U50 Preview 1: Endgame Itemization Adjustments

[kpak01]

Frankly at this point I'd rather just remove the concept of a max caster level altogether...

DDO's invention and implementation of "max caster level" is weird and confusing.

However, while removing your DDO-invented mechanic, please do not remove the core D&D mechanic of damage caps on lower-level spells. That is part of the fundamental balance between higher-level and lower-level spells.

Seriously though, one of the worst things from 3rd Edition.

There is no such thing as "max caster level" in 3rd Edition D&D. So far as I know, it is purely a DDO invention.

Spell damage caps are in 3rd Edition, but didn't start there. They were also in 2nd Edition; I just check my 2nd Ed. PHB.

[elvesunited]

I assume this would be for U51 at the earlist, not U50. I don't think the side effects would be as bad as you claim.

I think with planning and forethought that it might work out well.

1) There is no need this has to spill over on NPC casters, it's probably one line of code.

I remember after the update where they buffed Searing Light and Flamestrike and other non-arcane spells. There were a few days there were some enemy casters were hitting very hard.

MCL is the second rarest stat in the game after spell crit. All enhancement tree MCL bonuses also grant regular caster level increases, so you basically just have to remove it from the tooltip text.

Well most of those "master of" feats and enhancements from cleric, favored, soreceror and druid trees.

3) U51+

I would hope then that would make the epic destiny update U52+. In any event that leaves the question of what about DPS casters and U50 as it appears that while both legendary content and characters who are not DPS casters using legendary gear are getting nerfed .... DPS Casters using legendary gear are getting double-nerfed. That's one too many nerfs. What can be done now, to salve this issue.

4) I think you could actually change this without seeing any major gameplay impact. The spell balance would shift and some spells would benefit from a closer look, but many already do (e.g. the multi-hit spells you mentioned are already useless due to lacking scaling - they can be re-balanced when there is time). In the end some low level spells will stay valid for a while longer, but due to the spell dice progression, I don't think any of them will actually be OP, unless you count doing less than half the DPS for very little spell points OP.

Depends on the spell. Fireball, Lightning bolt, Negative Energy Burst for example would double in damage for a level 20th caster compared to now. Niac's Cold Ray ( level 1 spell at 1d5+5 per level ) would do 4 times as much damage at level 20 compared to now. It's a significant impact for some spells.

[zooble]

... I'm not aware of a single spell that is actually OP if the MCL would be not there anymore.

Capped
Typical level 5 spell i.e. max caster level of 15 - 15 + 3 (Draconic) + 3 (Savant) = 21
Typical level 6 spell i.e. max caster level of 20 - 20 + 3 (Draconic) + 3 (Savant) = 26

Uncapped
Former max caster level of 15 - (30 + 8 (Draconic) + 7 (Savant) = 45 (+114% damage)
former max caster level of 20 - (30 + 8 (Draconic) + 7 (Savant) = 45 (+73% damage)

Excludes any extra from gear or being Dragonborn

[Zakharov]

This is potentially amazing, great, long overdue, and wonderful!

However - all aspects of monsters, npcs, and quest interactions should be adjusted and balanced along with the stat crunch or people will be very upset. Please please keep this in testing until it is actually ready.


Also, you really need to put an in game pop up when this goes live to explain such a major change. Seriously - not just a note on the launcher, not just twitter, not just the forum. After a player actually selects a character and logs into the game a giant window with huge friendly font needs to be forced in your face at least once explaining the changes in the shortest, simplest terms possible.. like:

"Greetings adventurer! Some changes have been made to the power of gear and monsters at high levels. Previously, both gear and monster power spiked up dramatically towards level 30. This power spike has been adjusted so the power of both gear and monsters progresses more smoothly up to level 30. You may notice gear at high levels has lower values than before. Not to worry! Monster power has been adjusted along with gear, so you should see no difference in relative power against monsters at high levels. If you experience any issues, please submit a ticket [here]."


Ok that wasn't super short, but something like that.

[gravisrs]

Frankly at this point I'd rather just remove the concept of a max caster level altogether and just give out caster levels when we want spells to actually increase in damage.

Yep, this should disappear at the moment DDO introduced spellpoints instead of D&D3.5 slot pool - from the very beggining.

The idea of D&D 3.5 slots was to force players using higher level slots to allow progress in level scaling spells (Cure wounds for example) and to keep slots-economy in balance. Since in DDO we don't have slots pool - this whole idea of level-capping spell scaling was not appliable

[cru121]

I'm not aware of a single spell that is actually OP if the MCL would be not there anymore.

How about... all monster spells cast by CR50+ spell casters.

[nobodynobody1426]

I assume this would be for U51 at the earlist, not U50. I don't think the side effects would be as bad as you claim.

1) There is no need this has to spill over on NPC casters, it's probably one line of code.

2) MCL is the second rarest stat in the game after spell crit. All enhancement tree MCL bonuses also grant regular caster level increases, so you basically just have to remove it from the tooltip text.

3) U51+

4) I think you could actually change this without seeing any major gameplay impact. The spell balance would shift and some spells would benefit from a closer look, but many already do (e.g. the multi-hit spells you mentioned are already useless due to lacking scaling - they can be re-balanced when there is time). In the end some low level spells will stay valid for a while longer, but due to the spell dice progression, I don't think any of them will actually be OP, unless you count doing less than half the DPS for very little spell points OP.

Off the top of my head, only the following things would need closer scrutiny:
-Druid Ice Flowers, which was likely balanced for its lower MCL. This might need a small dice reduction, some already consider it too weak.
-The Savant trees might need to lose a few caster levels in mid-heroics since they aren't MCL capped anymore. FvS and Druid trees also grant both many caster levels and MCL though.
-Everybody would get a few more caster levels in epics if caster EDs stay the same, so you might need to adjust non-warlock caster DPS slightly downards, but U50+U51 already seem to be doing that. Not sure about Warlocks. I suspect having more caster progression in epics that isn't tied to grinding LGS crit multiplier items is probably a good thing.

All the recently updated spells are already using balanced damage, one of the goals in U48.4 was to fix elemental damage spells around 1D6+<Spell Level> formula. 1D6 is only 3.5 base damage meaning that any AoE spell above level 4 has most of it's damage coming in the form of loaded dice bonus's. Level 15 fireball is 97.5 base damage, Level 15 Delayed Blast Fireball is 157.5 damage a 61% increase that would be the same regardless of caster level. Ice flowers is a very weak spell for it's level, it's basically Flame Strike but a tiny bit stronger. You are likely thinking of the incorrect [1D6+8] x 2 damage dice tool tip it had, it's actually [1D6+4] x 2 and they fixed the tool tip a few updates ago.

No nerfs need to happen and no it shouldn't be some future update. This potential MCL change idea was brought up because u50 item changes are castrating elemental casters, and this isn't hyperbole. All testing and math thus far points to any caster relying on spell power / spell lore for damage is being nerfed by almost twice as much as any melee or ranged DPS with healers getting hit even harder due to them having to content with HAMP being nerfed. The degree of reduction is so large that dps casters effectively become dead outside of flavor builds, anyone that was playing a dps caster would need to respec and focus on instant kill spells as they aren't being effected much with u50.

Honestly removing MCL entirely from the game simplifies balancing the entire spell damage system because the devs can just tweak spell damage dice on a per-spell level if outliers need bringing up / pulling down, then control how +Caster Levels are being handed out. Since epics would give 1 CL per 2 epic levels, there is a clear path for spell damage increase 30+. Also remember that spells are losing 30-40% of their damage as part of u50, yes it's that severe.

[nobodynobody1426]

Capped
Typical level 5 spell i.e. max caster level of 15 - 15 + 3 (Draconic) + 3 (Savant) = 21
Typical level 6 spell i.e. max caster level of 20 - 20 + 3 (Draconic) + 3 (Savant) = 26

Uncapped
Former max caster level of 15 - (30 + 8 (Draconic) + 7 (Savant) = 45 (+114% damage)
former max caster level of 20 - (30 + 8 (Draconic) + 7 (Savant) = 45 (+73% damage)

Excludes any extra from gear or being Dragonborn

Your damage numbers are off because you forgot that spell damage is now balanced around damage dice and are confusing caster level with character level.

Level 5 AoE spell would have 1D6+5 damage per CL or 8.5
Level 6 AoE spell would have 1D6+6 damage per CL or 9.5 or 11.5% stronger then the level 5 spell.

Caster levels are by class, "Epic" is counted as a class and is the reason spells like Mass Frog had broken SR's. Level 20 Sorcer / 10 Epic would only have 20 sorcer caster levels, plus 7 from savage, plus 5 from Draconic plus 3 from Dragon Knowledge for a total of 35 not 45. At 8.5 damage per CL that CL35 would give 297.5 base damage, the level 6 spell would be 332.5 damage and level 9 spells would still be at the top. Because of the dice mechanics already present the relative DPS of spells are already balanced. u51 is taking caster levels out of ED's and putting them into epic levels at the rate of 1 caster level per 2 epic levels. Taken together this *really* simplifies dps spell scaling into per-spell damage dice and available caster levels.

[Dark_Lord_Mary]

Ever play pen and paper ? The quests, loot, XP - none of it was homogenized

It baffles me why there isn't more community outrage at 50/51s removing of detail to simplify
the game - when has this ever worked - name an MMO? It doesn't - it helps the dev team get
a handle on the whack a mole code but for gamers and players - it ruins everything.

D&D pen and paper:
v 1 - complex - popular
v 2 - very complex - more popular
v3 and 3.5 - very complex - popular
v4 - over simplified - least popular, called worst
v5 - complex - most popular ever

MMOs that simplified (homogenized) and died:
Ultima Online
Everquest
City of Heroes
SWToR
Minions of Mirth
The Matrix Online
Dark and Light
Phantasy Star Universe
Myst Online
Starquest Online
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
Battlestar Galactica Online
Mythos
Wildstar

the list goes on, and while some of them are still 'available' they are husks of what they were.

another example:
WoW over simplified its game play, leveling, items, etc - they endlessly revise and remove good things,
and though they did not die, but they have lost millions of players from their height.

DDO being a niche that caters to the 23525 ways to build a wizard for example, managed to avoid an early death. MOTU and Ravenloft were two of the greatest expansions ever - on par with Lich King in WoW or Moria in LOTRO. You can name other games. The point is - the devs should be adding to the complexity of the builds and meta not homogenizing and simplifying.

Level crunches and stat squishes are boring. Its boring game play. So is blasting us additional levels for no good reason. I do not want to play a wizard to lvl 40 in dungeons and dragons - that sounds idiotic. This is not ESO. The power we have now taken crunched and sold back to us is a bush-league EA move and trust me, SSG, you do NOT want to start taking pages out of EA's playbook. They are every year ranked among the worst corporations in the world both for how they treat their players and how they treat their employees.

We are Dungeons and Dragons nerds - homogenizing, simplifying, eg. ruining the game will only make us lose faith in you as the stewards of our beloved game - and then what?

Here's a survey: X company announces a Dungeons and Dragons MMO to coincide with the coming film - who tries it? I certainly do considering all the gear and levels I've worked for are being borked and I have no say. I do not want to go over level 30. I do not want to refarm gear or play gated power - i do not want my caster being nerfed 40% just because the troll village now losing its epic buffs - I don't care about any of that. I just want to play dungeons and dragons - real dungeons and dragons - not some video game version of it. So far the DDO homebrew has delivered, but if you guys move off in a different direction than that you will lose us.

Last point - I mentioned LOTRO Moria - amazing expansion - one of the best ever. I played LOTRO all the time for years - until an expansion raised the level and altered the skills and changed a bunch of stuff and it became completely boring and I uninstalled it and have not played it again - that was probably 10 years ago. Because I was a beta tester I have a lifetime account and when I log in over there (the game launched with lvl 50 max) and see you can level to 100 something I sigh and immediately log off. I have ZERO interest in grinding levels. I won't do it. DDO does not need a level grind - we already have the past life system.

IDEA - rather than raising the levels I have given you another system in your suggestion area - though likely it was ignored, like all i post, my idea was 'Alignment Past Lives' to bring meaning to alignment, run each x3 like our heroic or racial. Add the 3 evil alignments to have the original D&D paradigm - this allows for RPers to actually create characters that are legit - no more fiend warlocks that are not evil for example. The past lives for alignments would allow for you to add new items to the store, would require hours of game play to acquire, and would leave the DDO homebrew levels @ 30 where they should remain.

[srxmk2]

IMO standardizing items is a right step to revitalize old contents. DDO is a very unique MMO that majority of its contents are quests. There are lots of well-designed, immersive and challenging quests in the game, especially in the early updates. However the under-powered and outdated named loots is the main reason that drives people away from playing those contents. With this new scaling system we can at least see some old contents shine again.

I don't know if it's possible but developers in SSG may consider the approach of "one Tamriel" system in elder scrolls online, which characters from any levels could group together with a scaling system. The power of named loot is scaled by the character's level. The scaling system can open a brand new experience of leveling and may (somehow) reduce the boring grinding during reincarnation.

Anyway I am very excited to see the upgrades of named loots in old contents, and wish to see more upgraded named loots from other old contents.

[Oxarhamar]

Want a suggestion? prob not but why not.
About now as a developer you are likely thinking, DDO has hit a wall.
Anything that still resembles D&D has met it's limit.
So something has to change in a big way.

They have a tool in comics when the publishers need to shake this up and RENEW interest.
Renew as in get new customers.

It is called a 'crossover'
They make a deal with another publisher to 'borrow' their characters for a comic or short series
in exchange for something (money or permission to do the same or what-not)

and it works.
New customers buy the crossovers and some get interested in the original
publisher wares that were not original fans.

So what does this have to do with DDO?

DDO needs a 'CROSSOVER' Campaign to bring in new players that would not normally be interested
in D&D but might develop an interest if they try the game. They will try the game
because it 'the crossover' involves a story (IP) that they are interested in.

So what (IP) should SSG buy the rights to use? (NON-D&D IP)
What is a great fit with a large fan base with no current MMORPG attached?

Sword Art Online
"Dungeons and Dragons - Aincrad"
First 5 floors are F2P
The rest are VIP or for sale
Standard DDO HCL rules 'in campaign area only'
Levels 1 - max
Difficulty locked at Elite

Standard Aincrad story and design.
100 floors
each new floor must be opened with a successful floor bass raid (hard) before anyone
has access to it
Part of the level map is subject to PvP rules 'clearly identifiable'
PvP features improves exp.
You die in this campaign area, that character is done.
campaign features exclusive cosmetics and loot.

Would this cost a lot ?
ahh ... yup

would it fill the servers with brand new DEDICATED players
sword art online?
BIG YUP.
Thousands will not care it is the D&D rules set, they will only
care that it is Sword Art Online.

my free suggestion

No thanks

If SSG wanted to get new players better places to get players would be in the advert pages of comic books these where D&D ran their ads.

Another spot would be with Wizards of The Coast which rarely touches DDO they could be adverting the already massive collection of D&D players instead of trying to scrape a few from some other fan base with a crossover

[Eme]

turning a tune into a tone.


dull levelling experience

[LurkingVeteran]

I think with planning and forethought that it might work out well.

...

Well most of those "master of" feats and enhancements from cleric, favored, soreceror and druid trees.

...

Depends on the spell. Fireball, Lightning bolt, Negative Energy Burst for example would double in damage for a level 20th caster compared to now. Niac's Cold Ray ( level 1 spell at 1d5+5 per level ) would do 4 times as much damage at level 20 compared to now. It's a significant impact for some spells.

Regarding Master-of feats, they would just become redundant and could be removed, no major change needed.

Regarding low level spells like Fireball doubling in damage, a) they already can via the Master-of feats, b) it wouldn't matter much because their damage per level is still lower than higher level spells. It would just give you more variety, less confusion and in some cases maybe a lower-damage-but-more-mana-efficient option.

[mr420247]

I thought i read that master of the dead was finally going to be updated to strip necro immunity from constructs and stuff

but been asking in game and everyone says it still does not can u just fix unholy avatar to do that please and thanks

since your removing maj and making it necro n ice kind of really needed when this stuff hits

[Arctigis]

turning a tune into a tone.
dull levelling experience

Heh, I really like this analogy.
+1

[xBunny]

MMOs that simplified (homogenized) and died:
Ultima Online
Everquest
City of Heroes
SWToR
Minions of Mirth
The Matrix Online
Dark and Light
Phantasy Star Universe
Myst Online
Starquest Online
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
Battlestar Galactica Online
Mythos
Wildstar

Thanks for the list, think gonna take some break. Haven't done it since 2018. Hope be back right when they fix all bugs after changes.

[Vish]

waiting on the next lam preview to test my 30 monk

hopefully tuesday?\

i want to tr

[zooble]

Why would anyone run Perils for a fire sceptre if their Wildflame they farmed ages ago is going to be exactly the same? I'm sure there are other examples but that is something that would end up identical asides from the set bonus or turn into a staff thing.

If I'm reading it right, level 34 Cannith is going to be equal to LE gear but with 3 effects instead of 4? If so, Cannith is going to end up being in an unhealthy amount of best in slot cases at cap. At low levels, it's so strong being able to fill almost anything. Anything Cannith didn't fill you just slotted a cheap augment. 1 piece of Slavers was already commonly used as a fill even at reduced power. Even if it's only 3 effects on Cannith, it's max power and the effects you want (some gear including raid gear can have useless effects). It's like why Collective Sights are so good and so annoying at the same time. It doesn't matter if 1 of the effects is useless to most classes, people still run it simply because it is overpowered in that you could fill 2 of the stats that everybody NEEDED. Coupled with a lack of stats on other gear (Insight Wisdom on melee gear being the easiest thing to pick at), it made Collective Sights a must slot for most setups. No goggles in Feywild didn't help either. And anything that is a must slot is, well, boring. What's more boring? Crafting a bunch of BIS gear and not actually having to earn it. Sure you have to get the mats but who isn't sitting on a ton of mats?

Speaking of boring, all these regular + insightful effects on a single item. Double spell focus mastery is common these days, but is also mandatory for caster, making an individual version very obsolete. It's not even worth trying to gear tetris those. Maybe if you have a single school it works better where you can use a +5 insight item but that's very limited in builds and use. Legendary Prince's Scepter is another example but even worse with 2x doubles. If you want variety, items like this shouldn't exist (let alone be this easy to obtain) and double effects just shouldn't be a thing.

[Arctigis]

Why would anyone run Perils for a fire sceptre if their Wildflame they farmed ages ago is going to be exactly the same? I'm sure there are other examples but that is something that would end up identical asides from the set bonus or turn into a staff thing.

If I'm reading it right, level 34 Cannith is going to be equal to LE gear but with 3 effects instead of 4? If so, Cannith is going to end up being in an unhealthy amount of best in slot cases at cap. At low levels, it's so strong being able to fill almost anything. Anything Cannith didn't fill you just slotted a cheap augment. 1 piece of Slavers was already commonly used as a fill even at reduced power. Even if it's only 3 effects on Cannith, it's max power and the effects you want (some gear including raid gear can have useless effects). It's like why Collective Sights are so good and so annoying at the same time. It doesn't matter if 1 of the effects is useless to most classes, people still run it simply because it is overpowered in that you could fill 2 of the stats that everybody NEEDED. Coupled with a lack of stats on other gear (Insight Wisdom on melee gear being the easiest thing to pick at), it made Collective Sights a must slot for most setups. No goggles in Feywild didn't help either. And anything that is a must slot is, well, boring. What's more boring? Crafting a bunch of BIS gear and not actually having to earn it. Sure you have to get the mats but who isn't sitting on a ton of mats?

Speaking of boring, all these regular + insightful effects on a single item. Double spell focus mastery is common these days, but is also mandatory for caster, making an individual version very obsolete. It's not even worth trying to gear tetris those. Maybe if you have a single school it works better where you can use a +5 insight item but that's very limited in builds and use. Legendary Prince's Scepter is another example but even worse with 2x doubles. If you want variety, items like this shouldn't exist (let alone be this easy to obtain) and double effects just shouldn't be a thing.

Mentioned this on Discord. Random loot with double augments will be super valuable.

[elvesunited]

Regarding Master-of feats, they would just become redundant and could be removed, no major change needed.

Regarding low level spells like Fireball doubling in damage, a) they already can via the Master-of feats, b) it wouldn't matter much because their damage per level is still lower than higher level spells. It would just give you more variety, less confusion and in some cases maybe a lower-damage-but-more-mana-efficient option.

Removing max caster levels starts affecting casters at level 6 and would reach its peak at level 20. Master of feats are available at level 24 and that would put it more on par with current power levels so once you're in high level epics it wouldn't e that great a power increase. But in the high heroics and lower epics this would be a massive power boost. Also most of the low max caster level spells are SLAs with all their free metamagics. That makes them a lower damage but a tiny fraction of the cost option.

this update is about nerfing legendary gear and legendary quests ( 28 - 30 ) so their isn't such a massive power jump from level 27 to 29 almost certainly in preparation for the eventual increasing of the level cap. If this is done right then a character who is equipped entirely in non-legendary gear ( level 27 or less ) running a non-lengendary quest ( level 27 or less ) should not notice any change in their stats or the difficultly of their enemies. As such this talk of removing max caster level is a distraction. It has some merit but doesn't belong with this update. The trouble here is that DPS caster are getting hit much harder than other types of characters. What can be done for this update to mitigate this issue?