U50 Preview 1: Endgame Itemization Adjustments

[Lynnabel]

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?

For clarity, monster Armor Class and Fort were absolutely adjusted, and not by a little bit, either - every monster in Legendary Tier 2 content lost 100% Fortification. That being said, an early look has shown us that we may need to go much further on adjusting Armor Class. And that's okay, we're perfectly able to make more tweaks and changes to make monsters at our endgame feel fair. This is why we're so grateful that people took the time to copy their endgame characters to go try it all out (or spent time playing content with new characters made on Lamannia). The more feedback we get, the better our changes are going to feel. Players have a huge range of stats and we want to make sure that everyone is having a good time, not just our super-engaged and talented min-maxxers who will overcome any challenge no matter what

[Marshal_Lannes]

This change is needed. I commend you for taking a perilous, bold step. Stat inflation and the resulting gear specialization (most builds being confined to these same small pools of items) were out of control and had entered true Monty Haul territory. Scaling back the numbers on characters and monsters should allow you to reach your desired objectives for going forward. I understand that many might suffer from a system shock as these large item numbers are nearly cut in half, but if the game plays better (and I think if done correctly it will) providing both an improved gearing experience and less arduous monsters fighting dynamic then this can end up being a huge win for DDO.

[nobodynobody1426]

For clarity, monster Armor Class and Fort were absolutely adjusted, and not by a little bit, either - every monster in Legendary Tier 2 content lost 100% Fortification. That being said, an early look has shown us that we may need to go much further on adjusting Armor Class. And that's okay, we're perfectly able to make more tweaks and changes to make monsters at our endgame feel fair. This is why we're so grateful that people took the time to copy their endgame characters to go try it all out (or spent time playing content with new characters made on Lamannia). The more feedback we get, the better our changes are going to feel. Players have a huge range of stats and we want to make sure that everyone is having a good time, not just our super-engaged and talented min-maxxers who will overcome any challenge no matter what

Quoting if you want the results of the mass nerfage.

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

As I mentioned before, this change only works if it's a net neutral to relative power between players and monsters, as of now this isn't remotely the case with some types of damage getting severely gutted.

The way this is lined out you've over nerfed elemental damage by simultaneously reducing too many values that get multiplied into each other. Each adjustment looks small by itself but combined results in a massive reduction.

[Hawkwier]

For clarity, monster Armor Class and Fort were absolutely adjusted, and not by a little bit, either - every monster in Legendary Tier 2 content lost 100% Fortification. That being said, an early look has shown us that we may need to go much further on adjusting Armor Class. And that's okay, we're perfectly able to make more tweaks and changes to make monsters at our endgame feel fair. This is why we're so grateful that people took the time to copy their endgame characters to go try it all out (or spent time playing content with new characters made on Lamannia). The more feedback we get, the better our changes are going to feel. Players have a huge range of stats and we want to make sure that everyone is having a good time, not just our super-engaged and talented min-maxxers who will overcome any challenge no matter what

Thanks for that clarification - it's appreciated. It is reassuring to know you are on this and it's under constant review. I was very concerned at the comments I'd read.

Prompt and honest feedback in both directions like you've provided is going to continue to be critical to make sure the transition is a success and reduces potential for folks to end up too disenchanted for long. I will get on Lam when I have some time to test things for myself, likely tomorrow. Just had no time since the bomb dropped!

[TPICKRELL]

I took my first alt over to lammania this morning to do some comparisons. (still cant copy main to lammania, probably because its the guild leader, it doesn't show up on the transfer lists)

This is a well developed character, lots of past lives but the only completionist is Epic Completionist. Its in a past life leveling Barbarian configuration, ie gear is solid but far from optimal.

Stats standing in public area (Lammy / Khyber)
HP 2365 / 2628
STR 71 / 85
DEX 38 / 46
CON 61 / 73
INT 45 / 53
WIS 30 / 34
CHA 44 / 44
MP 172 / 182
DS 48 / 61
SP 314 / 485
Fort 163 / 234
PRR 183 / 214
MRR 78 / 83
AC 139 / 159

Saves
Forti 69 / 81
Reflex 52 / 62
Will 49 / 57


I started running a daily R3 circuit but the reboot cut it off after 2 quests. I'm raged most of the time on this circuit, so I take the feywild muse and the level 27 cleric hireling for heals.

Into the Mists: Completed on R3 did not die. Cleric Hireling died, but that's not unusual. Boss beat down took noticeably longer. Feywild muse's heals did much less to my HP bar.

EDIT: forgot to mention that dire charge wasnt as effective on the wolves as it would normally be.

Deathhouse: Completed on R3, did not die. Trap hit harder relative to my HP bar, Tier II/III crowns hit harder, Boss beatdown took longer, and thus I took more damage. Trap did a bigger chunk of my HP bar. Non-crowned Caster Skeleton did bigger chunk of my HP bar than normal.

I was going to do 3 more quests that I run frequently for a bit of reaper xp, but the weekly reboot got in the way and I'm not likely to go back when the servers come back up.

NOTE: This is a sample size of 1 so RNG could be a factor.

[Udofire]

Probably should preview both u50 and u51 at once to get a proper feel of how all the huge changes will affect everything.

[Kielbasa]

For clarity, monster Armor Class and Fort were absolutely adjusted, and not by a little bit, either - every monster in Legendary Tier 2 content lost 100% Fortification. That being said, an early look has shown us that we may need to go much further on adjusting Armor Class. And that's okay, we're perfectly able to make more tweaks and changes to make monsters at our endgame feel fair. This is why we're so grateful that people took the time to copy their endgame characters to go try it all out (or spent time playing content with new characters made on Lamannia). The more feedback we get, the better our changes are going to feel. Players have a huge range of stats and we want to make sure that everyone is having a good time, not just our super-engaged and talented min-maxxers who will overcome any challenge no matter what

Will stat damage and negative levels be made useful again? Will you increase the time it takes monsters to recover from these effects now?

[Bolo_Grubb]

I have not read through everyone's post so this may have been asked already.

How will this change affect trap/search/and spot DCs? Has this been looked at? I hope to get on Lamannia tomorrow (Thursday) to check it out.

Also what about levers and rune that have attributes requirements? Like Tempest Spine? Are those requirements staying the same or being adjusted? Do they need to be adjusted? Maybe not, I always thought the 50 int requirement was pretty easy to make. The 75 strength may be harder, but I am guessing still doable.

[Aelonwy]

If it's balanced I'm for ripping the band-aid off and getting this behind us. We have been griping about power creep for some time, but no one wants to accept the solution to fix it.
Balance being player vs monster difficulty.

This is tentatively how I feel too... but my long history of experience with this game doesn't make me especially confident.

Many people seem to think that powercreep has been the problem of the players, and nothing is further from that. When devs announced the special LGS bonus to spellpower and later RL belts, many of us asked if they were sure what they were going to do. They were. When the devs sharply increased the stats of the legendary gear, we again asked if it was wise to do something. For devs, it was (definitely short-term money). When the devs made the changes to the magister's DC, we asked them if they knew what they were doing. The devs replied that they knew perfectly well. And now it turns out that all that was a mistake and they remove it from the players.

This^. Powercreep was done to SELL content fast. Powercreep gets people to do astral shard rerolls and buy raid bypass timers to get their power faster. Powercreep gets people to buy new races and classes and hearts to respec to the new shiny. Powercreep is about money. Its about selling advantages.

I'm all for horizontal progression and reduced powercreep but there's a flipside to this^... all those people that paid (sometimes twice) for all that powercreep aren't going to be willing to pay for their powercreep removed, aren't going to enjoy having to earn (or buy) it back over another 10(+) levels, aren't going to be so eager to open their wallets again. Some people are going to feel... betrayed isn't quite the right word... but bitter may work.

We'll see how this pans out.

Again, I'm pro-less-powercreep but I'm afraid the decision to do this is poorly timed and should have happened years ago.

[FengXian]

The monster nerf is actually much needed, and hopefully will offset the doubleshot/strike neft regarding on-hit effects. It would have been nice to know this was in development back then I guess.

But yes, good job!

I'm not sure where I stand on items yet but at first glance seems a positive change as well!

[marinersfan]

However, on the other hand, many players buy the cap expansions for access to loot that gives them an advantage. Retroactively removing that advantage (as was done to RL belts) puts a bad taste in the mouth. This WILL BE a massive bitter pill for many to swallow. 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.

I just bought sharn and ravenloft in order to make the 5k run on hardcore league. Prior to purchasing them, I farmed them excessively when they were made freely available last year with my guild and have bank overflowing with the gear. Yes, I'm still cheezed about the belt nerf, as my first character to lvl 30 was a sorc. No, I don't mind the items getting nerfed some "right after" I bought them. My biggest concern is new content might be harder to sell if there isn't the power bump people are used to. I know most folks won't view it this way, but in the very least all those awesome items people farmed years back helped them accumulate a lot of power pre-nerf. This seems to be the same basic approach to premium classes/races: start out crazy strong then get nerfed back. I know people complain about that business model but not sure it actually makes many people quit?

With that said - I'm cautiously optimistic about these changes. If done right I think it'll mean many more gear options and unique treasures to find "off the beaten path" (running content other than sharn, feywild, and to a lesser extent ravenloft and actually finding gear you want to keep). Perhaps I'm in the minority but my least favorite part of this game is "farming gear" (I'm still farmed out from running sharn and RL when they were free access); I like running as many quests as possible each life, so perhaps this means I'll find more actually useful shinies

[Merrillman]

Im just gonna mention 1 player. A close to 50 player, who has a wife and kid, who works and goes on trips every 2nd week with shifts that can be up to 13-14 hours.
That same player spends time with his family and liked playing ddo with his guild, he has reached over 200 rap and has all past lifes on his main character by simply loging every day at the exact same time and playing 1-2 hours top each day.

It does not take extraordinary skill or power or godness to have a completed character and be one of the better players in ddo, it just takes time and discipline.

Maybe, sure. I concur for a few characters — but look carefully at the claim. THREE HUNDRED MAXED CHARACTERS? That’s either an outright lie or you can’t do anything else but eat and sleep as far as I can tell. God bless whomever it is because that’s like he’s got an in with the Time Variance Authority or something not possible in the real world. I just don’t see how anyone can have THREE HUNDRED maxed out characters. I mean, unless you’re whole life’s every free moment is consumed by DDO. I could be wrong.

[Cernunan]

This is why we're so grateful that people took the time to copy their endgame characters to go try it all out (or spent time playing content with new characters made on Lamannia). The more feedback we get, the better our changes are going to feel. Players have a huge range of stats and we want to make sure that everyone is having a good time, not just our super-engaged and talented min-maxxers who will overcome any challenge no matter what

Then maybe open lam at a time when people actually have time to play, not in the middle of the week

[arminius]

One function that the strongly powered level 29 items and artifacts served was to be a sort of leveler between newbies/casuals/moderate casuals and long timers/elites. You didn't need 100 past lives to be relatively effective, if you just had patience and a bit of planning and discipline and farmed out the Sharn and Feywild sets most appropriate for your build. Some additional farming of White Plume Mountain or maybe a raid of your choice gets your weapon, and regular questing gets your filigrees and sentient xp.

Play the game, get caught up enough, and keep playing with enjoyment and relative effectiveness.

Someone with 100 past lives and bajillion reaper xp would still be more powerful than you, but you were able to do ok enough not to be a complete embarrassment or be totally left behind.

Looks like all that is out the window, now. Everything is just a widget. Get to level x, get the level x widget which is 1 level more widgety than the level x-1 widget. Dream your dreamy dreams of getting to level x+1, with its sweet, sweet level x+1 widget.

[Wildginger]

If they do make these changes all BtC should be moved to BtC on equip or BtA retroactive. That would help with the good will with players that spent tons of real money farming stuff.

[Cernunan]

This is tentatively how I feel too... but my long history of experience with this game doesn't make me especially confident.



This^. Powercreep was done to SELL content fast. Powercreep gets people to do astral shard rerolls and buy raid bypass timers to get their power faster. Powercreep gets people to buy new races and classes and hearts to respec to the new shiny. Powercreep is about money. Its about selling advantages.

I'm all for horizontal progression and reduced powercreep but there's a flipside to this^... all those people that paid (sometimes twice) for all that powercreep aren't going to be willing to pay for their powercreep removed, aren't going to enjoy having to earn (or buy) it back over another 10(+) levels, aren't going to be so eager to open their wallets again. Some people are going to feel... betrayed isn't quite the right word... but bitter may work.

We'll see how this pans out.

Again, I'm pro-less-powercreep but I'm afraid the decision to do this is poorly timed and should have happened years ago.

Exactly. They spent years selling us this power creep, now that they have sqeezed every last penny out of the old content, they gut what you have been paying for in order to sell the new power item in the content of the level 31+ packs.

This whole thing feels so scummy

[Cernunan]

One function that the strongly powered level 29 items and artifacts served was to be a sort of leveler between newbies/casuals/moderate casuals and long timers/elites. You didn't need 100 past lives to be relatively effective, if you just had patience and a bit of planning and discipline and farmed out the Sharn and Feywild sets most appropriate for your build. Some additional farming of White Plume Mountain or maybe a raid of your choice gets your weapon, and regular questing gets your filigrees and sentient xp.

Play the game, get caught up enough, and keep playing with enjoyment and relative effectiveness.

Someone with 100 past lives and bajillion reaper xp would still be more powerful than you, but you were able to do ok enough not to be a complete embarrassment or be totally left behind.

Looks like all that is out the window, now. Everything is just a widget. Get to level x, get the level x widget which is 1 level more widgety than the level x-1 widget. Dream your dreamy dreams of getting to level x+1, with its sweet, sweet level x+1 widget.

Right, look at the Saltmarch items. Sooo bland, nothing exciting or interesting. Just current level items, +1 to modular. Nothing original or exceptional.

It's become boring generic MMO, everything we didn't want DDO to become, everything we played DDO to not have to deal with

[Kalindush]

I'm not good enough as a player to keep up with the changes.
I loved the power creep because I was able to run content without feeling too much behind the groups (who went to play Reaper at higher skulls).

I thought at least I would have time to finish my Epic Lifes before U51 coming out.

I will leave Epic and Reaper to my "gitgud" fellows and play only heroic elite for now on.

I will not vent against my fellow players or Devs anymore. I'm just disheartened. I started playing DDO because it was easy for me. Even when I hated playing only at EH for many, many years before start to diving in EE. I can't deal with it.

Thanks for sharing the news anyway and I really hope you enjoy this new content.

[TPICKRELL]

Keen moves from one of the most desired effects into a waste of an effect slot.

Either reconsider the removal of the W's or change what you are replacing the W's with at least something desirable.

Perhaps a Small but desirable unique debuff. Or a scaling hemorraghing effect or...

[Craiggerz]

snip

I never ever ever stated that I had 300 completed characters your should reread my post a bit more closely I said I have 300 cap characters over a 14+ year playing time you have to realize that I capped and recapped those characters as cap was increased not all in one go. I did get 30+ of those basically for free thanks to the great Wayfinder data debacle. Those are the only otto stones I have ever used since playing on Wayfinder was never in the cards until the data debacle.

Those 300 are all first life 1.9mil xp characters lol, I could run one off in a few hours today with the exp handed out today like candy and cap full epic destinies in a matter of hours, not days, not weeks, or months. Exp pots, buddy bonus, masters gift, guild buff, the lists of exp buffs goes on and on capping a character is not a challenge.

Factually I work around 50+ hours per week in a time and resource management posistion, have a family that I spend a considerable amount of time with, have many other real life obligations, and have played on a pretty regular schedule of about 4 - 8 hours per week for fourteen+ years I never play on Sundays that is family time. I don't watch TV, read books, go to movies, drink, or smoke. So an hour or so per day 6 days a week at most is some huge time invest I work with people that smoke 3 packs of cigarettes a day at 1 minute per cigarette that more than covers my play time for a week. I choose not to Reincarnate, not to chase utterly useless past lives as Hardcore has proven that 4 times in a row so far, I don't use Flavor of the Minute Builds, I don't need to watch youtube videos on how to play this game or exploit some weakness within a quest I actually learned the quests and how to play them long ago not needing to rely upon the power creep to carry me along and make me feel relevant. I have no need for exp pots tho I have them from rolls, expansions, freebie codes, have shards from selling and freebie codes as well. I have played MMO's more than long enough to see the writing on the walls with expansion comes contraction if you don't see you don't expect it. If you mean to say that putting in an hour or so a day at best 6x a week is some huge amount out time commitment to an online game I guess I'm guilty. Of course you should consider that I spend far more time at work per week, more time with family, friends, hobbies, and other activities clearly I am a have no life, have no wife, have no job, have no other commitments type of person at all. You should spend some time reading the T.O.S it is clear as can be the game can be changed at anytime for any reason or for no reason at all.

A whale, that makes me smile and laugh all at the same time I have another word for it altogether. I choose to be frugal and spend wisely. I'll settle for a few steps back for savings and proven reliability every single time. Pay 1k+ for a phone you must be kidding me it makes phone calls. I have been doing that before cell phones were available on rotary phones that had cords. Those items are invalidated and tossed aside like an old shoe that you wore for a week and decided well a newer model is out 'I gotta have it I gotta have it' that mentally applies the same here. You got it you had it now the new model is rolling out if you did not see it coming it must be your first experience with today's market.

Considering the stats jumped from level 20 +6/7 max, +1 exceptional, insightful +2 to level 20 +9 max, +1 exceptional, +4 insightful that is a 50% jump in base stat, no adjustment to exceptional, and a 200% jump in insightful jump. The speed at which power was handed out goes all the way back to MoTU and it has accelerated exponentially at an alarming rate til it got to where it is today. The fact is that all of the current content can be stomped out rolled over and crushed by the demi-god, monty haul characters that Turbine, SSG, and all the Devs allowed to push it in that direction. I have watched people complain when the no minimum level items with +10 stats, +50 hp, and all that nonsense were available to use at level one were complaining and threatening to leave over that 'nerf' with the same arguments many have posted, I spent real money, on shards to purchase these items or re-rolled chests countless times to get them. The groups that wants alts to be relevant again, by giving them access to shared past lives, shared reaper xp, never bother to realizing that they most important thing that can benefit any character in DDO is player experience and a willingness to learn from the mistakes that we all inevitably make. It is always easier to give something shiny to someone than take it away.

From the looks of Hardcore completions there is obviously no need for past lives all that testing has proven everything that can be acquired, accumulated, or purchased in DDO is not needed to complete the game.

If all those Hardcore players had the same I can't attitude as some here do they could never have done what they have done 4 times over now.



https://massivelyop.com/2021/01/25/n...er-complaints/

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.co...stop-the-nerfs

https://www.pcgamesn.com/world-of-warcraft/patch-druid

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/...active.275498/

https://massivelyop.com/2020/02/01/g...s-major-nerfs/

It seems pretty obvious that those games you mentioned and many others have never nerfed, made adjustments or rolled anything back a bit.



2 posts in 14 years and I already need a break from the forums.