided they have spent some time working on gear, but newer or less engaged players will now have more viable sources of power to select from.

I expect some people will whine about the long overdue nerf to the massive stat inflation, but even greedy powergamers should be able to get behind having values be consistent across packs.