U50 Preview 1: Endgame Itemization Adjustments

[Lominal]

so ran some number to give you an idea of balance( for monster hp)

melee dps lose 20-30% of damage from live
ranged dps lose 18-25% of dps from live
casting dps loses 30-40% of damage from live

can tweak to where you want a balance between the three but I think 25-30% HP reduction seems about reasonable

[Tilomere]

Absolutely fantastic. This will open up grouping across level 20-30 players since 29 gearing won't be so much of a cliff anymore.

[Akoriv]

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.

When you make these changes, keep in mind that you have so ****ed things up, melees REQUIRE Battle Trance to hit the Tactics DCs necessary for many EE/R1 monsters to fail their saves more than maybe 15-20% of the time. This applies to everything from the mid U3X update range to the most recent content.

[Carrow12]

I don't even know what to say about this.... it's hard to stomach logging onto Lam and seeing that not only am I missing 12 DC, but pretty much every aspect of my toon got nerfed. You guys even lowered the stats on the many healer pouch belt THAT WAS ALREADY UNDERPOWERED. Combine this with the destiny changes - yeah. My level 29 Princes Scepter now has lower stats than the level 21 Borderlands Scepter on live. It's bad that there is no universal scepter from Level 10 to 29 - now what little is there is getting nerfed to hell.

This is going to be difficult to deal with.

[Lanadazia]

raiders rejoice!

finally the effort put into raid gear pays off!

[redoubt]

raiders rejoice!

finally the effort put into raid gear pays off!

You think they won't nerf that too?

Maybe you are right... I am sure they will allow things like:

Bell_of_Warding and have 7 more cha and 60 more spell power than any other item in game.
echo of ravenkind for an extra 7 con
or any of the other +20 stat items from the raids.
Raid weapons with double the power of the new level 30 stuff...

If we are lucky they will let them be +14. No way they are letting it stand.

[Catabree]

2 Things

No amount of 'homogenizing' loot will fix the set bonus variations that make Feywild the go to gear now unless you add a universal set bonus to all gear. The Feywild > Sharn > Ravenloft > everything else is **** because of the set bonuses. Will you add universal set bonuses and the ability to craft set bonuses onto Cannith Gear?

and

Casters are further losing not only Spell Crit % and Spell Crit Dmg % and somewhere around what 35% Spell Power - raid healers will suffer and dps casters especially dps warlocks will suffer their 38th nerf to this homogenization. Warlocks will be utterly killed as end game viable for RAIDS and soloing except for those few people who do not mind kiting trash endlessly for hours then having a boss fight for 45 minutes. I dont understand why you'd allow Barb/Pally/Fighter melee etc 2H fight wipe out a room and a boss in 2 minutes, yet a Warlock must required 60 minutes to do the same?? Auto-attack is an even easier easy button than burst/burst/jump. Unless the planned monster nerfs are really really going to weaken mobs i don't see how you can look at Warlock and not see a dead class.

And

Since gating and homogenizing seem to be the direction SSG is going, far away, I might add from Gygax's complex codex, why not just boil all abilities into one stat and call it 'Main Stat' and get rid of STR, DEX, CON, INT etc - that would allow you to really control the numbers with exquisite mastery (This is a joke)

Consider, I beg you, what Princess Leia said, 'The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.' In other words, the more you try to homogenize our beloved DDO and move it away from 3.5-5e chasing a beautiful algorithm of delicate designed balance, the more players will leave feeling its too dumbed down and different from actual Dungeons & Dragons.

Dungeons & Dragons has never been balanced. Anyone who's played pen and paper D&D knows this: the minute the wizard gets fireball all bets are off. That's how it should be. Give the barbarian an axe and he can murder everyone. Give the wizard lightning bolt and the party is eating scorched dragon for dinner. Give the thief an invisibility ring and watch an entire city get looted into poverty. That's just how the game is. Try to 'balance' it and you will wind up with a Disney Star Wars film instead of a Lucas Star Wars, and yeah once in a while you'll conjure a Favreau, but really, such things are rare, and those who are here to play Dungeons and Dragons are going to find something else to do.

You actually have a really valid point in everything you've mentioned. I agree, kind of sad isn't it.

[Nammmmmmm]

Note the full fort bypass is only on a roll of 20, so its ****.

So probably a 6%ish DPS increase for those at the bottom of the barrel, nice.

[SpardaX]

I see you and your foundation laying for levels past 30.

[xBunny]

2. That the items is so strong partially offset the Extreme powergap between those with reaper hitpoints and pastlives. Maybe if you downtune Items it had been good to reduce reaperhitpoints?

Good point. When I did create few alts, gearing them in Sharn gear on 29-30, made them pretty strong and middle reaper doable. My 1st life tank was able to tank up to r6. I know that no one needs a tank on r6, but still was somehow usefull holding boss and making mobs agro me instead of party.

[KoobTheProud]

I'm torn on this one.

I'm a huge fan of reducing power creep, particularly in items where it is completely out of control

On the other hand this will go a long way into making the many past lives viable again and it will once again put DDO into a vested players only situation.

I think the change alongside the level cap increase will probably kill the game. Not enough new players buying in to a horrific grind and not enough old players staying the course = declining pop and likely sunset of the game at some point sooner than we'd all like.

[xBunny]

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).

So true. Some weapons are only compatible with others only because of +2W from keen and 0.5 from Vorpal. Some top level Falcions will suffer greatly, for example.

[Kebtid]

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)?

Speak for yourself, i want more levels.

If you guys get the numbers right this might be the best update you had since we had level cap @20.

Also love how this opens up so many other gearing choices. Any weapon that did not have keen was rendered useless in the last few updates, this makes many other weapons suddenly viable, by reducing saves of mobs it also makes proc weapons more appealing. Good job.

Question: Are you looking into leg gsteel as well and augment sets from feywild?

If, how are you gonna adjust those?

[krolikru3]

Does this mean set bonuses are also going to be rolled back? Or is it just base stats. If you are trying to increase the viability of things like RL compared to Sharn, the main thing is set bonuses. I don't think what's holding everyone back from using Ravenloft content is the -1 to a stat bonus, rather it's the wide disparity in how powerful the set bonuses are (especially for melee). There's just no reason to pick up a RL item if you can help it (and if you are min-maxing).

[Kebtid]

Does this mean set bonuses are also going to be rolled back? Or is it just base stats. If you are trying to increase the viability of things like RL compared to Sharn, the main thing is set bonuses. I don't think what's holding everyone back from using Ravenloft content is the -1 to a stat bonus, rather it's the wide disparity in how powerful the set bonuses are (especially for melee). There's just no reason to pick up a RL item if you can help it (and if you are min-maxing).

Set bonuses are changed already, new sets added, old epic raids got their items tied to new sets, some defensive sets got buffed while offensive got nerfed, caster sets, general one are worse, thematic ones are usable.
Nuking is totally deleted, dc casting will be strong, absurdly strong til upd 51 (first time in forever that dc casters might have highers dcs on their spells then melees)

There is alot of data that needs to be crunched but overall now you have choice, where you pick a set from old raids or new content and build character based on that.
I still do not know how the fey sets will end up as those could be primary source of set benefits as well to complement something like adherant set....

ITs amazing how many choices we actually have with this.

The only worrisome thing that comes to mind now is build limitation, as a melee i am kinda forced into fighter builds to cap out my dstrike which is the most important stat now.

So choices are some form of kensei pure build with bloodrage chism (reduce this item as well?) or some form of centerd build, again kensei in wind stance.

Build diversity might be lost due to some trees being to strong regarding dstrike.

Dstrike from trees will need to be looked into it.

Vistani, kensei, possibly wind stance, i see few issues regarding build diversity regarding those few that come to mind.

[zooble]

"we will be adjusting monsters downwards to match"

My gripe is that the changes are not limited to "matching". It's matching and then some. The clearest example is any sort of double strike, crit or similar taking out a trash mob whereas now it won't be as reliable unless monster hp is halved (doubtful).


Re: Keen

It's nice to see +2W gone, it made weapons so strong that people didn't want non-keen weapons simply due to the lower base damage. Perfect example is the wraps from Strahd, despite wraps from THTH existing. End game choice is now down to the effects you want. Keen non-raid weapons vs non-keen raid weapons was also a point of confusion. However, given that original keen is largely obsolete at endgame, the bypass on vorpal just seems like a wasted effect slot for most people. I'd suggest maybe 3 seconds of fort bypass (or something else entirely) but that just seems like more overhead for the buff processor.

Re: to hit

I haven't personally tested it but as others have said, if you miss 40% of the time that is just a very unfun experience. Even missing 10% to 30% of the time is very unfun especially when you use an ability. People want reliability. In this department, misses should effectively be removed or at least down to 5%if you're decked out enough (uber completionist not being that benchmark). Damage could be scaled to suit.

Re: making similar gear the same power etc

Does this mean Ravenloft sets are back? If so, it sounds good in theory but as someone else said, the permutation of gear choice would be so frustrating as more packs are introduced. Don't get me wrong, finding a good setup can be fun, but when choice is insanely huge, with very little in-game numbers to assist, it's just annoying.

Re: no more rare items

Rare items give you something to aspire to even if you never get it. I think there should be some rare items in the game that only a few people will ever get.

[Hawkwier]

Its mostly sharn and higher. The dcs, ac, fortification, and saves of all sharn mobs in reaper are significantly higher then RL. When sharn came out it was near impossible to sneak attack damage mobs in reaper because of their fort. Like the poster above you, it seems fortification and ac have not been adjusted. Melee builds get screwed, rogues are utter trash again (half of their dps is SA), and everyone goes back to just playing dc instakillers because its only thing able to kill anything in a timely fashion. Gross hyberpole aside, I want to devs to comment on whether they think the mob metrics mentioned prior are at levels that are in line with what they want. Clearly the adjustment to sharn mobs was to counter act the gross power creep from RL to sharn. SO if that still holds true and all level 29 gear is the same power, then the mobs in newer content need to be adjusted down.
House j and devils gambit chain have notoriously low mob metrics making them very easy. It would be nice with this change if all level 30 quests had the same general mob metrics. Some of the sharn stuff is level 32 and so the mobs should generally be have slightly better metrics then the level 30 content (like devils gambit), but not to the degree of current live. Level 32 quest mobs shouldnt have grossly inflated metrics compared to level 30 quest.

This sort of observation is extremely concerning to me.

Devs, I'm currently supportive of your initiative here, but you MUST ensure ALL mob and environmental aspects are scaled back fully and appropriately as far as possible. I hope folks will be patient during transition, where not everything is likely to work out fully, as you risk losing players if not.

Rebalancing is fine, it's good in fact. What isn't fine is destroying whole classes effectiveness (rogues as cited above, for example) in the process. What you are doing here is fundamentally altering a fairly complex ecosystem, and that must be done with great care and precision. If not, you will simply tick off too many customers.

Leaving things like mob AC and fort untouched, for example, when player side relevant stats are being nerfed, is not acceptable - that's not a difficult relationship to understand and recognise it so obviously needs addressing. I'm worried you don't appear to be addressing something as obvious as this?

Posts like that above really make me concerned this might be a half-arsed initial approach - let's be absolutely clear here - THAT WILL NOT DO!

Please don't underestimate the critical necessity to assure players effectiveness is broadly maintained. If erring, err on the side of the players benefit. Even consider some form of safety margin in your thinking to assure this. It would in general be preferable to have players feel they have come out ahead through this process. Whilst I know that is not ideal, it is still preferable to the corollary. Many players will feel cheated by the game if you get the balance wrong and they end up even moderately disenfranchised relative-power-wise.

If you don't quite get things right and overshoot and need to dial mob power back up again at some point, not great but that will be by far preferable to being in a situation where you need to dial player power back up, for the simple reason that the mobs can't choose to leave the game.

It's a good and brave initiative, but very risky - get this wrong and it's game over for many. I really, really, hope you understand just how high the stakes are here and how careful you need to be.

My strongest advice, FWIW, is to play this transition safe: Nerf players, but nerf mobs/the environment more. Doing the reverse risks disaster.

[magaiti]

[*]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

So, what's the difference between Keen II, Keen III, Keen IV and Keen V now?

[Carrow12]

I'm curious why the players are getting nerfed this hard, especially in relation to the damage the monsters are putting out. I went into G & B on Lam on a reaper difficulty I'm very familiar and comfortable with and noticed I'm taking more damage than I ever did before. Of course it was because my prr/mrr got nerfed, but wow those monsters hits sure weren't. Same with the reaper healing debuff - it is oh so present in all it's glory, but it was even worse since my hamp got nerfed as well.

So what I'm taking from this is:
U50 - nerf
U51 - nerf
U whatever - we might get back some of what is being taken.

Please rethink this and go back to the drawing board.

[kmoustakas]

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!

You are trying to fix the disaster resulting from the shadowfail expansion and I appreciate that. Yes powercreep is a terrible issue in ddo and since ALL items will be affected this will be a wonderful change I think. But be very careful you don't break everything!